But the former is true and therefore the latter must be so too The Proposition is proved thus Nothing which together with the Body Constitutes a Person is or can be it self a Person For if it be then the Body must be joyned to it either by being assumed into the Personal Subsistence of the Soul as the Human Nature of Christ is assumed into the Personal Subsistence of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereupon the Composition and Constitution of a Man will be an Hypostatick Union between Soul and Body which I suppose no body will be either so bold or absurd as to affirm all Divines accounting an Hypostatical Union so peculiar to Christ's Person as not to be admitted in any other Person or Being whatsoever For an Hypostatick Union and an Hypostatick Composition viz. Such an one as makes a Compound Hypostasis are quite different things and this Author shall in due time be taught so much if he has any thing to object against it Or Secondly The Body must be joyned with the Soul as one part joyntly concurring with another to the Composition of the whole Person And if so then the Soul being a Part cannot possibly be a Person Forasmuch as a Part is an Incomplete Being and therefore in the very Nature of it being designed for the Completion of something else must subsist in and by the Subsistence of the whole But a Person imports the most complete Degree and Mode of Being as Subsisting wholly by it self and not in or by any other either as a Subject of Inherence or Dependence So that it is a direct Contradiction to the very Definition and Nature of the Thing for the same Being to be a Part and a Person too And consequently that which makes the Soul the former does irrefragably prove it not to be the other Besides if the Soul in the Composition of a Man's person were an entire person it self and as such concurred with the Body towards the Constitution of the Man then a Man would be an Imperfect Accidental and not a Perfect Natural Compound He would be that which Philosophy calls Unum per Accidens that is a thing made up of two such Beings as cannot perfectly coalesce and unite into one For a Complete Being as every Person essentially is having received the utmost degree of Subsistence which its Nature can give it if it comes afterward to be compounded with another Being whether Complete or Incomplete it must necessarily make such a loose unnatural Union and Composition But to assert That the person of a Man is such a Compound would be exploded by all who understood any thing of Natural Philosophy So that it would be a very idle thing to attempt any further Confutation of it Let this Author overthrow these Reasonings and support his Assertion against them if he can But having thus disproved the Personality of the Soul while in Conjunction with the Body I go on to disprove it also while in a state of Separation from it Which I do thus If the Soul in such a state be a Person then it is either the same Person which the Man himself was while he was living and in the Body or it is another Person But to Assert either of them is extreamly Absurd and therefore equally Absurd That the Soul in such a state should be a Person And First It is Absurd to affirm it to be the same Person For a Person compounded of Soul and Body as a Man is and a simple uncompounded Person as the Soul if a Person at all must needs be can never be numerically one and the same For that differing from one another as Simple and Compound they differ as two things whereof one implies a Contradiction and Negation of the other A Compound as such including in it several parts compounding it And a simple Being utterly excluding all Parts and Composition So that if a Man while alive be one Person and his Soul after his Death be a Person too it is impossible for the Soul to be one and the same Person with the Man And then for the other part of the Disjunction To Assert That they are two distinct Persons is as Absurd as the other as drawing after it this Consequence viz. That it is one Person who lives well or ill in this World to wit the Man Himself while he was personally in the Body and another Person who passes out of the Body into Heaven or Hell there to be rewarded or punished at least till the Resurrection for what that other Person had done well or ill here upon Earth And does not this look mightily agreeable to all the Principles of Reason and Divinity Nevertheless so much is certain That wheresoever there are two distinct Persons we do and must by all the Rules of Grammar and Logick say That one of them is not the other and where one is not the other we cannot in Truth or Justice say That one ought to account for what was done or not done by the other But then if it be intolerably Absurd as no doubt it is That the Soul in the other World should not be responsible for what the Man himself in Person had done in this then it is altogether as Absurd and Intolerable for any one to represent and speak of these Things under such Terms and Notions as must necessarily throw all Discourse and Reasoning about them into Paradox and Confusion But 't is needless to insist any longer upon a thing so clear or to add any other Arguments in so plain a Case And indeed to me the Soul 's thus changing its state forwards and backwards from one manner of Subsistence to another looks very odd and unnatural As that from an Incomplete state in the Body it should pass to a Personal and Complete state out of the Body which state is yet preternatural to it and then fall back into an Incomplete state again by its re-union to the Body at the Resurrection which yet one would think should rather improve our principal parts in all respects not merely relating to the Animal Life as the bare Subsistence of them I am sure does not These things I say seem very uncouth and improbable and such as ought not without manifest Necessity to be allowed of which here does not appear since all this Inconvenience may be avoided by holding That the Soul continues but a Part of the whole Person and no more in all its Conditions And thus having proved our Assertion against the Personality of the Soul Whether in the Body or out of it let us now see what may be opposed to it And here I suppose some will object That the Soul in a state of Separation is not properly a Part forasmuch as it exists not in any Compound nor goes to the Composition of it To which I answer That an Actual Inexistence in a Compound is not the onely Condition which makes a Thing a Part but its Essential Relation to a Compound
