A VINDICATION OF THE Primitive Fathers against the Imputations of GILBERT Lord Bishop OF SARUM, In his Discourse on the Divinity and Death of Christ, referred to the Sense and Judgement of the Church Universal, the Arch-Bishops and Bishops of the Church of England, the two famous Universities of Oxon and Cambridge, and the next Session of the Convocation, by  
Samuel Hill Rector of Killmington in the Diocese of Bath and Wells.  
Athan. de Synod Arimin. & Seleuc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
Printed for J. Whitlock near Stationers-hall. 1695.   

THE PREFACE TO THE READER.  
THat there was just Cause for a Writing of this nature, I hope this Book itself will convince even his Lordship himself; but how I came to be engaged in it, perhaps the Curious may desire to know, and I think it reasonable enough to satisfy them.  
His Lordship had been well assured by some of his most Dutiful Clergy, that the integrity of his Faith was under a common suspicion, for causes which I shall think fit to suppress. And this did so sensibly affect him, that thenceforward all his Advices and Discourses seemed pointed against Deism and Socinianism, to work off the Jealousy of his Clergy. And truly this seemed to be, not only a designed, but an effectual Essay hereunto, which he offered in the Oral Discourse on the Divinity and Death of Christ, of which I myself was an Auditor at Warminster in the Year 1693, being led thither by a strong desire to know the Senses of so great a Prelate, on those Points which have employed my Theories for above Twenty Seven Years.  
And truly, as it was then delivered, it gave a general Joy and Satisfaction to the whole Corona of the Clergy, and to my self also; for though there were some little failures, I attributed those to the inevitable looseness of a present effusion, since all the substance seemed even hearty Orthodox and Christian, without any indecencies toward the Fathers, or flouts at the received Notions or Forms; and with most passionate concern against the Socinian Impieties. For though, indeed, he commended the Foreign Socinians for their Morals, yet ours he severely condemned for a rout of profligate and irreligious Villains. Insomuch, that I not only sincerely thanked his Lordship, but desired a worthy Favourite of his Lordship's to bespeak the Publication, that the whole Church might rejoice with us together, that so Great and Learned a Father had so publicly and solidly asserted that Faith, which he was supposed really to despise. And not only so, but I every where celebrated his Integrity and Learning among my Friends, that upon my account they quitted their prejudices against him, which several other men's fair Character had not been able to remove.  
But when I saw the Discourse as it came new dressed from the Press, I was quite confounded by a complication of passions and amazements at the Changes made in it, especially by the unfriendly usage of the Fathers, 
* Preface to the Clergy.  and the gaudy Character of the Socinian Probity, Justice, and Charity. Being thus disappointed, no wonder if my heart was heated within me. And hereupon I undertook to write to his Lordship my grief at those Passages which offended me, and another particular practice of his Lordship not to be mentioned here. This Letter his Lordship resented very grievously as too free and daring, and for that Cause wrote to me, that he would admit of no discussion of particulars with a Man of my ill temper, who seemed made to exercise the patience of better Men. But had I come and modestly proposed my exceptions, he could and would have given me satisfaction; but if I would to the Press for want of such private satisfaction, (as I had forewarned his Lordship) I might take my Course, so that this Book comes out even with his Lordship's Licence.  
The Persons near me, to whom the Letter was shown by his Lordship, on the account thereof given at second hand, did indeed judge the Letter bitter, and so I confess it was, not from any malignity in my temper, but in the matters charged on his Lordship. And to show my tenderness of his Honour, I did protest to him, that I wrote it not with that Envy, through which some Men (forgetting his great merits) insult on his failures, but that he might make such amendments himself as might prevent those assaults and censures, which otherwise must fall upon him. And to let him see, that it was written for Conscience only, not for clamour, I promised him to impart it to no Man living, nor should any Person have ever known the least apex of it, if his Lordship himself had not discovered it. Now whether his Lordship be indeed able to give me satisfaction as to the matters taxed in his Discourse, I leave to him to try, and God and his Church to judge. But for the private practice I objected to him, I will at present spare him; and if his Lordship will be so kind to himself, as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the matter shall not only be hushed up, but every soul his Clergy will love him with new fervours.  
But as to his Doctrine it is gone abroad and cannot return. And if it be of evil influence on Young Students, or Men prepared to Irreligion, or of dishonourable Reflection to the present Reign, or State of Religion, every Man has a just right fairly and bravely to oppose it, without fear of Men, or respect of Persons; And if it be not so, I promise his Lordship the most public Penance and Recantation.   

A Vindication of the Primitive Fathers against the Imputations of Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum, etc.  

PART I.  
§ 1. TWO Things I have to urge against my Lord Bishop of Sarum, in his Discourse on the Divinity and Death of Christ: One is, that he very defectively (to say no worse) states our Faith and Doctrine in the Articles of the Trinity and Incarnation, tho' 
* P. 25.  he professes it a Matter of the greatest Importance for us to have our Notions concerning these, right and duly stated; and tho' he exposes the Fathers under the same and worse Imputations, which is the second thing that offends. For he does not uncover any real failures in any particular Ancients, but censures their very Catholic and Established Principles.  
§ 2. This then is to be the first part of my Charge, That he foully states the Faith of the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ, and therein of the Holy Trinity. Of which he tell us, 
† P. 30, 31.  there have been three Opinions, to wit, the Socinian, the Arian; and then, Thirdly, that which I would have called the Catholic and Christian Faith. Now his Lordship means, there have been these three Opinions either within, or without the Church Catholic; if within, then indeed here is an insinuation laid for the Communion with Socinians and Arians, which is a blessed Comprehension; but if his Lordship means not within the Catholic Church only, than he had been nearer the number, if he had said there have been thirty Opinions in this Matter. But tho' this be inartificial enough, (if no more) yet that which is more grievously suspicious is, that he calls the Catholic Faith, but a mere Opinion, and Persuasion of a Party. 
* P. 31.  The third Opinion (saith his Lordship) is, that the Godhead by the Eternal Word, the Second in the blessed Three, dwelled in, and was so inwardly united to the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ, that by Virtue of it God and Man were truly one Person, as our Soul and Body make one Man. And that the Eternal Word was truly God, and as such is worshipped and adored as the proper Object of Divine Adoration. By those of this Persuasion the Term Person became applied to the Three, which the Scripture only calls by the Name of Father, Son or Word, and Holy Ghost, on design to discover those, who thought that these Three were only different Names of the same Thing. But by Person is not meant such a Being as we commonly understand by that Word, a complete intelligent Being, but only that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself, by which he is truly different from the other two. So again, 
† P. 32, 33.  This in general is the Sump of the received Doctrine, That as there is but One God, so in that undivided Essence, there are Three, that are really different from one another, and are more than three Names, or three outward Oeconomies, 
* P. 42.  [or Modes] and that the Second of these was in a most intimate and unconceivable manner united to a perfect Man; so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united, there did result the Person of Christ.  
§. 3. And now perhaps some may wonder what Exceptions lie against this; but there are indeed several, and those of great Importance. First, That he calls it an Opinion only like that of the Socinian and Arian, while yet he intimates it to be the Doctrine of the Church. The truth is, as his Lordship has stated it, it has many mere Opinions in it; but they are such as are not in the Faith, and so ought not to have been represented as the Doctrine of the Church. But if his Lordship had taken it for the Christian Faith, either as it is, or aught to have been stated by him, he ought not to have set it out as a mere Opinion or Persuasion of a third Party. For a mere partial Opinion cannot be a Divine or Catholic Faith, whether we take Opinion for the Act or Object of Opinion. For the Act is mere Humane Conjecture without certain grounds; and objectively Opinions are Propositions that have no certain, but only probable appearance, which therefore no Man is bound in Conscience to assert, or stand by for want of certain Evidence and Authority. But Catholic Faith objectively taken consists of certain Principles made certainly evident by Divine Revelation to the Holy Catholic Church, and thereupon to be relied on, and asserted against all temptations in hopes of Life Eternal. Now these Principles thus received were the Faith of the Universal Church (not the Opinion of any Party) in the beginning; and therefore the contrary Parties and Opinions arising since (of what Cut or Size soever) pertain not to this Holy Body, in which the Faith of the Trinity truly stated is as essential as the Faith of the Unity, and as fundamental in the Christian Professions. Now would it not be very Theological to say, That all the Patriarches, Prophets, and Apostles, the whole Synagogue of the Jews, and Church of Christ were ever of this Opinion, That there is one God only the Creator and Governor of all things? That the Apostles and all Christians are of Opinion that Jesus is the Christ? That it is our Opinion, That he came down and dwelled among us; died, rose again, and ascended into Heaven, and shall come to Judgement at the general Resurrection? Just so absurd it is to call the Catholic Faith of God's Church the Opinion or Persuasion of a Party. 'Tis true indeed, his Lordship sometimes calls it Doctrine, but this term is equivocal, and agrees as usually to the Opinions of the Philosophers. But what I require is, that the Catholic Doctrine be asserted as a Rule of Faith, which the Church is bound to adhere to on the certain Authority of Divine Revelation; this Revelation appearing real not only to particular Men's private Opinions, but originally committed to the Charge and Custody of the whole Church by the Apostles, and so preserved by their Successors throughout the whole diffusive Body. Whereas his Lordship only lays down this Notion, or form of Faith, 
† P. 26. See Discour. 3.  That we believe points of Doctrine, because we are persuaded, that they are revealed to us in Scripture; which is so languid and unsafe a Rule, that it will resolve Faith into every Man's private fancies and contradictory Opinions; since each Man's Faith is his Persuasion, that what he believes for a Doctrine is revealed in Scripture. Whereas the Act of a Christian Faith believes such Doctrine to be true and fundamental in Christianity from the certain Evidence thereof in the Scriptures, acknowledged by all Churches not led by casual Persuasions, but by a primitive, perpetual, universal, and unanimous Conviction and Tradition. The deviation from which Rule and Notion to private Opinions and Persuasions is the cause of all Heresies, and by its consequent Divisions naturally tends to the ruin of the true Christian and Catholic Faith. I will not however at present descend into that thicket of Controversy, What Rules private Persons are bound to in the learning and professing the Christian Faith; but whosoever will arrive to a maturity of Judgement and Knowledge herein, must betake him 
† P. 63.  to the exploded Rule of Vincentius Eirine●●, and take that for fundamental Doctrine, which hath been received for such in all Ages, Places, and Churches. A Rule very practicable and easy, since there are sufficient Memorials of the Primitive Antiquity, delivering unto us their Creeds and Summaries of the then Catholic Faith, which from them has uniformly descended to all Churches of the later Ages. 'Tis true indeed, every single Man can believe no otherwise than he is privately persuaded; but he that is not to be persuaded to receive the common and established Systems of the Faith of the Church Catholic, upon the Authority on which it hath ever stood, and yet stands, or shall wantonly coin out other Articles for fundamental upon his own private Opinion, belongs not to the Communion of the Church of Christ; though he fancies his conceptions revealed in the Scriptures.  
§. 4. Secondly, His Lordship is not clear in the point of Incarnation; for he tells us, that this third Opinion is, that by the Union of the Eternal Word with Christ's Humanity, God and Man truly became one Person. Now here first we are not taught, whether there were three, or any one Person in the Godhead before the Incarnation: For this account will admit the Personality of Christ to be founded first 
† P. 32.  in the Humane Nature according to some of his Lordship's Critics, (which he dares not contradict) who place the foundation of the Sonship in the lower Nature. Yea, this Description will admit the Patripassian Heresy of but one Person in the Deity: For if the Eternal Word were no Person distinct from the Father, the Union thereof with the Humanity constitutes the Father an incarnate Person; or otherwise by this State of his Lordship's Doctrine, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost may be conceived as one incarnate Person. Whereas his Lordship well knows our Faith to be clear, That the Eternal Word is personally distinct, or a distinct Person from the Father, and alone assumed the Humanity into a Personal Union with himself, and so alone was the Person of Christ exceptively of the Father and the Holy Ghost from this Personality and Character.  
§. 5. Now if a Man would inquire into the Motives of this affected obscurity in his Lordship, that leaves open a gap to so many Heresies, his Lordship's Words would lead one to a conclusion, or at least a fair jealousy, that his Lordship does not believe any Distinction really Personal between the Father, Word, and Holy Spirit, but that the true and real Personality of Christ is proper to the Humane Nature. For he teacheth us, that those whom the Church calleth Persons, the Scripture only calls by the Names of Father, Son or Word, and Holy Ghost. Where that artificial Word only derogates from the propriety and fitness of the term Person, as if the Scripture terms did not come up to it, nor justify it. And if his Lordship will stand by the 
† P. 45.  plain intention of his Words elsewhere, he places Christ's Personality only in his Manhood in these words; That Divine Person in whom dwelled the Eternal Word. So that the Word must be different from the Person in whom it dwelled, which must be the Heresy of Sabellius, Ma●… or Nestorius. In short, while he 〈◊〉 the Canonical term of Person to contain some notion in it not imported in the Scripture terms, he seems for that cause to censure it, for that the Scripture does not come up so far as to teach three Persons, but only Father, Son or Word; and Holy Ghost. But when he says this third Opinion is, than by the Incarnation God and Man truly became one Person. I would fain know, whether the term Person be proper for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or no? If not, the Doctrine is to be blamed, that teaches him to be truly one Person, since the truth of a Character is the greatest propriety; and if it be not true, the Doctrine that teaches it is to be cashiered: But if, to avoid this, it be true, than I would fain be instructed, whether the Church does not use the term Person in the same formal intention concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, when She calls them three Persons, as She does when She calls Christ, or the Son of God incarnate a Person? For if She uses the term in the same formal intention, then if the Christ be a proper Person, so are the Father, and Holy Spirit two other Persons properly and truly distinct in the sense of the Church; but if the Church has one intention in the Term, when applied to Christ 〈◊〉 God-man, and another when applied to the Eternal Trinity, let this be made out by just Authority, and I have done.  
§. 6. But the Order of his Lordship's Discourse obliges me to break off a little from this Disquisition till the next Section, where we must resume it. For he tells us, (if we will believe him) that the term Person by those of our Persuasion came to be applied to the three, to discover those who thought that these three were different names of the same thing, which were for the most part, and were generally called Patripassians, and were expelled as Heretics from the Church. Now wherein lay their Heresy? Why in this, That the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were not three coessential Persons really distinct, which was the Catholic Faith; instead of which they coined this pretence, That those Names had not three distinct subjects of which they were predicates or denominations, but only were three titles of God the Father, who became incarnate and suffered for us. Now hence it appears, that their Heresy consisted in the denial of what was ever before received in the Church, That the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were three Persons. And if so, then is his Lordship's insinuation false and injurious, that the term Person had its rise and occasion from Patripassianism, and consequently is of a later Date, that by this fraudulent Hypochronism the term, and the sense of it may be taken for not Primitive and Traditional, but a mere later and artificial invention. Now to prove what I say to be true, I am to produce authentic Testimonies. Now in the Latin World the first I ever have read of that taught Patripassianism was Praxeas, against whose Heresy herein Tertullian wrote, and charged in for denying the Eternal Word to be a 
* Tert. ad Praxeam. Non vis enim eum substanti●um habere in re, per substantiae proprietatem, ut res & persona quaedam videri possit.  substantial and real Person, which Tertullian (though then a Montanist) then asserted with the Church, though his 
† Tert. ibid. Itaque Sophiam quoque exaudi ut secundam Personam conditam.— Sic & Filius in suâ personâ profitetur Patrem in nomine Sophiae. Novatian de Trinit.— secundam Personam efficiens.  terms and senses were sometimes very singularly odd concerning the production of the second Person. In the Eastern Church several lapsed into the like Error, the most famous of which was Sabellius, from whom the Heresy was entitled Sabellianism, which denied what that Church also had ever asserted, That the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were three Persons; instead whereof they asserted them to be but one Person. For the truth hereof I shall recite the Words 
† Athan. con. Sabell. Greg. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  of St. Athanasius, as beyond all Exception valid. From whence it appears, that the Sabellians asserted but one Person against that Plurality of Persons fore-acknowledged in the Church. And now I leave it to his Lordship to explain how the denial of three Persons could be Apostasy, as this Father calls it, had not the Faith of them been before expressly avowed and received. For Heresy is an opposition of true received Faith, and Apostasy must be from an antecedent Profession. So that the Doctrine of a Personal Trinity was not later than Patripassianism, but the Original Faith. Nor does his Lordship seem candid in concealing this, which was the substance of that Heresy, while he mentions only their teaching three Names of one thing or Person, which was a Consectary, or at least a Colour added to their Heresy against the Trinity of real Persons. 'Tis true a Man may innocently say, That the term Person was used against Patripassians, while he contends for the proper truth of their Personality, as the Defender of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity 
† P. 25. Ubi. citatur Facund. pro defension tri●● capit. c. 1. p. 19  citys Facundus' Saying, that these Words, Person and Subsistence were used by the Fathers in opposition to the Sabellian Heresy; but to throw out such Expressions with a Design to deny the Primitive Antiquity of this Faith of Three proper Persons or Personalities, is extremely perfidious, of which this is a certain Sign, when Men avoid the use of these Terms as a stock of Offence, as his Lordship appears industriously to do in his State of the Doctrine. I have not Facundus by me, and so cannot so well judge of the convenience of his Words: But as to the Term Hypostasis or Subsistence, tho' it was in use long before Sabellianism, and used of the Person of the Father, 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Heb. 1.2. yet was that use promiscuous for Essence and Subsistence long after Sabellianism; and the determinate use thereof for the distinct Persons, was later than the Sardican, Council, and was indeed at last so fixed to denote their substantial Personality, or personal Subsistence against the Sabellians, who asserted the Word and Holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non-subsistent, that is, not distinctly subsistent from the Person of the Father in the Unity of Essence; but the Term Person, both in the Eastern and Western Churches, was ever received from the beginning without any variety or ambiguity.  
§ 7. Now that my Surmises against his Lordship's Integrity herein are well grounded, will appear from his Lordship's explanation of this Term; which tho' it be received in the third Party, yet he dares not make his own, nor allow for proper. By Person saith he, is only meant that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself, by which he is truly different from the other Two. Here it is plain that by using the Term Three so often, without adding Person, he shuns the Word as much as he dares at present to do, and assigns a distinction which is not any way personal. For it being only such a diversity that one is not the other, it will as well agree to two or three Tobaco pipes; for these are truly different from each other. I would therefore ask his Lordship, Does the Name of Father, as distinct from the Son, import no more than that one is not the other, or does it import a Personality really Paternal? If he will grant only the former part of the disjunction, (as he grants no more in his Discourse) then there really was no God the Father from Eternity till the Creation of Christ, which was the first Article of Arianism; nor was he, who is by all called God the Father, even a true Person, which yet however all have ever acknowledged. But if he ever was a true Person and Father, than first as to him the Term is elder than Patripassianism; and I demand a good reason, why the Eternal Word is not as much and as true a Person also, especially if he be the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father? For otherwise the Father and the Son will be of Dignities specifically different, if one be of a personal, and the other of impersonal Character; tho' how a real Son can be a thing really impersonal I cannot conceive; and then be that allows no more distinction but only this, that one is not the other, tacitly denying the relative distinction between Father and the Son, doth really deny both the Father and the Son. When these Words were orally delivered at Warmister, I observed them to myself, but looked on it as a slip only of an extemporary speaking; but when I see it also after the last concoction delivered from the Press, I suspect somewhat more than should be; I am sure the Dictate is rotten, and tacitly imports a renunciation of our Christianity.  
§ 8. And yet after all, so great is the force of Truth, that it will maintain its Evidence, even in the Tongues and Pens of its Adversaries. For though some part of his Lordship's Doctrines denies the Personality, yet others unwittingly concede it. For first of all, when he calls the Trinity the Blessed Three, not daring to say Persons, the Character of Blessed doth import a Peal Personality. For whether it be taken for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sense of God's essential Happiness, or in the sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the objects of our religious Praises; yet if the Three are either, or both ways Blessed, they must be Persons. For among created Being's, none are internally or effectually blessed, but what are Personal; but if any Man will cavil, and say, that God in the Creation blessed things Impersonal, and promised such Blessings also in the Mosaical Covenants; it is enough to reply, That these Blessed Three are uncapable of those lower forms of Benediction, and must have a Divine Blessedness, if they are of a Divine Nature. Now his Lordship will not say, that these are Three Distinct Blessed Essences, and he says they are more than three Names, Oeconomies, or Modes; so that he cannot with consistence call them three Blessed Names, Oeconomies, or Modes; and then what can he or any one else conceive by Three Blessed, but Three Blessed Persons? For though it may be truly said, that the highest Blessedness is that of Essence, yet none but a Person, or Persons can be essentially Blessed. So that his Lordship asserting a Blessed Three, must against his will yield them to be three Persons really distinct, though not divide, And so, when he says, that every one of that Blessed Three has a peculiar distinction in himself, this Pronoun [himself] is expressly Personal; and so either the Personality is Real, or his Lordship very unaccurate in attributing a Personal Pronoun to every one of the Three, and so is at his choice either unaccurate, or self-contradictory, or heretical, or, for the sake of a blessed Comprehension, all together.  
