An End of Doctrinal Controversies, Chapter 2
CHAP. 2. Of Trinity in Unity.
§. 1. WHen I wrote the foregoing Treatise, I found the generality of Christians (Protestants and Papists) agreed about the Trinity; but Heresie and Debauchery encreasing together, the Case seemeth partly altered; And the ambitious, rich and worldly sort being from their Childhood bred up in fleshly pleasure, and in ignorance and contempt of serious Christianity, having really no true Religion, but a Name and Image of it, at last by their Tongues declare what is in their Hearts; and living in a Land where Atheists and Sadducees are in splendid Dwellings, whilst fear of sinning maketh Confiscations, Jails and Ruine the Lot of multitudes who are zealous Protestants, they take the advantage, decrying what they never had: But before they disown all true Religion, and declare themselves Sadducees or Brutes, they begin as Disputers, at the points where they think Difficulty will excuse them; and especially at the Trinity, and the Godhead of Christ, and Socinian Errors.
§. 2. I have perhaps over-tediously and prolixly handled the Doctrine of the sacred Trinity in my Latin Methodus Theologiae, opening the various Opinions about it, reciting the words of the Fathers, School-Doctors, and Protestants who handle it: And through the whole Book I have shewed, That the Image of Trinity in Unity is imprinted by God, on the whole known frame of Nature and Government, or Morality▪ and that Doctrine of the Trinity, which to the ignorant is a Stumbling-block, greatly helpeth to confirm my Belief of the truth of the Gospel and Christianity, while I find it so congruous, to the foresaid Impress, and attested so much by all God's Works; especially on Man.
§. 3. It is a truth unquestionable, that without some knowledge of God there can be no true Religion, no Love to God, no Trust, no Hope, no Obedience, no true Worship of him, Prayer or Praise.
§. 4. And it is as certain that no man can have an adequate knowledge of God; that is adequate which comprehendeth the whole Object, knowing it perfectly, and leaving nothing of it unknown. And with such an adequate Knowledge we know nothing, not a pile of Grass, nor a Worm or a Hair: Much less God: With such a proper Knowledge nihil scitur is true, and yet aliquid rerum is known of all.
§. 5. Yea, it is certain, that of God, who is incomprehensible, we have here no partial Conception that reacheth so high as to be strictly FORMAL, but only such as are called analogical, aequivocal, metaphorical, or by similitude. Neither Substantia, Vita, Perfectio, Potentia, Actus, Intellectus, Voluntas, Love, Truth, Goodness, Mercy, &c. are formally and univocally the same in God and in the Creature: Scotus excepteth only ENS. Which is true, as ENS is only a Logical term, signifying no more than EST or Quoddity, and not QUID est, or Quiddity.
§. 6. Yet this Knowledge by similitude is not …ull or vain; but the greatest advancement of Man's Understanding: All that which is formally excellent in the Creature, is EMINENTLY and transcendently in God. Though he have not that which we call Knowledge, Will, Love, &c. he hath that which is infinitely more excellent, which these in Man have some likeness to, whereby we know him.
§. 7. Man's Knowledge beginneth at our selves and not at God: We do not first know God: But first we perceive our own Souls Acts, and thereby we know our Power, and our Substance, and thereby we know what all is that is such as we; and so what a Spirit is, and so what GOD is. As by seeing, hearing, feeling we perceive that we see, hear, feel, &c. every Sense having essentially a self-perception: So by thinking, knowing, willing, …illing, loving, joying, we perceive that we do it essentially; yet though the famosius significatum be our own Act as to formality and priority, it is God's as to Eminency and Perfection.
§. 8. It is certain, that as all God's Works bear some notifying Impress of his own Perfection, so Man is especially made in his Image; and therefore our Knowledge of God must there begin seeing we have no immediate and formal knowledge of him.
§. 9. As God is the God of Nature, Grace, and Glory, so he hath made on Man the Image of these three: 1. The natural Faculties of his Soul, are his natural Image on Man as Man: For which it is said, Gen. 9. that blood shall be punished with blood, because Man is made in the Image of God. 2. His moral gracious Image is Holiness, of Intellect, Will and executive Power. 3. The Image of his Majesty, Glory and Greatness, is, 1. in all men the Dominion over the lower Creatures: 2. And in Governours a Power over Subjects or Inferiours.