is an act of Intellection and so must issue from an Intellective Faculty which the Body is not endued with and therefore cannot act by and withal every act of the Will is only an Intelligible and not a sensible Object and consequently cannot be otherwise apprehended and perceived than intellectually And as for the Commands of it a Command operates and moves only by way of moral Causation viz. by being first known by the Thing or Agent which it is directed to which thereupon by such a Knowledge of it is induced to move or Act accordingly But now the Will does not thus Act upon the Body the Body having no Principle whereby to know or understand what it Commands And therefore when we say That the Will Commands the Body in strictness of Truth it is only a Metaphorical Expression For the Will or Soul exerting an Act of Volition moves the Body not by Command but by Physical Impulse That is to say It does by its native Force Energy and Activity first move and impell the Spirits and by the instrumental Mediation of them so moved and impelled it moves and impells the Body and this by as real an Impulse as when I push or thrust a thing with my hand For though indeed a material Thing cannot actively or efficiently move or work upon an Immaterial yet Philosophers grant that an Immaterial as being of the nobler and more active Nature can move impell or work upon a Material and if we cannot form in our Minds an Idea of the Mechanism of this Motion it is because neither can we form in our Minds an Idea of a Spirit But nevertheless Reason and Discourse will Evince That the Thing must be so PARADOX He tells us That the Human Nature of Christ may be Ignorant of some things notwithstanding its personal Union to the Divine Word because it is an Inferiour and Subject Nature Page 270. Line 12 13 14. Answer These Words also are both absurd and false And First They are Absurd because no Rules of Speaking or Arguing permit us to say of any Thing or Person That it may be so or so when necessarily it is and must be so For the Term may imports an Indifference or at least a possibility to both sides of the Contradiction So that when a Man says That a Thing may be thus or thus he does by consequence say also That it may not be thus or thus And therefore to say That the Human Nature of Christ notwithstanding its personal Union to the Word may be ignorant of some Things when it cannot but be ignorant of some nay of very many Things is Absurd And in the next place also To make the Subjection of the Human Nature to the Divine the proper Cause of this Ignorance is false and the Assignation of a non causa pro causâ It being all one as if I should say That such an one cannot be a good Disputant because he has a blemish in his Eye For it is not this Subjection of it to the Divine Nature that makes it ignorant of many Things known by that Nature but the vast disparity that is between these Two Natures viz. That one of them is Infinite the other Finite which makes it impossible for the Infinite to communicate its whole Knowledge to the Finite Forasmuch as such a Knowledge exceeds its Capacity and cannot be received into it so as to exist or abide in it any more than Omnipotence or Omnipresence or any other Infinite Divine Perfection can be lodged in a Finite Being And besides this this very Author in the immediately foregoing Page had not only allowed but affirmed That the Body which certainly is both united to the Soul and of a Nature Subject and Inferiour to it was yet conscious to the Dictates and Commands of the Soul Wherefore where Two Natures are united the bare Subjection of one to the other is not the proper Cause that the Nature which is Subject is ignorant of what is known by the Nature which it is subject to For if Subjection were the sole and proper Cause of this Ignorance the Inferiour Nature would be equally ignorant of every Thing known by the Superiour which yet according to this Man 's own Doctrine of the Consciousness of the Body to the Soul is not so This Consideration I alledge only as an Argument ad hominem having already by the former Argument sufficiently proved the falseness of his Assertion But I shall detain my Reader no longer upon this Subject though I must assure him that I have given him but a Modicum and as it were an handful or two out of that full heap which I had before me and from which I had actually collected several more Particulars which I have not here presented him with being unwilling to swell my Work to too great a Bulk Nevertheless I look upon this Head of Discourse as so very useful to place this Author in a true Light that if I might be so bold with my Reader I could wish that he would vouchsafe this Chapter of all the rest a second Perusal upon which I dare undertake that it will leave in him such Impressions concerning this Man's fitness to Write about the Trinity as will not wear out of his Mind in haste And yet after all this I will not presume to derogate from this Author's Abilities how insolently soever he has trampled upon other Mens but content my self that I have fairly laid that before the Reader by which he may take a just and true measure of them And so I shall conclude this Chapter with an Observation which I have upon several occasions had cause to make viz. That Divinity and Philosophy are certainly the worst Things in the World for any One to be Magisterial in who does not understand them CHAP. X. In which the Author 's Grammatical and such like Mistakes as they are found here and there in his Writings are set down and remarked upon COuld this Author have carried himself with any or dinary degree of Candor and Civility towards those whom he wrote against he had never had the least Trouble given him by me upon this Head of Discourse But when I find him treating Learned Men with so much Disdain and Insolence and much liker a rough ill-bred School-Master domineering over his Boys than a fair Opponent entring the Lists with an Ingenuous Antagonist I must confess I cannot think my self obliged to treat him upon such Terms as I would an Adversary of a contrary Temper and Behaviour One Man and a very Learned one too he flirts at as if he could not distinguish between Conjunctive and Disjunctive Particles Vindication of his Case of Allegiance pag. 76. the Two last Lines Another he Scoffs or rather Spits at as neither understanding Greek nor Latine Vindic. Trin. Pag. 95. Line 25. and thereby I suppose would bear himself to the World as no small Critick in both As for the Socinians of which number this latter is
Self-Consciousness be the Reason of Personality in Finite Persons And II. Whether it be so in Infinite And First For Finite or Created Spirits I deny Self-Consciousness to be the formal Reason of Personality in these And before I give my Reasons against it I shall premise this one Consideration viz. That wheresoever the formal Reason of Personality is there is Personality And again That wheresoever Personality is there is the formal Reason of Personality viz. That they exist Convertibly and that one Mutually and Essentially infers the other Now this premised and laid down my Reasons why I deny Self-Consciousness to be the formal Reason of Personality in Finite or Created Beings are these 1. Argument According to the Natural Order of Things Self-Consciousness in Persons pre-supposes their Personality and therefore is not cannot be the Reason of it The Argument I conceive is very plain For whatsoever pre-supposes a Thing is in Order of Nature Posterior and Subsequent to the Thing so pre-supposed by it and again on the other hand the formal Reason of any Thing is in Order of Nature precedent to that Thing of which it is the Reason We will therefore prove the Major Proposition And we do it thus Personality is the Ground and Principle of all Action wheresoever it is For where there is a Suppositum whether it be Rational which is another word for Person or not still it is the whole Suppositum which Acts. So that there must be a Person before there can be an Act or Action proceeding from or attributable to a Person In a word there must be a Person in Being before any Action issues from him and therefore the Act must essentially and necessarily pre-suppose the Person for the Agent But now Self-Consciousness does not only do this