§. 9 Let us now consider his Lordship's proper Tradition of this third Opinion, or perhaps his own under the Colour of that, for 'tis not easy to find him. This, saith he, is in general the Sum of the Received Doctrine, that in God's undivided Essence there are Three really different from each other, that are more than three Names, Oeconomies, or Modes. But here is not one word of Persons, though asserted by the whole Catholic Church, by our own Articles and Liturgies, which his Lordship has sworn his unfeigned Assent and Consent to, and is by his Station bound to defend, and for which he has the great example of his late Metropolitan. What latent Ulcer is the Cause of this tergiversation I cannot exactly tell, but something there must be at the bottom. But since this being matter of Faith, must be taught every Proselyte before Baptism; let us see what efficacy his Lordship's formula will have when put into a Catechism. Catechumen. My Lord, I am an Heathen Philosopher, and willing to be instructed in the Principles of the Christian Faith; I pray what are they? Bish. First our received Doctrine is, That in the single Essence of God there are Three. Catech. Three what, my Lord? Bish. Three really distinct from one another, more than three Names, Modes, or Oeconomies. Catech. My Lord, you tell me what they are not, but I would fain know, or have some notion what they are: And when you tell me there are Three, the Rules of Logic, Grammar, and Catechism require a Substantive to determine the Sense; I pray, my Lord, has your Catholic Church, or your Church of England given them no Characteristic Name? Bish. Yes, after Patripassianism arose, she called them Persons as a Test to discover them. Catech. But why then had you not thus stated the sum of your received Doctrine, that in God's Unity of Essence there are Three Persons? for if this were received before or since Patripassianism, 'tis received into your Christian Confessions. Perhaps the Catholic Church may not really mean that they really are what she calls them, that is, Persons; and hence your Lordship thought fit to omit it; I pray, my Lord, deal openly with me, is it so, or how is it? Bish. Truly, Sir, the Church only means that one is not the other; that is, all that is intended in the Term Person. Catech. This looks very Catachrestical and Inartificial; but do not your Scriptures teach them to be Persons? Bish. No, they only call them by the Names of Father, Son or Word, and Holy Ghost. Catech. But do not your Scriptures and your Churches teach, that the first of these is really a Father, and the second really his Son? Bish. This is one of the three Opinions that the Scriptures do so teach. Catech. And is this the Opinion your Lordship will explain to me? Bish. Yes, Sir. Catech. Are Father and Son then Personal Titles? Bish. Yes, Sir, among Men. Catech. But are they not so in the Deity? Bish. Sir, they are not called Persons in Scripture, but only Father, Son or Word, and Holy Ghost; but we mean no more by Persons, but that one is not the other; there are three, Sir, that you may depend on; but I pray, Sir, do not press me against liberty of Conscience to call them Persons, for I cannot tell what they are, nor what to call them. Catech. But, I pray, my Lord, why did your Apostle blame the Athenian Inscription to the unknown God, and promised to declare him unto them, if he taught no more notions of him than that there are Three I know-not-whats in the Godhead? I am in hope I shall find better information from your Fathers; I pray, my Lord, what is your Opinion of them herein? Bish. Perhaps, Sir, they have gone beyond due bounds, contradicted each other and themselves, they use many impertinent Similes, run out into much length and confusion, while they talk of things to others which they understand not themselves. Catech. My Lord, if you can teach me nothing of your Faith in God, if you will reject the terms of your Church, to which you have sworn your unfeigned assent, if you dissolve the Sense of your Scripture Terms into nothing, and renounce the Wisdom of your Primitive Fathers, you force me to retreat from my hopes, and to devote my Soul to the Society of the Philosophers. This must be the Issue of such a dry, senseless, insipid State of the Faith, if offered to the Wise of the Heathen. Whereas the true Theory of the Faith is a most noble and seraphic Theology accounting for Creation and Providence, and all other Mysteries of Nature and Grace in so clear and heavenly a Light, that all the Idolatrous Notions and Fables of the Heathens, and all the celebrated Wisdom of the Philosophers, like Dagon, fell before it.  
§. 10. Come we next to his Lordship's account of the Incarnation. 
† P. 32, 33.  The second of this Blessed Three was united to a perfect Man, so that from the Humane and Divine Nature thus united, there did result the Person of the Messiah, who was both God and Man. Now here it is to be noted, that this Exposition of our Faith is his Lordship's own, after his Censure of the Primitive Doctrines herein, so that we must take this as most correct and exact. He than that hitherto omitted in his own accounts the Term Person in his Doctrine of the Trinity, admits it here concerning the Messiah, and consequently leaves us to conclude, that he judges it improper to be applied to the Trinity, but proper to the Messiah or God Incarnate. And secondly, it is notorious that he denies the Personality of Christ to be Eternal, since he asserts it to result from the Union of two Natures. 'Tis true, indeed, the Royal or Sacred Character of Christ is Personal, that is, it must suppose Personality in the Subject so entitled; and it is certain also, that it was the Title of an Office of a Person to be incarnate, but this does not infer, that the Personality of the Messiah commenced or resulted from his Incarnation. For an Eternal Person assumed our Nature so to become our threefold Messiah: So that though the Character and Offices of Christ resulted from the Incarnation, yet not the Person, or Personality; for to this the Humane Nature was assumed or pre-existent, but added or contributed nothing thereunto. Wherefore upon this news of a resulting Personality, I ask whether the Son of God was a Person antecedently to his Incarnation, or no? If not, this is downright Sabellianism, if he was, than that antecedent Personality did not result from the Incarnation; but if you add another from the assumption of the Humanity, than this is Nestorianism; if you confound them into a compound, it is (I think) Eutychianism, since the two Personalities cannot be confounded without confusion of Natures and Substances. But if in the Conjunction of Nature's one Personality excludes or destroys the other, nothing can result from that which is destroyed, but that Personality simply remains (as it was before) that destroyed the other. And further the Personality that destroys must be superior to the destroyed; and if so, it's ten to one but the Divine and Eternal Personality of the Word is superior to that of the Humane Nature, and so destroys it in the Union, and consequently there results no Personality from the Humane Nature, but the Eternal Personality of the Word only remains simply as it ever was; and thus at last truth will come upon us whether we will or no; for I do not suppose his Lordship will be so hardy as to teach, that a created Personality will destroy an uncreated by the conjunction of a created Nature with the Divine. Yet after all I believe his Lordship fixes the Personality, not in the whole Theanthrôpus, but only in the Humanity, if one could see his inside; since he 
* 45. That Divine Person, in whom dwelled the Eternal Word, etc.  makes the Manhood itself a Person distinct from the Eternal Word that dwelled therein, and instead of confuting 
† P. 32.  helps those Critics that place their first Conceptions of the Sonship in the Humanity, and as to the Union he is so ambiguous, that he tells us not whether the Father and the Holy Spirit came into this resulting Personality, or no, only saying without any peculiar restriction that God and Man became one Person, thus leaving a latitude for various Heresies in this Mystery.  
§. 11. So much then for the Personality; Advance we next to the Deity of the Messiah. 
* P. 40.  We believe, saith he, that Christ was God by virtue of the Indwelling of the Eternal Word in him. The Jews could make no Objection to this, who knew that their Fathers had worshipped the Cloud of Glory, because of God's resting upon it. And this he lays as a foundation, on which he may properly Deify Christ's Humane Nature. But this Jewish Doctrine is absolutely false, and is but either an heedless or wilful Depravation of the Learned Dr. Whithy's chaste and accurate 
* Tractat. de ver. Jes. Christ. Deitat. p.  Theories herein. To make which appear in its proper visage, let us consider what Worship is in the sense of his Lordship, with whom it imports 
† Lord of Sarum, P. 38.  not only Incurvation of Body, which may be paid to Creatures, but Acts of Faith and Trust, Prayers and Praises, etc. Now will his Lordship stare me, or any Man in the face, and say, that the Jews did thus Worship the Cloud of Glory? This I think will be routed by one Syllogism; whatsoever the Jews worshipped according to the Law was God; The Cloud of Glory was not God; Ergo the Jews did not Worship the Gloud of Glory. I take it for granted, that this Syllogism is impenetrable, and let his Lordship try his skill upon it, if he please. It is indeed agrecable to truth, and learned Men teach, that Isreal worshipped God in the Cloud, over the Ark, in the Temple, as in all the Symbols and Places of his especial Presence; but the Symbols or Places themselves were not the Objects of the Jewish Adoration, though Papists bend this to the Adoration of the Host. And as simple as the Fathers are, they can inform his Lordship, 
† Just. Mart. Dial. cum Tryph. ad ista Psalm 24. Quis est Rex Gloriae, Dominus Exercitumm, etc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  that every Man whatsoever will own that in Psalm 24. neither Solomon, nor the Tabernacle, or Ark of the Testimony was the King of Glory, which they adored. Yet that his Lordship's Concelts may have fair usage, I am content to lay together all that he has said to this purpose, to try whether they are in truth sound or adulterated, or whether they can bear a fair Trial. He therefore teaches, 
† P. 36.  that 'tis evident from several forms of expressing that Cloud of Glory; that a constant and immediate visible Indwelling of the Jehovah was according to Scripture Phrase said to be Jehova, which was applied to nothing else. This the Greek render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which Term the Apostles universally applying to our Saviour, could mean no other but that he was the true Jehovah, by a more perfect dwelling of the Deity in him, etc. Now here are two great Absurdities; first, that the visible Indwelling of the Jehovah is in Scripture phrase called Jehova; and secondly, that this Name was applied to nothing else. For first, 'tis he that dwelled between the Cherubims in a symbol of Glory over the Ark, first in the Tabernacle, after in the Temple, is called Jehovah, not his very Habitation. 'Tis the Title of the Resident, not the Residence; and so his Lordship himself applies it also in contradiction either to himself, or the Scripture, if he expounds it rightly. That which perhaps led his Lordship into this fancy is, that Shechinah Grammatically signifies Habitation, and is thence taken by the Rabbins in a sense peculiarly sacred for the Majestic Presence of God between the Cherubims, etc. and that he takes to be called Jehova. But his Lordship was not at leisure to apprehend that the Rahbinick use has turned the Grammatical notation of Habitation, that is but an accident, and made it to import that substantial Light and Glory, the Symbol of the Divine Presence, the Scripture word Glory and the Rabbinick Term Shechinah being equivalent. For the Rabbins by Shechinah mean not mere presence, but that Lucid Glory by which God presentiated himself. But if his Lordship will excuse this unacouracy, and say, That This Glory is called Jehova in the Scripture; yet this is also false, and will not serve his turn. For this Shechinah is called 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  the Glory of Jehovah, and God is called 
† Psal. 24.  the King and 
* Act. 7.2.  God of Glory with relation to the Shechinah; yet no Man will change the terms Glory of Jehovah thus, The Jehovah of Jehovah, or the God or King of Glory, into this form, The God or King of Jehovah, which yet might be done, if Jehova were the name of that Glory. When Moses asked Jehovah to see a greater and more Majestatick Glory of the Divine Presence, and that Jehovah made his Glory to pass by, Exod. 33.18, 21, 22. The Glory is plainly distinguished from the Jehovah. For Moses would not pray thus, O Jehovah show me thy Jehovah, nor would the Jehovah say, my Jehovah shall pass by. Jehovah therefore was not the mere Shechinah, either God's Habitation, or the Cloud of Glory, but he that presentlated himself therein. And hence the ritual Worship of Israel, though performed toward that Cloud, was yet performed not to it, but to him whose Majesty so appeared in or by it. Nor does this Symbol adequately come up to the Mystery of the personal Union; for God's inhabiting in a Cloud of Glory did not make a personal Union between God and the Cloud, as the in habitation of God in Christ; Humane Nature being of an higher and more intimate and unitive Connexion, did; which yet however doth not really turn our Nature in Christ into Deity, except we will go over to Eutychianism, and a confusion of Substance; nor do we adore his Humanity as so Deified, but we Worship the Eternal Son of God united to, and mediating for us in our Nature.  
§. 12. But whereas his Lordship has out-pitched all Mortals in saying, That in Scripture Phrase Jehova never imports any thing else but a constant and visible immediate Inhabitation, which has been sufficiently baffled in the precedent Section, I will adventure to advance and say, that in the Scripture, the word Jehovah is used for God, without any imaginable respect to such a Shechinah. In the Book of Job it is very often found, yet there being no Shechinah in his Land of Us, the Author or Translator could not use the term Jehovah concerning God appearing in the Shechinah of the Children of Israel, for Job was an Alien, and of the Line of Esau. In those infinite Places where the Creation, and all other Divine Works without the Land of Canaan are attributed to Jehovah, there the name has no respect to the Shechinah. Wheresoever he is mentioned by this name in Affairs among the Ten Tribes, after their separation by Jeroboam from the Worship at Jerusalem, there is no respect to the Shechinah, for he had no such among the Ten Tribes. When Ezekiel in Captivity before the destruction of the Temple mentions the Oracles of Jehovah, or God, by this name in the Land of the Chaldeans, he has no respect to a Shechinah. When the Temple was destroyed, there was never any Shechinah restored to that Temple any more; yet the inspired Penmen after this call him by the name Jehovah, for which I refer his Lordship to the Bible or the Concordances. And to conclude, the Eternal Wisdom of the Father speaking by Solomon, calls him Jehovah, with respect to such a time, as was before all possibility of a Shechinah. Prov. 8.22. Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works of old. And truly if Jehovah were the name of God only as in the Shechinah, then as it did not belong to him before the Shechinah, so it ceases to appertain to him since the extinction thereof in the dissolution of the first Temple, except his Lordship will have it revive again by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Habitation of God in Christ's Humane Nature. But then as often as it was used by the High Priest (if not others) under the second Temple, and after the cessation of other Prophets, till Christ came, by his Lordship's Criticism it must be improper, and the Prophets that called God Jehovah after the Destruction of the Temple, did misname him. But after all, to keep up an old custom, his Lordship adds another contradiction; for he says 
* P. 38.  Jehovah is a federal name of God: Now if so, then was it properly used of God all the while the Jews were in the Old Covenant with God, which was till the Death of Christ surely; and consequently all that tract of time in which there was no Shechinah from the ruin of the first Temple, was this name most proper.  
§. 13. From the Jewish Shechinah come we to Christ, of whom his Lordship thus teaches, 
* P. 40.  that Christ was God by virtue of the Indwelling of the Eternal Word in him; 
† P. 35.  that the Jehovah dwelled so immediately and bodily in Christ Jesus, that by that Indwelling he was truly Jehovah, 
* P. 37.  that he was the true Jehovah by a more perfect Indwelling of the Deity in him than that had been which was in the Cloud. Now this must be grounded upon a Principle or Maxim, That whatsoever the Delty immediately inhabits (as it did the Cloud and the Humanity of Christ) that thing becomes God and the true Johovah by virtue of that Inhabitation; and therefore the Cloud and the Humanity of Christ were the true Jehovah by this Residence; and if so, the Cloud and Christ are substantially the same thing, though yet the Cloud hath ceased to be for many Ages. And by the same Doctrine the inner Sanctuary of the Tabernacle and the Temple, and much more the Temples of our Bodies and Souls, in which Christ as God dwells immediately by his Holy Spirit, are the true Jehovah also by virtue of this Inhabitation. And besides all these absurdities, his Lordship's terms exclusively diversify the whole Christ who is inhabited, from the Eternal Word which does inhabit in him, and so according to his Lordship he becomes, if not a Socinian, yet a sactitious God one way or other.  
§. 14. Ay, But does not the Apostle justify his Lordship's form of speaking, when he saith, 
* Col. 2.9.  that in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, which his Lordship 
† P. 40.  citys for his Authority? These are indeed the Apostle's Words, and his Lordship cunningly refers to them, though never intended to his Lordship's Consequences and Imagnations. For the Apostle seems to oppose the Gnostick Pleromata, excluding Christ from the Supreme Pleroma and Divinity. Now things are inexistent in others, either as things contained in things containing, or as parts in the whole, or one part in another. The first Mode cannot belong to the inexistence of the Deity in our nature; the second or third form of inexistence may be conveniently asserted here. For first the whole Christ being a Compositum of the Word and Manhood, the Godhead of the Word may be said to be in Christ, as part in the whole. But if you take Christ here Synecdochically for that part of him which is distinct from the Godhead, which is often done, sometimes expressly, as the Man Christ Jesus, sometimes implicitly from the necessary sense of the Texts, than this Text will be thus interpretable, In Christ, i.e. the Man Christ, or his Manhood, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead, as the superior in the inferior part of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and as the Soul in a Body. But neither of these Senses infer, that all that in which the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, as a Soul in a Body, is thereby really God and the true Jehovah, for this would infer an Eutychian confusion of Natures and Attributes. To illustrute this, his Lordship may observe, that we say, an excellent Soul is found in this Man, either as part in the whole, or strictly as the whole Man is put only for the Body; yet no Man will hence infer, that all that in which the excellent Soul dwells thereby becomes a true Soul, for this would confound the two Natures into one. And truly as the formal Structure of his Lordship's words is heretical, so his Arguments for it from the Jewish Shechinah are Idolatrous, and will justify Idolatry (i.e. Creature-Worship) both in Jews and Christians. 'Tis true, indeed, the Fathers generally teach a gracious, adoptive, and metaphorical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our nature in Christ, and of all Saints by him; but not so as to make that Nature, or these Saints, the true Jehovah, notwithstanding their mutual coinhabitation to all Eternity.  
§. 15. It must be allowed, and I allow it freely, that the Argument brought from the perpetual rendering of Jehovah by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and the signal appropriation of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New Testament to our Lord, while both Testaments establish only one and the same Lord, is in itself exceeding good, and urged generally by most learned Men to this purpose; but however, it is almost marred by his Lordship's conjuring up an Objection, which he had not skill enough to lay. The great Objection, 
* P. 37.  says he, that ariseth against this, is, that though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is indeed the common translation for Jehovah; yet sometimes it is put for other Hebrew words, both Elohim and Adonai, and that in the New Testament it is used rather in opposition, or more properly in subordination to the name of God, which seems to be stated very plainly by St. Paul; 
† 1 Cor. 8.5, 8.  when he says, there were many that were called Gods, whether in Heaven or in Earth, as there were Gods many, and Lords many. In opposition to all which he asserts, that to Christians there is but one God the Father, of whom were all things, and we in him, and one Lord Jesus, by whom were all things, and we by him. From hence it seems, that the true Notion of this according to St. Paul, is, that as the Heathen Nations believed some supreme Deities, and other deputed or lower Deities that watched over particular Nations; so we Christians do own one only Eternal God the Creator and Conserver of all, and one Lord to whom he has given the Government of all things. So that this, as it favours the Notion of one exalted to Divine Authority and Honour, does take away quite the whole force of this Argument. Now let us see how his Lordship solves this. The sum of what at large he tells us is, 
† P. 37, 38.  that he that is at large the God of the Universe, was also the federal God and Lord of the Jews, and his federal name was Jehova rendered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as the Heathens also were supposedly under the Dominion of some of their Supreme Deities. So here St. Paul sets one God for us, who is also our federal God, Lord, or Jehovah by his dwelling in the Humane Nature of Jesus Christ. But certainly 'tis hazardous to hang so weighty a point of Faith on so thin a Cobweb. For what, first of all, if a Man should deny Jehovah to be a Name restrictively and relatively federal to one People, how will his Lordship convince him? It is for the most part put by itself, seldom with any Genitive, never that I have yet observed with a Genitive of that People. And being put simply it is a name of pure and absolute Essence or Existence, and altogether irrelative even to the whole World, as properly belonging to his Eternal Being before all Worlds. And yet it may consequently import a negative reflection on the Nonexistence of all other Heathen Gods. It seems indeed 
† Exod. 15.16, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  prefixed to the relative and federal Name, which was the God of their Fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, declared unto Moses 
* Ibid. v. 6.13.  before the name Jehovah was given: But it is plain that he was long before the federal God of their Fathers, under the mystical name of Elohim, Adonai, and Elschaddai, before ever Moses was. But till the appearance in the Bush, God was not known to the Fathers by the name 
* Exod. 6.3.  Jehovah, though he was their federal God of Old. So that this name Jehovah, when added, is added as a name of Essence to the federal Titles of the God of their Fathers, the God of Israel, which were set so relatively to that People, in opposition to those relative Titles and local Denominations, which the Heathen gave their tutelar and respective Deities. And this I take for a certain Rule, that an Absolute name of God is set alone, and a federal name always with a Genitive Case, or Suffix. Nay, Moses expressly uses the name Jehovah without this federal relation in the Story of Balaam, 
* Num 22.8.13. & 23.3, 8, 12, 26. & 24.6.13. & 23.17. & 24.11  whom with Balak also Moses makes to call God Jehovah. And if it shall be pretended that they used this as the known federal Name, for that Balaam said of Israel, 
† Numb. 23.21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Numb. 22.18.  Jehovah his God is with him, it is to be observed that the same Mesopotamian Diviner calls him by the same Term 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  Jehovah my God. And the same Moses, or whosoever gave us the Book of Job in Hebrew, names the God of Job 
* Job Ch. 1. Ch. 2. Ch. 38. Ch. 40. Ch. 42.  Jehovah, and 
† Ch. 1. v. 21.  brings in Job calling him by that name, though neither Job, nor probably the Original Author of that Book, was of the Children of Israel, nor within their especial Covenant. Nay, God himself discharges this name from all federal restriction. Behold, I am Jehovah the Lord God of all flesh. And in those numerous places, wherein he is relatively called Jehovah Isebaoth the Lord of Hosts, the Hosts of Heaven are denoted, not the Armies of Israel, though sometimes 
† 1 Sam. 17.45.  these two Titles, the Jehovah or Lord of Hosts, and God of the Armies of Israel, are joined together, of which however the latter only is federal to that People. And infinite other 
* Psal. 144.15. Zech. 13.19.  Texts there are to show Jehovah to be a name unlimited, and in its natural signification antecedent to that of the God of Israel 
* Zech. 14 9 , and to be acknowledged by all Nations in their general Conversion. But further, if the Septuagint used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a federal Name in the rendering the Hebrew Jehovah, yet does it not follow, that they took Jehovah for a federal Name. For wherever they render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (as I believe they do every where) there they according to the custom of their Nation read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Adonai, according as they have since pointed it for that way of reading, a religious first, and at last a superstitious fear restraining the People from the common pronunciation of that greatest Name. And hence it will follow, that the Septuagint might take Adonai for a federal Name of God, as their tutelar Lord in opposition to the Baalim, or Lords adored by the bordering Nations. So that whereas his Lordship throws up not only Elohim, but Adonai too, to the Objection, he has undermined his own foundation for the federal signification of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, especially since in the 110th. Psal. God the Father is called 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Jehovah, and God the Son Adonai, the chiefest Text cited out of the Old Testament in the New for the Dominion of Christ over his People, and consequently an argument that the New Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 came from the Septuagint, as reading Adonai. How then shall the Apostles sense be cleared, so that it may not establish two adorable Lords and Gods, nor make Christ a Lord only by Advancement and Oeconomy? And hereunto, first let it be noted, that this was written not to Aliens or Infidels, and Strangers to our Faith; for to such, I confess, it had not been so perfectly clear and intelligible, but to a Christian Church, who all from the highest to the lowest had been taught the mystery of the Trinity in Unity; and to these St. Paul's words are as intelligible in their truth as the Apostles Creed or any other, which an uninitiated Heathen might easily misunderstand, either to conclude our Lord not to be God, as being not called God in the Apostles Creed, (which Heretics and Latitudinarians lay hold of to their evil Ends) or another God; because in other formularies he is called God of God. But this fundamental Institution, that we have no other God nor Lord than the Jews had, and that Lord of the Jews being only one God Almighty, we cannot err in understanding this Creed of St. Paul, or any other, to believe that Christ is a Lord in nature different from God the Father Almighty. To exhibit this more clearly. I will set these words of St. Paul, and those of the Nicene Creed that are most apposite to them, and liable to an Heathen misconstruction.  
