Later Unitarians in Christianity 231The term 'being' may be predicated of every thing,
and therefore of each of the three persons in the trinity.
For to say that Christ, for instance, is God, but that there
is no being, no substance to which His attributes may
be referred, would be manifestly absurd; and therefore
when it is said that each of these persons is by himself
God, the meaning must be that the Father, separately
considered, has a being; that the Son, separately con
sidered, has a being, and likewise that the Holy Spirit,
separately considered, has a being. Here then are no less
than three beings, as well as three persons, and what
can these three beings be but three Gods, without sup
posing that there are 'three co-ordinate persons, or three
Fathers, three Sons, or three Holy Ghosts?'
Ifthis mysterious power of generation be peculiar to
the Father, why does it not still operate? Is He not an
unchangeable being, the same now that He was from
the beginning, His perfections the same, and His power
of contemplating them the same? Why then are not more
sons produced? Has He become incapable of this gen
eration, as the orthodox Fathers used to ask, or does it
depend upon His will and pleasure whether He will
exert this power of generation? If so, is not the Son as
much a creature, depending on the will of the Creator,
as anything else produced by Him, though in another
manner; and this whether he be of the same substance
with Him, or not?
It must also be asked in what manner the third per
son of the trinitywas produced.Was it by the joint exer
tion of the first two, in the contemplation of their re
spective perfections? If so, why does not the same op
eration in them produce a fourth and so on?
Admitting, however, this strange account of the
generation of the trinity, that the personal existence of
the Son necessarily flows from the intellect of the Fa
ther exerted on itself; itcertainly implies a virtual prior
ity, or superiority in the Father with respect to the Son;
and no being can be properly God, who has any supe
rior. In short, this scheme effectually overturns the doc
trine of the proper equality, as well as the unity of the
three persons in the trinity.