but which is more it also pre-supposes another Act Antecedent to it self For it is properly and formally a Reflex Act upon the Acts Passions or Motions of the Person whom it belongs to So that according to the Nature of the Thing there is not only a Person but also an Action which is and must be Subsequent to a Person that is Antecedent to Self-Consciousness which being a Reflex Act must needs in Order of Nature be Posterior to the Act reflected upon by it And therefore Self-Consciousness which is by two degrees Posterior to Personality cannot possibly be the formal Reason of it This I look upon as a Demonstration of the Point And I leave it to our Author who is better a great deal at scorning the Schools than at confuting them to answer and overthrow it at his leisure 2. Our Second Argument is this The Humanity or Humane Nature of Christ is perfectly Conscious to it self of all the Internal Acts whether of Knowledge Volition Passion or Desire that pass in it or belong to it and yet the Humanity or Humane Nature of Christ is not a Person and consequently Self-Consciousness is not the proper formal Reason of Personality forasmuch as it may be in that which is no Person That the Humane Nature of Christ is thus Self-Conscious is evident since it has all the Principles and Powers of Self-reflection upon its own Acts whereby it intimately knows it self to do what it does and to be what it is which are in any particular Man whatsoever so that if any Man be Conscious to himself of these things the Humane Nature of Christ which has the same Operative Powers in perfection and those essentially proper to and inseparable from it self which the rest of Mankind are endued with must needs be so too And then as for the Assumption That the Humane Nature of Christ is not a Person is no less evident Since it is taken into and subsists in and by the Personality of the second Person of the Trinity and therefore can have no distinct Personality of its own unless we will with Nestorius assert two Persons in Christ an Humane and a Divine And the Truth is If Self-Consciousness were the formal Reason of Personality since there are two destinct Self-Consciousnesses in Christ no less than two distinct Wills an Humane and a Divine viz. One in each Nature I cannot see how upon this Author's Hypothesis to keep off the Assertion of Nestorius That there are Two distinct Persons in him also 3. My Third Argument against the same shall be taken from the Soul of Man in a state of separation from the Body And it is this The Soul in its separate Estate is Conscious to it self of all its own Internal Acts or Motions whether of Knowledge Passion or Desire and yet the Soul in such an Estate is not a Person And therefore Self-Consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality for if it were it would and must Constitute a Person wheresoever it was Now that the Soul in its separate Estate is thus Self-Conscious I suppose no body will pretend to deny but such as hold a Psychopannychisme viz. such a dormant Estate as renders it void of all Vital Motion or Action during its separation from the Body But this being an Errour which few now a-days think worth owning neither shall I think worth the disproving But for the Minor Proposition That the Soul in its separate Estate is not a Person In this I expect to find some Adversaries and particularly our Author himself who expresly affirms That the Soul in such a separate Estate is a Person Pag. 262. A Soul says he without a Vital Union to an Humane Body is a Person Nor does he bestow the Name and Nature of a Person upon the Soul only as separate from but also as shall be afterwards made appear as it is joyned with the Body which Assertion of his together with some others of near Affinity with it shall in due place be examined by themselves At present in Confirmation of my Argument I shall produce my Reasons against the Personality of the Soul held by this Author and in order to it shall lay down this Conclusion in direct Opposition to his viz. That the Soul of Man is not a Person And since as we have noted he holds that it is so both in its Conjunction with the Body and its separation from it I shall bring my Arguments against the Personality of it in both And First I shall prove That the Soul while joyned to and continuing in the Body is not a Person and as a Ground-work of the proof thereof I shall only premise this one Thing as a Truth acknowledged on all Hands viz. That the Soul and Body together constitute the Person of a Man The same being plainly Asserted in the Athanasian Creed where it tells us That the Reasonable Soul and Flesh is one Man or one Human Person for both signifie but the same Thing which being thus laid down as a Thing certain and confessed I Argue thus If the Soul and Body in Conjunction constitute the Person of a Man then the Soul in such a Conjunction is not a Person
Action of Battery against them who certainly has a Pate to break as well as Priscian and is as sensible of hard usage how patiently soever he has took it hitherto at this Author's hands But to give the said Author his due he is not so much a Slave to his word as to speak the same Thing in all places of his Book For to quote his own Authority though of little value but when brought against himself in page 62. of this very Tract he has these words A Person says he and an Intelligent Substance are Reciprocal Terms And are they so Why how then comes a Beast in page 269. to be a Person Is a Beast an Intelligent Substance Or can a Beast be a Person and yet not an Intelligent Substance when he affirms That they are Terms Reciprocal If I have not quoted this Author fairly and justly let the Advantage be his and the shame mine But if I have then let all the Learned and Impartial World which I appeal to judge whether one who talks thus Ignorantly and Self-Contradictiously about the Nature of a Person be fit to prescribe to the whole Church New Terms and Models never heard of before to explicate the Persons of the Sacred Trinity by But the Truth is the distance between the 69. and the 262. pages was so great and the Contradictions which passed within that compass so Numerous that how gross and bulky soever this one might be yet with the help of a little good luck it might well escape the Author's Eye in such a Crowd And perhaps it had been never the worse luck for the Author Himself if it could as easily have escaped the Reader 's Eye too And now to sum up in short the Chief Heads of what has been treated of in this Chapter I have proved against this Author That Self-Consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality in Created Beings And that first by an Argument drawn from the very Nature of the Thing For that Self-Consciousness presupposes Personality and therefore cannot be the formal Reason of it As also from two Notable Instances One of the Humanity or Humane Nature of Christ. The other of the Soul of Man in its state of Separation from the Body Both of which I have shewn to be perfectly Self-Conscious of all the Internal Acts Motions and Passions respectively belonging to each of them and yet that they were neither of them Persons And pursuant to this Subject I have by clear and solid Reasons overthrown the pretended Personality of the Soul both in a state of Conjunction with the Body and of Disjunction from it which in both is asserted by this Author And Lastly I have examined