St. Paul's Creed.  
To us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things.  
The Nicene Creed.  
We believe in one God the Father. Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, very God of very God, by whom all things were made.—  
Now to show the most designed intention of St. Paul's words, and that they do not at all give any colour to the Socinian notion of one advanced to Divine Honour, but make him with God the Father Creator of all things, I shall digest them into a due Paraphrase, thus; For though the Heathen Worshippers of Idols have many celestial and terrestrial Gods, as they call them, which they Worship by their Idols, their Superstition to their falsely so called Gods arising from this truth, that God hath set Presidential and Tutelary Powers over us, who are therefore by Office, though not by Nature, Gods and Lords, as the Angelical Princes of Greece and Persia, and here on Earth the Kings and Rulers of the World; yet we Christians have but one Almighty God the Father, from whom all things originally are, and we are in him, or for him; and one only Tutelar Lord next God the Father, Jesus Christ, by whom we were created, and by whom we subsist, for the Object of our Adoration. By this Paraphrase it appears, that the Father is called God, and Christ Lord, but the Creation attributed to both in this form of distinction, that all things are of, or from God the Father as the first Original, and by the Lord Christ, because by him the Father created all things; and hence it follows, that the Lord Christ in that nature which created all things is uncreated, and if uncreated, then of the same Deity of the Father, who by him created all things, and hence adorable with the Father; whereas the Heathen Gods, and all other Gods by deputation or advancement are not adorable, as not being Authors of our Creation and Being, nor uncreated in themselves. Whatsoever Hebrew word therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this place may be referred to; yet our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Lord Jesus, being as our Lord and Creator, the Object of our Adoration is vindicated from the reproach of a Creature advanced to the Honour of Divine Adoration, by the very context itself. And to this sense the words were fully clear to the Christian Church, who knew St. Paul, both as a Jew and Christian, an utter Adversary to all Creature-worship. But however, I note here that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken of Christ, answers not to the Hebrew Jehovah; for being set opposite to the many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, it must answer to a word in Hebrew, that is capable of a plural number, which Jehovah is not, for there cannot be a plurality of Jehovahs'. But what shall be done to convince an Arian, who will confess our Lord a Sub-Creator of all things beside under the Father, and so their Lord on the Title of that Creation, though himself was created by God the Father? Why this place must be interpreted by others, such as that he is God, the true God, God over all blessed for ever, that he was ever in the form of God, and equal with God the Father, and one with him, all which will bear weight, while the federal whimsy vanishes into soft air. And therefore after all his critical trisling, he wisely 
† P. 38.40.  comes to this way of interpretation, and says a great many Good and Orthodox truths on this Article so far as that that Christ was God, who manifested himself in our flesh, which being so dissonant to all his former Modes of expression and avowed Notions, seem to have dropped from him either unawares, or for a colour of defence against a foreseen charge of Heresy, or perhaps the singular Providence of God might so overrule the madness of the Prophet, to make him speak that for the Christian Faith, which he had no mind to, that his manifest inconsistencies might render him of no Authority for the use of Heretics either in present or future Ages.  
§. 16. His Lordship's last Argument for the Deity of Christ is, 
† P. 39, 40.  that the Jews, and Apostates from Christianity never charged the Apostles nor the Church with Idolatry or Creature-Worship, which they would certainly have done, had the Christian Principles been Arian, or Socinian. And had there been any such Objection, we should have had the Apologies of the Apostles against it. For so we find them vindicating themselves against the Charge of the Jews, for quitting the Mosaical Ordinances, and calling the Gentiles, things of less prejudice than the worshipping and Deifying a Creature. Now for my part, I believe it was the common opprobrium both of Jews and Gentiles and perfect Apostates, that the Christians adored a mere Malefactor, and that surely is an imputation of Creature Worship; and though we find it not in the Acts, or Epistles of the Apostles expressly charged; yet many passages asserting his Deity, seem directly set in opposition to such calumnies. In the Acts of the Apostles the recorded disputes with the Jews are, whether our Jesus was the true Messiah, for on concession of this, all the other Doctrines of Christianity were to have been admitted without scruple; and so the questions of his Deity and Adoration came not into course with the Jews, while they denied this Truth, that was first to be proved in order to their conviction, that he was the Christ. And all that is written against Judaisme in the Epistles, is against Judaizing Christians, or Semi-Christian Judaizers, that adhered to the Levitical Institutes as necessary to all Christians. Now these not making Christ an Idol or a mere Creature, there was no need of a Vindication of us with them against an Idolatry that they charged us not with; but against those Heretics that made Jesus a mere Man, and consequently would impeach us for the Worship of a Creature, St. John's Gospel and first Epistle were expressly written; and these were a sort of Un-Christian Judaizers of several Characters from their proper Authors. So that his Lordship's Observation, though never so well intended, is however partly false, and partly impertinent. And yet allowing this Argument as much force as can be designedly granted it, it will amount to no more than this, That the Enemies of our Religion could not upbraid us with a professed Worship of a professed Creature, because he whom the Christians worshipped in our flesh, was by them owned to be the Eternal God: Yet no doubt the Jews ever did, and do at this Day charge us with the Worship of a vile Creature, who really (as they think) had no Deity in him; else, had they also thought him to be God, they had been ipso facto converted to us, the want of this Faith being the only Bar to their Conversion; and the cause why they execrate both our Lord and us for this very Doctrine. So unlucky is his Lordship, even in the fairest part of this Discourse, as if God had laid this Curse on him, that he that had sophistically handled the Christian Faith in most part of it, should not have the Glory or Comfort of having served it in any one particular.   

A Vindication of the Primitive Fathers against the Imputations of Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum, etc.  
PART II.  
§. 1. I Have now (I think) performed my first undertaking, that his Lordship hath ill stated the Doctrines of our Faith: A truth so evident to his own Clergy, even those that would throw a friendly skirt over these Nudities, that they ascribe all (or seem willing so to do) to haste, inconsideration, and want of judgement, not to any heretical Designs or Contrivances. Whether his Lordship will be thankful for these kinds of Excuse, I cannot tell, but at the best they are but Fig-leaves. For can any Candour excuse an heedless or injudicious Lecture in a Bishop or Divinity Professor, first uttered to a learned Body, and after exposed to the Censure of the World, in a matter most fundamental in Christianity, most liable to prejudices; and this after the most accurate determinations of the Church Universal; especially since he so openly upbraids the Fathers and Patrons of this Faith, with their unaccuracies and impertinencies, and this not in their particular and private conceptions, which the Church hath not authorized, but in their most Catholic and established Theories? Surely such a Cenfor ought to have been accurate above all Men, and not to have needed the Candour of a Reader.  
§. 2. This dealing with the Fathers is such an indecent sort of immorality, that 'tis not to be endured in one of his Lordship's Character. The Fathers, it is true, were Men, and they have their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, those slips here and there incident to the infirmities of Humane Nature, and if his Lordship had reverently touched upon any of these, not with a design to blacken their memory, but only to caution his Clergy against such forms or notions, he had dealt very commendably. But it falls out quite otherwise. For he Taxes them for no real obliquities, but their Catholic Principles; fixes on them such Theories as they never dreamt of, and such as are destructive of their own avowed Faith, and this without quoting so much as one passage out of them; he gives them not so much as one good word, but finally presents them to us as a parcel of impertinent and self contradicting Babblers; which how it conduces to the encouraging Deism and Heresy, I humbly leave to the Censure of my Holy Mother the Church of England. Sure I am, as this ill office was utterly needless to his Exposition of the Faith, so modesty ought to have repressed it; if for no other consideration, yet for this one reason, That they may receive him into their Society with joy at the day, when he shall be gathered unto his Fathers.  
§. 3. The Business then of this second part is to discuss the truth and justice of his Lordship's Imputations cast upon these Holy Worthies, which he introduces thus, by telling his Clergy, that 
† P. 31.  he will not pretend to inform them how this Mystery is to be understood, and in what respect these Persons (which he calls so according to custom, not his own sense) are believed to be one, and in what respects they are Three. By explaining a Mystery can only be meant the showing how it is laid down and revealed in Scripture; for to pretend to give any other Account of it, is to take away its mysteriousness, when the manner how it is in itself is offered to be made intelligible. Now what doth this prima fancy intimate, but that it is not laid down in the Scripture, in what respect the Persons are one, nor in what respect they are Three. But first in the Doctrine of Unity, I think the Scriptures do sufficiently teach, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one in respect of Essence, notwithstanding all the wriggles of Heretics, not only in that passage of St. John 1 Ep. 5.7. which his Lordship has exposed 
* Letter I from Zurich.  for doubted, but in many others. And if his Lordship dares deny this respect of Essence to be taught by the Scriptures concerning the Unity, I will adventure the proof of it. But if his Lordship be not so hardy, then let him recant this Impeachment of the Scriptures, that they have not taught us in what respect the Persons are One. I am however content that Men of Candour take this only for an heedless slip, not a designed Artifice. Let it be so; yet is it a dangerous one, and used by the Men of the broad way that leadeth to destruction, to the service of heretical Comprehensions. The Antapologist to Dr. Sherlock owns the forequoted Text of St. John for undoubted; There are Three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these Three are One. This, saith he, is Scripture, 
* Antap. p. 5.  but how they are one the Scripture teacheth not. What is this fetch for, but that we may not press the Heretic's to own an essential Unity, but whatsoever else will serve their several Turns, and deliver them from the Canon of the Faith? But secondly, his Lordship ought to have instructed his Clergy in what respects they are Three, according to the Scriptures, which do instruct us herein, with certain notions and respects, by which they are distinguished from each other in the Unity of Essence. For are not Father and Son Personal Characters, and founded on a substantial generation, the Father being the Person Generant as such, and the Son the Person generated as such? And is not the Logos the substantial Issue of the Eternal Mind, and as such distinguished from its Parent? The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son, and does the personal Offices of a Paraclete by mission from the Father and the Son, on which account he hath personal and distinctive Pronouns and Attributes given him. Which shows the form of distinction to be Personal, and the different Mode of their descent, origination, and mission. So much therefore of the Modes of their distinction being taught by the Scriptures, is also well taught by the Church, and aught to have been so by his Lordship; though other Modes of this Subsistence, that are not revealed, pass our measures and capacities, and Men's inauthentick speculations on them are not to be admitted for Catholic or Canonical.  
§. 4. And now we come to consider the exorbitances of the Fathers in their teaching the Respects and Modes of this Unity and Distinction. 
† P. 31.  In this (saith his Lordship) too many both Ancients and Moderns have perhaps gone beyond due bounds, while some were pleased with the Platonical Notions of Emanations, and a foecundity in the Divine Essence. Now here it must be noted, that the Ancients and Moderns, which his Lordship here speaks of, are the Defenders of the Faith of the Trinity against the Arian and other Ancient Heresies. Now as great Friends as my Lord and Petavius are, I would fain know how they can be reconciled herein. For if 
* Petau. citat Bullo. in Prooem. Defence. Fid. Nicen. p. 8.  Arius were a genuine Platonist in the created pre-existence of the Logos, how came any of the Anti-Arian Ancients to be Platonic in their Doctrines of Eternal Pre-existence and Emanations? 'Tis hard that Arians and Catholic Fathers should both be in the same Platonic Errors, in a point in which they were contradictory, and in which alone their great division was founded. But as for the Eternal Emanations asserted by the Fathers, they were taught purely from all ill mixtures of Platonists and others, in that while they from sacred Tradition assert those Effluxes, yet they all deny them to be like corporeal Emanations by corporeal abscissions or divisions of parts. It would be endless to cite places of this kind. Let it suffice that the Doctrine of Emanation 
* Sap. Sal. 7.25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  was pure Jewish Theology; by which term received into the forms of Christian Theology, they meant the derivation of the whole Divinity from the Father to the Logos and the Holy Spirit, without 
† Athan. Expos. Fid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Id. de Syn. Nic. con. Arian. decret. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  any division, or partition of Substance. For the truth of which I refer instead of many to one Athanasius, that spoke the sense of the whole Church in his time, and of the Fathers before him. Now the Fathers all denying an emanation, which like that of Bodies consists in abscission of Parts, will hereby be discharged from the fancies of Platonic Emanations, which the 
* P. 28.  Defender of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of a Trinity in Unity charges with such Abscission in the Platonic Triad. We are not yet advanced to the Beatisick Vision, nor the tongues of Angels, nor, if we were, could we adequately describe the glorious Mysteries of these Divine Subsistences; yet God himself gives us leave to speak of his revealed Truths herein according to our infirmities; that we, who see these Mysteries remotely and only by dark resemblances, may communicate those notions in as remote forms of expression, while we keep however to the Schemes himself has set us, and embase those Theories with no Humane Corruptions. And hence I freely allow the words of Emanation, as being taken from the Images of corporeal Effluxes, not to be fully equal to the Mystery intended, but such as would be apt to lead us into crass and material conceptions of the Deity, did not our Theology expressly forefend us. But under this guard the terms are not only innocent, but Authentic, and that Authority with the Fathers descended not from Plato, but from Canonical and allowed Scriptures, which have set corporeal Emanations as dark Symbols of these internal Communications of the Divine Essence in the Trinity; of which sort of Similes are the 
* Athan. ad Serap. Sp. S. non esse Creaturam. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc.— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Id. de Syn. Nic. con. Arian. Decret. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Vid. con. Arian. Orat. 3.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Rays and Emanations of Light and Glory; and the streams of Fountains, from which in the Scriptures the Fathers have taken those Emanatory forms of expression, which therefore own not their Authority or Reception to Plato; that so his Lordship should call them Platonical in derogation to the Grandeur of the Christian Theology; like the reproach of Amelius upon St. John, as if he also had preached the Philosopher. 'Tis true, indeed, the Primitive Father's writing for our Faith against Gentilism, do often cite this Philosopher, not as an Author of our Principles, but as a good witness to the Greeks for their Credibility, though sometimes, when upbraided with him by the Heathens, they freely call him a plagiary of the Jewish and Sacred Theology, which he afterwards cooked up after a Greek Mode. Now the Corruptions in Plato's Doctrine of the Trinity the Fathers use not, nor are pleased with, but those seeds of true Theology that are in him, they love and cherish, not as Plato's, but as God's; the Wisdom of God having graciously permitted some Notions and Rudiments of Faith to be conveyed to the Wise of the Heathen, before the publication of Christianity, to prepare a way for its after-reception and vindication among them. And having thus vindicated the Ancients in their Doctrines of these Essential Emanations, let me observe how tectly sly and abusive his Lordship's Reflection on them is: Some, saith he, were pleased with the Platonical Notions of Emanation, as if all the Catholic Ancients had not the same Notions of Emanation, but some were for, and some against these Emanations. But here it had been fair to have graced the Margin with the Catalogue of the Emanatory and Antiemanatory Ancients; and I do here urge and challenge his Lordship to produce them in foro to speak for themselves, before sentence be passed upon them. This I doubt is an hard task, but a demand that cannot be denied me without shame. But it seems these Platonic Ancients were grown old unto Dotage, and become Children again, and as such were pleased, poor Souls, with the pretty Baubles that Plato invented for them; and thus we have made a good beginning upon the Fifth Commandment, if the Sense thereof may extend to the Fathers of our Religion, and the Church.  
§ 5. To the absurdity of Emanations succeeds that of foecundity in the Divine Essence, which his Lordship taxes in both Ancients and Moderns, that is, most eminently in St. Athanasius and Bishop Pearson, that were in their respective Ages, the exactest and gravest Divines in the World, without exception or diminution of any, that indulged not to Humane Wit or Fancy in their Theological Theories, but relied wholly on the force of the Scriptures and the Tradition of their Fathers. Now 
* Athan. con. Sabell. Greg.— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Id. con. Arian. Orat. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. con. Arian. Orat. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc.  Athanasius so far insisted on this Doctrine of foecundity, that he looked on it as necessary against both Sabellianism and Arianism, both which Heresies stood on this Principle, (which was therefore heretical) that there is no foecundity in the Divine Essence, for the concession of this infers the Eternal Personality and Existence of the Son. And the wonderful 
† Expos of the Creed. Artic. His only Son.  Pearson sticks to this Doctrine of foecundity as essential to our Faith, not only against those Elder Heretics, but their Bastards also, the Mahometans; and is it not an unaccountable sort of confidence or ignorance in his Lordship to join with Sabellians, Arians, and Mahometans in flirting at the Doctrine of foecundity, on which alone stands the Faith in the Father and the Son? Either therefore let his Lordship deny, or own this foecundity? if he deny it, let him be anathema; if he owns it, why doth he accuse the Fathers and Moderns that teach it, as transgressing due bounds? But, perhaps, it was necessary to do that by obliqne reflection, which it is not yet safe to do by open mouth to avoid an open conviction. But a Man is as well know by his hints as protestations, and, perhaps, much better.  
§. 6. Let us now see how Heathenish his Lordship makes these Divine and Catholic Notions of the Fathers. † For, 
* P. 31.  saith he, we have footsteps of a Tradition, as ancient as any we can trace up, which limited the Emanations to Three. And these thought there was a production, or rather an eduction of two out of the first, in the same manner that some Philosopher's thought, that Souls were propagated from Souls, and the figure by which this was explained, being that of one Candle being lighted at another, this seems to have given the Rise to those words Light of Light. It is certain that many of the Fathers fell often into this conceit, etc. Now sure I am, that I have set his Lordship's words in their due connexion with those cited in the last Section: And are the reason assigned, why they exorbitated beyond due bounds that taught Emanations and Foecundity, because the Notion is Platonic and the Tradition heathenish and false. For those (which his Lordship notes) who limited the Emanations to three, resembled it to the imagined propagation of Souls, and lighting of Candles, and consequently from these [Heathens] came our Light of Light. This is the true Grammar Sense of his Lordship's Words. For the Relative these respects the Heathens only last , and the representation by Souls propagated and Candles lighted, reflect back only on the Heathen Tradition, and is not this a great Credit to the Nicene formula, to have such an heathen and exorbitant Original: The Discourse to this period is of an heathen Tradition, heathenishly expounded by the Similes of Souls propagated, and Candles lighted; for I dare engage no Catholic Author ever represented the Essential Foecundity and Emanations in the Deity, by those Figures of Souls and Candles, that thence probably his Lordship might be thought to have set these as the Figures of Christian Authors, of which he makes no mention within these words here cited. Afterward indeed he tells for certain, that many of the Fathers fell often into this conceit, which he owns to be heathenish, and gives it no other original, either in Scripture or Jewish Tradition. The most that can be most favourably imagined (though contrary to the order of his Lordship's words) is that the Tradition was heathenish, though dressed up by Christian Ancients under the Similes of Souls propagated and Candles lighted, for many of the Father's most certainly fell often into this conceit, and so probably came our Nicene formula Light of Light. The upshot than is; the Tradition of Emanation and Foecundity is exorbitant and heathenish, set off either by Heathen or Christian Expositors by the exorbitant Similes of Souls and Candles, from which Figure of Candles probably came the Nicene form Light of Light. That this is the genuine sense of his Lordship is manifest, for he accuses these Principles as exorbitant, for this cause, that they are heathenish, and set off with ill Similes, one of which was probably the ground of the Nicene Confession. For, if his Lordship will not own this sense, let him declare, if the Simile of one Candle lighted from another, give a regular notion of the Faith in the Doctrine of Emanations and Foecundity? If it does, why does he blame the Doctors of those Emanations, Foecundities, and Similes, as Men that have gone beyond due bounds, and fallen into these exorbitant conceits? But if he will stand to it that these Doctrines and their Similes are irregular conceits, than the Nicene form has an ill foundation in his Lordship's professed Opinion. But, before I come to vindicate the true Originals of the Nicene form, I will examine the truth of this History, whether many of the Fathers often fell into this conceit; that the Emanations in the Divine Essence are of the same manner that some Philosophers thought Souls propagated from Souls, or Candles were lighted from Candles. Sure I am, the Conceits and Similes are not only improper, but contrarily dissimilar to the Notions of the Catholic Theology. For this teaches a coeternal Emanation of the second and third Persons, with a coeternal and inseparable Unity, and essential Dependence of the two latter on the first Person; but Souls propagated from Souls, and Candles lighted from Candles are neither coaeval, nor united, nor dependant one on the other, and so are fit for an Arian than a Catholic Simile; though, I confess it not fit for all Arian conceptions neither. These then being such absurd conceits charged upon many Fathers, as often used by them, one should have hoped for a large list of them, and the places cited in the Margin; but, alas! here is no such direction either for the Student or Examinant. And for my own part, I confess, I never remember any such conceit in any Father. Of the imagined propagation of Souls, I have not made the least observation among the Fathers; but of what may seem to come near these Candles, or might occasion this rash conceit of his Lordship for want of memory or care, I will here offer. Now first, I confess, I have found this mystery 
* Athenag. Legat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Aug. Exp. in Joh. c. 5. Tract. 20. & Ser. 199. De quinque Haeresib. & de Verb Apost. & quor. al. Ser. 1.  assimilated to the light, motion, and heat of fire, which are all coaeval. I have also observed a Simile of fire, generating fire in itself, brought by 
† Hilar. De Trinit. l. 7. Affert autem pro parte sidei hujus signisicationem ignis in se ignem habens, & in igne iguis manens. Nam cum sit in eo splendor luminis, naturae calor, virtus urendi, mobilitas aestuandi, totum tamenignis est, & haec universa una natura est.— Quaero itaque nunc utrum divisio ac separatio, cum ignis ex igne est? Aut nunquid abscinditur natura ne maneat, aut non sequitur ne insit, cum accenso Lumine ex Lumine per quendam quasi Nativitatis profectum naturae nulla defectio sit, & tamen sit lumen ex lumine? Aut nunquid hoc non manet in eo quod ex sese sine defectione subsistit. Aut hoc non inest in eo unde non recisum est, sed cum unitate substantiae naturalis exivit? Et quaero an non unum sint, cum lumen ex lumine nec divisione separabile sit, nec genere naturae? Et haec ut dixi ad intelligentiam sidei tantum comparata sunt, non etiam ad Dei dignitatem.— Sed quia simpliciorum fidem furor haereticus turbaret, ut id de Deo credi non oporteret, quod difficile nisi per corpoream comparationem possit intelligi.  St. Hilary to illustrate the Homoousion, with an excuse for its singularity and indignity, to which he was forced hereby to secure the Faith of the plainer and simpler sort of People against the tricks of the Heretics, who endeavoured to shake their Faith by objecting to them the difficulty of its conception, which he thought fit to be helped by corporeal comparisons. But note, he is so far from the Simile of two separate Candles, or Fires, or Lights that his Discourse runs altogether against them; and so in his judgement these separate Lights are no proper, or safe, or congruous representations, or originals for the received Light of Light.  
