you no further trouble having with all the Respect and Reverence due to such great and renowned Bodies given you an account of the Occasion of this Address to you as a Thing well deserving your most serious Thoughts and representing the cause of our Venerable Old Religion now at stake as in truth it is I humbly leave the whole matter before you and remain As by Duty and Inclination equally bound Honoured Sirs Your most faithful and devoted Servant A. A. A Collection of several Choice New Theological Terms made use of in Two Books One Entituled A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity c. The other A Defense of Dr. Sherlock 's Notion of the Trinity c. and first Introduced by the said Doctor for giving the Church a better Explication and a clearer Notion of a Trinity in Unity than it has had for above sixteen hundred years before Which Collection is as follows SElf-Consciousness Vind. p. 49. l. 27. Mutual Consciousness Vind. p. 52. l. 4. Natural Self-Consciousness Def. p. 8. l. 7. Natural Mutual Consciousness Def. p. 18. l. 8. Intimate conscious Knowledge Vind. p. 59. l. 4. Conscious life Def. p. 60. l. 20. Self conscious Principle Def. p. 67. l. 16. Natural Principle of mutual Consciousness Def. p. 67. l. 22. Conscious Union Def. p. 9. l. 10. Natural Unity of Mutual Consciousness Def. p. 33. l. 2. Communion of Mutual Consciousness Def. p. 72. l. 9. Self-Conscious Love and Self-Conscious Complacency Def. p. 68. l. 2 4. Intellectual Sensation Def. p. 77. l. 16. Self-Sensation Def. p. 39. l. 24. Conscious Sensation Def. p. 8. l. 4. Self Conscious Sensation Def. p. 7. l. 15. Natural Self Conscious Sensation Def. p. 7. l. 30. Natural Mutual Conscious Sensation Def. p. 8. l. 2. Feeling each other's Knowledge Vind. p. 56. l. 24. Self-Consciousness between the Father and the Son Vind. p. 60. l. 14. The Son 's feeling the Father's Will and Wisdom in himself Vind. p. 60. l. 22. The Son the Self Conscious Image of his Father's Will and Knowledge Vind. p. 60. at the end Continuity of Sensation Def. p. 7. l. 12 13. Three distinct Infinite Minds Vind. p. 66. l. 22. One Individual Nature subsisting thrice not by multiplying but only by Repeating it self Def. p. 24. l. 2 3. The Divine Nature repeated in its Image without multiplication Def. p. 37. l. 1. The same Substance repeated in Three distinct Subsistences Def. p. 91. l. 8. The same Individual Nature repeated in its living Image Def. p. 70. l. 4. One Eternal Infinite Mind repeated in Three Subsistences Def. p. 94. l. 6 c. Which Terms with some others like-them are to be substituted in the room of Nature Essence Substance Subsistence Suppositum Person Hypostasis and Relation All which though constantly used hitherto both by Fathers and Councils yet serving only as this Author affirms to pervert and confound mens Notions and Discourses about the Divine Nature and Persons ought utterly to be exploded and laid aside as meer Gibberish and Gipsie Cant especially by such as account all Greek and Latin so too Several New Heterodox and Extraordinary Propositions partly in Divinity and partly in Philosophy extracted out of the Two forementioned Books 1. THE Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits and not to hold so is both Heresie and Non-sense Vind. p. 66. l. 25. 2. Unless every Person of the Blessed Trinity considered as a distinct Person be allowed to be a distinct Infinite Eternal Mind we shall have nothing left us but a Trinity of meer Modes Names and Postures Defen pag. 8. lin 24. pag. 30. lin 24. 3. That which makes a Spirit whether Finite or Infinite and consequently each of the Divine Persons which according to this Author are Three distinct Infinite Spirits One with it self and distinct from all others is Self-Consciousness and Nothing else Vind. p. 67. lin 11. p. 68. lin 5. 13. 74. lin 15 c. 4. A natural Self-Consciousness makes a Natural Person Def. p. 8. lin 7. 5. If the formal Reason of Personality be that which makes a Mind or Person which with this Author are always Terms convertible one with it self and distinguishes it from all others then Self-Consciousness is the formal Reason of Personality Def. p. 37. l. 8 9 10 c. 6. Mutual Consciousness is that which formally unites the Divine Persons in Nature or Essence and makes them all essentially and numerically one God Vind. p. 68. l. 6 7 8. and p. 84 l. 29 and elsewhere frequently 7. There is no other mutual In-being or In-dwelling of the Father in the Son and of the Son in the Father called by the Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conceivable or possible but by mutual Consciousness Def. p. 9. l. 15 16 c. 8. The Son and the Holy Ghost are in the Father as in their Cause Vind. p. 69. l. 29. Which Term Divines generally decline the use of using the word Principle instead thereof However this overthrows the foregoing Proposition viz. That the Son can be no otherwise in the Father than by mutual Consciousness 9. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used with reference to the Divine Persons by the Nicene Fathers is not sufficient to prove a Numerical Vnity of Nature or Essence in the said Persons Def. p. 69. l. 1 2 c. 10. The Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Divine Persons is partly specifick partly numerical Def. p. 17. l. 27. 11. It is impossible to conceive a more close and intimate Union in Nature than mutual Consciousness Def. p. 35. l. 22. Whereas an Vnion in one Numerical Essence or Nature is and must be in the very Conception or Notion of it greater and more intimate as being the Ground the Reason and Foundation of the other 12. The very Nature and Subsistence of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is wholly Relative Def. p. 27. l. 21. And for their Subsistence I grant it to be so but if their Nature be wholly Relative too I am sure there is nothing absolute belonging to the Deity 13. The Case of a Man and his living Image though even by this Author 's own confession a meer Fiction or Supposition is a plain Account of the essential Vnity between God the Father and God the Son Def. p. 21. l. 10. That is to say in a Romance we have a clear Explication of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the first and second Person of the Trinity And in Two who are actually separate and loco-distant from one another we have a plain Account of the Union of Two who both in their Essence and Persons are actually and absolutely inseparable 14. If the Three Divine Persons be considered as Three Infinite Minds distinguished from each other by a Self-Consciousness of their own and essentially united to each other by a mutual Consciousness which is the only way of distinguishing and uniting Minds then a Trinity
in Unity is a very plain and intelligible Notion Vind. p. 73. l. 17. from whence follows another Proposition viz. the 15. That the Divine Persons have no other Distinction but what they have by Self-Consciousness and no other Vnion but what they have by mutual Consciousness And consequently That the Trinity thus stated really amounts to no more than a Council or Cabal of Gods and that it is in no degree so much Prophaneness for the Socinians to call it so as for this Man by his Three distinct Infinite Minds to make it so 16. The Three Divine Persons in the Godhead are not only modally distinguished Vind. p. 83. l. last But generally all the Divines in Christendom hold them to be so distinguished and no otherwise 17. There are no Modes no more than there are Qualities and Accidents in the Deity Vind. p. 84. l. first 18. Persons distinct yet not separate but essentially one by mutual Consciousness do not act upon each other Def. p. 73. l. 23. 19. The Divine Nature or Essence is not a single or singular Nature Def. p. 18. l. 13. 20. It is absurd to say That the one Divine Nature of the Father the Son and Holy Ghost is Incarnate and yet none but the Son Incarnate Def. p. 18. l. last and p. 19. l. first 21. One single Essence can subsist but once or have but one Subsistence Def. p. 19. l. 23. and p. 24. l. 29. and yet for all this it follows 22. One Eternal Infinite Mind is repeated in Three Subsistences Def. p. 94. l. 6. 23. There is no Distinction between the Divine Essence and a Divine Person Def. p. 91. l. 28. And yet all Divines speak of the Divine Essence as communicable or common to the Persons and account of the former as Absolute and of the latter as Relative and that surely â—mports Distinction 24. The Divine Essence makes the Person ibid. 25. The Divine Essence must be acknowledged to be a Person Def. p. 92. l. 19. 26. No man has an Idea of an Intelligent Nature or Essence distinguished from a Person Def. p. 92. l. 10. 27. Infinite Mind and Infinite Intelligent Person are Terms as equipollent and convertible as God and infinite Mind Def. p. 81. l. 23 c. 28. There are in God Acts of Sensation of a different kind and species from Acts of Knowledge and Self-Consciousness and mutual Consciousness are of the former sort Def. p. 77. l. 10 c. 29. It is the Soul only that can be happy or miserable rewarded or punished in or out of the Body Def. 54. l. 31. And if so what need say I can there be of a Resurrection Such Doctrines certainly back'd with Licence and Authority may come to something in time 30. We can frame no Idea of Substance but what we have from Matter Vind. p. 69. l. first 31. We cannot imagine how any Substance should be without a Beginning Vind. p. 70. l. 6. And if that be true then I affirm that Nothing can be imagined to be so 32. The Nature of a Spirit consists in Vital internal Sensation Def. p. 7. l. 11. 33. The Unity of a Spirit consists in Continuity of Sensation Def. ibid. 34. One Numerical Nature whether Finite or Infinite may be repeated without being multiplied Of the first whereof he often gives us an Instance in a man and his living Image Def. p. 91. l. 10. and of the other in the Divine Nature it self Def. p. 31. l. first 35. A man and his living Image are two distinct men though the Image is not another man Def. p. 31. l. 19 21. 36. An Image is wholly and entirely the same with the Prototype Def. p. 28. l. 16. 37. The Soul is the person and the Body only the Organ or Instrument of it Def. p. 51. l. 2. p. 57. l. 11. and p. 58. l. 16. 38. The whole entire Personality is in the Soul Def. p. 50. l. 20. 39. The Soul is the person and the Body is taken into the Unity of the said person Def. p. 60. l. 22. 40. The Soul is not properly part of the Person Def p. 61. l. 3. 41. The Body is not a Part of the Person Def. p. 60. l. 23. 42. The Soul is a Complete Being Def. p. 49. l. 30. 43. The Soul may be a complete and perfect Person and yet not a perfect Man Def. p. 49. l. 28 Whereas a Person implies all the essential perfections of a Man and something more 44. A Man with a Body Blind Deaf and Lame is not a perfect Man viz. upon a Natural and essential Account not so Def. p. 50. l. 10. 45. All Union between Natures is a Natural Union Def. p. 49. l. 16. 46. The Soul is as much the same with or without the Body as the Body with or without its Cloaths Def. p. 60. l. 29. 47. Unless there be two Personalities as well as Two Natures viz. Soul and Body the Two Natures cannot be two parts of one human Personality as they are parts of a Man Def. 45. l. 25. Now what gross Ignorance is this For an human Personality no less than a Particular Humanity essentially and metaphysically implies and connotes Parts Though only the Person and Man himself in the Concrete is actually and Physically compounded of them To which I add that Two Personalities can never be two parts of any essential compound whatsoever but Two Natures may and in the Present instance certainly are See this further explained p. 115 116. These Propositions with several others like them are his New Dogmata in Divinity and Philosophy which as they are most absurd and false in themselves so the Consequences of many of them with reference to the Incarnation of our Blessed Saviour I leave to the Thinking and Judicious Reader himself to draw out and to the Church â—oâ— judge of And possibly some time or other Foreigners also may be presented with a View of them in a Language which they understand better than they do ours THE CONTENTS Humbly Presented To the Reader 's perusal before he proceeds to read the following BOOK AN Account of the Civil Language bestowed by the Defender upon the Animadverter and Animadversions Pag. 2 3 The Objection about the word Mystery proved only the Blunder of the Objector 4. The Defender wearies the Reader with a nauseous Repetition of his old confuted Hypothesis without any new Argument to enforce it 7 He begins it with a gross Vntruth 7 8 9 He adds another as gross 9 10 c. He does not as he falsly affirms concur perfectly with the School-men in stating the Unity of the Godhead 11 The Vnconceivableness of the Mystery of the Trinity never accounted by the Christian Church any Objection against it at all 12 The Fathers way of explaining the Trinity wrongfully slighted and reflected upon by this Author 12 13 14 There is no such thing as Spiritual Sensation it being no better than a Contradiction in Adjecto 15 16 c. The
Vse of the Word as applied to Created Minds and Spirits but so is a Person also as much as Mind p. 16. l. 10. But stay here good Sir stay a little For this I utterly deny having before demonstratively shewn That though the word Person in the Original Use of it was actually applied to Beings of an Absolute and Separate Subsistence such as Angels and Men yet that even then they never signified them under the Proper Formality of Absolute and Separate but only of Complete Subsistences and by consequence equally agreed to all Complete Subsistences whether Separate and Absolute or only Distinct and Relative as the Divine Persons are so that here is not only the Vse of the word Person but also the Definition of it making it equally applicable to both these sorts of Subsistence viz. Absolute and Relative But on the other side I would fain know of this Author Whether the Definition of a Mind or Spirit can agree to any but to an Absolute Being Nature or Substance and if it can agree to none else how it can be applied to a Subsistence perfectly Relative as all the Divine Subsistences are so as in its Original and properest Signification to signifie that too which yet as I have shewn the Definition of a Person properly does Well but admitting though not granting that the Term Mind or Spirit may be drawn off from its Proper and Received Signification and Definition so that Three Minds or Spirits may signifie Three Distinct Relative Subsistences of one and the same Infinite and Eternal Mind or Spirit included in All or Each of them I say if the Term Three Minds may be brought to this Signification it must have been by a long received Custome which this Man calls Theological Vse And then I require this Author to shew us such a Theological Use of this word Mind that is a Concurrence of all Divines for several Ages throughout the Catholick Church expressing the Three Divine Subsistences or Persons of the Godhead by Three Distinct Infinite Minds that is to say Three Relatives by Three Absolutes The Term Persons indeed has been applied to these Three Subsistences and that both from the Original Signification and Definition of the Word as also from the constant Use of it by the Church for many Centuries But the term Infinite Minds was never plurally applied to them upon either of these Accounts by any Orthodox Divine or Writer unless this Particular Author's making use of it in his pretended Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity c. can be called the Theological Vse of the Word for I suppose That neither are all Divines included in him nor is he to be thought equivalent to them all whatsoever he may think himself Nevertheless for his own and the Worlds satisfaction I shall shew him what Theological use of the word Three Minds or Spirits instead of Three Divine Persons I meet with And first of all Theodoret in his first Book Haereticarum fabularum and the 18 Chapter tells us of a certain Sect called the Peratae who held in the Divine Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that here is one Theological use of the word Minds or Spirits thus applyed for him And Valentinus Gentilis held in the Godhead Three Eternal Spirits or Minds of which one was called by him the Essentiator and the other Two the Essentiati In which I cannot see what he differs from this Author So that here is another Theological Vse of this word for him And thirdly his Friend Stephanus Curcellaeus in his Treatise de Trinitate frequently calls the Divine Person Tres aeternos Spiritus asserting a Specifick Vnity between them which this Author also would fain be at and denying a Numerical So that here is a Third Theological use of the same word to comfort and encourage him And I wish him all the Credit and Satisfaction that such Theological Company can give him In the mean time whereas he tells the World in the close of this Paragraph That when the Dean as he calls him speaks of Three distinct Infinite Minds which are essentially and inseparably one he could mean nothing more where he gives us meaning against words again than Three distinct Intelligent but not separate Subsistences p. 16. l. 20. I must tell him in answer to This That if he here speaks of Three distinct Minds as Essentially one by one and the same Numerical Essence which is the only Essential Vnity here spoken of with reference to the Trinity it is an intolerable contradiction Forasmuch as each Mind or Spirit being one by a particular Essence of it's own constituting it such a Particular Mind or Spirit Three distinct Minds or Spirits can never be essentially one by one Numerical Essence belonging to them all which yet the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are and must be And whereas he says That by Three Minds he means Three Intelligent Subsistences I ask him whether these Three Subsistences are Relative or Absolute If he says Relative I do here tell him that then they are not Three Minds a Mind being defined An Intelligent Immaterial Substance which imports nothing Relative in it at all But if he says that these Subsistences are Absolute I then affirm That they are not the Three Persons in the Trinity which as such both are and of Necessity must be Relative So that it is evident that this Man knows not which way to turn himself nor how to speak of the subject he is treating of with any consistency with common sence And this makes his Boldness the more unpardonable in saying That he needs ask no other Pardon for affirming the Three Divine Persons to be Three Infinite Minds but for the use of a word which the Schools had not Consecrated p. 16. l. 24. In answer to which since he here charges the non-using of it only upon the Schools I challenge him to shew me any other Writers of the Church accounted Orthodox who have made use of it or affirmed the Three Divine Persons to be Three distinct Minds or Spirits Let him I say assign them if he can And if he cannot the using of the word thus applyed must even by his own Confession p. 9. l. 3. be an unusual way of speaking at least that is to say a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if it were no more than so let him shew â—ow he is able to justifie the Use of that which a General Council had denounced an Anathema to the Users of in these high Points about the Trinity and Incarnation But this is not all for I come upon him yet further and demand of him how he will answer to the Church not only his presuming to introduce such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in treating of this high Mystery and that in the Room of the anciently received Terms but his venturing to do this when he himself confesses and declares as he does in the 2â— th page lin 13. That there could not have
