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.

This is just what I have said, p. 116.  Whether Sabellianism or Tritheism, I observed is hard to determine.  Extremes meet.

Ib. p. 121.

Secondly, to this ‘homo-ousiotes’ the Fathers added a numerical unity of the divine essence.  This Petavius has proved at large by numerous testimonies, even from those very Fathers, whom he before accused for making God only collectively one, as three men are one man; such as Gregory Nyssen, St. Cyril, Maximus, Damascen; which is a demonstration, that however ‘he might mistake’ their explication of it, from the unity of human nature, they were far enough from Tritheism, or one collective God.

This is most uncandid.  Sherlock, even to be consistent with his own confession, Sec. 1. p. 120, ought to have said, “However he might mistake their ‘intention’, in consequence of their inconvenient and unphilosophical explication;” which mistake, in fact, consisted in taking them at their word.

Ib.

Petavius greatly commends Boethius’s explication of this mystery, which is the very same he had before condemned in Gregory Nyssen, and those other Fathers.—­That Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, not three Gods:  ‘hujus conjunctionis ratio est indifferentia’:  that is, such a sameness of nature as admits of no difference or variety, or an exact ‘homo-ousiotes’, as he explains it. * * Those make a difference, who augment and diminish, as the Arians do; who distinguish the Trinity into different natures, as well as Persons, of different worth and excellency, and thus divide and multiply the Trinity into a plurality of Gods.  ’Principium enim pluralitatis alteritas est.  Praeter alteritatem enim nec pluralitas quid sit intelligi potest’.

Then if so, what becomes of the Persons?  Have the Persons attributes distinct from their nature;—­or does not their common nature constitute their common attributes?  ‘Principium enim, &c.’

Ib. p. 124.

That the Fathers universally acknowledged that the operation of the whole Trinity, ‘ad extra’, is but one, Petavius has proved beyond all contradiction; and hence they conclude the unity of the divine nature and essence; for every nature has a virtue and energy of its own; for nature is a principle of action, and if the energy and operation be but one, there can be but one nature; and if there be two distinct and divided operations, if either of them can act alone without the other, there must be two divided natures.

Then it was not the Son but the whole Trinity that was crucified:  for surely this was an operation ‘ad extra’.