I

tTv PRINCETON. N. J. \#

Library of Dr. A. A. Hodge. Presented.

Division.

SectiSn 9^Q

ber rCjia^T 1.

1233

THE CREEDS

OF

ATHANASITJS, SABELLIUS,

AND

SWEDENBORG.

THE CREEDS

OF

ATHANASIUS, SABELLIUS,

AND

SWEDENBORG,

EXAMINED AND COMPARED WITH EACH OTHER.

BY THE/

REV. AUGUSTUS 'CLISSOLD, M.A.

" Whose voice theu shook the earth : but now he hath promised, saying, Tet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." — Hebrews xii. 26.

SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED.

LONDON : LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

LONDON :

MITCHELL AND HUGHES, PRINTERS, 24 WARDOUR STREET, W.

PREFACE

TO THE

SECOND EDITION.

Since the First Edition of this work was published, various Public Meetings through- out the country have been held in Defence of the Athanasian Creed. In the Authorized Report of two of these Meetings held in London, it was observed by one of the speakers : —

" There* are two dangers ahead yet. There is Convocation and there is Parliament. We are told that the former will probably agree to accept some form of Synodical declaration

* Page 60.

b

vi Preface to the Second Edition.

that the Church of England takes the con- demnations in the Athanasian Creed in exactly the same sense as the solemn warn- ings of Holy Scripture. I will only say in reference to that proposal, that I trust Convocation will never commit itself to such an absurdity. I have always thought it was for the Church to interpret the language of Holy Scripture, not for Holy Scripture to interpret the language of the Church."

The same position is maintained elsewhere hy a well-known writer, Dr. Newman : "I* am sure at least," says he, " that St. Atha- nasius frequently adduces passages in proof of points in controversy, which no one would see to be proofs, unless Apostolical Tradition were taken into account, first as suggesting, then as authoritatively ruling their meaning."

According to these statements, when it is said in the Eighth Article that the Creed of

* Lectures on Certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans, etc. Page 3C5. Fourth Edition.

Preface to the Second Edition. vii

Athanasius may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture, this means not Holy Scripture by itself, but Holy Scripture as previously interpreted by a Tradition which authoritatively rules the meaning of Scripture.

In the present case, the Tradition is the Creed itself : it is the Creed therefore which interprets Scripture. How then are we to interpret the Creed ? It is answered, In the same sense in which it is received by the Church, and hence by its most able advo- cates, one of whom is Dr. Newman ; accord- ing to whom, the Church does not so much demand faith in the Creed, as faith in the authority which propounds the Creed.

This authority of the Church is pleaded in opposition to the popular voice, on which alone, it is said, depends the retention of the Creed in the Church of England : " The* same popular voice which has explained

* Ibid., page 23.

viii Preface to the Second Edition.

away the office for Baptism, may of course in a moment dispense with the Athanasian Creed." It will be seen that the Notes by the distinguished Translator of the Select Treatises of Athanasius have already ren- dered unnecessary any expression of the popidar voice.

When, however, Tradition is said to inter- pret Scripture, I am not aware that it has ever undertaken authoritatively to interpret that part of Scripture which is called Pro- phecy ; and in this case, if it be asked who then is to interpret Prophecy, the answer is — Events. But if we do not know the meaning of Prophecy, how can we know the meaning of the events which are its fulfilment ? Both meanings may in this case be equally hidden from our eyes ; and to modern Christendom as well as to the Jews of old might be applied the words : " If thou hadst known at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace."

Preface to the Second Edition. ix

How far this is really applicable to the present state of Christendom, may be in- ferred from the following observation of Dr. Newman, who reminds us, that any Via media is only another form of Protestantism. Rome, he says, may yet be in a position to make its voice heard in England : —

"In* the controversy which will ensue, Rome will not fail to preach, far and wide, the tenet which it never conceals, that there is no salvation external to its own commu- nion. On the other hand, Protestantism, as it exists, will not be behindhand in consign- ing to eternal ruin all who are adherents of Roman doctrine. What a prospect is this ! two widely spread and powerful parties deal- ing forth solemn anathemas upon each other, in the name of the Lord."

It is the conviction of the present writer that the latter days have already come upon

* Lectures on Certain Difficulties felt Ij Anglicans, page 328.

b 2

x Preface to the Second Edition.

Christendom ; that the existing perturba- tions are events immediately connected with the fulfilment of Prophecy ; and that among these events must be reckoned those which relate to the Athanasian Creed. It is this deep conviction that originally led the author to the publication of this Tract. Merely to acid another treatise to lengthen out the old controversies which have taken place upon the subject, would not only be useless, but detrimental to the Christian life. A new element has been introduced into the dis- cussion, calculated in future to give a new turn to the whole argument. The old con- troversy, it will be seen, has now come to a crisis ; and it is in relation to this crisis, that the appearance of the new element is here treated of. In a new era of Christendom there will be new aspects of Divine Truth, and the doctrines of the Trinity and Incar- nation will be understood the better in pro- portion to the better understanding of the

Preface to the Second Edition. xi

true relations "between Charity and Faith as founded upon the true nature of each. To the promotion of this end it is hoped that this Tract will contribute.

I can only express my regret that extreme illness should have prevented the correction of numerous Errata in the Eirst Edition ; but which, in this Second Edition, which has been carefully revised, will, I believe, no longer appear : further' statements also, in illustration of the vital questions at issue, have been occasionally added.

The Pake,

Stoke Newik-gtox, October, 1873.

PREFACE

TO THE

FIEST EDITION.

When great changes are apprehended as im- pending over great Institutions, they naturally give rise to great diversities of opinion. Two of the greatest changes which can hefall any National Church are, in the present day, sub- jects of serious discussion. There is a change affecting the internal life of the Church, so far as this life is derived from the Athanasian Creed; and there is a change affecting its external life, in the form of proposed Seces- sion, or else Disestablishment. Hence a variety of conflicting opinions. Some think it desirable that the Damnatory Clauses should be dispensed with, but they would preserve the rest of the Creed ; some would

Preface to the First Edition. xiii

preserve the whole Creed, but make it no part of Divine worship ; some would retain the Creed, hut make its use optional ; some, while retaining the Creed, would make its use compulsory, and adopt an explanatory rubric. Some would professedly secede from their ministrations in the Church, if any alterations were made in the Creed or even in the use of the Creed; some would join the Liberation Society; and some secede from the Church altogether.

In the course of the present Tract a new element is introduced as the latent cause of the present agitation, namely, that of Pro- phecy ; for if the Church be what it aims to be, a true Catholic Church, nay, according to some, the one great bulwark of Christianity, it is not unreasonable to presume, that it has a place in the scheme of Divine Providence ; and, in this case, to omit the subject of Pro- phecy might be only to admit, that the destiny of the Church has no place in the Divine

xiv Preface to the First Edition.

order of things, and consequently is uncon- nected with either the Present or the Future of Christendom.

It has, indeed, been supposed by some, that the old heresies have died out ; and, as such, that there is no further use in denouncing them. Others have thought that they have never died out, but are always re-appearing, though, it may be, under new names ; thus, for instance, that what is called Sweden- borgianism is nothing more than a new name for the old Sabellianism ; and as some of the clauses of the Athanasian Creed were intro- duced for the express purpose of condemning Sabellianism, the disuse of the Creed, it is thought, would tend to remove the only bul- wark against this heresy ; and therefore, says Mr. Maccoll — " I trust that the Athanasian Creed will be neither abolished nor altered. To do either would be to abandon the Faith, and to commit the Church of England to Sabellianism. "

Preface to the First Edition. xv

In the ensuing pages, we have pointed ont the real relation of the Sabellian Creed to the Athanasian, at least in so far as the doctrines of Sabellius are thought to be known ; and having done this, we are the better enabled to perceive the relation of both to the doctrines of Swedenborg.

It seems impossible to disguise the fact, that, in the present day, the Athanasian Creed is itself upon its trial. This is the reason for which a Defence Committee has been formed ; and the ensuing pages may serve to shew what are the responsibilities they have undertaken. That the Creed can- not remain as it is, and as it is interpreted by its most able advocates, the present Tract is designed to demonstrate; inasmuch as it is no longer any safeguard against either Tritheism or Sabellianism. In shewing its inadequacy in these respects, I have avoided as much as possible the metaphysical part of the subject ; still it could not be avoided

xvi Preface to the First Edition.

altogether without leaving the argument incomplete.

It has been said, that there may be a con- siderable difference between a Creed, and the interpretation of a Creed : it is however cer- tain, that there is no difference between a Creed and the meaning of the Creed. The interpretation of a Creed by its advocates is to them the meaning of the Creed.

Accordingly, in the ensuing pages, we have assumed the case of a person of ordinary attainments, pursuing his enquiries into the meaning of the Creed, on the principle ex- pressed as follows by an earnest advocate of the Creed itself: —

" I am supposing that we think of what we say in solemn worship : that we endeavour to gain as clear a notion as we can of the meaning of the words we use, and of what we commit ourselves to by using them."

THE CREEDS

OF

ATHANASITJS, SABELLITJS,

AND

SWEDENBOKG.

If, according to the written Creed of the Church, there are not Three Gods, but one God ; and if, notwithstanding, a general belief should prevail that there are Three Divine Beings, and not One Only Divine Being ; it is evident that the state of the Church must be determined not by the paper and ink of a written Creed, but by the actual state of mind of the members of the Church. If, therefore, a member of the Church, in order to prove that he is no Tritheist, should quote the declaration of the Athanasian Creed, that there are not Three Gods but one God, this would be no more a proof that he is not a Tritheist, than if he should quote the

B

2

" Gates of Hell."

Ten Commandments in order to prove that he had never broken any of them. Besides quoting the Creed, he should look into his own thoughts, and seriously examine himself whether he believes in one Divine Being or in Three. If there are statements in the Creed which it is difficult, if not impossible, for an ordinary mind to understand, with- out assuming the existence of Three Divine Beings, the duty of self-examination, in this case, becomes the more requisite ; for it is on the Unity of God that is founded the Unity of the Church, and this is the real question which is now at issue, which underlies the whole of the modern controversies on the Athanasian Creed, and has occasioned the disunion which threatens the stability of the Church.

Although the Athanasian Creed has never received the sanction of an (Ecumenical Council, yet the decrees of such a Council, it is said, do not partake -of an (Ecumenical character until they are made known through- out the world, and accepted by the Church universal as the expression of its faith. It is accordingly affirmed that, from the be- ginning, the Athanasian Creed was received with such a universal approbation as to con-

" Gates of Sell"

3

stitute it a truly Catholic Creed ; the voice of the Church having thus pronounced a final and irrefragable sentence in its favour.

If we ask how it is that universal approba- tion is an evidence of its truth, we are told that —

" It is of course morally impossible that the collective mind of Christendom, if it found a truly representative organ, could go astray in a matter of faith ; for otherwise our Lord's promise would fail, and the gates of Hell would indeed prevail against His Church."*

Nothing, however, is more clear than that a time is predicted when there would be an Apostacy ; when the collective mind of the Church would go astray, and the true faith be confined to a few. " To foretell," says Mr. Davison, f " that a religion pure and excellent as that of the Gospel, would in

* The Damnatory Clauses of the Athanasian Creed Rationally Explained : In a Letter to the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. By the Rev. Malcolm Maccoll, M.A., Rector of St. George, Botolph Lane, with St. Botolph-by-Billingsgate. Pages 36, 37.

f Discourses on Prophecy. Preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn, in the Lecture founded by the Right Rev. W. Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester. By John Davison, B.D., late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. Page 448.

B 2

4

' Gates of Sell''

some future time be depraved, was to foretell nothing improbable. For what is there so sacred in truth which the wickedness and the mistakes of men, or the love of novelty, or the spirit of enthusiasm, or unlearned rash- ness, or policy and interested designs, will not model anew, and distort from its original rectitude ? Error and heresy are nearly co- eval with truth. They began to work as soon as Christianity was taught, and they may be expected to attend it to its latest day of trial."

Now it is in this sense that the prophetic words of our Lord are generally interpreted concerning the latter days, when He says, " The sun shall be darkened, the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken." And it is in reference more particularly to this state of the Church, that the prediction of our Lord is interpreted — " The gates of Sell shall not prevail against it." Thus De Lyra observes : —

" The gates of Sell shall not prevail, namely, in subverting the Church from the true faith ; because the Church does not consist of men who are of the Church by reason of their power, or their ecclesiastical

" Gates of Sell."

5

or secular dignity; inasmuch as many Princes, and Pontiffs, and others of inferior rank, have been found to apostatize from the faith ; for which reason, the Church consists of those other persons who possess a true knowledge, and a true confession, of the faith and of the truth."

Who are these ? In the latter days the true faith is confined only to a few. The Church however, in this case, is not de- stroyed; it does not perish totally, or irre- coverably, even should it seem as if a true Church could nowhere be found ; for " the gates of Sell shall not prevail against it :" there shall be even then a true Church, says Bishop Horsley, somewhere or other. This is the sense in which Dr. Hammond inter- prets our Lord's prediction : —

"As it refers to the Church in complex, i.e., to the whole congregation of Christian professors, so it signifies a promise of Christ that it shall never be destroyed so as to perish totally, irrecoverably ; but whatsoever change it undergoes in the world, it shall again lift up the head, and have as it were its resurrection ; which promise is performed, if, as it decays or perishes in one branch or part, it revive and flourish in another."

G Baptismal Creed.

Now, in what way more specifically does it come to pass that the Church is reduced to such a strait ? The question is thus answered hy Dr. Samuel Clarke: —

" The Baptismal Creed must of necessity contain explicitly in it at least all the Fun- damentals of Faith, because, whatever is fundamental is necessary to Salvation; and 'tis a manifest absurdity that anything should be necessary to the salvation of a Christian, and yet not be expressly required to be ex- plicitly believed by him at his Baptism (or Confirmation), when he is admitted into the Christian Church. For to admit any person to be a member upon certain terms or con- ditions, and afterwards to alter or add to those terms, is what in other cases men never allow."

" But in process of time, as men grew less pious and more contentious, so, in the several Churches, they enlarged their Creeds and Confessions of Faith ; and grew more minute in determining unnecessary controversies; and made more and more things explicitly necessary to be understood ; and, under pre- tence of explaining authoritatively, imposed things much harder to be understood than the Scripture itself, and became more un-

Early Contentions. * 7

charitable in their censures ; and the farther they departed from the Fountain of Catholic Unity, the Apostolical form of sound words, the more uncertain and unintelligible their definitions grew; and good men found no- where to rest the sole of their foot, but in having recourse to the original words of Christ Himself and of the Spirit of Truth, in which the wisdom of God has thought fit to express itself."*

How far this is applicable to the contro- versies which have taken place with regard to the doctrine of the Tripersonality , the reader will judge as we proceed. In the meantime let us take note of a passage in Dr. "Waterland'sf answer to Dr. Clarke : —

"The pretended contradictions, now re- vived by many against the doctrine of the Trinity, are very old and trite. They were long ago objected to the Christians by the heathen idolaters. They almost turned the heads of Praxeas, Noetus, Sabellius, Mani- chaeus, Paul of Samosata, not to mention Arius, Nestorius, Eutyches, and other ancient heretics. The Catholics were sen- sible of them, but having well considered

* Introduction to the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity. | See Waterland's Works, vol. i., part ii., page 210.

8

Prophecy.

them, they found them of much too slight moment to bear up against the united force of Scripture and tradition. The doctrine of the Trinity, with all its seeming contra- dictions, has stood the test not only of what human wit could do by way of dispute, but of all that rage and malice could contrive, through a persecution almost as bitter and virulent as any that had ever been under heathen emperors. This is to me an addi- tional confirmation, that the doctrine we profess is no such gross imposition upon the common sense and reason of mankind as is pretended."

Assuming the truth of all this, we readily grant that if the Church is never destined to change, of course there will be no change in the Athanasian Creed. On the other hand, if the Church be destined to change, it be- comes a question how far the Athanasian Creed may be involved in the change. It may be said that if a Creed be true, it will never change. But in like manner, so long as a Church is true, it will never change; and we are assured by its advocates, that the Athanasian Creed is inwrought into the very being of the Church, and that the two will stand or fall together.

Predicted Changes.

9

But how is it that the very traditions of the Church, as founded on Scriptural inter- pretations, testify that the Church is actually destined to experience this change? I am not about to quote any sensational interpre- tations of Prophecy; but interpretations de- liberately given by some of the most emi- nent divines in the Church, attesting that the whole Catholic Church is destined to experience a change, which is represented in terms signifying the greatest change possible.

Let us furnish examples.

In Hebrews xii. 26, it is said : — " Whose voice then shook the earth ; but now he hath promised, saying, — Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word yet once more signifieth the re- moving of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made ; that those things which cannot be shaken may remain."

The interpretation of Estius is as fol- lows : —

" The Apostle speaks of this commotion as if it were yet to come, and were still future. As if he should say, one was formerly effected, another is still to be expected ac- cording to promise."

" Moreover Chrysostom, and all the Greek

b3

10

Prophecy.

interpreters without exception, explain this passage of that commotion of heaven and earth which shall take place at the End of the Age, when the whole world will be made new. For Cyril also, as quoted by OEcume- nius, gives this in plain terms as the meaning of the passage. To these may be added Latin interpreters, such as Anselm, Thomas, Cajetan, and others."

As applied to the J ewish Economy, Calmet declares that the passage signifies a universal change in all parts of the world, in regard to religion, manners, and doctrine; and it is in conformity with this method of interpre- tation that Bishop Horsley interprets the words in Isaiah li. 13, 16* — "That I may plant the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people."

" To stretch out the heavens and lay the foundations of the earth may be an image generally signifying the execution of the greatest purposes of Providence. Perhaps the heavens may denote hierarchies, or reli- gious establishments; and the earth secular governments. And under the image of ex- tending the heavens and setting the earth on

* See his Biblical Criticism, vol. i., page 434.

Predicted Changes.

11

its foundations, the Holy Spirit may describe a new and improved face of both religion and civil government, as the ultimate effect of Christianity in the latter ages. Certainly not religion only, but civil government also, has already received great improvement from Christianity. But the improvement ivill at last be inconceivably greater, and universal. And whenever this phrase of stretching out the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth is applied by the prophets to things clearly future, and yet clearly previous to the general Judgment, I apprehend it denotes those great changes for the better, in ecclesi- astical and civil politics, in religion and morals, which are to take place in the very last period of the Church on earth; not with- out allusion to that physical improvement of the system of the material world {query) which seems in some places to be literally predicted. I cannot believe, with Vitringa, that any thing that has yet taken place answers to the full meaning of that astonish- ing image. It is true that the prophets often confound the ends of things with their begin- nings. But if the first promulgation of the Gospel be ever described under the image of a new making of the whole external world,

12 Prophecy.

which, with the highest reverence for the authority of the learned and judicious Vitringa, I as yet believe not ; it must be so described not simply in itself, but with a view to its ultimate effect."

Comformably to this view of the subject, we find in the Family Bible, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Know- ledge, the following remarks on Hebrews xii. 26, the passage before cited —

"When the Prophets describe the great changes and revolutions that should forerun, and the mighty power that should accom- pany, the last and perfect Dispensation of Christ the Messiah ; they represent it by God shaking the heavens and the earth. Haggai ii. 6, 7 : ' Yet once more, ' says God, ' and I will shake not the earth only, but also heaven ; that is, make a thorough revo- lution, and establish a lasting Dispensation of religion to all mankind."

The same kind of interpretation is given by the same Family Bible to Revelation xxi. 1 :

" ' And I, John, saw the Holy City ' — I beheld, under the emblem of the New Jeru- salem, not the literal, the Jewish city of that name, rebuilt and new adorned ; but that Israel of God by which the Prophets were

Predicted Changes. 13

wont to express the true Church and wor- shippers of God, under Christ the Messiah. As this Christian Church, in its former cor- rupt state, answered to the sinful Jerusalem that was to he destroyed by the Chaldeans and Romans, so now in its reformed and pure condition it is styled New."

Erom these interpretations it is evident, that the whole Catholic Church is destined to undergo a change — a change of such a vital nature as to he expressed hy the greatest change possible, namely, the creation of new heavens and a new earth, and consequently a New Church.

It may he replied hy some, that this is not the meaning of the prophecies ; that other eminent Commentators have given at least a different application ; consequently, that no one is hound to receive these interpretations as true. This we grant. All that we contend for is the liberty to believe them to he true ; and consequently the liberty to believe, that what has lasted for nearly two thousand years is not on that account to last for ever. In the exercise of this liberty, we are free to inquire, how far the Athanasian Creed is involved in the predicted destinies of the Church; thus, whether the Creed, or any

14

Athanasian Creed.

part of it, be among those things which are to be shaken and removed, as being of " the things that are made ; that those things which cannot be shaken may remain."

We are thus taken out of the region of (Ecumenical Councils, and the traditions, authority, and approbation of the Church ; unless it be maintained that the Church is mistress over her own destinies, and that Divine Providence can introduce no changes without first consulting Councils, or submit- ting His designs to the approbation of the Church. The voice of Prophecy is supreme over the voice of the Church. How far the gates of Hell have been opened, and poured forth their darkness into the human under- standing, will be seen as we proceed.

With these prefatory remarks we pass on to the consideration of the subject.

I. Athanasitts.

We have seen how Wateiiand has already spoken of pretended contradictions in the Creed; that is, contradictions pretended to be such by the enemies of the Creed. We purpose to shew, that these contradictions

Cudworth.

15

are declared to be such not only by the adver- saries of the Creed, but by its most zealous advocates ; and that, in support of this view of the subject, a new and most subtle system of metaphysics has been introduced, designed to prove, that the doctrine of the Triper- sonality, when attempted to be explained and understood, not only is, but ought to be self-contradictory.

Let us trace the argument to its earlier history in the Church of England, and care- fully note the kind of ordeal which a sincere inquirer of ordinary attainments has to pass through, in endeavouring to satisfy his mind with regard to the Athanasian Creed.

In pursuing his enquiry, his attention is first drawn to the great controversy upon the Trinity which commenced in the seven- teenth century, and in which the most learned divines of the Church of England — Dr. Cudworth, Bishop Eowler, Dean Sherlock, Mr. Bingham, Dr. South, Dr. "Wallis, Dr. Waterland, Bishop Bull, and others, took a prominent part. The Intellectual System of Dr. Cudworth was published a.d. 1678 ; and although it might have been expected, that upon the subject of the Divine Unity so learned a man would be clear and con-

1G

Athanasian Creed.

sistent, yet he has so expressed himself as to lead to a belief that he was virtually a Tritheist. Mr. Robert Nelson, for instance, in his Life of Bishop Bull declares,* that — "Dr. Cudworth's notion with regard to the Trinity was the same with Dr. Samuel Clarke's, and represents it in the following terms : That the Three Persons of the Trinity are Three distinct spiritual Substances: but that the Father alone is truly and properly God; that He alone in the proper sense is Supreme ; that absolute Supreme honour is due to Him only; and that He, absolutely speaking, is the only God of the universe, the Son and the Spirit being God, but only by the Father's concurrence with them, and their subordination and subjection to Him."

Now Dr. Cudworth's chapter upon the doctrine of the Trinity may be considered as an explanation and vindication of what he regarded as meant by the Athanasian Creed ; but what was afterwards thought of this doc- trine of Three distinct spiritual Substances will be seen as we proceed ; for it found advo- cates in Dean Sherlock, Dr. Fowler Bishop of Gloucester, Mr. Bingham, and numerous other learned divines. For instance :

* Page 289.

Sherlock.

17

In the time of Dean Sherlock a Socinian Tract was published, entitled Brief Notes upon the Athanasian Creed, in which oc- curred the following remark : —

" They (namely, the Athanasians) all say, The Father is the One true God, the Son is the One true God, and the Holy Ghost is the One true God : which is a threefold contra- diction ; because there is but One true God, and One of these Persons is not the other. But if it be a contradiction, it is certainly false; for every contradiction, being made up of inconsistencies, destroys itself, and is its own confutation."

In answer to this charge of contradiction, in his Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and Boer Blessed Trinity* a.d. 1690, Dean Sherlock observes,! that a contradiction is to deny and affirm the same thing in the same sense. " If there be Three Gods, it is not true that there is only One God."

..." Things which are so contrary as to contradict each other can never be both true; for all contradictions finally resolve into this — It is, and It is not, which is absolutely impossible."

Hence he adds : —

* Page 86. J Ibid., pages 2, 3.

18 Athaaasian Creed.

" Before we can pronounce that such (and such) a notion or idea is contradictious, we must be sure that we perfectly understand and comprehend the nature of that Being; otherwise the contradiction may not be in the thing, but in our manner of conceiving it. It is not enough in this case to say, We cannot understand it, and know not how to reconcile it ; but we must say that we do perfectly understand it, and know that it cannot be reconciled."

"Men may easily mistake," says he, "in charging the nature and notions of things with contradiction ;" and therefore we must enquire how we may discover that an ap- parent contradiction is not real, but is wholly owing to our imperfect conception of things. " When it relates to such things as all man- kind agree that we do not, and cannot fully* understand or comprehend, f it is a vain and

* Dean Sherlock here lays himself open to a cavil of Dr. South, who replied that, as we do not fully understand anything, upon this principle there would be no such thing as a contradiction. Still there is something in Christianity, as a mystery, which we profess to understand ; and it is in relation to what we profess to understand that the term contradiction may be used. In this respect there is no real difference between South and Sherlock.

t Ibid., page i.

Sherlock.

19

arrogant presumption to say what is and what is not a contradiction." — We know that nothing can be which involves a con- tradiction in its nature ; and therefore if we prove that a thing is* we know that it is not self-contradictory; and that if it appears to be so, the contradiction is not real, but only apparent, arising from our imperfect concep- tions of its nature.

Now the proofs, says he, that any thing is, are either from Sense, Reason, or Re- velation. Setting aside, in the present case, the evidence of Sense, we derive our proofs from Reason and Revelation ; and, inas- much as it can be shewn from Scripture that the thing is, therefore there is an end of all pretended contradictions. The same may be shewn also, says the Dean, from Reason ; hence the doctrine of Three Persons and One G-od does not transcend human reason, but may be shewn to be perfectly reason- able and free from all contradiction, whether apparent or real. " Accordingly, my original design," says the Dean to the reader, " was to vindicate the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation from those pretended absurdities and contradictions which were so confidently

* Ibid., page 5.

20

Athanasian Creed.

charged on them ; and this I am sure I have done ; for I have given a very easy and intelli- gible notion of a Trinity in Unity, and if it be possible to explain this doctrine intelligibly, the charge of contradictions vanishes ; and whether men will believe this account or not, they cannot deny but that it is very possible and intelligible ; and if we could go no farther, that is enough in matters of Revelation."

To proceed upon this principle, was, as the Dean conceived, to meet Unitarians and Socinians upon their own ground ; in so doing, however, he was obliged to admit, with Dr. Cudworth, the doctrine of Three Divine Persons as Three Divine Beings or Substances, as we now proceed to shew.

When the Athanasian asserted as above,* that the Father is the One True God, the Son is the One True God, and the Holy Ghost the One True God ; that One of these Divine Persons is not the other, and yet that there is only One True God, the Dean thus proves to his opponent that such a statement is free from all contradiction. He argues for the necessity of Three Divine Substances, and then for the union of these Three by mutual consciousness.

* See page 17.

Sherlock.

21

n The* Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity" says the Dean, "are either Three Substantial Persons, or they are not : to deny them to be Substantial is Sabellianism, whatever else we call them : there must be either One singular solitary Substance in the Deity, or Three distinct Personal Sub- stances. The first is the fundamental article of the Sabellian Creed, and a direct contra- diction to the doctrine of the Trinity, for One singular solitary Nature or Substance is but One Person ; for which reason the Sabellians so earnestly contended for it, and the Catholic Fathers so vigorously opposed it. And if we own Three distinct Substantial Persons in the Trinity, we must own Three distinct Personal Substances, for a distinct Sub- stantial Person must have a distinct Substance of his own, proper and peculiar to his own Person ; that though the Father and the Son are of One Substance, as the Son is begotten of the Substance of the Father, and consub- stantial with Him; yet the personal Substance of the Son is no more the personal Substance of the Father, than the Father is the Person of the Son, or the Son is the Person of the

* A Modest Examination of the Oxford Decree, p. 17, a.d. 1696.

22

Athanasicm Creed.

Father : and therefore there is a manifest Sabellian fallacy in it (which it is impossible to make sense of) to say, That the Father is an infinite Mind, the Son an infinite Mind, and the Holy Ghost an infinite Mind; that the Father is Substance, the Son Substance, the Holy Ghost Substance; and yet that there are not Three personal Minds, or Three per- sonal Substances, but One singular Mind and Substance ; for this is to be One and Three in the same sense ; which is not mystery but contradiction."

In support of this view of the Trinity, the Dean derives the following argument from the Incarnation : —

"For* God was not Incarnate, if the Divine Nature was not Incarnate. And if there be but One singular Divine Nature and Substance in the Deity, though they (namely, the opponents of this doctrine) could find a Trinity of Persons in this One singular Nature, the Incarnation of this One singular Nature is impossible, without the Incarna- tion of the whole Trinity. Men may wrangle as long as they please about these matters ; but it is a manifest contradiction to say, that the Divine Nature is incarnate in the Son,

* Ibid., page 23.

Sherlock.

23

and is not incarnate in the Father and the Holy Ghost, when there is hut One singular Divine Nature and Suhstance in them all ; which is to say that the same One singular Nature is incarnate and is not incarnate ; and is and is not, is a contradiction, or there never can he a contradiction."

Now a Divine Person, says the Dean, is not a mere mode of Subsistence, hut a Mind, a Spirit, a Suhstance.

" If* then," says he, " a Person he a Mind, a Spirit, a Suhstance, Three such Persons must he Three as distinct Minds, Spirits, or Substances, as they are distinct Persons ; and Three such Personal Minds, Spirits, or Sub- stances are as reconcileable with the Unity of the Godhead as Three substantial Persons ; for the Three belong to the Persons who are Three, not to the Godhead which is but One."

Hence the Dean maintains thatf " there are Three infinite Minds, which are dis- tinguished from each other by the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost : the Father begets, the Son is begotten, the Holy Ghost proceeds, which are their different modes of

* Ibid., page 18.

f Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, page 84.