been more proper Terms used by the Church to express a Trinity in Vnity by than those Ancient ones made use of all along about it viz. than Three Subsistences in one Individual Nature which he says differ nothing from each other but in their different manner of Subsistence These are his Words And when the Impartial Reader has perused them and compared them with what is cited out of his Vindication concerning this very Term Subsistence and Subsistences amongst others set down in the second Chapter of the Animadversions and the 63 and 64 th pages I suppose he will find it high time to bless himself For I here challenge this shameless Man to reconcile or do any thing like reconciling what he says here to what he has said there if he can And yet as great a Perversion as a word mis-applied and forced from its true Signification must inevitably cause in so nice as well as great a Point as this is it is not however barely this Author 's not hereafter using this Term Three Minds as equipollent to Three Persons that will justifie him if he still retains the Sence of it and therefore I must here tell him That if he holds the Three Divine Persons to be Three Distinct Infinite Absolute Beings Three Distinct Infinite Spirits Three Distinct Infinite Substances as Substance stands contradistinct to Subsistence let him abandon and lay aside the Use of the word Minds never so much he is yet a Tritheist and a Real Assertor of Three Gods But after all the Judicious Reader may here observe what a pleasant Manager of Controversie this Man is For he first asserted the Three Divine Persons to be Three Distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits affirming withal in most impudent manner That to hold otherwise was Heresie and Nonsence see his Vindicat. p. 66. lin 26. But when the World cried out of this scandalous Tritheism and the Animadverter even in the Judgment of the Animadverter's spightfullest Enemies had throughly confuted it and on the contrary maintained That the Three Divine Persons are Three Distinct Subsistences of one and the same Infinite Eternal Mind included in or belonging to all and each of them Why then this Man according to his Excellent and Known Talent of Tacking about fairly comes over to his Adversary so far as to proclaim shamelesly to the World That though he spoke indeed of Minds yet he meant only Subsistences whereas it is impossible that Minds should be Subsistences or Subsistences Minds Such a Felicity is it for a Man whose Word is so apt to throw him into a Plunge to have a trusty Meaning still ready at hand to fetch him out again But if this be to defend an Hypothesis then the way to carry a Cause is to give it up and the surest Conquest to quit the Field In the next place he passes from the distinction of the Divine Persons to the Unity and Identity of their Divine Nature And here according to his constant custom of charging the Fathers with some defect or other in expressing themselves he tells us That they were at a greater loss for words to express this latter by than the former p. 16. l. 26. There being but one word to do it viz. the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this too of it self not sufficient Concerning which I must tell him in the first Place That the Truth receives no prejudice at all from there being no other one word to express this Unity or Identity of the Godhead in the Divine Persons by since God be thanked there are several very significant words and ways to explain this one word by But the main question is whether the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be sufficient to express this or no And here I must tell this presuming Man who denies it to be so First That the Nicene Fathers and the Catholick Church with them then thought it so And secondly That the Nature of the Thing necessarily proves it so And in order to this I would have him take notice That the sence of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be measured by the proper condition of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which it relates to and therefore though the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may in it self be indifferent to signify either a specifick or numerical Agreement in Nature according as the Nature is to which it refers yet when the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is joined with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 importing such an Essential Unity in it as renders it uncapable of all multiplication as an Eus summà perfectum or an Infinite Nature in the very notion of it must be there the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must of necessity signify an Agreement in a numerical Unity and Identity of Nature and no other for still the condition of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to measure the sence of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And accordingly I do affirm against this Man That there is no such Thing as Specifick Vnity or Identity or any Thing like it or Analogous to it belonging to the Divine Nature but only a Numerical Vnity and no more Which being the highest and perfectest sort of Vnity is above and instead of all other Unities whatsoever And the reason of this is because all Specifick Vnity of Nature is founded in the Imperfection and defect of the said Nature as rendring it capable of multiplication which is certainly a defect And let him take this Rule with him for once which I defy him to overthrow viz. That in Naturam non multiplicabilem non cadit Vnitas Specifica for as much as Specifick Vnity is but one common conception of the Mind gathered from the Agreement it finds in a Plurality of Particular Natures amongst themselves as every Created Individual has it's particular distinct Nature to it self and not a Part of a Common Nature shared amongst all the Individuals But will this Man affirm that there are Three particular Divine Natures out of which the Mind may form such a Specifick Vnity as we have been speaking of Let him therefore either renounce his very share in common sence and Reason or disclaim this abominable Absurdity of a Specifick Vnity in the Divine Nature or of any Thing so much as like it or Analogous to it or in his own words p. 17. that perfectly answers it And whereas he alleges the Fathers explaining the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by examples of a Specifick Vnity in Created Beings I tell him that the Fathers used not these Examples as Instances for representation of the like Vnity amongst the Divine Persons but as a ground for arguing aà minore ad majus against the Arians who would not allow so much as a Specifick Vnity of Nature between the Father and the Son whereupon the Fathers thus argued against them If you will allow the Generation of a Son in the Divine Nature certainly it ought to be more perfect or at least as perfect as that
according as the Thing is which it belongs to For all these Three necessarily go together and essentially imply one another and consequently there must be one and the same Principle of them all And now if we would see whether or no this Author applies all this to Self-Consciousness with reference to Minds or Spirits which he constantly makes to be Persons let the Reader cast his Eye back upon some of the fore-alleged Passages particularly upon that in Vindic. p. 49. l. 12. That this Self-Consciousness makes a Spirit numerically one with it self And in Vind. p. 68. l. 6. That the Self-Consciousness of every one of the Persons viz. in the Trinity to it self makes them Three distinct Persons And again Vind. p. 74. l. 13. That the Essential Vnity of a Spirit consists in Self-Consciousness and that it is nothing else which makes a Spirit one and distinguishes it from all other Spirits Likewise in this Defence p. 7. He tells us expresly That the Nature of a Spirit consists in Sensation which with him is only another word for Self-Consciousness Nay and to go no further than the very next page to that in which he here so positively declares That he no where makes Self-Consciousness the formal Reason of Personality viz. Defence p. 43. He roundly affirms That Self-Consciousness makes a Mind or Spirit one with it self and distinguishes or separates it from all other Minds or Spirits And that such a distinct and separate Self-Conscious Mind is a Natural Person Now I would have this Man in the first place tell us whether all these Passages have not in them a causal sence but only an Illative or Probative and no more And in the next place I would have him shew me whether there be any Thing more signified by the formal Reason of Personality than what the forecited Passages fully contain in them and if he cannot prove that there is any more signified by it as there is not then let him for the future leave off shuffling and own that by what he has asserted in the said Passages he has made Self-Consciousness the formal Reason of Personality with reference to Minds or Spirits which he Universally affirms to be Persons And by this I hope the Judicious Reader will see with both Eyes what a slippery Self-Contradicting Caviller the Animadverter has to dispute with In the mean time the sum of the Animadverter's Argument against him stands thus This Author asserts every Mind or Spirit to be a Person He places this Personality in Self-Consciousness he holds this Self-Consciousness to be Essential to and Inseparable from a Mind for as much as he positively asserts the Nature of a Mind or Spirit to consist in it Defen p. 7. l. 11. whereupon it does and must follow That since our Saviour in assuming the humane Nature assumed an humane Mind Soul or Spirit he assumed an humane Person too for as much as its Personality was as Inseparable from it as its Self-Consciousness from which it necessarily resulted was Nor will it avail him to allege the Interposal of Supernatural and extraordinary Power in the present Instance since such Power though never so extraordinary and Supernatural never destroys the Essence or Essentially necessary Connexion of Things And therefore if the Personality of a mind be implied in the very Nature of a Mind a Mind can be no more without its Personality than without its Nature which would be a direct Contradiction to the effecting whereof the Divine Power it self does not extend But on the other side when we state the Personality of an humane Nature upon the compleat Subsistence of it which is a mode not necessarily implied in it the Humane Nature of Christ might very well by the Divine Power be made to exist without it and so in a supernatural way be taken into and supported by the Personal Subsistence of the Eternal Word And all this with full accord to the strictest Principles of Reason without the least necessity of making Two Persons in our Saviour whereas according to this Author's Hypothesis it is impossible for all the Reason of Minkind to keep off an Humane Person as well as a Divine from belonging to our Saviour by his Incarnation or Assumption of the humane Nature As for his taking shelter in Boetius's Definition of a Person that will not help him neither since the utmost that can be proved against it is that Boetius was under a mistake and one Man's mistake certainly cannot make another in the right For all both Schoolmen and other Divines agree that this Definition strictly taken is defective and that instead of substantia Individua alone it should be substantia Individua completa Incommunicabilis or something Equivalent to the Two last Terms For otherwise this Definition also would infer Two Persons in Christ since there are Two Individual Substances belonging to him viz. an Humane and a Divine But after all we have great reason to believe that Boetius here uses the word Substantia for Subsistentia as several of the Ancient Fathers of great note did and particularly St. Hilary in his Books of the Trinity very often and St. Austin sometimes And then the Boetian Definition is perfect and good and no such Consequence of a double Personality in our Saviour can be drawn from thence For as much as the Son of God took our humane Nature without its proper Subsistence into the Subsistence of his own Eternal Person And so I proceed to the Animadverter's Third Argument proving Self-Consciousness not to be the formal Reason of Personality in Created Beings which is this The Soul in its separate state is conscious to its self of all its own Internal Acts or Motions c. and yet the Soul in such a state is not a Person and therefore Self-Consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality for if it were it would constitute a Person wheresoever it was This Argument is of the same Nature with the former each of them being brought as a Particular Negative against an Universal Affirmative And how does this Defender confute it Why by the easiest way of Confutation that it is possible for Ignorance to give it viz. by saying That it is nothing to the Purpose But does he know what is and what is not an Argument and what is to confute an Assertion or Position and what is not Let him know then That to confute an Argument is properly to conclude the Contradictory Proposition of that which is held by the Respondent or Defendant and is called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by the Latines Redargutio And here I would have this hardy Ignoramus own before the World if he dares That one Negative Instance does not overthrow an Vniversal Affirmative as really and effectually as Ten Thousand But possibly one who can be of all sides may be for both sides of the Contradiction too and hold That Self-Consciousness is the formal Reason of Personality Personal
Thing Forasmuch as the first and Original Principle of all Acts is the Nature and Essence of the Thing to which the said Acts belong But then the bare Essence or Nature of a thing whether Create or Vncreate can never of it self make or constitute that Thing a Person but the Determination of the said Nature by its proper and complete Subsistence must do that Accordingly in the Subject here before us The Principle of Self-Consciousness is no other than the Divine Nature as it is an Infinite Omniscient Mind which absolutely considered both as to its Being and Actings being the same in all the Three Divine Persons can never constitute them Persons nor originally distinguish them And if there be any Distinction in this Infinite Omniscient Mind either as to the Manner of its Subsisting or Acting for in that must lie all the Distinction that it is capable of it must be from the Personal Properties determining and distinguishing both and consequently since this Omniscient Principle and its Actings receive all their Distinction antecedently from the said Personal Properties or Personalities it is impossible that these Properties or Personalities should receive their Distinction from them In short the bare Principle of Self-Consciousness is the Divine Intellect or the Divine Nature as Omniscient which of it self neither is the Person nor constitutes the Person and the Actual Exercise of this Principle belongs to the Person himself who alone can be properly said to Act and therefore must be a Person antecedently to his Acting all Personal Acts proceeding from a Suppositum from both which it follows That Self-Consciousness neither in the Actual Exercise nor yet in the Principle thereof does or can constitute the Divine Persons or be the proper Formal Reason of their Personal Being Vnity and Distinction And whereas he tells us again That every Act of Self-Consciousness proves a distinct Person pag. 66. lin 6 7. This is an old Story and so often repeated that it is almost come to the Cuckow 's Note but he has been frequently told in Answer to it and must be so told again That the Question is not What proves a Person distinct but what makes it so and that not by any sort of Distinction but only by a primary and Original And this is that which I shall abide by and am resolved to hold him to notwithstanding all his Wrigglings and Turnings to get rid of it But it is now high time to remark upon some more of his Absurd Untheological and indeed Scandalous Assertions Which are these Three as we find them p. 67. l. 10. viz. That there are no Modes in the Divine Nature nor secondly any Affections in it nor thirdly that it admits of any Priority so much as in our conceptions of it To which I answer 1. That if there are no Modes in the Divine Nature there are no Persons in it neither For a Person is nothing else but the Godhead determined by a peculiar Incommunicable Mode of Subsistence To the Second I answer That these prime and transcendental Affections of Being viz. Unity Verity and Bonity do and must of necessity belong to the Divine Nature if we own it for a Real Being as I hope this Man does though I am not sure of it And then Thirdly If no Priority of conception is to be allowed in our Discourses about the Divine Nature as being uncapable of any we can never discourse of it as of a Being which has Attributes belonging to it or Immanent Acts flowing from it and resting in it For there is no conceiving of the former but per modum Subjecti Adjuncti nor of the latter but per modum Principii Actionis in both of which there is necessarily implyed a Priority and Posteriority of conception And I shall say no more of this Man here but that in these Assertions he opposes himself to all the Orthodox Divines in Christendom But that is the less to be wondered at if we consider also the Profaneness of some of his expressions here For the Animadverter having urged That Self-Complacency might be as well alleged for the Reason of the Divine Personalities as Self-Consciousness This Man Blasphemously subjoins p. 65. l. 29. Yes and he might as well have added Self-displeasure and Self-condemnation and as many more such Selfs as he could think of Now had the discourse here been of Men that is of weak sinful Mortals he might well enough have mentioned such kind of Selfs as Self-displeasure and Self-Condemnation and the like provided that the omitted not the Prime Self of all and most peculiarly his own which is Self-contradiction But when the discourse here is wholly of the Three Sacred Persons of the Trinity each and every one of which is God blessed for ever for him to affirm Self-Condemnation every whit as applicable to them as Self-Complacency when Self-Condemnation on the one hand must suppose Sin or Folly as the ground of it and Self-Complacency on the other is as essential to and inseparable from all and each of the Divine Persons as any other Divine Perfection can be this let me tell him is downright Blasphemy And therefore in requital of that scurrilous Character of an Ingenious Blunderer which he has so insolently reproached the Animadverter with I must and do here return upon him the just Charge of an Impious Blasphemer and that upon more accounts than this one telling him withal that had he lived in the former Times of our Church his Gown would have been stripped off his back for his detestable Blasphemies and Heresies and some other place found out for him to perch in than the top of St. Paul's where at present he is placed like a Church Weather-Cock as he is notable for nothing so much as standing high and turning round And now if he likes not this kind of Treatment let him thank his own Virulence for it in passing such base Reflections upon one among many more who he might be sure would repay him and certainly will though he has not yet cleared the Debt And thus having shewn that the Animadverter's Arguments against Self-Consciousness are not to be shook by any of this Author 's Pittiful Cavils we will now pass to the Examination of what he opposes to the Arguments brought by the Animadverter against his Muâ—â—â—l Consciousness also Of which the First is this No Act of knowledge can be the formal Reason of an Vnity of Nature in the Persons of the blessed Trinity But an Act of mutual Consciousness is but an Act of Knowledge c. And what answer does he give to this Why the old one viz. That he no where asserts That mutual Consciousness is the formal Reason of this Vnity but only that the Three Persons who are thus mutually conscious â—o each other must be essentially One p. 68. l. 5. To this he has been still answered That though he uses not the Term yet he asserts the Thing And whether he does not so
Mind and there be Three Infinite Minds it must follow That each of these Infinite Minds distinctly and by himself considered is God not that these are Three distinct Gods but one God p. 84. l. 7. But I affirm that it must follow not only That each of them distinctly is God but that each of them is a distinct God For since he grants God and Infinite Mind to be Terms equipollent and since Terms equipollent must have the same Predicates and consequents if the Term Distinct be ascribed to and predicated of Infinite Mind it must be predicated of and ascribed to the Term God as to the other equipollent and so one must be as distinct as the other and then if each Infinite Mind be â— distinct God Three Infinite Minds must be Three distinct Gods if there be any such thing as consequence in the World In a word Distinction and Multiplication are according to this Author Predicates belonging to Infinite Mind and therefore by vertue of the equipollency of the Terms they must equally belong to God too But this is not all that follows from this Man's Assertions For as he grants here that the Terms Infinite Mind and God are equipollent so he affirms p. 82. l. 24. That God and Infinite Intelligent Person are Terms equipollent also whereupon by the Rule of equipollency if there be but one God there can be but one Infinite Intelligent Person likewise For as much as both equipollents must have the same Predicates and consequents belonging to them Which certainly represents this Author's Hypothesis as the greatest Monster that ever the Tongue or Pen of Man brought forth For first by owning the equipollency of God and Infinite Mind and withal asserting Three Infinite Minds he inevitably brings in Tritheism and next by asserting the equipollency of God and Infinite Intelligent Person and thereby a Singularity of one as well as of the other he does as necessarily run into the contrary Heresy which is Sabellianism And so I pass from the equipollency of Terms to the second Part of my Answer which was to examine whether the Term Three distinct Infinite Persons does not as much infer a Plurality of Gods as the Term Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits does Which the Defender here affirms and the Animadverter as positively denies And both the Reason of his Denial and the Difference of the Case are very full and clear And 〈◊〉 in This That Three distinct Minds are Three distinct Absolute Beings Three Essences Three Natures each existing by it self without requiring any subject to inhere in or to be supported by And every such Numerical Nature or Essence must have its Numerical distinct Attributes or Predicates so belonging to it that one and the same Numerical Attribute cannot belong to any other Numerical Distinct Nature besides but that each Numerical Nature must have its Numerically distinct Attributes confined wholly to it self whereupon one and the same Numerical Infinity which is a Natural Attribute cannot belong to more Numerically Distinct Natures than to one alone But now on the other side Three Divine Persons are not Three distinct Natures Essences or Absolute Beings existing by themselves as Minds or Spirits do but Three Modifications or Relative Subsistences of one and the same Nature in which they all exist together as in their subject and cannot possibly exist by themselves without it whereupon as one