§. 7. But here it is absolutely necessary, that I examine what his Lordship ordered to be sent me for his Defence in this particular. This was a passage in Tertullian's Apologetic ch. 21. Ita de Spiritu Spiritus, & de Deo Deus, ut Lumen de Lumine accensum. Manet integra & indefecta materiae radix; (so I suppose his Lordship read out of Dr. Whitby) etsi plures inde traduces qualitatum mutuens. In this imperfect Segment, I will only translate what is intended for this purpose of his Lordship, viz. So (is Christ or the Verbum) Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, as Light kindled from Light. Now supposing this place exactly full to his Lordship's design, I ask, is this Doctrine true or false, good or bad? If true and good, why is Tertullian said among many other Fathers to have fallen into this Conceit? To fall into conceits is an expression for giddiness and error, not for Judgement and the discerning of great and true Mysteries. How has Tertullian gone beyond due bounds if this be canonical Theology? But if this Doctrine be false and bad, let his Lordship anathematise it, and the Catholic Church together, that ever owned it. But further supposing this still to be the Simile of two Candles, whether good or bad; yet this is but one Author, not a Father, not every where sound or constant to himself in these Theories, and this is but one place, which if a reproachful one, yet ought not to affect the reputation of many Fathers as frequently guilty of the same, except those other many Fathers and their frequent use thereof be produced against them. Again, supposing still this to be a Simile of fire, yet how can his Lordship prove that it intends two separate fires; why not fire, or flame, or light in and from the same original fire, without division or separation, like the late adduced Simile of St. Hilary? Since what went before, and shall be by and by inserted, brings the inseparability of the Logos, under the representation of this Simile? But after all, this is not a Simile of Candles, or common separate fires, but only of the Sun and its Ray. For thus runs the whole Simile. Etiam cum Radius ex Sole porrigitur, portio ex summâ, sed Sol erit in Radio, quia solis est Radius, nec separatur substantia, sed extenditur. Ita de Spiritu Spiritus, & de Deo Deus, sicut lumen de lumine accensum. Manet integra & indefecta Materiae Matrix, etsi plures inde traduces qualitatum mutuer is. Ita & quod de Deo profectum est, Deus est, & Dei Filius, & unus ambo. Ita & de Spiritu Spiritus, & de Deo Deus, modulo alterum, non numero, gradu, non statu fecit, & à matrice non recessit, sed excessit; iste igitur Dei Radius, ut retro semper praedicabatur, delapsus in virginem quandam, etc. Which I will endeavour to translate to the taste of the Reader. Even when the Ray is dilated from the Sun, it is a portion taken from the Principal, but the Sun will still be in, or within the Ray, because it is the Ray of the Sun, neither is his Substance separated by the Ray, but only extended. So the Word is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, like Light kindled from Light. The Original of the Substance or Matter remains entire and unimpaired, though you receive from it many derivations of qualities. So also that which proceeded from God, is God, and the Son of God, and both are One. So also he that is Spirit of Spirit, and God of God, is another from his Original by Mode, not by Number, by Order, not by Nature, and he departed not away from his Original, but only proceeded. Wherefore this Ray of God, as he was ever in past Ages preached, descending into a certain Virgin, etc. Here the beginning enters, and the end concludes with that Simile of the Ray, (which title of the Logos was ever before acknowledged) and there is no other. The substance of the Simile and Similatum are both in themselves undivided, and so parallel; the first Ita joins the immediate consequents to the Simile of Sun and Ray immediately foregoing, and repeated in the Lumen de Lumine accensum, within the same period, as it is, or should be pointed. And all the other Ita's coming after with vehement elegancy look back to this Simile, with which at last the whole Theory is concluded in these words, Iste igitur Dei Radius. This I think as clear as if written with the very Sunbeams. Ay! but if this Lumen de Lumine be not Candle of Candle, how comes accensum to be used, which does not agree to the Emission of the Sun Rays? No? What not by a Metaphor, or a light and acute Catachresis? May not a Man say Radii de Sole accensi, as well as Lumen de Lumine accensum? Rays kindled from the Sun, as Light kindled from Light? especially on this Hypothesis, That the Sun is a Globe of fire, as to the Eye it seems to be? On this notion I think it proper even without a Trope. But why will not his Lordship allow me a Trope (if the truth needs it) in accensum, who requires it for himself in Lumen? For without a Trope Lumen doth not signify either Candle, or Fire; and if all the words must be taken in their Primitive intention, than his Lordship loses his pretence, that this place speaks of two Candles, or two Fires. But had it here really signified Fire, yet it does not hence follow, that it speaks of two separate Fires, since St. Hilary has found ignem in igne, and lumen de lumine accensum in the same Fire. Which answer I shall give also, if any Man shall object that 
* Cit Bullo Defence. Fid. Nicen. p. 368.  of Hippolytus, tanquam lumen de lumine, & aquam ex fonte, aut radium à Sole; where the lumen de lumine, and the radius à Sole being both distinctly set with another Simile interposed; I take lumen de lumine in general to respect all sorts of luminaries whatsoever, which send forth a coaeval Ray, or sort of flaming Light from their Original Substance without any diminution. So much for his Lordship and Tertullian.  
§. 8. But there are two passages offered to my consideration, that seem much more apposite to his Lordship's purpose, one out of Justin Martyr, the other out of Tatian his Scholar, which I will exactly consider. Justin in his Dialogue with Trypho had asserted, that in the beginning before all Creatures God begat out of himself a certain rational Virtue (or Power), which is also called the Glory of the Lord by the Holy Spirit, and sometimes Son, and sometimes Wisdom, and sometimes Angel, and sometimes God, and sometimes Lord, and Word, sometimes he calls himself the Captain of an Host, when he appeared in the shape of a Man to Joshua the Son of Nun.— For that he is capable of all appellations, in that he ministereth to his Father's will, and for that he was begotten by 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The Interpreter leaves out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and so the consequents require.  the Will of the Father, after the manner we see a word produced in us. For when we utter a word, we beget it not by abscission or separation, so as to lessen the internal word or reason by this utterance. And as we see in Fire, that out of one Fire another is kindled without the diminution of the first Fire from whence it was kindled, this remaining the same. And that which is kindled of it also 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  appears to subsist not having lessened that from whence it was lighted. Now sometime after the Father shows the reason to those Jews, why he so often repeated this truth; because, saith he, I know that there are some willing to prevent me, and pretend that the Power that appeared from the Father of all things unto Moses, or to Abraham, or Jacob, is called Angel in its progression unto Men, because by it the purposes of the Father are declared unto Men. And that it is called Glory, because it presents itself in an incomprehensible appearance, and Man because it appears in such [humane] shapes, as the Father will; and they call it Word, because it brings the speeches of God unto Men. They say also; that this Power is indivisible and inseparable from the Father, after the same manner as they say, the light of the Sun upon the Earth is not to be cut off, or separated from the Sun which is in Heaven, but when he sets the Light is carried off with it. So say they the Father, when he pleaseth, causeth his Power 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to leap forth.  to fly abroad, and when he listeth retracts it again to himself. After this manner also they teach that he makes Angels. But now that there are Angels always abiding, and not resolved again into that of which they were made, hath been [already] demonstrated, and withal 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, videntur vitiosa.  it hath been abundantly shown so of this power, which the Prophetic Word calls God and Angel; and that he is not as the Light of the Sun only 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  nominally numbered, but really is another in number, I have shown by exquisite reason in my former discourses in short, when I said this virtue was begotten by his Power and Will, not by Resection, as if the Essence of the Father were divided asunder, as all other things divided and parted, are not the same they were before the division. And for example's sake, I took those instances, as we see from one Fire other Fires kindled, that Fire not being lessened from whence many may be kindled, but remaining the same. Thus Justin. By which it appears, that these kind of Pro-Sabellians used the Simile of the Sun and its light to prove the Logos non-subsistent, no Person, Son, or Angel of the Father, and therefore Justin rejected that Simile, by which the Sun and its Light, and God and his Logos are only nominally distinguished, and took the Simile of Fires kindled from Fires, in which there is none of that diminution, which those Adversaries object to our Doctrine of the consubstantiality, and both Fires subsist really after one is kindled from the other in a true diversity. If then Justin threw off the Simile of the Sun as favouring the Heresy after called Sabellian, and took that of Fires kindled from other Fires, as Tatian also uses the Simile of Torches lighted from Torches; is it not probable that our Light of Light came from these Similes used by Justin and Tatian, which are neither Sabellian as putting two subsistent subjects, nor Arian as illustrating the Homoousion? In answer to this I need be but very short, that Justin doth not speak of the Eternal, Internal, and Substantial Emanation of the Logos, but of his first progression at the Will of his Father to the Creation of all things; that this progression was a kind of generation or nativity was the unanimous conception (I think) of all the Philosophic Ancients, because as here below nativity produceth the Child into light and action, that was before wrapped up secretly in the Womb quiescent and non-apparent; so the Logos by this emission from the Father to the Creation of all things did in a manner come out of the Father's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (to use the words of Theophilus Antiochenus) to the public sight, apprehension, or perception of the intellectual World created by him, and acted also providentially in every part of the Creation. Nor was this form of Theology ever condemned in the Church, though it was not made or esteemed matter of necessary Faith or Doctrine. Now the Nature of this Theory was, that 
* Athenag. Leg. Edit. Oxon. p. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whom yet he there calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, because of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the operation of all things. Theoph. add Autolyc. p. 81. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  God the Father, being an Eternal Mind, had eternally in him a consubsistent reason, 
† Tertull. adv. Praxeam. Ante omnia enim Deus crat solus, ipse sibi & mundus, & locus, & omnia. Solus autem, quia nihil extrinsecus praeter cum. Caeterum ne tunc quidem solus: habebat enim secum, quam habebat in semetipso, rationem suam scilicet. Rationalis enim Deus, & Ratio in ipso prius, & ita ab ipso omnia. Quae ratio sensus ipsius est. Hane Graeci 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicunt, quo vocabulo etiam sermonem appellamus. Ideoque jam in usu est nostrorum per simplicitatem interpretationis Sermonem dicere in primordio apud Deum fuisse, cum magis rationem competat antiquiorem haberi; quia non Sermonalis à Principio, sed rationalis Deus etiam ante Principium. Et quia ipse quoque Sermo ratione consistens priorem eam ut substantiam suam ostendat. Tamen & sic nihil interest. Nam etsi Deus nondum sermonem suum miserat, proinde cum cum ipsa & in ipsâ ratione intrà semetipsum habebat tacitè cogitando, & disponendo secum quae per Sermonem monerat dicturus. Cum ratione enim sua cogitans atque disponens Sermonem eam efficiebat quam Sermone tractabat.— Vide cum tacitus tecum ipse congrederis, ratione hoc ipsum agi intra te occurrente ea tibi cum sermone ad omnem cogitatus tui motum, & ad omnem sensus tui pulsum. Quodcunque cogitaveris senno est, quodcunque senseris ratio est. Loquaris illud in animo necesse est, & dum loqueris, conlocutorem pateris sermonem in quo inest haec ipsa ratio, qua cum eo cogitans loquaris, per quem loquens cogitas.— Quanto ergo plenius hoc agitur in Deo, cujus tu quoque imago & similitudo censeris, quod habeat in se etiam tacendo rationem, & in ratione sermonem: Possum itaque non temere praestruxisse, & tunc Deum ante universitaris constitutionem solum non fuisse habentem in semetipso proinde rationem, & in ratione sermonem, quem secundum à se faceret agitando inter se. Haec vis & haec divini sensus dispositio apud Scripturas etiam in Sophiae nomine ostenditur. Ovid enim sapientius ratione Dei sive sermone? Itaque Sophiam quoque exaudi ut secundam personam conditam, Dominus creavit me initium viarum suarum. Nam ut primum Deus voluit●ea quae cum ratione & sermone disposuerat intra se, in substantius & species suas edere, ipsum primum protulit sermonem, habentem in se individuas suas rationes Sophiam, ut per●ipsum fierent universa per quem erant cogitata atque disposita, imo & facta jam quantum in Dei sensu— Tunc igitur ipse sermo speciem & ornatum suum sumit, sonum & vocem cum dicit Deus, fiat Lux. Haec est nativitas perfecta sermonis, dum ex Deo procedit, conditus ab eo primum ad cogitatum in nomine Sophiae, Dominus condidit me, initium viarum; dehine generatus ad effectum: Cum pararet coelum aderam illi: Exinde cum parem sibi faciens de quo procedendo filius factus est, primogenitus ut ante omnia genitus, & unigenitus ut solus ex Deo genitus. Vide plura ibid.  which was not yet an actual word, till God thereby spoke and commanded all things to be made, which was a kind of birth to him as such an actual word. That Justin speaks of this generation and emission is manifest in that he compares it to our utterance of words from our internal Reason, which is not diminished by that utterance, and withal asserts this generation to be not only by the Power, but the Will of God the Father, which is not proper to the Eternal Emanation. Now Justin's meaning is, that this Power (called among other Terms the Logos) was of the Father's substance, from which he was not divided by this progressive emission or nativity, and that after this progression into the World from the Father he has subsisted in making several appearances in it, being never called back from the World again, as the Rays of the Sun are upon the setting, but remaining and subsisting in the World as a Fire does that is kindled from another, being not drawn back again into that from whence it was kindled. This appears further to be his Sense from the like Doctrine of Tatian, 
* Con. Gent.  who after he had taught that God the Father had before the Creation the Logos subsistent in him, at length thus speaks; By the Will of God's simplicity the Logos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 goes forth, and going forth not in vain. [〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 per vacuum] he becomes the first born production 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Spirit. But thus he became by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 communication, not abscission. For that which is cut off is separated from its first original, but that which is Communicated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being endowed with its proper function, did not leave him from whence it was taken void of the Logos. For as many Fires are kindled from one Torch, and the light of the first Torch is not diminished through the kindling of many Torches: So also the going forth out of the power of his Father did not render his Father void of Reason, or without the Logos. So all the discourse is about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which Justin and Tatian both make a kind of nativity or production, and the Simile is applied only thereto, not the eternal Emanation of its subsistence from the Father. Now the Nicene Creed in this form Light of Light, hath respect to the Original of the Essential and Eternal Subsistence of the Logos, to wit, whence he is what he is, that is, God and Light, and defines that he is God of God, and Light of Light essentially, not mentioning his Office in the Creation, till after other interposed Articles of his Being and Subsistence. And for the truth of this sense in the Nicene Creed, I appeal to the suffrage of all Antiquity. So then these places of Justin and Tatian touching only the prosiliency of the Son from the Father to create all things, by which the Coeternal Wisdom had a kind of probletick nativity of an actual Word, pertain not to the matter of this Light of Light in the Nicene form. But doth not Justin say, that the Sun and its Ray are not two really, but only nominally? I grant he does so, but this in concession to the pertinacy of the Opponents, who obstinately urged this, that the Light of the Sun is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unsubsistent virtue, and so the Logos likewise: Not that otherwise Justin would have waved the Simile of the Sun and his Rays, which had its Authority in the Scriptures; to satisfy therefore the perverters of a Simile otherwise good did Justin wave it, and chose that of Fires. And yet what is it that Justin illustrates thereby? Not the manner how the Logos eternally issues from and subsists in his Father, no, nor the manner of this prosiliency to the Creation, but only the non-diminution of the Father by this prosiliency, or non-separation of substance therein, and the substantial permanency of the Logos in the World, after this prosiliency, without revocation out of it back again: Whereas his Lordship fixes his Figures of Candles on the conceits of the Fathers, concerning the foecundity in the Divine Essence, and the essential Eductions of the two last from the first. So then these places give no colour to that Opprobrium. But though this be a full answer, yet will I ex abundanti adventure further to consider the Antiquity of the Simile of the Sun Rays, and how it came to be perverted by Justin's Adversaries, and therefore waved by him. It is evident therefore, that though Justin greatly admired the Platonic Philosophy before he turned Christian; yet after that he admired the Theology taught in the Church by Theories received from the Scriptures, in which also the better part of the Jews agreed. Now it is certain that 
* Prov. 8.22, etc.  Solomon's Proverbs and the 
† Sap. Sal. c. 7. c. 8. c. 9 c. 11. c. 12.  Theories thereupon in the Apocryphal Books of the Wisdom of Solomon 
† Eccl. c. 1. c. 24.  and Ecclesiasticus teach the Deity, Consubstantiality, Generation, and this Progression of the Divine Wisdom. And by the Jewish Author of the Wisdom of Solomon 
* Ch. 7.26.  he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, Ray of the everlasting Light, and according to that Hebrew Notion the Divine Author 
† Hebr. 1.3.  to the Hebrews calls Christ the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Father's Glory. So than it seems hence, that the Ancient pious Jews looked on the Wisdom of God, as a Personal Companion with God, issuing from him as a Ray from the glorious Luminary the Sun. This Wisdom, as by it God spoke and commanded the Creation of all things, or as being that Archetypal Reason whence the World was form, was called by the Hellenist Jews Logos, and was looked on as a Son, a Personal Minister and Angel of God in the Creation, Providence, and Revelations. This being then their celebrated and traditional Theology, the next Curiosity was to inquire into his generation and descent. And here no wonder if that of Esaias 53.8. most agreeably quadrated to the Jewish ignorance, Who shall declare his generation? Yet for this they go back to their great Master Moses, who declared that God spoke the Fiat of all things, and therein therefore they conceive a certain Production and Genesis of their Logos, his internal conception being the geniture, and its emission into its effects its nativity, after the manner that our Notions are conceived and offered in our voice. And this I believe is that which 
* Philo de Mund. Opific. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & an'ea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Philo meant, that God did voluntarily prefigure in himself the Archetypal World, which is his Logas, after the manner of all Artificers that propose Schemes to themselves according to which they perform their external works. For as Philo does not say that God made or created, but only prefigured in himself the archetypal World; so by that he only means, that of all the Ideas in the Divine Mind, of which consists the Eternal Reason and Wisdom of God, God chose that of this World to be the pattern of what he would create by it, and according to it. For one cannot think, that so great a Man as Philo should think, that ever there was any imaginable point or time, when God's essential reason was not, or was without the Ideas of all things possible. I take it therefore, that the Eternal Reason, which with all other possible Ideas, eternally had in it the Idea of such a World (as ours is) possible, is by Philo conceived to be in this Idea designed by God, for an actual pattern and principle also of this future World, and so in this Respect the Logos and first begotten Son of God. And from this Jewish fountain proceed the like Notions in the Platonic Theology. Now hereupon Justin disputing with Jews, does in the first citation above made argue with them upon the Theology of their Fathers 
* Philo. de Confus. Dialect. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & add verb. Zach. 6.12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Vid. Euseb. Praep. Evan. l. 11. c. 15.  declared by Philo, to whose very words he seems to have had an especial respect, if you but compare them. But now the Sadduces, that had not Religion enough to believe any Angels or noetick Being's, denied all this, and to evade the force of Moses his Testimonies (whose Books only they admitted) they grant indeed 
† Calv. Instit. l. 1. c. 14. S. 9  that the Power of God appeared to the Fathers, and was called Angel, as delivering God's Will; but not as really a subsistent Spirit, but only an agitated Virtue. And I indeed am of opinion, that after Christianity, and our Doctrines of Christ as the Divine Logos increased, the Jews quitted their former Theology of the Logos so far, as herein to admit Sadducism, and to deny his Sonship, Personality, and Angelical Ministration to his Father. And as Trypho himself looks on the pre-existence of the Messiah, as the Divine Logos, to be an incredible Paradox; so those others that Justin says were willing to preoccupate him with those Answers which he there recites and refutes, seem to be perfect Sadduces in this Point of the Logos, and all Angels; and those some of Trypho's Company. But whether they were Jewish Sadduces, or some Heretics of a pretended Christian Character; it is plain they used the old Traditional Simile of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or light of the Sun, on purpose to destroy the Traditions of Angels, and consequently the Personality and Office of the Logos. Thus say they, our Tradition represents the Powers apparent, as mere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, mere impersonal unsubsistent rays, that abide no longer than their Office, but return again to their original presently after, as the light goes off when the Sun sets. So all this put together proves, that the Simile of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was used in the old Traditional Theology of the Jews, and continued among Christians, but was perverted by Sadduces, especially since Christianity, to oppose our other Theological Theories; and therefore Justin waved it to avoid the wrangles of those Jews he then dealt with. And hence, notwithstanding all such Jews or Sadduceans, the Christian Church still ever kept this Simile, and always alleged it to the explication of the Nicene form, without fear of being impeached of Sabellianism. But as for Justin's Simile of several Fires, and Tatian's several Torches, though the invaluable Dr. Bull (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) hereby well shows, that these Ancients held the Homoousion, yet 
* Bull Defen. Fid. Nie. p. 357. Similia autem, quae post ea quae hue usque explicavimus, adbibet Tatianus, ad mysterium, sive aeternae productionis, sive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, utcunque i●●●strandum, nolo omnino praestare, etc.  he confesses Tatian's Simile (which is the same with Justin's) to be lame, and such as he will not make out, and so with this note I conclude this long disquisition.  