24

Athanasian Creed.

subsisting ; but each of these infinite Minds has the other Two in himself by an intimate and a mutual consciousness, and that makes all Three Persons numerically One Divine Essence, or One God ; for when the whole Trinity is in each distinct Person, each Per- son is the same One numerical God, and all of them but One God." — Again: —

" Each* Person is God, for each Person has the whole and entire perfections of the Godhead, having by this mutual con- sciousness the other Persons in himself, so that each Person is in some sense the whole Trinity." — Again : —

"Thef whole Trinity by a mutual con- sciousness is in each Person, and therefore no Person is less than the whole Trinity."

This mutual consciousness of Three Infinite Minds, each of which is not the other, but nevertheless is perfect God and has the whole Trinity in Himself, is said to preclude the idea of separation, and to involve only that of distinction, according to the teaching of Athanasius. For, says the Dean : —

"Neither % Athanasius, nor any of the Trinitarians ever said this — that the Person

* Ibid., p. 82. f Ibid-, p. 83.

| Ibid., page 87.

Sherlock.

25

of the Father, as separated from, the Persons of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, is the One true God ; or that the Person of the Son, as separated from the Persons of the Father and of the Holy Ghost, is the one true God ; or that the Person of the Holy Ghost, as separated from the Persons of the Father and of the Son, is the One true God; for we constantly affirm, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, by an intimate and in- separable union to each other, are but One true God ; but as their Persons can never be separated, so they must never be considered in a separate state ; and if we will imagine such an impossible absurdity as this, neither of them is the One true God; for whoever separates them destroys the Deity, and leaves neither Father, Son, nor Holy Ghost."*

If then, adds the Dean, we consider these Three Divine Persons, as containing each other in themselves and essentially One by a mutual consciousness, all pretended con- tradiction vanishes : for then — " The Father is the One true God, because the Father has the Son and the Holy Spirit in Himself ; and the Son may be called the One true God, be- cause the Son has the Father and the Holy

* Ibid., p. 87.

C

26 Athanasian Creed.

Ghost in Himself ; and the Holy Ghost the one true God, because He has the Pather and the Son in Himself : and yet all but one true God, because Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are united into One ; and then though One of these Persons is not the other, yet each Person by an essential unity contains both the others in Himself; and, therefore, if all Three Persons are the one True God, each Person is God."

Such being the Unity, what is the Trinity ? Though the Persons are not separate, yet, says the Dean, we must not confound them, but regard them as perfectly distinct. There- fore, says he ; —

" It* is plain the Persons are perfectly dis- tinct, for they are Three distinct and infinite Minds, and therefore Three distinct Persons ; for a Person is an intelligent Being, and to say they are Three Divine Persons and not Three distinct infinite Minds, is both heresy and nonsense. The Scripture, I am sure, repre- sents Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as Three intelligent Beings, not as Three Powers or Faculties of the same Being, which is down- right Sabellianism ; for Faculties are not Persons, no more than Memory, Will, and * Ibid., page 66.

Sherlock.

27

Understanding are Three Persons in one Man."

The Dean is very earnest in asserting that the Persons are distinct, not separated or divided. On the other hand, the Heads of Houses in the University of Oxford de- creed, that this idea of distinction was no- thing more than separation and division under another name ; inasmuch as the distinction, so called, in one Being, gave rise to a plu- rality of Beings, hence to division, hence to Tritheism. To which Dean Sherlock replies ; —

" I will* tell these gentlemen, what a bolder man than I am would venture to say upon this occasion ; that if a Divine Person as a Person, and as distinct from the other Persons, be not an Infinite Mind, there is an end of the Christian Trinity, in which every Person is true and perfect God, which no Person is who is not an Infinite Mind ; and therefore if any one Person, considered in his distinct Personal capacity, be not an infinite Mind, He does not belong to the Christian Trinity ; and if all the Persons are in this respect alike, that not any one of

* Modest Examination of the Oxford Decree, page 22. See the Decree in our Appendix.

c 2

28 Athanasian Creed.

them, in his distinct Personal capacity, is a distinct infinite Mind, then there is no Trinity at all ; and if they will find a God, when they have renounced a Trinity, it must he one singular Divine Nature, which they them- selves will not allow to he a Person ; and thus we have lost a Trinity, and lost a God who is a Person. This is plain sense, and I fear that neither Thomas nor Scotus can help them out."

In giving this explanation, Dean Sherlock helieves and maintains that he is faithful to every single clause of the Athanasian Creed ; that he presents* a plain and intelligihle solution of all the difficulties and seeming contradictions in the doctrine of the Tri- personality; that he neither confounds the Persons nor divides the Suhstance ; and that hence he can say on the authority of Scrip- ture!— "Which faith, except a man do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." — "He that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity."

Accordingly, Dean Sherlock boldly main- tained the existence of Three infinite Minds, Three infinite Spirits, Three infinite Beings ; and yet could conscientiously defend the

* Ibid,, page 6G. f Ibid., page 19.

Fowler.

29

Damnatory clauses, and without equivoca- tion say with Mr. Maccoll : —

The "polytheistic* view of the Doctrine of the Trinity would convert the Three Persons into Three Gods, or establish a Tritheism in- stead of a Unity of the Godhead. To this the Athanasian Creed opposes itself by a series of repeated contradictions, from the seventh verse to the nineteenth, both inclusive."

How, then, is the Athanasian Creed any safeguard against Tritheism ?

Or take another case, namely, that of Dr. Fowler, Bishop of Gloucester. The Athana- sian doctrine of the Trinity being objected to in his time, as unreasonable and self-contradic- tory, the Bishop published, a.d. 1695, " Twenty Eight Propositions by which the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is so Explained according to the Ancient Fathers, as to speak it not Contradictory to Natural Reason"

Of these Propositions the following be- came the principal subject of discussion : —

1. " The name of God is used in more senses than one in Holy Scripture."

2. " The most absolutely perfect Being is God in the highest sense."

* The Damnatory Clauses of the Athanasian Creed, page 202.

30

Athanasian Creed.

3. " Self-existence is a Perfection, and seems to be the highest of all Perfections."

4. " God the Father alone is, in reference to His Manner of Existence, an absolutely Perfect Being ; because He alone is Self-existent.'"

5. " He alone consequently is absolutely Perfect, in reference to those Perfections which do presuppose Self -existence."

6. " Those Perfections are Absolute Inde- pendence, and being the First Original of all other Beings : in which the Son and Holy Ghost are comprehended."

7. "All Trinitarians do acknowledge, that these Two Persons are from God the Father. This is affirmed in that Creed which is called the Nicene, and in that which falsely bears the name of Athanasius : though with this difference, that the Holy Ghost is asserted in them to be from the Son as well as from the Father. Wherein the Greek Church differs from the Latin."

8. " It is therefore a flat contradiction to say, that the Second and Third Persons are Self-existent.

9. " And therefore it is alike contradictious to affirm them to be Beings absolutely Per- fect in reference to their Manner of Existence; and to say, that they have the Perfections of

Fowler.

31

Absolute Independence, and of being the First Originals of all things."

10. " Since the "Father alone is a Being of the most Absolute Perfection, He having those Perfections which the other Two Per- sons are incapable of having ; He alone is God in the Absolute Highest Sense."

Hence in the Seventeenth Proposition, the Bishop observes in reference to the Son and Holy Ghost, that —

17. " They are always spoken of in Scrip- ture as Distinct Beings or Persons, according to the proper signification of this word, both from the Father and from each other. Nor are so many men or angels more expressly distinguished as different Persons or Sub- stances, by our Saviour or His Apostles, than the Pather, Son, and Holy Ghost still are."

The Bishop is very earnest in maintaining that Self-existence and Independence are necessary to Absolute Divine Perfection, and are both incommunicable. Hence in his De- fence of the Tenth Proposition he observes :

" There cannot be a greater or clearer eontradiction than to say, that God can communicate Self-existence ; it being to say in other words, that God can be the Cause of that which hath no cause."

32 Athanasian Creed.

In support of this view of the doctrine of the Trinity, the Bishop pleads the authority of Dr. Cudworth and Bishop Bull, in addition to that of the Nicene Council and Athana- sius. It should be remembered, that, in thus explaining the doctrine of the Tripersonality, the object of the Bishop was the one stated in the title-page of his work, namely, to shew how it may be so understood as to make it neither contrary to itself nor to Natural Reason. But in order to prove this, he thought it necessary to understand the Three Persons to be Three Distinct Substcmces or Beings, the Father alone having absolute Perfection, the Son and Holy Ghost having each of them infinite Perfection, but in a lower sense ; and according to this scale of subordination he held the doctrine of Three Divine Beings, and upon this principle defended the Athanasian Creed, and made no exception to the Dam- natory Clauses.

Or, again, take another case, namely, that of Bingham.

Bingham says in a Sermon on the Trinity,* preached before the University of Oxford — " It is agreed both by Fathers and Schoolmen, that the notion of person is an individual

* See his Works, vol. ix., page 315.

Bingham.

33

substance of a rational or intelligent nature, rationalis naturce individua substantia; ac- cording to the definition given by Boethius, who speaks the sense of the Fathers, and is not rejected by the Schoolmen. It is agreed further, at least in expression, that there are Three such Persons in the Godhead, really distinct from one another ; thus far they are agreed. And one might reasonably now ex- pect to hear, that, according to this notion and discourse, they should both agree further in asserting Three individual Substances in the Unity of the Godhead. This is certainly the natural consequence of allowing Three Persons, whereof every one is an individual subject."

Hence it is, that Mr. Bingham maintains in this Sermon, that in the Godhead there are " Three Minds or Spirits," " Three Infi- nite and Eternal Beings," "Three rational and eternal Beings," "Three individual Es- sences or Substances, numerically distinct from one another," "Three Personal Sub- stances," "Three individual subsisting Sub- stances," who are One by "mutual imme- ation and conjunction."

Now it is well known, that Bingham was virtually banished from the University of

c 3

34

Athanasian Creed.

Oxford in consequence of advocating from the University pulpit this doctrine of the Tripersonality, which was charged against him as gross Tritheism ; and yet he could sincerely and without equivocation repeat the words of the Athanasian Creed, and say, " Not three Gods but one God," "not three Lords but One Lord." — " Por like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknow- ledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord ; so are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say, There be Three Gods or Three Lords." Hence, also, Bingham could say with as much sincerity as Mr. Maccoll : —

" The polytheistic view of the doctrine of the Trinity would convert the Three Persons into Three Gods, or establish a Tritheism in- stead of a Unity of Godhead. To this the Athanasian Creed opposes itself by a series of repeated contradictions, from the seventh verse to the nineteenth, both inclusive."

How then is the Athanasian Creed any safeguard against Tritheism ?

No doubt to this day Chichester Cathedral rings to the chant of the Athanasian Creed ; yet the eminent divine who is now the Dean*

* See the article Bingham in Dr. Hook's Ecclesiastical Biography.

Bull.

35

maintains that Bingham was right, and the University authorities wrong.

The question then naturally occurs as to what Tritheism is ? Bishop Bull opposes the University authorities on this subject, and adopts the decision of Dionysius the Bishop of Borne, as follows : —

" What* is Tritheism he also shews us plainly, viz. : That it is to hold, that the Three Persons of the Trinity are of a different nature, or separated and divided from each other ; or that there is more than one fountain or principle of the Divinity. According to which account Dr. Sherlock is certainly clear from the charge of Tritheism : the Catholic doctrine he declares to be this, That there are three really distinct hypostases in the Godhead, and yet that there is but one God, because the Father only is the head of the Divinity ; and the Son and Holy Ghost, as they are derived from Him, so they exist in Him, and are inseparably united to Him."

Now Bishop Bull calls this the middle way between Tritheism and Sabellianism.

* The Catholic Doctrine concerning the Blessed Trinity, Discourse 1, p. 3 ; written a.d. 1697, or two years after the Oxford Decree, as given in the Appendix.

3G

Athanasian Creed.

If, then, it be consistent with the Atha- nasian Creed to regard the Three distinct hypostases as Three distinct intelligent Beings, Three Infinite Minds, Three Infinite Spirits, each of whom is perfect God and has the whole Trinity in Himself, it may fairly be asked, How can Tritheism be the middle way between Tritheism and Sabellianism ? Or, How is the Athanasian Creed any safe- guard against Tritheism ?

But if the Creed is powerless against Tritheism, is it any safeguard against Sabel- lianism ?

Dr. Wallis, as is well known, was a man of eminent abilities, and of a thoughtful and reflective mind. In the year 1690 he was involved in the Socinian controversy of that period, and wrote a series of Letters in sup- port of the Athanasian Creed. In the Third Letter (Postscript) he observes, in regard to the expressions, "Three Persons and One God"—

" That which makes these expressions seem harsh to some of these men (Socinians), is because they have used themselves to fancy that notion only of the word Person, accord- ing to which Three Men are accounted to be Three Persons, and these Three Persons to

Wallis.

37

he Three Men. But he may consider that there is another notion of the word Person, and in common use too, wherein the same Man may he said to sustain divers Persons ; and those Persons to he the same Man, that is, the same man as sustaining divers capacities. As was said of Tully, Tres Per- sonam unus sustineo. And then it will seem no more harsh to say, 'The Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are one God,' than to say, God the Creator, God the Re- deemer, and God the Sanctifier are one God ; which, I suppose, to this Answerer would not seem harsh, or he thought nonsense."

Again in the Fifth Letter : —

" The word Person (persona) is originally a Latin word ; and doth not properly signify a Man (so as that another Person must needs imply another Man) ; for then the word Homo would have served, and they needed not have taken in the word Persona, hut rather one so circumstantiated. And the same Man, if considered in other circum- stances (considerably different), is reputed another Person. And that this is the true notion of the word Person, appears by those noted phrases, personam induere, personam deponere, personam agere, personam sustinere,

38 Athanasian Creed.

sustineo unus tres personas, and many the like in approved Latin authors."

Again, in the Seventh Letter, he calls the modern sense of the word Person a forced sense, introduced by the Schoolmen for want of a better word to apply to men and angels. In the modern sense of the word, he says that Three Persons must needs be Three Intelligent Beings.

"Whereas Persona, in its true and ancient sense, before the Schoolmen put this forced sense upon it, did not signify a Man simply, but one under such, and such, and such circum- stances and qualifications. So that the same Man (if capable of being qualified thus, and thus, and thus), might sustain three Persons, and these three Persons be the same man."

On this principle Dr. Wallis defends the Athanasian Creed, and even the Damnatory Clauses, with as much sincerity as Mr. Mac- coll ; and as heartily maintains that —

" The polytheistic view of the doctrine of the Trinity would convert the three Persons into Three Gods, or establish a Tritheism instead of a unity of the Godhead. To this the Athanasian Creed opposes itself by a series of contradictions from the seventh verse to the nineteenth, both inclusive."

Wallis.

39

How then is the Athanasian Creed any safeguard against Sabellianism ? —

Only by adopting a definition of the term persona which shall make it signify a sepa- rately existing being.

Accordingly, says Dr. Burton, Regius Pro- fessor of Divinity in the University of Ox- ford,*—

" If we find the fathers using persona, ac- cording to its modern sense, for a separately existing being, for a person distinguished by individuality, it is in vain that the Sabellian refers to classical antiquity : the criticism may be correct, but it is irrelevant: and Cicero can no more acquaint us with the meaning of persona, as used by Tertullian or Jerome, than these late writers can enable us to illustrate Cicero."

The consequence is, that Dr. Burton every where interprets the fathers as understand- ing the Three Divine Persons to be Three Divine Beings, individually distinct from each other.

It is well known that the late Archbishop of Dublin repudiated this meaning of the term persona, and adopted the theology of

* Testimonies of the Ante-Nicene Fathers to the Doc- trine of the Trinity, p. 73.

40 Athanasian Creed.

Dr. Wallis upon this subject ; as may be seen in his Elements of Logic under the article Person. On this account his theology has been condemned by the reputedly orthodox as pure Sabellianism ; and the theology of Dr. Wallis has received the same sentence, for the very same reason. Yet both these eminent men repeated the Athanasian Creed. Hence we see Tritheists, sincere and con- scientious men, advocating the Athanasian Creed against Tritheism ; and Sabellians advo- cating the Athanasian Creed against Sabel- lianism; for we are told, that the article, " Neither confounding the Persons nor divid- ing the Substance," was expressly intro- duced against both Sabellianism and Tri- theism. Nay, the very Sabellianism and Tri- theism alluded to, arose out of a conscien- tious attempt to understand the Creed; both parties understanding it only in their own way, and both repelling the charge of equivoca- tion. The consequence is, that so far from the Athanasian Creed being any safeguard against either Sabellianism or Tritheism, it created the very heresies it denounced. One reason of this is, that the Creed contains no explanation of wha/t it means either by the term Person, or the term Substance ; and so

The Catholic Doctrine.

41

every one is left to find out a meaning for himself as best lie can.

Let us, however, leave the case of Tritheists and Sabellians, and come to what the orthodox maintain to be the genuine Catholic doctrine of Athanasius.

This doctrine is thus laid down in a work sanctioned by Mr. Nelson, author of the life of Bishop Bull, as follows :* —

" I say then, that, according to Scripture, and the general sense of the Church founded thereupon from the very beginning, there is One God, or one Divine Substance manifested to the world in three Subsistences ; so that, First, every Divine Person is an individual intelligent Being ; but the Divine intelligent Being, which is individually or undividedly one, is not one Person only; which is the first difference between Human and Divine Persons. As for instance, the Father and the Son are each of them an individual in- telligent Being, as subsisting in the Divine Nature or Substance ; the Father originally, the Son derivatively. But this Divine Sub- stance being in Father and Son without division, and being separate and distinct in

* The Scripture Doctrine of the Most Holy and Un- divided Trinity Vindicated, etc., p. 187.

42

Athanasian Creed.

existence and perfections from all other sub- stances, and completely perfect, is an in- dividual intelligent Being; but more than one Person, as comprehending in it more. Secondly, though each Divine Person is an individual intelligent Being ; yet are they not Three Beings separate and divided from each other, but one undivided or individual Being ; which is the second difference between Human and Divine Persons. Three Persons among men are Three Beings separate and divided from each other : but the Divine Sub- stance being communicated by the Father after different manners to the Son and Holy Ghost without division, remains one undivided, or individual, Substance or Being. So that each Person by Himself is in one respect an individual intelligent Being, and in another respect all Three together are but one indi- vidual intelligent Being. The Father as not divided or divisible into two Fathers; the Son, into two Sons ; the Holy Ghost into two Holy Ghosts, remain each of them an in- dividual intelligent Being ; but as subsisting in one individual Substance, or individual Being, in this respect they are altogether but one individual or undivided intelligent Being; which is no contradiction, because

Person.

43

the respects are different. Thirdly, hence it appears that a Divine Person is an individual intelligent Being, inseparahly and substan- tially united with other Divine Persons, in one indivisible Substance or Being. So that a Human and Divine Person cannot be com- prehended under the same notion."

Now my object is not to oppose this state- ment, but to try to understand it ; and, in the first place, to ascertain what is here meant by the term Person. In so doing, I am greatly encouraged by a remark of Mr. Bingham, when speaking of the various ways in which persons excuse themselves from making any effort in enquiry after truth : —

« The* first is, when men, out of a kind of religious reverence to some Divine truths, are afraid to let their understandings have free exercise and liberty of thinking about them. This indeed at first looks like a kind of paradox, to assert that men should be ignorant of truth out of mere reverence to it : and yet it is too certain that ignorance and error are often the genuine effects of this cause. For sometimes men are possessed with an opinion, that the doctrines of Chris- tianity are wholly too sublime for human

* See Third Sermon, Buy the Truth, vol. ix., page 382.

44

Athanasian Creed.

enquiry; and this cuts off all sober endea- vours after the knowledge of such truths, by making men despair of ever attaining a com- petent knowledge of them : insomuch that some are apt to think it their duty to think nothing at all about them. But certainly, if Christian doctrines be necessary articles of our faith, as we now suppose ; and if they were revealed and written for our learning, which is a thing beyond all question ; then we are obliged to know and understand them so far as the revelation goes, which is plain and intelligible in all matters that imme- diately concern man's salvation."

It is in this spirit that I proceed to the consideration of the Catholic doctrine, that there are Three Persons in one Substance. Let me first endeavour to ascertain the mean- ing of the term Person; and although this may lead me somewhat into the mazes of metaphysics, I propose to avoid them as much as possible, in mercy to my meta- physical capacities.

Waterland says* that "Each Divine Per- son is an individual intelligent Agent :" Mr. Nelson's friend, that each Divine Person is -an individual intelligent Being ; he therefore

* Vol. i., part ii., p. 248, Defence of Some Queries.

Person.

thought that an intelligent Agent is an in- telligent Being. But "Wateiiand maintains the Three Divine Persons to be Three intelli- gent Agents ; how then shall I avoid the snare of believing them to be Three intelli- gent Beings, except by denying that an in- telligent Agent is an intelligent Being ? Yet these are expositions of the Athanasian Creed ; and I am told that the Creed, in its genuine sense, is the one great safeguard against two deadly heresies, viz., Sabellian- ism and Tritheism. But in the case both of Sabellians and Tritheists, I find that these at least have put forward clear and distinct notions of what they mean by the term Person; and I cannot expect to oppose effectually what is clear and distinct, by what is obscure, vague, or indefinite ; par- ticularly as Dr. Wateiiand* assures me, that "there is a medium between Sabellianism and Tritheism ;" and that this medium is to be found in the Athanasian doctrine, that there are Three Persons in the One God. This being the case, I naturally ask, what this medium is ? It lies in the Athanasian sense of the term Person, which is a medium, or middle sense between the Tritheistical and

* See his Works ; vol. i., part ii., p. 235.

46 Athanasian Creed.

Sabellian. What, then, is that sense of the word Person, such as to be more than a mere character, yet less than its meaning as applied to three men ? for this is the middle sense between Sabellianism and Tritheism. After nearly two thousand years of controversy upon the subject, I learn from Dr. Newman that the conclusion now at length arrived at, is the following :* —

"The mysteriousness of the doctrine (of the Tripersonality) evidently lies in our in- ability to conceive a sense of the word person, such as to be more than a mere character, yet less than an individual intelligent Being ; our own notions, as gathered from our experi- ence of human agents, leading us to consider personality as equivalent, in its very idea, to the unity and independence of the immaterial substance of which it is predicated."

I naturally ask, What safeguard against any heretical sense of the term Person is no sense at all ? And if there be no assignable sense, is there any assignable safeguard ? As far as I can see at present, the word Person becomes vox et preterea nihil ; and is this all that is afforded by the Creed, wherewith

* The Avians of the Fourth Century. Third Edition, p. 160.

Person.

47

to prevent myself from falling into Sabel- lianism on the one side, and Tritheism on the other ?

" Profane minds ask," says Dr. Newman,* " ' Is God One or Three ?' They are answered, ' He is One, and He is also Three.' They reply, ' He cannot be One in the same sense in which He is Three.' It is in reply allowed to them, ' He is Three in one sense, One in another.' They ask, ' In what sense ? what is that sense in which He is Three Persons ? what is that sense of the word Person, such that it neither stands for one separate Being, as it does with men, and yet, on the other hand, has a real and sufficient sense answer- ing to the word ?' "We reply that we do not know that middle sense ; we cannot recon- cile, we confess, the distinct portions of the doctrine ; we can but take what is given us, and be content. They rejoin that, if this be so, we are using words without meaning. "We answer, No, not without meaning in themselves, but without meaning which we fully apprehend. God understands His own words, though human."

* Parochial Sermons, vol. iv., p. 329. "The Mysteri- ousness of our Present Being." Also Arians of the Fourth Century, p. 377.

-18

Athanasian Creed.

Now I think I see so far, that if no middle term can be assigned between Sabellianism and Tritheism, no one can fully apprehend its meaning. But if the Athanasian Creed teaches me that there are Three Persons in one Substance, and I ask what is the mean- ing of the term Person, and am told that God only understands it, what help to me is this against Sabellianism and Tritheism ? Or, again, if it be said that the term Person may be understood in part, but that the part which I understand I cannot reconcile with the other portions of the Athanasian doctrine, may I venture to ask what security against Sabellianism and Tritheism is afforded me by a doctrine which, its advocates admit, is irre- concilable with itself ? Besides, I am assured by one eminent Athanasian that a Divine Person is veritably an " individual intelligent Being ;" and I am instructed by another, that He is less than an individual intelligent Being ; as we have seen.

Suppose, however, my confidence in Ca- tholic teaching to be so great, that although as yet I do not see my way between Sabelli- anism and Tritheism, I nevertheless have no doubt that I shall be supplied with clearer ideas as I proceed. Let me, then, faithfully

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49

pursue my enquiries, and carefully study certain elaborate Sermons* on the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, written for the re- ligious and studious youth of the Two Uni- versities, " explained and confirmed by the Holy Scriptures, in a manner adapted to common apprehensions." In these Sermons I read as follows : —

" For the Catholics understand nothing to be a different substance or Being, but what exists separately from every Being that ex- ists besides. And, therefore, since the Divine Persons do not exist separately the one from the other, the Catholics cannot, whilst con- sistent with themselves, pronounce the Three Persons to be Three Substances or Beings also. For this would be to pronounce them separate, while they believe them to be in- separable— an inconsistency which, however unjustly it has been charged upon the Church, she was never prone to."

So Dr. Waterland :f — " Does Scripture any where tell you that two Divine Persons cannot be one God ? Or that Father and Son must

* By Charles Wheatly, M.A., Vicar of Furneaux Pelham, in Hertfordshire, page 288.

f Sec his Works, vol. i., part ii., page 229, " Defence of Some Queries," in answer to Dr. Clarke. Also page 232.

D

50

Athanasian Creed.

have a separate existence ?" — Why does Waterland say this? Because, says he, all that Dr. Clarke hath proved, or can prove, is only this, that separate Persons are so many intelligent Beings, which we readily admit.

I take it for granted, then, that the Three Divine Persons, being undivided, have no separate existence from each other, and hence that the Divine Persons are not separate existences ; for this would amount to sepa- rate Beings, and hence to separate Gods.

In confirmation (?) of this view of the sub- ject I turn to the Catechism of the Bishop of St. David's (Dr. Burgess), and read as fol- lows : —

" Question. If then the Son, and the Pather, be of the same Divine nature ; and the Holy Ghost and the Pather be of the same Divine nature, what follows ? Answer. It follows that the Pather, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, being of one and the same Divine nature (we speak as men, and in such as man's language supplies us with), are in their separate existences equally God, and in their united nature one and the same God."

How am I to account for this ? for here are three strict Athanasians, each warning me against Tritheism, and yet one opposed to the

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others as to what Tritheism is. The Catholics say, that " the Divine Persons do not exist separately the one from the other." — Surely Dr. J. Wilherforce* was a Catholic, and as such may I not have perfect confidence in his teaching? I appeal, then, to his work on The Doctrine of the Incarnation, and there I learn that —

"The existence of the Eternal Son, as a separate Person in the Ever Blessed Trinity, was linked by inevitable sequence to that manifestation of God in the flesh, which was the first starting point of the religious mind of The Church."

" Unless the Word or Eternal Son existed really as a separate Person in the glorious Godhead, neither could Christ be the proper object of worship, nor could the Redemption of mankind be truly effected."

In this case, professing to be an enquirer of only ordinary capacity, I humbly con- ceive that to exist separately and to have a separate existence, are much about one and the same thing ; and consequently that Dr. Wilberforce is quite in harmony with the Bishop of St. David's upon this subject.

* Archdeacon of the East Riding. Fourth Edition. Pages 135, 150.

D 2

52 Athanasian Creed.

Thus far, then, I am only perplexed as to whether, according to the Athanasian Creed, the Three Divine Persons are, or are not, separate existences. Let me not, however, be wearied in the search, but appeal to the autho- rity of one of whom it has been said, that he always writes with clearness and strength, and that every word shews him to be a master; I mean John Henry Newman, in his work on The Arians of the Fourth Century : —

" Scripture* is express in declaring both the Divinity of Him who, in due time, be- came man for us, and also His Personal dis- tinction from God in His pre-existent state. This is sufficiently clear from the opening of St. John's Gospel, which states the mystery as distinctly as an ecclesiastical comment can propound it. On these two truths the whole doctrine turns, viz., that our Lord is one with, yet personally separate from, God. Now there are two appellations given to Him in Scripture, enforcing respectively these two essentials of the true doctrine, — appellations imperfect and open to misconception by themselves, but qualifying and completing each other. The title of the Son marks his derivation and distinction from the Father,

* Page 161, The Ecclesiastical Doctrine of the Trinity.

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53

that of The Word {i.e., Reason) denotes his inseparable inherence in the Divine Unity ; and while the former, taken by itself, might lead the mind to conceive of Him as a Second Being, and the latter as no real Being at all, both together witness to the mystery that He is at once from, and yet in, the Im- material and Incomprehensible God."

In the foregoing statement, I find that the Son of God had a Personal distinction from God in His pre-existent state ; that He is Personally separate from God, and yet has an inseparable inherence in the Divine Unity. I now clearly see why it is that God is here called Incomprehensible, and also why it is that some theologians affirm that in things Infinite we cannot tell what is a contradiction and what is not; and if so, that there is in things Divine no test of absurdity ; and hence, for aught we know, no absurdity in conceiving that God could exist separately from one of His Divine Persons, or one of the Divine Persons be not only distinct but separate from God.

Now, if A attempts an explanation which I do not understand, I have the privilege of appealing to B ; and if B is not quite as satisfactory as A, still I can go on to C ;

54 Athanasian Creed.

and if C should not be altogether as satis- factory as B, I shall at least enjoy the liberty of consulting D. Now, of this liberty I pro- pose to avail myself in the present case, so as to illuminate my understanding as much as possible.

I readily, therefore, appeal to The Scrip- ture Testimony to the Doctrine of the Trinity, in Pour Sermons preached before the Uni- versity of Cambridge, with Notes and Illus- trations. In these Sermons I am told, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are Three distinct intelligent Beings, all of them inde- pendent one of another; that each of them has a separate consciousness, will, powers, and relations ; but that these three separate consciousnesses inconceivably become one, and, consequently, that this doctrine is not Tritheism. For instance, when speaking of the "One Eternal, Infinite, Almighty Being," I am instructed that —

" He* who hath declared Himself One and a jealous God, who will not give His glory to another, nor His praise to graven images, hath yet revealed to our faith, and held up to our adoration, two Beings intimately

* By the Rev. Edmund Mortlock, B.D., Fellow of

Christ's College, page 8.

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55

united in all the fulness and perfections of His own Essence, thus exhibiting the as- serted mystery of a Triunal Deity, Three Persons and one God." — " Of this doctrine, though not fully made known until these sacred Beings wrought on earth in the sal- vation of man, various premonitory notices were vouchsafed in the Old Testament."

