understanding will not reach as it will not certainly extend to the utmost possibility of Ideas at one and the same time which implies infinite knowledge or knowledge in its utmost Latitude and Perfection an attribute belonging to the Divine Substance and incommmunicable with any other there this Divine Substance is again considered in this fifth particular as a Person acting distinctly by it self Sixthly and lastly in the actuation of those Divine Ideas or in the bringing them out of a state of notion into a state of reality and extra-notional Existence or in the Creation of the material and intellectual World together with the several modifications and motions of the one the several orders and degrees of the other in this also the Father is to be considered as acting by himself the Power of Creation or the producing realities out of a state of non-existence out of a state of possibility into a state of being and from a state of notion into a state of impenetrability tangibility or life being only competible to God himself and belonging only to infinite Power as the Ideas themselves which were the principles and patterns according to which the realities were made could not in their full extent and comprehension and at one and the same time be present to any wisdom or understandng but that which was infinite and by consequence Divine though I deny not but that the Son that is the human nature in conjunction with the divine for of it self it could not do it may in some sense be said to have made the World as the Scripture asserts him to have done and in what sense that is shall be now very suddenly and very clearly declared For as there are some operations of the divine nature to be met with wherein the Father or the simple divine substance acts as a distinct Person by it self without the concurrence of the human nature so there are others wherein the divine and human nature act joyntly and as it were confederately together and are considered as one common person endued with one common life understanding and will and they are these First in the business of Creation which though it hath been already appropriated as an incommunicable act to the simple divine substance yet we find notwithstanding in Scripture that the Creation of the World is attributed to the Son likewise that is to the second person of the blessed Trinity or to the human nature vitally and personally united to the divine as well as to God the Father or to the simple divine substance it self the reasons of which if I am not mistaken are principally if not only these that follow First that all things being produced out of nothing by the divine power or by a bare act of the divine will and the human nature being vitally and personally united to the divine so as to be partaker of the life of God and to be wholly determined and acted by his will the will of the human nature being as it were included absorpt and swallowed up in the divine and the one being perfectly determined and acted by the other whatsoever effect follows any determination or motion of the divine will may very properly be said to be the effect also of the human in conjunction with it and acting as one common person with one indivisible and common determination it being no more possible to separate the one will from the other than it is to dissolve the union of the two natures or to divide any emanative and immediate effect from its immediate and emanative cause and it is in a manner the same case as in the Line Where if you consider A as the first mover and B and C as quiescent yet B being first moved by the motion of A the motion of C is rightly affirmed to be owing to them both acting in common and in conjunction together notwithstanding that the original power of moving be wholly to be ascribed to and to be derived from A whose Creature B as to its motion is as C in the same respect may be said to be the common creature of them both Secondly the human nature of Christ tho' personally and vitally united to the divine yet being as it hath been said already but a finite nature and though there were in it a perfect Conjunction and Symphony of will in all things to the divine will and understanding so far as the sphere of its capacity would reach yet that capacity being finite and imperfect it wanted some external helps to give it the more full and comprehensive notion of the divine nature and by consequence the more large and plentiful enjoyment of it for which reason it was that from all Eternity there was Created a Sub-eternal and Aethereal matter which being united to and animated by the ubiquitary and original life which is called God the Father constituted the third Person of the Blessed Trinity which is called the Holy Ghost Now God being infinitely perfect and happy in himself it could not be that this Aethereal matter was produced by him for the more full and perfect enjoyment of himself for there could be nothing in any Creature especially an inanimate one as this subtle matter without the conjunction and animation of the divine life must be which was not before hand eminently and transcendently to be found in himself who is considered as its emanative and its only cause neither is it reasonable to conceive though it proceeded from all eternity from the Divine Substance by way of emanation that it was created out of no end or design or that no use was made of it from