What makes
him so zealous then against saying, that Peter, James and John are
three men? Only this; that he says man is the name of nature, and
therefore to say there are three men is the same as to say, there are
three human natures of a different kind; for if there are three human
natures, they must differ from each other, or they cannot be three;
and so you deny Peter, James, and John to be [Greek: homoousioi], or
of the same nature; and for the same reason we must say that though
the Father be God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, yet there are
not three Gods, but [Greek: mia theotaes], one Godhead and Divinity.
Sherlock struggles in vain, in my opinion at least, to clear these
Fathers of egregious logomachy, whatever may have been the soundness of
their faith, spite of the quibbles by which they endeavoured to evince
its rationality. The very change of the terms is suspicious. "Yes! we
might say three Gods" (it would be answered,) "as we say and ought to
say three men: for man and humanity, [Greek: anthropos] and [Greek:
anthropotaes] are not the same terms;--so if the Father be God, the Son
God, and the Holy Ghost God, there would be three Gods, though not
[Greek: treis theotaetes],--that is, three Godheads."
Ib. p. 115-16.
Gregory Nyssen tells us that [Greek: theos] is [Greek: theataes] and
[Greek: ephoros], the inspector and governor of the world, that is, it
is a name of energy, operation and power; and if this virtue, energy,
and operation be the very same in all the Persons of the Trinity,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, then they are but one God, but one power
and energy.
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