Numerical Nature is common to these several Subsistences so the Numerical Infinity of the said Nature must together with it belong in common to the same In short Three Distinct Minds being Three Distinct Essences or Natures existing by themselves can never be Infinite by one Numerical Infinity any more than one Numerical Nature belonging in common to them But on the contrary Three Divine Persons being properly Three Subsistences of one and the same Nature may have one and the same Infinity as well as Nature belonging to them all But you will say when there is mention of Three distinct Infinite Persons does not the Term Distinct being joined to the Term Infinite import a distinction and consequently a Plurality of Infinites and so of Gods too I answer No Because the Term distinct though next in place to the Term Infinite yet being but an Attribute must immediately in construction affect the Term Persons as the proper subject of it and not the Term Infinite which is but another Attribute it self and immediately affects the same subject too So that Three distinct Infinite Persons signify but as much as Three distinct Persons who are Infinite the Term distinct being here exegetical of the Numeral Term Three and so belonging directly to the Persons not to their Infinity just as if we should say Three distinct Omniscient or Omnipotent Persons the Term distinct belongs immediately and directly to the Persons and is not properly an Attribute of their Omniscience or Omnipotence In like manner the Divine Persons are said to be Three distinct Infinite Persons but how not by three distinct Infinities of which each Person has one of it self but by one and the same Numerical Infinity common to all Three And yet I own that even this one common Infinity belongs distinctly that is to say after a distinct manner to each of the Divine Persons even as the Divine Nature it self does And this is what I insist upon as the True state of this matter and shall add no more but leave it to the Learned and Impartial Reader to judge of the Disparity of the Case for nothing can prove a parallel in the Two forecited Instances or in the consequences of them but that which prove Three absolute entire Beings or Essences and Three Râ—lative subsistences of one Numerical Being or Essence to be the same and that one and the same Numericall Attribute may as well belong to Three such Absolute entire Beings or Essences as to one Numerical absolute Being under Three distinct Modes or Relations And by this we may judge of the Truth of the Defender's following words viz. That the Adimadverter was aware That the Objection of Three Gods would lye against Three Persons as well as against Three Minds p. 85. l. 13. To which I answer that the Animadverter never judged so but yet judged it the Part of a Disputant to answer any seeming Objection against the Truth defended by him and accordingly he produced and answered this as such an one and no better But how did he answer it Why by shewing that there was this difference between them viz. That the Notion of a Person in the Godhead essentially importing an Absolute Being under a certain Relation afforded something for the Divine Persons to be distinguished by and something for them to agree in but that the Notion of a Mind or Spirit importing nothing but a bare Absolute simple Being without any such Relation Three Infinite Minds or Spirits could not be otherwise distinguished from one Another but by that whole Absolute Being or Nature and consequently by
a Total Distinction This Argument the Defender repeats adding withal That the sum of it amounts to no more but this viz. That Three distinct Minds are Three distinct Gods because they are distinguished l. 20. But will this shameless Falsificator say so and affirm That for several Beings or Essences to be distinguished by the whole of what they are is no more than barely to be distinguished For are there not partial Distinctions and modal distinctions and accidental distinctions of some things and will this Ignoramus say That Things thus distinguished are distinguished by the whole of what they are But says he again If notwithstanding this Distinction they are essentially and inseparably one they are not Three distinct Gods p. 85. l. 22. And no doubt they are not so if they are essentially one as on the contrary they must be so if they are not essentially one But then can there be a grosser Absurdity in Nature than to suppose it possible for Three distinct Essences as three distinct Minds are to be essentially one I must tell this Author that it is a contradiction in the Terms All distinction of Essences by themselves being as the very Term imports an Essential Distinction of the same and for Three essentially distinct Things to be essentially one is for them to be Three and One Distinct and not Distinct in the same respect which is absolutely impossible and would utterly confound the Distinction and Vnity of the Divine Pesons which can never be Both of the same kind And I am confident that there is hardly a Sophister of a Years standing in either of the Universities but would look upon this Proposition viz. That Three distinct Essences or essentially distinct Minds may yet be essentially one as much fitter to be hissed at than disputed against But says the Defender are not Three Infinite Intelligent Persons as much Three Absolute simple Beings and Essences as Three Minds p. 85. l. 27. No He has been told again and again that they are not and that because Three Persons are only Three distinct Relative Subsistences of one and the same Infinite Intelligent Being or Essence included in all and each of them Whereupon he repeats these following words out of the Animadversions viz. That the Divine Persons are Three Relatives or one simple Being or Essence under Three distinct Relations and consequently differ from one another not wholly and by all that is in them but only by some mode or respect peculiar to each and upon that account causing their distinction Thus the Animadverter And what says Sir Scorn and Ignorance to this Why that it is all perfect Gibberish That is in other words That he is not able to answer or refute one Tittle of it For let me tell His Emptiness that such Gibberish as it is it is the Language used by all the Divinity-Schools in Christendom in the Explication and account they give of this great Point of Divinity And accordingly I have transcribed the whole Passage as avowing every Syllable of it against this Ignorant Assumer and desiring the Learned Reader to pass his strictest Examination and his severest censure upon it But let us see what follows And here he asks the Question What the Three Divine Persons in the Vnity of the Divine Essence are Three Relations Three Modes Three Respects without some Being p. 86. l. 17. I answer That they are neither Three bare Modes nor Relations or Respects but Three Relative Subsistences or Subsisting Relations of one and the same Infinite Divine Nature Essence or Mind included in and belonging to all and each of the said Subsistences This is the Account which I have given and still give of the Three Divine Persons and which as I told him before I shall firmly abide by and therefore without asking any more such silly Questions let him reckon upon it and set himself to confute it and prove that it makes the Divine Persons Three meer Modes or Relations if he can And whereas he says That Three Relatives are not Three Relations but Three Things related to each other p. 85. l. 15. I answer that the first part of his Assertion viz. That Three Relatives are not Three Relations is a meer Childish Cavil For both Person and Relation are sometimes taken in an Abstract and sometimes in a Concrete sence and no Body says that Persons are properly called Relations but thus concretely taken and as Relation implies the Essence conjoined with it though yet to help us to a better and more distinct conception of these Things we are sometimes forced to conceive and speak of one as Abstracted from the other but still as the Schools observe Relative and Relation in Divinis are not really distinct Things but one and the same Thing under several ways of Conception and Expression But it is the latter part of his Assertion in which we are most concerned viz. That Three Relatives are Three Things related to each other Where if he understands the word Things in a strict Metaphysical sence for Three distinct entire Beings or Essences I deny That the Three Divine Persons are in this sence Three Things related to each other But one Thing that is to say one entire Being or Essence under Three distinct Relations or Relative Subsistences mutually respecting or referring to one Another And this indeed is the Point which this Man has been driving at all along viz. That each of the Divine Persons has a distinct entire Being or Essence of its own belonging to it and that as really distinct from the Beings or Essences of the other two as one Being or Essence can be distinguished from another Which I affirm to be perfect Rank downright Tritheism Whereupon he tells us again with his usual Confidence and no Proof That though the Three Divine Persons may with respect to their Three Real subsistences be called Three Infinite Eternal Minds yet they are not Three Absolute simple Beings or Essences p. 87. l. 19. To which I answer First That the Term Mind is a Term properly importing Nature not Subsistence and consequently That the Divine Persons can never be called Three distinct Minds barely from their being Three distinct Subsistences since all these subsistences may be in one and the same Infinite Mind but from their being Three distinct Natures or Essences which because they can never be neither can they be called Three distinct Minds Secondly I affirm That the Term Mind universally signifies an Absolute Being and that to talk of a Mind that is not an Absolute Being is as much as to talk of a Man that is not an Animal Rationale and so well am I assured of this That I do here Challenge this Man to produce me so much as one Classick one Scholastick or Theological Writer or Christian Council that ever used the word Mind of Minds in any other signification than that of an Absolute Being or Essence And therefore when he shall have proved That Three Minds are not
Three Absolute Beings or Essences or that three Absolute entire Beings can be Three Relative Subsistences or Modifications of one and the same Infinite Mind or Being then I will grant that he has defended his Assertion against the Animadverter and not only so but that he has full power also by a Theological use of his own making to alter the sence and signification of all words in spight of the World and by vertue of the same may if he pleases call the Deanry of Paul's the Archbishoprick of Canterbury and behave himself accordingly But it is very pleasant to see him here twice in p. 87. proving his Three Infinite Minds to be Three Personal Subsistences by that exploded Chimera of a man and his living Image which having been so fully baffled and exposed and rejected for its Prophaness as well as its Non-sence this Man surely must have a Degree of Luck equal to his Confidence if he thinks to make one gross Absurdity an Argument to prove and make good another At length he concludes his lame self-contradicting Answer with these words Had the Dean says he made Three complete Absolute Eternal Minds he had been justly chargeable with making Three Gods p. 87. l. 32. And that I assure him is a concession large enough For I do here affirm That he has asserted every one of the said Particulars whether he will own it or no. For first he has asserted Three Infinite Minds and it has been effectually proved against him from the Signification Definition and constant use of the Term. That Three Minds are formally Three Absolute Beings And secondly He has asserted these Three Minds to be Three distinct Persons and thereby has asserted also their Completeness since Personality is that which gives the utmost completion to the existence of an Intelligent Nature And thirdly and lastly By asserting the said Minds Infinite he asserts them also Eternal For as much as nothing can be Infinite but what is infinitely perfect nor can any thnig be Infinitely perfect without including the Perfection of Eternity in it So that if this Man would but once in his Life abide by his own words which a Self-Contradictor when he is pinched never will we should need no other proof but his forecited Confession to convince him That he stands justly charged with asserting Three Gods And whereas he asserts next That one and the same Infinite and Eternal Mind is repeated in Three Subsistences p. 88. l. 1. I must tell him again That the Term repeated is not to be admitted or endured here since the Repetition of a Thing is properly nothing else but the Production of another Individual Instance one or more of the same kind And whether this be applicable to or affirmable of the Divine Nature or Godhead let every one not abandoned by common sence judge In fine when this Man shall have proved these following Positions collected from him and held by him viz. 1. That Infinite Mind and Infinite Intelligent Person are Terms as equipollent adequate and convertible as God and Infinite Mind are 2. That though God and Infinite Mind are Terms adequately convertible and equipollent yet that Three Distinct Infinite Minds are not Three distinct Gods whereas one equipollent can never without a contradiction be multiplied without a multiplication of the other 3. That Three Minds are not Three Absolute Natures or Essences or that Three Absolute Natures or Essences can be Three Relative Subsistences and consequently Modifications of one and the same Infinite Mind 4. That Three distinct Essences or Three essentially distinct Minds may be essentially one When I say he shall have proved all these with as much Evidence as he has asserted them with Confidence then will he have secured his Tritheism against the Animadverter's first Argument and not before And so I pass on to consider what he has to say to the Second Which is this Three distinct Minds or Spirits are Three distinct Substances but the Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are not Three distinct Substances and therefore they are not Three distinct Minds or Spirits In answer to which the Defender tells us That the Dean does not pretend to know any thing of the Substance of a Mind and much less of God who is an Infinite Mind p. 88. l. 11. But does not this very Man who never contradicts himself but when he speaks or writes positively profess to give an Account of the Nature of a Mind or Spirit in p. 7. of this Defense telling us That is consists in Internal vital Sensation And is not the Nature of a Mind the Substance of it even according to this Author who in the 15 th line of this 88 th page uses the words Nature or Substance as signifying the same Thing And now will he disclaim all pretence of knowing any thing of the substance of a Mind or Spirit after he has undertook to give the World an Account what the Nature or Substance of them is and wherein it does consist But I leave the Reader to reconcile this Man as he finds him here in this 88 th page to himself in the 7 th page of the same Defense if he can But he must not think to carry off this fallacy of the consequent so For though we understand not by an immediate inspection of things themselves the Specifick Nature or Essence of this or that kind of Substance yet surely the General Nature of Substance may by discourse be known and it would be a pleasant consequence that because we cannot tell what the Particular Nature of such or such a substance is that therefore we cannot know it to be a Substance And therefore he asks p. 89. l. 20. What a Substance is Adding withal That he hopes the Animadverter will not affirm it to be that quod substat Accidentibus since that would make God himself who is incapable of Accidents to be no Substance And it is shrewdly argued upon my word But why then does he stop here without giving us the True Account what Substance positively is Which the very Elements of Logick and Philosophy might have taught him viz. That substance is a Being existing by it self so as neither to inhere in or be supported by another Being as a Subject This Sir is the true Account of what a Substance is And such a Substance I affirm a Mind or Spirit to be But as for that which does Substare Accidentibus it imports not the General Nature or Essence of Substance but only a property of one sort of Substance viz. Such as are created But he goes on and tells us That though understanding and Being Nature or Substance may be distinguished in Created finite Beings yet that St. Austin had taught him that they are the same in God p. 88. l. 15. And I grant that according to the Real Existence of the Thing they are so but for all that I affirm That they differ formally that is according to the several conceptus
a Subject are Three distinct Substances But Three distinct Minds are Three such Absolute Beings and Therefore Three distinct Minds are Three distinct Substances In which Syllogism to shew the disparity between Minds and Persons let the Term Three Persons be put into the Room of Three Minds and then the Minor which is true and must be granted of Minds must be denied of Persons for they are not Three distinct Absolute Beings so existing as was expressed in the Major Proposition and therefore that Argument which concludes Three Minds to be Three Substances can never conclude Three Persons to be so too And whereas the Defender affirms p. 89. l. 27. That Three Eternal Minds are but Three Eternal subsistences of one and the same Individual Eternal Mind I answer That it is the height of Absurdity and utterly impossible in Reason and Philosophy for a Mind which is an Absolute entire Being existing by it self to be the Subsistence of another Absolute Being For as much as Subsistence is properly and formally a Mode of substance and in the Divine Substance or Nature a Relative Mode too though still implying in it the said Nature as modified or determined by it So that we see here this Man's Philosophy in making one Mind the Subsistence or Modification of another Mind and Three distinct Minds so many distinct Subsistences or Modifications of one and the same Mind Which I am sure all the Schools in Christendome will with one voice explode And so I leave this Defender or rather this Dean in Masquerade to bring off his Three distinct Minds from being Three distinct Substances at his leisure But I fear it will cost him a new cast of his meaning to do it though let that be what it will it is not any one Man's meaning especially founded upon his Ignorance but the Universal Judgment and consent of all Learned Men that must determine the proper and distinct sences both of Substance and Subsistence in this Dispute But the Animadverter in proving an Absolute Unity and disproving all plurality of substance in the Godhead had first strengthned his Assertion with the Authorities of some of the most eminent Fathers positively asserting the former and not without indignation rejecting the other And what does this Defender answer to these Why he tells us That the Fathers by denying Three Substances principally rejected Three divers Natures of different Kinds or Species in Opposition to Arianism p. 90. l. 5. Very good they principally rejected a plurality of specifically distinct Substances and will this Man infer from hence that they did not reject also a Plurality of Individual Substances in the Godhead Why yes if he will invalidate the Authorities alleged by the Animadverter he does and must do so And accordingly he tells us That the Fathers by Unity of Substance here understand only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies only a Specifick Vnity of Substance the Fathers in Opposition to Arianism designing only to disprove a Specifick plurality of substance in the Godhead not a plurality of numerical distinct Individuals So that it seems they resolved though they fell foul upon the Arians yet to do it so as to keep fair Quarter with the Heathens In answer to which since 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports an Union of Persons in such a Nature Essence or Substance as is uncapable of being numerically multiplied as the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 essentially is and cannot but be I affirm that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 irrefragably proves a Numerical Unity or Identity of substance in the Divine Persons and withal that all Specifick Unity in the Divine Nature or Persons is absurd and impossible for I must tell this puny Logician That it is one thing to disprove a Specifick diversity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons and quite another to prove a positive specifick Vnity of the same which can never be done where there are not several Individual Natures of the same kind to collect it from Secondly I answer That though the Fathers in their disputes with the Arians alleged several Things for the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons which strictly reached no further than to Specific Vnity yet when they disputed this matter more exactly with the Heathen Polytheists they rested not in this but still insisted upon and contended for a Numerical Vnity of the Divine Nature Essence or Substance as the Catholâ—ck Church has done ever since And besides the Truth is Those very Arguments or rather Instances of Resemblance brought by the Fathers against the Arians though taken from things having no more than a Specifick Unity of Nature yet did not determinately prove either a Specifick or a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons but only an Unity or Sameness of Nature indefinitely which being laid as a foundation the peculiar Condition of the Divine Nature quickly determined the kind of its Unity and by vertue of its Infinity proved that that Vnity or Sameness could be no other than Numerical And thus having answered what he has said about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Testimonies of the Fathers if he still persists in this Scandalous Assertion That the Fathers were only against several Kinds and Species of Substance in the Godhead and Divine Persons but not against several Individual and Numerically distinct Substances in the same I desire him to satisfy the World in these Two Things First How the Fathers came to look upon the Divine Nature or Essence in Three distinct Persons as such an amazing Incomprehensible Mystery as they still avowed it to be if the said Nature were not more than specifically one for that one and the same specifical Nature should be in a plurality of Individual Persons is no wonder at all Secondly I desire him to satisfy the World also Why the Primitive Latine Church with so much Zeal and for so long a time refused the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 declaring this for the only reason of their refusal thereof that they reckoned it to signify Three Substances for they could not reckon it to signify Three specifically distinct Substances For as much as they knew that the Greek Church which used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and contended for it had constantly zealously and most expresly opposed the Arians in their asserting Three Species of Substance in the Trinity and therefore it is evident even to a demonstration that they were only jealous of Three Individual Substances which they feared the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might introduce and so betray them into another sort of Arianism or rather Gentilism as bad as the first These Two Quaeries I say I challenge this Author to answer me in by making it appear notwithstanding the foregoing Particulars that while the Fathers asserted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Divine Essence or Substance it was only a Specifick not an Individual Vnity of the same which they
