so much for the clearing of this both in the Preface and the Book it self that I need not to add one Word about it unless he had suggested some new demonstrative Reason to prove it Which he is far enough from All that he saith is That they must be called Fools as well as Sabellius if they asserted Relative Properties or any Properties that were in no Essence But the Author of the Discourse of Real and Nominal Trinitarians to whom he is no Stranger had said That the Sabellians held that the Father Son and Spirit are but only three Names of God given to him in Scripture by occasion of so many several Dispensations towards the Creature and so he is but one subsisting Person and three Relative Persons If this be true here are Relative Properties indeed relating to a Divine Essence but how not as to any Internal Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost but as to External Dispensations which are another kind of Relative Properties This is all that I can find in this last Effort that relates to my self As to what concerns others they are very able to defend themselves and particularly as to Dr. S. and Dr. Sh. I must still say I think them much his Superiours as to Wit and Learning for of them I spake without the least Respect to my self however he makes it a Complement to my self and them I know not for what Reason unless it be that I speak of those against whom they had written with Insolence and Scorn But I hope they will shew themselves so much his Superiours too in Wisdom and Discretion as not to renew their Quarrels upon his Provocations for he doth what in him lies to inflame them and he thought it and I do not blame him for it the best service he could do to his sinking Cause WORCESTER April 26 1697. E. W. FINIS ERRATA Pag. 3.1 an Answer P. 42. l. 4. for Temerarian r. temerarious P. 63. l. 22. for diceret r. doceret P. 82. l. 17. for Preception r. Perception Books published by the Right Reverend Father in God Edw. L. Bishop of Worcester and sold by H. Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard A Rational account of the Grounds of the Protestant Religion being a Vindication of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury's Relation of a Conference c. from the pretended Answer of T. C. 2d Edit Fol. Origines Britannicae or the Antiquities of the British Churches with a Preface concerning some pretended Antiquities relating to Britain in Vindication of the Bishop of St. Asaph Fol. Irenicum A Weapon-Salve for the Churches Wounds 4 to Origines Sacrae or a Rational Account of the Grounds of Christian Faith as to the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scripture and the matters therein contained 4 to A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the hazard of Salvation in the Communion of it 8 vo An Answer to several late Treatises occasion'd by a Book entituled A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the hazard of Salvation in the Communion of it Part I. 8 vo A Second Discourse in Vindication of the Protestant Grounds of Faith against the pretence of Infallibility in the Roman Church in answer to the Guide in Controversie by R. H. Protestancy without Principles and Reason and Religion or the certain Rule of Faith by E. W. with a particular enquiry into the Miracles of the Roman Church 8 vo An Answer to Mr. Cressy's Epistle apologetical to a Person of Honour touching his Vindication of Dr. Stillingfleet 8 vo A Defence of the Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in answer to a Book entituled Catholicks no Idolaters 8 vo Several Conferences between a Roman Priest a Fanatick Chaplain and a Divine of the Church of England being a full Answer to the late Dialogues of T. G. 8 vo A Discourse concerning Bonds of Resignation of Benefices in Point of Law and Conscience 8 vo A Discourse concerning the Illegality of the Ecclesiastical Commission in Answer to the Vindication and Defence of it wherein the true notion of the Legal Supremacy is clear'd and an Account is given of the Nature Original and Mischief of the dispensing Power The Unreasonableness of Separation or an Impartial Account of the History Nature and Pleas of the present Separation from the Communion of the Church of England 4 to The Grand Question concerning the Bishops Right to vote in Parliament in Cases Capital stated and argued from the Parliament Rolls and the History of former times with an enquiry into their Peerage and the Three Estates in Parliament 8 vo A Discourse concerning the Doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction or the true Reasons of his Sufferings with an Answer to the Socinian Objections To which is added A Sermon concerning the Mysteries of the Christian Faith Preached April 7. 