CHAP. X.

The intrinsical Difficulties in the Christian Faith resolved.

OBJECT. 1. The doctrine of the Trinity is not intelligible or credible.

Answ. 1. Nothing at all in God can be comprehended, or fully known by any creatures. God were not God, that is, perfect and infinite, if he were comprehensible by such worms as we. Nothing is so certainly known as God, and yet nothing so imperfectly.

2. The doctrine of the Trinity in unity is so intelligible and credible, and so admirably apparent in its products, in the methods of nature and morality, that to a wise observer it maketh Christianity much the more credible, because it openeth more fully these excellent mysteries and methods. It is intelligible and certain that man is made in the image of God; and that the noblest creatures bear most of the impress of their Maker's excellency; and that the invisible Deity is here to be known by us, as in the glass of his visible works; of which the rational or intellectual nature is the highest with which we are acquainted. And it is most certain that in the unity of man's mind or soul, there is a trinity of essentialities, or primalities, (as Campanella calleth them ;) that is, such faculties as are so little distinct from the essence of the soul as such, that philosophers are not yet agreed, whether they shall say, it is realiter, formaliter, relativè vel denominatione extrinseca. To pass by the three faculties of vegetation, sensation, and intellection; in the soul, as intellectual, there are the essential faculties of power, executive or communicative, ad extra; intellect and will, posse, scire, vellee and accordingly in morality or virtue, there is in one new creature or holy nature, wisdom, goodness, and ability or fortitude, and promptitude to act according to them; and in our relation to things below us, in the unity of our dominion or superiority, there is a trinity of relations, viz.,

d See part 1. c. 5. Pardon the repetitions here for the reasons after mentioned. See, before, in the margin of chap. 5, part 1, the Collection of Christopher Simpson, 'Of Trinity in Unity, in the Harmony of Musical Concordance, in the Division Violist.' p. 17.

• Read Campanella's 'Metaphysics,' and his 'Atheismus triumphatus,' of

this.

we are their owners, their rulers, according to their capacity, and their end and benefactors. So that in the unity of God's image upon man, there is this natural, moral, and dominative image; and in the natural, the trinity of essential faculties; and in the moral, the trinity of holy virtues; and in the dominative, a trinity of superior relations.f

And though the further we go from the root, the more darkness and dissimilitude appeareth to us, yet it is strange to see even in the body, what analogies there are to the faculties of soul, in the superior, middle, and inferior regions; and in them, the natural, vital, and animal parts, with the three sorts of humours, three sorts of concoctions, and three sorts of spirits answerable thereto, and admirably united: with much more, which a just scheme would open to you. And, therefore, seeing God is known to us by this his image, and in this glass, though we must not think that any thing in God is formally the same as it is in man, yet, certainly, we must judge that all this is eminently in God; and that we have no fitter notions and names concerning his incomprehensible perfections, than what are borrowed from the mind of man. Therefore, it is thus undeniable, that God is in the unity of his eternal, infinite essence, a trinity of essentialities, or active principles, viz., power, intellect, and will; and in their holy perfections, they are omnipotency, omniscience or wisdom, and goodness; and in his relative supremacy is contained this trinity of relations, he is our Owner, our Rector, and our chief Good, that is, our Benefactor and our End.

And as in man's soul, the posse, scire, velle, are not three parts of the soul, it being the whole soul, quæ potest, quæ intelligit et quæ vult, and yet these three are not formaliter, or how you will otherwise call the distinction, the same; even so in God, it is not one part of God that hath power, and another that hath understanding, and another that hath will; but the whole Deity is power, the whole is understanding, and the whole is will. The whole is omnipotency, the whole is wisdom, and the whole is

Richardus in Opuscul. ad S. Bernard. de appropriatis personarum, inquit, quod potentia, sapientia, et bonitas, sunt notissima quid sint apud nos, qui ex visibilibus invisibilia Dei per ea quæ facta sunt intellecta conspicimus: et quoniam in elementis, et plantis, et brutis reperitur potentia sine sapientia; et in homine et in angelo reperitur potentia, sed non sine sapientia! Et in Lucifero reperitur potentia et sapientia, sine bonitate et charitate, seu bona voluntate: sed in homine bono, bonoque in angelo, non datur bona voluntas, nisi adsit posse et scire: igitur sunt tria hæc distincta; et posse est per se ut principale, sapientia est à potentia, et ab utrisque voluntas et amor.

goodness, the Fountain of that which in man is called holiness, or moral goodness: and, yet, formally to understand is not to will, and to will is not to be able to execute.