all eternity till in the fulness of time the aspectable Vniverse was Created wherefore it is but reasonable in this case to suppose that this subtle matter was employed partly in forming the Vehicles of the Caelestial Hierarchy the Angels and immortal Spirits the Morning Stars and Sons of God that sung together and shouted for joy when the first corner stone of the World was laid and consequently did exist before it And that they were really cloathed with such Aetherial Vehicles or Caelestial Bodies as we shall be our selves after the Resurrection if there be any sense in the 15th Chapter of the first to the Corinthians and our Saviour himself assures us that in the future state we shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Angels or equal to the Angels that are in Heaven seems to me plainly to be asserted by the Psalmist in these words Psal 104. 4. Who maketh his Angels Spirits his Ministers a flaming Fire not to repeat here what I have * Apology for the mid way Sermon of the Omnipresence elsewhere said concerning the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Angel in the new Testament and that they had also a pre-existence before the Foundation of the World were laid seems not obscurely to be imployed by the Psalmist in that immediately
and Independent Gods then I would fain know what is Notwithstanding that the admission of three such several Divine Substances be loaded with as great difficulties and be every whit as hard to understand as the Lateran Trinity which the Doctour would expose as hath been already shewed and though that be indeed the only Trinity which the Scripture teacheth and which the first Christians of Apostolic simplicity and antiquity believed as shall be hereafter more particularly declared But what are the Expedients proposed by the Doctour out of Athanasius to secure the oneness of the Deity and to exclude Polytheism notwithstanding the Trinity consists of Substances which are no more then specifically the same but have a Numerical difference from one another Why first he tells us That this the Athanasian Trinity is not a Trinity of Principles but that there is only one Principle or Fountain of the Godhead in it from which the other are derived thus does he write in his fifth Oration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is but one Principle and accordingly but one God But what does he mean by one Principle are there Three Divine Substances or no if there are not then there is but One Numerically and Individually One and by consequence either there is no Trinity of Divine Persons or they do all of them belong to that one Divine Substance which is not specifically but Numerically one and the same If there are three Substances properly Divine that is Eternal and infinitely perfect then either one proceeds or is begotten by way of emanative causality from the other and so though there are not three Principles yet there are three Gods notwithstanding and à parte post three Independent Beings in as much as that Substance which is not only begotten or produced but may be destroyed is not a Divine or infinitely perfect Substance but a meer Creature obnoxious to Ruin and subject to the Will and Power of its first cause it is indeed Dependent in one sense in as much as every Emanative effect hath a perpetual dependence upon its Emanative cause but yet it is such a dependence as the cause it self cannot take away and therefore if the Cause be Eternal the Effect must be so too Besides that it is perfect Non-sence as I have already shewn for one Divine Substance to beget or produce another either by an Emanative Power or by any other Power whatsoever which it may exert or suspend pro Arbitrio and as it pleases For the Substance begetting and begotten being both of them ex Hypothesi otherwise they cannot be Divine Substances infinitely perfect and omnipresent indued with the same inclinations of Will and the same degree of Vnderstanding and Power exerting the same Operations and concurring to the same Effects mutually imbibing and penetrating one another it is the same thing as if they were Numerically the same and it is impossible to conceive them otherwise then so neither is it to any purpose at all that it should be otherwise and if it be once admitted that otherwise it may be there may be infinite Divine Substances for ought we know all of them Omnipresent and Infinitely perfect to no more or no other purpose then if there had been but one and where this Divine facundity will cease we can no more conceive then how it is possible for it to begin Again if they do not proceed from one another by way of Emanation then they are not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only three Gods but three Principles likewise three Absolute and Independent Beings according to the Doctrine of the Marcionists and so the former inconvenience returns again for there may be three or thirty or three hundred Thousand Divine Substances as well as Three which must be granted to be the extremity of extravagant Nonsence and if it be once admitted will excuse and justifie the most absurd Polytheism in the World the worship of Gods that are infinite in number and all of them Supreme Self-existing and Independent and all of them to no more purpose then if they were exactly and Numerically the same imbibing and penetrating each other and having a Community of Will