1691. With a Preface concerning the true state of the Controversie about Christ's Satisfaction 8 vo Twelve Sermons preached on several Occasions by the Right Reverend Father in God Edward Lord Bishop of Worcester The first Volume 8 vo A Second Volume will speedily be publish'd The Effigies of the Right Reverend Father in God Edward Lord Bishop of Worcester Engraven on a Copper-plate by Robert White Price 6 d. P. 6. P. 7. P. 8. P. 9. Book 2. Ch. 13. Sect. 19. P. 14. Ch. 23. Sect. 2. P. 11. P. 12 P. 22. P. 35. P. 25. P. 38. P. 28 29. P. 32. Book 2. ch 23. Sect. 6. P. 32. P. 33. P 40. P. 18 23 24 36 37. P. 8. Essay B. 2. ch 8. Sect. 25. Ch. 9. Sect. 8 9 10. P. 7 8 10 30. P. 6. P. 8. B 2. ch 23. Sect. 1. Sect. 2 3 4. P. 22. P. 40. P. 40. B. 2. Ch. 24. Sect. 16. P. 43. P. 44. Voss. Etymol in V. Sto. Thucyd. l. 6. p. 392. Ed. Ox. l. 3. p. 184 Acad. l. 1.8 Cicer. in Lucul c. 6. C. 24. P. 57. P. 226. Book 4. Ch. 6. Sect. 3. Ch. 4. Sect. 18. Christianity not Myst. p. 10. P. 12. P. 13. B. 4. ch 3. Sect. 23. Sect. 24 c. Sect 28. Sect. 30. Book 4. Ch. 17. Sect. 1. Sect. 9. Sect. 10. Sect. 11. Sect. 12. B. 4. ch 17. 1. Sect. 23. B. 4. ch 18. Sect. 2. P. 59. P. 62. P. 65. P. 66. Id. p. 74.82 B. 2. Ch. 23. Sect. 15. Sect. 17. Sect. 22. Sect. 30. Sect. 31. P. 67. P. 68. Leviath ch 34. Leviath ch 38. Vindicat. of Leviath p. 90 91. P. 69 P. 71. P. 72. P. 73. P. 74. P. 75. P. 81. P. 81. Book 4. Ch. 2. Sect. 1. Book 2. ch 23. Sect. 6.14 Sect. 7. Sect. 8. Sect. 12. Book 4. Ch. 4. Sect. 18. B. 3. ch 10. Sect. 15. B 2. ch 23. Sect. 17. B. 2. ch 23. Sect. 15. B. 2 ch 21. Sect. 8. Sect. 13. B. 2. ch 8. Sect. 11. Sect 10. B. 2. ch 27. Sect 9. B. 2. ch 11. Sect. 9. Sect. 10. Letter p. 27. De Immort Animae c. 9. Let. p. 139. P. 73. P. 66. P. 87. P. 88. P. 101. P. 103. P. 106. P. 107. Ib. P. 107. P. 110 P. 113. P. 114. B. 1. Ch. 4 Sect 8. Ch. 4. Sect. 12. P. 119. P. 123. P. 125. P. 121. P. 120 P. 128. P. 127. P. 132. P. 145. P. 136. P. 137. Cum enim duo sint genera rerum quae sciuntur unum earum quae per sensus corporis percipit animus alterum earum quae per scipsum multa illi Philosophi garrierunt contra corporis sensus animi autem quasdam firmissimas per seipsum perceptiones rerum verarum quale est illud Scio me vivere nequaquam in dubium vocare potuerunt De Trin. l. 15. c. 12. P. 139. P. 142 P. 157. P. 165. P. 216. P. 217. â— 2. ch 1. Sect. 5. Ch. 2. Sect. 1. Sect. 2. Ch. 11. Sect. 9 Ch. 12. Sect. 1. Sect. 3. Sect. 6 Ch â—â— Sect. 3. Sect. 6 14 Sect. 33. B 3. ch 3. Sect. 2. Sect. 6. Sect. 9. Sect. 11. Sect. 12. Sect. 14. Sect. 15. Sect. 16. Leviath ch 4. B. 2. ch 17. Sect. 1. P. 169 P. 170. P. 171. B. 2. ch 8. Sect. 10 15 17 23. Sect. 25. P. 174. P. 176. P. 178. P. 181. P. 190. P. 191. P. 193. P. 195. P. 197. P. 198. P. 199. P. 201. P. 20â— P. 203. P. 210. P. 212. Book 4. Ch. 1. Sect. 1. Ch. 3. Sect. 23. Sect. 27. Sect. 24 Sect. 26. Sect. 27. Sect. 25. Sect. 28. B. 4. ch 2. Sect. 2. Sect. 7. Ch. 2. Sect. 14 â—â—â—â— Sect. 1. Sect. 2.
animi sejuncta ab his usitatis notisque naturis What can express the Soul to be of a different Substance from the Body if these words do it not And presently adds That the Mind is of a divine and Spiritual Nature and above Material Composition as God himself is I hope this may give you satisfaction as to Cicero how far he was from making the Soul a Material Substance And the only place you produce out of him c. 22. proves nothing but that the Soul is Invisible as you may see by looking upon it again As to Virgil you quote that Expression Dum Spiritus hos regit artus where it is taken for the Vital Spirit which sense I know no body questions and so Tully expresses life quae Corpore Spiritu continetur and opposes it to a Life of Immortal Fame which he there speaks of Pro Marcello c. 9. but the only matter in debate is Whether they excluded any other Notion of Spirit which was not done as I have made it appear concerning Cicero and so I shall of Virgil too For soon after Aeneid 4.385 he hath these Words Et cum frigida mors Animae seduxerit Artus Omnibus Vmbra locis adero dabis improbe poenas Which shews that Virgil did believe the Soul to be more than a mere Vital Spirit and that it subsisted and acted in a separate State And it is observed by Servius that Virgil uses Spiritus Mens and Animus for the same In Aeneid 6.726 Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem And he proves that Virgil asserted the Immortality of Souls and answers the arguments against it and as far as he could understand he saith that our Bodies are from the Elements and our Souls from God and the Poets intention was Vt Animos immortales diceret So that neither Cicero nor Virgil do you any kindness in this matter being both Assertors of the Souls Immortality by Nature If these will not do you bring me to Scripture and say that Solomon himself speaks after the same manner about Man and Beast as the one dieth so dieth the other yea they have all one Spirit Eccles. 