§. 9 But before we leave this our form of Faith, it may not be amiss to find it out a better Original. Now the Glorious purity of the Divine Essence is such, that for it we have no adequate conception, and therefore we are forced to celebrate it by names of the greatest Glories and Purities, which we know, and which seem by the intention of God in Nature to be Symbols of it. And of all these the most Excellent is Light. This in General St. Paul 
* Eph. 5.13.  excellently defines, that 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc.  whatsoever doth make manifest is Light, according to the Greek derivation of the Word. And accordingly the Vrim in the Pontifick Pectoral is by the Septuagint rendered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. So that that which is most excellently manifeslative, that is the most perfect and true Light. Of these there must be two sorts according to the two great parts of the Mundane System, i. e. intellectual and corporeal, and of these the intellectual are really the nobler, and of these the manifestative Light of the Deity must be the truest and highest of all, upon which not Manichean darkness can border. Hence St. John saith, that 
* 1 Joh. 1.5.  God is light, and in him is no darkness at all, which is originally true of God the Father, and as really true of the Son and Holy Spirit. For of the Son the same St. John saith, 
† Joh. 1.9.  That he is the true Light that Lighteth every Man that cometh into the World; and if true, than not Parabolical or Metaphorical Only. So that as the Scriptures teach the Father to be originally God, and the Son really God of God the Father, so when they teach God the Father to be true original Light, and the Son to be true Light also, by immediate consequence they teach the Son to be true Light of Light Original, like that Text which the Fathers apply to this purpose; In thy Light shall we see Light. So that our Light of Light is not the product of a Simile in two Candles, but a literal truth revealed in the Scriptures, and thence as truly taken as God of God. And we may as well deny the reality and truth of the Life of God, deny him to be the living God, though he himself swears by that Life, and attests the truth of it, as to deny that he is true Light, which is expressly asserted of the Father, and the Son. Now the Son being what he is from the Father, here is literal Scripture for Light of Light, Light indeed inaccessible, yet Light true and essential. And from hence I dare deduce the Nicene form, instead of that Chandler's Shop, whence his Lordship's fancy had its illumination. Here then will I fix his Lordship in this Question; Whether the Logos the Son of God be really what the Scripture calls him true Light, and Life? If not, I yield the Argument, but at his Lordship's peril. But if he really be, than the Creed is true without a Metaphor from Divine Revelation, not from humane conceits and adumbrations. As for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I grant it a term metaphorical, but that is nor in the Creed, perhaps, because a Simile, and the same like all Similes, below the dignity of the Hypostasis represented thereby; but however this is nothing to his Lordship's pretty Simile, that he found out for the good old Faith and Fathers; but the Light of Light is as literally true, as any thing spoken of God can be, or is in Holy Scripture.  
§. 10. But supposing many Fathers had borrowed their dim light from these Candles, yet it seems it led them like an Ignis fatuus into strange brakes, if, as his † Lordship taxes them, 
* P. 31.  in this way of explaining this matter they have said many things, which intimate that they believed an inequality between the Persons, and a subordination of the second and third to the first. That the Fathers do teach a Pensonal Gradation or Subordination in the Deity Igrant, and for the account hereof, I refer to Dr. Bull's fourth Section of his Great Monument of the Faith. But had these Fathers fallen into the conceit of this Simile of Souls propagated from Souls, or Candles lighted from Candles, I cannot see how they could have bended it to assimilate such, or any Subordination. For there is none such between Souls propagated from Souls, or Candles lighted from Candles, though there be succession of time. Beside Inequality and Subordination either Respects, Essences, or Persons, and his Lordship ought to have named the particular sort, lest his Reader should be apt to mistake, that these Fathers held an essential Inequality and Subordination, as many Heresies did, and the terms to common Ears will seem to import; but this he leaves undetermined, that we may not see him in the dark. Besides, even in the Personal Subordination his Lordship ought to have been clear, that it signifies no proper Inferiority or Subjection, such as is between supreme and inferior Authorities among Men, the plenitude of the Highest not being imparted to the Subject Governor, which no Fathers assert in the Trinity; and yet the terms of Inequality and Personal Subordination simply set without an explanatory guard will to common senses suggest this wrong Notion as the Sense of the Fathers, though their Subordination is explicitly no other, but what consists in the order of Emanations, and the Operations ad extra accordingly, the Father originally working all things by the Logos and the Holy Spirit, who therefore were commonly called 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Ministers and Officers to the Father, till Heretics took up their Words and Authorities for a Cavil to a greater degradation than ever was intended or would have been endured by those Fathers. Wherefore his Lordship is obliged by all Laws of integrity to show the exorbitancy of this Subordination which they all own, or if not, to prove that these Ancient Souls and Candlesticks propagated the Doctrine of any other Subordination, which I dare undertake he can never do, but without doing it must incur the guilt of defaming the Innocent that are now with God.  
§. 11. But yet it seems ill-luck would have it, that these subordinating Fathers in the very career of their exorbitant Subordination, fell into such Notions of the Homoousion, which overturn their own dear Subordination, 
† P. 31.  So that by the same Substance or Essence they do in many places express themselves, as if they only meant the same being in a general sense, as all Humane Souls are of the same Substance, that is, the same Order, or sort of Being's, and they seemed to entitle them to different Operations, not only in an Oeconomical way, but thought that the one did that which the other did not. Now supposing this had been true, how could they at the same time have fallen into the subordinating Heresy? For this Heresy is at least Arian, grounding the Subordination of Dignity on Inequality of Essence; but all Humane Souls are essentially equal as are all individuals of the same Species, however entitled to different Operations. But in truth his Lordship falsely charges them with a mere specific Homoousion in the Trinity. I own they bring it for illustration so far, that as separate individuals of the same kind are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and thereby is implied an equality of Essence, 
* Dionys. Alexand. ap. Athan. de Syn. Nsc. con. Arian. Decret. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.— Athan. de common. Essent. Pat. & Fil. & Spir. Sti. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (against his Lordship's different Operations) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉—  so the same word used in the Godhead of the Father and the Son, excludes that essential inequality of the Arians, which his Lordship would yet trump upon these very Fathers. But then the Fathers teach a proper originary Homoousion, by which the Father communicates his own Substance to the Son, and thereupon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the essential inseparability of these Persons in the Godhead, which a mere specific Homoousion will not reach to. But thus the argument runs strongly against the Heretics; If Fathers, Sons, and Kinsmen be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as being of the same nature, and descended from the same loins, if more loosely all things of the same kind are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, though separate and much differing in shape, humours, and actions one from another, how much more are the Father and the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Divine Nature, that are in all respects undivided, and without any dissimilitude or inequality? But, though this be the strongest way of arguing against Heretics, from the specific Homoousion to the individual, by showing that the term in general admits different Modes or Degrees of coessentiality or connaturality, of which the individual is the greatest and exactest in the Trinity; yet even simply the term itself in its utmost generality, and without restriction will by consequence infer a co-eternity in the Persons. Let the Term therefore open to the losest Importance, let it be fancied that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are Three Persons of one common Kind diversely acting in themselves; yet even this Notion will hold them to be equally of an Eternal and Divine Essence, which was strong against Arians, Photinians, and Macedonians; but it not being so clear against Tritheism, therefore all the Fathers asserted the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and the origination of the Son, and Holy. Spirit, inseparably in the Father on purpose to disclaim and silence those charges of Tritheism, which yet his Lordship does not blush to fix on them (in words to be considered immediately) notwithstanding their express remonstrances and demonstrations to the contrary. And yet after all, supposing that the cavils of the Heretics had forced the Fathers into such forms of argumentation, as might then appear expedient and good ad hominem, which now in an Age of other apprehensions seem not so, these are not to be stretched by us to reproachful and unintended Consequences, of which the Church in those Ages knew them to be innocent, and therefore gloried in their Piety. But, as to the diversity of Operations, with which his Lordship twits them, whatsoever forms may drop from them in popular or homiletical discourses (in which no Men take so much care to be critical as affective) I believe his Lordship can produce no Divine Operations ad extra so applied to one Person, as positively to exclude all concurrence in the others. For I wots not that they oppose St. Paul's 
* 1 Cor. 12.6.  Doctrine, that there are diversities of Operations, but the same God which worketh all in all.  
§. 12. And yet we find his Lordship 
† P. 42.  falling into that very guilt with which he upbraids the Fathers, by framing worse Similes, (as shall appear in due place) and from them framing a Theological conceit, that in the Divine Essence, which is the simplest and perfect est Unity, there may be Three, that may have a diversity of Operations, as well as Oeconomies. Here his Lordship did not much remember St. Paul above-cited, nor himself in his 31. page on which we now are. But whether this may be so, or not so, God knows, it follows not from the Simile of a compounded Nature, operating diversely from Principles, Parts, and Virtues specifically and naturally opposite, which in his Lordship's expression, may be brought to the Terms of a Contradiction, of which. I suppose, there is no capacity in the most simple Nature of the Deity.  
§. 13. But let us see the foul aspect of the Homoousion in the Writings of these Fathers, and what Reformation followed, thereupon. This was, saith his Lordship, 
* P. 31.  more easily apprehended, but it seemed so directly to assert three Gods, which was very contrary to many most express declarations both in the Old and New Testament, in which the Unity of the Deity is so often held forth, that therefore others took another way of explaining this, making it their foundation, that the Deity was one numerical Being. In this Reflection here are two things, which in his Lordship's judgement (and he says the judgement of the after Ancients) seem directly to assert three Gods, viz. their Arguments from a specisick Homoousion, and their ascribing divers Operations. The Jews and Greeks of old charged us 
* Athan. con. Arian. Orat. 4.  with Polytheism, on the account of our Trinity, and his Lordship here seems to justify and second the Infidels in that Charge against all the Fathers, who argued from the specific Homoousion, and distinct Operations, which I think were well nigh all the Greek Fathers, after the Nicene Council, even Athanasius, who thus 
* Ubi sup.  argues, and yet dissolves the Crime of Polytheism, which his Lordship with Jews and Heathens lays upon them, but from which I have cleared them also §. 11. But if divers Operations as well as the Arguments from a specific Homoousion seem directly to assert three Gods; how came his Lordship to grant such a conception allowable, that there may be three, that may have a diversity of Operations as well as Oeconomies? For if he be no Tritheist in allowing this Conception, why does he reflect on it as Tritheite in the Fathers? And yet his Lordship diversifies the Operations much more exclusively (each of other Person) than any Fathers do, and in such a manner as infers a Tetrad in the Deity, in which according to his Lordship the Father must be a second Principle. For his words run thus; 
† P. 42.  In the Divine Essence, which is the simplest and perfectest Unity, there may be three, that may have a diversity of Operations, as well as Oeconomies. By the first God may be supposed to have made and to govern all things, by the second to have actuated and been most perfectly united to the Humanity of Christ, and by the third to have inspired the Penmen of the Scriptures, and the Workers of Miracles, and still to renew and purify all good Minds; all which notwithstanding we firmly believe there is but one God. Now whatsoever acts by another is distinct from that other by which it acts, and prior in the Agency by the order of Reason. If then God acts by the first, which is the Father, that God is in Nature and Subsistence antecedent to the Father, and the first hath a former; and if God who acts by three be distinct from those three by which he acts, there are then four Distincts and Distinctions in the Deity, or else the three are not essential in the Deity, but only operant and unsubstantial Powers and Qualities. Yet is it against Faith to say that God acts or creates by the Father, because it makes him secondary by an unallowable conception, the Canonical Faith herein being that God original, or God the Father acts by his Son and Holy Spirit. But whether we make the Father primary or secundary, if we attribute the Creation to him exclusively of the Logos, and Holy Spirit, and the Inspirations to the Spirit exclusively of the Father and the Son, and the Divine Operations in the Union of our Nature, with the Logos to the Logos, only exclusively of the Father and Holy Spirit, according to his Lordship's scheme of conceptions, we rove from truth, from Scripture, from Catholic Tradition, which ascribes these to the single Persons by a peculiar respect of Oeconomick Order, but not by an exclusive propriety of Operation. And, yet, though his Lordship recommends this conception, of such a separate Agency in his three Divine Anonymities, yet can he find no such incongruities in the received Doctrines of those his despised Fathers. But 'tis time to take breath, and consider what reformation following extinguished this Tritheism in the Catholic Church and Faith. Why, Others therefore laid another foundation in one numerical Deity or Being. Now what is this, but to insinuate, nay, openly to assert that the former Fathers, that believed Emanations and Foecundity, and argued from the specific Homoousion, with the respective Operations, did not fundamentally own one individual Deity? And yet how could they that stuck to the Nicene Creed, deny the fundamental Article of one God, which yet all the taxed Fathers defended as the Faith of all the former Fathers, who made the Monarchy a fundamental Principle against Gentilism, and were herein exactly and professedly followed by all their Successors? Nay, the feature of his Lordship's reflection seems to attaint all Antiquity of Tritheism, till after the Doctors of the specific Homoousion and distinct Operations ceased, as not holding the Unity of the Godhead; for his conjunction therefore makes this Unity a post-nate Principle, taken up upon the apprehension that the former Doctrines of the Church were Tritheite, according to his Lordship's general Imputation.  
§. 14. And now it seems high time to observe upon what fancies (for they are represented as such) these Tritheite Principles were reform by these over- seri patrum nepotes. * They then observed, 
† P. 32.  that the Sun besides its own Globe had an Emanation of Light, and another of Heat, which had different Operations, and all from the same Essence. And that the Soul of Man had both Intallection and Love, which flowed from its Essence. So they conceived that the Primary Act of the Divine Essence was its Wisdom, by which it saw all things, and in which as in an Eternal Word it designed all things. This they thought might be called the Son, as being the generation of the Eternal Mind, while from the fountain Principle, together with the inward Word, there did arise a Love that was to issue forth, and that was to be the Soul of the Creation, and was more particularly to animate the Church, and in this Love all things were to have life and favour. This was rested on, and was afterwards dressed up with a great deal of dark nicety by the Schools, and grew to be the universally received explanation. So that it seems these conceptions, these reforming conceptions, are very novel, and the Doctrine derived from them became not universal, but by the Definitions of the Schools.  
§. 15. But before we come to justify their due Antiquity, let us consider whether, as his Lordship represents them, the Tritheism of the former Fathers were really amended by them. For in this Simile here are two Emanations from the Globe of the Sun, Light and Heat, which have different Operations, which if they represent different Operations of the different Persons in the Deity, this reduces that Tritheism which the Simile was designed to avoid. So unhappy were these Theological Tinkers in mending the former Theories.  
§. 16. But however, let us see whether these Theories had not really a more early Original and Reception in the Universal Church. I begin with the Simile of the Sun; 
† Apolog c. 21. sup. citat. §. 7. Vide.  Now Tertullian the most ancient of all our Latin Writers used this Simile, and says, that in respect thereof the Logos was ever backward celebrated under this Title as the Ray of God. So 
* Instit. l. 4. c. 29. ille tanquam Sol, hic quasi radius à Sole porrectus.  Lactantius had learned the same Simile from Tertullian, or his Church. So 
† In Evan. Joh. c. 5. Tract. 20. Si separas candorem Solis à Sole, separa Verbum à Patre.  St. Austin (an African likewise) had from his Fathers derived the same Example of the Sun. The Greek Fathers that lived in and just after the Nicene Council so often, so uniformly, and canonically use it (who yet argued from the specific Sense of the Homoousion) that the citations of them would fill a Volume; so this Fancy is not later than these Tritheit Homooufiasts. And to let his Lordship see, that it was an Ante-Nicene Simile, not only the Scripture term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may convince, but the express production of it 
* Theognost. ap. Athan. de Syn. Nic. con. Arian. Decret. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉— 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  by Theognostus, who still maintains the Old Jewish and Primitive Simile against all Sadducean and Sabellian perversions of it, such as we above saw practised by the Adversaries of this truth in the days of Justin Martyr. See above. §. 8.  
§ 17. Secondly the Antiquity of the Simile taken from our Minds admits so large a Vindication, that to quote 
† Arm. Alex. Protrep. Tertull. adv. Prax. Theoph. ad Autolyo. Orig. con. Cells. l. 7. & de Princip. l. 1. c. 2. Euseb, con. Marcell. l 2. c. 17. Athan. Syn. Nic. con. Hoer. Arian. Decret. & con. Arian. Orat. 2. Orat. 3. Orat. 4. & con. Gent. Greg. Nyss. de hom. Opific. c. 5. Greg. Naz. Irenic. 2. Ambros. de dignit. human. conduit. Aug. in Evan. Joh. Tract. c. 1.  sayings at large would make a little compendious Library of the Fathers, and therefore to avoid a bulk, I must refer to a few Authors and Authorities in the Margin, that are confessedly of a much greater antiquity than his Lordship assigns to the invention or use of this Simile, who yet resemble the Theology of the Trinity by the image thereof in our Minds, which the Scriptures affirming to be created after the Image, and in the Likeness of God, recommended to those Fathers, and us to learn Theories of God by those glances of his Divinity, with which he has both adorned and enlightened our intellectual Powers, from those inspired strains of Theology, that so expressly suit with that Idea we have of our own internal Principles.  
§. 18. But now let us further try, whether his Lordship, 
* P. 32.  that flouts the Fathers for their many impertinent Similes, does not pretend to supply us with others in our own Nature, which really are much more impertinent to ●e conception of the Trinity. We do pl●●●ly perceive, 
† P. 41, 42.  saith he, i●●●ur selves two, if not three Principles of Operation, that do not only differ 〈◊〉 Understanding and Will, which are only different Modes of thinking, but differ in their Character and way of Operation. All our cogitations and reasonings are a sort of Acts, in which we can reflect on the way how we operate. We perceive that we act freely in them, and that we turn our Minds to such objects and thoughts as we please. But by another Principle, of which we perceive nothing, and can reflect upon no part of it, we live in our Bodies, we animate and actuate them, we receive sensations from them, and give motions to them, we live and die, and do not know how all this is done. It seems to be from some Emanation from our Souls, in which we do not feel that we have any liberty, and so we must conclude, that this Principle in us is natural and necessary. In acts of Memory, Imagination, and Discourse, there seems to be a mixture of both Principles, or a third that results out of them. For we feel a freedom in one respect, but as for those marks that are in our brain, that set things in our memory, or furnish us with words, we are necessary Agents; they come in our way, but we do not know how: We cannot call up a figure of things, or words at pleasure; some disorder in our Mechanism hides or flattens them, which when it goes off, they start up and serve us, but not by any act of our Understanding and Will. Thus we see, that in this single undivided Essence of ours, there are different Principles of Operation, so different as liberty and necessity are from one another. I am far from thinking that this is a proper explanation or resemblance of this mystery, (and here I indeed jump in judgement with his Lordship) yet it may be called in some sort an illustration of it, since it shows us from our own Composition, that in one Essence there may be such different Principles, which in their proper Character may be brought to the terms of a contradiction of being free and not free. So in the Divine Essence, which is the simplest and perfectest Unity, there may be three that may have a diversity of Operations, etc. Tenderden Steeple and Goodwin Sands! This is a worthy Simile indeed (to supplant that scouted one of the Ancients) in which is no representation of the Logos, and its Parent Principle, nor of the Spirit of Holiness that is in the Father and the Son, none of their co-essentiality, co-eternity, or order, all which are resembled in that Simile which this undermines. But however, let us try the stuff, first generally, and then particularly. In the general view here are two Principles of necessity and freedom. The necessity consists in our being, and its Physical Operations of Life and Death, the liberty in the Elective faculty of our Minds. Now, what can this resemble in God, but the natural necessity of the Divine Life and the Operations, (if we may so speak) by which the Son is generated from the Father, and the Holy Spirit derived from both, and the liberty of all God's other acts? But this cannot amount to a Trinity, nor resemble contrary or different Principles, since God's liberty of acting differs not really from his necessary existence. And both that necessity and liberty equally agree to every Person in the Trinity, and so cannot resemble their distinction. But now we will be more particular, and trace these Philosophic dictates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that so we may see the depths of them. First then his Lordship cannot tell whether there be in us two or three Principles of Operation, only if there be not three, be sure there are two; so than we are sure of a Figure for two, but not for three Principles, or rather Persons in the Deity. This at first setting out is like to be a sweet illustration of the Trinity! I doubt 'tis cracked through some disorder in its Mechanism. But whether two or three, they differ not like Understanding and Will that are but different Modes of thinking. Now if we take Understanding and Will for the Principles of actual intellection and volition, as his Lordship's comparison of Principles to them seems to do, than I deny them to be Modes of thinking, since Principles are not the Modes of their Principiates, but give them to their Principiates. If his Lordship means not the Principles, but only the acts of intellection and volition, than I deny volition to be a Mode of thinking. And whether you conceive the acts of intellection, and will mixed or pure, yet according to the true abstract distinctions of them they are not divers Modes of the same specific Act, but Acts whose formal reason is specifically different. Now as trifling as all this is, and seems to be, yet his Lordship seems to have had a great feteh in it against the Canonical Similitude of our Minds, lest Understanding and Will, being near the same with Understanding and Love, and flowing from our Mind as its Parent, should be thought a fair Simile for the Trinity; for this cause it was necessary that they should be but two Modes of thinking. This being premised, our cogitations and reasonings are acts of a free Principle, but our animal Operations are necessary. But what is this to the Theory of the Divine Nature? For these contrarieties of Operations proceed from the composition of contrary Substances, Soul and Body; whereas the Deity is most simple and uncompounded, and consequently cannot be represented by any compositum whatsoever, especially a compound of contraries. Well! but necessary Operations of the animal Life, seem to be from some Emanations from our Souls. Very well! and do these seeming Emanations represent an Idea of the Emanations of the second and third Person? I doubt not; for those in the Deity are but two, but these of our Souls on our Bodies (if they were Emanations, as they are not) are very manifold. But if they be representative Emanations, why then his Lordship here goes beyond due bounds in being pleased with the Notions and Similes of Emanations, or else these Notions are regular, and then why are the Fathers taxed for exorbitancy in them? But if these Emanations of the animal life are not representative, why are they brought in here under the term of Emanations, to make us believe them representative of the Divine Emanations? So much then for a Dyad representative. Now a Kingdom for a third. Well then we have in acts of Memory, Imagination, and Discourse a mixture of both Principles, (i. e. free and necessary) or a third that results out of them. As for his mixtures, I leave them purely to himself; but for his third resulting Principle I am to seek. For it must be a Principle that is neither free, nor necessary, and such a one is hard to be got for love or money; but however, that a Principle, neither free, nor necessary, should result from two, whereof one is free, and the other necessary, will I doubt bring his Lordship of mere necessity to the terms of a contradiction, how uncontradicted soever he affects to be.  