all along pleaded for But after the fore-alleged Testimonies of the Fathers the Animadverter thought fit to add the Modern Testimony of Bellarmine in those words That to assert that the Father and the Son differ in substance is Arianism In reply to which he first scoffingly excepts against Bellarmine's Orthodoxy because forsooth he was a Papist like that profound Dotard who reprov'd a young Student for reading Clavius upon Euclid telling him That he ought to read none but Protestant Mathematicks for surely the Romish Writers are as orthodox about the Article of the Trinity as any Protestant Writers whatsoever Accordingly from these words of Bellarmine the Animadverter argued That if in the Trinity the Father and the Son were two distinct Substances for them not to differ in Substance would be impossible To which this man replies in these words As if says he to be distinct and to differ in Substance were the same thing No Trifler no for Accidents may be distinct and Modes may be distinct which cannot differ in Substance and the Animadverter speaks not here of any sort of Distinction in general but only of the distinction of Substances and as to that he affirms That for Substances to be distinct must infer them to differ in Substance too But he asks us hereupon a very wise Question Are not two Men says he Unius Substantiae of one and the same substance because they are two distinct Men and each of them has a distinct Nature of his own P. 90. l. 19. I answer That a distinct Human Nature is a distinct Substance and that altho ' two Men are notionally and specifically of the same substance or nature yet really and numerically they neither are nor can be so But he has not done with his Questions yet but asks us Whether to differ in Number and to differ in Substance and Nature be the same thing and Whether difference in Number prove a diversity of Nature too Yes Sir a Numerical Diversity of Individual Natures or Substances it does prove tho' their Specifick Nature which is but a Notion founded upon things be the same And here I must tell His Ignorance what it was that betray'd him to these silly Questions viz. his supposing That there is no Essential Difference or no Diversity of Nature but a Specifick Difference or Diversity Whereas an Essential Difference as well as an Essential Unity is threefold viz. a Generical a Specifical and a Numerical and this last is as much and as truly an Essential Difference as any of the two former or rather more so for the two former are properly Notions existing only in the Mind tho' collected from things actually existing in Nature but the last has no dependance upon the conception of the Mind at all but is wholly in the thing itself whereof it is the difference And therefore I do here tell this man That three numerically distinct Substances are three numerically distinct Essences or Natures and consequently differ from one another as three such Essences or Natures do As for the Complement he passes upon the Animadverter at the end of this Paragraph p. 90. as if he were to be taught by this man to construe the Fathers For that and sundry other of his Scurrilities I will not fail to reckon with him in due place But after the several Testimonies produc'd by the Animadverter against a Plurality of Substances in the Godhead he proceeded to argue against the same from Reason And what does the Defender reply upon this Topick Why says he Whereas the Animadverter would prove That the Three Divine Persons cannot be Three distinct Minds because they are not Three distinct Substances the Dean may safely deny the Consequence p. 90. at the latter end And may He so I must tell him That if the denyal of the Genus does and must infer a denyal of the Species as that which is not an Animal cannot possibly be a Man then that which proves the Three Persons not to be Three Substances must prove them also not to be Three Minds for Substance respects Mind as a Genus does its Species and the consequence from the Genus to the Species negatively is unavoidable But what then would he have the Animadverter to prove Why this That if Three Minds are Three Intelligent Persons and a Mind is a Substance therefore three distinct Minds or Persons are Three distinct Substances p. 91. l. 1. But what illogical confused stuff is this However since it affords Three Terms I will cast it for him into a Syllogistical Form and that will quickly shew what may be concluded in this matter and what cannot Thus. Three distinct Minds are Three distinct Substances but Three distinct Persons are Three distinct Minds therefore Three distinct Persons are Three distinct Substances The Major of which Syllogism has been effectually proved from the Definition of a Mind already and the Minor being the Defender's avowed Principle and Assertion can any Thing conclude more plainly than this Syllogism does That according to this Man's Principles The Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Substances Which is the Thing that the Defender here calls upon the Animadverter to prove and accordingly proved it is But says he Three distinct Minds may subsist distinctly and inseparably in one Eternal and Infinite Substance as Three Intelligent Persons do ibid. To which I answer First That let them exist never so inseparably in one Infinite Substance they are really Three Minds still and can never be one Individual Substance or Mind but collectively And that I am sure is neither naturally properly or simply one Secondly That Three Minds may as well be in one Infinite Substance as Three Persons are This is perfectly gratìs dictum and according to his usual way a gross downright presuming the thing in dispute For it is and has been all along absolutely denied him and the contrary more than once proved against him viz. That Three distinct Minds being Three absolute entire Beings Essences or Substances can never subsist in one absolute Being Essence or Substance and that on the other side Three Intelligent Divine Persons being Relative Subsistences not absolute Beings may subsist in one Absolute Being or Substance So that the disparity between Minds and Persons is manifest and as to the present Case irreconcileable Nay and I shall add one consideration more to the same purpose and that of no small moment viz. That no Two or more Substances nor consequently Minds or Spirits do or can subsist inseparably which yet this Man takes for granted but that as they are in their own Nature capable of existing by themselves and for that Reason separable so by the Absolute Power of God they may be actually separated provided his Decree does not hinder And this makes another vast disparity between Minds Spirits and Substances on the one hand and the Divine Persons on the other viz. That the Divine Persons from the very nature of the Thing are even by the Divine
Power it self inseparable both from the Essence which they belong to as also from one Another which distinct Minds can never be But the Defender adds That the True and short answer to the Animadverter's Argument is That the same Substance repeated in Three distinct Subsistences is not Three Substances but one p. 90. ibid. In answer to which he has been sufficiently told already That the Term Repeating the Divine Substance or Nature is New Odd and Unjustifiable and such as the Catholick Church never made use of and for that cause ought utterly to be condemn'd and thrown aside But for a further answer to it I do first affirm in general That for the same numerical Nature or Substance to be repeated is impossible and a contradiction Repetition as we have shewn being nothing else but Another Production In the second place I deny in particular that there is any such Thing as a Repetition of the Divine Substance or Nature in Three Subsistences The said Nature indeed is and exists in Three Subsistences but I absolutely deny that it is repeated in them and it will concern this Bold Novellist to prove as well as assert that it is so In the mean time it is no small shame and calamity to the Church that he is not called to account for such horrible Innovations But the Animadverter had argued further against Three distinct Substances in the Godhead thus That if the Three Persons are Three distinct Substances then Two distinct Substances will concur in and belong to each Person to wit That Substance which is the Divine Essence and so is communicable or common to all the Persons and that substance which constitutes each Person and thereby is so peculiar to him as to distinguish him from the other and consequently to be incommunicable to any besides him to whom it belongs since for one and the same substance to be common to all Three Persons and withal to belong incommunicably to each of the Three and thereby to distinguish them from one Another is contradictious and impossible And what can this Man oppose to this Argument with the least shew or shaddow of Reason What part of it does he deny Or what Term of it does he distinguish For the Argument proceeds upon his own supposal at present that the Three Persons are Three distinct Substances as the Animadverter had fully proved them to be before Why all that he says is That he is heartily ashamed and sorry good Man to see such stuff as must necessarily expose our Faith to the scorn of Atheists and Infidels and therefore that he may not contribute to it he graciously declares that all this Non-sense shall escape the lash of his Pen p. 91. l. 22. That is according to his constant never failing way he is then highest in Noise and Vapour when he is brought most to a Nonplus But I have some Answers of another sort to make to this passage alleged out of him As first That whatsoever his Sorrow in this Case may be he will hardly convince the World that he has any shame Secondly That to expose our Holy Faith to the scorn of Atheists and Infidels by one's Folly and Nonsense is very bad But that to make Atheists and Infidels by one's Scandalous Writings and more scandalous Practices is much worse Thirdly That nothing does or can more expose our Holy Faith to the scorn of Atheists and Infidels than for any one who wears but the Name of a Christian to assert Three Gods which Three distinct Infinite Minds Spirits or Substances upon all the Principles of common Reason and Philosophy certainly and undeniably are and withal that there can be no Non-sense comparable to the asserting Three distinct Absolute Infinites And fourthly and lastly Whereas he says That all the Non-sense of the foregoing Argument as he calls every thing which he cannot Answer shall escape the lash of his Pen I would have this poor Whipster know that the Animadverter is far from dreading the lash of that Pen which never yet drew blood of any one but of Priscian And so having answered his compassionate Preamble in behalf of our suffering Faith forsooth we will now see what he has to say upon occasion of the Animadverter's Argument for it can be no more called an Answer to it than to that Learned Reply made to his Hobbian Vindication of his Case c. And in order to this I demand of him first Whether that one Infinite common Essence or Substance which formally unites the Divine Persons together does or can formally distinguish them also from one another Secondly Whether since he utterly denies all Modes as well as Accidents in God that which distinguishes each Person from the other can be any thing else but a Substance there being nothing in Nature conceievable by the Mind of Man but what is either a Substance an Accident or a Mode of Being and I defy this Man or any one besides to give Instance of a fourth which is none of these And Thirdly and lastly Whether each Person hereupon must not either have Two Substances belonging to him viz. One uniting him to and the other distinguishing him from the rest or be both united and distinguished by one and the same substance common to them all Both of which are Impossible This is the Argument though after another and more particular manner proposed and I Challenge this Piece of a Disputant to overthrow any one Part or Proposition of it by solid and clear Reason for fooling and flounceing and throwing out the word Non-sense from a plentiful stock within will not do it But to shew how wofully he is hampered see what desperate assertions he advances p. 91 92. for the disentangling himself And first in p. 91. l. 28. he roundly tells us That the Dean knows not any distinction between the Divine Essence and a Divine Person but that the Essence makes the Person In which words there are Two as false and Heterodox Propositions as can well be delivered by any one professing Divinity viz. First That there is no distinction between the Divine Essence or Substance and the Divine Persons And secondly That the Divine Essence makes the Person Both of which I will distinctly examine and first as to the first of them I affirm That the Divine Essence is and cannot but be vertually and fundamentally distinguished from the Persons That is to say it affords a Reason and Foundation in the Thing it self sufficient for the Mind to form thereupon a different Conception of the Divine Essence from the Conception of the Divine Persons by proper and Metaphysical abstraction and that so distinct that the Conceptus objectivus of one neither is nor can be the Conceptus objectivus of the other And if this distinction or rather distinguishableness should not be admitted in the Divine Nature and Persons as founded upon some Reason in the Things so distinguished I desire this Man to tell me upon what account it is
can be one Person for in either of these Instances the Unity and Diversity is in eodem genere viz. in genere mentis in the former in genere personae in the latter and consequently in both impossible And therefore as for that Inference upon which his whole answer relies viz. That if it be no Contradiction for Three to be one in several respects then it is no contradiction for Three Infinite Minds to be one Mind p. 93. l. 18. I must tell this Anti-Logician That he concludes from a particular Proposition instead of an Universal and not only so but from a particular Instance of one kind to a particular Instance of another His Argument amounting to no more than this That because it is no contradiction for Three to be one upon different Accounts in some Cases therefore neither is it so in the Case of Three Minds But this by his favour will never follow For though it be no contradiction in some Instances as particularly in that of three Subsistences in one Essence or of three Relations or respects so concurring in any one thing as to be all predicable of it yet This does not hold in all Instances nor in any Indifferently nor particularly in this of three Minds For as much as no respect whatsoever can make Three Minds to be essentially One Mind nor Three Spirits to be one Spirit nor Three Substances one Substance and the like and it would be a contradiction for them so to be But according to this Author's Hypothesis We have here a Trinity and Vnity of Natures that is to say Three distinct Natures one in Nature Three distinct Substances one in Substance and Three distinct Spirits one Spirit and all this only by vertue of several Respects whereas no bare diversity either of Respects or Actions can give or cause a diversity of Nature or Essence in the substances they belong to and issue from howsoever in some instances it may prove or infer the same And therefore since it has been abundantly proved That the Terms God and Infinite Mind are so perfectly equipollent that whatsoever may be affirmed or denied of the one must be equally affirmed or denied of the other I challenge this Author to give the World a solid Reason Why in different respects Three Gods may not be one God as well as in the said respects Three Infinite Minds may be one Infinite Mind and particularly why Mutual Consciousness may not unite several Gods into one as well as several Infinite Minds into one were there several Gods to be so united and I will undertake to prove and have indeed more than sufficiently proved already that there are and must be as many Gods as there are Infinite Minds But as for his old outworn implement mutual Consciousness which is the only Vinculum he assigns to make his Three Infinite Minds essentially one it has been shewn that supposing it as this Author does to proceed from Three distinct Minds it cannot be one Act but Three distinct Acts which therefore can never make Three Essences as the Three Minds are from which the said Acts must proceed to be essentially one Besides that if this mutual Consciousness were but one single Act yet being as such postnate to the Essence from which it flows it can never give Original Unity to it I conclude therefore That the Three Divine Persons can in no respect whatsoever be Three Infinite Minds any more than Three Gods For This very Man affirms in Terminis That Infinite Mind or Spirit is the Divine Nature or Essence it self and that even in contradistinction to any of the Divine Attributes p. 94. l. 23. And if so then Three Infinite Minds are Three Divine Natures or Essences and Three Divine Natures are Three Godheads and Three Godheads are Three Gods only under a different way of Expression All which is so very plain yea so flagrantly so self-evidently plain that to dispute any longer with him upon this subject would be but like disputing with one who denies that the Snow is white or that there is any such Thing as motion even while he himself is walking about the Room And thus having shook in pieces his crazy Impertinent Answer to the Animadverter's Third Argument When I look back upon that shrewd remark of his with which he begins the said Answer viz. That Logick is a very troublesome Thing when Men want sense p. 93. l. 7. I must confess that he here speaks like a Man who understands himself and that having so often shewn how troublesome a Thing Logick is to him by his being so angry with it he now gives us a very satisfactory Reason why it is so and therefore in requital of it I cannot but tell him That if Logick without sense be so troublesome Confidence without either Logiâ—k or Sense or Truth or Shame or so much as Conscience of what one says or denies is Intolerable And so I am at length come to the Fourth and concluding Argument which is taken from the form of the Athanasian Creed and runs thus Whatsoever Attribute may be truly predicated of all and each of the Divine Persons in the Athanasian Form so belongs to them all in common that it can belong to none of them under any Term of Distinction from the rest But the Attribute Infinite Mind or Spirit may be truly predicated of all and each of the Divine Persons in and according to the Athanasian Form And therefore it can belong to none of them under any Term of distinction from the rest And what has our Defender now to oppose to this Argument Why first according to his usual way of giving a dull scoff instead of a Rational Answer he calls it a wonderful Argument and I confess it may well be so to him since Wonder generally springs from Ignorance But let us hear what the Oracle says And here we have him telling us That Infinite Mind or Spirit is no Attribute but the Divine Nature or Essence it self and that the Metaphysical Animadverter uses to distinguish between Essence and Attributes in God Def. p. 94. l. 23. In answer to which the Metaphysical Animadverter would have the Illogical Defender know That what Metaphysically taken is properly the Subject of the Divine Attributes and upon that account stands distinguished from them as the Divine Essence or Nature so taken does may yet Logically considered be it self an Attribute as it obtains the place of a Predicate joined with a Subject in a Proposition And therefore to that Senceless Question of his Is God an Attribute I Answer that in a Logical Sense God may be so for as much as God may be truly and properly predicated of each of the Divine Persons And I would have this poor Capechumen in Logick take notice that whatsoever stands predicate in any Proposition so as to be affirmed of another thing as of a Subject that is Logically an Attribute And therefore though the Term God Metaphysically taken as we
