A brief declaration and vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity as also of…

There are indeed very many other ⟨p. 114⟩things that are taught, and disputed, about this Doctrine of the trinity, as the manner of the eternal Generation of the Son, of the Essence of the Father; of the procession of the Holy Ghost, and the difference of it from the Generation of the Son; of the mutual in-being of the persons, by reason of their unity in the same Substance or Essence; the nature of their personal subsistence, with respect unto the properties whereby they are mutually distinguished, all which are true and defensible against all the Sophisms of the Adversaries of this truth. Yet because the distinct apprehension of them, and their accurate expression, is not necessary unto faith, as it is our guide and principle in and unto▪ Religious Worship and obedience, they need not here be insisted on. Nor are those brief Explications themselves before mentioned, so proposed as to be placed immediately in the same rank or order with the Original Revelations before insisted on, but ⟨p. 115⟩only are pressed as proper Expressions of what is revealed to increase our light and further our edification. And although they cannot rationally be opposed or denied, nor ever were by any, but such as deny and oppose the things themselves as revealed, yet they that do so deny or oppose them, are to be required positively in the first place to deny or disapprove the Oneness of the Deity, or to prove that the Father, or Son, or Holy Ghost in particular, are not God, before they be allowed to speak one word against the manner of the Explication of the truth concerning them. For either they grant the Revelation declared and contended for, or they do not: If they do; let that concession be first laid down, namely, that the Father, Son, and Spirit are one God; and then let it be debated whether they are one in Substance and three in Persons, or how else the matter is to be stated. If they deny it; it is a plain madness to dispute of the manner of any thing, ⟨p. 116⟩and the way of expressing it, whilst the thing it self is denied to have a being: for of that which is not, there is neither manner, property, adjunct, nor effect. Let then such persons, as this sort of men are ready to attempt with their Sophistry, and to amuse with cavils about persons, substances, subsistences, and the like, desire to know of them what it is that they would be at. What would they deny, what would they disapprove.