§. 19 Advance we now from the old Similes of the Fathers to the Theology itself represented by them. Now it is not a novel Observation or Fancy, as his Lordship snearingly suggests, but the ancient, internal, Catholic, and substantial Wisdom of the Faith, that the 
* Iren. l. 2. c 47. Deus enim, cum sit totus Mens, totus Ratio, & totus Spiritus operans, etc. Octau. ap. Minuc. Foelic. Quid aliud & à nobis Deus, quam Mens, & Ratio, & Spiritus praedicatur? Greg. Naz. ad Patr. cum Eccl. Naz. ipsi permisit. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (scil. lablorum) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad Graec. Inlid. Ser. 2. de Principio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  three adorable Persons in the Godhead, are an Eternal and Substantial Mind, Reason, and Holy Spirit. Now to avoid all cavil and equivocation, it is not unnecessary that I state the exactest Notions of the Fathers in these Terms of their Theology; For that the words being of very various and involved significations in common use, will be liable to easy mistakes in this profound and critical Theory, especially when Readers shall discover sometimes the same terms to be promiscuously used for different Persons.  
§. 20. I begin therefore with that of Mind. This most properly and primitively signifies the noetick or intellectual Principle in all rational Being's, the Spring, the Fountain, the Original of those intellectual Graces and Perfections, that are found in such Spiritual Natures. But by an easy Trope it is also very commonly used in all sorts of Writings for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Conceptions, Counsels, Sentiments, Propensions, and Resolves of the Mind, as, were it necessary, might be shown in infinite instances. But thirdly there hath been a Philosophic and Artificial Sense of the word of a more late invention, setting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Minds for single Spirits. Now the exact Notion of Mind as the first Principle in the Deity is the first of these, the proper and the Primitive, as it is the Original of God's Essential Reason, and Holy Spirit. Now according to this exact and canonical Notation the term Mind is not only an Essential, but a Paternal and Producent Character, so that speaking with canonic accuracy we cannot say, that there are three Minds, for this is directly to assert three Fathers, and by consequence three Sons, or Logoi, and so likewise three Holy Spirits, since every such Mind must have its Reason and Spirit, of which it is and must be a natural and necessary original. To assert three Minds in the sense of Spirits is directly to assert three Gods, it being the same thing, and as irregular to say, there are in the Deity three Spirits, as three Gods. But if we will take the term equivocally in different Senses, than we find some Father's calling not only 
* Athenag. Leg. p. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at prius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scil quod dixerat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Sic forte intelligendum illud p. 110. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Theoph. add Autolyc. p. 129. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (Logon) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (Pater) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. Protrep. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at Strom. l. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, de codem Logo.  the Father the Mind in distinction from the Logos, but the Logos also tropically by the name of Mind, as being the essential 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Reason of the Father, of the same Essence, and therefore in respect of that Essence loosely called by the same name, according perhaps to the Pattern and Language of Plato, the Philosophic Ancients using this homonymy, according to the taste of the Platonic Philosophers, (which were of so great credit among the Greeks) whom our Worthies cited as of Authority with the Gentiles in their Apologeticks in order to their more easy conversion. And yet neither in this laxer acception or comprehensiveness have I ever read among our Ancients the assertion of three Minds. For using the term mind in an essential Notion only, not a paternal, the assertion of three Minds would have looked like three Essences.  
§. 21. But though we have sufficiently proved our Doctrine not to be a novel whimsy, but a Primitive and Catholic Tradition; yet will I prove its foundations to be really Divine. For the Son of God is so called with relation to a Father from whom he derives his proper Subsistence and Character. And this Son of God the Father is he whom St. John calls the Logos according to the old Jewish Theology, God of God, the internal substantial Reason of God the Father, in whom or who is the Image of his Father, by whom the Father made and governs all things. And from hence this hath ever been the avowed Faith of all the 
* Iren. l. 1 c. 1. l. 2. c. 55. l. 3. c. 18. l. 4. c. 14. c. 28. c. 37. c. 75. l. 5. c. 6 Just. Martyr. Apol. 2. Dial. cum Tryph. Clem. Alex. Protrep. Tertull Praesc. & adv. Jud. & con. Martion. l. 2. & con. Prax. Novatian. de Trinit. Euseb. Praep. Eu. l. 7. c. 15. con. Marcell. l. 2.17. & Eccl. Hist. l. 1. c. 2. Panegyrista Paulini ap. Eus. Eccl. Hist. l. 10. Constant. ad Sanctor. Caetum ap. Euseb. c. 9 Pastor Hermae. l. 3. Similit. 9 Athenag. Legat. Theoph. add Autolyc. Orig. con. Cells. l. 1. l. 2. l. 3. l. 4. l. 5. l. 6. l. 7. & de Princip. l. c. 2. Cypr. de Idol. Vanit. Basil. con. Eunom. l. 5. & Serm. in Princip. Naz. de sacr. Pasch. Prudent. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. de Roman. Martyr & in Apotheof. Greg. Thaumat. ad Origen. Athan. ubique Pseudo-Ambros. de fide con. Arian. Aug. con. 5. Haeres. & in Evan. Joh. c. 1. Tract. 1, 2. & de Tempor. Ser. 190. & infinities plura reperies ejusdem generis apud omnes.  Primitive, as well as succeeding Ages, to be sealed with their Blood and Sufferings, and was not a mere upstart project to supply the former Tritheism taught in the more ancient Church. Now, if according to the common and universal Senses and Notions of all Men, the Mind is the Parent and Original of all actual Reason in it, then if the Divine Reason be the truest and most Essential Reason, the Parent Principle thereof must be the truest and most Essential Mind; which Principle of this Reason the Scripture having owned Paternal, it follows that God the Father is an Eternal Mind, having a coessential Reason for its coessential Issue, the perfect Image and Character of its Parent.  
§. 22. In the next place let us see, whether the Character of the Holy Spirit agrees well to the Substantial Love of God, according to the Doctrine of the traduced Ancients. Let it then be noted, that that Mind, in which a vital and consubstantial reason perfectly subsists, doth by that reason in one clear, intuitive, luminous, and Archetypal Idea discern all possible Forms, Essences, Habitudes, Powers, and Reasons of things, and therefore very particularly all the distinctive forms and differences of good and evil. From whence there must proceed in such a Mind and Reason a vital and essential Spirit (which we in our Language would perhaps call a Principle) of Holiness, to wit, an essential Love of all the Forms and Reasons of Good, and therein an essential aversation of all the kinds and degrees of Evil, this being but one and the same Spirit, having different aspects on different objects. Now without such a Spirit of Love and Holiness no being can be perfectly good or happy, since perfect goodness, as well as happiness, consists essentially in love and purity. Now the goodness of things must be the proper object of such Love, and must be discerned by that actual Reason, that contains in it the Ideas of all things possible. Whence this Love is as essential to the Deity as Reason, and thereupon the Apostle faith, 
† 1 Joh. 4.8.  that God is Love, the suum of which truth is nobly celebrated 
* Const. ad Sanct. Caet. ap. Eus. c. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  by the great Constantine, as the Doctrine which he had been taught by the Christian Fathers herein, according with the perpetual Theology of God's People, who ever acknowledge this Holiness of the Divine Wisdom and Spirit from its constant indication. For 
* Sap. Sal. 1, 3, 4, 5.  froward thoughts separate from God, and into a malicious Soul Wisdom will not enter, nor dwell in the Body that is subject unto sin. For the Holy Spirit of Discipline will fly deceit, and remove from thoughts that are without understanding, and will not abide when unrighteousness cometh in, for Wisdom is a loving Spirit, etc.  
§. 23. But here again a fresh difficulty arises from the homonymy of terms. For St. Paul calling our Lord 
† 1 Cor. 1.24.  the Wisdom of God, the generality and the exactest of the Fathers follow him in that style, and make the Wisdom and Logos to be the same subsistence distinct from the Holy Spirit. Some of the Ancients, as great as any, speaking distinctly 
* Iren. Theoph. Antiochen. p. 81. c. 108.114.  distinguish the Logos from the Sophia, and make the Sophia the Person of the Holy Spirit; and yet again at other times 
† Theoph. Antioch. p. 81.  confound the Logos and Sophia for the same second Person the Son, 
* Theoph. p. 81. Tertull.  whom also they call the Spirit of God the Father. Wherefore 'tis necessary to our Theory, that we remove this Cloud. And here we are to distinguish Wisdom into speculative, and practical, for which distinction there is apparent authority in the Scripture, and ground in our own inner Experience. Now the Reason of any Spiritual Nature is its formal proper speculative Wisdom, but an Holy Spirit and temper of Mind is the practical. In this latter sense the forequoted place out of the Apocryphal Wisdom calls the loving Spirit of God, or his Spirit of Discipline, Wisdom; but 
† Sap. Sal. 7.22, etc.  elsewhere the same Author Preaches, that in Wisdom, which is the Artificer of all things, there is a Spirit, which among other attributes is Holy, and loves the thing that is good, and is Almighty, where the in-existence of the Holy Spirit of Love in that Wisdom, the Artificer of all things puts a distinction between this Spirit and Wisdom, and so hereby Wisdom in this place, as well as by its Character, must be the Archetypal Logos, or Architectonick Reason of God the Father. And hence these ambiguous Fathers seem to have copied their Theories and Language, sometimes calling the Logos Wisdom, to wit the intuitive, sometime the Holy Spirit, as the practical Wisdom of God the Father. And so there are learned Men, that ground the alleged homonymy of the Word Spirit in some forms of Scripture. But I, that think the Scripture as a Rule for Canonic Theology, thinking it unsafe to fix any exorbitant Senses on the Terms expressive of the Trinity, without absolute necessity, am apt to think those Fathers called the Logos the Spirit of God sometimes, through some Scriptures by them so mistaken, or appearing in that sense to them, under a lose and general Notion, that whatsoever issues from the Essence of God the Father so issues by a Spiritual Efflux, or else is of a Spiritual Substance as the Father is, and so as Tertullian calls the Logos, Spirit of Spirit, and God of God. But since all these Fathers expressly own a Trinity of Persons, the third of which is signally characterized by the appropriate Title of Holy Spirit, there can be no doubt of the consonancy of their Faith to the Catholic Doctrine, and to this Theory of it in the Holy Spirit, which to serve his Lordship I am here to illustrate.  
§. 24. These Bars being thus removed, we shall proceed to examine on what ground this Substantial Love of God is called by the name of Spirit. Now this word, though so very variously significant, is however used either absolutely, as when it's said, God is a Spirit, or Angels are ministering Spirits, a Spirit hath not Flesh and Blood, and other say of the same formal intention in the Word, or else relatively and attributively to something whose Spirit it is, or is called. Of this latter form is the characteristic Title of the Spirit of God, or Holy Spirit of God and Christ, etc. And the Word Spirit thus relatively attributed to Being's simply immaterial denotes an active Principle, Power, or Virtue in them, and this either Potential, or Moral. Thus it is mentioned as a potential Principle; Josh. 5.1. Esa. 19.3. Luk. 1.17. as a moral Principle; Ezr. 1.1, 5. Psal. 32.2. and 34.18. and 51.10, 17. Esa. 57.15. Ezek. 11.19. and 36.26. Matth. 5.3. Luke 9.55. Joh. 4.23, 24. Rom. 8.15, 16. 1 Cor. 4.21. Eph. 4.23. 1 pet. 3, 4. and so in infinite other places. So likewise the Spirit of God seems oft to denote in him, what we commonly call a Principle acting potentially, but chief and most especially in the sanctifical Operations, of all which the Holy Spirit is the proper and immediate Spring and Original. Hence the Works of the Creation as attributed to the Spirit of God; Job 26.13. and 33.4. where I see no reason to departed from the ordinary and canonical and characteristic sense of the Term. From which places in my opinion we may best interpret, Gen. 1.2. where it is said, that the Spirit of God moved or hovered upon the face of the Waters. In this potential way of Operation, the Spirit of God acted the Prophets, Judges, and other Worthies of Israel in their mighty Words and Works, that exceeded the Power of Humane Nature, as may be seen in very many Texts of Scripture. Thus the Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin Mary, and the Power of the most High did  her, Luke 1.35. For I here prefer the Catholic Interpretation of the Creeds (which teach this to be the supervention of the Holy Spirit, from other like Texts, and Universal Tradition) before the sense of 
* Ad Autolyc. p. 81. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc.  Theophilus Antiochenus, who applies them to the Logos, as speaking by the Prophets, though the 
† Symb. Constantinop. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  Catholic Church hath determined the Divine Spirit that spoke by them, to be the third Person; Which Spirit acting Elias was feared by Obadiah, that it would carry the Prophet out of all discovery, 1 King. 18.12. And according to this potential notation, we call all subtle and vigorous Powers in Nature Spirits, as also the courage and activity of any animal. I know the Rabbins, Crellius, and others make this potential Spirit to be a created effluent Virtue; but the permanency of it in God, with its other properties and descriptions every where exhibited in the Scriptures, do evince the contrary, reason itself also witnessing, that God never was without an omnipotent Spirit of Holiness, which may very properly consist in the essential Love of God, than which what can be more vigorous, active, influential, and productive? We see how strong the Spring and Spirit of an ardent love is toward the most mighty adventures, and how infinitely more must it be in the Divine Nature, from which it gave Life and Spirit to universal Nature, and blessed every thing according to its order, and cherishes all things by a lively and penetrating Providence, and drives on all the Motions and Springs of the whole Creation, by a perpetual and constant impulse, and at times exerted miraculous Operations, to the manifestation of its transcendent Power, Goodness, and Holiness, and thereby to the conversion of Men to the Living God? But this Principle (if I may so call it without offence, as I design without error) more exhibits its own appropriate celebrated Character of Holy to our Conceptions, by actual Inspirations of Sanctity into all sanctified Minds. And such is the sense of the Catholic Antiquity. For being 
* Orig. Hom. 11. in Numer. 18. & de Princip. l. 1. c. 8. Greg. Thaumat. in Symbol. Revelat. Athan. con. Arium Disp. & Dial. de Trinit. Naz. de Heron Philosoph. Basil. con. Eunom. l. 5. de Sp. S. Episcop. Philosopho in Concil. Nicen. ap. Socr. Eccl. Hist. l. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pseudo-Chrys. in Matth. 7. Hom. 18. Aug. de verb. Dom. in Evan. Matth. c. 12. Ser. 11. Faustin. ad Flaccil. Imperat. de fide con. Arian.  original Holiness itself, it's most connatural and consimilar Operation is the sanctifical, for which cause it is signally called Holy, as the substantial immediate Principle of all communications of Sanctity and Goodness to the Creatures: And as a 
† Clem. Alex. Strom. l. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (Christiani) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  good and holy temper in the Soul of Man is called a good and holy Spirit, which therefore acts accordingly, and gives us thereby a Theory of the Holy Spirit of God; So the essential Spirit of Holiness in God, is (if my infirmities may be permitted to speak my sense) as it were the very temper of his Nature, called often also his Heart and Soul under the same connotation; which the impious Man is said to grieve; Esa. 63.10. Eph. 4.30. as being an internal and essential Principle offended by those Wits, to which it bears an eternal and unalterable aversion, which is also very strong and potential, being 
† Ambr. de dignit. hum. conduit. c. 2. Greg. Nyssen. de homin. Opisic. c. 5. Aug. in Ep. Job. Tract. 6. & in Evang. Job. c. 2. Tract. 9 & in c. 17. Tract. 105.  expressly called by some Father's the substantial Love of God from the Authority of St. John. From this property of Love, Goodness, and Holiness, it is called by St. Paul the Spirit of Holiness; Rom. 1.4. (for I see no reason to recede from the canonical propriety) and by Nehemias' and David the good Spirit of God teaching and leading Men unto righteousness. Neh. 19.20. Psal. 143.10. And the Psalmist describes the Holy Spirit of God, and a right Spirit in Man as consimilar Principles of moral Goodness, the one as the temper of the Divine, the other as the Temper of an Humane Mind. Psal. 51.10, 11. which being by Sanctification likened to the Spirit of God, is said to communicate of the Holy Spirit, 2 Cor. 13.13. Philip. 2.1. whereby we are said to be one Spirit with God, 1 Cor. 6.7. by being herein transformed into his Image, 2 Cor. 3.18. and purified in obeying the Truth by the Spirit unto an unfeigned love of the Brethren. 1 Pet. 1.22. And when St. Paul asserts the fruits of the Spirit to be Love, Joy, Peace, Long-suffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, Charity, Righteousness, and Truth, Gal. 5.22. Eph. 5.9. by the Fruit he shows the nature of the Root and Principle, viz. that the Spirit of God is by Nature Loving, Good, and Holy, and by Grace endearing and sanctifical. And this Character of the Spirit of God does also illustrate the potential Notion; for the more pure and unmixed any Powers are, the more quick and spirituous are their Faculties and Operations, from which invigorating influences of God's Holy Spirit, we are not only sanctified, but made fervent in Spirit, Rom. 12.11. and strengthened in our inner Man, Eph. 3.16. and armed against the Powers of Evil, Eph. 6.17. to mortify the deeds of the Body, Rom. 8.13. and to abound in hope through the Power of the Holy Ghost. Rom. 15.13. This is the mighty Spirit that acted Elias, this was that Spirit, that made Jeremy a defenced City, and an Iron Pillar, and brazen Walls against the whole Land, etc. Jer. 1.18, 19 and supported all the Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs against all the Powers of Hell and this World. And yet by what influence, but that of the Divine Holiness and Love, by which they were not only inspired, but inspirited with such holy ardours and rapturous affections of God, as made them to despise and triumph over all Oppositions, and to tread upon the Adder, and Scorpion, and all the Power of the Enemy? Now if this be nor true Doctrine, I desire his Lordship to refute it; if it be, let him forbear to flout the Ancients, that taught the Holy Spirit to be Love.  
§. 25. But as I have here given a consuetudinary and canonical account of this Title from common and sacred Language, so will I endeavour to add an Etymological. The Word Spirit then in all our learned Languages is derived from Verbs of breathing, or blowing, and so primitively signifies a Breath, or Gale of Air, which seeming to common apprehensions the most subtle, agile, and penetrating of all sublunary Elements, its name was therefore, for want of another more suitable, applied to immaterial Substances, Principles, and active Powers, especially plastic and animant, by way of eminent distinction from gross matter, and passive dulness. Now such immaterial and subtle Powers exert their Operation by at least a seeming spiration of influences. And the moral Principles of the Mind proceed internally from it, 
* Athan. ad Serap Sp. S. non esse Creature. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  as it were by an odorous form of Spiration, grateful unto itself, and God the Author, when good, and inspired from above for a sweet savour. And such a Notion the Apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon gives us of the Divine Wisdom as including in it the 
† Ch. 7. v. 25.  Spirit of God. For it is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the breath of the Power of God, and an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Efflux of the glory of the Almighty. And Job's Friend Elihu seems to have taken the Spirit of God, as a Virtue or Principle in the Deity, that gave him (and all Men) life by a spirant Operation; the Spirit of God hath made me, and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Breath of the Almighty hath given me life, Job 33.4. referring to the Tradition thus recorded in Gen. 2.7. that God breathed into Man the Breath of Life, of which 
* Symbol. Constantinop. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  we own his Spirit to be Lord and Giver. But as to sanctifical Operations on created Spirits and Minds, it is universally acknowledged that the Spirit of God exerts them by a Divine manner of Inspiration. So that I conclude, that Etymologically the Spirit of God is so called, as being derived from the Father and the Son by an unconceivable manner of internal Spiration of Love essential, and as inspiring into all Being's, their proper Virtues and Powers by an invigorating stream of influences, especially in the sanctifying Operations on our Minds, by which new and holy Spirits are created in us.  
§. 26. Now lest this Spirit of Love and Holiness in the Divine Nature, should be reputed Personal from its Personal Descriptions in Holy Writ, some have fancied it to be a mere unsubstantial and impersonal Quality in God the Father only, personated only by Trope and Figure. But against these it is to be noted, that he is the Spirit of the Son also, and so for that cause, even upon this Hypothesis, the Son must be God with the Father. But further there being no possible imperfection in the Deity, it can admit of no unsubstantial Qualities, for as they are imperfections in themselves, so do they suppose an imperfection in their Subjects, whether adorned, or vilified by them. If therefore there be a permanent Spirit of Holiness in the Deity, it must be perfect, and for that cause substantial. And this Substantiality is the ground of that Personality, which we attribute to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit according to the order and measure of our Conceptions, without the help of any Socinian Metonymy, or Prosopopaeia, according to 
† Aug. in Eu. Joh. c. 17. Tract. 105. Spiritus est Patris & Filii, tanquam charitas substantialis, & consubstantialis amborum.  the Catholic and Primitive Theology asserted by St. Austin.  
§. 27. But to evade this Truth, there were 
* See Didym. de Sp. S.  Heretics of old, as well as of late, that fell in with the Rabbins, and made the Holy Spirit a mere Operation, or an effluent Virtue, not in God, but without, and from the Deity, terminated in us, which 
† See his Book de Spirit. Sancto.  Crellius every where calls a middle quality between the essential Power of God, and its more manifest effects, to which middle quality, he (much like his Master Socinus, says, Personal Attributes are given by a Metonymy, or a Prosopopaeia arising sometimes from a Metonymy of the effect, which is this Spirit, for the efficient, which is God, whose Person this effected Spirit, or middle Quality figuratively bears, or from a Metonymy of the Adjunct, which is this effected Spirit, for its divinely inspired Subject, whose Person also this Spirit in like manner sometimes doth sustain. For the Confirmation whereof he quotes Exod. 31.3. and 35.31. comparing therewith Exod. 28.3. and 35.35. Numb. 24.2. and 27.18. Deut. 34.9. Judg. 3.10. and 6.34. and 11.29. and 13 25. and 14.19. and 15.14. 1 Sam. 10.6, 10. and 11.6. and 16.13, 14, etc. and 18.10. and 19.9, 20, 23. 1 King. 18.12. and 22.24. 1 Chr. 12.18. and 28.12. 2 Chron. 15. 1. Job 33.4. Psal. 51.11, 12. Esa. 44.3. and 63.11. proofs enough one would think in all Conscience.  
