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

I put not the Question about three Persons; both because I will not, in so short a Discourse as I intend to make this, be engaged in discussing the unagreed Notion of a Person; and because the Scripture lays not that Necessity ⟨p. 2⟩upon me, (tho' I do not think the use of that term, in this affair, either blameable or indefensible.)

But I shall enquire whether the Father, the Son (or Word) and the Holy Ghost cannot possibly admit of sufficient distinction from one another to answer the parts and purposes severally assigned them by the Scripture, in the Christian Economy, and yet be each of them God, consistently with this most inviolable and indubitable truth [that there can be but one God.]

But I shall enquire whether the Father, the Son (or Word) and the Holy Ghost cannot possibly admit of sufficient distinction from one another to answer the parts and purposes severally assigned them by the Scripture, in the Christian Oeconomy, and yet be each of them God, consistently with this most inviolable and indubitable truth [that there can be but one God.]

This Author concludes it to be impossible in the mentioned Pages of his Discourse, and thereupon seems to judg it Necessary that two of them be excluded the Godhead, as many others (some going the Arian, some the Photinian, more lately called the Socinian way) have done before him. He acknowledges pag. 30. col. 1. there may be [some Secret revealed by God, because it was above Humane Capacity to discover it; and sometimes ⟨p. 3⟩also to comprehend how it can be] But adds [there is a vast difference between my not being able to conceive how a thing should be, and a clear apprehension, and sight that it cannot be.] What he says thus far is unexceptionable, and I heartily concur with him in it.