The* Gospel of St. John "proclaims, on the authority of an ancient and acknow- ledged revelation, the existence of a second Divine Being, answering to the lessons of the new ; who had been promised, and of old expected agreeably to such promise, in the very character assumed by Christ. Such is at once the clear and consistent doctrine of the opening chapter of St. John's Gospel."

Now I rejoice to meet with something which at length is clear and consistent ; and particularly to be told, that a clear and con- sistent doctrine has for its foundation the authority of Scripture. "While, however, I am informed that the Son is a second Being, I must beware of falling into a snare ; for as Waterland says : —

"Thef Being of the Son is an improper expression; because it supposes the Son to

* Ibid., page 31. f Vol. iv., page 345.

56 Athanasian Creed.

be a Being (properly so called), that is, a separate Being, which He is not. But one Person, the Person of the Son, may be incar- nate, and the Person of the Father or Holy Ghost not incarnate, without any contradic- tion, because one person is not another person. Yet it may be said, the Godhead is incarnate ; i.e., the Divine Being, as personalized in the Son, is incarnate in the Person of the Son."

My difficulty is here to understand how a Father can beget a Son who is not properly a Being ; or how one who has a Being can beget another who has a Being, and yet who is not properly a Being ; for I have been assured, that the Son is an intelligent Being ; and yet Waterland says, " the Being of the Son is an improper expression, that is, a separate Being which he is not." Yet this mystery I desire consistently to understand as well as I can; lest otherwise I should divide the Substance of the Godhead.

Now a way out of this difficulty seems to be pointed out by Mr. Maccoll.* " God the Father," says he, " and His Eternal Son are not related to each other as a human father and son are related ; and yet the human re-

* See The Damnatory Clauses, etc., page 62 ; and New- man's Avians of the Fourth Century, page 212.

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lationship may be the nearest approach to the truth of which our feeble minds are capable."

I must not, then, understand the relations of Father and Son as strictly literal, or in the same sense which they bear in ordinary language, as when we speak of the human relationship between father and son ; and accordingly, in the desire to obtain as clear and consistent an idea as possible concern- ing this mystery, I refer to the Defence of the Athanasian Creed, in a Sermon preached before the University of Oxford, by Dr. Bur- ton, Regius Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church, in which he says : —

" It* will be observed, that the sense which the Church has attached to the words, Son of God, is strictly literal ; by which I mean, that she takes the term Son in the same sense which it bears in ordinary lan- guage, and according to human ideas ; where- as every other hypothesis, not excepting the Arian, which comes nearest to that of the Church, uses the term Son in a figurative or metaphorical sense." . . . " I should have no hesitation in asking any unlettered Christian, whether he does not conceive of Jesus Christ,

* Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, page 265.

D 3

58 Athanasian Creed.

that He has a Father distinct from Himself ; and whether he does not think of their re- lationship as he does of that "between any- human father and his own son."

There are passages in Scripture, says the Regius Professor, . . . "Where* the whole force of the argument depends upon our supposing God and Jesus Christ to be Father and Son in the same sense which is attached to those terms when applied to human beings."

"If admit that the New Testament is silent as to the mode of the Divine genera- tion; but then we have a right to assume that the words were taken in their plain and literal sense. . . . There is no evidence that the first converts ever thought of attaching any other meaning to the words Son of God ; and upon this ground I would take my stand in defending the Athanasian Creed."

As to explaining in what sense, or in what manner, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Regius Professor observes : —

" If \ I were to state in a few words the difference between the doctrine of the Church upon this point, and that of all other persons,

* Ibid., page 269. f Mid., page 272.

X Ibid., p. 273.

Person.

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I should state it thus : the Church takes the expressions of the New Testament literally, and believes literally, that Jesus Christ is the begotten Son of God ; while those who differ from her, whether Sabellians, Arians, Soci- nians, or others, attach a figurative meaning to the words, and do not believe in the literal sense, or in any sense analogous to the human, that God is the Father of Jesus Christ."

"Thus when the Creed speaks of our neither confounding the Persons, nor divid- ing the Substance, the former clause is opposed to the Sabellians, the latter to the Arians ; and the Sabellian heresy is alluded to in the verse immediately following, — ' For there is one Person of the Pather, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.' It has often been said, that no such declara- tion as this is made in the New Testament, which is true, if it be meant that the actual words do not occur in the New Testament ; but what would be said of a philosophical writer, who used the relative terms Father and Son, who spoke of these two Beings acting toward each other, and loving each other, as human fathers and human sons, and yet should expect his readers not to understand these two Beings to be distinct and separate

60 Athanasian Creed.

Persons ? I contend therefore that when the New Testament declares Jesus Christ to be the begotten Son of God, it also declares, by a necessary and irresistible inference, that there is one Person of the Father, and another of the Son; nor, I conceive, did any other notion ever enter into the head of a plain and unlettered Christian."

Now I thank the Regius Professor for having, in these remarks, enabled me clearly to see the origin of the use of the word Per- son in the Athanasian Creed. For instance, Father and Son are two Beings, and because they are two Beings, they are therefore two Persons; so that the author of the Creed taught the existence of Three Persons in the Trinity because he could not conceive the Three Persons otherwise than as Three Beings. They were Persons because they were Beings.

I now begin to perceive a dawn of light upon this mysterious subject ; and also to see how the Regius Professor is illustrating some remarks made by Dean Sherlock.* — "I would desire the reader," says the Dean, "to ob- serve, for the understanding this Creed, what

* Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and Ever Blessed Trinity, pages 45, 47, 104.

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belongs to the Persons, and what to the One undivided Substance or Godhead ; which will answer all the seeming contradictions which are charged on this doctrine." — On this general rule all parties are agreed.

Now, then, I hope I shall find some easy way of distinguishing between Person and Substance. I accordingly read on, and find the following statement : — " It is not easy to distinguish the Essence or Substance from the Person, and therefore not easy to tell, how there should be but One Substance and Three Persons." — " There is no example in Nature of such a distinction and Unity, as is between the Three Persons in the Godhead." So also says Eichard of St. Victor : " The* human intellect does not easily understand, how there can be more than One Person where there is no more than One Sub- stance ;" and this intellectual difficulty is the cause, he says, of the Arian and Sabel- lian sects. Well ! I now remember that this was Dr. Clarke's difficulty : it was not easy for him to understand how a Person should be a Being in such a sense, that Three Persons should not be Three Beings.

How then shall I find a way of escape out

* De Trinitate, lib. 4, cap. 1.

62 Athanasian Creed.

of this difficulty, so as not to divide the Sub- stance or confound the Persons? The way of escape, I am told by Dean Sherlock, is to be found in the Creed itself ; for " the Creed does not say, there* are Three Persons in one numerical Substance, but in one undivided Substance." Accordingly, I cannot under- stand the Creed except as implying a plu- rality of Substances as well as of Persons ; for as the Dean observes — " Wet must allow the Divine Persons to be real substantial Beings, if we allow each Person to be God, unless we call any thing a God which has no real Being."

This adoption of plurality in regard to Substance as well as in regard to Person, relieves my mind of an otherwise great diffi- culty ; for from daily observation I perceive, that a plurality of persons always implies a plurality of beings or substances ; but I have never seen in Nature any example of the unition of three such beings into one. The consequence is, that, from a fixed habit of thought, I cannot help thinking of a distinct person as a distinct substance or being. Hence, when Dr. Waterland speaks of the

* Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, p. 46. f Ibid., p. 47. "

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Trinity as Three intelligent Agents, I under- stand him as speaking of the Three Divine Persons; and when he says, that neverthe- less these three Agents are but One Agent, I understand these words to mean One un- divided, not One numerical, Substance. This way of interpreting the Creed more readily conforms to my established habits of think- ing. For me to think otherwise, would be to think in direct opposition to this habit; in fine, to think against the act of thinking, and to render necessary a new set of facul- ties for the express purpose of solving what would otherwise be to me an insoluble enigma, namely, Three numerical Agents being One numerical Agent.

It is in consequence of the same habit of thought, even in the minds of some of the most earnest defenders of the Athanasian Creed, that they conceive of Three Persons only as Three Beings; particularly as it is forbidden them to annihilate that distinction between Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, "which seems to us as perfect as the Personal distinc- tion of Three Beings," says Dr. Nares. Hence, in his Discourses before the University of Oxford on the Three Creeds, he observes,* —

* Page 85, Discourse iii.

64 Athanasian Creed.

"We dare not, cannot say, there are Three Omnipotents, religiously or philosophically ; but that Three distinct Persons or Beings may be in the exercise of Divine Omnipo- tence, provided they are by their very nature confined to a perfect harmony and conformity, I have shewn in a former Discourse ... to be so much within the limits of possibility, as to be beyond the power or reach of meta- physical contradiction."

Prom this remark I see how it is, that the Athanasian may sincerely, and without any equivocation say, that there are not Three Eternals, nor Three Incomprehensibles, nor Three Uncreateds, nor Three Almighties, nor Three Gods, nor Three Lords ; and yet all the time tacitly believe, that there are Three Eternal, Incomprehensible, Uncreated, Almighty Beings. Accordingly, Dr. Allix, when referring to Genesis i. 26, in his argu- ment against Unitarians, observes : —

" Whoever* they were to whom God said this, Let us make, or, Let us do this or that, they could be no creatures, they must be Uncreated Beings like Himself, if there were any such then in being. But that then at

* The Judgment of the Ancient Jewish Church, etc., p. 116.

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the creation such there were, even the Word and the Spirit, has been shewn from the beginning of that history, and, as I think, beyond contradiction."

When therefore the Athanasian Creed says, there are not Three Uncreated, all that is meant is, there are not Three Gods uncreated, but there are nevertheless Three Uncreated Divine Beings.

This is expressly stated by Dean Sherlock:—

« For* rpeh ctKTia-Toi, and Tres Increati, cannot signify Three Uncreated Persons, as it must do to make it a contradiction ; for though there is no substantive expressed, yet some must be understood, and and Increati will not agree with irpoawn-a or Personce, and therefore 0eol and Dii must be understood; that is, though there are Three Uncreated Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; yet there are not Three Uncreated Gods, but One Uncreated God ; which is no more a contradiction than to say, that though there are Three Divine Persons, there are not Three, but One God."

Therefore says the Dean :t —

* Vindication of the Doctrine of the Hohj and Ever Blessed Trinity, p. 95.

■j" A Modest Examination of the Oxford Decree ; p. 44.

G6

Athanasian Creed.

" We will not attribute any thing to the Holy Trinity in the plural number which this Creed forbids ; we will not say there are Three Almighties, Three Eternals, Three Omnipotents, Three Infinites, Three Gods, or Three Lords ; but this Creed does not forbid us saying, There are Three Minds, or Three Substances ; nay, it teaches us to say rpet? viroGTaaus, which, as you have already heard, in the language of the Nicene age, and more especially in after ages, signified Three Sub- stances, and therefore must do so in this Creed."

For the same reason it is, that Dean Graves, in defending the Athanasian Doctrine of the Tripersonality, observes, when speak- ing of Baptism :* — " That the Three names thus united in this solemn rite, must there- fore express Three Divine and equal Persons forming the one Godhead, which we are bound to believe in, worship, and obey." But that he did not in his own mind distinguish Person from Being, is evident from what he says concerning the equality in nature and

* Select Scriptural Proofs of the Trinity, arranged in Four Discourses, delivered in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin. By the Very Rev. Richard Graves, D.D., etc., Dean of Ardagh, King's Professor of Divinity, etc. p. 19.

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power, authority, and influence of the Three Objects of faith, as professed by the convert at his Baptism. "The convert," he says,* "would proceed to inquire into the declara- tions of Scripture, with respect to the common nature and powers belonging to those Sacred Beings. " — Yet the Dean strenuously denies, with the Athanasian Creed, that there are Three Gods ; although he deems it, as others do, perfectly consistent with the Creed to think, and even to say, that there are Three Divine Beings.

So Dr. Edwards, in his Theologia Befor- mata : —

" Itf is very evident, that though the Divine Essence or Substance is the same, as it belongs to all the Three Persons ; yet it may be said not to be the same, as it is com- municated from one to the rest, and resides in different Persons. Whence I gather, that as there is an Identity of Substance, as it re- lates to the Divine Nature in general, so there is a Difference of Substance, as the reference is to the Persons."

The distinction of Substance is said to

* Ibid., page 6.

f First Discourse on the Second Article of the Creed, p. 288.

68 Atlianasian Creed.

imply a difference, and the difference a plu- rality; otherwise the conception of the dis- tinction is impossible. Accordingly Stack- house in his Body of Divinity observes : —

" If God the Father and His Son be truly and perfectly Father and Son, they must be truly and perfectly distinct Beings ; for the Father cannot be the Son whom He begets ; nor the Son the Father that begat Him ; nor the Holy Ghost either the Father or the Son from whom He proceeds. Consequently they must be distinct things, and real and proper Persons; for He that begets, and He that is begotten, and He that proceeds from both, cannot be the same Persons and Beings.'"

Hence, says Dr. Edwards, there have been those who have mistaken the meaning of the Fathers : —

" They think, because those writers hold the indivisible Unity of the Godhead, there- fore they must not, and do not in any sense, assert the plurality of Beings or Substances in the Godhead. Whereas it is plain, that the Substance may be the same, and yet distinct. And this is the thing I offer at present, namely, that the Divine Substance considered in general is One ; entirely One;

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but considered as being possessed by Three Persons, it may be said to be Three Sub- stances. No otherwise are we to under- stand it."

Accordingly Dr. Edwards calls the Three Substances Three distinct Beings ; and fur- ther says : —

" This I take to be the true way of recon- ciling the Fathers, and of explaining the doctrine of the Trinity as it is revealed to us in the Bible. This solves the seeming contradictions in the ancient writers of the Church, and I know no other thing that can do it but this."

The difficulty of distinguishing between Person and Substance in regard to the Holy Spirit, is similar to that in regard to the Eather and Son.

The Holy Spirit, says Mr. Mortlock,* is conceived to be a " Third Agent " in the re- demption of man ; not a mere energy, or operation, or quality ; but " a real Being. " Eor when it is said, "He will guide you into all truth," — " the word rendered by He necessarily implies, according to the force of the original language, a real, independent,

* Scripture Testimony to the Doctrine of the Trinity, pages 129,133, 134.

70 Athanasian Creed.

living Agent." . . . "All the instances in which the Holy Spirit is coupled with Christ, or with Him and the Father, are certain in- timations of his independent existence. "...

"Belief commanded in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, holds up all in the same light : teaches them to be real, independent, and equal, by requiring for each of them a like acknowledgment and reverence."

For this reason it is, that this professedly strict Athanasian explains the Tripersonality as signifying Three real, independent, Divine Beings ; each having His own separate con- sciousness, will, and operation ; while he denies, in the words of the Athanasian Creed, that there are Three Gods ; and affirms that " the whole Three Persons are co-eternal to- gether and co-equal."

Here, then, is a sincere believer in the Athanasian Creed who conceives the Three Divine Persons to be independent of each other. How am I to think this doctrine to be true, so as to avoid the snare of belief in Three Gods ? Let me humbly enquire what another Athanasian, Bishop Horsley, teaches me upon this subject. In his Letters to Dr. Priestley the Bishop says : —

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"You are, Sir,* very positive in the asser- tion, that Dr. "Wateiiand in particular, and all the strict Athanasians of the last age, maintained that the Trinity consists of Three Persons, all truly independent of each other. Upon this opinion, which you ascribe to the strict Athanasians, you remark in your history, that to make Three proper and dis- tinct Persons independent of each other, is to make Three Gods. I concur with you in this remark, in which you have been anticipated by the Roman Dionysius ; whose judgment, you know, upon certain persons of his own time, who in their zeal against Sabellius ran into this error, is quoted with approbation by Athanasius himself. But, Sir, I deny of Dr. Waterland in particular, and of the strict Athanasians of the last age in general, that they fall justly under this censure."

Prom these remarks I am naturally led to suppose, that when Dr. Priestley states that all the strict Athanasians of the last age maintained that the Trinity consists of Three Persons all truly independent of each other,

* Letter xv., towards the end. See also Sermons on the Trinity, p. 51, by Dr. Calamy. Also, Supplement to the Animadversions on Dr. Clarke's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, pages 13, 61 ; by Dr. Edwards.

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he must have been referring to an inde- pendence similar to what is taught in the pre- sent day ; as for instance ; —

" The* Son, who is uncreated, derives indeed his Being from the Father ; but it is a Being of the same kind as the Father's, and there- fore not dependent like a creature's, but inde- pendent, self -existent, having life in itself."

So again Bishop Pearson observes, thatf inasmuch as Christ is the Lord, and the title Lord is taken to signify Jehovah as the name of God, so it expresses the " necessary exist- ence and independence of his single Being."

The independence of the Father is acknow- ledged by all ; and we have seen what is said of the independence of the Son, and Holy Spirit, each as a distinct Divine Being.

If it be said, that such teaching amounts to Tritheism, I can only say that I earnestly desire to avoid such a heresy ; but how shall I do so ? Must I try to conceive that the Son and Holy Ghost are dependent as to Person, and independent as to Being ?

The truth is, that, as an enquirer, I freely confess that I cannot see clearly where

* An Exposition of the Thirty Nine Articles, by Dr. Browne, now Bishop of Ely. Third Edition, p. 66. t Exposition of the Creed, p. 284. Third Edition.

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distinction ends, and division begins ; or where division ends, and separation begins; or where separation ends, and independence begins ; particularly as I am told, that the Divine Persons are as distinct as if they were sepa- rate : the consequence is, that the idea of distinction easily and insensibly passes into the idea of division, division into separa- tion, and separation into independence. But what I conceive as actually divided, sepa- rate, and hence independent, I am taught to say is only distinct; and thus I avoid the imputation of heresy. But inasmuch as the leading idea in my mind is that of Person, and I think from Person to Essence; the consequence is, that, as I am told there are Three Persons, the idea of plurality is the dominant idea, and as such subordinates to itself the idea of Unity.

"While under the influence of this idea of plurality — a plurality which it is a damnable heresy to deny — I am told with regard to the Essence of the Godhead, that "this* Essence is not a being really distinguished from the Persons, any more than the Persons from the Essence ;" but still that, with regard

* Discourses concerning the Ever Blessed Trinity, by Dr. Brett, page 71, a.d. 1720.

E

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Athcmasicm Creed.

to the Three Divine Persons — "Differences there must be, lest we confound the Persons, which was the error of Sabellius."* Conse- quently, as every one Person is said to be not the other, because there is something peculiar to each Person, or which does not belong to the other, I naturally make the same difference with regard to the Essence as with regard to the Person ; hence also I naturally fall into the idea of Three Essences as well as Three Persons; and if this is declared to be a heresy, how shall I avoid it ? for I am told by Athanasians both that the heresy is damnable, and that it is next to impossible to avoid it; for, as Dr. South says, there is an " utter want of all instances and examples of this kind."

" Port when a long and constant course of observation has still took notice, that every numerically distinct Person, and every sup- position has a numerically distinct nature appropriate to it, and Religion comes after- wards, and calls upon us to apprehend the same numerical Nature as subsisting in three numerically distinct Persons ; we are ex- tremely at a loss how to conform our notions

* Letter xv. of Bishop Horsley, toward the end.

f Aiiimadversions upon Dr. Sherlock's Book, page 55.

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to it, and to conceive how that can he in Three Persons, which we never saw before, or in any thing else, to he but only in One. For human nature, which originally proceeds by the observations of sense, does very hardly frame to itself any notions, or conceptions of things, but what it has drawn from thence."

Hence Dr. South remarks, " that with the greatest part of mankind, what appears, and what does not appear, determines what can, and what cannot be, in their opinion."

For this reason, when I am told that the Three Divine Persons are inseparable from each other ; nevertheless that one was Incar- nate and the other not; nay, that it is a blasphemy to think that the Father was in- carnate ; I perceive that by means of a certain violence offered to the constitution of my mind, and to the universal laws of thought, I am enabled to submit to the doctrine of the Tripersonality. My alternative is between deadly heresy on the one side, and impossi- bility on the other so long as I conform to the ordinary laws of thought ; and the only way of escape from out of this dilemma is, to profess the Athanasian Creed, and to inter- pret it in such a sense as to make it consistent with the possibility of thinking. This ex-

e 2

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Atlianaslan Creed.

plains to rny humble capacity the cause of so many intellectual wars against the Creed, and of its being regarded as a " war-song " against the human intellect, but for the Catholic Faith. This, too, explains the ob- servation of Bingham, in his Sermon on the Trinity, before the University of Oxford ; —

" Though there be no article in our Creed more necessary to be known and understood, because none more necessary to be believed, than the doctrine of the Trinity ; yet perhaps there is no one thing in the whole body of Divinity we are generally less ashamed to own ourselves ignorant of, than this most necessary article of religion. Most men are so possessed with a sense of its darkness and obscurity, that they avoid all enquiries of this nature, as utterly despairing of ever attaining to any tolerable notion of it. But I wish this do not rather reflect upon the honour of our religion, as if it obliged us to believe some- thing which no one will pretend to give a rational account of : if so, the oracles of God are as dark and unintelligible as the oracles of Apollo ; and we must verify that ancient calumny, so often objected by the heathens to the primitive Christians, but as oft with scorn again by them rejected, as Origen gives

Substance.

77

it in the words of Celsus — 'Never inquire, "but believe; and your faith will save you.' Certainly faith presupposes a competent degree of knowledge, and knowledge a com- petent idea of the object to be known ; else a man may be saved by a faith of words without sense, and a confident belief of he knows not what."

Such is the result of our endeavours to arrive at the Catholic sense of the word Person, as used in the Athanasian Creed.

Let me, however, not be discouraged. For aught I know, the clear and consistent idea which I have failed to obtain in the course of these enquiries concerning the meaning of the term Person, will certainly be offered to me in the enquiry after the meaning of the term Substance.

I now, therefore, pass on to the meaning of this term.

In the course of my enquiry, I find it re- garded as signifying strictly the substratum of Being; but, in its general sense, as sy- nonymous with Being: so that one Sub- stance is One Being. Hence it is said, that Substance or Being, as personalized in the Father, is ingenerate ; the same Substance or Being as personalized in the Son is generate;

78

Athanasian Creed.

the same Substance or Being as personalized in the Holy Ghost is proceeding . Hence also I am led to conceive, that, when Being is 'personalized it is in this respect susceptible of number ; for Being personalized in the Father is not the same thing with Being personalized in the Son, because the person- ality is different ; and Being, and personalized Being, differ from each other in respect of the Personality, which is nevertheless in- separable from the Being of whom it is pre- dicated. This lays open to me the principal root of popular Tritheistical Theology; for to ordinary apprehensions there is the same difference between Substance differently per- sonalized, as between different Persons ; inas- much as the Person is the Substance per- sonalized. Hence arises in thought a division of Substance.

In order, however, to avoid the appear- ance of Tritheism, I am told that we must transcend the idea of personalized Substance to which number belongs, and come to the transcendental idea of Substance, or Being as unpersonalized, or above number, or above Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus I am led on to Godhead above Godhead, in order to avoid Tritheism.

Substance.

79

" Now the Father* is said to be the Being of the Son ;" but this cannot be unoriginate Being; for this would be to make the Son unoriginate. There is therefore a yet higher consideration of Being; and it is in this higher, or transcendental Being of Substance, that is to be found, it is said, the inmost or supreme Unity of the Trinity.

" Thef ancients," says Mr. Bingham, " often tell us that the Divine nature, or Substance in general, absolutely considered, without regard to its subsisting in this or that particular Person, is neither begotten nor unbegotten; for then all the Persons must be either begotten, which, besides other absurdities attending it, would destroy the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; or else they must be all unbegotten, and that would introduce Tritheism, or Tria Ingenita, which is Three Gods : for this reason, I say, the Fathers always peremptorily deny that the Divine nature in general is either wholly unbegotten or wholly begotten : but their doctrine is, that it is capable of both. Upon which account it is, that the proper Substance of the Father is unbegotten, because He is

* Newman's Select Treatises of Athanasius, page 424. | Sermon on the Trinity.

r. -f~- tie >:r. : tie of the Son fe begotten, and ea*- n:t V sdi -: V — V-r:zzezi: ::r tier. Le rat be a Son: aai Ac paper Sub- :z tie H:> j!:*-, -eitle/r^lt-T — - i« -.If rk:l- is.-:r i tie

Si- ii. i- i —17 i> — "~ :-stt z: tts ii tie zenezazz:-- :: tie Sir. zet-z-iar :: rr~ ^elt.

Az_i i:-:-:rv- 7 t: tlis zzl :"- VtI^t iz_7 zzie to dkjrore it, that tie Fathers i: -,v-Ta-; zlit tie Dzr-^e Sub- of fte Son k begotta of the off the Father; a t: tie S.tl:.;lr-er.*s

to be Two rei_7 zzfzzz.- t:

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l-.-~-._7 azz itrlctlT rzazz.tazr.- It. Cree-i : :e^kt^ z: a! S_lr_iz.:-~ zlere 1 Oz_e Stiv l— :t_ Hi-, lr-e-er. sizlztizl

Substance.

SI

The doctrine of Tripersonal Substance is, however, thus stated by Hooker :* —

" Seeing therefore the Father is of none, the Son is of the Father, and the Spirit is of both, they are by these their several properties really distinguishable each from other. For the Substance of God with this property to be of none doth make the Person of the Father ; the very self-same Substance in number with this property to be of tlie Father, maketh the Person of the Son; the same Substance having added unto it the property of proceeding from the other two, maketh the Person of the Holy Ghost. So that in every Person there is implied both the Substance of God which is one, and also that property which causeth the same Person really and truly to differ from the other two. Eveiy Person hath his own subsistence which no other besides hath, although there be others besides that are of the same Sub- stance. As no man but Peter can be the person which Peter is, yet Paul hath the seK-same nature which Peter hath. Again, angels have every of them the nature of pure and invisible spirits, but every angel is

* Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, book v.. chap. li. ; toI. i., page 598.

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Athanasicm Creed.

not that angel which appeared in a dream to Joseph."

Presuming to be an enquirer of only ordinary capacity, my duty is simply to try to understand that meaning of the Creed which is given by reputedly the safest and soundest Teachers. In so doing, I find that Waterland, explaining the doctrine of the Tripersonality, observes, that worshipping* the Divine Substance as personalized in the Father, is the same thing as worshipping the Father's Person; and he adds, " Pray, what is the Person of the Pather but living, acting, intelligent substance. . . . All worship," says he to Dr. Clarke, " you say is personal, and I say every Person is substance."

If, then, as I am told, substance means Being ; how shall I be able so to distinguish between Person and Being, or Person and Substance, that when I say Three Persons, I do not mean Three Beings or Three Sub- stances ? The question is not with me what the Creed says ; that is clear enough : but how I am to understand it without falling into the belief of Three Divine Beings or Substances. What faculties do I possess to enable me so to conceive the Tripersonality

* See his Works, vol. iii., pages 361, 167.

Substance.

^3

as not to nullify the Unity ? I am told that man has no such faculties; that it is only heretics who profess to have them, and who attempt by their explanations to reconcile the Tripersonality with the Unity. " The Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all One ; the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal." But I am required to remember, that — " The Church forbears to explain how these things can be ; she simply states the revealed facts, against those who, by attempting to explain what is inexpli- cable, pervert them." Be it so.

I am told, then, that the first revealed fact is, that there is one God; the second revealed fact is, that in this one God there are Three Persons. Here then is apparently fact against fact. The two facts appear to be contradictory. How shall I reconcile them ? I am informed that the reconcilia- tion is impossible. In this case, is not Christianity represented to me as a self-con- tradiction? And how am I benefited by calling the contradiction a Revelation ? Again : I find that according to "Waterland : " The Person of the Father* only com- municates, the Person of the Son is com-

* See his Works, vol. ii., page 218.

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Athanasian Creed.

municated : and these two Persons, or Hy- postases, constitute the same numerical Essence ; which consequently, as personalized in the Son, is begotten; as personalized in the Father, unbe gotten, i.e., exists in a dif- ferent manner." I find also it is said, that the same numerical Essence, as personalized in the Holy Ghost, is proceeding.

Now, how am I, as an enquirer of only ordinary apprehension, to understand this ?

Eirst of all, I am told that I must keep in view the one grand ohject of the Athanasian Creed, which is to furnish to the Church a medium between Sahellianism and Tritheism. "Waterland says, such a* medium is the Athanasian doctrine of the Tripersonality.

Moreover the great rule of the Christian Church, says Bishop Stillingfleet,t "was to keep in the middle, between the doctrines of Sabellius and Arius ; and so by degrees, the notion of Three Hypostases and one Essence was looked on, in the Eastern Church, as the most proper discrimination of the orthodox from the Sabellians and Arians."

How, then, shall I keep in the middle ? Answer : By assigning to the term Person

* See his Works, vol. i., part ii., page 235.

f Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, page 118.

No Medium.

S5

a middle sense between the Sabellian and Tritheistical. But I am told by Dr. South, that, in seeking for this sense, " there is an utter want of all instances and examples of the kind ;" — " that we are extremely at a loss how to conform our notions to it, and to con- ceive how that can be in Three Persons which we never saw before, or in any thing else, to be but only in one." And Bishop Bull says, that the union of the Divine Persons is such* "as there is no pattern of, no resemblance perfectly answering to it, whereby to illustrate it, among created beings."

Here, then, is an acknowledged difficulty. How shall I surmount it ? Dr. Newman, as we have seen, tells me it is impossible : no middle sense of the word Person ever has been found, or ever will be, in the present order of things. How then shall I reconcile the Tri- personality with the Unity of God ? Dr. Newman tells me again, it cannot be recon- ciled. Indeed Waterland hhnself had before acknowledged, with respect to the belief of Three Persons, every one of whom is singly God, and altogether but one God, that : —

* See Waterland's Works, vol. ii., page 211, and Bishop Bull's Discourse upon the Trinity.

86 Athanasian Creed.

" We* know what we mean, in saying every one, as clearly as if we said any one, is God ; a Person having such and such essen- tial perfections. We see not perfectly how this is reconciled with the belief of one God, as we see not how prescience is reconciled with future contingents. Yet we believe both, not doubting but that there is a connection of the ideas, though our faculties reach not up to it."