§. 10. To begin where our Perception beginneth, 1. It is certain, that the mental Nature in Man hath three distinct Faculties in one undivided Substance; That is, 1. Vital Active Power, Intellect and Will: (The Vital Power being considerable, first as exciting Intellection and Will, and after as Executive). The same Essence or Substance is this vital Activity, Intellect and Will: But the Active Power is not the Intellect, nor the Intellect the Will, nor the Will the Intellect, &c. And as Melanchton told his Hearers,Vid. Vit. Georg. Anhalt. & Buchaltrin in M…lc. Adam. (to the admiration of George Prince of Anhalt, and the Duke of Saxony) That the Concrete and Abstract were here differently to be used, we may say, that the Intellect may be said to be willing, but not to be the Will, the Will to be Intellectual, but not to be the Intellect, &c.
§. 11. I have fully proved in Methodo Theol. parte 1. in a peculiar Disputation, that these three Faculties are not Accidents of the Soul, but its essential form in a triple, inadequate Conception, and fully confuted all that Zubarel saith to the contrary, who epitomizeth all the Thomists Arguments, and vindicated Scotus, and added many Arguments of my own, and therefore must thither referr the doubtful.
§. 12. Not that Man's Soul is there by three forms; for all are but one form: But Man's narrow Mind cannot conceive of them but by three Conceptions; which yet are not Fictions, but as Scotus calis them, FORMALITATES, and as Campanella, Primalities or Essentialities; or as the Nominals extrinseck Denominations, and Relative by connotation of the Objects and Effects: He that hath a Wit subtile enough to conceive of Scotus his FORMALITIES, as noting only a fundamentum objectivum distinguendi, will not wonder that a Soul made in God's Image, should be of difficult Conception.
§. 13. II. The same Soul of Man hath three more general Faculties, that is, mental, sensitive, and vegetative (or igneous): These are distinct, but not divided, yet are not three Souls, but one; though the inferiour Operations (at least) may be alterable according to Organs and Objects; and some uses of Senses and Vegetation cease.
§. 14. III. The sensitive Soul in Brutes hatk the Faculties, 1 Vitally active, 2. Sensibly apprehensive, 3. Sensibly appetitive; one of these Faculties is not the other, yet all are but one sensitive Soul.
§. 15. IV. The igneous Nature in Plants called Vegetative, hath three Faculties, Motive, Discretive (differencing its proper Nutriment from other things) and Attractive (which is assimilative) yet all are but one substance.
§. 16. V. The Sun and all igneous substances, have their formal Powers, that is, Motive, Illuminative, and Calefactive: The motion (in power or act) is not formally the Light, nor is the Light the Heat, nor is the Heat the Light or Motion: Nor are these three Suns or Substances, but one Substance is in all three, whose form we necessarily conceive of by this triple inadequate Conception. And thus it is in all the Creatures of Active Nature, which the Receptivity of the Passive also answer; and as I have proved elsewhere through all Morality also.
Melancthon, Loc. Com. per Maulium, p. 3, 4. mentioneth many such instances in the Sun, in Astronomy, in Musick, in Geometry, in Grammar, in Arithmetick; to which Logick and Politicks might be added, All Effects have only three Causes, which in the general of Causality are one; that is, the Cause efficient, Constitutive, and Final. For Matter, Receptive-disposition (called Privation) and Form, are but the three parts of the Constitutive Cause. My M…th. Theol. instanceth in many more.
§. 17. It is certain that the three grand Attributes, Principles, Primalities, Essentialities, or Formalities (as men diversly call them) of which the three Faculties of the Soul are an Image, are in God, not univocally the same as in Man, but eminently and transcendently. And his other Attributes (of Truth, Mercy, Justice, &c.) are these variously exercised and related; that is, Vital-act, Intellect, and Will, called as Perfect, Omnipotent Activity, Omniscience (or Wisdom) and Goodness or Love. And I have proved (ubi supra) that these are not Accidents in God, but his Essence, in a threefold formal Conception, truly distinguishable; some say Ratione rationata; some say formaliter, and some, ex connotatione & relatione ad objecta, and perhaps all little differ in Sence.
§. 18. All Theologue▪ agree, That GOD must be said to be essential Life, Self-knowledge and Selflove, to be essentially sui-vita, se-scire, & se-amare; and that these are best exprest by Substantives abstractly, and not only in the Concrete by Adjectives or Verbs, sui-vita, sui-scientia, sui-amor. Thus far …ere is no doubtfulness.