If you say, 'What is all this to the Trinity of hypostases or persons?' I answer, Either the three subsistences in the Trinity are the same with the potentia, intellectus, and voluntas, in the divine essence, or not: if they are the same, there is nothing at all unintelligible, incredible, or uncertain in it; for natural reason knoweth that there is all these eminently in God; and whoever will think that any human language can speak of him, must confess that his omnipotence, wisdom, and goodness, his power, intellect, and will, must be thus to man's apprehension distinguished, otherwise, we must say nothing at all of God, or say that his power is his willing, and his willing is his knowing, and that he willeth all the sin which he knoweth, and all that he can do ; which language will, at best, signify nothing to any man.

And it is to be noted, that our Saviour, in his eternal subsistence, is called, in Scripture, the Wisdom of God, (or his Internal Word); and in his operations, in the creation, he is called, the Word of God, as operative or efficient; and in his incarnation he is called, the Son of God: though these terms be not always, and only thus used, yet usually they are.

The words of an ancient, godly writer before cited, are considerable, Potho Prumensis, 'De Statu Domus Dei, (lib. i. p. 567. in Biblioth. Patr. t. 9.') "Tria sunt invisibilia Dei; h. e. potentia, sapientia, benignitas, à quibus omnia procedunt, in quibus omnia subsistunt, per quæ omnia reguntur: Pater est potentia, Filius sapientia, Spiritus Sanctus benignitas. Potentia creat, sapientia gubernat, benignitas conservat. Potentia per benignitatem sapienter creat: sapientia per potentiam benigne gubernat benignitas per sapientiam potenter conservat: sicut imago in speculo cernitur, sic in ratione animæ. Huic similitudini Dei approximat homo; cui potentia Dei dat bonum posse; sapientia tribuit scire; benignitas præstat velle: hæc triplex animæ rationalis vis est; scil. posse, scire, velle; quæ supradictis tribus fidei, spei, et charitati cooperantur," &c. Read

< Ecce in uno capite, duo tibi sunt oculi: sed est substantiæ eorum unus aspectus, &c. Quod si unius substantiæ in te ista bina continent unitatem, non vis in Deo Patre et Filio vere duas personas unam habere substantiam.— Arnobius Conflict. cum Serapione, p. 354. Vide Cæsarii Dialog. Q. 2. de triplici lumine. Zoplav càv elnŵ yévvnμa avtî yw, inquit Theophil. Antioch. ad Autol. 1. 1, p. 3. Leg. August. de Trinitate, et Dialog ex eo excerpt. de Trinit. in B. P. Gr. Lat. to. 1. p. 540.

h

more in the author, and in Raimundus Lullius; and among later writers, in Campanella, Raymundus de sabundis, &c., as I said before. He that will give you a scheme of divinity in the true method, will but show you how all God's works and laws flow from these three essentialities or principles; and the three great relations founded in them, his being our Owner, Ruler, and chief Good; and how all our duty is branched out accordingly in our correlations. He will show you the Trinity of graces, faith, hope, and love; and the three summary rules, the Creed, Lord's Prayer, and Decalogue; and, in a word, would show you that the Trinity revealeth itself through the whole frame of true theology or morality; but who is able to discern it in the smaller and innumerable branches?i

Yea, if ever it were to be hoped that our physics should be brought into the light of certainty and true method, you would see unity in trinity in all things in the world; you would see that in the sun and the other celestial luminaries, which are the glorious images of the intellectual world, in the unity of their essence there is a moving, illuminating, and heating power, and that no one of these is formally the other, nor is any one of them a part of the sun or other luminary, much less a mere accident of quality, but an essential, active principle or power; the whole luminary being essentially a principle of motion, light and heat, which are not accidents in them, but acts flowing immediately from their essential powers, as intellection and volition from the soul.