The Unity of God, then, is a doctrine beyond the reach of our faculties ; moreover, the middle sense of the term Person has never been found. There is, however, this advantage attending this view of the subject ; namely, that now I see I need not try to reconcile the expression Three Persons with the expressions One Substance, one Essence, one Being, or one God ; nor need I try to understand what is meant by one Person communicating another Person ; nor what is meant by one Substance personalized in the Father, the self-same Substance personalized in the Son, and the self-same Substance per- sonalized in the Holy Ghost; nor what is meant by one Person being incarnate, and the others not ; nor what is meant by a Cir-

* See his Works, vol. i., part ii., page 222.

Damnatory Clauses. 87

cumincession or Periclioresis of Persons ; nor what is meant by the worship of Three Per- sons, or by the worship of any one Person as a distinct object of worship. The Triper- sonality, in this case, becomes evanescent ; and together with it, the Athanasian Creed, as a barrier between Sabellianism and Tri- theism.

Yet this is the sort of theology which the Damnatory Clauses are meant to support. " Let* the assailants of the Athanasian Creed look to it. . . . The statements which they denounce with such vehement thoughtless- ness belong to the very essence of the Gospel, and are an integral part of Christianity ; and I hold therefore that the Athanasian Creed and Christianity must logically stand or fall together." — " There is not a single proposi- tion in the Athanasian Creed of which the rejection does not involve the rejection of Christianity. I make that assertion without the least hesitation, and I challenge all the gainsayers of the Creed to disprove it." . . . " All the propositions of the Creed hang to- gether, and the rejection of any one of them would strike Christianity to the heart."

* See The Damnatory Clauses of the Athanasian Creed. By the Rev. Malcolm Maccoll, pages 1G8, 169.

88 Athanasian Creed.

Yes ; if the Creed were really a barrier against Sabellianism and Tritheism; if not, what else can I expect than to find the Church overrun with Tritheism ; and while professedly protesting against it, yet em- bracing it as Christianity, and denouncing those who decline to receive it as such ? Does not the Creed declare that there is but one God ? How then can the Athanasian be charged with Tritheism ? And no sooner does he ask the question, than he has no hesitation in using the following language : —

" Let* us return our most humble thanks to God the Father, for sending to his Church, at the effectual prayer of God the Son, the Person of God the Holy Ghost, to abide with it for ever."

How can this be reconciled with the idea of only one Being ?

On the ground of Three Divine Beings it is, to an ordinary mind, very intelligible ; hence the Arian can use the same language with the Athanasian, and the Athanasian with the Arian. The only difference between the two is, that the Arian says what he means, and calls it Tritheism ; the Athanasian says the

* Discourses concerning the Ever Blessed Trinity, by Dr. Brett, page 240. a.d. 1720.

Intercession.

89

same thing, and, as we have seen, tacitly means the same thing, hut invests it with a different name. He protests against Sabel- lianism, as did Bingham, who was an ad- vocate of the Athanasian Creed; for how could one Divine Person or Divine Being intercede with Himself, or send Himself? There must, therefore, he some other Divine Being; for as Bingham ohserves :* —

"It is very inconceivable how one office should intercede or mediate to another. In- tercession is an act of a rational intelligent being; and intercession of one to another supposes distinct intelligent Beings, one in- terceding, another to whom the intercession is made."

Upon the same principle, the ordinary language in which Intercession is described, presents no difficulty to ordinary appre- hensions : —

" We believe that Christ is continually in- terceding for us at the right hand of the Father, presenting night and day before the mercy-seat His glorified body, with all its wounds ; and thereby reminding the Father of the one oblation of Himself, once for all offered upon the cross and in the Holy

* See his Works, vol. ix., page 345. Dedication.

90 Athanasian Creed.

Eucharist ; the Church on earth joins in the memorial which He is making, and pleads together with Him the unspeakable merits of His death and passion."

How is any ordinary mind to understand this as speaking only of one Being? Nay, how does the more learned Athanasian under- stand it ? He professedly rejects the doctrine of the specific Unity, and yet while doing so virtually adopts it. Eor as* Dr. "Waterland says to Dr. Clarke : —

" As I before hinted, no good reason can be given why the word God may not be used in a large indefinite sense, not denoting any particular Person, just as the word man is often used in Scripture, not denoting any particular man, but man in general, or man indefinitely. ... As the word man sometimes stands for the whole species ; sometimes in- definitely for any individual of the species, without determining which; and sometimes for this or that particular man : so, by way of analogy, or imperfect resemblance, the word God may signify all the Divine Persons; sometimes any Person of the Three indefi- nitely, without determining which ; and some- times one particular Person, either Father, Son, or Holy Ghost."

* See his Works, vol. ii., pages 85, 78.

Contradiction.

91

It is in the same sense, that an ordinary- mind would understand what is meant by the self-same nature belonging to all the Three Divine Persons ; for as Hooker says : —

"No man but Peter can be the Person which Peter is, yet Paul hath the self-same nature which Peter hath."

In the like sense also the ordinary mind would understand the word homo-ousian, which Aristotle used to designate the com- mon nature of the stars. To popular ap- prehension the term is not the slightest safe- guard against the doctrine of the specific unity : whatever merit it may be thought to have in this respect, is known or unknown only to the most subtle metaphysicians.

We now come to the final issue of the Athanasian Creed ; and to see on what shores its advocates are safely landed.

There is nothing which Athanasians, in their controversies with Arians and Sabellians, have for centuries more vehemently repu- diated than the charge of contradiction. " We only proceed so far," says one of the Moyer Lecturers, of Cambridge,* "as to acquit ourselves of the infamy of believing

* Eight Sermons Preached in the Cathedral of St. Paul, London, by Dr. Thomas Bishop, page 253. a.d. 1726.

92 Athanasian Creed.

or maintaining contradictions; which the insolence of vain philosophy, and a fond- ness for reducing all articles of faith to the standard of human reason, so frequently and so unjustly lay to our charge, "by applying rules and maxims drawn from the observation of finite beings, to infinite and eternal Sub- stance."

Presuming to be only a learner, far be it from me to bring a charge of this kind. My object is not to impute, but to enquire; and to ascertain, as far as possible, who are the per- sons, in the present day, who bring forward this charge of contradiction, and what are the arguments by which it is supported.

In pursuing this enquiry, let me not derive my instruction from the open adversaries of the Creed ; but only from its most firm and able defenders.

Dr. "Wilberforce, a strict Athanasian, in his treatise on The Incarnation* tells me that in the Unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons ; but that the first and most essential condition of belief in this fact, is to acknow- ledge that it is a mysterij, as is also the Incarnation. But that with respect to these doctrines, "it is not meant of course, that

* Page 128. Fourth Edition.

Mystery — Contradiction. 93

they involve a contradiction in terms, for did they do so, we might deny with as much truth as we can affirm them ; " hut in our present condition, "we are unable to har- monize'" our statements concerning them, which therefore appear to us incompatible.

Now, Dr. Waterland justly observes,* that "plain contradictions are certainly no mys- teries, any more than plain truths." If this be the case, and I meet with a doctrine which appears to me a plain contradiction, I cannot receive it in that sense in which it is a contradiction ; and if I cannot dis- cover any other sense, I have no right to say that I receive the doctrine by calling it a mystery unrevealed. I cannot receive the doctrine at all.

There is, however, another sense of the word mystery which ought to be considered, namely, the Scriptural sense; and I am informed,! that in this case, when St. Paul speaks of " a mystery now made manifest," or of his office being to "make known the mystery of the Gospel" — " It is not in refer-

* See Works of Waterland, vol. i., part ii., page 222.

f Essays on some of the Difficulties in the Writings of St. Paul, etc. See Essay vii. On Apparent Contradictions in Scripture, note, page 210. By Archbishop Whately.

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Athcmasicm Creed.

ence to their inscrutable character that he calls them mysteries, but the reverse : they are reckoned by him mysteries, not so far forth as they are hidden and unintelligible, but so far forth as they are revealed and explained?'

It is evident then, in this case, that I derive no aid from calling a contradiction a mystery ; for if it be to me a mystery, it is in this sense only a plain contradiction.

If, now, what appears to me a plain con- tradiction, be nevertheless a doctrine which enters more or less into every other doctrine of my theological system ; I must naturally expect the whole of that system to be more or less contradictory ; and, as I cannot believe that which is self-contradictory, inasmuch as what is self-contradictory is self-destructive, I am not in the position of an unbeliever, because there is nothing to disbelieve : nor am I in the position of a believer, for there is nothing to believe.

Further : If I meet with a proposition, and there is no idea in my mind which can be assigned to a certain one of its terms, it ceases to be to me any proposition at all, and as such there is nothing to require my belief or assent.

If, accordingly, it be asserted that there are

Mystery — Contradiction. 95

Three Persons in one God ; and no idea can be assigned to the word Person, the proposition ceases to be a proposition ; and the doctrine^ so called, is to me no doctrine, and as such has no relation whatever to any doctrine of Christianity; the consequence is, that if other doctrines are said to be founded upon it, they rest upon what is to me no foundation.

On the other hand, if in the proposition, " There are Three persons in one God," in order to avoid believing in nothing, I assign a definite idea to the term Person, and if in this case I perceive the proposition to be self-contradictory; then, inasmuch as what is self-contradictory destroys itself, I have nothing to believe ; for my belief amounts only to this, as Dean Sherlock observes, It is, and It is not.

Is, then, the Athanasian doctrine of the Tripersonality a plain contradiction ? for if so, it is no longer possible to take refuge in unintelligible mystery. Let us refer to re- putedly the most able Athanasian in the present day. In the Notes to his translation of the Select Treatises of Athanasiiis, he says :* —

" The peculiarity of the Catholic Doctrine

* Page 439.

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Athanasian Creed.

(of the Trinity) as contrasted with the heresies on the subject of the Trinity, is that it professes a* mystery. It involves, not merely a contradiction in the terms used, which would be little, for we might solve it by assigning different senses to the same word, or by adding some limitation {e.g. if it were said that Satan was an Angel and not an Angel, or man was mortal and immortal) ; but an incongruity in the ideas which it introduces. Not indeed ideas directly and wholly contradictory of each other, as ' cir- culus quadratus,' but such as are partially or directly antagonistic, as perhaps 'monies sine valle.' To say that the Father is wholly and absolutely the One infinitely-simple God, and then that the Son is also, and yet that the Father is eternally distinct from the Son, is to propose ideas whichf we cannot harmonize

* " What is a mystery in doctrine, but a difficulty or in- consistency in the intellectual expression of it?" New- man's Avians of the Fourth Century, page 227.

| " Et quidem quadibet harum considerationum et asser- tionum, cum per semetipsam solam et seorsum attenditur, nihil credibilius, nihil Terms videtur. Sed quando unam cum alia conferimus, et quomodo concorditer et simul stare possit attendimus, (nisi fidei firmitas obsistat) protinus in ambiguum venit quicquid multiplex ratiocinatio persuasit." Be Trinitate, lib. 4, Chap. 1. Ricardus St. Victoris.

Mystery — Contradiction. 97

together ; and our reason is reconciled to this state of the case only by the consideration (though fully by means of it), that no idea of ours can embrace the simple truth, which we are obliged to separate into portions, and view in aspects, and adumbrate under many ideas, if we are to make any approximation toward it at all ; as in mathematics we approximate to a circle by means of a poly- gon,— great as is the dissimilarity between the two figures."

" It* has been observed, that the Mystery of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not merely a verbal contradiction, but an in- compatibility in the human ideas conveyed by them. We can scarcely make a nearer approach to an exact enunciation of it, than by saying that one thing is two things."

"Thusf there are two Persons in each other ineffably, each being wholly one and the same Divine Substance, yet not being merely separate aspects of the same, each being God as absolutely as if there were no other Divine Person but Himself. Such a statement indeed is not only a contradiction in the terms used, but in our ideas, yet not therefore a contradiction in fact ; unless in- * Ibid., page 515. f Ibid., page 327.

F

98 Athanasian Creed.

deed any one will say that human words can express in one formula, or human thought embrace in one idea, the unknown and the Infinite God."

"If* Scripture bids us adore God, and adore His Son, our reason at once asks, whether it does not follow that there are Two Gods; and a system of doctrine becomes unavoidable ; being framed, let it be observed, not with a view of explaining, but of arrang- ing the inspired notices concerning the Supreme Being ; of providing not a consistent but a connected statement."

This, we are told, is the real and ultimate issue of the Athanasian Doctrine of the Tripersonality. — There is one God ; but if my reason attempts to form any idea of that One God, I inevitably fall into inconsis- tency : I cannot harmonize the ideas.

How so ? Surely here is no charge brought against Athanasians by Sabellians andArians: the whole process is described by Athanasians themselves.

For example ;

The Creed says, " The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God ; and

* The Arians of the Fourth Century, third edition, page 150.

Mystery — Contradiction. 99

yet there are not three Gods, but one God." The reason that there are not Three Gods is, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are together the only true God. Accordingly, Three Persons are requisite to constitute the whole Godhead, and no one Person can be excluded.

Hence Dr. Waterland thus replies to Dr. Clarke : —

" One* God, you say, is one Person only : otherwise one Person could not be one God. I answer that no one Person is one God, exclusively of the other two Persons."

So Bishop Burgess:f "As there is only one God, there can be only one true God; therefore the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the only true God. Of course the Father is not the true God without the Son and Holy Spirit ; and therefore to call the Father the true God (in John xvii. 3), does not ex- clude the Son and Holy Spirit."

"Why does it not exclude them ? Because, notwithstanding each is included in the Godhead, each is not all that God is, and therefore the other Two are required to supply

* See his Works, vol. i., part ii., page 247. t Tracts on the Divinity of Christ, p. 169. The Bible and Nothing but the Bible.

F 2

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Athanasicm Creed.

the omission ; for as the Bishop of St. David's, Dr. Burgess, observes : —

" The* Word is not omne id quod est Deus. The Father and Son are not omne id quod est Deus. But the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are together the one true God."

Hence another writer, explaining and de- fending the Athanasian Creed, observes : —

"Wef Christians are taught to conceive, under the notion of God, a necessary spiritual Being, in which Father, Son, and Spirit do so necessarily co-exist, as to constitute that Being ; and that when we conceive any one of them to be God, that is but an inadequate, not an entire and full, conception of God- head."

Moreover a contemporary Divine of the Cht^ch of England observes : —

"We % do not say, as the Realists suppose, that one Divine Person is an adequate notion of God, or of one God. Three Divine Per- sons and not One only, is a Perfect God.

* Tract on The Bible and Nothing but the Bible, page 174.

f Calm Discourse on the Trinity. See Works of the Rev. J. Howe, page 141.

\ The Judgment of a Disinterested Person concerning the Controversy about the Trinity, between Dr. South and Dr. Sherlock, p. 38. a.d. 1696.

Mystery — Contradiction. 101

We say indeed, that each Divine Person is God ; but not a God. In saying that each Divine Person is God, as for instance, that the Pather is God, nay is perfect God; we are far from intending He is a perfect God ; because such is the force of the small particle a, that by saying each Person is a God, we should apparently multiply Gods, in affirm- ing three Divine Persons."

" What then ? Why when the Church says each Divine Person is God, as the Pather, for instance, is God; 'tis meant that the Pather is God, not exclusively but inclusively of the other Two Persons, namely, of the Son and Spirit. The Divine Substance or Essence considered but with One of its dis- tinctive Properties, is but an inadequate conception of God : the full and complete conception is, the Divine Substance with the Three Properties or Relative Subsistences, Unbegotten Wisdom, Begotten or Reflex Wisdom, and Divine Love."

This agrees with the statement of Bishop Browne,* that each Person by himself is essentially God, and yet that no one Person

* See his Treatise on the Thirty-Nine Articles, p. 226. Art. 8.

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Athanasian Greed.

by himself is the whole Godhead. For when the Creed says, that we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord, " it has been supposed by some that we might infer from it, that any one Person in the Trinity, by Himself, would constitute the whole Godhead. This however is far from being the real or natural sense of the passage."

If, then, no one Person by Himself is the whole Godhead, I naturally conclude that He is something less than the whole. He is not " omne id quod est Deus." In this case, as God is Infinite, each Person must be less than Infinite, for He is not all that the Infinite is. Now what is less than Infinite is Finite ; and three Finites can never make one Infinite.

On the other hand, if I say the Father is the true God, and the true God comprehends or includes in Himself the whole Godhead, it is evident that He comprehends or includes within Himself, as God, both the Son and the Holy Ghost : hence, when I repeat the Apostles' Creed and say — I believe in God the Father ; in the idea of God the Father I comprehend or include the Son and the Holy

Mystery — Contradiction. 103

Ghost. Suppose then, in order to illustrate this view of the subject, I turn to Bishop Pearson's Exposition of the Creed ; I find that I am there instructed as follows ; —

« in* vain is that vulgar distinction ap- plied unto the explication of the Creed, whereby the Father is considered both per- sonally, and essentially; personally, as the first in the glorious Trinity, with relation and opposition to the Son ; essentially, as com- prehending the whole Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. "For that the Son is not here comprehended in the Father is evident, not only out of the original, or occasion, but also from the very letter of the Creed, which teacheth us to believe in God the Father, and in his Son; for if the Son were included in the Father, then were the Son the Father of himself."

What then am I to believe ? — When I say I believe in God the Father, ought I to include the Son and Holy Ghost, or ought I to exclude them ? If I include them, I am told that I make the Son the Father of Himself; if I exclude them, I am told that my idea of God is imperfect, and that when I say the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy

* Article, I Believe in God the Father, p. 59.

101 Athanasian Creed.

Ghost is God, I mean in each case something less than perfect God; inasmuch as perfect God includes the whole Tripersonality, and hence all Three Persons are included in the very idea of God.

These embarrassments, however, are per- haps only what I ought to expect ; for if I am unable to harmonize the statements of the Creed, how should I be able to harmonize the exposition of these statements ? Ought I not rather to bear in mind the warning of Dr. South : — " The* Trinity is a fundamental article of the Christian religion ; and as he that denies it may lose his soul, so he who strives too much to understand it, may lose his wits." And yet, is it not better for a person to run the risk of losing his wits than of losing his soul ? for I am admonished in the Creed, that, if I would be saved, I must think, nay I must thus think, and I only want to know what it is that I am to think. In such a case, I am not denying, nor even doubting, the truth of the Creed ; I am only endeavouring to ascertain what the truth is. Let me therefore pursue the enquiry.

It is evident that I cannot think upon the

* Sermon on The Trinity, Col. Chap, ii., verse 2.

Mystery — Contradiction. 105

subject without exercising, rightly or wrongly, my finite reason. How then shall I exercise it rightly ? I am told by some, that I must not contemplate any one Person as the one God exclusively of the other Two Persons. Be it so. But in my contemplations, am I nevertheless in thought compelled to exclude the other Two ? Let us hear Dr. Newman's answer : —

" It* is no inconsistency to say, that the Father is first, and the Son first also; for comparison or number does not enter into this mystery. Since*Each is o'Xo? 6e6<>, Each, as contemplated by our finite reason, at the moment of contemplation excludes the other."

Consequently, when it is said, Not Three Eternals but one Eternal —

" If suppose this means, that each Divine Person is to be received as the one God as entirely and absolutely as He would be held to be if we had never heard of the other Two ; and that He is not in any respect less than the one and only God, because they are each that same one God also; or in other words, that as each human individual being

* Select Treatises of Athanasius, page 412. f Atlantis, July, 1858, page 338. See also Notes on the Select Treatises of Athanasius, p. 515.

F 3

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has one personality, the Divine Being has Three."

If, then, I think of one Divine Person as the one God, and as entirely and ahsolutely as if I had never heard of the other Two, I think of one Divine Person as the One God exclusively of the other Two : at the moment of contemplation one excludes the other. This process of exclusion is moreover per- fect ; for it as completely excludes the other Two, not only as if I had never heard of them, hut even as if they had never existed ; for —

" God* is as wholly and entirely God in the Person of the Father, as though there were No Son and Spirit ; as entirely in that of the Son, as though there were No Spirit and Father ; as entirely in that of the Spirit, as though there were No Father and Son."

Is it possible for the process of Exclusion to he more definite ? But Dr. Newman adds —

"And the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, while there is hut One God; and that without any inequality, hecause there is but One God, and He is without parts or degrees; though how it is that that same Adorable Essence, Indivisible,

* Parochial Sermons, vol. vi., p. 388.

Mystery — Con traduction. 107

and numerically One, should subsist perfectly and wholly in each of Three Persons, no words of man can explain, nor earthly illus- tration typify."

Why can no words of man explain it ? Because, as we have already seen, it is called a contradiction.

I now, however, see the reason why it is said, that each Divine Person is o'\o? 0eo<?5 which I take to be equivalent to the whole Godhead; for if each were any thing less, He would be Finite, and Three Finites can never make an Infinite. I can now also un- derstand, why it is that Dean Sherlock said,* that the whole Trinity is in each Person, and therefore that no one Person is less than the whole Trinity. As to reconciling all these expositions, of course I am not concerned to do so ; seeing that all that is required of me is, " to provide not a consistent but a con- nected statement."

There is, however, another point of view in which these contradictions should be con- sidered, namely, in their relation to the In- carnation.

The Creed says, that Our Lord Jesus

* Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, pages 58, 82, 83.

108 Athanasian Creed.

Christ, the Sou of God, is God and Man ; God, of the Substance of the Father, Perfect God and Perfect Man. This being the case, it is evident that if the whole Tripersonality be required to constitute the whole Godhead, or Divine Nature, and if the whole Divine Nature became Incarnate, then the whole Godhead or Trinity became Incarnate. How shall I escape this conclusion ? Dr. South informs me how ; he tells me that — " The* whole Divine Nature is incarnate, but not holly." Alas ! I fail to comprehend the mystery of " the whole not wholly." You tell me that "the Incarnation of the whole Divine Nature does not infer the Incarnation of the whole Trinity." If so, the whole Trinity is not essential to the whole Godhead, or Perfect God. Two Modes of Subsistence, the Father and Holy Spirit, each of which I am told is o\o? 0eo?3 are left out. What has become of them ? Can they subsist of them- selves apart from the Substance ? If so, of what are they Modes, or what do they modify? Do they not cease to be Modes, and also cease to be Persons ?

* Tritheism Charged upon Dr. Sherlock's Notion of the Trinity ; page 62.

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I say nothing of the mystery, that, accord- ing to Dr. South,* when the Son is Begotten it is properly the Person of the Son and not the Substance that is Begotten ; and although Dr. Waterlandf tells me, that Person, like triangle, is an abstract idea, and Dr. New- man t that it hardly denotes one abstract idea ; yet into these subjects I need not enter with a view to harmonize my ideas, seeing that all that is required of me is "not a con- sistent but a connected statement."

What is the consequence ? the whole Athanasian system of theology becomes to me equally inharmonious — not only a verbal contradiction, but a contradiction in ideas, incongruous, incompatible, inconsistent with itself. And now what becomes of the chi- valrous assertions — " I hold, therefore, that the Athanasian Creed and Christianity must logically stand or fall together" — "There is not a single proposition in the Athanasian Creed of which the rejection does not involve the rejection of Christianity. I make that assertion without the least hesitation, and I

* Animadversions, etc., pages 159, 292. f See his Works, vol iii., page 341. \ Select Treatises, etc., page 412.

110 Aflw.nasian Creed.

challenge all the gainsayers of the Creed to disprove it ? "

We hero perceive, that the whole doctrine of the Tripersonality is now approaching the verge of an abyss ; for we have now to con- sider not only the safety of the Creed, hut the safety of Christianity. What becomes of Christianity in my mind, when it enters my thoughts only as a series of incompati- bilities, incongruities, inconsistencies, and plain contradictions ? I might resign myself to this outer darkness by saying with some, It is all a mystery. But even in this sense of the term mystery, I am told, "a plain contradiction is no more a mystery than a plain truth." If then I say , I cannot help myself : I desire to continue a Christian ; but — one thing raises my alarm ; for if Chris- tianity be a self-contradiction, and self- contradiction destroys itself, my faith in Christianity is not only imperilled, but is shipwrecked altogether.

The crisis is desperate ; but a refuge is provided. In the History of my Religious Opinions I naturally- say with Dr. Newman, — " I* am far of course from denying that every article of the Christian Creed, whether * Pages 238, 239.

Source of Contradiction. Ill

as held by Catholics or by Protestants, is beset with intellectual difficulties; and it is simple fact, that, for myself, I cannot answer these difficulties." — But " ten thousand diffi- culties do not make one doubt."

Why not ? There is the doctrine of Tran- substantiation ! and Sir Thomas More says, "A faith which stands that test, will stand any test." — I think so too.

" People say that the doctrine of Tran- substantiation is .difficult to believe : I did not believe the doctrine till I was a Catholic. I had no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believed 'that the Catholic Roman Church was the oracle of God, and that she had declared this doctrine to be part of the ori- ginal revelation. It is difficult, impossible to imagine, I grant j — but how is it difficult to believe ?"

Well, then, the doctrine of Tripersonality stands upon the same ground as the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Of both it is said — " It is difficult, impossible, to imagine ; but how is it difficult to believe ?" I have no difficulty in believing it, as soon as I believe that the Catholic Roman Church is the oracle of God, and declares the Athanasian Creed to be part of the original Revelation.

112 Athanasian Creed.

Here then I am reminded of the following remark by Mr. Bingham ; —

tt The* authors of the Roman Communion (in their extravagant zeal for the authority of the Church, and the power of general Councils, to make new articles of faith) have not scrupled to assert, that the Divinity of our Saviour and the doctrine of the Trinity are neither defensible from the authority of Scripture, nor the writings of the primitive Fathers from the days of the Apostles down to the Council of Nice. Mr. Chillingworth did long ago object this very thing to his Romish adversary ; and it were easy upon occasion to confirm his suggestion by multi- tudes of undeniable proofs, were the matter of any such importance."

Now there is no ground for believing, in the present case, that it was zeal for the authority of the Church that caused the distinguished author to assert, that the Athanasian Creed is self-contradictory ; on the contrary, it was the perception of its contradictory nature that drove him to the alternative either of infidelity, or of the ac- knowledgment of the authority of the Ca-

* Sermon 2, On the Divinity of Christ, vol. ix., page 357.

Source of Contradiction. 113

tholic Roman Church as the oracle of God. This brings us to what may he called the Philosophy of Contradiction, and to see why it is said, that any Revelation from God con- cerning Himself must necessarily, in our apprehensions, be self-contradictory.

In this case, however, the contradiction is said to be derived not merely from the words of Scripture, but from the very laws of the human mind in its relation to God; so that Scripture itself, and all explanations of Scrip- ture, nay, even the human mind itself in its endeavours to arrive at a knowledge of God, are all with one accord self-contradictory.

Let us illustrate the case by a reference to the observations of Gibbon, and of various theologians, especially the eminent Bampton Lecturer, Dr. Mansel.

It is observed by Gibbon, that* —

"The most sagacious of the Christian theologians, the great Athanasius himself, has candidly confessed, that whenever he forced his understanding to meditate on the divinity of the Logos, his toilsome and un- availing efforts recoiled on themselves ; that the more he thought, the less he compre-

* Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xxi. Ed. 1813, page 322. See Athanasius, torn, i., page 808.

114 Atlianasian Creed.

h ended ; and the more he wrote, the less capable was he of expressing his thoughts. In every step of the enquiry, we are com- pelled to feel and acknowledge the im- measurable disproportion between the size of the object and the capacity of the human mind. We may strive to abstract the notions of Time, of Space, and of Matter, which so closely adhere to all the perceptions of our experimental knowledge. But as soon as we presume to reason of Infinite Substance, of Spiritual generation ; as often as we deduce any positive conclusion from a negative idea, we are involved in darkness, perplexity, and inevitable contradiction. As these difficulties arise from the nature of the subject, they oppress with the same insuperable weight, the philosophical and theological disputant?'

The source of perplexity and contradiction here referred to, is acknowledged by Dean Mansel in his Bampton Lectures ; and is at- tributed to the laws and limits of the human mind. Why, according to Gibbon, were the efforts of thought, in the case of Athanasius, toilsome and unavailing ? Answer :

Because* " the existence of a limit to our powers of thought is manifested by the con-

* Bampton Lectures, Fourth Edition, p. 62.

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sciousness of contradiction, which implies at the same time an attempt to think and an inability to accomplish that attempt."

"Why was it that, according to Gibbon, the more Athanasius thought, the less he com- prehended ? Answer :

Because* "if all thought is limitation; if whatever we conceive is by the very act of conception, regarded as finite — the infinite, from a human point of view, is merely a name for the absence of those conditions under which thought is possible. To speak of a Conception of the Infinite, is therefore at once to confirm those conditions and to deny them. The contradiction winch we discover in such a conception, is only that which we have ourselves placed there, by tacitly assuming the conceivability of the in- conceivable."

What did Gibbon mean by adducing a positive conclusion from a negative thought ? Answer :

" Thef Infinite is known to human reason, merely as the negation of the finite : we know what it is not; and that is all. The con- viction that an Infinite Being exists, seems forced upon us by the manifest incomplete- * Ibid., p. 48. f mi> P- 117 ■

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Athanasian Creed.

ness of our finite knowledge; but we have no rational means whatever of determining what is the nature of that Being."

« We* must remain content with the belief that we have that knowledge of God which is best adapted to our wants and training. How far that knowledge represents God as He is, we know not, and we have no need to know."

But what of the insuperable weight oppress- ing alike, according to Gibbon, the philoso- phical and theological disputant ? Answer :

" Reasonf gains nothing by repudiating Revelation ; for the mystery of Revelation is the mystery of Reason also."

Now, $ we admit that the doctrines of Re- vealed Religion have relation to the con- stitution of the thinker to whom they are addressed; also that this very relation indi- cates the existence of a higher form of the same truths. Cannot the human mind, then, be elevated to this higher form ? No, says Dr. Mansel, it is beyond the range of human intelligence, and therefore not capable of re- presentation in any positive mode of human thought. " The§ existence of modes of thought, which we are compelled to accept

* Ibid., p. 96. | Ibid., p. 117.

J Ibid., p. 109. § Ibid.,?. 93.

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117

as at the same time relatively ultimate and absolutely derived, — as limits beyond which we cannot penetrate, yet which themselves proclaim that there is a further truth behind and above them, — suggests, as its obvious explanation, the hypothesis of a mind cramped by its own laws, and bewildered in the con- templation of its own forms."

If this be the case, what is the applica- tion of Gibbon's remarks to the theology of Athanasius ?