between Three Infinite Persons and Three Infinite Minds 228 A Syllogism very learnedly form'd by this Defender for his old Friends the Socinians with two Terms and no more 229 The Nature Import and Force of the Equipollency of Terms declar'd 234 235 236 The Assertion of Three distinct Infinite Minds inevitably inferrs a plurality of Gods but the Assertion of Three distinct Infinite Persons does not so and the reason of the Difference plainly shown 237 238 239 c. The Defender confuted by his own express concession 244 His New-coin'd and never before heard of Expression viz. That the Divine Nature is Repeated in Three Subsistences ought by no means to be endur'd but utterly rejected as absurd both in Philosophy and Theology 242 item 260 c. This Defender manifestly ignorant what the true definition of Substance is 247 His equally gross and ridiculous Ignorance in supposing a Res Cogitans to be a different thing from a Substantia Cogitans or Intelligens 249 Naturae Rationalis Individua Substantia an Essential Predicate indeed but not the Definition of a Person 250 The Three Divine Persons proved not to be Three distinct Substances but Three distinct Minds proved necessarily to be so 251 Proved That the Fathers by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as apply'd to the Divine Persons never meant to conclude a Specifick but only a Numerical Vnity of Nature or Substance belonging to them by shewing how far they argued against the Arians from the said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 253 254 That the Ancients never admitted three individual Substances in the Godhead proved from the Latine Churche's refusing for a long time the use of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 255 This Author 's fulsome Ignorance in supposing a Numerical Difference not to be an Essential Difference 257 It is impossible for three Minds to exist in one infinite Mind or Substance so as thereby to become essentially one 259 It is impossible for any two or more Substances to be absolutely inseparable which is another Demonstration That the three Divine Persons cannot be three distinct Substances Minds or Spirits ibid. The Animadverter's Argument against three Substances in the Godhead asserted and confirmed 262 The Defender's scandalous Assertion concerning the Divine Essence and a Divine Person examin'd and overthrown p. 263 to 267 A notable Passage out of Faustinus against the admission of Three Individual Substances in the Godhead 268 The Animadverter's Third Argument against the Three Divine Persons being Three distinct Minds vindicated and the force of it prov'd to be founded not in the meer Opposition of the Numeral Terms One and Three but in the peculiar Nature and Condition of the Subject which they are here apply'd to 270 271 Three Infinite Minds can no more be essentially One Infinite Mind than Three Persons can upon any account whatsoever be naturally One Person 272 For Three to be One and One to be Three in respect of one and the same kind of Unity or Diversity is impossible ibid. A Ridiculous Cavil of the Defender proceeding from his gross Ignorance of the Sence and Vse of the word Attribute as apply'd to God 275 The Defender's perpetual Blunder in concluding each of the Divine Persons to be a distinct Infinite Mind because Infinite Mind belongs distinctly to each of them p. 277 to 280 To assert the Three Divine Persons to be Three Infinite Minds utterly irreconcilable to the form of the Athanasian Creed ibid. The same Individual Divine Nature belongs in common to all the Divine Persons but upon the same account on which it is common to them all it does not belong distinctly to each or any of them 279 A Notable Passage out of a Latin Tract inserted into Athanasius's Works expresly denying the Three Divine Persons to be Three Spirits 281 The Blasphemy charged upon the Passages extracted out of Dr. Sherlock's Book of the Knowledge of Jesus by the Animadverter in his Preface still insisted upon and the Charge made good against him 283 284 Good and Charitable Advice given to this Author 285 286 A summary Account of the several Ways and Shifts made use of by the Defender throughout this whole Defence p. 286 to 289 Some Instances of the extraordinary Vertues of Mr. Dean's Meaning shewing of what singular use it is to him upon more occasions than One p. 289 to 292 The Complaint made by some against the Animadverter as if he had treated Mr. Dean forsooth with too much sharpness shewn to be partial and unreasonable and consequently not worth regarding 293 294 The Animadverter's Resolution how to deal with him for the future 294 His Scurrility towards the Animadverter in six several Instances laid open and remarked upon such as for example his traducing him as One who can only make a shift to read and to transcribe and as one who must be taught to construe the Fathers calling him withal Grinning Dog c. p. 294 to 302 A brief Vindication of the Animadverter against the Objections and unprovok'd Spight of the Socinian Considerer p. 302 to 312 A memorable Saying of a certain Dean to a poor Widow desiring to renew her Lease with him 308 Dr. Sherlock and not the Animadverter a Favourite of the Socinians 302 303 304 c. A Remark or two upon the little Oxford-Excommunicate lately expell'd from Exeter College 313 This New Hypothesis sufficiently debated and confuted already and the Truth asserted against it by Argument and consequently the Exertion of the Episcopal Censure and Authority the fittest way to deal both with That and its Author for the future 315 The whole closed up with a remarkable Expression apply'd to the present Subject Some ERRATA of the Press IN the Table of New Heterod Propositions page the last lin 15. for of judge of r. to judge of p. 22. l. 5. for intire read entire p. 49. l. 12. for 26th r. 25th p. 60. l. 14. for singulur r. singular p. 73. l. 5. dele E. p. 76. l. 25. for Effential r. Essential p. 83. l. 11. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 174. l. 15. for coutradicting r. contradicting p. 236. l. 14. for Inâ—inite r. infinite p. 244. l. 31. for Thnig r. Thing p. 246. l. 27. for consist r. consist p. 251. l. 1. for Substancs r. Substance p. 280. l. 22. for is evident r. is as evident p. 302. l. 15. for 7. r. 6. Where Adimadverter occurrs r. Animadverter For and indeed r. or rather indeed p. 313. last line but two TRITHEISM CHARGED c. AS it may justly be accounted a needless so it is certainly a Nauseous Task to attempt the Confutation of a Book more than sufficiently confuted already by the very Book which it was wrote against For so much I dare and shall averr That there is not one Passage in all this Defence of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of the Trinity as it is called carrying with it so much as the Face of an Argument as none carries with it
not properly and formally make him to be God nor is that wherein his Godhead does precisely consist though by Reason of the Persons including in him the Nature it does indeed imply and suppose him to be God And thus all the Ancient Orthodox Divines and Doctors of the Church distinguish in each Person Two things though intimately and inseparably United viz. The Godhead or Divine Nature and the Personal distinguishing Relation so that what agrees to the Person upon one Account does not properly belong to him upon the other and consequently to make the Personal Distinction the Proper Reason of any essential Predication is utterly false and illogical And accordingly to say that Infinite Eternal Mind which is an Essential Attribute of the Divine Nature as such belongs to any One Person by reason of his Personal Distinction is false forasmuch as this would inferr it to belong to that Person only since his Personal Distinction belongs only to himself It belongs indeed to him though distinct but not because distinct but wholly because of his Divine Nature which belonging equally to all the Divine Persons all the Essential Attributes of the said Nature must equally belong to all the Three Persons too From all which it follows That since Infinite Eternal Mind is an Attribute not springing from Personal Distinction even in Distinct Persons nor agreeing to the said Persons upon that account but springing wholly from that One Divine Nature which is Common to them All it can never inferr the Three Persons though Distinct to be Three Infinite Eternal Minds since as I shew before the Connexion between a Distinct Person as the Subject and between Infinite Mind as the Predicate not being causal the Multiplication of the Subject can never inferr the Multiplication of the Predicate And this I affirm to be a full and true Account of this Matter and a clear Solution of the Fallacy which this Man 's whole Argument depended upon and consequently that his Tritheistical Hypothesis That the Three Distinct Divine Persons must be therefore Three Distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits is even by his own Confession would he stand to it at an end And the Truth is there is nothing in his whole Book but pittiful wretched Fallacy join'd with gross Ignorance of the Subject he writes of from first to last And yet after all This he makes his Hypothesis the only Rule to understand most of the Scriptures by which represent to us the Vnion between the Father and the Son and particularly that about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expressed Iohn 14. v. 11. by the Son 's being in the Father and the Father in the Son For says he That the Father should be in the Son and the Son in the Father so as perfectly to comprehend and be comprehended with several like Expressions is made very Possible and Intelligible by a mutual conscious Sensation but nothing else will afford us any Conception of it Def. p. 9. To which I answer what if it does not And what Christian is concern'd to have any such Conception For did the Catholick Church ever pretend to any beyond the bare Knowledge of the Signification and Sense of the Terms in which it was revealed And did not the bare Revelation of it sufficiently make out the Possibility of it to us without any further Explication What does this Profane Man mean thus to state the very Possibility of a Thing expresly reveal'd in Scripture upon his New-found Exposition of it so that unless this be admitted we must even in spight of Revelation look upon it as Impossible Good God! whither are we running But to shew moreover That his Exposition is as Forced as New Our Saviour expresses this Circumincession by words importing mutual Inexistence But says this Man a Man made it seems to Correct Revelation it self by putting it into properer Words That such a mutual Inexistence cannot be conceived Possible unless we understand it of Mutual Consciousness that is of quite another Thing from what the Words signifie for certain it is that mutual Inexistence is not mutual Consciousness nor can mutual Consciousness be mutual Inexistence But in short will this Man say That the mutual Inexistence of the Father and the Son understood according to the very Letter implies in it a Contradiction I question whether he will dare say so whatsoever the Thing asserted by him may inferr For as for that pittiful Objection against the same Thing 's comprehending another Thing and being comprehended by it c. it is a meer Toy founded only in that old Maxime Omne continens est majus contento drawn off from Material Quantitative Beings and so not applicable to Immaterial and Spiritual as has been fully shewn in the 9 th Chapter of the Animadversions p. 299 and 300. But if this Author will not venture to say that such a mutual Inexistence understood according to the Letter implies in it a Contradiction then let him give the Church a Satisfactory Reason Why our Saviour's Words should not be understood in their own Natural Proper Sence but in this Man 's New Sence which is both Improper and Figurative and never heard of before But with a bold Front he says That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here spoken of is not otherwise Possible and Intelligible which Two Words he is perpetually jumbling together as if there might not be many things Possible and yet by Humane Reason not Intelligible But I must here tell him what I dare say he knew not before viz. That it is one thing Positively to apprehend and know a Thing not to be Possible which I defie him to prove this mutual Inexistence even understood literally not to be and another Thing not to apprehend or Know How or by what way a Thing is Possible And this latter I affirm ought never to supersede our Assent to any Thing if revealed to us nor to make us doubt of the Revelation nor are we at all concerned about any further Explication of the Thing so Revealed nor whether we ever know any more of it or no And this is my Opinion may serve an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man which is but another word for a Theological Quack a great deal of trouble But so far is this Man's Mutual-Consciousness from being the only Thing that can render this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intelligible That unless a Mutual Inexistence be presupposed no such Thing as a Mutual-Consciousness can here take place since it is essentially founded in that For surely Father and Son must exist mutually in one Another before they can know or be conscious to themselves that they do so But this point of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 has been so fully debated and so throughly cleared in the Animadversions both in the seventh Chapter from page 201 to the 207. inclusively and in the ninth Chapter from page 295 to 301. that there needed not to have been so much as one word said of it here But as
which we observe in men and since the perfection of Generation in them is for a Father to produce his like shall men generate others of the same nature with themselves and shall God generate one of quite another Nature from his own as a Finite Nature must necessarily be This was the force of their Argument and it was directed against the Arians but never were these Explications alledged as adequate Representations of the same Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons that was in Men. But as it was intimated before in the Animadversions no doubt this Author has been all along pursuing this Tritheistical Whimsey of a Specifick Vnity only in order to the providing an Unity of Nature for his Three Infinite Minds or Spirits which by all the Wit of Men and Angels can never be proved capable of any greater Vnity than Specifick But this Point about a Specifick Vnity of the Godhead has been so throughly debated and the Impossibility of it so clearly demonstrated by the Animadverter Chap. 7. from the 178 to the 188 page That this Man should have done well to have answer'd what was to be found there before he troubled the Reader with the same old baffled story again I conclude therefore against this Author that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 applyed to the Divine Persons does fully and sufficiently express the Numerical Vnity and Identity of the Divine Nature belonging to them without importing any Thing of Specifick Vnity in the same or any thing so much as Analogous to it After he has done with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he excepts against the Terms Single and Singular as applied to the Divine Nature But he first draws them off from their proper and received Signification according to which all Divines whether Schoolmen or others have in treating of the Divine Nature generally used them expressing the said Nature by no word more commonly than by Singularis essentia singularis Natura And does this Man now think to take this word by a wrong exotick signification of which more presently and in the strength of that to run down and casheir the True and Genuine sence of it Which besides the confusion it must needs bring upon all Discourses about the Godhead and the Divine Persons will not fail also to give mighty scandal to all sober and learned Men both Papists and Protestants who are concerned to have these weighty Points not only truly stated but also warily treated of For my own part I must declare That I never met with stranger and more untheological Assertions than what this Author has concerning the Application of the Terms single and singular to the Divine Nature and yet the true sence of them lies pain and obvious almost in all Scholastick Writers So that whatsoever is signified by Hoc unum Individuum and numericè unum the same also is signified by singulare they being all but Synonymous words to express that greatest and perfectest Vnity which we call Numerical and it will be hard to assign where we may properly apply any one of them and not as properly apply the other So that if this Author would but have understood these and the like Terms in the same sence in which both Philosophers and Divines use them he could never have abused the Subject he wrote upon nor exposed himself with such false and scandalous Assertions as these that follow 1. That the Vnity of Nature between the Eternal Father and Son is such an Vnity as is both Specifick and Numerical 2. That the Divine Nature is not a Single or Singular Nature p. 18. lin 13. 3. That upon supposal of the Singleness or Singularity of the Divine Nature the whole Divine Nature cannot be Incarnate in the Incarnation of the Son without the Incarnation of the whole Trinity thereby p. 18. lin 18. 4. That one Single Nature can subsist but once or have but one Subsistence p. 19. lin 23. All which Four Propositions I find in the compass of less than three whole Pages viz. 17 18 19. And they are of that vile Import that I defie either Arian or Socinian to speak more against the Vnity of the Three Divine Persons in one and the same Infinite Divine Nature than this Man in some of the forementioned Propositions has done But I shall consider them particularly though they are much fitter for the Publick Censure of the Church than for any Private Man's Confutation And first for the 1. First Proposition viz That the Vnity of Nature between the Eternal Father and Son is such an Vnity as is both Specifical and Numerical This is fully and plainly asserted by this Author though not in these very Words as the Reader will find in the 17 th page and 19 th line of this Defence Where speaking of the Vnity of Nature between the Eternal Father and Son he affirms That there must be that in it that perfectly answers that Specifick Sameness of Nature that is between Father and Son in Humane Persons of which but four or five Lines before he had given an Instance in Abraham and Isaac and withal that it must not only perfectly answer but much out do it too But now on the one hand Nothing can perfectly answer one Instance of Specifick Unity or Sameness but another Instance of the same Kind forasmuch as Two Kinds or Sorts of Unity can never perfectly answer one another nor on the other hand can any Sort of Unity out do a Specifick Vnity but a Numerical For no one Specifick Vnity can do more towards the Uniting the Things it belongs to than another there being but one and the same formal Effect common to all Specifick Vnities which is to render and denominate their respective Subjects Specifically one and no more This I say is all that a Specifick Vnity can do and if more be done it must be by a Numerical But again in the 27 th Line of the same Page He tells us to the same purpose That the Vnity or Sameness of Nature between the Father Son and Holy Ghost is not a meer Specifick Sameness which Words must imply and inferr That it is a Specifick Sameness though he affirms it to be also something more To which Passages we may add Two more altogether as full for this Complex Sort of Vnity viz. One in page 114. line 26. and the Other p. 121. l. 22. of his Vindication From all which it is manifest That this Author holds such an Vnity or Sameness of Nature in the Divine Persons as is both Specifick and Numerical which I affirm to be as gross an Absurdity as the Reason of Man can well imagine For a Specifick and a Numerical Unity are not Two degrees of one Kind but Two several Kinds of Unities Two Unities differing toto genere and consequently such as cannot possibly coincide into any one Unity which shall comprehend and partake of both For a Numerical Vnity is the Unity of One Individual Nature or Being and no
