Attributes of the Trinity, with a description of the Unity.

THe Names and Titles that are common to the whole Trinity, are of foure sortes or orders.

• 1. Some signifie their Essence, as Iehovah.
• 2. Others their Persons in generall, as Elohim.
• 3. Divers their Essentiall properties, as Almighty.
• 4. Many are in generall affirmed of each Person, as they have relation to Creatures, and such is the Name, Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, &c.

Albeit the word Creator is given to the Father, Redeemer to the Sonne, and Sancti∣fier* to the Holy Ghost, yet in truth they are common to all the three Persons in one Essence.

Now a Person is a distinct subsisting of the whole God-head, and an individu•ll un∣derstanding,* and incommunicable Subsistence, living of it selfe, and •o• susteyned by another: So that the three Persons in the Trinity, are not three severall Substances, but three distinct Subsistences, or three diverse manner of being of one and the same Sub∣stance and divine Essence.

The Divine Essence is one and the selfe same thing truly subsisting in the Three per∣sons: Now the Essence doth not beget an Essence, but the Person of the Father be∣getteth* the Person of the Sonne, and the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Sonne by an eternall and incomprehensible Spiration. And thus the Three per∣sons make all one Divine Essence, and one God, being in Nature Co•ssentiell, in Dignitie Coequall, in time Coeternall, in measure unmeasurable, in Majesty in∣scrutable, in Nature incomprehensible, in Power irresistible, in Will unchangeable, Page  10 in place not Circumscript, in Tim• indefinite, in love immutable, in favour unspea∣ke•ble, and in Promise inviolable, Good without qualitie, Great without quantitie,* Creatour without want, in Act without Motion, every where present without sight: The First and the last without time, making all things Mutable, without any passive Mutability in himselfe. In this Mistery of the Trinity, how in that most simple and single Essence of God, there be certaine Substances of God or Persons truly subsisting, Three in one, and One in three, differing but not divided, severall but not sund•ed, many and yet the same; All one for their Nature, all distinct for their Persons, is a Secret o• all Secrets, passing all reach and understanding of Man, rather reverently to be adored then too curiously to be searched into, for that Secret things belong un∣to the Lord, and things revealed unto us. Saint Augustine walking by the Sea side,* meditating of the Trinitie, looking aside, saw a Childe powring the waters of the Sea into a sh•ll, having a hole in the middest thereof, demanded of the Child what he was doing, I am putting (quoth he) all the Sea into this shell, the Father said, thou playest the Child, Can a Shell comprehend thinkest thou all this Sea? And so said the Child good Sir doe you, who would by Reason comprehend the Trinitie. The Child vanished, the Father was instructed, and he saw in the end that it was an Angell. Thus Augustine with all his deepe Divin•ty, was not able to di•e into this Mystery, much lesse can wee.

Simonides being demanded concerning the Essence of God, answered, that the more he thought of the s•me, the lesse he knew. To search then too farre is curiosity, to* beleeve the word it is security, climbe not too high then for falling, dive •ot deepe for drowning; and soare not too high for dazeling: Labour to know so much as •s revealed in the Scriptures, which we are to search for all points, much more for this.