Theology, as Dean Mansel observes, has been made to speak the language of Meta- physics ; as indeed we have already seen. Thus, in relation to God, Theology treats of Being, Substance, Essence, Begotten, Un- begotten, Proceeding, Person, Mode, Sub- sistence, Unity, Perichoresis or Circumin- cession, and so forth; in all which respects God is spoken of as Infinite and Eternal; or else, as Dr. Mansel expresses it, as the Absolute and Infinite ; Eather, Son, and Holy Spirit being each of them Jehovah. But when we come to consider the relations between the Einite and the Infinite, or the Relative and the Absolute, and, as the Lecturer says,* "to analyse the ideas thus

* Page 45, Lecture iii.

118 Athcmasian Creed.

suggested to us, in the hope of attaining to an intelligible conception of them, we are on every side involved in inextricable confusion and contradiction. It is no matter from what point of view we commence our ex- amination."

Hence the Lecturer observes : — "The* conception of the Absolute and Infinite, from whatever side we view it, appears encompassed with contradictions. There is a contradiction in supposing such an object to exist, whether alone or in con- junction with others ; and there is a contra- diction in supposing it not to exist. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as one, and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as many. There is a contradiction in con- ceiving it as personal ; and there is a contra- diction in conceiving it as impersonal. It cannot without contradiction be represented as active; nor, without equal contradiction, be represented as inactive. It cannot be conceived as the sum of all existence ; nor yet can it be conceived as a part only of that sum. A contradiction thus thoroughgoing, while it sufficiently shews the impotence of human reason as an a priori judge of all

* Page 38, Lecture ii.

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truth, yet it is not in itself inconsistent with any form of religious belief."

This statement is quite in conformity with a remark of Dr. South : —

One reason of our short and imperfect notions of the Deity, says he, is the Infinity of it ; and yet we can perfectly know and comprehend nothing, hut as it is represented to us under some certain hounds and limita- tions. And therefore one of the chief in- struments of our knowledge of a thing, is the definition of it; and what does this signify hut the bringing or representing a thing under certain hounds and limitations : —

" Upon* which account, what a loss must we needs be at, in understanding or knowing the Divine Nature, when the very way of our knowing seems to carry in it something opposite to the thing known ? For the way of knowing is by denning, limiting, and de- termining ; and the thing known is that of which there neither are nor can be any bounds, limits, definitions, or determinations."

The principle here laid down, Dr. South applies especially to the Tripersonality in the following manner : —

* Animadversions vpon Dr. Ske?-lock's Book, etc., p. 55. These statements will be considered in the sequel.

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" It is a thing," says he,* " very agreeable even to the notions of bare reason to imagine, that the Divine Nature has a way of sub- sisting very different from the subsistence of any created being. Por inasmuch as nature and subsistence go to the making up of a person, why may not the way of their sub- sistence be quite as different as their natures are confessed to be ? one nature being infinite, the other finite. And therefore, though it be necessary in things created (as no one in- stance appears to the contrary) for one single essence to subsist in one single person, and no more ; does this at all prove, that the same must be also necessary in God, whose nature is wholly different from theirs, and con- sequently may differ as much in the manner of his subsistence, and so may have one and the same nature diffused into Three distinct Persons ?"

Accordingly Stackhouse observes in his Body of Divinity ;f speaking of the Divine Persons : —

" These Modes of Existence indeed are not so agreeable to our natural ideas; but then we are to consider that they relate to the

* Sermon on Colossians ii. 2, vol. iii., page 201. | See p. 130, on The Trinity.

Source of Contradiction. 121

Divine Nature, and that everything we know of the Divine Nature contradicts our natural ideas. An uncreated and created Nature, an infinite and finite Nature, are direct Contra- dictions to each other."

We see then, that, according to this ac- count, the Infinite is a negation of the Finite; that it is a negation of the Finite, in the sense of its being wholly different ; that it is wholly different, in the sense of being opposite and a direct contradiction. God is not man, nor is man God, the one being a direct con- tradiction to the other; and as such, pre- cluding, in every respect, the possibility of reasoning from analogy, or correspondence of one to the other.

It is, then, in the very constitution of the human mind that we are to seek for the origin of all contradiction respecting God ; and thus we have a satisfactory account of the origin of the expression, Three Persons and one God, which the translator of the Select Treatises of Athanasius (only a few years before the Bampton Lectures were given), declared to be inconceivable except in the form of a contradiction. In this manner all theological controversy is silenced, and the Athanasian Creed may be accepted.

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I may assert the absolute Unity of God, and yet so conceive of one Divine Person as, at the time, to exclude the other Two, and to think each Person in succession to be by Himself as absolutely and perfectly God as if I had never heard of the other Two, nay, as if they had never existed.

It is true that Mr. Maurice protested against Dr. Mansel's philosophy as being a death-blow to Christianity ; but what are we to think of the Notes to the Select Treatises of Athanasius ? The doctrine of the Tripersonality is regarded by its distin- guished advocate as the highway into the Church of Rome ; and this furnishes one reason why Roman Catholics feel so averse to the possible disuse of the Creed in the Church of England, or to any modification of its language, particularly of its anathemas ; for as there is no salvation out of the Church, and religious toleration is impious and ab- surd, the Damnatory Clauses especially ought to be retained.*

With these remarks we now pass on to the subject of Sabellianism, which, however, we have already anticipated to a considerable

* Prcelectiones Theologica, by J. Perrone; torn; 1, prop, xi., xii. Ed. 1842.

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degree, when treating of the meaning of the word Person. The more succinct and popu- lar account, as given hy Mr. Gibbon, we shall reserve for the Appendix.

II. — Sabellius.

"Profane minds ask," says Dr. Newman, " is God One or Three ?" — Other minds, which are not profane, have asked the same ques- tion. It does not appear, for instance, to have been from any spirit of profanation, that this question was asked by Sabellius, a Priest or Bishop of Africa ; but solely in con- sequence of explanations of the Trinity being at that time given, which seemed to be destructive of the doctrine of the Divine Unity.

"The same fear," says Mosheim,* "lest God (whom reason and the Scriptures teach us to be most simply one) should be divided out into many Gods, which induced Noetus to deny a distinction of Persons in the Divine Nature, induced also Sabellius to do the same, and to contend that there is only

* De Rebus Christianorum, pages 690, 689, etc.

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one Divine Person or Hypostasis. Hence, according to Epiphanius, whenever the Sa- bellians happened to meet with unlearned people, whom they wished to draw over to their side by a concise method, they were accustomed to propose tliis single question, " What are we at last to say ? Have we One God, or Three Gods?"

With respect to the writings of Sabellius, there are none extant ; so that his theological opinions are known only through the medium of his opponents, by whom they are in con- sequence discordantly represented.

Dr. Newman observes* — " It is difficult to decide what Sabellius' s doctrine really was ; nor is this wonderful, considering the per- plexity and vacillation which is the ordinary consequence of abandoning Catholic truth." This, however, may be said on the other side of the question ; that we have no opportunity of hearing Sabellius speak for himself, as in the case of Athanasius ; that what Sabellius wished to oppose was the Tritheism of that day; and that, not improbably, the party spirit of that day ought to be taken into account.

" Great is the dissension among the learned," says Mosheim, "concerning the

* Select Treatises of Athanasius, page 529.

Wliat were Ms Doctrines ? 125

real opinion of Sabellius. Most of them inform us, that he taught that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were Three names of the One God, arising from the diversity of His divine works and actions : that God was called Father, when He wrought those things which are proper to a Father; as when He procreates, provides, cherishes, nourishes, protects : that the same God is called Son, when He effects and operates in the Son those things which were necessary to the salvation of mankind ; that the same God is called the Holy Spirit, when He is regarded as the first principle of all virtue and sanctity of life. Many passages in ancient writers confirm this interpretation; in which also it is re- lated, that Sabellius taught that the Father Himself suffered the punishment due to the sins of mankind, and that Sabellius therefore, together with his disciples, was distinguished by the name of JPatripassians. This expli- cation of the Sabellian dogma has been sup- ported both by reasons and testimonies, as far as he could do so, by Christopher Wormius in his History of Sabellianism."

" Others, however, led chiefly by the authority of Epiphanius, contend, that ancient writers never attained to the mean-

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ing of Sabellius ; that according to him the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, were not three appellations of the One God acting in diverse manners ; but that it was the Father Himself who was called God, and was without any division ; that the Son was the name of a cer- tain Divine virtue sent down from the Father to the man Christ, in order that Christ might be enabled to shew to mankind inerrably the way of salvation, and to work miracles ; that the Holy Spirit was the name of another ray or virtue of the Divine Nature, moving the minds of men, and elevating them to God. On the faith of these statements they con- clude, that there was a very great difference be- tween the opinions of Noetus and Sabellius, and that the name of Patripassian is unsuit- able to Sabellius, who never in the least taught the doctrine that the Father, or God, suffered punishment; but only that when Christ endured the punishment due to us, there was a certain virtue proceeding from the Father, which was present to Him, imparting its aid; and lastly, that the Sabellian dogma did not much differ from that which is main- tained by Socinians."

" Although Sabellius asserted that there is only One Divine Person, nevertheless he

Wliat were his Doctrines ? 127

thought that the difference of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, mentioned in the Scriptures, was not merely appellative, or, to speak in the language of grammarians, nominal. For the one Divine Person which He put on (induce- batj had, as Sahellius thought, Three Forms, having a real distinction one from another, and in no wise to be confounded one with another. This observation is of the greatest importance in ascertaining the real opinion of Sabellius ; and I ought therefore to support it by a careful statement of authorities."

The first authority adduced by Mosheim is that of Arnobius; and, from the passages cited from this author, Mosheim concludes as follows : —

1. That Sabellius taught the doctrine of a Trinity ; 2. That he denounced those who denied the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or the Trinity ; which being granted, it follows, from what Arnobius says, 3. That he also separated Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If he had only thought that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were but the names of one Supreme Deity, there would ha^e been no occasion for his execration of opponents. Without any doubt, both the course of the argument, and the very thing itself, place it

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beyond controversy, that Sabellius condemned those who mingled together, and confounded Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now most certainly they do so, who think that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in no wise differ from each other except only in name. These are therefore the persons whom Sabel- lius held in detestation.

The second authority adduced by Mosheim is that of Basil, on whose testimony Mosheim thus remarks : —

" It is sufficiently evident that the Trinity acknowledged by Sabellius is not merely nominal or verbal. Eor, as he maintained that there is only one Person or Hypostasis in God, so at the same time he affirmed that there are Three Trpoawma, or Three Forms, and appearances (fades) of that One God ; and that this same God assumed sometimes one, sometimes another Form, according to the difference of circumstances. Now these different Forms of one and the same Nature, however they may be conceived, imply a veritable difference ; and ought by no means to be confounded with only different appella- tions of one and the same thing. Nothing, however, more tends to confirm what I have said, than the comparison by which the Sabel-

What were his Doctrines ?

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lians were accustomed to illustrate their dogma concerning the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as received by Epiphanius from their own mouth " — namely, the comparison of body, soul, and spirit.

" Certain it is that such similitudes are not to he pressed too far. Still, in the pre- sent case, every shadow of similitude and comparison would he lost, and dissimilitude rather than similitude would result, if Sabel- lius had taught a Trinity only of names and words. If between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there be the same difference, I say not wholly the same but only in part, as there is between the body, the rational mind or spirit, and the sentient soul in man, then it necessarily follows, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit really differ from each other. Sabellius therefore thought, that in like man- ner as the person of an individual man is one, and that in this one person there are three things which can be distinguished from each other, not mentally only but in reality, namely, body, soul, and spirit; so likewise, although there is One only indi- vidual Person of God, still in this One Person the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit may be discriminated not only in thought, but also

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Sabellius.

ought to be discriminated and distinguished in reality."

" Inasmuch as Sabellius maintained that there is simply one Nature and one Person of God, and yet that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit really differ from each other, and are not Three names of the One God acting in divers manners, this one thing only re- mains for us to believe ; namely, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit appeared to him to be Three portions of the Divine Nature, sundered as it were from God, and differing one from the other, yet not subsisting per se after the manner of persons, but depend- ing upon the One individual Divine Nature. When God, for instance, designed to create the Universe, He did not act in His totality, but in some way separated from Himself a part of His Nature, by which means He accomplished the work which He had un- dertaken. And this portion of Divinity is called the Father; because by this means God fulfils the office of a Father of all things; that is, He procreates, nourishes, cherishes, and governs. This Father also produced Christ in the womb of the Virgin Mary ; and in this respect is in a more emi- nent manner called the Father, viz. of Christ ;

What were his Doctrines ? 131

just as Christ is said to be the Son of God, inasmuch as, by reason of this Divine virtue, He is in the place of a Son.

"Moreover, as the same God willed to recall to Himself the human race by means of Christ, He sent forth another portion of his Nature, which, being conjoined to the man Christ, is called the Son, so that by residing in the Son of God, He taught and wrought by means of the Son, and together with the Son constituted in a manner One Person.

"Lastly, God sent forth a Third particle of His Nature really separate from the Two former, by means of which He gives life to all things in the universe ; illuminates, kin- dles, and regenerates the minds of mankind. This Third portion of the Divine Nature is called the Holy Spirit, because it both pro- duces holy men, and actuates them by an operation similar to that of the wind.

" The doctrine of Sabellius, that there were Three Forms, or Three irpoawira of God, was neither, as Abulpharaius supposed, that of three qualities of the Divine Nature, viz., existence, wisdom, life ; nor Three modes of acting ; nor Three names of the One God ; but Three portions or parts, in some way or other

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sundered from God, and yet in some other way connected with God.

" "With this explanation sufficiently agrees the celebrated comparison, mentioned by Epi- phanius, derived from the Sun ; and which has moved certain eminent men to compare the Sabellians with Socinians. Epiphanius says, that the Sabellians were accustomed to set forth their opinions, by making use of the similitude of the Sun. As that in the Sun there was only one hypostasis, one substance, but three virtues or energies ; the power of illuminating, the power of heating, and the orbicular figure. Ths heat corresponding to the Holy Spirit; the power of illuminating, to the Son ; and the orbicular figure, to the Father.

" This similitude, considered in its integrity, seems to favour those who thought that Sabellius excluded all true difference from the Divine Nature. Epiphanius, however, so explains it as to make it appear, that by this fresh similitude Sabellius had no design to subvert the former, derived from the soul, body, and spirit. Eor he adds, that the Son was like a ray sent forth from the Eather, in order to convey to mankind those blessings which Christ alone of all the human race

Wliat icere his Doctrines ? 133

sought out for them; and having accom- plished His work, returned to heaven. That the Holy Spirit also ought to be regarded after the same manner, as being itself sent down into the world. Now, whatsoever is sent forth from God and afterwards returns to God, is without doubt, in a certain man- ner, really separated from the Divine Nature. For in no way could it return to God, unless it had departed from God and become sepa- rated from Him."

"Although, therefore, ancient writers some- times so speak as if they seemed to think that Sabellius was of opinion that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit differed from each other only as three modes of action of one man, or in three different respects ; still their words are not to be too eagerly insisted upon, but are to be interpreted in the way which we have mentioned. Nay, even the ancient writers, for the most part, explain in one set of passages what they had said less aptly and distinctly in another : they correct their own statements, and accommodate them to our present interpretation."

Thus Basil in one place says, that Sabellius seemed to him to deny to God all true dis- tinction ; yet elsewhere, that Sabellius denied

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a Personal distinction, but not a real and true distinction. Sabellius believed that the Son was begotten of the Father after the manner of bodies in general, or by division; thus teaching that the Son differed from the Father as a part from the whole, from which it is separated by partition.

The real doctrine of Sabellius is generally

Supposed to have been p,ia V7r6araai<; Tpi7rp6ao)7ro<;.

Hence Bishop Bull, says Mosheim, was in error when regarding as most certainly true, the vulgar opinion concerning the Sabellian dogma. — " Every one knows," says Bishop Bull, " that Sabellius taught that God was uovoTrpoacoTTov (an egregious mistake, for we may clearly see from Basil, that he ac- knowledged that there were Three rrpoawTra in God, but denied that there Avere Three hypostases) ; also that he acknowledged that there was no real distinction of Persons, nor even any division." This, for a great part, says Mosheim, is false. Sabellius repudiated a distinction of Persons, but not a true and real division.

" Now since Sabellius thought that the Son, as a part of God or portion of the Divine Nature, was separated from that Nature by a section of some kind, those ancient writers

Wliat icere his Doctrines ? 135

were not altogether in error who called both him and his friends Patripassians ; if indeed by the name of the Father be understood that One Supreme God whom this African was un- willing should be divided into Persons. For he who thinks a certain part of the eternal Father to be, in a certain manner, sun- dered from the Father, and yet to depend upon Him, and to return to Him ; that this part was in Christ when suffering punish- ment and dying ; that it was made partaker of the evils inflicted upon the man Christ ; such a one is not altogether unappropriated or inaptly said to think, not that the Divine Person, but that God Himself, the very Father, not in His totality indeed, but in so far as He was conjoined to Christ, suffered the punishment due to the human race."

With respect to Dionysius, Sabellius, and ourselves, says Mosheim, " all maintain that there are in Christ two Natures, the Divine and Human. But we affirm that these two Natures constitute one Person; and we take away personality from the human nature, for we teach that the personality subsists in the Divine. Sabellius, on the contrary, thought indeed so far with us as to say, that one Person was constituted out of the two Na-

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tures ; but he took away the personality from the Divine Nature, and taught that this per- sonality subsisted in and by the Human nature. Dionysius, however, when he aimed to confute him, not only sundered the two natures in Christ, but also separated the Persons; and decreed that the actions and sufferings of the human nature did not per- tain to the Divine. So that aiming to destroy one error, he fell into another equally grave."

" Sabellius, however, and his disciples can- not be said to be Patripassians, in the same sense as the Noetians ; if the opinions of the latter be rightly expounded by the ancients. Por Noetus thought, that the man Christ conjoined to himself the whole Person of the Pather, or the whole Divine nature ; Sabellius, however, thought that only a part of the Divine nature descended into the man Christ. Epiphanius, therefore, fell into no error, when he wrote, that the Sabellians agreed for the most part with the Noetians; but that they did not teach that the Pather suffered, as the Noetians do. This is perfectly true, if explained in the manner I have stated, namely, that the Sabellians did not refer the sufferings of Christ to the Pather in the same sense as the Noetians. There was no reason

Sabellius — Athanasius. 137

therefore why Augustin, in his treatise Be Hceresibus, and so many others after him, should have blamed Epiphanius."

Thus far the account given by Mosheim of the doctrines of Sabellius.

"We next proceed to the relation of Scibel~ lianism to the doctrine of the Tripersonality, and the difficulties experienced by the ad- vocates of this doctrine in endeavouring to avoid the Sabellian heresy.

1. First, let us bear in mind, that the leading doctrine of Sabellius is, that there is only one Person in the Godhead; and that of Atha- nasius, that in the Godhead there are three dis- tinct Persons. While, however according to some, the distinction of Persons is the greatest possible (amounting to division, separation, and independence) ; according to others, it is the least possible ; for, observes Dr. South,* —

" St. Cyril says, that the difference between the Divine Persons (by reason of the perfect Unity of their Nature, as it were blotting out or taking away all diversity between them) is so very small, as but just to distin- guish them, and no more ; and to cause that One of them cannot be called the other ; the

* Animadversions upon Dr. Sherlock's Book, etc., page 288.

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Father not the Son, nor the Son upon any account the Father," etc.

" And Thomas Aquinas tells us, that the Divine Persons ought to be distinguished by that which makes the least distinction."

"In like manner Durandus affirms, that the first instance of Plurality (or remove from Unity) ought to be the least. And therefore that the distinction of the Divine Persons, since it is the First, ought to be by distinct Rela- tions compatible in the same Essence ; which, for that cause, is a less distinction than any that can be made by things Absolute."

"And, lastly, Bellarmine observes posi- tively, that the distinction of the Divine Persons ought to be the least that is possible : supposing all along that it must still be real, and not barely nominal or imaginary."

Here it is implied that, in regard to the Tri- personality, the difference between Sabellius and Athanasius should be the least possible ; hence, upon the same principle, so should the difference between Dr. South and Dr. Sher- lock. Accordingly, assume the least possible difference, whether between Infinite Minds, or Persons, or Agents — "If* it be truly affirmed, that Three Distinct Infinite Minds may, by

* Tritheism Charged, etc., page 182, by Dr. South.

Sabellius — Athanasius. 139

a principle of mutual consciousness, become essentially One Infinite Mind ; it may be as truly affirmed, that Three Infinite Intelligent Persons may become One Infinite Intelligent Person; since there is a perfect equipollence in these two predications."

So in regard to Three Infinite Intelligent Agents; — "Each Divine Person," says Dr. Waterland,* " is an individual Intelligent Agent ; but, as subsisting in one undivided Substance, they are all together, in that re- spect, but One undivided Intelligent Agent. This they tell me is to say, that Three Persons are One Person"

Undoubtedly, if the Three Divine Persons are Three Individual Intelligent Agents, and if these Three Intelligent Agents may be regarded in any respect as One Individual Intelligent Agent ; there is a difficulty in not conceiving that, in the like respect, the Three Divine Persons also may be regarded as One Individual Divine Person. The answer given by Dr. Waterland to this difficulty is, to acknowledge that it is a difficulty. Thus in reply to an opponent, he observes, f — " The great difficulty is still behind, to determine

* See his Works, vol. ii., Preface, page 37. f See his Works, vol. iii., page 298.

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what makes an Individual, or to fix a certain principle of Individuation. I called upon you for it before; knowing that very wise men thought it as difficult a problem as to square the circle." Moreover : —

If, as Dr. "Waterland says, the words " un- divided " or " Individual Intelligent Agent," may admit of a stricter or a larger sense ; and there is no certain principle of Indi- viduation; it is easy to see how the Atha- nasian distinction of Persons may become evanescent, and the Persons coalesce into One, particularly if the original distinction be regarded as the smallest possible.

2. But, secondly, in the Notes to the Select Treatises of Athanasius it is observed* that — " When God is thrice repeated, and Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is named, Three Unities do not make plurality of number in Him, which they are. . . . This repetition of Unities is iteration rather than numeration. ... As if I say Sun, Sun, Sun, I have not made three Suns, but named one so many times. . . . A trine numeration, then, does not make number; which they rather run into who make some difference between the Three." * Page 454.

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Hence it has been observed, that if I say- Substance, Substance, Substance, this does not imply Three Substances, but one and the same Substance referred to three times. So when it is said, The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God, yet there are not Three Gods but one God, not three Substances but one Substance; it is replied that, by parity of reason, " This* is as if a man should say, The Father is a Person, the Son a Person, and the Holy Ghost a Person ; yet there are not Three Persons, but one Person."

It is rejoined, the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit; and therefore there are Three different Persons. But here Dr. Newman observes : —

" Thef question has almost been admitted by St. Austin, whether it is not possible to say that God is one Person ; for He is wholly and entirely Father, and at the same time wholly and entirely Son, and wholly and entirely Holy Ghost."

Hence Dr. Newman observes, " Nothing^

* Bishop Stillingfieet's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, page 110.

f Select Treatises, page 412.

| Select Treatises of Athanasius, pages 334, 515.

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is more remarkable than the confident tone in which Athanasius accuses Arians and Sabellians of considering the Divine Nature as compound ; as if the Catholics were in no respect open to such a charge. Nor are they ; though in avoiding it, they are led to enunciate the most profound and ineffable mystery. The Father is the One Simple Entire Divine Being, and so is the Son. They do in no sense share Divinity between them : each is o^o? 0eo?. This is not Ditheism or Tritheism, for they are the same God; nor is it Sabellianism, for they are eternally distinct and substantive Persons ; but it is a depth and height beyond our intellect, how what is Two in so full a sense can also in so full a sense be One ; or how the Divine Nature does not come under number." The case is this.

The Divine Person comes under number ; for we say there are Three Divine Persons, and each one differs from the other. The Divine Nature does not come under number; for we say there are not Three Gods, but one God ; and yet each Person is as wholly and entirely the One God as if there were no other Divine Person but that One. This, accord- ingly, is the most profound and ineffable

Sabellius — Athanasius. 143

mystery; and the enunciation of this mys- tery is the Athanasian bulwark against Sabellianism. Now we have seen, that it is called a mystery because it is admitted to be a contradiction; and if so, the bulwark against Sabellianism is a self-contradiction.

In this way may we not conclude, that the Church on earth, as being the embodiment of her own doctrines, must herself be in the same state of incoherence as are the doctrines of which she is the embodiment ; and here may we not see room, therefore, for the ful- filment of those Prophecies to which we have referred ?

3. There is yet another difficulty experi- enced by Athanasians in opposing Sabellians ; namely, the fact that there is in man, as an image and likeness of God, a Trinity analogous to the Trinity in God. As to the Trinity in God, "the Three Platonic hypostases,"* says Dr. Cudworth, " seem to be really nothing else but infinite Goodness, infinite Wisdom, and infinite active Love and Power, not as mere qualities or accidents, but as substan- tial things, that have some kind of subor- dination one to another ; all concurring to- gether to make up one &elov, or Divinity;

* Intellectual System, vol. iii., pages 123, 143, 193.

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just as the centre, immoveable distance, and moveable circumference, concurrently make up one sphere." This Trinity, again, is said by Augustin to be that of Love, Intelligence, and Memory. In either case, these Three are not parcelled out in man, each to a different Person ; but are all comprehended in one Person, or one Personal Being; so that, in this respect, the mind of man is Sabellian by the very constitution of his nature ; and hence the mystery and contradiction which arise, when he is required to think of God as being, according to the Athanasian Creed, Three different Persons. In this respect, even the Athanasian, as being Sabellian by nature and by birth, cannot help himself; while on the other hand, if he does not think of God in a manner contrary to the constitution of his nature, he comes under the anathema of the Damnatory Clauses ; for " he that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity ;" while yet he is told that so to think is to think a con- tradiction. The Church, it is said, does not attempt to explain, she only asserts. But what is it that she asserts ? A mystery ? But what is the mystery ? A plain contradiction. But as Dr. Waterland says, " plain contradictions are not mysteries, any more than plain truths."

Sabellius — Athanasius. 145

The case is the same, again, when the illus- tration of the Trinity is derived from body, soul, and spirit. All these are compre- hended in one man, as one personal being. But this illustration is Sabellian ; and only shews how man is Sabellian by the very constitution of his person.

The case is the same, again, when the illustration is taken from the Sun; and we perceive the Trinity of Seat, Light, and Solar activity. In this point of view, the Sabellian Trinity is found to be shadowed forth in the very laws of Nature. The Sabellian freely refers to these illustrations : the Athanasian is cautioned against them;* he sees all Crea- tion against him, unable to afford the requisite help to his faith. He is told that he must beware of these inadequate and danger- ous illustrations, or else he must unavoidably fall into the Sabellian heresy — the heresy of believing in a false Unity.

For, as Dean Sherlockf observes, and Dr. Newman frequently repeats : —

" There is no example in Nature of such a distinction and unity, as is between the

* Augustin, De Civitate Dei, lib. x., cap. xxiii. f Vindication of the Doctrine of the Ever Blessed Trinity, page 104.

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Three Persons in the Godhead ; and therefore the ancient Fathers made use of several comparisons to different purposes, which must carefully he confined to what they ap- plied them ; for if we extend them farther, we make nonsense or heresy of them."

What then is said to be the true Unity ?

It is not only a unity of Substance, for, according to some, the Sabellian admits this in the case of the One Supreme God, as Father of all ; but it is the Unity also of the Tripersonality, as distinguished from Unity of Substance ; and this Unity is effected by Perichoresis. What is this Perichoresis ? It is said to be a Divine process of immeation, permeation, inhabitation, by means of which one Person is within the other ; and in this consists the proper unity of the Triperson- ality, as distinguished from that of the Essence. Are we then to conceive one Divine Person to be so within the other, that the Three Persons may be called one Person ? Certainly not, we are told; for that again would be Sabellianism. How then are we to under- stand it ? Here again we are told, that there is nothing in Creation which affords us any illustration ; indeed that, in this respect, it is impossible for man to be an image and like-

Sabellius — Athanasius. 147

ness of God, and also equally impossible for the Angels ; for one Angel is only one Person.

How, then, shall I think of this Pericho- resis of Persons ? I have already been in- formed. A Divine Person is more than a mere character, yet less than an individual intelligent Being. What, then, is that sense of the word Person which conveys to me such an idea ? We are told that it has never yet been discovered, and never will be under the present Dispensation. Whether the Angels* know it, whether as Finite Beings they can, without contradiction, think of the Infinite, is a question as yet unsolved. Thus far, however, seems to be clear ; that the alleged Perichoresis of Three Persons is a Perichoresis of three words without mean- ing; that, as such, it expresses no conceivable reality with regard to the Divine Nature or Person; in fine, that it is only the jargon of spurious Metaphysics. It does not involve a contradiction, if the word Person has no conceivable meaning: it is not even a mys- tery; for there is nothing conceivable to be mysterious. A Trinity of Persons is thus in our ideas a Trinity of nothings; and a Unity of Persons, a Unity of nothings ; and the

* Dean Mansel's Bampton Lectures, Preface, page 31.

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guardianship of the Perichoresis of Persons l>y the Church, the guardianship of a Non- entity.

We would now conclude our examination of the Athanasian and Sahellian doctrines with the following illustrations and reflec- tions.

We are taught in the Creed that — " The Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God ; and yet there are not Three Gods, but one God." Is there not here an infallible safeguard against Polytheism ? But expositors of the Creed tell us, that it is not good that this One God should be alone; hence that this One God is not a solitary Being!

1. In Reasons for neither Mutilating nor Muffling the Athanasian Creed, by a pious, eminent, and well-known dignitary of the Church of England,* we are assured that one of these Reasons is the following: — that "The God whom the Athanasian Creed proclaims has never been alone." . . . "The Father's joy from eternity has been to love the Son: the Son's joy from eternity has been to love the Father, to trust in Him entirely, to do His blessed will." . . . That here is the fatal objection to the God of the Unitarian:

* Dean of Norwich : Page 24.

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viz. that God is not a solitary Being : and that on this ground — "No marvel that, when such a Being created man, His very first utter- ance should have been, ' It is not good that man should be alone.' " — All this is stated under the sanction of the Athanasian Creed ! — It is not good that the One alone God should be alone.

In another zealous Defence of the Creed, it is said of Clement of Alexandria : —

"As to Christ's praising God* together with us, though he (Clement) calls Him God the Word, the Eternal ; yet he inti- mates that it is in His capacity of High Priest or Mediator, wherein he is Man as well as God ; and so may very fitly be sup- posed, as Head of His Church, to join with men and Angels in that service." — Here it is thought to be quite consistent with the Athanasian Creed, that Christ as man should join with Angels in praising Himself as God!