§. 19. As in man we must conceive inadequate… of the three prime Faculties distinctly (not …paratingly) 1. As in virtute vel potentia. 2. As … actu immanente ad se. 3. In actu trans…unte ad …ia, so must we inadequately conceive of them as …inently in God.
§. 20. It is undeniable, that GOD is CREATOR, REDEEMER and SANCTIFIER; the God of Nature, Grace, and Glory: Vitae, Medicinae, Salu…s. And though Father, Son and Holy Ghost are all these, yet usually in Scripture, Creation is said to be the Work of the Father (by the Son and Spi…it, and Redemption the Work of the Son (sent by the Father) and Perfection or Sanctification the Work of the Holy Ghost (as sent by the Father and the Son.) Therefore Baptism, which is our Christening, bindeth us in Covenant to God, as in these three Relations (which I hope may be easilier understood, than all the Schoolmens Disputes of the Trinity.) And no doubt, but our Baptism is a practical Covenant.
Thus the Trinity of Principles in Unity, is considerable (as is aforesaid) 1. Radically in virtute Essentiae. 2. In the immanent acts of self-living, self-knowing and self-loving. 3. And exeunter transiently in Creation, Redemption and Sanctification, considered not as Effects, but ex parte agentis, as acting them.
§. 21. The word PERSON, by the custom of the Church, having been so commonly used, is not to be disused while it is well expounded, lest we seem by changing the word to change the Doctrine. But the Church had the same Faith before that word was applied to the Trinity; and it was long before the use of it was agreed on; some being for Hypostasis, and some for Persona, and some excepting against both, but not knowing what word to substitute. And is it any Wonder that Humane Language wanteth proper words to signifie that of God, which is so far above our comprehension? So that it is not because they are wiser than he, that some except against the judicious Dr. Wallis for being no more zealous for this Name, nor peremptory for any substitute, but because they understand not so well how unfit man is to make Names for God, which he hath not made himself, and taught us.
§. 22. The bare use of the name [Person] by one that knoweth not what that word signifieth, doth prove no man Orthodox, but only that he useth Orthodox words; it will save no man to use a word which he understands not. And the dislike of that word (or the word Hypostafis, as Hierome did) will condemn no man who believeth the thing, whi…h those that understandingly use the word, do believe: The Scripture hath all necessary names of the Trinity.
§. 23. Doubtless the word PERSON of the Trinity, is of very different signification from the same word applied to Man. And what constituteth a PERSON in the Trinity, none have so curiously searched and disputed, as the Schoolmen; yet he that shall read but what I have recited out of them (in Method. Theol.) will find it past the capacity of an ordinary Student to know what they mean, and impossible to reconcile them with each other. Certainly their sence of the word PERSON was never made necessary to the Christian Faith.
§. 24. Many Protestant Doctors take up with the word foreign; whenas the usual sence both of that Word, and of Persona, is but a Relative Person, (not Aquinas and such others Relation, which is a substance, but) properly the same Person Natural, as related diversly: And if this were all, no man that owneth One God, would question a Plurality of Persons; so one man may have the relative Person of a King, a Husband, a Father, a Captain, General, a Physician, an Astronomer, &c.
And though I hold not this Relative Personality is all that we are to acknowledge in the Trinity, yet I see no reason but in the second place it is included; that is, 1. The Relations which the Divine Vitality, Intellect and Will have to the substantiality, and to each other. 2. And the Relation which they have ad extra to Effects. And whereas it may be objected, that so God hath thousands of Relations to thousands of his Works; I answer, But he hath three grand Relations, which comprehend all the rest, as he is the God of Nature, Grace, and Clory, Creator, Redeemer, and Perfecter: As he hath the three grand Attributes, which comprehend the rest. But undoubtedly this Trinity of essential Attributes which are said to be related to the substantiality, and to each other, is here in the prime Conceptus.
§. 25. He that placeth Personality in the Trinity in SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, leaveth us to enquire of him: Q. 1. Whether it be by him presupposed or not, that there are the three foresaid Attributes called Essentialities or Formalities in one Divine foreign, which we commonly call Substance or Spirit? Q. 2. Whether Conscire being scire, is not the proper Act of an Intellect, and not of a Will, or executive Power, as such? Q. 3. Self-perception indeed is a first and essential Act of every sensible Agent: But doth not that among men only prove sensible Life, which is in many▪ Faculties, and is as numerous as the Acts, and not prove many persons, seeing he must be first a Person who shall thus act? By seeing, I perceive that I see, and by hearing, that I hear, and by tasting, smelling, touching, that I taste, smell, and touch: I know these by Intellection, but I perceive them first by essential Sensation; and so by understanding, I immediately perceive that I understand and think: And by willing I immediately (not know, but) by a sort of eminent Sensation perceive that I will: And by vital Action I perceive that I act. Yet these are not distinct Persons, but the acts of one Person. Perception is essential to Vitality or Sense, but not constitutive of Personality.