his Absurd Unphilosophical Assertions about these Matters in one whereof he ascribes a Personality even to Beasts themselves By all which it is but too manifest against this Assuming big-talking Man that as loftily as he carries it yet in very Deed and Truth he does not understand what those Terms Suppositum and Subsistence Person and Personality mean So fit is he as I have said to treat of the Divine Persons of the God-head whom yet he has made so bold with And here I should judge it high time to conclude this Chapter but that methinks it is pity to leave this fine Trim Notion of Self-Consciousness so without taking a little further View of the Curious Artifice and admirable Contrivance of so rare a production For if it were not such could this Author vaunt of it at such a rate as he does pleasing himself and proclaming his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as upon an Invention forsooth which all Antiquity before him could never yet reach to Nevertheless to deal clearly and plainly amongst Friends such a Cheating Lurching thing does this Expectation usually prove that after all these Pompous Shews and Glorious Boasts of Self-Consciousness Self-Consciousness ushered in with twenty Encomium's at least like so many Heralds or Tip-staves or rather Yeomen of the Guard marching before it yet in Truth after all this noise it is like an Owl stripp'd of its Feathers but a very Mean Meagre Ordinary Thing being in down-right Terms neither more nor less than only one Property of a Rational or Intelligent Being by vertue whereof the Soul is as the Schools express it Supra se Reflexiva that is to say Able by a Reflex Act of Knowledge intimately to know and consider it self and its own Being together with its own Acts Motions and Operations This is the Sum Total of the Matter and all that Self-Consciousness is or can truly pretend to be And which is yet a further Diminution to it as poor and mean a Notion as it is it is Borrowed too But you will say From whom Why Even from Honest Des Cartes and his Cogito ergo sum Only with this unhappy difference in the Application of it That this Proposition which Des Cartes lays as the Basis and Ground-work of his Philosophy our Author places with its Heels upwards in his Divinity For whereas Des Cartes insists upon Cogitation only to prove and infer Being as one would prove a Cause from its Effects or rather an Antecedent from its Consequent Our Author on the contrary makes Cogitation the very Cause and Principle of Being and Subsistence by making it the formal Constituent Reason of Personality in the Person who Thinks or Reflects than which nothing can be more false and ridiculous And this according to the Truest and most Philosophical Account of the Thing is the very utmost which this New and so much bragg'd of Notion amounts to And I do hereupon Challenge this Author to prove these two Things if he can First That the Self-Consciousness hitherto spoken of by him is any Thing more than a bare Property of an Intelligent Being whereby it reflects upon it self and its own Thoughts and Actions And in the next place That such a Property does or can Constitute the Being or Nature which it flows from and belongs to properly a Person These two things I say I call upon him to prove and if he does not by dint of Argument make them good he exposes a poor senceless infant Hypothesis to the wide World and then very unmercifully leaves it to shift for it self In fine I cannot but again and again own my Amazement at the Confidence of some bold presuming Men who set up for Enlightners of the Church and new Modellers of Divinity in the strength of some odd upstart Notions which yet are not able to acquit or support themselves upon and much less against the very first Elements and Principles of a long tryed and never yet baffled Philosophy CHAP. IV. In which is proved against this Author That neither is Self-Consciousness the formal Reason of Personality in the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity nor Mutual-Consciousness the Reason of their Unity in one and the same Nature HAving thus examined and as I think overthrown our Author's Notion of Self-Consciousness with reference to
Men of whom alone we now speak both an Act of Knowledge and of Self-reflection too may be without an Act of Love consequent thereupon And if the former may be without the latter then they are not inseparably united as this Author here says they are PARADOX He says That Love is a distinct Act and therefore in God must be a Person P. 133. Answ. If this be a true and good Consequence then the Ground and Reason of it must be This That every distinct Act in God is and must be a distinct Person And if so then every Decree in God whether it be his Decree of Election or of Reprobation if there be such an one or of creating the World and sending Christ into it and at last of destroying it and the like are each of them so many Persons For every Divine Decree is an Act of God and an Immanent Act too as resting within him and as such not passing forth to any Thing without Him that Maxim of the Schools being most true that Decreta nihil ponunt in esse Nor is this all but most of the Divine Acts are free also so that there was nothing in the Nature of them to hinder but that they equally might or might not have been which applied to the Divine Persons would make strange work in Divinity In the mean time if this Author will maintain this Doctrin viz. That Acts and Persons are the same in God as I think he ought in all Reason to maintain the immediate consequences of his own Assertion I dare undertake that here he will stand alone again and that he is the only Divine who ever owned or defended such wretched Stuff PARADOX These three Powers of Understanding Self-reflection and Self-Love are one Mind viz. in Created Spirits of which alone he here speaks adding in the very next words What are mere Faculties and Powers in Created Spirits are Persons in the Godhead c. Pag. 135. at the latter end Answer This is a very gross Absurdity and to make it appear so I do here tell him That the Three foremention'd Powers are no more one Mind than three Qualities are one Substance and that very Term Powers might have taught him as much Potentia and Impotentia making one Species of Quality under which all Powers and Faculties are placed So that his three powers of Understanding Self-Reflection and Self-Love are one only Unitate Subjecti as being subjected in one and the same Mind but not unitate Essentiae as Essentially differing both from one another and from the Mind it self too in which they are Certainly if this Man did not look upon himself as above all Rules of Logick and Philosophy he would never venture upon such absurd Assertions PARADOX He tells us That the Son and Holy Ghost Will and Act with the Father not the Father with the Son and the Holy Ghost Pag. 169. Line 13 14 c. Answ. This is a direct Contradiction For if the Son and Holy Ghost Will and Act with the Father the Father must Will and Act with the Son and the Holy Ghost And he who can find a distinct sense in these two Propositions and much more affirm the first and deny the latter has a better Faculty at distinguishing than any Mortal Man using his Sense and Reason will pretend to It being all one as if I should say I saw Thomas William and John together of whom William and John were in the Company of Thomas but Thomas was