School-Terms in general I come in the Second place to give some account also of that particular Term the formal Reason of a Thing frequently made use of in the Animadversions which though sufficiently explained in the second Chapter of them I shall however take into some further consideration since this Author would fain avoid any Argument couched under it by pleading that the Term it self is none of his Which indeed is readily granted him but yet if he asserts the Thing as he often does and the Animadverter puts it for him into a proper Scholastical Term and so fits it the better for Argumentation the Term I assure him will affect him and his Arguments whether he will admit and make use of it or no for the Animadverter will be judged by his Reader who understands Him and not by his Adversary who does not Well then by the formal Reason of a Thing the Animadverter understands that Internal Principle which makes a Thing to be what it is And as Vnity inseparably attends Being and distinction accompanies Vnity the same is the Principle of all these since that which internally makes a Thing such or such a Being thereby also makes it one in it self and distinguishes it from all other Things besides For still according to all Philosophy Idem est Principium Constitutivum Distinctivum So that as every Thing is constituted in such an order of Being by what it is so it is distinguished also by what it is from every Thing which it is not And for this Cause the Principle here spoken of is called Formal because it is the Form taking the word in its larger sence as it comprehends also Essence which makes a Thing to be of such a Nature and withal gives it Vnity Distinction and Denomination And upon the same Account also the Term Reason is added to the Term Formal to shew That this gives the Natural and Proper Answer to the Question why a Thing is such or such thus or thus As if for Instance it should be asked why or for what Reason a Beast is said to be a sensible Creature the Answer is because it has an Internal Principle of sence which renders it so so that this Principle of sence is the Formal Reason whereby it is both constituted and denominated sensible And the like is to be said of other Things in the like Case This is the Account which I give of the meaning of the Term Formal Reason as it occurs in the Animadversions viz. That it is that Internal Principle which makes a Thing to be what it is to be one in it self and distinct from all other Things which it is not and lastly is the Natural and Proper Answer to all Enquiries à Priore why or how a Thing comes to be essentially such or such according to its respective Denomination Of all which this Author being wholly ignorant he thinks he has so entirely cleared himself of this Term and whatsoever has been argued against him under it That he declares with Triumph p. 78. l. 10. That if the Animadverter thinks fit to try his skill again upon this Argumenâ— he believes he shall hear no more of the formal Reason of Peâ—sonality and Vnion nor of other such like Termâ— But this poor Man should remember how unhappy he has been in his Prophecies For so he had said before both of the Socinians and of the most learned Answerer of the Vindication of his Case c. viz. That he belieâ—ed that he should hear from them no more when yet he has heard from them Both and that in a strain so much above his low Talent that few believe that either of them will ever hear more from him and if â—s they say sâ—â—ing is believing so fâ—â—ling be belâ—â—ving too I doubt not but by this time he Himself also is oâ— the same Opinion And accordingly I do here assure this Man of Presumption that I shall produce this and the like Terms in all Disputes with him again and again having herein the Company of all the Eminent Scholastick Writers both in Philosophy and Divinity constantly using and avowing the use of them and I doubt not but in the strength of them to break through all the Coâ—â—â—b Argumentations of this his Sophistical and slight Discourse And so I go on But before I come particularly to examine his shifting Answers to the Animadverter's Arguments I think fit to lay before the Reader the plain and true state of the Point between this Author and him as the most unexceptionable Rule whereby the Reader is desired to judge between them both Now the Chief Heads of dispute between them are these Three First Concerning Self-Consciousness and what dependance the Personality and Personal Vnity of Persons both Create and Uncreate has upon it Secondly Touching mutual Consciousness and how far the Essential Vnity of the Three Divine Persons in one and the same Numerical Divine Nature depends upon it And Thirdly Whether the Three Divine Persons are Three Distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits or no. Concerning all which severally the Reader is in the first place to observe That this Author makes Self-Consciousness both in Beings Create and Uncreate the formal Reason of Personality and Personal Vnity viz. That which makes a Person to be formally a Person and formally one in himself or in other words that wherein his Personal Being Unity and Original Distinction from other things does consist And so in the next place for mutual Consciousness he makes the Essential Unity of Nature or Essence belonging to the Three Divine Persons to consist formally in their mutual Consciousness So that it is this which renders them formally one in Nature or Essence And lastly He positively affirms that the Three Divine Persons in the Godhead are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits and that it is Heresy and Non-sence to affirm otherwise Vind. p. 66. l. 25. Thus he holds and asserts concerning these Three disputed Points as will appear from the following Passages in his Books concerning each of them And 1. For Self-Consciousness The Self-Vnity of a Spirit says he universally by the way reckoning a Spirit a Person can be nothing else but Self-Consciousness viz. That it is Conscious to its own Thoughts Reasonings Passions which no other Spirit is conscious to but it self Vind. p. 48. l. 32. This makes a Spirit numerically one Vind. p. 49. l. 2. The Self-Consciousness of every Person to it self viz. of the Father Son and Holy Ghost makes them Three Distinct Persons Vind. p. 68. l. 5. And we know no other Vnity of a Mind or Spirit but Consciousness Ibid. The Essential Vnity of a Spirit consists in Self-Consciousness and it is nothing else which makes a Spirit one and distinguishes it from all other Spirits Vind. p. 47. l. 15. The very Nature of a Spirit consists in Internal vital Sensation Defence p. 7. l. 11. The Vnity of a single Mind or Spirit consists in a Natural Self-Conscious Sensation
Internal Sensation and Self-Sensation being still with this Author the same with Self-Consciousness Defence p. 7. l. 29. A Natural Self-Consciousness makes one Natural Person Defence p. 8. l. 7. And Self-Consciousness makes a Mind or Spirit one with it self and distinguishes or separates it from all other Minds or Spirits Defence p. 43. l. 1 2 3. And last of all more plainly If this be what he the Animadverter means by the formal Reason of Personality viz. That which makes a Mind Spirit or Person one and either distinguishes or separates it from all other Minds Spirits or Persons I do affirm that Self-Consciousness is this formal Reason Defence p. 38. l. 7 8 9 c. I think it extremely needless to cite any more passages upon this head these being super-abundantly sufficient to prove That all that is contained in and signified by the formal Reason of a Thing is by this Author here ascribed to and affirmed of Self-Consciousness with reference to Personality Personal Vnity and Distinction and that therefore his Rejection of the Term while he so amply asserts the Thing is groundless and indeed Senceless and Ridiculous But Secondly As touching the next head in dispute which is Mutual-Consciousness he has these following Assertions Father Son and Holy Ghost aâ—â— one by an Internal Consciousness as every Man is one with himself that is they feel each other in themselves and they are as essentially one by a mutual Consciousness as every Man is one with himself Vind. p. 56. l. 6. As the Self-Consciousness of every Person to it self viz. of every Person in the Godhead makes the Three Distinct Persons so the mutual Consciousness of all Three Divine Persons makes them all but one Infinite God Vind. p. 68. l. 5. mutual Consciousness makes all Three Persons numerically one Divine Essence or one God Vind. p. 84. l. 29. The Three Pâ—rsons are essentially one God by a mutual Self-Consciousness Vind. p. 88. l. 32 33. The Three Minds viz. The Three Divine Persons are all mutually conscious to each other and therefore as essentially one as the same Mind is one with it self by a Self-Consciousness Vin. p. 91. l. 8. From all which it follows That mutual Consciousness is the formal Reason of the Essential Vnity of the Three Divine Persons in one and the same Divine Nature or in other words That which properly makes them one in Nature on lastly That wherein the Vnity and Identity of their Nature does formally and properly consist This I say undeniably follows from the forementioned Passages cited out of this Author And so I pass to the Third and last head in dispute viz. Whether the Three Divine Persons be Three distinct Minds or Spirits Which this Author positively affirms as appears from the following Passages The Three Divine Persons says he Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Infinite Minds really distinct from each other Vind. p. 50. line at the end And they are Three distinct Infinite Minds p. 51. l. 5. Again The Persons are Perfectly Distinct for they are Three distinct Infinite Minds and therefore Three distinct Infinite Persons and to say They are Three Divine Persons and not Three distinct Minds is both Heresy and Non-sence Vind. p. 66. l. 26. The Three Persons are Three Minds and therefore as distinct as Three Minds Vind. p. 91. l. 5. And again speaking of the Three Divine Persons I grant says he that They are Three Holy Spirits Vind. p. 258. l. 28. And to add the Crowning and confirming Passage of all If says he every Person in the Trinity considered as a Distinct Person be not a Distinct Infinite and Eternal Mind there is I confess an end of the Dean's Notion but then I doubt there will be an end of a Trinity of Persons also c. Defence p. 8. l. 24. 25 c. All which are the Positive assertions of this Author and in all of them the Things asserted by him are as positively denied by the Animadverter And I thought it highly necessary thus to draw them all together and lay them before the Reader that so he may with one easy turn of his Eye be able at any time to have a full view of this Author 's whole Hypothesis and thereby to track him in all his Sophistical windings and shiftings in which he shall find him sometimes denying what he had before expresly affirmed and sometimes quite changing the state of the whole matter which I assure him is the whole design and artifice such as it is of this Book And accordingly that I may from the Premises give a brief state of the Three forementioned heads The dispute here in the first place between this Author and the Animadverter is not whether Self-Consciousness proves infers or declares Personality and Personal Vnity as a Sign or Effect of it or a Consequent from it For this is not the Question But whether it be the Formal Reason of it or in other words that wherein the said Personality and Personal Vnity properly does consist which this Author has and that in Terms signifying only à Priore over and over affirmed and the Animadverter as positively denied and disproved And therefore if this Author shall at any time take up with the former and say that it is all one to him if we allow Self-Consciousness to infer and prove Personality and Personal Vnity as the Sign Effect or Consequent thereof or affirm it in a Causal Sence to be the Reason of the same This I say is manifestly tâ— change the Question and to give up the Thing in Controversie between him and his Adversary In like manner for Mutual Consciousness since it is allowed on both sides That the Three Divine Persons are one in Nature and Essence The Question is Whether Mutual Consciousness be that wherein this Vnity of Nature or Essence does consist So that by Reason hereof the Three Divine Persons are formally One in Nature or Essence and not Whether this Mutual Consciousness proves infers or declares them to be thus One For this comes not up to the Point And consequently if this Author says That he looks no further and means no more than this as his Meaning is still a Bottomless Pit he evidently abandons his own positive Assertion and effectually gives up the whole Matter in Dispute For surely the Antecedent Reason of any Thing and the bare Sign Proof or Consequent of the same can never hold the same place in Argument nor produce the same Conclusion And so likewise in the Third and last place the Question is not whether the Trinity be Three distinct Intelligent Persons which in a rightly stated Sence is true but whether these Persons be three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits That is to say Three distinct Absolute Beings Essences or Substances which it is impossible for them in any Sence to be And consequently for this Man to change the Term Minds into that of Intelligent Persons is quite to alter the Question and so to
the Relation the Correlate or Term of the Relation and lastly the Relation it self Accordingly to give an Instance of this in the Paternal Relation of the First Person of the Blessed Trinity The Remote subject of it is the Divine Nature the Immediate subject is the Person of the Father the foundation of it is that Eternal Act by which the Father communicates his Nature to the Son and the correlate or Term of the Relation is the Son and lastly the Relation it self is that mutual respect resulting from the forementioned Act which the Father and the Son reciprocally hear to one Another And here I confess that in the Divine Relations there is a real Identity between the subject the foundation and the relation it self contrary to what it is in Created Persons in whom they are really distinguished Upon the whole matter then let this Man in the present Instance of the Eternal Person of the Father shew that Self-Consciousness is either the subject the foundation the correlate or Term of the Relation or lastly the Relation it self And then let him make it the formal Reason of a Relative Personality in that or in any other Person of the Trinity if he can And if he cannot I think a little less Confidence with a little more Knowledge would do well But in the last place quitting all that he had so peremptorily contended for before He tells us in plain Terms p. 64. l. 5. That if each of the Divine Persons have a Self-Consciousness of its own this distinguishes the Divine Persons and proves them to be really Distinct which is all that the Dean desires Now what Mr. Dean desires more than what Deans generally do I cannot tell but what he has declared is this viz. That Self-Consciousness makes each of the Divine Persons to be one in himself and distinct from all others and is that wherein the said Vnity and Distinction properly and formally does consist And now for Self-Consciousness to be the Cause and Reason of all this and for it only to prove this I must tell him in the Name of Sence and Logick are quite different things And the first of them as appears from the fore-alleaged passages he has asserted hitherto and the latter he fallaciously sneaks into now But to the same repeated assertion I must still give the same Answer viz. That Self-Consciousness can distinguish the Divine Persons only by a Secondary Distinction not by a Primary and Original since nothing can originally distinguish as I have shewn but that which also Constitutes For still Philosophy will have one and the same Principle both Constitutive and Distinctive too So that this is manifestly and fairly another delivering up and quitting of the Point which he had all along in his Vindication asserted and disputed for For there he had asserted that Self-Consciousness gave Original Self-Vnity and Distinction to each of the Divine Persons and here he declares himself content if we allow Self-Consciousness but to prove the same Though we have told him that this is wholly another Case and it has been inculcated over and over But it seems there is no forcing it into his Pate any more than pouring a Pottle into a Pint. And so I proceed to examine what he says to the Animadverter's Third Argument which proceeds thus If Self-Consciousness be the formal Reason of Personality in the Three Divine Persons then there is no Repugnancy in the Nature and Reason of the Thing it self but that there might be three thousand Persons in the Deity as well as Three Which consequence appears from this That neither is there any Repugnancy that there might be so many Self-Consciousnesses or Self-Conscious Minds or Spirits for the Deity to be communicated to nor any repugnancy proved in the Nature of the Deity it self that it should be so communicated This is the sum of the Argument and what is this Defender's Reply to it Why he first tells us That had the Dean said That Self-Consciousness made the Trinity this had been a Notable Argument p. 64. l. 14. And will he grant This Then I shall prove That he did say it and that as fully as words could express it in his Vindication p. 68. l. 4. Where he has this Passage As the Self-Consciousness of every Person to it self makes them Three distinct Persons so the mutual Consciousness of all the Three Divine Persons makes them all but one Infinite God Now I ask this Self-Contradictor first whether any words can be more plain and expressive than these And in the next place whether they are not his own If he doubts it let him turn to the place alleged And if they are his own then I hope That that which makes the Divine Persons Three distinct Persons makes the Trinity also Unless the Three distinct Persons are one Thing and the Trinity Another So that this Argument effectually concludes against this Shameless Man even by his own Concession But he adds in the next place of the same page That he hopes however that Self-Consciousness may distinguish the Three Persons p. 64. l. 16. To which it has been answered again and again that it can distinguish them only secondarily and consequentially not primarily and originally But I am weary of these Repetitions though he is not ashamed to outdo Battus himself in Tautology And therefore whereas he says further That Self-Consciousness proves the Distinction though it does not limit the Number of the Persons p. 64. l. 23. I deny that it can originally distinguish them without limiting the Number of them also For as I have proved nothing can originally distinguish the Persons but that which makes them Persons And that which makes them Persons by the very same makes them Three Persons it being as essential to them to be Three as to be Persons And therefore to that Question of his Does the formal Reason of Personality make or limit the Number of Persons l. 33. ibid. I answer That in Persons wholly Relative as the Divine Persons are it does and must do so For the further clearing of which it must be observed That the Animadverter in the Present Argument considered the Divine Nature as wholly abstracted from all Personality belonging to it and so in it self as upon such an Abstraction it must needs be only communicable and Determinable and consequently such as cannot be supposed to communicate or determine it self but to receive this Communication and Determination from the Personalities considered as actually joined with it The number of which Personalities must be taken from such a Peculiarity of their condition as shall make one certain Number of them necessary and no other And that wherein this peculiarity of condition does consist is the Relative opposition of the said Persons to one another by vertue whereof they are necessarily Three and no more For as there are Two and but Two such Oppositions in this Divine Oeconomy viz. one between Generation and Filiation and the other between