§. 28. But supposing, that all these Texts had denoted a Principle created or instilled into us, yet here is no Personal Representation thereof; whereas it was to be proved, that the Spirit of God in those Texts, that  him Personally, is a mere created Quality in us, and that it is not where otherwise, never any virtue essential to God. For we need not deny, that the Holy Spirits and Principles, inspired by, and from the Substantial Spirit of God into us, may sometimes derive the Name as well as the Nature of that their Original, and the most Catholic Divines concede it; but where the Original Spirit of God is distinguished from, and asserted the Author of those Operations and Graces, there the Spirit cannot be those very Operations, or Graces produced by them, as those middle Virtues and Qualities must be. See 1 Cor. 12.1. to 12. 2 Thess. 2.13. 1 Pet. 1.2. Gal. 5.22. Joh. c. 14. c. 15. c. 16. 1 Joh. 5.7. In which last the Holy Spirit is said to be in Heaven, and consequently can be no middle Quality in us, and yet in Heaven personally distinct from the Father, and the Word; which I take to be a good Argument from a good Authority in despite of Heretics and defective Libraries; to which I could add very many more, were it necessary. But the truth is, the Texts alleged by Crellius do not all manifestly denote by the Spirit of God a mere created Virtue or Quality, but may (except some few to be by and by considered) denote the essential Spirit of God supervening upon Men, and creating in them the Spirits of Wisdom, Vigour, Prophecy, Life, etc. And particularly where Elihu, Job 33.4. saith, the spirit of God hath made me, he implies the preexistence of that Spirit before himself, and so not after effected in him, being indeed a Virtue operant, not operated, but a precedent cause of the Operation itself. And though according to the literal form of the Hebrew, the evil Spirit, that troubled Saul, is called the Lords evil Spirit, 1 Sam. 16.15, 16, 23. and 18.10. and 19.9. yet this may denote, not a divine Operation surely, which is not evil, but a wicked infernal Personal Spirit, the Lictor or Carnifex, which God sent to punish him. But if we keep to Crellius' Notion, and let the evil Spirit here be a Quality effected in Saul, it must be from some inspiring Agent, which, the Quality being evil, cannot be God, and so must be an evil Spirit of darkness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Sam. 16.14. sent from the Lord. And if so, how can it be evinced, that the Term evil Spirit does not denote the Person of the Evil Angel, but only the effect of his infernal Operation? And as to the Spirit of Wisdom, with which God had filled some Persons for making the Priest's habits, etc. Exod. 28.3. it appears not to be that effected Wisdom itself, but the Divine Principle efficient thereof from Exod. 31.1. Where God says, he had filled Bezaleel with the Spirit of God, in Wisdom, and Understanding, etc. where the filling Power, i. e. the Spirit of God is distinguished from its effect, i. e. that Wisdom and Understanding inspired by the Spirit of God into him. And that Spirit of God producent of that Wisdom, Exod. 31.3. might well be called the Spirit of that Wisdom, which it produced, as likewise Esa. 11.2. So that in all these places, I am verily persuaded, that the Spirit of God signifies not a mere Divine Operation, nor a mere Virtue divinely operated, but a Principle and Substantial Power operant. But that the Term Spirit of God may be sometimes put for the Grace effected thereby; nay, and that actions of Subjects are many times elegantly attributed to their Adjuncts (as it may also happen to the effect for the efficient) I shall not gainsay; but such mere Metonymies do not presently exhibit a formal Prosopopoecia of those Adjuncts or Effects without other technical Schemes, such as usually appear in Poetic or Dramatic fancies, not in serious Prose, plain Discourse, didactic Institutions, especially in the Simple, Catechetical, and Inartificial Rules of Faith delivered by Christ and his Apostles. Besides with Poets and other Painters personated Qualities put on the feminine Veil, Face, and Sex; but Christ describes his Holy Spirit 
* Joh. 14.16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & 16.13, 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ita 15.26. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc.  as a Masculine Person, when he calls him Paraclete, with a Personal Pronoun He, to show him as it were exactly both in Nature and Person. Where, as Bishop Pearson well observes on Joh. 16.13, 14, etc. upon the Article of the Holy Ghost, those personal Attributes of the Spirit can be by no means applied to God the Father, nor to the Apostles by any Metonymy whatsoever according to the Socinian pretention. But further, that supreme Spirit of God is only one, which yet by manifold Operations creates many kinds of Virtues, which therefore are plurally called Spirits, 1 Cor. 12.10. 1 Cor. 14.32.  
§. 29. Now to break off this blow, Crellius coins a double sort of Unity for the Holy Spirit; One generical consisting in this, that all such Spirits, how numerous and various soever, are yet of one Genus of Spirit, as all individual Bodies, and sorts of Bodies are included in one Genus of Body. But such Unity is but merely notional, and uncapable of individual Acts and Offices, which yet are ascribed to the one Holy Spirit. For when 
† 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  one and the self same Spirit is said to distribute all gifts according as he will; it is manifest that many single, and many sorts of Graces are given by the will of one only Spirit, individually One. For individual and actually existent effects must be the products of individual and actually existing Cause, or Causes, not from mere Genus and Species, which are not the subjects of Historical Relations. For it cannot be said of Substance, or Body in general, that one and the self same Substance, or Body produces all Physical effects in the material World, nor of Man in Specie, that one and the self same Man performs all the Acts and Offices that are done by all and every single Man. Nor is Genus and Species capable of Personal Unities and Distinctions. But now the Apostle distinguishes both the Operations and Effects of one and the self same Spirit, both from themselves, and that Spirit, not only numerically, but specifically, and yet asserts them the products 
* 1 Cor. 12.  of one and the self same Spirit, one and the self same Lord, one and the self same God; showing at least the Unity of the Spirit, to be such, and the same, as is the Unity of the Lord and God, which must be therefore most perfectly Individual. But if each particular Divine Inspiration, or it's produced Graces had been so many distinct Holy Spirits of God in themselves, since there are such multitudes, and multiplicities of them, there was no reason why in the same breath he should assert them many and manifold, and yet but one operant Spirit only, which therefore must be distinct from them as the Cause from the effect, as the Author from the product, and as the Donor from the gift.  
§. 30. His second sort of Unity is that of Origine, by which he pretends the Spirit to be called One, because though infinitely manifold, or divisible in itself, yet it proceeds from one God, and in this respect may be called One. But neither will this last fit. For the Terms [one and the self same] are too narrow, and express a closer Unity, and cannot be applied to innumerable particulars that are only of one Original. For all particular Men cannot be said to be one and the self same Man, which performs all humane actions that are, because all Men originally descend from one Father Adam: Nor can all the Israelites be said to be one and the self same Israelite that destroyed the Canaanites, because they all descended from one Father Israel: Nor can all the Socinians be called one and the self same Socinian, that wriggles himself into a thousand tricks and turn, because they all descended from one Doctor or Father Faustus (for I will not meddle with Laelius.) But in truth, if there had been a vast number of the Holy Spirits of God, and these but mere Qualities, to which Personal Names, Pronouns, and Predicates are so often attributed in the singular number of one Holy Spirit, on the score of a mere generical or originary Unity, why do we never plurally read of many such Holy Spirits of God so personated according to this invention, with an open acknowledgement of their Plurality, and sometimes of their Impersonality; but only of one such Holy Spirit, under such Personal Titles and Descriptions? Or why had not the Article of the Holy Spirit in the Greeds been always taught and professed according to this pretty novel interpretation? Since the Church ought to have been taught and dealt with plainly, and not tricked into mazes or impieties by Figures, Fetches, and Sophistries more ambiguous and involved than the Devil's Oracles. Nor will the seven Spirits of God in the Revelation help, for they are waiting Ministers at the Throne of God, not Qualities inspired into us, and they are but seven neither, a number far too small for the kinds or numbers of inspired Graces. We see then, that the Wit of Man cannot bear up against the Truth and Wisdom of God. And herein our Countryman Biddle was so convinced of 
* Bid. of the Holy Spirit.  the errors of his Socinian Fathers, that he even scouts them, and roundly falls off to the Elder Enemies of the Holy Spirit, with whom he passed for a created Person.  
§. 31. Hoping then that this may help to convince his Lordship of the Personality of the Holy Spirit of Divine Love, I will a little for the sake of others endeavour also to prove the Holy Spirit not to be a created Person. This will appear first from all those places in which he is said 
† Didym. de Sp. S. l. 1. ex version. Hieron. Ipsum quoque Effusionis nomen increatam Spiritus Sancti substantiam probat. Neque enim Deus, cum Angelum mittit, aut aliam creaturam effundam dicit de Angelo meo, aut throno, aut dominatione.  to be put, or poured out upon Men, which is not where spoken of Angels, which yet are Spirit's ministering to the Heirs of Salvation, which argument convinced the Socinians of the Macedonian Error. But a Divine Virtue, though in its Energies it recede not from God, yet because of those influences is itself said, and in a manner seems to be poured out upon, and communicated to divinely-inspired Souls, into which a connatural, congenial, or consimilar Virtue is thereby infused. So the Spirit of God poured out upon all Flesh, Joel 2.28, 29. is a Virtue substantially intrinsical to the Deity, which yet St. Peter testifies to be the same Spirit which acted the Apostles at the Feast of Pentecost, Act. 2. and which is celebrated with Personal Titles, Pronouns, and Attributes, Joh. c. 14. c. 15. c. 16. And herein also is asserted his omnipresence, as also by the Apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon, ch. 1. v. 7. The Spirit of the Lord filleth the World; and by the Psalmist, Psal. 139.7. Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? Here the Spirit of God cannot be a middle Virtue inspiring David, since this he had no reason to dread or shun, and yet all Men by sinning (especially by knavery and doubling) eat and fly from this Grace too easily. Nor are the acts of Divine Vengeance ever called the Spirit of God in the Patient. Neither is this Spirit of God here a created Spirit, whose Presence cannot be escaped, since the Psalmist here only speaks of God's Presence and Power. See onward to v. 17. And further 
* Didym. de Sp. S. l. 1. Demonstratur Angelica Virtus ab hoc prorfus aliena. Angelus quip; qui aderat, verbi gratia, Apostolo in Asia oranti, non poterat simul eodem tempore adesse aliis in caeteris partibus constitutis. Vid. praeced. & seq. praed. & Athanas. omnino Disp. con. Arium.  though one created Angel can follow one single, or more sociated Men, wheresoever we can suppose one way for their flight, yet one single Angel cannot at once follow, or be present to all Men in all their Dispersions, which omnipresence however all Men ought to own in the Spirit of God. Now if any Man shall urge, that the Words [thy Spirit] are put for [thee], as [my Spirit] for [I] Gen. 6.3. The same Psalmist's same words in a full literal intention, Psal. 51.11. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me, must interpret our present Text without a circumlocution, as many others will that of Gen. 6.3. And yet admitting a Figure or Trope, it represents the Spirit of God as God, which is what I contend for, as being internal to the Divine Mind, Esa. 40.13, 14. With this Omnipresence he hath also a Divine Empire, by which he distributes all the Divine Graces to whom, and as he will every where, 1 Cor. 12.11. All which put together doth more fully set forth the Singularity, Omnipresence, and Supremacy of the Holy Spirit, than those mere forms of Speech, which as they are attributed to the Holy Spirit in the Kingdom of God, are also attributed to the Prince of Devils in the Kingdom of Darkness, which is Biddle's grand Evasion from our Arguments taken from such say, that the Spirit dwells in us, teaches us, etc. for these, and such like expressions are uttered of the Devil, that he deceives the World, blinds the Souls of Unbelievers, Captivates Impenitents, takes away the Word out of the hearts of the Hearers, became a lying Spirit in Four Hundred Prophets, etc. which sayings do not indeed denote the Devil's Personal Omnipresence to all at once, but only that he thus reacheth Men by his Ministers, which Biddle would persuade us of the Holy Spirit also; but they had certainly denoted a terrestrial Omnipresence, if it had been added, that there is but one only Evil Spirit, and that he alone by his own Personal Operations had thus acted on all wicked Men, and that no mortal Man can avoid his Presence and Power, none of which is expressed of the Devil, and yet if it had, his exclusion out of Heaven is asserted also, where yet the Holy Spirit of God dwells and shines in essential Glory; not to mention also, that the Devil, who long time universally tyrannised, is yet never said to be poured out upon all Flesh. But now the aforesaid Attributes given to the Prince of Devils, manifestly set forth his Supremacy in the Kingdom of Darkness; and therefore in the Kingdom of God the like Phrases of the Holy Spirit of God must denote his Supremacy therein, and by consequence his Deity, since God alone is the one Supreme King of that Kingdom, and thus our Faith is established firmly against the Macedonians also.  
§. 32. Now of what hath been said, thus much I believe would be granted by all the Anti-personists, that there is in God the Father an essential Reason, and Spirit of Sanctity, though not personally subsistent. For a Person being with them a complete suppositum rationale, and intellectual Subject, or Being separate and standing single from all others, they hold it a contradiction to hold three Persons in one individual Deity.  
§. 33. To this, I hope, to give so just and candid an answer as may embolden his Lordship to join in the Litany heartier, and to speak clearer next time in his Theological Essays. The name Person, or whatsoever answers thereto in the learned Languages, first of all signifies a Man's Face, natural and artificial, and thence the whole single Man; hence after were the Gods in profane, and intellectual Spirits in sacred Writings represented personally, and so now the Term Person agrees to all single intelligent Being's by common and inartificial use. But we, that have no natural Idea of the Modes of Subsistence peculiar to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit without Divine Revelation, cannot without it conceive the form of their Personality. So for this we must rest wholly on Divine Revelation. And accordingly I would describe a Person for a Theological Term thus; whatsoever hath Personal Titles, and Characters properly attributed to it by God's Word, the same is a Person, though we cannot frame an Idea of the form of its Personality. And then I can add, but the Divine Mind, Reason, and Holy Spirit have three properly distinguishing Personal Characteristic Titles, Father, Son, and Paraclete to be owned in our avowed Faith and Baptism, therefore these three are three distinct Persons, though we cannot form a natural Idea of the Mode of their Personality; 
* Aug. de Tempor. Sir 189 Ego Personas in Patre, & Filio, & Spiritu Sancto non dico quasi personas hominum. Personam Patris dico quod Pater est, & Filii quod Filius est, & Spiritus Sancti quod Spiritus Sanctus est.— dividuntur enim proprietatibus, sed naturâ sociantur.  and though yet we are sure they are not separate and disjoined like three Humane Persons. In this mystery therefore the sense of this term is not vulgar, nor of common Notion, but peculiarly and necessarily Technical. For since God hath revealed that in the Unity of his Nature, there is one first Principle with two other co-eternally emanant or descendent from him, and subsisting individually in him, by which he created and governs all things, and this under the Personal and Distinctive Characters of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit the Paraclete, and many other Personal Attributes distinctive of their proper Subsistences in the Essential Unity of the Godhead, the Term Person fell unavoidably into Canonical use, though under a strict care against the vulgar notion of Humane, or such like separate Persons, and restrained only to the revealed Theories of the Mystery. And under this regular limitation, I challenge the Art of the World to sinned out any one Characteristic Term so fit, proper, and congruous to denote their formal Personalities ascribed to them in the Scripture as this of Person, in which the whole Catholic Church of old unanimously agreed antecedently to any Conciliar Definitions, and is therefore of greater Antiquity and Authority than the Greek Hypostasis, which though well founded in 
* 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Heb. 1. 3. yet was a while of ambiguous use and interpretation, till it was by the help of Athanasius and others canonically adjusted and fixed according to the sense of our Term Person. And yet supposing a sensible defect in these Terms Person, and Subsistence; what modest Man would upbraid the whole Church of God for such an insuperable impotency in Humane Nature (which all wise Men perceive, and own in their speaking of God) after its utmost endeavours, cares, and consultations upon cogent necessities to fix the terms of our Faith and Doctrine in the best manner possible, while yet the Revilers can produce nothing better or equal? 'Tis certainly an intolerable indecency against the Gravity, Duty, Care, and Right ' of Men that are in Authority of proscribing Doctrines in any Profession what soever; for to such certainly it belongs, to fit Terms of Art to their Theories, as reason shall require, as well as they can, without the merit or hazard of malevolence and detraction.  
§. 34. But because I would fill the thirsty and candid Soul, with a satisfying Theory herein, I will dig deeper into the grounds of these Personal Characters in the Scriptures, and the Traditional Term of Person thence Canonically used. First then, Personality is a Character only of what is substantial and intellectual, as are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit the Paraclete, who therefore have a good ground of bearing those Personal Titles. But tho' these peculiar Titles have this common Basis, yet have they their peculiar and formal reasons of Distinction: The first Principle of all being called Father from his Eternal generation of the Logos, which is called Son from being so eternally generated of the Father's Substance, without division or partition thereof. And 
* Con. Arian. Orat. 2.  here the Father being ever Father, never Son, and the Logos ever Son, never Father, St. Athanasius justly as well as sagaciously, appropriates these Titles to these Persons in a primary Right and peculiar Excellency above all others, since earthly Persons change their Character, being one while Sons, other while Fathers and Sons, other while Fathers only, and other while neither. The Personal Distinctives of the Holy Spirit are taken from his connatural Operations and Offices, which are Personal, and the Titles therefore apposite. Now that the essential Reason and Spirit of God the Father, should each be as equally Personal, as the Socinians themselves confess the Father to be, will hence appear rational, for that they are consubstantial with him, and as substantially Divine as that Eternal Mind, from, and in which they are, and live, without any inequality in their Nature, Perfection, or essential Dignity. And therefore, if one be distinctly Personal, so must the others also. And therefore the Pronoun He, first belonging to God original, i. e. the Father, as the first Person, is properly also communicable to the other Persons, each of them deriving their Deity and Personal subsistence from him, with peculiar reasons of their proper Personal Characters and Distinctions. And hence it was necessary to a just perfection of Christian Theology, that our Scriptures, Faith, and Tradition should  the second and third Hypostasis as personally as the first, for otherwise a Personal Distinction and Notion of one, and Impersonal Distinctions of the others, or either of them, must have set them as unequal, specifically different, and heterogeneous in the same Deity, and consequently not consubstantial or coessential; for that the Impersonals must have been in nature inseriour to the Personal; which would make a most corrupt mixture, a most praerupt and monstrous anomaly in the Godhead.  
§. 35. But perhaps some Men, with whom no diversities are taken for true, but the separate, gross, and material, may censure this Diversity between the Eternal Mind, Reason, and Holy Spirit of Love, so then, notional, and imaginary, that it cannot sustain, or ground any Characters personally distinctive, without a very violent and abusive impropriety. Now if my Lord, or any other be in this prejudice, let them note that there is a certain true Diversity between them, and such as we can somewhat conceive from the Shade we have of it in our own Souls; Whence a sedate Theory will conclude, that the true and proper Modes of this their distinct subsistence in the Unity of the Godhead are in themselves most perfect, and clear, and as Illustrious as the Individual Glory of the Divine Essence, which one day it will be our Heaven and Happiness more immediately to view in the fullness of indistant Light, if at present we will be content to learn our Theories from God's Tradition, and not preclude ourselves from that blessed capacity, by a wanton and affected infidelity; for to this glorious intuition this Faith prepares us, by cleansing us from Heathen Phaenomena of Providence, and drawing us to the nobler Theories of the Creation, and the Powers of its Author, and exciting us to an active hope and pursuit of that Glory and Happiness that consists in the uninterrupted Vision of God. In the mean time however it is rational to believe, that there is a far greater reason in that diversity of their Individual consubsistence, upon which Personal Attributes, Characters, Predicates, and Distinctives are by the Rules of our Faith given unto them, than any humane faculties can reach, tho' in these upon Divine Revelation, there is Light enough to support the congruity of this Tradition against all opposite Heresies whatsoever.  
§. 36. But the Scoffers will be apt to deride this Theory, as aiming to render the Faith intelligible, which as they think impossible, because their prejudices have so fatally blinded them, that they fancy no Man can discern what they cannot, so will they say, that these Theories take away the Mystery, and consequently expose the venerableness thereof to contempt, whereas it hath been our common Wisdom to cover our Absurdities with a superstitious veil and pretence of unsathomable Mystery. Now what shall we do? how shall we behave ourselves between these contrary extremes? To the Anti-Mysterists therefore, I reply, That if it be hereby made intelligible, they have no reason to quarrel at it, since their only complaint for their infidelity is, that it is unintelligible. But to the Crypto-Mysterists (who give occasion to the Anti-Mysterists to deride us for absurdities, etc.) I shall only need to say with 
* Con. Arian. Orat. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc.  St. Athanasius, The Faith is no Riddle, (to be kept in the dark) but a Divine Mystery (to illuminate our Souls.) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was not given from Heaven to stupefy and amuse, but to sublimate our Theories of God, and to exercise our inner Senses unto previous Ideas of that Divinity, which will be more immediately opened unto in the State of Glory. St. Paul thought it a noble Wisdom to understand Mysteries, 1 Cor. 13.2. to which all the Sons of Wisdom (though to others there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) are initiated. Let it therefore be deep and recondite, while it is rich and noble; the treasure is the better for its difficulty, and what is to be gotten is with joy to be communicated to such as have Ears to hear. Tell but a Man that there are three in one, and one in three, without any other Theories, how dry and infant must that Notion be? How little life and taste is there in such a Rudiment? But when a Man is brought by heavenly Theories of the Logos to have some apprehensions of the super-essential Excellency of the Father, and almost to feel the vital Love of the Holy Spirit, to view hereby the Originals of the Creation, and the Schemes of Providence in the Ray of Light Essential, in the Archetypal Tables of the Almighty Mind, this is Transport, this is Aether, this is Heaven itself, to which we are wafted up by these depreciated Senses of the Fathers. Yet whatsoever flight a religious Mind may take in these contemplations, God knows these advances of mine are very short, and I have no more to advise an aspiring Piety, but to drink of these living Waters from their first Fountains, the Holy Scriptures, and the Fathers. But he that thinks it no Mystery or valuable Theory, that the first Principle of all is an eternal glorious lucid Mind, our of whose foecundity there coessentially streams a luminous and infinite substantial Reason, with a benign and adorable Spirit of Substantial Love and Holiness, the noble Springs and Fountains of the whole Creation, and the World to come, forgets the thick darkness of the old Heathen, and even of the present untutored World in these Ideas and Informations; he forgets the shortness of the most sublimate Theories in proportion to the full Glory of the Mystery; he forgets how much the Wise of the Heathen admired some few glances of it among the Jews, and are themselves valued for them, even by our Fathers and our Moderns also; he conceives not how divine and surprising this Light appeared to the World upon the first opening of Christianity, how it clears up the delusions of Gentilism, and spiritualizes our Ideas of God above all mixtures of carnality, and prepares them for a glorious intuition of him hereafter; and lastly such Men loath Manna and the Food of Angels, forgetting their first weaknesses, and the difficulties they struggled with before they attained to this Theology; neither do they humbly reflect on their present narrowness in respect of what yet remains within the Veil, or else they could never have fallen into contempt of this Revelation as light and void of depth and mystery.  