Dr. Hammond in his Practical Catechismf furnishes a parallel illustration of the Priestly Office of Christ in heaven; and represents

* Sermons by Dr. Bishop, Lady Moyer Lecturer, p. 217. See also Waterland's Works, vol. iii., page 93. f Lib. 1, sec. 2, page 22.

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Him as still praying to God for us, and bless- ing and praising Him there for ever.

2. In the Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide, it is shewn in the following man- ner, how it is that God is said to be not a Solitary Being ; and that " the God whom the Athanasian Creed proclaims has never been alone."

The words in Ecclesiasticus* — "Praise shall be uttered in wisdom, and the Lord will prosper it," are rendered in the Vulgate — " Praise standeth as the companion to wis- dom ;" on which A Lapide remarks, that to offer true praise is competent to Wisdom only ; in other words, to Wisdom alone be- longs the office of praising wise dogmas, or the dictates of wisdom — an office, accordingly, which belongs to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Hence, A Lapide observes : —

".The praise of God is the attendant upon the wisdom of God ; because not only do all the angels, and the blessed, praise the wisdom of God ; but so does God Himself, even the very Holy Trinity itself ; in which Trinity, the Father praises and glorifies the Son and Holy Spirit with immense lauda- tion ; the Son in like manner praises the * Chap. xv. 9, 10. Also Chap, xliii. 34.

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Father and the Holy Spirit ; and the Spirit praises the Father and the Son. For when each one of them sees in the other Two, Deity and Divine majesty full of infinite gifts, and therefore worthy of infinite praise and glory, each for that reason continually praises and celebrates the other Two with His entire affection ftoto affectu), and this He has done from eternity, and will continue to do to all eternity."

"This laudation we ourselves must follow and adopt as our example, just as the Church does, when at the end of every Psalm she sings, ' Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost ;' for in this doxology the Church both expresses, and desires for the most Holy Trinity, a glory not only created and finite, but uncreated and infinite, and this too the more appropriately as being followed by these words — 'As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.'' Now it is certain that ' in the beginning,' that is, from eternity, no creature (for none then existed) could have said — 'Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;' but the glorification here intended is that only which the most Holy Trinity could repeat to itself."

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Hence also A Lapide adds, that the Holy Trinity has ever praised, is still praising, and ever will praise itself to all eternity, in the way of a reciprocal jubilance of the Three Divine Persons one among the other. More- over this author is, in other places, some- what diffuse in shewing how the Humanity of Christ is employed in heaven in offering His own finite praises to the Trinity.

3. It is no wonder, therefore, that in a Life of St. Gertrude (recently published under the imprimatur of a Roman Catholic Bishop), the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are represented as, in a vision, be- coming visible to the Saint, and all Three Persons are seen and heard chanting to each other, to the Virgin Mary, and to the heavenly host. All which is stated not only as being quite in harmony with the Athana- sian formula — " not Three Gods, but one God," but as being its legitimate develop- ment.

Thus for instance : —

" Then* the Holy Spirit chanted the words, Una est columba mea ; her Divine Son adding Perfecta mea, as if to say that she was the

* Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude, published (1871.) under the approbation of the Right Rev. Dr. Moriarty.

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most perfect of creatures. The Eternal Father then said, Una est matri sua? electa, with exceeding love, which indicated all that He desired to say of her : after this the whole celestial court chanted her praise in the Versicle, Salve, Nobilis."

The Blessed Trinity afterwards add to the foregoing, the Ave Maria, and — " God the Father then chanted the words Ave, speciosa — to indicate the rare beauty of this most perfect of creatures ; God the Son replying, Sun- amites secundum cor summi regis ; the Holy Ghost added, Ave, mater Maria ; and the Son again replied, Spiritu Sancto teste. The Saints then knelt before her, in the person of the Church militant, chanting, O sancta, O celsa ; and the Most Holy Trinity chanted the third response, Qua? est ista ?"

Now there is no doubt that many would object to these illustrations of the Athanasian

Kenmare Series. Pages 438, 439. The following testi- mony to the book, by some learned person who had carefully revised it, is contained in page 69 : — " I consider that no one having the Spirit of God in him can either find fault with or impugn any thing written in this book. Nerved by the Spirit of Truth, from whom all wisdom emanates, I offer and hold myself bound unto death to meet any one in defence of the Holy and Catholic doctrine contained in it.-' Second Edition ; Third Thousand.

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Creed ; but the question is, whether the Creed itself is in any way opposed to them ; for all the parties whose statements we have adduced profess to he Athanasians, and to maintain with the Creed that " the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God ; and yet there are not three Gods, hut one God." Why not three Gods ? Because all the Divine Persons are inseparable, and homo-ousian to each other.

Hence, there is nothing in these illustra- tions which is thought to militate against the following statements of Athanasian doc- trine : —

(1) . " The* Trinity is not a trinity of mere names and words only, but of hypostases truly and really existing."

(2) . "The homo-ousian Trinity of the or- thodox goes exactly in the middle, betwixt that mono-ousian Trinity of Sabellius, which was a Trinity of different notions or concep- tions only of one and the self-same thing ; and that other hetero-ousian Trinity of Arius, which was a Trinity of separate and hetero- geneous substances (one of which only was God, and the others, creatures) ; this (the Athanasian) being a Trinity of hypostases

* Cudworth's Intellectual System, vol. iii., pp. 166, 124.

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or persons numerically differing from one another, but all of them agreeing in one common or general essence of the Godhead, or the Uncreated nature which is Eternal or Infinite."

The Athanasian Trinity, then, as presented in the foregoing illustrations, is opposed to Sabellianism, because it involves the existence of Three hypostases, and not One only; on the other hand, it is said not to be Arian, for the Three Divine Persons are homo-ousian, not heterogeneous one to another. Thus it is that the middle path is preserved ; for, first, the God whom the Athanasian Creed proclaims has never been alone, inasmuch as the Three Divine Persons have always been bound to each other by the fellowship of Eternal Love; secondly, they are eternally occupied in al- ternately and simultaneously glorifying each other, according to the language of the doxology used in the Church ; and thirdly, when the Three Divine Persons are said to be employed in chanting to each other or to the court of heaven, such a notion is especially anti-Sabellian ; for there are Three Persons and not one only; and it is not Arian, for all Three Divine Persons are equal one to another.

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Moreover, there is said to be another safe- guard against Sabellianism, which requires to be seriously considered ; namely, in the four different forms of Divine worship ; for adoration by the Church is of two kinds, — Essential and Personal. Essential adoration is one only, as being the adoration of the one only God. Personal adoration, on the other hand, is of three kinds; for we must not adore the Father with the adorations proper to the Son and Holy Spirit : we must not adore the Son with the adorations proper to the Father and the Holy Spirit ; and we must not adore the Holy Spirit with the adorations proper to the Father and the Son. To do so would be, according to Cornelius a Lapide,* to confound the Persons, and to fall into the heresy of Sabellius.

While, however, a bulwark is thus said to be set up against Sabellianism on the one hand, and Arianism on the other, the question naturally occurs, What after all becomes of t he Essential Divine Unity ? Is the existence of one God a plain and easy doctrine ? Dr. Southf warns us against any suggestion so "scandalous" as to presume — -

* Commentary on Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 7. f Tritheism Charged upon Dr. Sherlock, etc., page 79. Sec also Animadversions, etc., page 224.

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" That a plain account may be given by us of the most Mysterious, Incomprehensible, and Unaccountable thing that God ever pro- posed to the belief of men ; as the Nu- merical Essential Unity (which is the Unity here spoken of) between the eternal Father and the Son confessedly is."

And here, be it observed, that it is not, as some speak, the manner of the Union, but the very Union itself, which is so mysterious, incomprehensible, and unaccountable : the difficulty with respect to the Three Persons is not — how they are united — but — that they are united ; in which case the Sabellian error of one hypostasis would appear to be worse even than the Arian, and the very question put by Sabellius sixteen hundred years ago still to savour of damnable heresy, — ' My friends, what are we at last to say — Save we one God or Three Gods

In thus stating the reciprocal relation between the Athanasian and Sabellian doc- trines, we may see on what grounds Arch- bishop Whately made the following re- mark :* —

" Though in itself the doctrine so sedulously inculcated throughout the Scriptures that

* Errors of Romanism, page 84.

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Sabellius.

there is but One God, seems to present no revolting difficulty, yet, on rising from the disquisitions of many scholastic divines on the inherent distinctions of the Three Divine Persons, a candid reader cannot hut feel that they have made the Unity of God the great and difficult mystery; and have in fact so nearly explained it away, and so bewildered the minds of their disciples, as to drive them to withdraw their thoughts habitually and deliberately from every thing connected with the subject, as the only mode left for the unlearned to keep clear of error."

If, now, the doctrine of the Divine Unity be not utterly worthless ; if. indeed, it be the very doctrine on which is founded the Unity of the Church, what becomes of that Unity when its foundation is undermined, and the Church is told that it is not good that the one God should be alone ?

Are we bound to believe that a Creed is necessarily that only which is, and which was, and which is to come ? That there is no just reason for expecting those changes which we have already seen to be predicted in the Scriptures ; or that a New Era for the Church is coming upon us faster than some may be prepared to welcome ?

Swedenborg. 159

"'Yet once more I shake not the earth only, hut also heaven.' But this word, ' Yet once more,' signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made; that those things which cannot he shaken may remain."

"With these remarks we now pass on to the doctrines of Swedenborg, which we shall compare more particularly with those of Athanasius and Sabellius.

III. — Swedenborg.

" There is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost." This clause, we are told, was inserted against the Sabellians who confounded the Persons ; and as the doctrine taught by Swedenborg is said to be Sabellian, so they who receive it are regarded as Sabellians, and, as such, are included among those who "without doubt shall perish everlastingly."

Where a heresy is denounced, perhaps it is not unreasonable to expect that they who de- nounce it should at least have some slight notion of what the heresy is ; for otherwise

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they may be denouncing only their own imaginations.

Now, the docrine of Sabellius is, as repre- sented by some, that God is one Personal Be- ing ; and that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are but the names of Three successive charac- ters in which the One God has appeared ; these three successive characters constituting a triune manifestation. This is alleged to be the doctrine of Swedenborg, as may be seen from the following statement of Mr. Maccoll :* —

" A great deal depends on the meaning of the word Trinity, and I do not feel quite sure that I understand the sense in which the Dean (of Westminster) uses it in the above passage. Emmanuel Swedenborg, he tells us, and his followers, who acknowledge no Per- son in the Trinity but that of the Divine Man Jesus Christ, are yet ardent admirers of the Athanasian Creed, and claim its sanction for their doctrine, and are ready to demon- strate that all its contents, even to the very words, are agreeable to the truth, provided that for a Trinity of Persons we understand a Trinity of Person, — provided, that is, we suffer the doctrine of the Trinity to evaporate

* The Damnatory Clauses of the Athanasian Creed rationally explained, page 27.

Successive Characters — Divine Essentials. 161

in the shadowy counterfeit of it which Sabel- lianism offers in its place. With this reser- vation, the Dean of Westminster goes on to say, quoting White's Life of Swedenborg, 1 The mind of a Swedenborgian may traverse the clauses of that arduous dogma with joyful assent and consent.' Doubtless ; for the reservation in question gives us, not a Trinity of Persons, hut a triune manifestation of one Person. No doubt the Athanasian Creed 'is the chief obstacle in the way of the acceptance of that doctrine.' But the doc- trine of the Trinity which the Dean of West- minster and I hold, is very different. We believe that the Trinity of the Christian Creed does not mean a succession of characters assumed by one Person in the sphere of time, but a distinction of Persons whose relations to each other are coincident and eternal. I wonder the Dean did not see that his quota- tion from Swedenborgian theology is, in fact, a striking tribute to the value of the Atha- nasian Creed as a bulwark of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Swedenborg could accept the 'arduous dogma' of the Trinity in a Sabellian sense,* ' provided ' the Atha-

* As to what is the Sabellian sense, Mosheini and Mr. Maccoll are not agreed.

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nasian Creed were abolished or altered. Just so. And therefore I trust that the Atha- nasian Creed will neither be abolished nor altered. To do either, in response to this challenge, would be to abandom the faith and commit the Church of England to Sabel- lianism."

Now we grant, that the doctrine of Sweden- borg so far agrees with that of Sabellius as to maintain, that God is only one Personal Being. But was Swedenborg therefore a Sabellian ? You might prove, upon the same principle, that Athanasius was a Tritheist. Sabellius believed there is only one Divine Person in the Godhead ; Swedenborg believed there is only one Divine Person in the Godhead; therefore Swedenborg was a Sabellian. The Tritheists believed there are Three Divine Persons in the Godhead ; Athanasius believed there are Three Divine Persons in the God- head ; therefore Athanasius was a Tritheist.

But what of the " Triune manifestation" and "succession of characters ?" The whole theology of Swedenborg is as much opposed to Sabellius in this respect, as is that of Athanasius ; and far more effectually. In a correspondence between Dr. Hartley (Rector of Winwick) and Swedenborg, on the doctrine

Successive Characters — Divine Essentials. 163

of Sabellius, the following Question was put by Dr. Hartley : —

" May not the Trinity be properly said to be one and the same Lord under Three characters, distinctions of office, or relations towards man, namely as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, — as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, — as Divine Esse, Divine Human, and Holy Proceeding ; not as Three Persons, which would of necessity be making Three Gods ?"

To this Question Swedenborg returns the following Answer : —

" The most Holy Trinity in one Person is to be apprehended as the Divine Esse, the Divine Human (or Existere), and the Divine Proceeding, and thus as soul, body, and operation thence proceeding; altogether as described in the Memorable Relation inserted in the work entitled The True Christian MeUgion,"

" As productions from these follow in their order, Creation, Redemption, and Regenera- tion ; for Creation is the attribute of the Divine Esse, Redemption is the attribute of the Divine Human from the Divine Esse ; and Regeneration is the attribute of the Holy Spirit, which is the primary power or operation of the Divine Human from the

164 Swedenborg.

Divine Esse ; agreeably to what is said in The True Christian Religion"

It is here said, that the Divine Trinity in Unity corresponds to the soul, body, and operation in man; but this is no triune manifestation of man; for man does not manifest himself sometimes as soul, some- times as body, and sometimes as one ope- rating apart from both these together; nor does he appear in a succession of charac- ters, sometimes in the distinct character of soul, sometimes in the distinct character of body, and sometimes in the character of one operating differently from the other two. There is no reason to suppose that even Sabellius, notwithstanding his crude and imperfect notions, thought of anything so absurd ; but if not, his own illustration mili- tates as much against a Trinity of characters, as it does against a Trinity of Persons.

It will, however, be desirable to enquire into the grounds upon which, most certainly, the whole theological system maintained by Swedenborg is, on the one hand, directly opposed to those Metaphysical expositions of the Trinity we have already presented to view ; and, on the other, to the doctrines of Sabellius.

Successive Characters — Divine Essentials. 165

Dean Mansel observes that — "In* the order of Thought, or of Nature, the substance to which attributes belong has a logical priority to the attributes which exist in relation to it. The Attributes are Attributes of a Substance. The former are conceived as the dependent and derived ; the latter as the independent and original, existence."

This logical priority of the substance to the attributes had already formed the subject of an argument between Dean Sherlock and Dr. South.

Dean Sherlock had felt not a little averse to the multiplicity of metaphysical terms which so-called Catholic theologians had employed in inculcating the doctrine of the Trinity ; and he regarded them as " darken- ing counsel by words without knowledge." In order, therefore, to remove the obscurity in which the Divine Unity had been involved, he thought it better to discard the old meta- physical system, and to contemplate God as Truth, "Wisdom, Goodness, and so forth.

To this Dr. South replies, f that Truth, Wisdom, Goodness, are in our apprehensions finite things, and as such are in the same

* Bampton Lectures, page 116. Fourth Edition.

+ Animadversions upon Dr. Sherlock's Book, pp. 49, 51.

166 Sicedenborg.

disproportion to God as Substance, Essence, and the other like metaphysical terms. Hence he says, speaking of the Divine Nature as the Subject, and the Divine Attri- butes as the Adjuncts, — "As the Subject, or that which is analogous to it, naturally both precedes and supports the Adj uncts ; so all notions importing the Divine Nature, Being, or Substance, are to be accounted as the Subject, in respect of all God's other Attri- butes or Perfections, whether they be Truth, Wisdom, Goodness, Power, Eternity, Omnisci- ence, or any other whatsoever. Which being so, I do here affirm, that the terms Essence, Substance, Existence, and others synonymous to them, ought to have the precedence of the other Divine Perfections, commonly called Attributes, in their application to God."

Hence also he says, " I cannot perceive that Truth, Wisdom, or Goodness have any pre-eminence or advantage over Essence, Sub- stance, and the like;" — according to which account, the old Metaphysical system of Theology has the precedence over the Moral, and as such stands first in order; the term Person ought to supersede the term Essential. And yet it is of this very system that Archbishop Whately thus writes : —

Successive Characters — Divine Essentials. 167

" The unprofitable,* absurd, presumptuous, and profane speculations of Scholastic theo- logians (not all of them members of the Romish Church) which are extant, afford a melancholy specimen of the fruits of this mis- take as to the Christian mysteries — this corruption from the simplicity that is in Christ."

It is in this point of view, that Swedenborg regards the whole metaphysical system that has identified itself with the Tripersonality. According to him, if the attributes are separ- ated from the substance even in thought, the attributes are unsubstantial and are mere abstractions. The attributes therefore ought to be considered as one with the substance ; hence he maintains that —

"Lovef and Wisdom are a real and actual substance and form, and constitute the sub- ject itself."

" The Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom in themselves are a substance and form, for they are Esse itself and Existere itself ; and if they were not such an Esse and Existere as they are a substance and form, they would

* Errors of Romanism, page 83.

f Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Love ; art. 40, 43.

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only be an imaginary entity, which in itself is nothing."

" Love* and Wisdom which are one in God, are not love and wisdom in an abstract sense, but are in God as a Substance ; for God is the very, the only, and consequently the First Substance and Essence, which is and subsists in itself."

To abstract therefore Love from the Divine Substance, is the same as to abstract the Divine Substance from itself. Or again ; as the Divine Love is fire, and Divine Wisdom is light ; so to abstract Love and Wisdom from the Divine Substance, is the same as to abstract the Divine fire from itself, or the Divine light from itself. Hence the Divine fire of Love and the Divine light of Truth proceed- ing from the Lord as a Sun, are no more unsubstantial than is the Holy Spirit, which is no other than Love and Wisdom pro- ceeding from the Lord. In this case, the mere logical order of which Dean Mansel speaks, is not the same with the order of Revelation; nor is the mystery of Reason the same with the mystery of Revelation, or vice versa. The mystery of Reason is the mystery of intellectual abstractions, having

* True Christian Religion; art. 76.

Successive Characters — Divine Essentials. 169

a logical priority the one to the other. The mystery of Revelation is a mystery of the Will, thus of the Divine Love, leading not to a mere logical order of thought, hut to an intuition in the intellect, whose language is simply yea, yea ; and nay, nay. This assent of the mind can he given only to that Truth which is seen to transcend all self-contra- dictions ; which is therefore elevated ahove all abstract reasoning concerning the sub- sistence of Three Persons in One Substance; and instead of assigning precedence to mere scholastic abstractions as claiming a logical priority in the order of thought, the mind is engaged in contemplating the Divine Essen- tials of Goodness, Wisdom, and Power.

The Athanasian Creed, on the contrary, as it now stands, favours only the scholastic system ; for not one word is said in it con- cerning Divine Goodness, Wisdom, or Truth ; it is an appeal not to the moral or spiritual, but to the purely intellectual faculties, in relation to which alone heresy is accounted heresy. If that Creed had expressed itself in the language of Hooker, it would have been practical, would have had relation to the Christian life, and thus have been in accordance with the Creed as amended by

i

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Swedenborg. And what is the amendment against which we are so gravely warned ? The substitution of Essential for Person, and hence of Moral or Spiritual truths instead of the old Metaphysical entities. In illustration of this change, let us first quote the words of Hooker : —

« The* Father as Goodness, the Son as Wisdom, the Holy Ghost as Power, do all concur in every particular outwardly issuing from that One only glorious Deity which they all are. For that which moveth God to work is Goodness, and that which ordereth His work is Wisdom, and that which perfecteth His work is Power."

Here Hooker likens the Trinity in God to the Trinity of Essentials in man ; for in the Christian, as an image and likeness of God, there is a Trinity, after a finite manner, of goodness, wisdom, and power; goodness in the will, wisdom in the intellect, and power in ultimating both in the outward life. It is this Trinity which some Athanasians think it so awful to ascribe to the Deity ; for in the Christian goodness is not a person of itself, nor wisdom a person of itself, nor power a person of itself ; but all Three are essentials

* Ecclesiastical Polity, book v., chap. lvi. ; art. v.

Successive Characters — Divine Essentials. 171

of one personal being. And where is the heresy of attributing to God by analogy Goodness, Wisdom, and Power, as the Essen- tials of One Divine Being ? Yet on this sub- ject it is said : —

" As* for those who believe that this is one of those questions which test to the quick the vitality of a Church, there is no sacrifice which they will think too great to make, in defence of what is to them dearer than any thing which this world can offer in exchange."

And for what is this sacrifice to be made ? For the retention of a word which, as Dr. Newman says, nobody can understand, sim- ply because it has no assignable meaning ; or if any one should unhappily assign a definite meaning to it, the result is that the Tripersonality contradicts the Unity and the Unity the Tripersonality, and there is no alternative but transition to the Church of Rome ; as already exemplified.

That the minds of men, not excepting the Clergy, are beginning to be ill at ease upon this subject, it is in vain to deny ; and it is but a low view of this state of things to attribute the cause to this or that particular spirit of heresy ; the Church, in its latter

* Damnatory Clauses, etc., page 209.

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days, may more wisely consider it to be only part of that last general concussion predicted and effected by the Lord Himself, in virtue of which, whether we will or will not, there will be "a removal of those things which are shaken as of things that are made ; that those things which cannot be shaken may remain."

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not, according to Swedenborg, the mere names, or characters, or manifestations of one Person, who, in the Old Testament, gave the Law in the character of Father ; in the New Tes- tament, was made man in the character of Son ; and afterwards descended upon the Church in the character of the Koly Ghost; for this would imply, that the Father mani- fested his Divine Esse to the Jews apart from any Mediatorial Humanity ; or that Divine Goodness might manifest itself apart from Divine Truth. There is not a word said by Swedenborg to justify any such notions.

"The* Divine Truth," says he, "which proceeds from the Lord, acteth nothing from itself, but from the Divine Good which is the Divine principle itself ; for the Divine Good is the Esse, but the Divine Truth is the

* Arcana Coelestia, art. 8724.

Successive Characters — Divine Essentials. 173

Exist ere thence derived ; wherefore the Esse must be in the Existere, that this latter may be a something, and that from this something may be done. The Lord, when He was in the world, was Divine Truth; and on this occasion the Divine Good in Himself was the Father ; but when He was glorified, then He was made Divine Good even as to the Human j>rinciple : the Divine Truth which on this occasion proceeds from Him, is called the Paraclete or Spirit of Truth."

" He who knows these two arcana, if he be in illustration from the Lord when he reads the Word, may be in the understanding of several things which the Lord Himself spake concerning the Father and concerning Him- self, and also concerning the Paraclete the Spirit of Truth, which otherwise would be incomprehensible mysteries, as when he spake in John :

" ' The Son cannot do any thing from Him- self, unless He seeth the Father doing it ; for whatsoever He (the Father) doeth, the Son also doeth in like manner." — " As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given also to the Son to have life in Himself.'" Chap. v. 19, 26.

Again, in the same Evangelist — " The Holy

174 Sioedenborg.

Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified." Chap. vii. 39.

And in another place : " If I go not away, the Paraclete will not come to you ; but if I go away, I will send Him to you:" — "He, the Spirit of Truth, shall not speak from Himself; but whatsoever things He shall hear, that He shall speak. He will glorify me, because He will receive of mine." Chap. xvi. 7, 13, and several like passages elsewhere.

Now, he who thinks from Person to Essence will, in the foregoing passages, think first of the apparent diversity of Persons ; hence the doctrine of the Tripersonality will be uppermost in his mind. On the other hand, he who thinks from Essence to Person will think first of the three Essentials belonging to a Person ; and these Essentials which are not mere names, characters, appearances, qualities, modes, forms, or such like, he will regard as Personal, because constituting a Person. As, however, Goodness, Wisdom, and Power are thus all Personal, and yet one is not the other; so, to the merely natural man who thinks inversely, or from Person to Essence, there will appear to be in God as many Persons as there are Essentials. Hence it is that he aims to regard the Tripersonality

Essence — Person. 175

as itself the one great Essential ; to become ardent in the study of all manner of meta- physical entities, or non-entities, to the exclusion of the real Essentials — Goodness, Wisdom, and Power — as unhappily is done in the case of the Athanasian Creed. And no marvel, if the merely natural man, in whose mind the metaphysical notion of Per- sonality thus takes precedence of goodness, charity, and all other Christian affections flowing from the Divine Goodness, should become of all Churchmen* the most fervid, the most indoctrinated in the Tripersonality, the most authoritative, the most exclusive, the most alarmed for the Unity of the Church after having consigned the Unity of God to incomprehensible mystery (to say nothing of contradiction) ; hence, also, the foremost to secede from a Church in which he can no longer say, of every one who assigns the pre- cedence to Goodness and not to Personality — "Without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." Yet the Damnatory Clauses, so understood,

* Since these remarks were first written, a great improve- ment in this respect has been manifested, particularly in the Upper House of Convocation, in the recent discussions on the Athanasian Creed, which is an auspicious sign for the next generation.

176 Swedenborg.

are set up as the one great safeguard of Christian morality ! Is not a Creed so interpreted itself immoral? And would it not become a more faithful guardian of morality, if the alteration were made as sug- gested by Swedenborg, viz. : the substitution of Essentials for Persons; for then the Essentials would be Goodness, "Wisdom, and Power ; and then it would be in the spirit of true charity to say, that he who finally rejects from his will the Divine Goodness, from his intellect the Divine Wisdom, from his life and conduct the Divine Power — without doubt such a person will perish everlastingly. And further we may ask whether, should any one think himself at liberty to secede from a Church which did not maintain this practi- cal doctrine, he might not act more wisely rather in aiming to reform it.

It is in conformity with this view of the subject that, in a Memorable Relation, Swe- denborg introduces a speaker as saying,* —

"Wherefore, my children, frame your thoughts from the consideration of Essence, and from Essence think of Person; for to think from Person concerning Essence is to think materially not only of Person, but of * True Christian Religion, art. G23.

Essence — Person. 177

Essence also ; whereas to think from Essence concerning Person, is to think spiritually of Person also." And again :* —

" In the Lord God the Creator, Divine Good and Divine Truth, are in their very Substance itself. The Esse of His Substance is Divine Good, and the Existere of His Substance is Divine Truth ; in Him too they are in their very unition itself; for in Him they are infinitely One; and as these two principles are in God the Creator a One, they are a one also in every thing created by Him. By this too the Creator is joined in an eternal covenant, like that of marriage, with all things of his Creation."

Now, inasmuch as man was created an image and likeness of God, and in God there are Three Essentials, Goodness, Wisdom, and Power; it is evident that Man was created into an image and likeness of this Divine Trinity. This, indeed, is the foundation of all analogy between God and man, and consequently of all human capacity to obtain a true knowledge of God. Regard the Trinity in God as a Trinity of Persons, and this Tripersonality as the one great cardinal doctrine concerning God,

* Ibid., art. 624.

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then in no sense could it be said that man is created in the image and likeness of God; for no man is created to be three persons. In this respect the relation between God and man is cut asunder ; there is a gulph — nay, a direct contradiction between the two ; and all true knowledge of God is lost for ever in hopeless mystery, unless indeed the hope be held out, that hereafter man will become Tripersonal.

But if it be in virtue of this Trinity of Essentials in unity that man is man, and if as such he is an image and likeness of God ; it follows, that God Himself is the Arche- typal Man, as being the Archetypal Good- ness, Wisdom, and Power.

This is the original ground of Sweden- borg's affirmation, that God is a Man — nay, the only Man; as being alone essential Goodness, Wisdom, and Power. A confirm- ation of this truth occurs in the Warbur- tonian Lectures of Dr. M'Caul : —

" Prom* the translators of the Septuagint

* Lectures on the Prophecies proving the Divine Origin of Christianity. Delivered in the Chapel of the Hon. Society of Lincoln's Inn, on the Foundation of the late Bishop Warburton. By Alexander M'Caul, D.D., Pro- fessor of Divinity in King's College, London, and Pre- bendary of St. Paul's, page 54.

On the Archetypal Man. 179

downwards, it appears that the Jews under- stood that the Old Testament language ascribed to God a human form. The Greek translators have generally allowed the an- thropomorphisms to remain unsoftened and unexplained ; but in some places where they thought the idea of corporeality was too strongly expressed, they have altered the text ; as when it is said in the Hebrew that Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the Seventy Elders saw the God of Israel, the Septuagint says, ' They saw the place where the God of Israel stood. ' But in the Chaldee Paraphrases there is a systematic alteration of every passage which implies corporeality. "Wherever human attributes are ascribed directly to God in the Hebrew text, the Targums ascribe them to Him whom they call the Word of the Lord, the Glory of the Lord, and the Shechinah. Now whatever the idea which they attached to these expressions ... it is plain that they feared the con- clusion, that God has a human form or body, and wished to avoid it. If they had not entertained this fear, there could have been no necessity for altering the text. But their anxiety in this respect manifests their opinion, that the plain meaning of the unaltered

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words of Scripture represents God in human form, and implies corporeality. The Tal- mudists uniformly speak of God as existing in human form; and Maimonides himself acknowledges, in the very first sentence of the Moreh Nevochim, that a God in human form was the prevailing opinion when he wrote his hook. The conclusion, therefore, which we have drawn is not the result of Christian prejudice, but the legitimate inference from the language employed — common to the Jews before the coming of Christ, as appears from the Septuagint — at the coming of Christ, as is evident from the Targum, — and for a thousand years after the coming of Christ, as appears from the Sohar, the Talmud, and most rabbinical writers down to Maimonides, and even after his time, until his opinions acquired authority."