Vnderstanding Operations and Effects so that they cannot possibly be distinguisht from being the same But in the next place he tells us Athanasius further addeth That the three Divine Hypostases are not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate and disjoyned beings but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indivisibly united to one another p. 616 617. By which if he mean the same with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Circuminsession which is the next expedient of working a closer Vnion between Substances Numerically different from each other it hath been already sufficiently considered and deservedly exploded but otherwise then this I know not what to make of it and so I let it pass together with that other to which it is so like that they are more then Twins and have not so much as a Numerical Dictinction for one great piece of Enthusiasm split into two only to swell a Book that is too big already and adorn'd with Quotations to please a sort of Men that have a Veneration for Greek Authorities beyond what they have for English Sense Lastly The same Athanasius in sundry places p. 619 still further supposes those three Divine Hypostases to make up one entire Divinity after the same manner as the Fountain and the Stream make up one entire River or the Root and the Stock and the Branches one entire Tree And in this sence also is the whole Trinity said by him to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Divinity and one Nature and one Essence And accordingly the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems here to be taken by Athanasius in a further sense besides that before mentioned not only for things agreeing in one common and general Essence as three Individual Men are Co-essential with one another but also for such as concurrently together make up one entire thing and are therefore joyntly Essential thereunto For when he affirmeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Tree is Congenerous or Homogenial with the Root and the Branches Co-essential with the Vine his meaning is that the Root Stock and Branches are not only of one kind but also altogether make up the entire Essence of one Plant or Tree In like manner those three Hypostases the Father Son and Holy-Ghost are not only Congenerous and Co-essential as having all the Essence of the Godhead alike in them but also as concurrently making up one entire Divinity In which words it is prodigious to me and will I perswade my self be so to you also when I shall have represented my Sentiments concerning them to consider first the Impertinence of this fourth and last particular it self to the end for which it is made use of by the Doctour and
Patience in adversity and with submission to the Will of God in the worst and most deplorable circumstances that can befal us Thirdly it ought to inspire us with a Spirit of mutual Charity and mutual Forgiveness after his Example who suffered and forgave so much who blest his very Enemies and laid down his Life as a Sacrifice for them Lastly The consideration of the Divinity of his Person ought always to affect us with a just fear and apprehension of him whom if we will not obey out of gratitude yet we ought to do it out of Interest and self-love least his Justice should punish us as we deserve when his goodness and his mercy have in vain endeavoured to perswade us lest by too frequent provocations and too obstinate impenitence we kindle his wrath against us so that it cannot be quenched and turn his merciful expiation and intercession on our behalfs into eternal vengeance and displeasure AN APPENDIX Concerning the EXTENTION OR OMNIPRESENCE OF THE Divine NATURE LONDON Printed by T. B. in the Year MDCLXXXV SECT 1. Of the Nature of GOD together with a Demonstration of His EXISTENCE I Affirm in the general of the Divine Nature That it is an infinite Extension or Space endued with all possible Wisdom Goodness and Power and I will prove each of these as distinctly as I can by themselves For it is very hard to keep them from interfereing with one another First that God is an infinite Extention Secondly that he is an Extention furnished with those attributes which I have assigned in their utmost latitude perfection and extent And for the Extention of the Divine Substance I am so verily perswaded of its truth and of its absolute necessity to be believed as the main Foundation of all natural and by consequence of all revealed Religion that I am and have always been greedy upon every occasion to inculcate and repeat so necessary a Doctrine It is the Foundation of natural Religion because Extention belongs to the very notion of Substance or Existence considered in the general for nothing is which is not somewhere and there is no somewhere which is not extended and indeed if we consider the Divine Omnipresence which is granted by all though there are some that treat of it after such a manner as if they did not believe it how is it possible for any Substance whether finite or infinite to be present at this place and present at that truly and properly present at both places at the same time and yet not be present to all the space between them and if he be present not only to the extremes but to the intermediate space then is he manifestly co-extended to that whole space together from whence it follows plainly that there can be no notion of the Divine Omnipresence