I shall now say no more of this, but profess that the discovery

h Nihil aliud est Filius vel Verbum Dei, quam cogitatio, vel ars, vel sapientia ejus――Nihil aliud Sp. Sanctus quam amor Dei intelligitur.-Id. Ibid. p. 542, 543.

Per

i Leg. et Hilar. de Trinit. Vide Maxim. Mystagog. Ecclesiast. c. 6. talem rationem venit homo ad cognitionem Dei, quod est unus in substantia, et trinus in personis. Istud idem videt homo in seipso: nam ipse videt bene quod semper habuit homo in seipso potentiam, et post potentiam, sapientiam :

Et de ambabus venit amor : et quando videt homo quod ita est in seipso, ex hoc intelliget bene quod ita est in Deo, qui est ultra illum, viz. Quod in Deo sit potestas, et de illa potestate venit sapientia, et de utraque venit amor. Et propter hoc quod ex prima persona venit secunda, et de ambabus procedit tertia, ideo prima persona vocatur Pater, secunda Filius, tertia Spiritus Sanctus. Isto modo venit homo primo ad cognitionem Dei sui creatoris, quomodo est sine principio, et quare vocatur Deus, unus substantia, trinus personis. Et quia prima persona vocatur Pater, secunda Filius, tertia Spiritus Sanctus; et quia appropinquatur potestas Patri, sapientia Filio, bonitas et amor Sp. Sancto: tali modo debet cognoscere Deum Filium, et iste modus cognitionis est fundamentum contemplationis.-Edmund Archiepis. Cantuari. Specul. Eccles. c. 28. See more of this before, (to. 1. c. 5.)

of the emanations or products of the Trinity, and the image and vestigia of it, in the course of nature and method of morality, doth much increase my reverence to the christian doctrine: so far is the Trinity from being to me a stumbling-block.

Object. But what are such trinities in unity as these to the Trinity of persons in the Deity? Such weak arguments will but increase incredulity. Will you pretend to prove the Trinity by natural reason; or would you persuade us that it is but three of God's attributes, or our inadequate conceptions of him? Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa: ergo, no creature can reveal to us the Trinity.

Answ. 1. It is one thing to prove the sacred Trinity of persons by such reason, or to undertake fully to open the mystery; and it is another thing to prove that the doctrine is neither incredible nor unlikely to be true; and that it implieth no contradiction or discordancy, but rather seemeth very congruous both to the frame of nature and of certain moral verities. This only is my task against the infidel.

2. It is one thing to show in the creatures a clear demonstration of this Trinity of persons, by showing an effect that fully answereth it; and another thing to show such vestigia, adumbration or image of it, as hath those dissimilitudes which must be allowed in any created image of God. This is it which I am to do.

3. He that confoundeth the attributes of God, and distinguisheth not those which express these three essential primalities or active principles to which our faculties are analogous, from the rest; or that thinketh that we should cast by this distinction, under the name of an inadequate conception, so far as we can imagine these principles to be the same, and that there is not truly in the Deity a sufficient ground for this distinction, is not the man that I am willing now to debate this cause with; I have done that sufficiently before. Whether the distinction be real, formal, or denominative, the Thomists, Scotists, and nominals, have disputed more than enough; but even the nominals say that there is a sufficient ground for the denomination, which some call virtual, and some relative; and they that dispute of the distinction of persons, do accordingly differ, calling it either relative, virtual, formal, or moral, or ratione ratiocinatâ, as they imagine best; and they that differ about these do accordingly differ about the difference of the faculties of our souls: for my part, I see not the least reason to doubt but that the Trinity of