§. 37. Now lest any Man from hence should frame an Objection, that upon this Theory we may frame as many Persons in the Deity, as there are Attributes of God, let it be observed, that all the received Attributes of God do denote one, or more, or all of these three 
* This word in our tongue, I suppose, may not offend, as being somewhat turned from what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Principium commonly denote. And I call them so only in respect of the creatures, not absolutely in respect of their own subsistence, as if they were three unprincipiated Principles; for so there is but one, viz. God the Father. So I agree with the Doctrine of the Fathers, as they deny three Principles nonprinoipiate, for otherwise three such Principles would be three Gods.  Principles, and so are not really distinct from them, or simply describe the whole Divine Essence, and so no single one of these Principles, or else are merely negative, and so signify no positive Principle, or Hypostasis in the Deity, or else are , and relative only to exterior productions, and so touch nothing Eternal or Inessential to the Divine Nature, that I mention not how, that Eternal Generation and Procession can be conceived of no Attributes distinct from the Trinity, the Father, Logos, and Holy Spirit. There is therefore in the Deity no positive distinct intelligible Power, Virtue, or Principle, but Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Mind, Reason, and the Holy Spirit of Love, by the Revelation of whose Nature, Subsistence, Personality, Counsels, and Operations the Christian Theology and Religion is most pure, desecate, sublime, full, and absolute, as became the last revelations by the Son of God, but had not been so, had it wanted any of these received Articles and Theories concerning the adorable and ever blessed Trinity.  
§. 38. But whereas there are, who professing the Catholic Faith themselves, would yet open the Church Doors to contrary Opinions, by making the Gospel, Fathers, and Religious Councils naked unto shame, and contriving to abrogate the Sanctions of our Faith, I pathetically beg them to consider deeply what I have said hereupon, especially in the four last Sections, and further remark, that since by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, and the Mediation of the Son, we have an access unto union with God the Father, the first Parent and Principle of all, that dwells in Light otherwise altogether inaccessible, it was necessary that our Rule of Faith (if justly perfect) should show us the way of this ascent, and particularly what that Logos, and Holy Spirit properly and essentially are, by whom we arise into this Communion with the Father. Else such a defect had remained in these necessary Notices, as had rendered our Faith and Theology blind and uncertain to the inevitable danger of a fundamental Impiety. For Men, hearing of the Son and Holy Spirit, must have been curious for a Notion of them, and must have taken them for create, or uncreate. Now if being uncreate Men had taken them for created, (as we see many will against express Revelation, and universal Tradition to the contrary) Men would have prosaned them and their Deity, the salt whereof had been imputable to God, had he not yielded us the necessary Revelation of their Order and Godhead. And so likewise had they been created, God would not have left us without sufficient notice thereof, lest we mistaking should have adored them for Divine, as the whole Church hath done, and does. But certainly he could not so much, so fully, so often, so perpetually have asserted their Godhead, and Personality, had they been merely created, or impersonal. To have revealed nothing of them had been to have showed no way to Communion and Knowledgge of God the Father, and to have said somewhat of them, but not enough to fix a Faith and Notion of their Essence and Character, had been a Snare. But since what is now taught, is both necessary and perfect, I think it a damnable Sin not to keep such a Divine Depositum perfect, whole, and undefiled as it was delivered unto us, but by false indulgences of Latitude to betray it up to profanation, corruption, contempt, and infidelity.  
§. 39 And here having made a sufficient Apology for those Theories of the Fathers against his Lordship's charge of Novelty and Humane Fancy, I could hearty have begged a Nunc Dimittis, and have ended in these pleasing Contemplations. But our Life is a Warfare, and his Lordship's further process requires my further attendance. But many (saith his Lordship) have thought, that the Term Son did not at all belong to the 
* He means to any one of them.  blessed Three, but only to our Saviour, as he was the Messiah, the Jews having had this Notion of the Messiah, that as he was to be the King of Israel, so he was to be the Son of God. We find Nathanael addressed himself thus to him, and when the High Priest adjured our Saviour, he knits these two together, art thou the Christ the Son of the most High God? Which shows that they did esteem those two as one and the same thing. This account of the Jews notion his Lordship seems to have taken out of Dr. Hammond's Annotation on Psal. 2. v. 7. Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. For these are that great and good Doctor's words;— the learned Jews themselves resolved, that he was to be the Son of God, and that in an eminent manner; (So the High Priest, Matth. 26.63. Tell us, whether thou art the Christ the Son of God, and Joh. 1.49, Rabbi thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel,) etc. Which Text therefore the Doctor prophetically interprets of his resurrection and exaltation according to good New Testament Authorities. But he that said this, never taught his Lordship that the term Son did not at all belong to any of the blessed Three, but expressly in the same Annotation proves from Rom. 1.4. that he was declared to be the Eternal Son of God (the second of the blessed three) by his Resurrection from the dead. And it is not fair play in his Lordship to cite a place and conceal the Author, that so God's truth, and his doubling might not be discerned. But since we are upon a critical disquisition of these terms, Messiah and Son of God, we will consider first what the real truth is; and secondly the opinion of the Jews. First than it is certain, that God's constitution of any Person in a State of favour gives the favourite the Title of a Son by virtue thereof. Thus God calls the People of Israel his Son, and his First Born, Exod. 4. 22. and so literally; Hosea 11.1. and many other places set God as their Father, because God had admitted them as the seed of Abraham into his especial Covenant, as we are also Sons of God by the adoption of the New Covenant. And hence exaltation by God to an high Authority has founded a title of Gods, and Sons of God, unto Men, and Angels. And consequently the various signal Exaltations of Christ in his Humane Nature, above all others make him in those respects justly to be styled the Son of God. If then he had been only exalted into the heavenly Throne, without any antecedent Death or Resurrection, this alone would have founded a Filial Title, much more when in Order thereto, he was born again our of a Virgin Sepulchre, whereby he became the first Born, or first Begotten from the Dead. So his Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, and his Unction by the Holy Ghost at his Baptism (in both which the Bath-Col, the voice from Heaven pronounced him God's beloved Son) were fair grounds for the same Character. His Conception by the Holy Ghost in the Virgin's Womb was a foundation thereof 
* Luk. 1.35. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shed's that this was not the first ground of his Filiation.  before all these, though not the primary. By the 
† Heb. 1.2.  Son God made the Worlds, and thereby the Son became Heir of all things. And hereupon it was by many Ancients preached as Good Theology, that herein also he was the Son of God, and the 
* Col. 1.15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  first Born and Heir of the whole Creation, they setting it off as a kind of Nativity and Production of the Logos into Light and the World. And those many Texts of Scripture, besides the Catholic Tradition of Creeds, that teach him to be in the form of God, and equal with God, the true God, God above all blessed for ever, and that he hath received his being from the Father, have established the Faith of an Eternal Paternity and Coeternal Filiation. So that if we take the Humane Nature into the Conception and Character of the Christ as his Lordship does, here are several grounds for the Character of Son, before our Lord actually was a Man, or could be on his Lordship's Notions the Messiah. And so Son of God and Messiah cannot really in the true intention of the Scriptures be altogether synonymous, equaeval, or equipollent, though belonging to the same Person. Now if Nathanael, made a good and full Confession, when he told our Lord, 
* John 1.50.  Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel, than he owned all the truth of the Filial Character; but if his Faith were defective, than it is no ground for his Lordship's Critics to stay so low in it, and not advance to the Highest revealed Excellency of the Character, which I believe the true Israelite reached as well as 
† Matth. 16.16. Joh. 6.69.  St. Peter and others, since the Gospels set this for a good memorial of their and the Catholic Faith. But however, let us see what the Faith of the Jews contributes to our Edification. By the Testimony of the Fathers from after Josephus' days, it appears an established or received Doctrine among the Jews, as also other Heretics herein so judaizing, that the Messiah was to be a mere Man, and so no wonder if all Rabbins since, that own him to be the Son of God, take him only for a positive or adoptive Son by mere advancement. Now if his Lordship thinks this to have been their Faith also in our Lord's days, than those some Critics of his Lordship's cannot found the Filiation of the Theanthropus in this Jewish Faith. But if these Jews did believe their expected Messiah to be a real Immanuel according to their Prophet, and this Immanuel to be the Son of God, how can his Lordship's Critics prove that in the Immanuel's Filiation 
* P. 32. in which the Humane Nature being the first Conception?  † the first Conception of the Sonship was in his Humanity? For if there were another Conception of Sonship in the Divine Nature, how can they, or his Lordship prove it to be posterior to that in the Humanity? To be Son of God is a Character at least of Dignity, and if there be any thing in the Deity that bears it, it cannot derive it from any Creature, and so in order of Conception it ought not to be posterior to the Title in a Creature. His Lordship had best have a ear, lest he and his Critics 
* Vid. Euseb. con. Marcell.  call in upon Marcellus in this road of Conceptions, and father the Heresy upon the Jews. But if there be no real Son in the God head, there will be no Father neither before the Creation, and consequently the Humane Nature being originally filial being united to God (who by the Creation thereof only is its Father, i. e. natural Parent) will convey the Title of Son to its own Father by this Union, which since it can be only a nominal dispensation, here comes in a beloved Sabellianism. But if there be a Sonship in the Godhead, since it cannot be derivative, it must be Primitive to the Character given to the united Humanity, because of that Union, and if so, how can its Conception be first lodged in the Humanity, to which it is socially communicated in the entire Suppositum of the Theanthropus, but not singly distributed by any dividing Conception, except we will put up with Nestorius. But to look a little further into this matter; I think it manifest, that the Jews believed the Son of God to be a Person not Humane, but equal to the Father, and so had no first Conceptions of it in Humane Nature The Personal Title of Son, with others, that Philo gives the Logos, which he did not believe to have been incarnate, is a full proof of this first point, that he was called Son by the Jews without any respects to Humanity, since he taught this as the Theology of Moses, and the Tradition of the Elders; and that this Filial Logos was by them believed equal to God the Father. 
* Joh. ch. 5.17. etc. vid. ch. 10.  St. John proves, for that the Jews would have killed Jesus, for saying that God was his Father, making himself thereby equal with God, and so God; which our Saviour refuses not, but defends. And even Josephus after the Destruction of Jerusalem owning our Jesus to be Christ, doubts whether it were lawful to call him a Man, because the old Notion, that God was, and was to be the King of Israel, was not yet worn out. They looked on the Kingdom of the Messiah as the Kingdom of God, and they looked for the Son of God (whom Agur of old knew under that Character) to come, and set up his Reign among them, and to subdue all Nations thereunto. And therefore St. John shows him, and the Devils confess him the Son of God also as well as his Disciples; nay, the Conturion at his Crucifixion owned him to be the Son of God; who never saw him to have been, nor ever hoped to see him hereafter to be the King of the Jews, according to their Notions of his Royalty. For though they looked on their King to come to be God, the Son of the Father, yet they took his Kingdom to be secular. And he that considers, that in the Gospels the terms of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are spoken of to, and by the Jews familiarly, without any of our Lord's correction of the Jewish Notion, or Institution of any other, either in common among the multitudes, or privately among his Disciples, must resolve that the true notion of these three Persons was popular, and received by an indubitate and good Tradition, or else our Lord and his Apostles, having a recondite Notion of them unexplained, could not be understood by that People. Nor could Nathanael and Peter and others have made a right confession of Faith, without any preliminary Catechism of the Notion, had it not been general? And in vain had God the Father at his Baptism declared him to be his Son, in whom he was well pleased to all the multitude, had they been Strangers to the true sense of the Title, which imported not only a Royalty, but an 
* Matth. 4. Mar. 1. Luke 4.  omnipotent Divine Power, even, had he pleased, of turning Stones into Bread by his mere Commandment, 
† Matth. 8.29. Mar. 5.7. Luke 8.28.  and to torment even Devils before their time; and also a Divine Knowledge of the Father, for no Man knoweth the Father but the Son, who being the 
* Luke 4.34.  Holy One of God, was therefore the Holy One of Israel. And though it may be objected, that when the Jews demanded him, to come down from the Cross, if he would be believed, 'tis said by the Evangelists, If he be the Christ, the King of Israel, let him come down from the Cross; yet this supposes, that, had he this Power, he must have it as God the Christ and King, and not as a Man only anointed King of Israel. So that neither the true, nor false Conceptions of the Jews concerning his Filial Character, can help his Lordship and his Critics in their first Conceptions of it in his Humanity. And here, indeed, there lies a large and noble Field before me for a Theory, concerning the Titles of Christ, Lord, King of Israel, etc. on what grounds they stand in the Divine and Humane Nature, wherein might be shown that neither are the first Conceptions of all these in our Lord's Humanity, to the utter ruin of Criticism; but it being not here necessary, and withal being a matter of a large speculation, I wave it in this place; and the rather, because, if my unhappy Eyes will hold out so far to serve my designs, I intent a peculiar Treatise concerning the Kingdom of God, in which these Titular Characters of our Lord will be largely discussed. In the mean time, I am sorry his Lordship's Critics are spoiled in their kind aims to explain the Texts, that teach the inferiority of Christ as Man to the Father; but I am pretty well pleased however, that the Catholic Doctrine has no need of such new fashioned planes to smooth its difficulties.  
§. 40. But now at last the Scene opens, and the whole mysterious intrigue comes out, why all this pother is made. For saith my Lord, 
* P. 32.  If this be true all the Speculations concerning an Eternal Generation are cut off in the strict sense of the words, though in a larger sense every Emanation, of what sort soever, may be so called. But was it my Lord's part to leave this in suspense, whether it be true or no? To leave hereby a liberty to deny the Nicene Faith, that he was begotten of his Father before all Worlds? Would not common honesty oblige a Divinity Professor to determine one way or other, between the inconsistent Fathers, and these sagacious Critics, either for, or against an Eternal Generation? and yet to let us see which way he inclines, he brings Texts of Scripture perverted for the sense of Heretics, but not one sacred syllable for the Fathers; nothing but fastidious and exposing Censures. Yet this was not enough. The distinct Emanations of the Son, and the Holy Spirit were to be confounded, though one be from the Father only, and immediately, the other from the Father and the Son, as we Westerns confess; or, to speak more like the Greeks, from the Father by the Son; that so the Emanation of the Holy Spirit being in a larger sense called Generation, the Holy Spirit may in a larger sense be called the Son of God: And so God the Father shall have improperly two Sons, but really none at all till the being of Christ's Humanity.  
§. 41. And now for a blessed Epiphonema. 
* P. 32.  But it may be justly questioned, whether by these they have made it better to be understood, or more firmly believed, or whether others have not taken advantage to represent these subtleties as Dregs, either of Aeones, of the Valentinians, or of the Platonic Notions.— And it being long before these Theories were well stated and settled, it is no wonder if many of the Fathers have not only differed from one another, but even from themselves in speaking upon this Argument. When Men go about to explain a thing, of which they can have no distinct Idea; it is very natural for them to run out into a vast multiplicity of words; into great length, and much darkness and confusion. Many 
† Witness P. 41, 42. etc.  impertinent Similes will be urged, and often impertinent reasonings will be made use of, all which are the unavoidable consequences of a Man's going about to explain to others, what he does not distinctly understand himself. Now to this calumnious reflection it were enough to say, the Lord rebuke thee; but for the sake of others, that may either glory in it, or be beguiled by it, I will answer it in order. First then all these traduced Theories of Faith are universally professed, and received in the whole Church of God, and have but a very few Adversaries: And we have reason to attribute this universal Consent herein to the Piety and Labours of the Ancients, who so victoriously defended it against the Highest Parts, Principalities, and Powers. For whatsoever failures and dat mistakes (from which no mortal is, or can be secure) may sometimes appear in a course of nice Disputations, yet the main Body of them appeared so strong and convincing, that they bowed down the whole World into Conviction: I mean the Christian World; while the Adversaries thereof have deservedly attained the glory of preparing the way for Mahometism. What matter then is it if these Divine Theories (which his Lordship opprobriously calls subtleties) be abusively represented by wicked Men? Does it follow that the Theology is vicious, and to be quitted? Such Counsel as this would soon have strangled the whole Christianity, which at first was every where traduced. What they, if that Impostor Sandius 
* Enucl. Hist. Eccl. l. 1.  would derive our Faith from Valentinus? The vulgar Christians do not know, nor trouble themselves with those fabulous Aeons', nor is there any danger of frighting them from the Faith by this imputation. And as for the Learned, or Students in Antiquity, they will soon discover the falsehood, and even to save, or facilitate their labour, 'tis unanswerably 
† Bull. Defence. Fid. Nicen. p. 64, 65. & alib. Sect. 3. c. 1.  done to their hands already, by an Author his Lordship will never be able to answer. But this Calumny is as silly as it is false and debasing. For Irenaeus the great mawl of Valentinianism, defends our very Faith and Theology against that and all other Gnostick Heresies. Nay, and St. John one would think was a Preacher of our Doctrine. And can any one be brought to believe, that St. John and St. Irenaeus were tainted or drunk with the Lees of Aeonism? Let Sandius therefore and his Lordship make what advantages they please against our Theories by their Valentinian Character; there is no great danger: The Lion's Hide covers a very tractable Animal. For after all Sandius his Disguises, his Father Arius, his Thalea (which he swaggered as descending from Men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from Grandsire Kalentine, and his Symmystae. Well, to go along with his Lordship, how came the poor old doting Fathers to nod thus? His Lordship tells us, 'twas because 'twas long before these Theories were well stated and settled. And here I had been at a sad loss for an Epocha of this settlement, if I had not by good fortune met with Dr. Burnet's Letter of Remarks upon the two strong Box Papers, where he tells us thus: It seems plain, that the Fathers before the Council of Nice believed the Divinity of the Son of God to be in some sort inferior to that of the Father, and for some Ages after the Council of Nice they believed them indeed both equal, but they considered these as two different beings, and only one in Essence, as three Men have the same Humane Nature in common among them, and that as one Candle lights another, so one flowed from another; and after the fifth Century the Doctrine of one Individual Essence was received. If you will be further informed concerning this, Father Petau will satisfy you as to the first Period before the Council of Nice, and the Learned Dr. Cudworth as to the second. So then the Primitive Faith till the Nicene Council was, That there were two Divinities or Deities, one of the Father, and another of the Son, and that of the Son somewhat inferior to that of the Father. From the Council of Nice to the sixth Century, they believed two or three different 
* What is this but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, essences, or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  Being's, and these equal, and no otherwise of one Essence than three Men that are of one common Nature. But in the beginning of the sixth Century, than their Eyes and Faith opened into one individual Essence; and then I suppose the matter was settled. Be this so for once; what will it amount to? That all the Fathers till the sixth Century were Polytheists and Idolaters, not excepting the Nicene. When a Man thinks upon this he must needs confess it not 
† Discourse. 3. p. 65. It were perhaps too invidious to send Men to Petavius to find in him how much the Tradition of the several Ages has varied in the greatest Articles of the Christian Faith.  only perhaps, but for certain invidious to send Men to the Jesuit for a Calumny against the Primitives, and were so to Dr. Cudworth to make his History of such Consequence. But as for Petavius and his Admirers, I think them all refuted by Dr. Bull beyond all possibility of a reply; and as for the Arguments upon a Specific Homoousion cited by Dr. Cudworth and others, I have above accounted for their innocency, §. 11. and proved, that though they argued from a specific Homoousion through the Arian Cavils, (especially to avoid the Charge of Sabellianism) yet they did not assert this alone, as his Lordship charges them. But now to come upon my Lord's blind side: In his Letter he says, the Post-Nicene Fathers were for an equality, and used for their Theory the Simile of Candles. In the Discourse we are upon he says, the Simile of Candles gave rise to the Nicene form Light of Light, and therefore must be used by the Ante-Nicene Fathers, whom he asserts to be for an inequality. In his Letter the specific Homoousiasts are equalizers; but in his Discourse the same are Subordinators. But here again I would said see the Simile of Candles produced among the Post-Nicene Homoousiasts, to whom in his Letter my Lord assigns it. Again in his Discourse the Theory of the Divine Wisdom and Love is said to be consequent or concomitant to the Doctrine of one individual Essence. In the Letter this Doctrine commences with the sixth Century. But all the Fathers that I have above-cited for the Theory of the Wisdom and Love of the Divine Mind, especially §. 21. §. 23. lived long before his Lordship's Epocha, even in the fourth Century the very lowest, and latest. But since his Lordship is become a Father, no wonder if he falls into contradictions too against himself and truth too; for it seems 'tis of ancient prescription with Men of that Character. But in short, I thought all these traduced Theories to have been ever settled, and that settlement not begun, but continued and defended only by the Councils and Fathers in several Ages, according as seemed then most seasonable in respect of the Heresies, and Sentiments then fermenting; which occasions a seeming variety in forms of expression, but no real difference in the Substance of their Faith, that so Men herein might charge them with mutual or self-contradictions. And yet that which we stand for is not every notion of every Father, but what they all agree in, and such are those Theories which his Lordship hath exposed as Exorbitant: Let his Lordship prove their express contradictions each to other in these established and received Theories, and then indeed he may more creditably expose his Father's Nakedness, though that practice is but of ill and execrable prescription. But as his Lordship has upbraided the Primitive Tradition of the Faith and the Scriptures in these Discourses, and the forementioned Letter, and loaded the Traditors with so much reproach; he has done what in him lies to discourage Students from reading or regarding them, and not only so, but he has put such a Dagger into the hands of Deists, and the open Enemies of all Revealed Religion, as he himself will never be able to extort; for who will believe the Church, that she received the New Testament from Men divinely inspired, when for Five Hundred Years after Christ her Principles were Polytheist and Idolatrous, and she knew not the very first Rudiments of a true Faith, and when she at last did so, yet fell into divers silly conceits and Similes about it since scorned and rejected by the Critic Tribe?  
§. 42. And now I am resolved to end, though his Divinity affords much more corrigible matter: At the horror whereof, I leave him to God's Mercy, and the Church's Prayers; but his Writings of this stamp, either to his own ingenuous Recantation, or Canonical Censure.  
FINIS.