" The result, then, of the present inquiry is, that the doctrine of the revelation of God in human form is the universal doctrine of the Old Testament ; that, therefore, there is no reason for explaining away the prophecies, which, when interpreted according to their grammatical sense, imply that the pro- mised Messiah was to be an incarnation of Deity."

On the Archetypal Man. 181

The same view of the subject is taken by Swedenborg in the Arcana Ccelestia :* —

" The Jewish Church believed that Je- hovah was Man and likewise God, because He had appeared to Moses and the Prophets as a Man; wherefore every angel who ap- peared they named Jehovah : nevertheless they had no other idea concerning Him than what the Gentiles had concerning their gods, to which gods they gave Jehovah God a preference, because He could do miracles ; not aware that Jehovah was the Lord in the Word, and that it was His Divine Human principle which all their rituals represented. . . . The Christian Church adores indeed the Human principle of the Lord as Divine, in external worship (especially in the Holy Supper, because He had said that the bread there is His body, and the wine His blood); but they do not make His Human principle Divine in doctrine, for they distinguish between the Divine nature and the Human nature. This also they do, by reason that the Church has declined from charity to faith, and at length to faith separate from charity. And whereas they do not acknow- ledge the Human principle of our Lord to be

* Art. 4692.

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Divine, many are offended at it and deny Him in heart ; when yet the real case is, that the Divine Human of the Lord is the Divine existing from the Divine Esse, and that He is the Divine Esse ; for the Divine Esse and the Divine Existing are One, as the Lord also manifestly teaches in John,* "Jesus said to Philip, Have I been so long time with you, and hast thou not known Me? He who seeth Me seeth the Father ; believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me ? — Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me. " For the Divine Existing is the very Divine Itself proceeding from the Divine Esse, and in image is a Man, because heaven, of which it is the all, represents a maximus homo. . . . The Lord indeed was bom as another man, and had an infirm humanity from the mother ; but this humanity He altogether expelled, so that He was no longer the Son of Mary, and He made the Human principle in Himself Divine, which is understood by His being glorified ; and He likewise shewed Himself to Peter, James, and John, as a Divine Man, when He was transfigured. " Again : —

* Chap. xiv. 9, 10, 11.

On the Archetypal Man. 183

"The* reason that the Lord's internal Man, which is Jehovah, is called a Man, is because no one is a Man hnt J ehovah alone. For the term man signifies in the genuine sense that JEsse from which man originates. The very Esse from which man originates is Divine, consequently is celestial and spi- ritual ; and without this Divine celestial and spiritual principle, there is nothing human in man, but only a sort of animal nature such as the beasts have. It is from the Esse of Jehovah, or of the Lord, that every man is a man; and it is hence that he is called a man. The celestial principle which con- stitutes him a man, is love to the Lord and love towards his neighbour : hereby man is man; because he is an image of the Lord, and because he has that celestial principle from the Lord ; otherwise he is a wild beast."

" Thus Jehovah, or the Lord, is the only man, and it is by virtue of what they receive from Him that men are called men ; and that one person is more a man than another."

"The same may further appear from this circumstance; that Jehovah, or the Lord, appeared to the patriarchs of the most ancient Church as a man; as he did after-

* Ibid., art. 1894.

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wards to Abraham, and likewise to the pro- phets. Wherefore also the Lord deigned, when there was no longer any man upon earth, or nothing celestial and spiritual re- maining with man, to assume the human nature by being born as another man, and to make it Divine ; whereby He is the only Man. Moreover, the universal Heaven pre- sents before the Lord the image of a Man, because it presents an image of Himself. Hence Heaven is called Maximus Homo — the Grand Man, on this account especially, because the Lord is All in All therein."

Now, inasmuch as the Trinity in Unity has been thought of from Person to Essence, and hence has arisen the idea of Three Persons, a difficulty arose in conceiving how Three Persons could in any respect be united. The highest idea of union presented in Crea- tion is that of marriage ; but marriage ^ is between two, not between three. Hence the invention of a metaphysical union placed above marriage, and known by the name of JPerichoresis or Circumincession ; in virtue of which the Three Divine Persons are re- presented as loving and lauding each other from all eternity ; for, as we have seen, the God whom the Athanasian Creed proclaims

Perichoresis — Divine Marriage. 185

has never been alone — lias never been a Solitary Being — " No marvel that when such a Being created man, his very first utterance should have been, 'It is not good that man should be alone.' "

We thus see that the idea of a Perichoresis or Circitmincession of Three Persons in one God, and which has no parallel in Creation, is substituted for the idea of marriage, or of the most sacred union in the Christian Church ; this Perichoresis being, according to Swedenborg, nothing but the vagary of metaphysicians. To the Christian, the origin of marriage is to be sought in the Lord Himself. There is a marriage union in the Lord; there is hence a marriage union be- tween the Lord and His Church ; and hence a marriage union between husband and wife. With respect to the marriage union in the Lord, Divine Truth in Him is the Son ; Divine Good is the Father; and from these two as one, proceeds the Holy Spirit.

" Truth* cannot possibly be and exist from any other source than from Good. The ground and reason why Son is Divine Truth, and Father Divine Good, is, because the union of the Divine Essence with the Human,

* Arcana Ccelestia, art. 2803.

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and of the Human with the Divine, is the Divine marriage of Good with Truth, and of Truth with Good, from which is derived the heavenly marriage. Eor in Jehovah or in the Lord there is nothing hut what is Infi- nite ; and inasmuch as it is Infinite, it can- not be apprehended by any idea except only as being the Esse and Existere of all Good and Truth, or as Essential Good and Essen- tial Truth."

" Essential Good is the Father, and Essen- tial Truth is the Son. But whereas there is a Divine Marriage of Good with Truth and of Truth with Good, therefore the Eather is in the Son, and the Son in the Eather, as the Lord Himself teaches in John : — ' Jesus said to Philip, Believest thou not that I am in the Eather, and the Eather in me ? '"

Swedenborg then explains, by the mar- riage of Goodness and Truth, the various passages which are generally so interpreted as to sanction a Tripersonality ; and he adds in the same article ; —

"Hence it may appear what is the na- ture of the union of* the Divine and Human in the Lord, viz., that it is a mutual or re- ciprocal union ; which union is what is called the Divine Marriage ; from which descends

Perichoresis — Divine Marriage. 187

the heavenly marriage, which is the Lord's essential kingdom in the heavens, concern- ing which the Lord thus speaks in John, chap. xiv. 20, etc. : — ' In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.' "

Again : — " Whereas Divine Good can in no wise be and exist without Divine Truth, nor Divine Truth without Divine Good, but one is in the other mutually and reciprocally, it is hence manifest, that the Divine marriage was from eternity, that is, the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father, as the Lord Himself teaches in John — 'And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.' Chap. xvii. 5."

Again: — "But the Divine Human Prin- ciple which was born from eternity, was also born in time, and what was born in time and glorified is the same. Hence it is, that the Lord so often said, that He went to the Father who sent Him, that is, that He returned to the Father. And in John — ' In the begin- ning was the Word (the Word is essential Divine Truth), and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. The same was in the beginning with God : all things were

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made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us ; and we saw His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.' Chap. i. 2," etc.

Now, in this method of interpretation, there is a far surer safeguard against Sabellianism and Tritheism, than in the one founded on the Perichoresis and the Tripersonality. For Sabellius never dreamed of a Divine Marriage between essential Goodness and essential Truth ; his doctrine is represented, though not by Mosheim, as that of a Trinity of names, characters, or appearances pertaining to one Personal Being. On the other hand, there is an equal safeguard against Tritheism; for there are not Three Divine Persons, one of which is incarnate, another not: hence also there cannot be Three Divine Beings. Besides, a Divine marriage between mere names, cha- racters, or appearances, would have been a notion too absurd even for Sabellius.

Let us now compare the foregoing explana- tions of Swedenborg with those of other Commentators. On the words — "I am in the Father and the Father in me," John xiv. 10, Cajetan observes: —

Caje tan — Hi lary.

189

"Lest we should here fall into error by understanding that Jesus is Himself both Father and Son, as Sabellius understood the words, He shews that he who seeth Him seeth also the Father ; not because He himself is the Father, but because He is in the Father, and the Father in Him. In these words there is signified the consubstantiality together with the distinction of Persons; for the pronoun I supposes a Person, and the name of Father also signifies a Person ; and that ' I am in the Father and the Father in me,' signifies a con- substantiality of the Two, for we cannot properly understand the Son to be in the Father, and the Father in the Son, except by consubstantiality."

The plurality here implied by the plural are (swnus), is said to signify a plurality of Persons, in opposition to Sabellius ; and the oneness, implied by the word unum, to signify oneness of Essence in opposition to Arius, who attributed plurality to the Essence as well as to the Person. Supposing, then, that Unity of Essence is here taught as against the Arians, how shall we prove a plurality of Persoris against the Sabellians? The answer is to be found more particularly in the explanation given to the passage in

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John xiv. 9, " He who seeth me, seeth the Father also ;" —

" The* Father also," says Hilary, "excludes the supposition of a single solitary Person. Our Lord's expressions do not speak of one Person solitary and without relationship, but teach us His birth. The expression Father also excludes the supposition of a single solitary Person, and leaves us no other doc- trine but that the Pather is seen in the Son, by the incommunicable likeness of birth."

We have already seen, how by a solitary Ferson is generally understood a solitary Being ; and how a plurality of Divine Per- sons has led to a society of Divine Beings; seeing that it is not good that God should be a solitary Being. Even Bishop Bull sanctions the paradox, that God Himself alonef is "a most perfect and blessed society, the Pather, the Son, and the Spirit eternally conversing with and enjoying each other." We have however seen, how these notions have in- volved the whole system of Theology in self-contradiction. Is there no need of any other method of interpretation ?

* Catena Aurea of Aquinas.

j- Discourse on the Trinity, page 9. See also our Appendix.

Cornelius a Lapide.

J 91

Before we pass on to that of A Lapide, let us premise, that, when the Father was said not to be incarnate, a difficulty arose among theologians as to how it could be said, that "he who sees the Son sees the Father also." The difficulty was solved by meta- physicians in the two following ways; — First : the Essence of both is the same, and therefore he who sees the Essence of one sees the Essence of the other. — Now we say nothing about any one seeing an Essence, especially of the Father, and this too without any know- ledge of what the Essence is ; nor how, if the Essence of one be the same as that of the other, it is nevertheless not incarnate ; or if incarnate, how the Essence can be incarnate and not the Persons, particularly as the Per. sons are inseparable* from each other and from the Essence — these things may be left to the eagles that gather round the carcase. But a second difficulty arose, as to how it could be said, that he who sees the Person of the Son sees the Person of the Father, when it is not

* " Una Persona posita, poni necesse erit alteram, nec a se invicem separari poterunt; et altera intime conjuncta crit alteri, in eaque merit, et existet." Petavius, De Trinitate, lib. iv., cap. xvi., art. 5. " De Perichoresi, quam. Circumincessionem yocant."

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unfrequently affirmed, that it is blasphemy to suppose that the Father was incarnate.

Here then, in the next place, is supposed to be the use of the doctrine of CwGumm* cession ; by which is signified the perfect and intimate inexistence and inhabitation of one Divine Person in the other : —

"Prom which it follows," says A Lapide, "that he who fully knows and sees one Person, viz., the Son, as the blessed behold Him, not only sees the Deity common to the Father and Son, but sees also the very Per- son of the Father ; both because the Person of the Father is the inmost Person of the Son, and because to see in such a manner com- prehends within it the relation and order essential to Deity."

It seems, then, that by Per ichor esis the Person of the Father becomes the inmost Person of the Son. Has then the Son two Divine Persons, one of which is within the other ; one Incarnate, the other not ?

Be it observed, that not a word is here said by any of these Commentators about Divine Goodness and Truth : the words of our Lord are taken possession of by meta- physicians, who authoritatively explain them in their own technical phraseology of Person,

Calvin.

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Essence, Circumincession, and so forth.* I confess myself to be altogether unedified by Theology of this kind; and am not at all moved by the Damnatory Clause — "He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity." To say that Athanasians are not responsible for such explanations is simply not true; for it is Athanasians who give them; and one and all affirm that, in the controversies raised by different heresies, the Athanasian Creed experienced a real and genuine development. I freely con- fess, therefore, that I prefer the explanation given by Calvin, but more especially by Emanuel Swedenborg, upon this subject.

On the words, " Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me," Calvin observes ; —

" These words I do not refer to the Divine essence of Christ, but to the measure (ad- modwn) of the revelation made to Him. For Christ, as to His hidden Deity, is no more known to us than the Father. He is indeed

* Thus, for instance, in his Treatise JDe Trinitate, Petavius has six folio pages on the Circumincession (double columns) ; but not a word about Goodness and Truth. A similar omission occurs in Duns Scotus, Vasquez, Suarez, and others ; while they are tediously diffuse upon the metaphysical notion of Person.

K

194

Swedenborg.

said to be the express image of God, because in Him God had manifested Himself wholly : inasmuch as in this manifestation appear His immense Goodness, "Wisdom, and Power in their perfection" — the Three Essentials so much objected to.

Hence Calvin refers the foregoing words of our Lord to the revelation arising from the reciprocal* union of the Divine and Human natures, and hence to the manifestation of the Divinity in the Humanity. Now, concerning the unition of the Divine and Human in the Lord, Swedenborg thus writes : —

" It* is the very essential marriage of Good and Truth whence comes the heavenly marriage; which marriage is the Lord's kingdom in the heavens and the earths. Therefore the Lord's kingdom is so often in the Word called a marriage, and compared to a marriage; the mysterious reason whereof is, because from the marriage of Divine Good and Truth and Divine Truth and Good in the Lord, comes all conjugal love, and thereby all love celestial and spiritual." ..." The appear- ances of the Essential state of unition of the Lord's Divine principle with His Human are presented by the Lord before the Angels

* Arcana Coelestia, art. 2618.

Perichoresis — Divine Marriage. 195

by celestial lights, and are illustrated by ineffable representations ; but cannot be pre- sented before men, inasmuch as they do not fall upon such things as appertain to this world's light; yea, and are even rendered more obscure by descriptions taken from such things."

At the time of the Fall the marriage union between the will and understanding was destroyed ; in other words,* between the rational part of the mind as male, and the affectional as female. In explanation of the union of these two in one person, it is ob- served by Swedenborg ; —

" Thatf by man fvirj and wife are signified truths in conjunction with goodnesses, appears from the signification of man (virj — that it

* See De Lyra on Genesis iii. 15 ; also Lauretus, art. Vir. Traces of a similar principle are to be found in many ancient systems of philosophy, as also in the Orphic Hymns, — " And it was a thing very familiar with all the mystical theologers among the Pagans to call God appev60r]\vv, male and female together; — they signifying thereby emphatically the Divine fecundity, or the generative or creative power of the Deity ; — that God was able from Himself alone to produce all things." CudwortWs Intellectual System, vol. ii., pages 89, 152. Brucher's History of Philosophy (Enfield) vol. i., page 126, and other places in that work.

f Arcana Coelestia, art. 718.

K 2

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Sioedenborg.

is truth which appertains to the understand, ing ; and from the signification of ivife, that it is goodness which appertains to the will ; and hence, that it is not possible that there should exist in man either the least of thought, or of affection, or of action, in which there is not a kind of marriage of the understanding and will. Without some kind of marriage it cannot be that any thing should exist or be produced. In the organical parts or sub- stances of man, both compound and simple, yea, the most simple, there is a passive and active principle, which could not possibly exist therein, much less produce any thing, unless they were joined together in a kind of marriage like that of man fvirj and wife. The case is the same throughout all Nature. These perpetual marriages derive their begin- ning and birth from the celestial marriage, by which an idea of the Lord's kingdom is impressed on everything throughout all Nature, as well inanimate as animate."

"We see, then, that according to Sweden- borg, it is not true that the Divine Unity is of so incomprehensible a nature as to be without any parallel, correspondence, or example in the universe, by which it may be illustrated. This is true enough in respect

Hyposta tic Union — Son of Mary. 197

to the Perichoresis of John of Damascus; but untrue when the Unition is regarded not as merely Personal, but as Essential, or as that of a Divine Marriage. The Perichoresis, having no correspondence throughout all Creation, can be applied to no practical pur- pose whatever in Christian life without be- traying its absurdity ; whereas the Divine marriage of Good and Truth in the Lord is the very foundation of His marriage with the Church, and hence of marriage as recognized in the Church ; and, as such, to denounce these principles as heresy, is to dissolve the sacred bonds of Christian society.

Prom the Perichoresis let us turn to the Hypostatic union.

There have been more hymns than one sung even in the Church of England, the burden of which is — " Jesu, Son of Mary, hear!" Appeals of this kind involve the whole doc- trine of the Incarnation, and I acknowledge are utterly at variance with Swedenborg's ex- planation of this subject ; for, as he says :* —

"It is believed at this day that the Lord not only was, but also is, the Son of Mary ; but in this the Christian world is under a

* True Christian Religion] art. 102, 92. See also art. 94, and Arcana Ccdestia, art. 1815.

198 Swedenborg.

great mistake. That He was the Son of Mary, is true ; but that He is so still, is not true ; for by acts of Redemption He put off the Humanity which He derived from His mother, and put on a Humanity from His Father ; in consequence of which the Humanity of the Lord is Divine, and in Him God is Man, and Man is God."

Again : " That by the Son of Mary is sig- nified that which was merely human, is very evident from this circumstance in the gene- ration of mankind ; that the soul is from the father, and the body from the mother; for the soul is in the seed of the father, and is clothed with a body in the womb of the mother; or, what amounts to the same, all the spiritual part of man is from the father, and all the material part from the mother. With respect to the Lord, what was Divine appertaining to Him, was from the Father, Jehovah; and what was human, from the mother ; and these two united are the Son of God."

Even in the Roman Catholic Church there has appeared some glimpse of this truth ; for in an Explanation of the Apocalypse by D. Herve, of the Society of Jesus, and dedicated to Pope Innocent II., occur the following

Hypostatic Union — Son of Mary. 199

remarks on chap. iii. 14 — " These things saith the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the Creation of God " —

"Although* Christ as man, while living upon earth, was the Creation of God, and this in a singular manner, as "being produced "by God through the power of the Most High and by the operation of the Holy Spirit ; still He was also at that time the Son of the Most holy Virgin, from out of whose most pure Mood He was formed. But when He was raised up again, He was solely the work and creature of God; for His new and glorious life He obtained from God only, not from the Virgin mother, nor from any other created person."

Now we have seen, that when the Lord said, " I and my Father are one," Hilary ex- plains this as of oneness of Essence derived from the Father by birth. Be it so : but — what birth ? There is the birth said to arise from the Eternal generation; and there is the birth arising from the Temporal gene- ration. On which of these two accounts does our Lord call himself the Son; and Him who begat Him, the Father ? for on the answer to this question depends the right or the

* Page 98.

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Swedenborg.

wrong of Swedenborg' s whole system of in- terpretation. Let any one look into the Commentaries upon this subject, which have been generally prevalent, and he will see that the passages relating to Christ as the Son of God are interpreted upon the principle of the Eternal generation, to the exclusion of the Temporal * The consequence has been, a misinterpretation of the Gospels throughout, wherever the Father and the Son are spoken of. Indeed it may be said, that the Tem- poral generation has been virtually ignored in Commentaries altogether ; except in so far as it has been reserved for our Lord after His ascension, and in His state of glorification; as in the address, " Jesu, Son of Mary, hear /"

Now it is observed by Dr. Heylin, on the article, "Sis only Son our Lord" as it occurs in the Apostles' Creed — that —

" Beingf begotten and conceived in the

* Dr. Bennett in his Discourses on the Trinity, Mr. Skinner in his Letters to Candidates for Holy Orders, Dr. Clarke in his Commentary, are exceptions to the general rule. Indeed Dr. Bennett says, page 162, that whenever our Lord is in Holy Scripture called the Son of God, that " appellation is constantly given Him upon account of His Human Nature."

| See his " Theologia Veterum, or The Summe of Chris- tian Theology," page 167.

Hypostatic Union — Son of God. 201

Virgin's womb, after such a supernatural and wonderful manner, by the Almighty power of God, He is in that regard (if there were no other) God's own Son, or His Son by nature, His only and His Only Begotten Son, take which phrase we will. The angel Ga- briel doth affirm this twice for failing ; ' Be- hold ! thou shalt conceive and bring forth a Son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest? And then, unto the Virgin's query, he returns this answer — 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; therefore also that Holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God' . . . That He was really and truly the Son of God by this His generation in the fulness of time, the miraculous manner of His conception, without any other Father than the power of God, doth most assuredly evince. A Son begotten in that manner may very well be called naturd Filius, non tantum beneficio Filius, a Son by nature, not by grace and indulgence only, saith the learned Maldonatus, quia non ex viro, sed ex solo Deo concipiendus, because begotten not by man but by God alone. Nay, so pecu-

k 3

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liarly doth this miraculous manner of His generation entitle Him to be the true and proper Son of Almighty God, that so He might be justly called and accounted of, had He not been the Son of the living God, by a preceding generation before all times. And so doth Maldonatus resolve it in his Com- mentaries on St. Luke's Gospel, though otherwise a great assertor of the Eternal generation of the Son of God ; whose words I shall put down at large for the greater certainty: Etiamsi Christtj sDeus nonfuisset, illo tamen modo genitus quo genitus fuit, merito Dei Eilitjs vocatus fuisset, non solum ut cceteri viri sancti, sed singulari quadam ratione, quod non alium quam Detjm haberet Pair em, nec ab alio quam ab Eo generatus."

It is a remarkable fact, that Bishop Pear- son, on this article in the Apostles' Creed, has completely inverted this method of con- sidering the subject ; for he interprets the article as referring in the primary sense to the Eternal generation, and to the Temporal generation only in a secondary sense, as if it were inadequate to the proof of our Lord's Divinity. Commentators in general having followed out the same view of the subject, have throughout the Gospels referred to the

Essential Unition — Son of God. 203

Eternal generation what in truth belonged to the Temporal ; and, inasmuch as the Father and the Son were perfectly One from all eternity, and the unition of the Two was con- sequently perfect from all eternity, all idea of progress in this unition is utterly excluded ; and for this reason is excluded all progress in the unition of the Humanity with the Divinity ; and as the process of this unition is the same with that of Glorification, so the pro- cess of Glorification is in like manner ignored, and He who is the Lord God Almighty is still addressed as the Son of Mary.

The Humanity which our Lord now has is, in a certain true sense, not the same with that which he received from Mary ; but is the Humanity glorified, Deified, or made Divine. The* process of Glorification was a process of rejection, of putting off all that belonged to human infirmity; and this rejection was ef- fected by temptations, and by the progressive influx of the Power of the Highest by which temptations were overcome, and the new Divine Man descended from within, or from above, as illustrated in the case of the Chris- tian when putting off\he> old man and putting

* See Dr. Pusey's Parochial Sermon on The Ascension, and the Note, vol. ii., page 226.

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on the new. This process in the mind of the Christian is itself illustrated by a marriage. The intellect, or understanding, is relatively- male : the will, as the seat of the affections, relatively female ; and the union of the two, when the understanding is enlightened and the will purified, is itself a heavenly union, and as such a heavenly marriage. Our Lord purified His own Human will by His own proper power, which was at the same time the Power of the Highest in Him ; and which, as we have seen, was the Father which glorified the Son or the Humanity. When there is a unition of the will with the intellect, the intellect is the form of the will. So in like manner, the Humanity glorified or made Divine is the form of God — a form no longer merely represented by Angels, as under the Mosaic Law when Jehovah was represented in human form ; but a form assumed to Him- self by the Lord Himself, by means of glorify- ing, by His own proper power, the Humanity which was derived from the Virgin, and which was the basis of all the Divine operations interiorly carried on : so that He who at first increased in wisdom, and stature, and in favour with God and man, could at length say in His state of Glorification : —

Essential Unition — Son of God. 205

" I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending, the First and the Last, which is, and -which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."

Even in the case of Christians in general, earthly relationships are dissolved and super- seded hereafter by such as are spiritual. Much more is this the case with Him who was at first born upon earth both as the Son of Mary and as the Son of God. Hence it is observed by Swedenborg : —

" The* Lord, in the Word, is called Jehovah as to Divine Good : for Divine Good is the very Divine itself ; and the Lord is called the Son of God as to Divine Truth, for Divine Truth proceeds from Divine Good as a son from a father, and also is said to be born. How the case herein is, it may be expedient further to say : for the Lord when He was in the world made His human principle Divine Truth, and on this occasion called the Divine Good, which is Jehovah, His Eather ; since Divine Truth proceeds and is born from Divine Good. But after that the Lord fully glorified Himself, which was done when He endured the last temptation on the cross, He then also made His human principle Divine

* Arcana Coelestia, art. 7409, 3703, 3704.

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Swederiborg.

Good, that is, Jehovah ; and in consequence thereof the very Divine Truth proceeded from. His Divine Human principle : this Divine truth is what is called the Holy Spirit, and is the Holy principle which proceeds from the Divine Human. Hence it is evident what is meant by the Lord's words in John — The Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified."*

But, after all, will not the votaries of an- tiquity ask, whether this plenary unition of Essentials described by a marriage, is not a mere mystical theory evolved out of Sweden- borg's own consciousness, and having no root whatever in the theology of the Church ?

In answer to this, surely it cannot be denied, that this principle of the marriage of the Divinity with the Humanity has ever been acknowledged in the Church. In a Christmas Sermon upon the Nativity of our Lord, Dr. Barrow, for instance, observes : —

"Beholdf the greatest wedding that ever was, is this day solemnized : heaven and earth are contracted : Divinity is espoused to Hu- manity ; a sacred and indissoluble knot is tied between God and Man : The Bridegroom

* See also art. 6872, 3952, 3960.

\ Sermon i. (for Christmas Day), Luke ii. 10.

Essential TJnition — Son of God. 207

is come forth out of his chamber (Verbum Dei de utero Virginali) clad in His nuptial garment of flesh, and ready to wed the Church, His beloved Spouse : Let us therefore be glad and rejoice ; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready."

Here, however, it is to be observed, that the espousal of Divinity is not to the hu- manity proper to the Person of our Lord Himself, but to the humanity of the Church in general. The espousal of the Divinity to the Humanity in the Person of our Lord is left out altogether; although Swedenborg points out how it is the very origin of the Lord's marriage with the Church.

If we take the statement of Gregory the Great, we shall see what is the secret reason of the omission above referred to : —

" God* the Father made a marriage feast for God the Son, when He joined Him to human nature in the womb of the Virgin. But far be it from us to conclude, that because marriage takes place between two separate persons, that therefore the Person of our Redeemer was made up of two separate per- sons. We say indeed that He exists of two

* On the Gospels, Book ii., Homily 38, vol. i., p. 1635.

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Swedeubory.

natures, and in two natures ; but we hold it unlawful to believe that He was compounded of two persons. It is safer therefore to say, that the marriage feast was made by the King the Father for the King the Son, when He joined to Him the Holy Church in the mystery of His Incarnation. The womb of the Virgin Mother was the bridechamber of this Bride- groom."

We thus see Gregory maintaining, that in the womb of the Virgin there was an espousal of the Divinity to the Humanity in the in- dividual Person of our Lord Himself ; but he no sooner states it as a matter of faith, than he omits all further explanation; for marriage, says he, is between two persons, and further explanations might lead us to speak of the Divinity as one Person, and the Humanity as another Person, and thus we should fall into the heresy of Nestorius. It is better, there- fore, he thinks, to be silent upon this part of the subject; and to refer the words of our Lord to His marriage with the Church. The con- sequence is, that a Personal or Hypostatic union has been substituted for an Essential union ; that the conjugal relation between the Divinity and Humanity in the Person of our Lord is blotted out of Theology altogether;

Essential TJnition — Son of God. 209

and, this conjugal relation being destroyed, the Divinity of our Lord's Humanity is destroyed with it: the expression Divine Human seldom occurring in theology, and no language seem- ing to be too low, not to say frequently coarse and degrading, when describing our Lord's Mediatorial character ; nay, it has become a question whether our Lord, as Mediator, is worthy of any Divine adoration whatever.

What is the reason of this ? The naturalism which leads the mind to assign the first place to Personality ; and the second, or generally no place at all, to Essentials in the Person. Two persons are of course requisite to the constitution of a marriage, but two persons do not per se constitute the essentials of a marriage ; for two persons may be joined to- gether, when nevertheless there is no marriage. The essentials of marriage consist in the re- ciprocal union of two minds, or the wisdom of the man with the affections of the wife, and vice versa. On this principle, there is a marriage of essentials even in the one person of the man himself, when truth in his under- standing becomes united with good in his will. In this point of view, there is no more fear of making two persons out of the one Person of our Lord, than of making two persons out of

21 0 Swedenborg.

any individual man ; and the unition of the essentials, goodness and truth, in the mind of an individual man, is but an image and like- ness, in its own finite degree, of the unition of Infinite Goodness and Truth in the Person of our Lord Himself.

We thus see, that although Essentials are expressed in the language of Persons, yet the theory of different Divine Persons loving and lauding each other from all eternity, has no foundation in truth ; but is a mode of expres- sion accommodated to human apprehension, and signifying the unition of Essentials, or of Divine Goodness and of Divine Truth in one Person. Hence, when our Lord says, "I and the Pather are One :" —

" This* unition is not to be understood as of two who are distinct from each other, and only conjoined by love, as a father with a son when the father loves the son and the son the father ; or as when a brother loves a brother, or a friend a friend ; but it is a real unition into one, so that they are not two but One, as the Lord also teaches in several places. And because they are One, therefore also the whole Human of the Lord is the Divine Esse or Jehovah."

* Arcana C&lestia, art. 3737.

Essential Tuition — Son of God. 211

Hence it is observed by Swedenborg,* that the Lord taught the Apostles interior or essential truths by means of exterior or apparent truths adapted to the fallacies of the external mind ; for if He had taught essential truths only, they would have tran- scended the ideas of the Apostles, and as such would not have been received. Even be- fore the time of the Jewish Dispensation, Churches believed holy worship to consist in external representatives and significatives ; and had any one told them that the essentials of their Divine worship consisted in the spiritual things represented and signified therein, namely, concerning the inner life of the Lord who was to come into the world, no Church could have been established among them; for they would have neither understood nor acknowledged the essential truths contained in the outward ritual. For this reason it is, that our Lord spoke to the Apostles concerning their sitting upon thrones to judge the world, by the side of Himself; and also of His interceding with the Father for their salvation according to the common idea. Had our Lord spoken to them in any other manner, they would have

* Arcana Coelestia, art. 3857.