not in the Company of William and John And I challenge any sensible thinking Man to make better sense of this Author 's fore-mention'd Assertion if he can But this must not go alone without a further cast of his Nature by heightning it with another Contradiction too which you shall find by comparing it with pag. 188. line 4. where he affirms That Father Son and Holy Ghost act together having before expresly told us here That the Father does not will and act with the Son and Holy Ghost which very Assertion also to shew him the further fatal Consequences of it absolutely blows up and destroys his whole Hypothesis of Mutual Consciousness by destroying that upon which he had built it For if the Father may and does Will and Act without the Son and Holy Ghost then farewel to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for they must never be alledged in this Cause more PARADOX Nothing can make God visible but a personal Union to a visible Nature Page 234. Line 22 23. Answer This is a most false Assertion and directly contrary to Scripture And to prove it so I shall lay down these Four Conclusions First That the Godhead or Divine Nature neither is nor can be visible to a Corporeal Eye by an immediate sight or Intuition of the Godhead it self Secondly That God is visible to such an Eye only by the special Signs or Symbols of his Presence Thirdly That God is visible by a Body personally united to him only as the said Body is such a Sign or Symbol of his peculiar Presence And Fourthly and Lastly That a Body actually assumed by God for a Time is during that Time as true and visible a Symbol of his Presence as a Body or Nature personally united to him can be And thus it was that God appeared visibly to the Patriarchs in Old Time and particularly to Abraham to Gideon and to the Father and Mother of Sampson who thereupon thought that they should Die for having seen God Face to Face For generally all Interpreters hold the Person who thus appeared to have been the Second Person of the blessed Trinity the Eternal Son of the Father though sometimes called simply the Angel and sometimes the Angel of the Covenant from the Office he was then actually imployed in by his Father as the extraordinary Messenger and Reporter of his Mind to holy Men upon some great Occasions This supposed I desire this bold Author to tell me Whether the second Person of the Trinity God equal with the Father was personally united to the Body which he then appeared in or not If not then the forementioned Assertion That nothing can make God visible but a personal Union to a visible Nature falls shamefully to the Ground as utterly false But if he was personally united to it then these Paradoxes must follow 1. That he either laid down that assumed Body afterwards or he did not if he did then an Hypostatical Union with God may be dissolv'd and not only so but there may be also a thousand personal Unions one after another if God shall think fit to assume a Body and appear in it so often which would be contrary to the sense of all Divines and to all Principles of sound Divinity which own but one hypostatical Union and no more Or 2. He still retains an Union to that assumed Body and then there is a double hypostatical Union viz. One to the visible Body assumed by him in
viz. That there is nothing in the World that we perfectly understand And in order to this Let us bring and lay together what he Asserts in several places And here first in Page 7. line 20. c. It is agreed by all Men That the Essences of things cannot be known but only their Properties and Qualities and that the World is divided into Matter and Spirit and that we know no more what the substance of Matter than what the sâ—bstance of Spirit is And then he enumerates some of the Essential Properties of each and owns that we know them in Confirmation I suppose of his fore-going Assertion that we know nothing After which in Pag. 8. line 15. he adds As for the Essential Properties Operations and Powers of Matter Sence Experience and Observation will tell us what they are And then I hope we may know also what they are when Sence and Experience has told us So that we see here what our Author asserts But may we rely upon it and hold him to his Word Alas That I fear may prove something hard and unkind For a Man to whom a whole Convocation has given a large scope and liberty of thinking and who has given himself as large an one for speaking loves not of all things in the World to be held too strictly to what he says For in Page 4. line 25. reckoning up some of the Absurdities and Contradictions attending the Doctrine of Transubstantiation he tells us That we know them to be so because we know the Nature of a Body and this also we must suppose said in further Confirmation of his other Assertion that we know not the Nature of any thing and moreover That we know that such things as he there mentions are a Contradiction to the Essential Properties of a Body line 26. All this he says here and that in very plain terms But in Page 7. in which it is high time for a Man to forget what he said in the 4th He tells us That the Essences of things cannot be known and consequently one would think That the Essence of a Body could not be known And yet for one to know the nature of a Body which in Page 4. he says we do without knowing the Essence of it which in Page 7. he says we cannot know is I conceive a way of knowledge peculiar to this Author In the next place as for the property of things he tells us very positively in Page 8. line 33 34. That the Properties and Operations both of Bodies and Spirits are great Secrets and Mysteries in Nature which we understand nothing of c. And yet in Page 7. line 32. he tells us That we know the Essential Properties of a Spirit that it is a thinking substance with the Faculties of Understanding and Will c. Now to know the Essential Properties of a Spirit And yet for these Properties to be such Secrets and Mysteries in Nature that we understand nothing of them both which this Author expresly affirms in the compass of two Pages is another sort of knowledge which ought in all reason to be reckon'd peculiar to himself And thus having consider'd some of his Assertions in Contradiction to one another if there be any such thing as a Contradiction I will consider some of them severally by themselves And here as I have already shewn That he says positively Page 4. line 28. That we have no clear and comprehensive Notion of a Spirit So he adds in the next words That it is impossible to know what is contrary to the Nature of a Spirit if we know not what the Nature of a Spirit is i. e. Comprehensively as he must still mean But this by his favour I very much question and desire him to tell me Whether we may not know That it is contrary to the Nature of a Spirit to be Material to be extended and to be compounded of the Elements c. These things I take to be such as are contrary to the Nature of a Spirit and such as may be certainly known to be so and consequently such as may safely rationally and consonantly to all Principles of Philosophy be pronounced to be so And therefore this Author's Assertion viz. That it is impossible to know what is contrary to the Nature of a Spirit if we have not a clear comprehensive Notion of the Nature of a Spirit is apparently False Absurd and Ridiculous But to proceed This Author having said That he knows nothing in the World that