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THE HOLY ARBOR.
CHAP. I.
§. 1. The Trinity.
ONe of the deepest Mysteries of our Religion, is, That God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and again, That the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one and the same God: So it is one of the most mysterious points of our Faith, To believe in one God, who is distinct in three Subsistances or Persons, called, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, who are three in person; and again, they three are one, not in person, but in na∣ture. By Nature is meant, a thing subsisting by it self, that is common to many: By Person is meant, a thing or essence subsisting by it self, not common to many, but incommunicable. In this Mystery of the Trinity, the Divine Nature is the Godhead it self, simply and absolutely considered; and a Person is that which subsisteth in this Godhead, as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. If any man would conceive in minde rightly the Divine Nature, he must conceive God or the Godhead absolutely; if any of the Persons, then he must conceive the same Godhead rela∣tively, with Personal properties. Thus the Godhead considered, with the propriety of Fatherhood or Begetting, is the Father; and conceiving the same Godhead, with the propriety of Generation passively taken, we conceive the Son; and the same Godhead, with the propriety of Proceeding, we conceive the Holy Ghost. Neither may it seem strange to any, that the names of Nature and Person are used to set forth this Mystery by, for they have been taken up by common consent in the Pri∣mitive Church, and are contained in the Scriptures, Heb. 1.3. Gal. 4.8.
This Mystery may well be conceived by a Comparison borrowed from Light: The light of the Sun, the light of the Moon, and the light of the Air, for nature and substance are all one and the same light; and yet they are three distinct lights: The light of the Sun being of it self, and from none; the light of the Moon from the Sun; and the light of the Air from them both: So the Divine Nature is one, and the Persons are three, subsisting after a diverse maner in one and the same Nature. The three Persons are one, not simply, but one in Nature; that is, Coessential, or Consubstantial, having all one Godhead, because there is one God and no more in Nature; considering that the thing which is Infinite, is but one, and is not subject to multiplication. And as these three Persons are one in Nature, so whatsoever agrees to God, simply considered, agrees to them all three: They are all Coequal and Coeternal; All most Wise, Just, Merciful, Omnipotent, by one and the same Wisdom, Justice, Mercy, Power. And because they have all one Godhead, there∣fore they are not onely one with another, but also each in other, the Father in the Son, the Son in the Father, and the Holy Ghost in them both: And we must not imagine that these three are one God in this sense, as though the Father had one part of the Godhead, the Son another part, and the Holy Ghost a third; for that