without supposing him to be infinitely extended Again it is manifest that motion is a distinct thing from matter all matter being indifferent in it self either to rest or motion neither is there any part of matter being at perfect rest which may not by a sufficient force be put into a swift degree of motion nor any part of it never so swiftly moved which meeting with obstacles and impediments from without may not be reduced to perfect rest so that it is plain since motion is not essential to matter it must therefore either be a thing subsisting by it self or it must be the attribute or property of some other Substance It cannot be the former a thing subsisting by it self because motion in the abstract cannot possibly be conceived for there can be no motion but there must at the same time be some substance or other that is moved or that moves and actuates it self and other things about it wherefore since it hath been proved so plainly that motion is not of the essence of matter which cannot move it self nor encrease or suspend its own motion and which from the swiftest motion may by natural impediments be reduced to perfect rest it is plain that it must unavoidably belong to something which is not matter that is to an immaterial or incorporeal Substance If therefore motion it self be extended as it is plain it is in any fluid body whether of Air or Water or Fire the force and activity which moves it and keeps it in a state of fluidity being Co-extended to the substance it self then is it necessary also that that Principle upon which it depends and in which it is inhaerent should be extended in like manner and to say otherwise is to say that accidents may wander from their substance and they may be separated from one another which all Men know to be impossible and absurd for as there can be no colour without some substance which is coloured no shape or figure without some substance which is figured and shapen so neither can there be any motion without some substance which does move or is moved and if there can be no extention of colour or of figure then certainly there can be no extention of motion neither without the extention of that substance to which it belongs From hence it follows that that motion or activity by which the far greatest part of the Universe is kept in a fluid condition orin a state of perpetual motion whose parts would otherwise cling together as the parts of the Earth and Moon and other Planetary bodies do I say from hence it follows that this motion or activity must be coextended to some immaterial substance wherein this power or activity shall reside as in its proper subject its efficient cause its original root and fountain and spring and that substance can be no other then God himself or at least it will ultimately terminate in him because all secundary Created Beings can have no activity or principle of self motion but what they borrow from the first which is the sourse and original of all the rest together with their respective faculties and powers Again this self-active this self-moving Principle this first Cause and Principle of motion in the World must not only be supposed to be endowed with a Power of Motion and activity from it self but with a Power of suspending encreasing or utterly withdrawing this activity as it pleases it self for otherwise if it did always act to the utmost of it's Power since the matter is every where in it 's own Nature any otherwise than as it is awakened and stirred up by this Principle from without equally sluggish immoveable and unactive and since this being is uniform and like it self throughout equally self-moving self-sufficient and self-active it would follow from these two things considered together that all the parts of the Creation should be moved with equal swiftness that the Earth should be dissolved and shattered into the fine and subtle consistence of the purest aether and that all the Matter in the World should be not only fluid but aethereal too which is contrary to Experience wherefore that all things are not
moved with equal swiftness that all the matter of which the Vniverse consists is not crumbled into the finest Air and the most subtle aether it can be referred to nothing but this that that Cause or â—â—â—â—ciple in which the Power of self-activity and self-motion resides can either suspend decrease or utterly withdraw that motion as it pleases it self and this is confirmed by our own daily Experience of our selves who being a lower sort of immaterial Beings are likewise in our Proportion endued with a Power of self-activity and self-motion from within which though as being the Power of a finite and imperfect agent it cannot be extended beyond such a sphere of activity yet within that sphere or proportion or degree it may either suspend or encrease or utterly remove and withdraw its activity as it pleases it self Lastly since this being is not only furnished with an ability to act or move but with a power of proportioning that activity and that motion according to its pleasure and since it appears farther by our daily and perpetual experience of all the objects about us by the earth which he hath made and by the Heavens which are the work of his hands by the admirable beauty and artifice of all things considered by themselves by their agreement and harmony with one another for the Preservation of the whole and by the