Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/192

8 like loading a table with food, when men have satisfied their appetites.

When it is said that father, son, and holy ghost are three essentials of one God, it appears to human reason as if those three essentials were three distinct persons, which yet cannot possibly be true; but when it is understood that the divinity of the father, which constituteth the soul, and the divinity of the son, which constituteth the body, and the divinity of the holy ghost, or the divine-proceeding, which constituteth operation, are three essentials of one God, this the understanding can apprehend. For there is a peculiar divinity of nature in God the father, in the son derived from the father, and in the holy ghost proceeding from both, which being of the same essence, and the same mind, constitute together one God. But if those three divine natures are called persons, and have each of them their particular attributes allotted them, as when imputation is ascribed to the father, mediation to the son, and operation to the holy ghost, in this case the divine essence is divided, which yet is one, and individual, and thus none of the three is God in perfect fulness, but each in subtriplicate power, which is a conceit that every sober and sensible man must of necessity reject.

How plain therefore is it to discern a trinity in the Lord by a trinity discernible in every individual man! For in every individual man there is a soul, a body, and operation; and so it is also with respect to the Lord, inasmuch as in him, as Paul saith, dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily, Coloss. ii. 9. Wherefore the trinity in the Lord is divine, but in man it is human. How plain also is it to see, that in this mystery, representing three divine persons, and yet but one God, and this one God not as one person; reason hath nothing to do, but is lulled to sleep, still compelling the mouth to speak like a parrot without meaning!