Q. 4. Is it knowing ones self, or knowing another, or another's knowing me, that constituteth Personality? I know not my self to be what I am in pri… …; I first perceive my acts, and by the Acts I know that I have an active Power, and by that I know that I am a Substance, &c. Which of these maketh me a Person? 2. God knoweth the Acts of every Creature better than each knoweth his own; yet that is not God's Personality, as distinct from his Life: And that the Creature doth not equally know God, can be no privation of Personality to God, whatever it be to the Creature: And God's Personality was before there was any Creature.
Q. 5. To say, That they are three Minds, or Spirits, or Substances that do invicem conscire, is to say, That they are three Gods: And because every mental Substance hath its own active Power, Intellect and Will, it supposeth three Trinities instead of one.
Q. Though God be said to be purus Actus, it is Actus entit…tivus including potentiam se… virtutem agendi; and foreign or Substantiality, is a necessary prior fundamental Conception; for it doth superare captum humanum to conceive of an Act that is not alicujus actus. He that causeth all substantiality and existence, is eminently existent Substance. Many have made it a Dispute, Whether the Creature have any Entity, or be a Shadow; but none whether God be so.
Obj. To be self-conscious, proveth Personality; and to be conscious of the act of another, proveth one the same Person with the other.
Ans. To be self-perceptive, is a good proof of a Vital Act; and to be self-conscious, is a proof of an Intellect: Indeed in GOD the Substance and Act, and so the Personality and Self-perception are not two things, but the same: But yet inadequate Conceptions must be orderly, and so the act conceived as the act of a Power and of a Person: And as is said, every act or faculty that hath self-perception, is not a Person.
2. And God's consciousness of the acts of Iudas, Herod, Nero, proveth him not to be the same person with each of them (though he be infinitely more.)
§. 26. GOD being essential Life in …ure Act, without any passive Power, meant by the word PERSON by the Orthodox, may duplicate page duplicate page be better spoken of his Essential Acts (the active Virtue included) than of Mans. If it be the Essence, why may not the proved Trinity of objective Conceptions, as formal, be called Persons or Hypostases? (Though many wise Men wish that a Name less liable to mistake, had been used.)
§. 27. But though I am past doubt, that in God is this Trinity of essential, formal, inadequate Conceptions or Primalities, and that the impress of them is on the Soul of Man, which is his image, and on the whole frame of Nature and Grace; yet far be it from me to say, That nothing else is meant by the Trinity of Persons; thus much we are sure of: There may be more to constitute that personality, than is to us comprehensible; and I doubt not but there is more, because thus much is so intelligible; seeing the Divine Nature is so infinitely far above the Comprehension of us poor Worms: But what we know not, we cannot describe, or notifie to others.
§. 28. There are of late some of great Wit and Learning, who have adventured upon another sort of Description of the Trinity; Men whose parts I greatly value: (Peter Sterry, Dr. H. More, Mr. John Turner of St. Thomas Hospital; and before them some in Germany went some such way▪) They say, that from the prime Being emaneth, say some, or is created, say others; the foreign which is the second Hypostasis or person, and Matter which is the third; and this caused Life and Matter (the Son and Holy Ghost) are one indivisible, (though distinguishable) Being, there being no Spirit (saith Dr. M.) save God, that is not a Soul to some Body. Some of them tell us not whether this first produced LIFE and MATTER, be the Universal Matter of the World, animated by an universal Soul; or whether they mean only some prime Soul and Matter, that was made or caused before the rest: But others let us know, that it is the universal that they mean: And if so, they must needs hold the World, as to all its Spirit and Matter, to be eternal, (though in Particles alterable) and to be God himself: The prime Entity, the Life and the Matter, being the Father, Son and Spirit: But they that hold not this universal Life and Matter, do think that God by a most eminent Life and Spirit that was eternal, did create all the rest, as inferiour to them.