212 Swedenborg.

rejected his Word, and returned every one to his own occupation.

Independently, however, of the external states of the Apostles, even our Lord Himself was personally in two states, viz., one of exinanition or apparent dissociation from the Father ; and another, of glorification or essential union with the Father. In the state of exinanition, which was a state of temptation, the Father appeared to be absent, nay, even to be a Being apart from Himself ; but this absence of Divinity for a period was only apparent, and a necessary part of the process of Unition. When that Unition was finally completed, all mere appearances were finally put off; and the Lord manifested Himself as the Judge of all the world, the Divine Man whose glory would be seen in the clouds of Scripture, and who, though slain as to His Humanity from the foundation of the Church, was worthy to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing; for then He could say — " I am Alpha and Omega, the Begin- ning and the Ending, the First and the Last, which is, and which was, and Avhich is to come — The Almighty."

Compare this view of the connection

Essential Unition — Son of God. 213

between the Divinity and Humanity with that which is commonly given : —

Dr. Waterland* says — that in respect of the miraculous conception, " Christ was not Son of God in a higher or more peculiar manner than angels or Adam."

Wheatlyf — that, with respect to the humanity, notwithstanding the miraculous conception, "Adam was more immediately the Son of God than Christ."

Dean Sherlock% — that " Christ is never in Scripture called the Son of God, hut with respect to His Eternal generation ;" . . . that ..." It is downright heresy to assert that Christ is called the Son of God on account of his miraculous conception."

Archbishop Usher§ — that — " Christ Jesus is the natural Son of God only in regard of the Eternal generation ; otherwise there would he two Sons, one of the Eather and another of the Holy Ghost."

Dr. Scott \\ — that "Since Adam is called

* See his Works, vol. v., pages 399, 400. t Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, page 209. \ Scripture Proofs of our Saviour's Divinity, pages 162, 167.

§ Body of Divinity, page 195.

|| See his Works, vol. v., page 276.

214

Swedenborg.

the Son of God, because God immediately formed him of the substance of the earth, he had thereby as good a right to the title of God's Only Begotten Son as Christ himself had, because God hnmediately formed him of the substance of a woman."

Holden* — that the conception in the womb of the Virgin " does not constitute the only pre-eminence of Christ designated by the title Son of God; for, in this respect, He is not much superior to Adam, who was the imme- diate work of God, as Christ's human nature was the immediate work of the Holy Ghost."

Vogan* — that " The title Only-begotten Son of God has no reference to his Humanity, for we all share it with Him ; nor to His piety, for all pious persons are said to be begotten of God. It has no reference to His mira- culous human birth ; for the births of Isaac and John were also miraculous, though, as we would apprehend, not in so high a degree as His; and the production of Adam, who on account of his creation is called the Son of God,' was yet, as we again would appre- hend, more miraculous than His."

* Scripture Testimonies to the Divinity of our Lord Jesxts Christ, page 393.

•(■ Bampton Lectures, page 235.

Essential TJnition — Son of God. 215

Br. Fiddes* — " Christ was not the Son of God the Father, with respect to his temporal generation, how miraculous soever in a proper sense, any more than Adam, who is expressly called the Son of God, could be called so, from his being formed by the immediate action of God, out of the dust."

Bishop Bullf — that as to being formed by the Divine power and virtue without a father in the womb of the Virgin, " the first Adam is in some measure superior to the second; since the former was made by God without father and without mother; the latter, without father only."

Can we wonder, then, that Bishop Pearson should say \ % —

" Although to be born of a virgin be in it- self miraculous, and justly entitles Christ unto the name of Son of God ; yet it is not so far above the production of all mankind, as to place Him in that singular eminence which must be attributed to the Only Begotten. We read of Adam the Son of God, as well as Seth the Son of Adam ; and surely the framing Christ out of a woman cannot so

* Theologia Speculativa, vol. i., page 447. ■f See his Works, vol. vi., page 102. X On The Creed, art. Only Son.

21G

Swedenborg.

far transcend the making Adam out of the earth, as to cause so great a distance as we must believe between the first and second Adam."

Of course doctrines of this kind involve other fundamentals of Christianity ; for if these things be true, it becomes a question how far our Lord, as he is Man, is competent to judge the world ; and we are told that He is not. For to judge the world in righteous- ness there are required Omniscience, Omnipo- tence, and other Divine attributes. But the soid of the Man Christ, being finite and creaturely, is said to be incapable of receiving such a Divine influx : —

For — " It* is certainly impossible for the human soul of Christ, illustrated with what- ever degree of Divine light, to know and understand the desires and prayers which are daily at one and the same moment poured forth to the name Jesus by so many myriads of men, in so many different places, and distant from each other by such long intervals of space. The mind of the man Christ, who

* Seethe Works of Bishop Bull, vol. vi., pages 333, 345. A similar passage occurs nearly word for word in Remarks upon Dr. Clarke's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, ascribed to Bishop Gastrell.

God-Mo u—3Ian-God, 217

is now exalted to the right hand of the Father, has indeed been brought to its per- fection in marvellous ways ; but it is not in- finite ; its intelligence cannot reach to all places, and to all the persons by whom in both hemispheres His sacred name is invoked, nor can it at the same time reach to the most hidden recesses of the hearts of those who in- voke him. . . . For if omniscience of this kind were communicated to the soul of the man Christ by Divine revelation, no sufficient reason could be assigned why also the souls of the Saints might not, for the same reason, be partakers of the same revelation, and this too, each in his own way, in very deed."

If, therefore, our Lord received the power of judging the world qua homo, there is no reason at all, according to some, why other men also should not possess the same power ; so that in this case, the miraculous concep- tion passes for nothing — " cum Christus non ideo acceperit judioandipotestatem, quod esset homo ; nam si oh id accepisset, danda erat eadem omnibus hominibus"

Thus Ave cannot speak of the Person of our Lord as God-Man or Man-God, but only as God and Man in one Person. There is no real, no essential union between the Divinity

L

218

Swedenborg.

and Humanity, for the two natures are incon- gruous and incompatible with each other; hence, inasmuch as they both meet together in one Person, the union (which is no union at all, and scarcely adjunction), is merely nominal ; and to suit such an otherwise anomalous state of things, metaphysicians have called the union hypostatic.

Now I ask, Is it possible to place the Humanity of our Lord upon a lower level ; and if not, whether, when our Lord used the words — "He that believeth not shall be damned," He meant to include in the doom of eternal perdition those who disbelieve these degrading doctrines concerning His own Divine Humanity ? For we are told, that the first condition of doing the works of God is a right belief as to the doctrine of the Incar- nation— "And* when our Lord warns evil doers of the doom that awaits them, He tell? them that He will appoint their portion with the unbelievers. Here our loving Saviour Himself puts immoral living and pertinacious unbelief on the same level, and He even seems to intimate that unbelief is the more dangerous of the two."

Uneblief in what ? Unbelief in these in-

* The Damnatory Clauses, etc., page 1G4.

God- Ulan— Man- God. 219

terpretations of the Incarnation? Or, unbelief in the Incarnation itself ? Surely the two are not identical. Swedenborg himself entirely confirms that clause in the Athanasian Creed — "As the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ;" but he as entirely rejects those explanations which, as we have seen, nullify the union of the Divinity with the Humanity, and conse- quently the whole doctrine of the Incar- nation. Truly, we are here reminded of the words in the prophet Zechariah,* " What are these wounds in thine hands ? Then shall one answer — Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends."

The doctrine which, as generally received, nullifies the union of the Humanity with the Divinity, is thus stated by Bishop Bullf — "In Christ the Divine Nature everywhere pene- trates the Human, but not reciprocally the Human the Divine; since the Human is finite and circumscribed, the Divine infinite and immense ; so that it is not possible for the Human to be wheresoever the Divine is." — For the same reason, it is not possible for the Human to be whatsoever the Divine is.

* Zechariah, chap. xiii. 6.

f Defensio Fidei Nicccna;, p. 794.

L 2

220

Swedenhorg .

Now the question in this case is first of all, what is the Human ?

Man consists of an internal rational soul, and an external natural body. Rational truth is proper to a rational soul. In our Lord the inmost principle of this rational soul was by conception Divine; and by the progressive union of the Divinity with the rational soul, the rational truth in the Lord became progressively Deified, Divinized, or made Divine. This is the ground of the expression Divine Human ; and this it is which is meant by the Humanity being Glorified. Divine Good constantly descended into the Lord's rational soul purifying and exalting His per- ceptions of Divine Truth : the reciprocal actions of this Truth as thus perceived, shewed themselves in more interior and burning desires to put off all truths merely apparent, which are those even of the highest order of created beings, and to be one with essential Divine Good; and the unition of Divine Good and Truth, (the Divine Mar- riage) shewed its effects in afterwards pro- ducing corresponding changes, in a finite degree, in the rational soul of man, com- monly known as the process of regeneration ; the Lord thus creating a Church, and uniting

Conclusion.

221

the Church to Himself by a relatively subor- dinate order of marriage — " I in them " — re- ferring to the subordinate degree ; and " Thou in Me," referring to the supreme — as it is said — " Glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world began." John xvii. 5, 23.

With respect to the material body, after the resurrection it was no longer material.

Of course these truths are here stated in the most general manner : in their more ex- tended application, they constitute the spi- ritual sense and thus the inspiration of the Word of God, it being in this manner that the Scriptures testify of Christ.

In conclusion :

When our Lord said, " Go ye, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ;" we have seen that by the Father is meant Essential Goodness ; by the Son Essen- tial Truth; and by the Holy Ghost, both these in their Divine Power or operation upon the minds of men ; we have seen that a commission was given to the Church to teach this doctrine. And yet have we not seen the truth upon which man's salvation de-

222

Prophecy.

pended, consigned to impenetrable mystery and self-contradiction ; and the necessity of Church authority advocated in order to .sup- port a Creed which, it is feared, must other- wise fall to the ground? No doubt that such advocates are wise in their generation ; for, after what we have premised, what would have become of Christianity, or of the Church, if it were not for this authority? And yet a lamentation is raised that Church authority is declining ; that Truth, instead of coming into the minds of men as recom- mended by authority, is rather coming into the minds of men as recommended by itself. The contest in these days, we are told, is between subjective truth and authoritative truth ; and subjective truth is fast prevailing over that which is taught by authority. If so, what does this mean, but that the Spirit of Truth may be descending into the minds of men through other forms than those of Church teaching ?

No doubt a true idea of God is the first and foremost idea which ought to be taught by the Church ; on this ground it is, that, whether for good or for evil, the Athanasian Creed stands first in importance; for, as Swedenborg observes : —

Conclusion.

223

" Every* one hath a place in heaven ac- cording to his idea of God ; for this idea, like a touchstone hy which gold and silver are tried, is the true test for examining the quality of good and truth in man ; since no possible saving truth can come hut from God, and there is not a single saving truth hut what deriveth its quality from interior good- ness."

In this respect, indeed, we admit that there is not a single proposition in the Athanasian Creed which does not vitally affect our ideas of Christianity, and thus also our ideas of God ; nor can we conceive that any vital change should come upon Christendom, which did not equally affect the Creed.

We are warned however by some, that " On the very face of the matter, to disuse or to mutilate the Athanasian Creed involves the first great step in a theological revolu- tion."— Be it so. — But how do I know that this may not be also the first great step in that theological revolution which is foretold in the Book of Revelation — " I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away " — words

* True Christian Religion, art. 1C3 ; see also art. 621.

224

Prophecy.

thus paraphrased by a member of the Church of England : —

"In* the general, I saw, methought, that total revolution of things and men, in the Christian world, with respect to religion, which the prophet Isaiah expressed in the high phrase of a new heaven and a new earth."

If I am at liberty to believe this to be the real sense of the prophecy, and that such a revolution must involve the Athanasian doc- trine of the Tripersonality, is that liberty to be taken away by the Damnatory Clauses of the Athanasian Creed ? Surely, this would be to set the Creed above the Bible. In the latter days of the Church, great changes of some kind or other must be expected. Among these changes must be classed even the de- cisions of Councils, which cannot overrule, but only follow the course of Divine Pro- vidence. When our Lord said concerning the Temple at Jerusalem — "Not one stone shall be left upon another which shall not be thrown down" — did He first consult the builders? Surely, Prophecy has been long enough before the Church, to warn every one

* Rev. T. Pyle, M.A., Prebendary of Sarum, a.d. 1795. Second Edition.

Conclusion.

225

that there comes a time when it vindicates to itself its own meaning. There is a Pro- phecy, already referred to, common both to the Jewish and Christian Dispensation — " Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." As applied to the Jewish Dispensation — " It is agreed by the best Commentators,* that the highly figurative language of the Prophets must be understood as predictive of the total alteration and thorough reformation in religion by the pro- mulgation of the Gospel, and which was also brought to pass in that very age."

As applied to the Christian Dispensation, it is admitted to signify, as above, the pass- ing away of the former heaven and earth, i.e. the internal and external of the previous Church, and the descent from heaven of a higher order of Truth. Accordingly! the Prophet J ohn describes himself as beholding "a new heaven and a new earth;" and although this expression has been thought by some to relate to a change attending the dissolution of the present material globe;

* See Bloomfield's Recensio Synoptica, in loc.

t The Prophetical Character and Inspiration of the Apocalypse Considered. By G. Pearson, B.D., Christian Advocate of the University of Cambridge, etc., page 292.

L 3

226

Prophecy.

"yet," says a Christian Advocate of Cam- bridge, " it is in other passages of the ancient prophets expressive of those great changes which will take place in the moral world, in that flourishing and triumphant state of the Church, which we believe will prevail before the great consummation of all things. Such is evidently the sense in which it is used by Isaiah. In the same manner, with regard to the spiritual or heavenly Jerusalem which the Prophet beheld coming down from hea- ven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; it is not only used in this book (as it is also, besides this passage, in the nineteenth chapter), as descriptive of that renewed state of the Christian Church which all prophecy leads us to look forward to, but the same is also the continual lan- guage of the ancient prophets : and it is also the view of St. Paul, who expressly contrasts with the earthly Jerusalem, which was in bondage with her children, the heavenly Jerusalem which is the mother of us all; even that spiritual Church which would be enlarged by the accession of the Gentiles into it."

That such a change is destined to overtake the Church in its latter days, has ever been

Conclusion.

227

maintained to be the meaning of Prophecy, whatever differences may have prevailed in other respects. "The glorious light," says Dr. Worthington,* "which the New Jeru- salem shall enjoy, can he none other than the Light of the Gospel, the glorious Gospel as St. Paul more than once calls it, which will then shine forth in its full lustre, dispelling all the dark clouds of ignorance and error, and greatly enlightening the understandings of men." ..." As the description of the holy Jerusalem is in a manner entirely allegorical, so that of the New Heavens and New Earth, which differs from it no otherwise than a whole does from a part, ought to be taken allegorically likewise. Por by the New Heavens and Earth I understand the whole renovated world, natural as well as moral ; as by the Holy City the New Jeru- salem, I understand The Christian Church."

In what respect, however, is the illumina- tion of the Church at the Second Advent to surpass its illumination at the Pirst ?

* Essay on the Scheme and Conduct, etc., of Man's Redemption, pages 379, et seq. a.d. 1743. Swedenborg does not interpret the Apocalypse as predicting any Mil- lenium in the ordinary sense of that term, or any mira- culous renovation of the material world.

228

Prophecy.

"To conceal the First Advent," says Dr. M'Caul,* "would be to hide the inconceivable condescension of God, for the mystery of the First Advent was God clothed in humanity : to omit the Second Advent would be to veil the equally inconceivable wonders of Re- demption; for the mystery of the Second Advent is Man revealed in the glory of the Godhead. At the First Advent God appeared as man ; at the Second, Man will appear as God ; for it will be the glorious appearing of the Great God, even our Saviour Jesus Christ."

Has a member of the Church of England no liberty to believe these interpretations to be true ? And, in so far as he believes the Church to have identified itself with the Athanasian Tripersonality, is there any in- consistency in presuming, that a renovated Church will give rise to a renovated Creed ; hence not to the destruction, but to the reno- vation of Christianity ? And are we to suppose that, in the renovated state of the Church, the Unity of God is still to continue to be a mystery, shrouded in outer darkness ; and the Tripersonality to continue an eternal

* Plain Sermons on Subjects Practical and Prophetic, page 268.

Conclusion.

229

contradiction to the Unity ? Or, is Chris- tianity to fall to pieces, because the spurious metaphysics by which it has been explained, is at length perceived to be spurious ?

Certainly, if the limits of Religious Thought be such that Theology can never be formed into a system consistent with itself ; if the very constitution of the human mind be such, that in the relations between the Finite and the Infinite, the instant we attempt to analyse the ideas suggested to us, in the hope of attaining to an intelligible conception of them, we are on every side in- volved in inextricable confusion and contra- diction ; if the Scripture, in its natural sense, suggests modes of thought which are* " limits beyond which we cannot penetrate, yet which themselves proclaim that there is a further truth behind and above them ;" and if, in any attempt to attain to a higher form of this truth, the mind becomes "cramped by its own laws, and bewildered in the con- templation of its own forms;" — then, as Dean Mansel maintains, "The same impedi- ment which prevents the formation of Theo- logy as a science, is also manifestly fatal to the theory which asserts its progressive deve-

* See; above, pages 116, 117.

230

Prophecy.

lopment." — But surely here is a metaphysical theory defying Prophecy. Never, it seems, can Divine light descend from God out of heaven into the human mind, without com- ing down into inextricable confusion and contradiction. Never, therefore, can there be progressive development. Yet, verily, if this be true of the human mind now, it was also true before the establishment of Christianity ; and yet there came down from heaven, notwithstanding, a renovated Church, and a new order of things in the form of a progressive development. Surely, if we can- not be conscious of the Infinite, we may yet be conscious of what is from the Infinite ; and if the Finite be from the Infinite, the Finite is, in its degree, in correspondence with the Infinite, and this correspondence is the ground of a real and true knowledge of the Infinite; but there is no correspond- ence between the Trinity in man and the Trinity in God, if the Trinity in God be a Trinity of Persons — for then, we grant, all is confusion and contradiction.*

Let us remember that to think in time, is not therefore to think from time ; to think

* Indeed, it is owing to the polytheism suggested to the heathen mind by the doctrine of the Tripersonality,

Conclusion.

231

in space, is not therefore to think from space ; to think in the natural world, is not therefore to think from Nature. The spiritual world is indeed behind and above the natural, just as spiritual truth is* behind and above the literal sense of Scripture. But if we cannot reach this truth by reason of the limitation of our faculties, it is to us virtually as if it were not. "We must, in this case, content ourselves with the know- ledge of the literal sense only ; for as to any spiritual sense, as lying above and behind the letter, it only "suggests the hypothesis of a mind cramped by its own laws, and bewildered in the contemplation of its own forms." Of course in such a case there can be no progressive development — no growth because no life. Christianity has a name to live, but is dead.

It is, however, in the way of progressive development that Swedenborg refers to a

that, as Swedenborg says, it is of Divine Providence that comparatively so little success has attended Missionary enterprise.

* Behind signifies within or above, or an interior or superior principle. — Arcana Coelestia, art. 1955.

Above and high signify what is internal and inmost. — Ibid., 17S5, 2148.

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Prophecy.

new era as coming upon the Church. The Angel, described in the Apocalypse as com- ing down from heaven, has in his hand a little Book open : this Book contains a sum- mary of the Essentials of Christian doctrine, of which the first or leading Essential is — that —

" The Lord is the God of heaven and earth ; that He made His Humanity Divine by means of the Divinity within Himself ; and that He thus became one with the Eather."

The confession of this fundamental doc- trine, as distinguishing a New Era, may not be brought to pass without controversies* more or less vehement. There may be thun- derings, and lightnings, and voices in the world below, as there have been in the world above ; but when these commotions shall have all died away, they will be seen to have been only gradual preparations for that period of which it is written — " Behold ! I

MAKE ALL THINGS NEW."

* See the controversy upon this subject between Arch- bishop Manning and Dr. Nicholson, occurring while these lines are passing through the Press ; also our last Note in the Appendix.

APPENDIX.

i.

THE OXFORD DECREE. (See page 27.)

"In Conventu D. Vice-Cancellarii et Prefectorum Collegiorum et Aularum Universitatis Oxon. Die Vicesimo quinto Novembris , a.d. 1695.

"Cum in Concione nuper habita coram Univer- sitate Oxon. in Templo S. Petri in Oriente, ad Festum S. S. Simonis et Judge proxime elapsum, hsec Verba, inter alia, publice prolata et asserta fuerunt, viz. (There are Three Infinite distinct Minds and Sub- stances in the Trinity). Item (That the Three Per- sons in the Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits, and Three Individual Substances). Quae verba inultis justam offensionis Causam et Scanda- lum dedere.

"Dominus Vice-Cancellarius, et Praefecti Col- legiorum et Aularum, in generali suo Conventu jam congregati, Judicant, Declarant, et Decernunt, prsedicta Verba esse Falsa, Impia, et Heretica ;

234 Appendix.

Dissona, et Contraria Doctrinai Ecclesise Catholicae, et speciatim Doctrinse Ecclesiae Anglicanse, publice receptee.

" Quapropter prsecipiunt et firmiter injungunt Omnibus et singulis, eorum fidei et curse com- nrissis, ne tale aliquod Dogma, in Concionibus, aut alias, in posterum proferant."

"Ex Decreto Domini Vice-Cancellarii et Prefectorum. Ben. Cooper Not. publicus

et Registrarius Universitatis Oxon."

Appendix.

235

Ui

ARIANISM, TRITHEISM, SABELLIANISM.

(See page 123.)

(Abridged from Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter xxi.)

" When the mysteries of the Christian faith were dangerously exposed to public debate, it might be observed that the human understanding was capable of forming three distinct, though imperfect, systems, concerning the nature of the Divine Trinity (Arian- ism, Tritheism, and Sabellianism); and it was pro- nounced that none of these systems, in a pure and absolute sense, were exempt from heresy and error/'

1. Arianism. " According to the first hypothesis, which was maintained by Arius and his disciples, the Logos was a dependent and spontaneous pro- duction created from nothing by the will of the Father. The Son, by whom all things were made, had been begotten before all worlds, and the longest of the astronomical periods could be compared only as a fleeting moment to the extent of his duration ; yet this duration was not infinite, and tbere had been a time which preceded the ineffable generation of the Logos."

2. Tritheism. "In the second hypothesis, the Logos possessed all the inherent, incommunicable perfections, which religion and philosophy appro-

236 Appendix.

priate to the Supreme God. Three distinct and infinite minds or substances, three co-equal and co- eternal beings, composed the Divine Essence ; and it would have implied contradiction, that any of them should not have existed, or that any of them should cease to exist/'

3. Sabellianism. " Three Beings, who by the self- derived necessity of their existence possess all the Divine attributes in the most perfect degree ; who are eternal in duration, infinite in space, and in- timately present to each other, and to the whole universe ; irresistibly force themselves on the aston- ished mind as one and the same Being, who, in the economy of grace, as well as in that of nature, may manifest Himself under different forms, and be con- sidered under different aspects. By this hypothesis, a real substantial Trinity is refined into a Trinity of names and abstract modifications, that subsist only in the mind which conceives them. The Logos is no longer a person, but an attribute ; and it is only in a figurative sense, that the epithet of Son can be applied to the eternal reason which was with God from the beginning, and by which, not by whom, all things wrere made. The incarnation of the Logos is reduced to a mere inspiration of the Divine Wisdom, which filled the soul and directed all the actions of the man Jesus. Thus after revolving round the theological circle, we are surprised to find that the Sabellian ends where the Ebionite had begun j and that the incomprehensible mystery wrhich excites our adoration, eludes our enquiry/'

Appendix.

237

III.

" GOD IS ONE PERSON." (See page 141.)

"Deinde in ipso generali vocabulo, si propterea dicimus tres personas, quia commune est eis id quod persona est : (alioquin nullo modo possunt ita dici, quemadmodum non dicuntur tres filii, quia non com- mune est eis id quod est filius :) cur non etiam tres deos dicimus ? Certe enim quia Pater persona, et Filius persona, et Spiritus Sanctus persona, ideo tres personae ; quia ergo Pater Deus, et Filius Deus, et Spiritus Sanctus Deus, cur non tres dii? Aut quoniam propter ineffabilem conjunctionem hsec tria simul unus Deus; cur non etiam una persona, ut ita non possimus dicere tres personas, quaravis singu- lam quamque appellemus personam, quemadmodum non possumus dicere tres deos, quamvis quemque singulum appellemus Deum, sive Patrem, sive Filium, sive Spiritum Sanctum ? An quia Scriptura non dicit tres deos ? Sed nec tres personas alicubi Scripturam commemorare invenimus. An quia nec tres, nec unam personam Scriptura elicit hsec tria (legimus enim personam Domini, non personam Dominum), propterea licuit loquendi et disputandi necessitate tres personas dicere, non quia Scriptura dicit, sed quia Scriptura non contradicit ? Si autem diceremus tres Deos, contradiceret Scriptura dicens,

238 Appendix.

Audi, Israel, Dominus Deus tuus Deus unus est. Cur ergo et tres essentias 11011 licet dicere, quod similiter Scriptura, sicut non dicit, ita nee contradicit? Nam essentia, si speciale nomen est commune tribus, cur non dicantur tres essentia, sicut Abraham, Isaac, et Jacob, tres homines, quia homo speciale nomen est commune omnibus hominibus? Si autem speciale nomen non est essentia, sed generale, quia homo, et pecus, et arbor, et sidus, et angelus essentia dicitur ; cur non dicuntur istse tres essentia;, sicut tres equi dicuntur tria animalia, et tres lauri dicuntur tres arbores, et tres lapides tria corpora ? Aut si propter unitatem Trinitatis non dicuntur tres essentiae, sed una essentia; cur non propter eandem unitatem Trinitatis non dicuntur tres substantias vel tres per- sonse, sed una substantia et tjna persona? Quam enim est illis commune nomen essentiae, ita ut singulus quisque dicatur essentia, tarn illis commune est vel substantias vel personse vocabulum. Quod enim de personis secundum nostram, hoc de sub- stantiis secundum Graecorum consuetudinem, ea quae dicimus, oportet intelligi. Sic enim dicunt illi tres substantias, unam essentiam, quemadmodum nos dicimus tres personas, essentiam vel substantiam." — St. Augustin, De Trinitate, lib. vii., cap. iii., art. 8.

Appendix. 239

IV.

u THE FATHER, THE SON, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT ETERNALLY CONVERSING WITH AND ENJOYING EACH OTHER." (See page 190.)

The Rev. J. Howe, in his Calm and Sober Enquiry concerning the Trinity, could not conceive how Three distinct intelligent hypostases could exist from all eternity in a state of solitude and inactivity. He therefore follows out the notion of Bishop Bull and of some of the ancient writers, concerning the "delicious society" supposed to be between or among the Three Divine Persons ; and he asks —

" Is this a dream ? and so strange a one ? Why, good Sir, can you suppose Three Persons, i. e. Three intellectual subsistences, perfectly wise, holy, and good, co-existing with, inexisting in, one another, to have no society ? or that society not to be delicious ? He (an opponent) says, How can it be? I say, How can it but be ? Herein I am sure the Enquirer hath far more company than in the former. For whether the Three Persons have all the same numerical essence, or three distinct, all agree they most delightfully con- verse." A View of the Late Considerations about the Trinity. Second part. Letter to a Friend.

240

Appendix.

V.

" INCREASED IN WISDOM." (See pages 204, 232.)

Athanasius says* that — " The manhood advanced in Wisdom, transcending by degrees human nature, and being made God."

What is the true meaning of this ?

Our Lord transcended by degrees the human nature received from the Virgin, so as no longer to be the Son of Mary; but He did not therefore cease to be man; but on the contrary, became more Human by becoming Divine.

How is this progress to be understood ?

Some think that our Lord's humanity had all knowledge from the moment of conception, that it was fully deified from the beginning, and that the increase in wisdom denoted only the progress of its manifestation to others : some, that there was a wisdom within, which was the same with the Word, and another wisdom acquired from without; the one infinite, the other finite ; the two remaining distinct and different, without any real communi- cutio idiomatum between them, in like manner as the Divinity and humanity ; the humanity receiving only an infusion of grace, as in the case of ordinary

* Dr. Newman's Select Treatises, page 474.

Appendix. 241

Christians : hence that the progress was of the human to the human, of the finite to the finite, not of the finite to the infinite, or of the human to the Divine — to say nothing of other speculations.

On this subject therefore theologians are not agreed — "De hac lite," says Petavius, "neutram in partem pronuntiare audeo. Hujusmodi enim quaestiones ad Scholas relegandse sunt, de quibus nihil apud antiquos liquidi ac definiti reperitur." Incarn., xi., 4, 9. But the Schools have not helped theologians ; for Aquinas and Scotus are at variance with each other upon the subject j and Aquinas, it is admitted, is at variance with himself ; and yet upon the determination of this question, depends the whole doctrine of the Union of the Humanity with the Divinity, and the meaning of the expression Deified humanity.

If therefore there is " nothing clear and definite " known in regard to this subject, so also no clear, definite, or even intelligible idea can be attached to the words, Deified humanity ; Union of Godhead with manhood ; inseparable, indissoluble Union ; indissoluble connection; to say nothing of a series of technical distinctions founded on the foregoing indefinite ideas, between in se and propter se, Dei facere and Deum facere, and so forth ; and till something clear and definite be known, there will be endless dis- putations. A Humanity which is finite, and yet is God and as such is Uncreated, is as self- contradictory as an uncreated creature.

The truth is, that very obscure ideas prevail as to what constitutes humanity.

M

242 Appendix.

The rational soul, in virtue of which man is man (for the body is only the clothing), consists of will and understanding. We may speak of an infinite will; for we speak of the will of God. We may speak of an infinite understanding; for, as the Psalmist says (cxlvii. 5), His understanding is infinite. Here then we have an infinite anthropomorphism ; in other words, God is set before us as an Infinite Man, and in this respect it is that finite man is said to be in the image and likeness of the Infinite God.

We shall only add, that it is this very subject of the progress in Divine Wisdom of our Lord's human nature, thus the process of Deification or Glorification, which constitutes the inmost sense of the Scriptures, as unfolded in Swedenborg's Arcana Ccelestia : thus withdrawing the whole question from the metaphysical speculations of Schoolmen, and transferring it to the Word of God. — It is the Lamb only that opens the sealed Book.

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