A calm and sober enquiry concerning the possibility of a Trinity in the Godhead…

But if we are sure that there are temporal unions (i. e. begun in time) as in our selves for instance, of two substances that make but one man, and in our Saviour an humane nature and divine that make but one Emmanuel. How do we know but that there may be three in the Godhead that make but one God? And the rather, because this being supposed, it must also be supposed that they are necessarily and eternally united, and with a conjunct natural impossibility of ever being, or having been otherwise, whereof the absolute immutability of God must upon that supposition most certainly assure us. And such a supposed union will be most remote from making the Deity an aggregate. And for any thing of composition, I reckon we are most strictly bound to believe every thing of the most perfect simplicity of the Divine Being which his Word informs us ⟨p. 115⟩of, and to assent to every thing that is with plain evidence demonstrable of it. But not every thing which the Schools would impose upon us, without such testimony or evidence. For as none can know the things of a Man, but the Spirit of Man which is in him, so nor can any know the things of God, but the Spirit of God. Nor can I think the Argument concluding from the imperfection of a Being, in which distinct things concur that were separate, or are de novo united, to the imperfection of a being, in which things some way distinct are necessarily and eternally self-united. Nor can therefore agree with W. J. that we are to look (universally) upon real distinction as a mark of separability; or that clear and distinct conception is to us the rule of partibility. For tho' I will not affirm that to be the state of all created Spirits; yet I cannot deny it to be possible that God might have created such a being, as should have in it distinct (assignable) parts, all of them essential to it, and ⟨p. 116⟩not separable from it without the cessation of the whole. But now, as the accession of the humane Nature to the divine in the hypostatical union infers no imperfection to the divine, so much less would what things we may suppose naturally, necessarily, and eternally united in the Godhead infer any imperfection therein.

But if we are sure that there are temporal unions (i. e. begun in time) as in our selves for instance, of two substances that make but one man, and in our Saviour an humane nature and divine that make but one Emmanuel. How do we know but that there may be three in the Godhead that make but one God? And the rather, because this being supposed, it must also be supposed that they are necessarily and eternally united, and with a conjunct natural impossibility of ever being, or having been otherwise, whereof the absolute immutability of God must upon that supposition most certainly assure us. And such a supposed union will be most remote from making the Deity an aggregate. And for any thing of composition, I reckon we are most strictly bound to believe every thing of the most perfect simplicity of the Divine Being which his Word informs us