3.19 I will not dispute about the proper Sense of the Hebrew Word but I must about Solomon's Sense For although he makes Life and Death common to Man and Beast yet he saith v. 21. The Spirit of a Man goeth upward and the Spirit of a Beast goeth down to the Earth But you say If the Notion of a Spirit excludes Materiality then the Spirit of a Beast must be Immaterial as well as that of a Man I answer that although the bare Word doth not prove it yet the design of Solomon's Discourse doth and so the going upward of the Spirit of a Man must be understood in a very different Sense from the going downward of the Spirit of a Beast For he saith concerning Man That the Spirit shall return to God that gave it c. 12.7 To what purpose To be dissipated in the common Air or to be lost in the vast Confusion of Matter no but he concludes his Book thus v. 14. For God shall bring every Work into Iudgment with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil If these be Solomon's Words as no doubt they were and he were a Man of Sense and laid his sayings together as no doubt he did these last Words must interpret the foregoing and his other sayings be made Consonant to this Yes you may say This relates to the general Iudgment and not to the Soul's Subsistence after Death But Solomon speaks of the Spirit of a Man going upward at Death and returning to God that gave it What Sense is there in this if it be a Material Substance which vanishes and is dissolved then And if the Soul be not of it self a free thinking Substance I do not see what Foundation there is in Nature for a Day of Judgment For where there is nothing but Matter there is no Freedom of acting where there is no Liberty there is no Choice where there is no Choice there is no room for Rewards and Punishments and consequently no Day of Iudgment But Solomon positively concludes there will be a Judgment to come as to good and evil Actions in another World and therefore he must be understood in those Expressions to mean a Free and Thinking and consequently an Immaterial Spirit in us But you urge farther That our Saviour himself opposes Spirit to Flesh and Bones Luk. 24.39 i. e. to such a gross Compages as could be seen and felt The question then was whether it were the real Body of Christ or only an Appearance of it and how could this be resolved better than our Saviour doth Handle me and see for a Spirit hath not Flesh and Bones as you see me have But he calls this a Spirit What follows Therefore a Spirit is only an Appearance I do not think that is your meaning And no body questions but the name of Spirits is sometimes given to Apparitions But this is far from our case which is whether that real Spiritual Substance we find in our selves be Material or not Doth a Spiritual Substance imply Matter in its Idea or not You cannot say it doth Then it may be Immaterial But how come we to know things but by their distinct Ideas Is the Idea of Matter and Spirit distinct or not If not to what purpose do we talk of Knowledge by Ideas when we cannot so much as know Body and Spirit from each other by them Is it then any Absurdity to call a Spiritual Substance Immaterial No you say You would not be thought to affirm that Spirit never does signifie a purely Immaterial Substance for in that Sense the Scripture attributes the Notion of Spirit to God and you have proved from your Principles that there is a Spiritual Immaterial Substance And this you think proves an Immaterial Substance in your way of Ideas But of that afterwards We are yet upon the proving an Immaterial Substance in our selves from the Ideas we have by Sensation and Reflection Now I say still this is impossible if the Spiritual Substance in us may be material And at last you grant That what I say is true that it cannot upon these Principles be demonstrated Then say I Your grounds of Certainty from Ideas are plainly given up But you say it may be proved probable to the highest Degree But that is not the point for it is not Probability but Certainty that we are promised in this way of Ideas and that the Foundation of our Knowledge and real Certainty lies in them and is it dwindled into a Probability at last The only reason I had to engage in this matter was a bold Assertion that the Ideas we have by Sensation or Reflection are the sole Matter and Foundation of all our Reasoning and that our Certainty lies in perceiving the Agreement or
Trinity For if these terms really signifie nothing in themselves but are only Abstract and Complex Ideas which the common use of Language hath appropriated to be the signs of two Ideas then it is plain that they are only Notions of the Mind as all Abstracted and Complex Ideas are and so one Nature and three Persons can be no more We must therefore examine what your Notion is of Abstracted and Complex Ideas and how it can be applied to Nature and Person and whether they are only signs of such Ideas as People have agreed to signifie by them To explain this I must give an account as well as I can from your self how these Abstracted and Complex Ideas come to be formed in our Minds and what is implied in them The Vnderstanding you say seems to you not to have the least glimmering of any Ideas which it hath not by Sensation or Reflection These and their several Modes and the Compositions made out of them we shall find contain our whole stock of Ideas and that we have nothing in our Minds which did not come in one of these two ways From hence you consider the several sorts of Ideas some Simple and some Complex The simple Ideas are the Materials of all our Knowledge and when the Vnderstanding is once stored with these simple Ideas it has the Power to repeat compare and unite them even to an almost infinite variety and so can make at pleasure new Complex Ideas But no