we do perfectly understand And for the proof of it alledged That the Essences of Things cannot be known and for the farther proof of that affirm'd That the whole World is adequately divided into Matter and Spirit the Natures of which as he says are wholly unknown to us Suppose now I should as I do deny this whole Argument and affirm That there is a third sort of Beings which are neither Matter nor Spirit which yet as to some of them at least may be perfectly understood and known by us and these are Accidents which according to the ablest Philosophers hitherto do together with substance make a much better and more comprehensive Division of the whole World than Matter and Spirit For certain it is That Accidents as contradistinct to Substance are real Beings and have their respective Essences and Properties belonging to them and such as may be matter of Demonstration which kind of Argument is known to be the proving of any Property or proper Attribute of its Subject by a third thing or Principle bearing an Essential Connexion with both And amongst Accidents I do particularly affirm this of Numbers Figures and Proportions that they are such things as may be perfectly understood by us in the strength of Natural Reason For I think it may be perfectly and comprehensively known That two and two make four and that a Circle is a Figure every part of the Circumference whereof is equidistant from the Centre and a thousand more such things all which are capable of being Scientifically made out to us by Demonstration And this indeed to such an height that as some will admit of no Demonstrations but in the Mathematicks viz. in Numbers Figures and Proportions So there are few or none but readily grant That the Demonstrations about these Matters are the Clearest the most Scientifick and Convincing of all other Demonstrations whatsoever From all which I conclude That what this Author has affirm'd viz. That there is nothing in the World but Matter and Spirit and withal That there is nothing which we do perfectly understand is not only a crude loose unwary but really and in strictness of truth a very false Assertion And therefore though this Author pleaseth himself with a fanciful Harangue about our Ignorance of the Philosophy How the Fire burns and the Waters are condens'd as he calls it into Ice How Stones fall to the Ground and Vapours ascend and thicken in Clouds and fall down again to the
he would vouchsafe to teach us how to reconcile them also For I for my own part think it every whit as hard a task to reconcile Contradictions as to reconcile Protestants and I hope much harder And yet this latter he has endeavoured to prove in a certain Book wrote by him in the Year 1685 a thing not to be done But whether it can or no I am sure he has hardly published any Book since but what manifestly proves That there is great need of some Reconciler to do the other But why do I speak of reconciling Contradictions It would be a very troublesome work if it could be done and a very uncomfortable one when it could not And therefore our Author to give him his due has attempted a much surer and more compendious way of clearing himself of this imputation than such a long and tedious way of reconciling inconsistent Propositions could possibly have been For having Asserted That we cannot justly charge a Contradiction where we cannot comprehend the Nature of the thing said to be contradicted and that in the next place there is nothing in the World which he knoweth of the Nature of which we can throughly understand or comprehend I hope it follows That where nothing can or ought to be contradicted as nothing ought to be which cannot be comprehended none can be guilty of a Contradiction And this I suppose none will deny to be an Expedient every way answerable and equal to our Author's Occasions For otherwise I cannot see what can stand between him and the charge of many Scurvy Contradictory Assertions but that which shall effectually prove and make out to us That indeed there neither is nor can be any such thing as a Contradiction CHAP. II. Containing an Account of several Terms commonly made use of in Discoursing of the Divine Nature and Persons and particularly shewing the Propriety of applying the Words Essence Substance Nature Infinity and the like to this great Subject and lastly proving this Author's Exceptions against the use of them about the same false groundless and impertinent With some further Remarks upon his forementioned Apology OUR Author seems so desirous to advance nothing upon this sublime Subject but what shall be perfectly new that in order to the making way for his particular Novelties he Quarrels with almost all the old words which Divines in their Discourses about the Divine Nature and Persons were heretofore accustomed to make use of He can by no means approve of the words Essence Substance Nature Subsistence and such like as reckoning them the Causes of all the Difficulties and seeming Absurdities that are apt to perplex Mens minds in their Speculations of the Deity and the Trinity 4 Sect. p. 68 69 70. and therefore they must be laid aside and made to give way to other Terms which he judges properer and more accommodate to those Theories To which purpose though our Author has fixed upon two purely of his own Invention which are to do such wonderful feats upon this Subject as in all past Ages were never yet seen nor heard of before and which I therefore reserve in due place to be considered of particularly by themselves yet at present the Author seems most concerned to remove and cashier the fore-mentioned useless cumbersome words and to substitute some better and more useful in their room Such as Eternal Truth and Wisdom Goodness and Power Mind and Spirit c. which being once admitted and applyed to all Disputes about the Divine Nature and an Act of Exclusion past upon the other the way will become presently smooth and open before us and all things relating to the Mystery of the Trinity according to our Author 's own excellent words be made very plain easie and intelligible Nevertheless as I may so speak to borrow another of our Author's Elegancies let not him that putteth on his Armour boast as he that putteth it off A great Promissor with a great Hiatus being much better at raising an Expectation than at answering it And hitherto I can see nothing but words and vapour Though after all it is Performance and the issue of things alone that must shew the strength and reason of the biggest Pretences Now for the clearer and more distinct discussion of the matter in hand I shall endeavour to do these Four things I. I shall shew That the ground upon which this Author excepts against the use of the Terms Nature Essence Substance Subsistence c. in this Subject is false and mistaken II. I shall shew That the same Difficulties arise from the Terms Truth Wisdom Goodness Power c. used for the Explication of the Divine Being that are objected against Essence Substance Nature and the like III. I shall shew That these Terms do better and more naturally explain the Deity or Divine Being than those other of Truth Wisdom Goodness c. And IV. And Lastly I shall shew That the Difficulty of our Conceiving rightly of the Deity and the Divine Persons does really proceed from other Causes These four things I say I will give some brief Account of But because the Subject I am about to engage in is of that Nature that most