This will make very foul work with the Fathers, if we
charge them with all those erroneous conceits about the Trinity, which
we can fancy in their inconvenient ways of explaining that venerable
mystery, especially when they compare that mysterious unity with any
natural unions.
So that after all this obscuration of the obscure, Sherlock ends by
fairly throwing up his briefs, and yet calls out, "Not guilty!
'Victoria'!" And what is this but to say: These Fathers did indeed
involve Tritheism in their mode of defending the Tri-personality; but
they were not Tritheists:--though it would be far more accurate to say,
that they were Tritheists, but not so as to make any practical breach of
the Unity;--as if, for instance, Peter, James, and John had three silver
tickets, by shewing one of which either or all three would have the same
thing as if they had shewn all three tickets, and 'vice versa', all
three tickets could produce no more than each one; each corresponding to
the whole.
Ib.
I am sure St. Gregory was so far from suspecting that he should be
charged with Tritheism upon this account, that he fences against
another charge of mixing and confounding the 'Hypostases' or Persons,
by denying any difference or diversity of nature, [Greek: hos ek tou
mae dechesthai taen kata physin diaphoran, mixin tina ton hypostaseon
kai anakuklaesin kataskeuzonta], which argues that he thought he had
so fully asserted the unity of the divine essence, that some might
suspect he had left but one Person, as well as one nature in God.
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