The sum of what they say in general is, — 1. " How can these things he ? how can three he one, and one he three ? Every person hath its oivn substance; and, therefore, if there he three persons, there tnust he three suhstances, and so three Gods."
Answer. Every person hath distinctly its own suhstance, for the one substance of the Deity is the substance of each person, so it is still but one ; but each person hath not its own distinct sub- stance, because the substance of them all is the same, as hath been proved.
2. They say, " That if each person he God, then each person is infinite, and there heing three persons, there must he three infinites."
Ans. This follows not in the least; for each person is infinite as he is God. All divine properties, such as to be infinite is, belong not to the persons on the account of their personality, but on the account of their nature, which is one, for they are all natural properties.
3. But they say, " If each person he God, and that God suhsist in three persons, then in each person there are three persons or Gods."
Ans. The collusion of this sophism consists in that expression, " he God," and " that God." In the first place the nature of God is in- tended ; in the latter, a singular person. Place the words intelligibly, and they are thus: — If each person be God, and the nature of God subsists in three persons, then in each person there are three persons; and then the folly of it will be evident.
4. But they farther infer, " That if we deny the persons to he in- finite, then OM infinite heing hath a finite mode of suhsisting, and so I knoiu not luhat supposition they make hence; that seeing there are not three infinites, then the Father, Son, and Spirit are three finites, that make up an infinite."
The pitiful weakness of this cavil is open to all ; for finite and in- finite are properties and adjuncts of heings, and not of the manner of the subsistence of any thing. The nature of each person is infinite, and so is each person because of that nature. Of the manner of their
410 THE DOCTRINE OF THE
subsistence, finite and infinite cannot be predicated or spoken, no farther than to say, an infinite being doth so subsist.
5. " But you grant," say they, " that the onhj true God is the Father, and then if Christ he the only true God, he is the Father."
A71S. We say, the only true God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We never say, the Scripture never says, that the Father only is the true God ; whence it would follow, that he that is the true God is the Father. But we grant the Father to be the only true God ; and so we say is the Son also. And it doth not at all thence follow that the Son is the Father; because, in saying the Father is the true God, we respect not his paternity, or his paternal relation to his Son, but his nature, essence, and being. And the same we affirm concerning the other persons. And to say, that because each person is God, one person must be another, is to crave leave to disbelieve what God hath revealed, without giving any reason at all for their so doing.
But this sophism being boiTowed from another, namely, Crellius,^ who insisted much upon it, I shall upon his account, and not on theirs, who, as far as I can apprehend, understand little of the intendment of it, remove it niore fully out of the way. It is proposed by him in way of syllogism, thus, " The only true God is the Father; Christ is the only true God : therefore he is the Father." Now, this syllo- gism is ridiculously sophistical. For, in a categorical syllogism the major proposition is not to be particular, or equipollent to a parti- cular ; for, from such a proposition, when any thing communicable to more is the subject of it, and is restrained unto one particular, no- thing can be inferred in the conclusion. But such is this proposition here. The only true God is the Father. It is a particular proposition, wherein the subject is restrained unto a sing-ular or individual predi- cate, though in itself communicable to more. Now, the proposition being so made particular, the terms of the subject or predicate are supposed reciprocal, — namely, that one God, and the Father, are the same; Avhich is false, unless it be first proved that the name God is communicable to no more, or no other, than is the other term of blather : which to suppose, is to beg the whole question ■; for the only true God hath a larger signification than the term of Father or Soa So that, tliough the only true God be the Father, yet every one who is true God is not the Father. Seeing, then, that the name of God here supplies the place of a species, though it be singular ab-
' John Crell is not to be confouiid(>d with Samuol Crell, also a Sociniaii writer, who lived about a century later, and who seems to have been converted to the faith of our I^ord's divinity. The former wa.s born in Franconia in 1590. He was rector of tiie University of Rakau in 1G16. lie had a controversy wi;li Grotius, and was recognised as a leader among tlie Socinians. He died 163;^, leaving beliind him works that occupy four volumes in the " Bibliotheca Frati-uni Polouorum." — Eu.