of the Metaphysical and School-Terms hitherto made use of by Divines upon this occasion will naturally and necessarily fall in with it I think it will contribute not a little to our more perspicuous proceeding in this Dispute to state the Import and Signification of these Terms Essence Substance Existence Subsistence Nature and Personality with such others as will of course come in our way while we are treating of and explaining these And here first of all according to the old Peripatetick Philosophy which for ought I see as to the main Body of it at least has stood it's ground hitherto against all Assaults I look upon the Division of Ens or Being a summary word for all things into Substance and Accident as the Primary and most Comprehensive as we hinted before in our first Chapter But that I may fix the sense and signification of these Terms all along as I go by giving them their respective Definitions or at least Descriptions where the former cannot be had I look upon Ens or Being to be truly and well defined That which is though I must confess it is not so much a perfect Definition as a Notation of the word from the original Verb est For to define it by the Term Essence by saying That Ens or Being is that which has an Essence though it be a true Proposition yet I believe it not so exactly proper a Definition since the Terms of a Definition ought to be rather more known than the thing defined Which in the fore-mentioned Case is otherwise As for Substance I define that to be a Being not inhering in another that is to say so existing by it self as not to be subjected in it or supported this way by it Accident I define a Being inherent in another as in a
as Subsisting under Three This is manifestly false and contrary to common Experience and without any further arguing the case I appeal to the Reason of all Mankind whether it be not so PARADOX What is Intellectual Love says this Author but the true Knowledge or Estimation of Things What is Iustice and Goodness but an equal Distribution of or a true and wise Proportion of Rewards and Punishments What is perfect Power but perfect Truth and Wisdom which can do whatsoever it knows Page 71 72. Answer We have here a whole Knot or Cluster of Paradoxes but I shall take them a sunder and consider them severally And because they run all in the way of Interrogations I shall take them out of their Interrogative Form and cast them into so many Categorical Assertions The first of which is That Intellectual Love is nothing else but the true Knowledge and Estimation of Things This is False and Absurd For Love is one thing and Knowledge another each of them distinguished by essentially different Acts and Objects Knowledge importing no more than a bare Speculation or Apprehension of the Object whereas Love is properly an Adhesion to it Love essentially presupposes the Knowledge of the Thing Loved but Knowledge cannot presuppose it self Knowledge is the first Act of an Intelligent Mind Love the second And I would fain know Whether this Man of Paradox will affirm That God Loves every Thing which he has a true Knowledge and Estimation of But to give him one Argument for all Are not the Eternal distinguishing Characters of Two Persons of the Blessed Trinity founded in the distinction of Love and Knowledge in God the Son issuing from the Father by way of Knowledge and the Spirit issuing from both by way of Love In the next place he affirms Iustice and Goodness to be the same thing and to consist both of them in a true and wise Proportion of Rewards and Punishments But this also is false These Two being as properly and formally distinguished by their Acts and Objects as the Two former And I do here tell this Author That God's Goodness is the proper Qualification of his own Actions without referring necessarily to any other besides but that his Justice bears an Essential Relation to the Actions of others viz. as Rewardable or Punishable And consequently God might have exerted innumerable Acts of his Goodness though there had never been any Object for him to have exerted so much as one Act of his Iustice upon And to give him one Instance that may Convince any Man of Sense of the vast difference of these two Attributes was that Act of Creation by which God first Created the World an Act of his Justice Or did that Act consist in a Wise proportion of Rewards and Punishments before there was any Act of the Creature to be Rewarded or Punished But I am sure it was an Act of the Divine Goodness whereby God communicated much of the Perfection of Being to something without himself Again is Pardon of Sin an Essential Act of God's Iustice But I am sure it is an Act of his Goodness Certainly this Man neither knows nor cares what he says His Third Assertion is That perfect Power is nothing else but perfect Truth and Wisdom But this also is a gross Paradox and as false as that Omnipotence and Omniscience are not Two distinct Attributes of God God's Power acts by and under the direction of God's Wisdom and therefore neither is nor can be formally the same with it And besides this all Acts of Wisdom and Truth proceed from God by a Necessity of Nature but the Acts and Exercise of his Power by a free determination of his Will For in speaking of God no Man says That God is Wise Knowing or True or Acts according to these Perfections because he will do so for he can neither be nor Act otherwise but we truly and properly say That God does this or that because he will do it for if he had pleased he might have chose whether he would do it or no. From all which I conclude That nothing could be more improperly and absurdly affirmed than That the Divine Power is nothing else but the Divine Truth and Wisdom PARADOX In Men says he it is only Knowledge that is Power Humane Power and Humane Knowledge as that signifies a Knowledge how to do any Thing are Commensurate so that every Man can do what he knows how to do Nay Knowledge is not only the Director of Power but it is that very Power which we call force Page 72. Answ. This is so gross a Paradox that I think it can need no other Confutation than to oppose the sense of all Mankind to it nevertheless I shall offer this one Consideration towards the disproving the Identity of Knowledge and Power viz. That a Man's Knowledge and Skill about the doing any Work of Art may increase as his power of Execution for the Actual doing the said Works may decrease nay wholly cease and therefore they cannot be the same For suppose a Carpenter disabled by Age or Accident that he cannot strike a stroke towards the building an House does he therefore cease to know how to build it while another shall build it wholly by the direction of his Skill and Knowledge This Man may as well prove his Head and his Hands to be one and the same Thing as Knowledge and Power to be so But I shall go no farther than this very Author to confute this Author's Assertion who has told us in p. 9. l. 3 4. That we understand nothing of the Secrets and Mysteries of Nature nor are concerned to understand them any more than it is our Business to understand how to make either a Body or a Spirit which we have no power to do mark that if we did understand it and therefore it would be an useless piece of Knowledge Now I beseech the Reader to set these Two Assertions together viz. that in pag. 72. That to know how to do a Thing is to be able to do it and that other in the pag. 9. viz. That though we understood how to make a Body or a Spirit yet we have no power to do it I say let these Two Propositions be compar'd and then I hope that for the future Knowledge how to do a thing and Power to do it ought not even according to this very Author to pass for the same thing In the mean time we see how one of his Assertions contains a gross Absurdity and the other compleats it with as gross a Contradiction PARADOX This Word Infinite says he confounds our Notions of God p. 77. Answer This is false The Thing indeed signified by the Word Infinite exceeds and transcends our Notions but the word Infinite does not confound them And I would have this Man take notice that for an Object to surpass and be above our Thoughts and to disorder and confound them are very different Things And moreover that it is the