understanding can make one new simple Idea not taken in by the ways before mention'd nor can it destroy those that are there After you have given an account of the simple Ideas both ways you come to the Faculty of Discerning in our Minds and there you reckon up Distinguishing Ideas Comparing Compounding and Abstracting The Reason of Abstraction you say is to have one general Name for many Particulars or else Names would be endless Which Abstraction is performed by separating the Ideas of particular Objects from the Circumstances of real Existence as Time Place c. Complex Ideas are those simple Ideas which the Mind unites as one Idea But still it is confin'd to those simple Ideas which it received by Sensation or Reflection which are the ultimate Materials of all its Compositions Of these you reckon Modes Substances and Relations The Ideas of Substances are such Combinations of simple Ideas as are taken to represent particular things subsisting by themselves And these are of two sorts one of single Substances as they exist separately as of a Man c. the other of several of these put together as an Army of Men. In your Chapter of Complex Ideas of Substances you affirm the Ideas of particular Substances to be made by a Combination of simple Ideas and again that it is by such Combination of simple Ideas as co-exist in some unknown cause of their Vnion That the Complex Ideas we have of God and separate Spirits are made up of the simple Ideas we have by Reflection by inlarging the Ideas we find in our selves In your 3d Book you consider general Terms And the Reason of them you say is because it is beyond the power of Human Capacity to frame and retain distinct Ideas of all Particulars And these are made by way of Abstraction from Circumstances of Time and Place After which you tell us That General Natures are nothing but Abstract Ideas and the whole Mystery of Genera and Species which make such a noise in the Schools is nothing else but Abstract Ideas with Names annexed to them From whence you say it is plain that General and Vniversal belong not to the real Existence of Things but are the Inventions and Creatures of the Vnderstanding made by it for its own use and concern only Signs whether Words or Ideas And the Abstract Idea and the Essence of the Species or Genus of the same thing and every distinct abstract Idea is a distinct Essence But then you distinguish the Real and Nominal Essence The former is the Real Internal Constitution of particular things and the Nominal is the Abstract Idea But there is so near a Connexion between them that the Name cannot be attributed to any particular Being but what has this Essence whereby it answers that Abstract Idea whereof that Name is the Sign These things you repeat and inlarge upon in several other places but this I think is the substance of what you say upon this matter For I would not willingly mistake or mis-represent your Meaning The Question now between us comes to this Whether the common Nature or Essence of Things lies only in an Abstract Idea or a General Name and the Real Essence consists only in particular Beings from which that Name is abstracted The Question is not Whether in forming the Notion of Common Nature the Mind doth not abstract from the Circumstances of particular Beings But it is whether there be not an Antecedent Foundation in the Nature of things upon which we form this Abstract Idea For it there be then it cannot be called an universal Name only or a meer sign of an Idea which we have formed from putting many simple Ideas together which Name belongs to all of such a sort as have those simple Ideas united together I know not how it comes to pass that a Man spinning Books out of his own Thoughts should hit so luckily upon the Thoughts of another Man I do not mean now about clear and distinct Ideas but about this Point of universal Names For Mr. Hobbs in his Chapter of Speech tell us That Names were to serve for Marks or Notes of Remembrance and therefore were called Signs Of these Names some are proper and singular to one thing as Peter John this Man this Tree some are common to many things as Man Horse Tree in respect of all which it is called an Vniversal there being nothing in the World Vniversal but Names for the things nam'd are every one of them individual and singular One universal Name is imposed on many things for their similitude in some Quality or other Accident and whereas a proper Name bringeth to mind one thing only Vniversals recall any one of those many And of Vniversals some are of more or less Extent the larger comprehending the less large and some of equal extent c. This is enough to let you see that these Notions are not so peculiar but that another Person from his own Thoughts too had said much the same things But whoever said or thought them first we must examine how reasonable these Thoughts are I know no Body that thinks now-a-days that Vniversals exist any where by themselves but I do think that there is a difference to be made between that and making them meer Names or signs of Ideas I. And the Reasons I go upon are these In the first place we are agreed that there is a supream