and the seven first lines so that according to him an Act of Volition and an Act of Consciousness or Knowledge are formally and properly one and the same Act. In the last place as to his affirming That Three distinct Subsistences of the same Individual nature are by mutual Consciousness essentially one p. 71. l. 9. I answer That if he means hereby That they are by mutual Consciousness made essentially one as by the Cause or Antecedent Reason of that Unity I deny it But if he means That they are thereby proved essentially one as by an essential consequent of the said Unity I grant it But this will do him but little service For his Hypothesis requires more And so leaving this second Argument in its full force against him I proced to the Third Argument which is this To affirm mutual Consciousness to be the cause of the Union of the Three Divine Persons in the same Nature is to confound the Union and Communion of the said Persons together which confusion ought by no means to be allowed To which he answers That to affirm that the Three Divine Persons are essentially one by mutual Consciousness is not to affirm that mutual Consciousness is the cause of their Vnion p. 71. l. 18. But on the contrary I affirm That if for one Thing to be so or so by another does and must signify causally then to say That Things or Persons are one by mutual Consciousness and yet that mutual Consciousness is not the cause or antecedent Reason of their being one is a direct contradiction in the Terms And it is hard to imagine how a Man in his Sences can think otherwise In the next place he passes impertinently from the Union of the Divine Persons to their mutual Indwelling in each other which are very different Things affirming withal That his mutual Indwelling is their mutual Consciousness though this has been and still is peremptorily denied him and the Reader for the Confutation of it referred to the Two forecited Chapters of the Animadversions which this Author neither does nor can say one word in answer to Well but how does he prove The mutual Inexistence or Indwelling of the Divine Persons to be mutual Consciousness Why because forsooth they are in one another as Minds not as Bodies p. 71. l. 30. But here besides that we deny his very supposition viz. That the Three Divine Persons are Three Minds we deny also That Three distinct Minds can be made Identically one in Nature by any Consciousness or mutual Consciousness whatsoever and in the Divine Persons who are neither Minds nor Bodies it is the Vnity and Identity of their Essence by which alone they are mutually in one another as the sole proper Reason of their being so For there neither is nor can be such a Thing as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of distinct Minds Essences or Natures in one another But he tells us That in the Divine Persons Vnion and Communion are one and the same Thing p. 72. l. 15. But if he means that they are formally and in all respects the same I deny it affirming withal that they are as much distinguished as the very Divine Essence and Personalities themselves are and consequently that the Union of the Persons consists in their Identification in one and the same Essence or Nature and their Communion consists in those mutual Acts towards each other respectively issuing from and belonging to them by vertue of their Personal Properties But the Animadverter he tells us falsly represents both the Communion of the Divine Persons with each other and their mutual Consciousness too in these words cited from him p. 72. l. 27. viz. That all Acts of several Persons upon each other as all that are mutual must be are properly Acts of Communion by which the said Persons have an Intercourse among themselves as acting interchangeably upon one another To which words of the Animadverter this Author replies first That this may be true in Persons separate but that Persons only distinct and not separate do not Act upon one Another for that such acting must as he says signify an External Impression made by one Person upon another p. 72. at the end and p. 73. at the beginning But will this Man here abide by this false and prophane assertion For do not the Divine Persons mutually know and mutually love one another and do not these Acts of Knowledge and Love both mutually proceed from them and mutually terminate in them too Or will he say that those Acts pass mutually between them by an External Impression upon each other Or lastly That the Divine Persons are any more than only distinct Certainly such Propositions as this Audacious man vents the Church of England was never accustomed to hear or endure before But in the next place after he had said that the Animadverter's Assertion might hold true in Persons separate but not in Persons only distinct which we have confuted He says also p. 72. at the end That it holds true of all other mutual Acts excepting mutual Consciousness which is a fulsome and ridiculous begging of the Question by presuming an Exception where he should first prove it and is as arrant a Petitio Principii as ever appeared in Argumentation And I challenge him to prove how the Exception holds in mutual Consciousness more than in mutual Complacency though indeed in neither But he is now for calling the Animadverter to an account for that unwary and improper expression as he represents it That all Acts of several Persons upon one another are Acts of Communion which says he in the Gravel-lane Dialect makes Boys in a state of Communion with each other at boxing and a match at scolding for it seems he cannot yet rid his head of Billingsgate another state of Communion To which my answer in the first place is That I am sorry to find his ill breeding got so far into his Religion as to dare to mingle such sacred matters with such dirty and prophane Comparisons In the next place I would have him know that the Animadverter abides by what he has said and accordingly would have this Man learn that words in discourse though never so general and indefinite are yet to be limited and determined in their sence by the subject professedly treated of And this in the present Case was such an Act only as supposed Persons in a state of Agreement and proceeded from them and passed between them considered only as such And I must tell him further That though the common use of the World has restrained the sence of the word Communion and Communication ad benigniorem partem yet the literal sence of it imports no more than a bare Interchange of Acts or Offices whether Friendly or hostile and there may be as real and as proper a Communication of ill Turns as of good and sometimes of ill for good as this Author very well knows But as for those words which he concludes this
his Criticism with That had the Deaâ— been pleased to have returned mutual Acts he and the Animadverter might have been long since in a very strict Communion with each other p. 73. l. 16. I shall only return him this one short word That though all this may be perfect Riddle to the Reader yet I understand him very well and could easily give him such an answer as should make him understand himself too But to let the Reader see that he is a foul a Disputant as he can be a Speaker and a fouler upon both accounts the World never had with a Frontless Impudence he declares here p. 73. l. 23. That the Animadverter grants all that he says about the Notion of a Trinity in Vnity And in Particular That every Individual Person has a Self-Consciousness of its own and every such Self-Conscious Person is thereby one with it self and distinguished from all other Persons In answer to which shameless Unconscionable Falshood I do here in the Face of the World challenge the Author of it to prove That the Animadverter grants any one thing that is peculiar to his Hypothesis and particularly to shew that place in the whole Book of the Animadversions in which the Animadverter owns That a Self-Conscious Person is by virtue of it's Self-Consciousness one with it self and primarily distinguished from all other Persons which is the only distinction here spoken of I say I do again and again challenge this Man to prove this and promise withal That if he can do it I will forfeit to him more than ever he was born to and if he cannot I humbly appeal to the most rigid if but Impartial Reader whether I have not all the cause in the World to proclaim him to all Mankind for a downright Lyar Slanderer and Falsificator And as hard as these words may sound less than this upon such an occasion I neither can nor will say But we will see what other holes he can pick in the Animadverter's Coat And here he first taxes him p. 74. l. 1 2. for the Improper use of the Term Vnion of Nature telling him That the Dean forsooth would have said Vnity of Nature as the same Dean not only would have said but has said That a Beast is a Person with several other such choice Proprieties as Chrysome instead of Chrisme and Paraphrases instead of Periphrasis and above an hundred Solecisms to boot But I must here declare to this great Master of proper speaking forsooth as appears from the whole Tenth Chapter of the Animadversions That had the Animadverter in the place cited by him used the Term Vnion instead of Vnity which upon this subject are often promiscuously made use of surely this Man had been the most unfit Person in the World to reflect upon him for it who has stated the Divine Nature in the Three Persons so as to leave no numerical real Vnity in it at all but only an Vnion instead thereof For three Distinct Infinite Minds asserted by this Author being Three distinct Natures or Essences neither have nor can have any such Vnity in them but being United only by mutual Consciousness are capable of no more than a Conjunction or Vnion thereby and that a very slender one too and far from that Essential Vnity which belongs to the Divine Persons But after all I would have His Critical Ignorance know that the Animadverter by the Vnion of Nature here mentioned understands as he may very well and properly do no other than an Vnion in respect of Nature so that it is really an Vnion of Persons Connoting the Nature as the Term which they are United in And accordingly the Animadverter in defiance of this Man 's long silly Parenthesis which it had been more for his Credit to have spared than put in still owns and abides by the Expression But our Critick has not done yet But whereas the Animadverter speaking of the Divine Persons had used these words Their Essence and Personality he here cries out like one Big and bringing forth nothing What but one Personality as well as but one Essence in Three p. 74. l. 11. But may it please your Ignorance good Sir the Animadverter here spoke of Personality not with any respect to number of Particulars but to the common Nature and notion of the Thing and consequently might without the least impropriety use the Term Personality without any Epithete of Plurality For suppose that in a discourse of the general Nature of Celestial Bodies one should speak of the Sun and of the motion of the Heavens together would this Philosopher of Goatham presently cry out What but one motion of the Heavens as well as but one Sun And to give an Instance in Divine matters when the Prophet Ezek. 36.26 tells the Israelites that God would give them a new heart would this wise Man of the forenamed Society cry out here What but One new heart amongst so many thousand Men For certain it is that strictly speaking the heart here mentioned which could be nothing else but a pious and gracious disposition of Mind inclining them to obey God was to be multiplied according to the number of Individuals which it was to be given to But such as understand the force of words and the way of using them know that there is a kind of Grammatica Philosophica by which we may judge when a single word ought to signify singularly and when indefinitely and including all the Particulars that it may be applied to But this I confess is Gibberish and a Riddle as all sense and learning is to one who has neither Grammar nor Philosophy And so having answered his impertinent Cavils I come to give an answer to his equally impertinent Questions with such great huff proposed by him p. 74. l. 17. As first Can they viz. the Divine Persons be one before they are mutually conscious even in the order of conceiving it I answer That in order of conception they not only may but necessarily must and that as necessarily as it is impossible to conceive of â—â—owledge without conceiving of Entity or Being as the â—bject of it and for that cause in the Natural order of â—â—â—ceiving or apprehending Things before it The second Question is Can the Divine Persons be one before they are in one another I answer That in Priority of Time they cannot but that in order of Nature they may and must be so conceived For to be in one Another is but a subsequent circumstance of Being and consequently must presuppose the Being it self whereof it is the Circumstance as in Nature preceding it His third Question is Can there be any other mutual in-being of Minds but by Mutual Consciousness I Answer First That the Divine Persons are not minds Secondly That there is no such Thing as a mutual in-being of Minds in one another And thirdly and lastly That the Divine Persons are not properly and originally in one another by mutual Consciousness but by an Indentity
of Essence Nature or Substance common to all Three But I shall now apply my self particularly to answer his noisome extravagant Ignorance in reproaching even to the degree of Insultation all use or admission of Priority and Posteriority of Conception in apprehending or discoursing of the Divine Nature And in order to this I shall lay before the Reader some of his expressions concerning it as p. 73. l. 20. After all this huffing and swaggering says he This notable dispute issues in a meer Metaphysical subtilty about the natural order of our conceptions of Things But by his favour they are not meer conceptions and no more but conceptions founded in the Nature and Reason of the Thing which they are imployed about as it exerts different Acts respects different objects and sustains different Relations and Considerations thereupon But he goes on What confounded work says he does this make with the pure simple uncompounded Eternal Nature of God so to prove a Priority or Posteriority of Being or Causality in the Divine Nature from the order of our Conceptions p. 74. l. 22. But can this Man make it appear That any Philosopher and Divine does this No they do not pretend to prove a Priority or Posteriority of Being or Causality in the Divine Nature from the order of our Conceptions for they professedly disavow it But they say and affirm that there can be no discoursing of the Divine Nature by any Humane Reason but by such an order of Priority and Posteriority in our Conceptions of it This Sir is their affirmation and the other is your Lye For neither do Philosophers nor Divines ascribe these Things to God formally but only Virtually and Eminently viz. That God as a pure simple Act or Being performs all those Acts immediately by one simple efficiency or exertion of himself Which a finite Being cannot do but by several Acts Powers Faculties and sometimes Parts enabling it to operate and produce Things No Man I say ascribes these things to the Divine Nature in the strict and Philosophical sense of the Terms but by way of Analogy to what reason observes in the Creature and that also founded upon God's own condescension to describe and represent himself to us in this manner And what the Animadverter says in the fifth Preliminary of his fourth Chapter is sufficient to blow off all these senseless Cavils viz. That when the Terms Cause formal Reason Constituent or Productive Principle and the like are used about the Divine Nature and Persons they are not to be understood as applicable to them in the strict and proper signification of the said Terms but only by way of Analogy as really meaning no more than a causal or necessary Dependance of one Notion or Conceptus objectivus upon Another so that it is impossible for the Mind to conceive distinctly of the one but as depending upon or proceeding from the other In answer to all which I defy this Man to speak Three words of sence if he can And whereas he Ignorantly says That all such Conceptions are false p. 74. l. 33. I must tell him on the contrary That where nothing is affirmed or denied as in bare conceptions nothing is there can be no Falshood It is a common Rule and Maxim in Philosophy and not to be over born by this weak man's little Objections That Abstrahentium non est mendacium For to consider one thing without another though it neither is nor can be without the other is no Falshood And the chief thing by which we form several distinct Conceptions of the Divine Nature is this Abstraction by which the Mind first considers one Conceptus Objectivus without the other and then considers and compares both together according to the respect they may have to each other and the Natural Order which that places them in But I shall try what Metal that Confidence is made of which thus explodes all Priority and Posteriority in our Conceptions of God by these following Questions As first I demand of this man Whether he does not own a Necessity of our forming several Inadequate Conceptions of God and that we have no other way of conceiving of him This I am sure he has asserted several times and if he had not the whole World does and therefore in the next place I ask him Whether many of these Inadequate Conceptions do not imply a necessary and essential dependance of one upon the other and if so Whether it be possible for the Mind of Man to form a Conception of one thing depending upon another but seoundùm Prius Posterius Again I demand of him Whether we can consider God as an Intelligent Being and Agent endued with Vnderstanding Will and Power as he in Scripture represents himself and as we must conceive of him if we conceive and discourse of him at all without conceiving of him as willing a thing before he does it and as understanding it before he wills it And again I demand of him Whether the Divine Nature and Persons consider'd all together are not one pure simple uncompounded Act or Being I am sure all Orthodox Divines affirm it And yet I demand of this man Whether he or any one alive can conceive of the Father as begetting and of the Son as begotten and of the Holy Ghost as proceeding from both without a Priority and Posteriority in the conceptions we form of them And lastly to instance in his own whimsical Notion of Self-consciousness and mutual Consciousness I challenge him to prove it possible for the Mind of Man to conceive how the Divine Persons can be mutually conscious to one-another but subsequently to each Person 's being first conscious to himself forasmuch as their several Self-consciousnesses are properly the Object of their mutual Consciousness and so in order of Nature cannot but be before it Nay and to go further Does not this very man in stating his Self-consciousness and mutual Consciousness distinguish between the Act and the Principle Which tho' it be but a meer Shift as has been shewn is yet a good Argument against himself For can any one conceive of a Principle but as Prior to the Act In fine I challenge this equally Insolent and Heterodox man to satisfie the World about him by a clear and positive Answer to these two Questions 1 st Whether all Divines Schoolmen and Philosophers excepting perhaps such as Conradus Vorstius and Crellius in their Books de Attributis Dei do not in treating of the Divine Nature unanimously acknowledge and affirm That God is a Pure Simple Vncompounded Act Essence or Being And 2 dly Whether notwithstanding this acknowledgment and affirmation they do not universally treat of God in Terms necessarily importing and requiring a Priority and Posteriority of Conception But why do I dispute against such sottish Paradoxes which all the Schools in Christendome would hiss or rather spit at the Author of them for But this poor ambitious Animalculum Gloriae has been always affecting to
as it is opposed by the Animadverter on the other and consequently that every one of those five fore-cited Passages is on the Vindicator's part a direct concession and giving up of the Point in controversie between them And I must hereupon seriously and solemnly profess That the only Difficulty which I have yet met with in this Disputation has been to make a proud shameless man own his own Words and abide by his own plain positive and repeated Assertions Though I must tell him That none is or can be more baffled than he who in his Defence is brought to deny what before he had affirmed And thus we have here as the Book calls it self a Defence of Dr. Sherlock's Notion of the Trinity if Dr. Sherlock's denying his Words be defending his Opinion But our Author comes now at length to clear himself of the Imputation of Tritheism and here he says Defense p. 78. line last That he heartily thanks the Animadverter for being so civil to him as not to charge him with Tritheism as his Opinion but as the consequence of his Principles And great reason I own he has to thank him for so undeserved a Civility though the Truth is the Animadverter rather judged it a piece of Charity while he was disputing with one who was still contradicting himself to take him as long as he could by the better end of the contradiction Nevertheless if the Defender will be pleased to consult the Preface to the Animadversions p. 16. l. 7. 2d Edition he will find that how favourably soever the Animadverter may be thought to express himself in some other places he speaks his thoughts more home and fully in that For there he affirms that his Adversarie's opinion does not only infer but also imply Tritheism and this surely is as much more than the other as an Equipollent is more than a Consequent And whatsoever the Animadverter might think of this Author then yet since his reading this Defense in which there is Ten times more Tritheism than was in his first Book and especially after that peremptory and prophane Affirmation Def. p. 8. l. 28. viz. That unless we admit the Three Divine Persons to be Three distinct Minds there is not only an end of the Dean's Notion but he fears of the Trinity too After this I say the Animadverter declares That he does not only look upon his Opinion as downright Tritheism but likewise accounts the Author himself as arrant a Tritheist to all intents and purposes as Peraticus Euphrates the beginner of the old Sect of the Peratae or Iohannes Philoponus or as even Valentinus Gentilis himself or any other of the Tritheistick Name Tribe whatsoever and that without any other difference that he knows of between this Author and Valentinus Gentilis save only that Valentinus by his Tritheism got what he deserv'd and this man with his Tritheism has got what he does not deserve But let us see how he defends himself and that in the first place is by plainly confessing That to affirm the Three Divine Persons to be Three distinct Infinite Minds is an unusual way of speaking Def. p. 79. and elsewhere That it is an inconvenient way of speaking p. 81. l. 33. and likewise an improper way p. 84. l. 24. And that it may be no body so expresly used these Terms before himself p. 81. l. 18. All this I say he confesses and therefore I desire the Reader to compare it with this Man's professed Design which was having first proclaim'd himself an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 man and flouted at all the Fathers as neither able to conceive rightly nor express themselves properly about the Trinity to offer a plain an esie and much more intelligible account of this great Article than the Christian Church was ever yet acquainted with And now must all this be done by Terms unusual inconvenient and improper and never used expresly upon this Subject but hy Hereticks before Is this I say the way of giving the most intelligible account of this Mystery that was ever yet given of it and that by throwing aside the Account which the whole Christian World has hitherto acquiesced in to make room for it If the Church will suffer Heresie and Impudence thus to ride and impose upon her she may but little I am sure is it for her Credit that such things should be endured in Her Communion and much less warranted by Her Authority and encourag'd by her Preferments when as was shewn in the Preface to the Animadversions p. 7. the bare use of any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in these high points was with such rigour condemn'd by the Sixth General Council and the users of it so severely proceeded against Well but if by this man 's own Confession his Words are so unjustifiable how then does he think to bring himself off Why by the help of his old Friend his Meaning that constant Plea and Refuge of a Baffled Person But still I say what have we to do with this man's Meaning and Intentions against his plain clear and unquestionable Words used at least Forty times over For are Men's Words to be understood by their Meaning or their Meaning by their Words It is a pleasant thing certainly that when Mr. Dean has brought himself into a Plunge by his Indefensible Expressions Mr. Meaning must be call'd in to lift him out and wipe him clean again with his Intentions and that he can find nothing else to defend himself with but that Comical Salvo of the Renowned Hugh Peters Give me that word again But I would have this man know that when the Church heretofore found any one Heretical in his Words She never own'd or suppos'd him Orthodox in his Meaning And accordingly I must here declare further That I will not be over-rul'd or baulk'd in any Argument against him by what he means or what he intends but having encounter'd and driven him off from his own plain positive express Words and that according to the Sence in which all Mankind understands them I shall leave his precarious forlorn meaning to shift for it self Nevertheless that we may not be too hard upon this Man of meaning let us see what his meaning here is for possibly matters may be mannaged so that even this meaning it self may need another meaning to rescue and set it right He tells us therefore p. 80 81. of this Defence That by Three Infinite Minds he means Three Infinite Intelligent Persons affirming moreover p. 80. l. 13. That a mind is an Intelligent Person and every Intelligent Person a mind Both which Propositions if mind be Universally taken in the first as by the whole tenour of his Discourse here it must be are manifestly false For a Man is an Intelligent Person and not a mind and the Soul of Man on the other side is a mind but not a Person and the Divine Nature or Essence likewise absolutely considered is a mind but not a Person and consequently neither of