which he appeared of old and the other to that Body which he was Born with in the World All which Positions are horrid and monstrous but unavoidably consequent from the foregoing Assertion But for the further Illustration of the Case I do here affirm to this Author That God is as visible in an assumed Body whether of Air or Aether or whatsoever other Materials it might be formed of as in a Body of Flesh and Blood personally united to him I say as visible For notwithstanding the great difference of these Bodies and the difference of their Union and Relation to God One being by a temporary Assumption and the other by a personal Incarnation yet no Corporeal Eye could discern this Difference during the Appearance but that one was for the time as visible as the other and therefore since both of them were truly Symbols of God's peculiar Presence the only way by which the Divine Nature becomes visible to a Mortal Eye it demonstratively overthrows that positive false Assertion of this Author That nothing can make God visible but a personal Union to a visible Nature PARADOX All the Circumstances of our Saviour's Birth and Life and Death were so punctually foretold by the Prophets and so peremptorily decreed by God that after he was come into the World there was no place for his Choice and Election And he could not shew either his Love or his Humility by choosing Poverty Death c. Page 242. Line 5. Answer This is False Absurd and Dangerous and indeed next to Blasphemous as overthrowing the whole Oeconomy of Man's Redemption by the Merits of Christ. For that which leaves no place for Choice leaves no possibility for Merit For all Merit is founded in freedom of Action and that in Choice And if Christ after his Incarnation had not this he could not Merit And whereas the Author says That Christ chose all this as the second Person of the Trinity antecedently to his Incarnation I Answer That this is indeed true but reaches not the present Case For what he did before he was Incarnate was the Act of him purely as God but a meritorious Action must still be an humane Action which could not proceed from the second Person before his Assumption of an humane Nature I readily grant and hold That the Actions of Christ's humane Nature received a peculiar Worth and Value from its Union with his Divine Person yet still I affirm that this Worth and Value was subjected and inherent in his humane Actions as such and thereby qualified them with so high a degree of Merit So that whencesoever this Merit might flow they were only his humane Actions viz. such as proceeded from him as a Man that were properly and formally meritorious And whereas this Author states the Reason of this his horrid Assertion upon the Predictions of the Prophets and the peremptory Decrees of God concerning all that belonged to or befell Christ I do here tell him That neither Predictions nor Decrees though never so punctual and peremptory do or can infringe or take away the freedom of Man's Choice or Election about the things so decreed or foretold how difficult soever it may be for humane Reason to reconcile them and if this Man will affirm the contrary he must either banish all Choice and Freedom of Action or all certain Predictions and peremptory Decrees out of the World let him choose which of these two Rocks he will run himself against for he will be assuredly split upon either This vile Assertion really deserves the Censure of a Convocation and it is pity for the Church's sake but in due time it should find it PARADOX Concerning Person and Personality he has these following Assertions which I have here drawn together from several parts of his Book viz. The Mind is a Person Page 191. Line 21 22. A Soul without a Vital Union to a Body is a Person Page 262. Line 17. And the Soul is the Person because it is the Superiour governing power and Constitutes the Person Page 268. Line 28. A Beast which has no Reasonable Soul but only an Animal Life is a Person c. Page 262. Line 18 19 20. And again We may find the Reasonable and Animal Life subsisting apart and when they do so they are Two Persons and but One Person when United Page the same at the end of it And lastly One Agent is One Person Page 268. Line 2. Answer In all these Propositions so confidently laid down by this Man there are almost as many Absurdities and Falsities as there are Words I have already shewn this of some of them in Chap. 3. and therefore I shall be the briefer in my Remarks upon them here And first for that Assertion That the Mind is a Person To this I Answer That the Mind may be taken Two ways First Either for that Intellectual Power or Faculty by which the Soul understands and Reasons Or Secondly For the Rational Soul it self In the former Sense it is but an Accident and particularly a Quality In the second it is an Essential part of the whole Man and therefore upon neither of these Accounts can be a Person For neither an Accident nor a Part can be a Person which as such must be both a Substance and a compleat Substance too And secondly Whereas he says That a Soul without a vital Union to the Body is a Person I tell him That the Soul without such an Union is still an incomplete Being as being originally and naturally designed for the Completion and Composition of the whole Man and therefore for that reason cannot be a Person And then Thirdly whereas he adds That the Soul is the Person because it is the Superiour governing Power and Constitutes the Person I answer That it is the former and does the latter only as it is the prime essential part of the whole Man and for that very cause is an incomplete Being as every part is and must be and consequently cannot be a Person In the next place for an Answer to his saying That a Beast is a Person I refer him to his own positive Affirmation pag. 69. line 18. That a Person and an Intelligent Substance are reciprocal Terms And the same may serve for an Answer to his next Absurdity That when the Reasonable and the Animal Life subsist apart they are Two Persons For the Animal Life separate from the Rational is void of all Reason and the very Definition of a Person is That it is Suppositum Rationale aut Intelligens In the last place By his saying That One Agent is One Person which I am sure he affirms universally of every single Agent he makes every Living Creature under Heaven a Person For every such Creature is endued with a Principle of Life and Action and accordingly acts by it and by so acting is properly an Agent From all which it follows That this Author as great as his Retinue may be has many more Persons in his Family