Dr. More's Book of Transubstantiation (and Mr. Tho. Beverley's) drew me to write some Animadversions on this Doctrine, as moderating between Extreams; but on further consideration, I am very Ioth to be so venturous in a Case of such tremendous Mystery, as to meddle for or against them, left etiam vera dicere de Deo si incerta, sit periculosum. Though I doubt not but their exposition of Ioh. 6. is unsound, while they make the Flesh and Blood of Christ, which is Transubstantiated, and eaten and drunk, to be the eternal Flesh and Blood of Christ, a Man from Eternity.
§. 29. The difficulty of the Controversie which this leadeth to, Whether the World be an eternal Effect of an eternal Cause, or God from all Eternity, till the forming of this lower World and Adam, had no Being but Himself? Doth deterr me from meddling with it, lest I be blinded by presuming too nearly to gaze on the Light that should guide me; and God, that is Love, should for my boldness be to me a Consuming Fire: Things revealed only as for our search.
§. 30. But the Conclusion which all this prepareth for, is this; That whatever else besides the Trinity of Primalities before described, doth constitute the Trinity of Persons, it is rendred altogether credible to an implicit Faith, by the full Evidence and Certainty of the aforesaid Trinity of Faculties or Primalities, which are God's Image on Man's Soul, and the like imprinted on the whole Creation; which certainly is not done in vain.
§. 31. I pass by the rest, because I have so largely handled it in Method. Theolog. And among the numerous Authors there cited, I desire the Reader especially to peruse the words of Guitmundus (A. B.) Aversanus, Edmund. Cantuariensis, Richardi ad Bernard, Pothonis Prumensis, with whose words I will conclude (cited pag. 103.) There are three invisibles of God, Power, Wisdom and Benignity, of which all things proceed, in which all things subsist, by which all things are ruled. The Father is Power, the Son is Wisdom, the Holy Ghost is Benignity. Power createth, Wisdom governeth, Benignity conserveth. Power by Benignity wisely createth, Wisdom by Power benignly governeth. Benignity by Wisdom powerfully conserveth; As the Image is seen in the Glass, so in the state of the Soul by Humane Nature, &c. To this Similitude of God against Man approacheth nearly, to whom God's Power giveth Power to Good, and his Wisdom to Know, and his Benignity …iveth to Will. This is the threefold Force of the Rational Soul, posse, scire, velle, to be able, to know, to will; which co-operate to Faith, Hope, and Love (or Charity).
§. 32. Among all the Attempts that are published for our Conceptions of the Deity and Trinity, I know of none that give us their Notions with greater Confidence and Pretence of Revelation, than I. P. M. D. [Dr. Pordage] and his Leader Iacob Behmen. Many other of the German Prophets, going near the same way; as C. Beckman describeth them. I. P. his Mystica Theologia pretendeth to far greater discovery of the Deity and Trinity, and the World, than ever Christ, Prophets or Apostles gave us. First, In his Globe of Eternity, or the Divine Essential World pictured by, 1. An Eye (the Father), 2. A Heart (the Son); 3. And the Effluvia or breathed Beams (the Holy Ghost) with the innumerable Progeny of such Eyes flowing from that pregnant Essence, differing from it only as lesser from greater, each an Individual, yet making no Composition (but Unity) in the Deity.
Secondly, In his Abyssal Nothing, or World of Potentialities.
Thirdly, In his Eternal Nature, and the septenary included Worlds, &c.
But, 1. I consess there are many things in him (and in Peter Sterry) which Reason left to its conjectures, would think plausible; but short of Aristotle and Plato.
2. And he is so high in his Description and Defence of Trine-Unity, that even where I consent not, I dare not call him therein unsound.
3. But many Passages in his Description of Eternal Nature are apparently the effects of Ignorance, and erroneous.
4. And he goeth further in his making this Nature eternal, and a World, that is the Body of God, than I dare do.
5. And though I would not be too forward, to contemn men that pretend to know such Mysteries by Vision and Revelation, yet I resolve to take Christ for my sufficient and infallible Teacher; and to pretend to know no more of the Deity and unseen World, than he hath thought meet to reveal: For no man hath seen the Father at any time, but the only begotten Son; nor doth any else know him but he, and those to whom he revealeth him: And what Christ hath not revealed of God, I think it is because it is fittest for us to be yet ignorant of it, as a necessary difference between our present and our future state. To search for more will but confound and lose us, and resting practically in what Christ hath revealed, and for the rest, trusting our selves fully in his Knowing for us, his Love to us, and his Promise for us, may safely and sufficiently quiet the Mind that can be well quieted no other way.