fitness of the whole Fabrick and the seeming conspiracy of its several parts for the subsistence and happiness of those Creatures that belong to the sensitive and the reasonable world I say since it appears by all this that the activity or self-motion of the Divine Substance is tempered by measures of the most obliging goodness the most exact Justice the most profound wisdom and yet that all the several instances compared together are at the same time an irrefragable argument of a most unbounded and uncontroulable power this makes up in short the perfect and compleat demonstration of what I undertook to prove that God is nothing else but an infinite extention or omnipresent Substance endued with all possible goodness and wisdom and power SECT II. That there is of necessity an Immaterial Extention to be granted against DES CARTES DES Cartez distinguishes very rightly betwixt cogitation or thinking and extention for they are two things and therefore the notion of the latter does not of necessity include in it that of the former there may be an extended substance which does not which cannot think but yet for all that there can be no thinking substance but what is extended the reason is because extention is the common attribute of all substance whatsoever and if the very essence and being of an immaterial substance do depend wholly and entirely upon cogitation and upon nothing else I would willingly demand of the maintainers of this Doctrine whether we must understand this of actual or only of potential or possible cogitation If the former if nothing but actual cogitation will serve the turn then the Soul in a sleep or trance or what we are used to call a brown study ceasing to think must also cease to be for there can be no cogitation without self consciousness or a sense of thinking and when it begins to think again it must be supposed to be Created a new or rather every distinct cogitation every particular thought that comes into our heads must be a distinct Soul which things are so absurd that nothing can be more But if we understand it only of potential or possible cogitation that is to say of a power of thinking which is sometimes employed and sometimes not which is all that is true in this notion then there must be a substance in which this power must reside which power must therefore be distinct from the substance it self as causes are distinct from their effects how immediate or emanative soever those effects be as modifications that is particular shapes colours magnitudes or respects of the parts of any body are distinct from that matter to which they belong or as the Elasticity or springiness of recoyling bodies is distinct from the matter of which those bodies are composed or because nothing can be more plain then the thing it self I say again that that substance which hath a power within it self of exerting or suspending a certain degree of activity as it pleases must needs be distinct from that power which may either be exerted or suspended or indeed while the Soul continues united to this earthly body cannot always be equally exerted in our selves besides the difference of temperament and constitution which there is betwixt our selves and others though the substance in which this activity resides be always the same in us and always specifically the same that is a substance of exactly the same nature in others Des Cartez is the less to be credited in setting cogitation and extention at so wide a distance from one another because it is plain he did it to serve a turn for in that Mechanical World which is of his contriving he hath ordered the matter so as to divide the whole universe into certain Vortices or Whirlpools in the centre of one of which is the Sun round about which the Earth is moved by the subtle matter of the Heavens much after the same manner as you shall see a straw turn round in a Whirl-pool of the water when by reason of too strait a passage and too swift a motion the water cannot pass freely on in a direct course but is obstructed by it self and is reflected back with an eddy towards the Fountain For all natural motion is in a strait line as is evident by this that where there is no such obstruction there the water flows easily in a direct Channel without any such violent returns upon it self thus smoak ascends directly when its motion is not disturbed by the wind and heavy bodies descend in a perpendicular line and the same is likewise further confirmed by Dez Cartez himself by the experiment of a Sling which the faster it is swung about in a circular motion the more strait and tite is the string or thong of it kept by the stone which is at the bottom which resists and opposes the circular motion which is violent and unnatural to it and endeavours all the while to fly off and be gone in a strait or direct line besides that motion in a right line is the most simple and easie sort of motion whereas there is no such thing in nature as an exact and Mathematical Circle but it consists in effect only of so many little straight Lines passing out of one into another that is of so many several violences and interruptions done to the direct and rectilinear motion Since therefore Des Cartez had divided the whole Universe into so many great Vortices or Whirl pools one of which is that which we inhabit the Center of which is the Sun as all the fixt Stars that we see in a Starry Night are if