needs try his skill no more where he finds no more strength to try it upon Secondly That this Question is not to be determined by what he or any particular Man whatsoever means by a Mind contrary to the sense of the whole World concerning it but by what the whole World means by the word Mind though never so contrary to his particular private sense thereof which now after a baffle he alleges to defend himself by And then lastly For the difference of charging the Assertion of Three Infinite Minds with Tritheism but not that of Three Infinite Intelligent Persons That also has been more than sufficiently proved against him already by having shewn that Three Infinite Minds are Three Infinite Absolute Beings and that an Infinite Absolute Being being convertibly the same with God there can be no multiplying of such a Being without a Multiplication of Gods But that on the other side the Three Divine Persons being properly Three Relative Subsistences of one and the same Infinite Absolute Being included in all and each of them and a Relative subsistence being capable of being multiplied without a Multiplication of the said Infinite Absolute Being it follows That though Three Minds infer a Plurality of Gods yet Three Persons do not so And let this Author with all his Noise and flounceing disprove the Reason of this Difference between Minds and Persons if he can For I will undertake that the Animadverter will not only abide by it but also venture the issue of this whole Controversy upon it And we shall have more use of it again presently In the mean time let us examine his Answer to the Animadverter's first Argument against his Three distinct Infinite Minds which proceeds thus First Argument Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits are Three distinct Gods But the Three Divine Persons are not Three distinct Gods And therefore the Three Divine Persons are not Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits And now how does he clear himself of this Argument Why first by reproaching it for being proposed in Mode and Figure and I on the contrary reproach him for not answering it with the same Logical Regularity with which it was proposed Secondly He alleges as Parallel to this Argument an Argument brought by the Socinians to prove that there are not Three Persons in the Godhead Which to shew that Logick is as much an Enemy to him as he can be to Logick he sets down thus Three distinct Infinite Intelligent Persons are Three distinct Gods But there are not Three Distinct Gods And therefore there are not Three distinct Infinite Intelligent Persons in the Godhead In which Syllogism we have these two Terms viz. Three distinct Infinite Intelligent Persons and Three distinct Gods But as for the Third Term I desire this Author to shew it me for I must confess I cannot find it I know well enough how this Socinian Syllogism must be supplied and perfected and therefore though it is not my business to correct his Blunders but to expose them I shall set it right for him thus Three distinct Infinite Intelligent Persons are Three distinct Gods but Father Son and Holy Ghost are not Three distinct Gods and therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost are not Three Infinite Intelligent Persons Thus I say this Socinian Argument ought to proceed in which the Major Proposition and the Conclusion are certainly false But how does this affect the Animadverter or how does it prove his Argument which proceeds upon a different Major Terminus to be false too unless this declared Enemy of Logick will have the Syllogistical form which indeed is the same in both Arguments to determine the truth on falshood of the Conclusion But that we know must be here determined by the Truth or Falsehood of the matter of the Premises or of one of them and not by the bare form of the Syllogism Accordingly if this Man will prove a Parity between the Animadverter's Argument and that of the Socinians he must prove That the Animadverter's Major Proposition viz. Three distinct Infinite Mindâ— are Three distinct Gods is of the very same signification and import and consequently of the same falshood with that in the Socinian Syllogism viz. That Three Infinite Intelligent Persons are Three Gods But that is the Thing now in dispute and the Animadverter denies it let us therefore see how this Defender proves it Which he endeavours to do by affirming That the Proof of the Animadverter's Major Proposition will serve as well for an Eternal Infinite Intelligent Person as for an Eternal Infinite Mind viz. Thus. God says he and Eternal Infinite Intelligent Person are Terms as equipollent and convertible as God and Infinite Mind or Spirit are These are his words Def. p. 82. l. 21. And they are false and Heretical to the Height For will this Man after this open his mouth against Sabellius who asserted the very same Thing viz. That God and infinite Intelligent Person are Terms convertible and commensurate But by his and Sabellius's good leave it is absolutely denied him that these are Terms convertible as not being adequately Predicable of one Another For to say that God is an Intelligent Person whether we take Person determinately or indeterminately if there be more Intelligent Persons than one in the Godhead is as was noted before a Proposition as Absurd and Illogical as to say That God is the Father or That God is the Son the Predicate in such Propositions being of less compass than the subject which where it is not larger ought to be Commensurate to it at least And I do particularly insist upon This That if the Term Three Intelligent Persons be adequately and convertibly predicated of God the Term an Intelligent Person which can signify no more than one Person cannot be adequately predicated of God too For in all adequate Predications the subject must take in the whole compass of the Predicate and the Predicate answer and come up to the whole compass of the subject What the Defender adds next is very impertinent viz. That the bare Terms from which the Animadverter argues do not prove this Distinction to wit between one Mind and one Infinite Intelligent Person p. 83. l. 2. For if by bare Terms he means Terms stripped of their signification such Terms I confess can prove Nothing but the folly of him that uses them but therefore I must tell this Man once for all That the Animadverter Argues from the Terms Infinite Intelligent Mind and Infinite Intelligent Person according to that Universally received sense which they actually bear at Present all the Christian World over how or which way soever they came by it This I say is that which alone the Animadverter argues from and insists upon For I hope this Author would not have the Animadverter invade his Prerogative which is to argue not from Terms or words but from meanings nothing relating to them I conclude therefore from what has been said that God and Infinite Mind are
objectivi which they afford to the Mind and of which one conceptus objectivus can never be the other nor be applied to several Notions of one and the same Thing So that although God be indeed one pure simple Act yet if we do not conceive and discourse of this simple Act under some Distinction such as is between a Subject and its Attributes a Principle and its Acts together with the several Respects it bears to several Objects neither St. Austin nor He nor any Man alive can discourse of God as of an Intelligent Being or Agent at all And therefore whereas he adds again That if in the Vnity of the Godhead there be but Three such distinct Vnderstandings or Minds or Intelligent Persons who are not each other nor understand by each other but distinctly by themselves he is not concerned about distinct Substances p. 88. at the end In answer to that I tell him first That if he is concerned about Three distinct Minds in the Godhead the Reason of Things shall force him to be concerned about Three distinct Substances in the same whether he will or no. Secondly That though I grant Three Intelligent Persons to be in the Godhead yet I deny Three distinct Vnderstandings or Minds to be in it but that these Three Intelligent Persons are such by one Numerical Infinite Intelligence Vnderstanding or Mind common to all Three and that albeit one of the Persons neither is nor can be the other nor yet understands by the other but each of them distinctly by himself yet that they understand by one and the same Understanding distinctly belonging to each Person and accordingly for his better Instruction I must tell him that it is one Thing for each Person to have an Infinite Vnderstanding or Mind distinctly belonging to him and quite another to have a distinct Infinite Mind belonging to each of them Which distinction being very great ought always carefully to be attended to but that it will be ever able to make its way into this Man's Understanding I cannot undertake But he comes now to examine how the Animadverter proves That Three distinct Minds are Three distinct Substances And because he draws his proof of it from the Definition of a Mind or Spirit viz. That it is Substantia Incorporea Intelligens This Man replies should we now deny his Definition and say that a Mind is Res cogitans he would be undone for want of his Substances p. 89. l. 7. No Sir Ignorance No. While the Animadverter can make good one substance in the Godhead he will never be undone for want of more But could any one imagine this Man so very weak as he here makes himself by thinking that a Res cogitans can be any Thing else but Substantia Cogitans For can an Accident Cogitare or be either the Principium or Subjectum Quod of any Thought or does Res signify any Thing properly but either a Substance or an Accident or can Substantia Cogitans be any other than Substantia Intelligens Or lastly can there in simple Beings be a Substantia Intelligens that is not also Incorporea What gross thick abominable Ignorance does this Man in this very one Expression betray But he is now as he tells us for capping Definitions with the Animadverter p. 89. l. 10. and to that purpose gives us this as the Definition of a Person viz. That it is Naturae Rationabilis Individua Substantia Though he has been told before That this Definition with all due respect to Boetius be it spoke was long since rejected by most Divines Schoolmen and others as defective or explained by others in a very different sence from what the Term Individua now bears for that according to the generally received sence of it it would certainly infer two distinct Persons in our Saviour upon his Incarnation It is true indeed that every Person is Naturae Rationalis Indidua Substantia That is to say true in the Nature of an Essential Predicate as affirming nothing of a Person but what necessarily belongs to it but for all that it is not a true definition as not being adequate to the Thing defined nor containing all that is in it and consequently not convertible with it as a definition ought to be So that if this be his capping Definitions as he calls it he would be much better imployed in capping Verses amongst the Boys if he were able Well but though according to the received sence of the word this be not a True that is to say a perfect Definition of a Person yet if it be an Essential Predicate of one as we have granted so that every Person is truly said to be Rationalis Naturae Individua Substantia must not then Three Persons be Three Individual Substances I answer no because though each Person be such an Individual substance and distinctly too yet each Person is not a distinct Individual substance For as much as one and the same Infinite Individual substance may sustain Three distinct Personalities by reason of three distinct Subsistences or distinct ways of subsisting belonging to it from whence it is that in the Divine Oeconomy the multiplication of Persons or Personal Subsistences does not multiply the Divine Substance But says he let us see how the Animadverter will bring off Three Persons from being Three distinct substances and I will undertake the Dean shall do as much and do it as well for Three Minds p. 89. l. 15. That by his favour shall be Tryed And first the Animadverter brings off the Three Persons from being Three Substances by this one Argument That they are but Three Subsistences of one and the same Infinite Substance included in all and each of them and to make this out further I shall premise this Assertion viz. That no Substance is properly a Subsistence nor any Subsistence properly a Substance But differ from one another as much as an entire Being and the mode of that Being As a Subject and as an Affection qualifying or determining the said subject And let this Author with his New Logick and his No Metaphysicks prove the contrary if he is able For I here Challenge him to do it In the mean time I thus argue Three distinct Subsistences of one and the same Infinite Substance included in all and each of them are not Three distinct Substances But the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Subsistences of one and the same Infinite Substance included in all and each of them And Therefore the Three Divine Persons are not Three distinct Substances And this one Argument I rely upon as so fully conclusive of the Point to be proved that I judge it perfectly needless to add any more Only as I have here proved the Three Divine Persons not to be Three Substances so on the other side I prove this Author's Three distinct Minds to be Three Substances thus Three distinct Absolute Beings existing by themselves so as not to exist in or depend upon any other Being as
that all Divines not excepting himself discourse of the Divine Essence as determinable and of the Divine Persons as of those by whom it is determined and again of the Divine Essence as communicable and of the Divine Persons two of them at least as those to whom it is communicated For can this be done without a distinct Conception of that which is to be Communicated and of Those to whom the Communication is to be made or can there be any distinction in the conception where there is not a proportionable Distinguishableness in the Object So that upon the whole matter it appears that nothing could be more contrary to all the Principles of Christian Philosophy and Theology than this Author's denial of all distinction in the sense we have given of it between the Divine Essence and Persons for without such distinction it is impossible to conceive or discourse of the said Persons as one in Essence and Three in Subsistence And so I pass to the Examination of his other Proposition viz. That the Essence makes the Person Concerning which I do with the greatest assurance appeal to all the World whether any Thing more absurd strange and Paradoxical was ever asserted in Divinity For how can the Divine Essence be conceived to make the Person Since all making must of Necessity be one of these Two ways First Either by an efficient production Or secondly By a formal Constitution of a Thing For no third way besides these is assigneable But it cannot be by the first because it is and ever was a received Maxime in Theology That the Divine Essence considered absolutely in it self neither produces nor is produced So that if any Production or Operation be ascribed to it it must be only as it subsists in a Person one or more who is the sole proper Agent or Producer in every Divine Act or Effect from whence it is evident that that which can produce nothing but as it is and operates in the Person cannot produce the Person it self which it must presuppose before it can operate Besides that if the Essence should produce the Person it would follow that it must produce one Person as well as another and consequently the Person of the Father as well as that of the Son and of the Holy Ghost But if the Essence should produce the Person of the Father how could the Father be said to be the fountain of the Deity as the Ancient Writers Term him very often and to be without all Original which is the peculiar Character of his Person For that the Deity or Divine Essence which are but two words for the same thing should produce the fountain of the Deity or a Self-originated Person no Mortal Man I believe this Author still excepted can imagine Since therefore it is so insufferably Absurd to affirm that the Essence makes the Person by way of Production let us see whether it can be said to make it the other way viz. by a formal constitution of it But if this be admitted then the Essence must be that by which a Person is formally a Person whereupon the Essence and the Person being commensurate and convertible it will follow That if there be but one Essence there can be but one Person and that if there be a Plurality of Persons there must be a Plurality of Essences too For the multiplication of the formal Reason of any Thing must of Necessity multiply the Thing it self of which it is so And here I must tell this Author that as much as he disclaims the use of the Term Formal Reason yet this very expression of his That the Essence makes the Person truly and properly neither does nor can import any thing else than that the Essence is the formal Reason thereof And if so let him upon this Assertion keep off the forementioned Consequence viz. That either there are Three Essences or but one Person if he can But after all finding himself pinch'd still harder and harder and not well knowing which way to turn himself at length he cries out It is an amazing thing to think what strange Conceits this man viz. the Animadverter must have of a Trinity of Persons and Vnity of Essence or Substance p. 92. l. 7. To relieve him from which Transport if this Defender instead of looking into the Fathers which he so often mentions will be pleas'd to read them he shall find this amazing Conceit or Notion of the Trinity as he calls it fully and frequently express'd by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek Fathers and in the Latin Fathers Councils Schoolmen and other Divines Popish and Protestant by the Vna Essentia and the Tres Subsistentiae or Modi Subsistendi That is to say by three distinct Modes of Subsisting or three Subsistences of one and the same Infinite Essence or Substance included in all and each of them This is the Animadverter's Notion of One Divine Essence and Three Divine Persons as this man has been more than once told and the Authorities producible for it and in a great measure produc'd already in the Animadversions might one would think have serv'd to cure that Amazement or rather Stâ—por which this Author upon this account has been so deeply seiz'd with On the contrary such a Notion of the Trinity as makes the Divine Nature or Essence a Person and the three Divine Persons to be three distinct Minds or Spirits and consequently three distinct Essences Natures or Substances is Matter of much greater Amazement and Abhorrence too to all that are concern'd for the Faith which they were baptiz'd into And moreover for any one to assert three Infinitâ— Minds and yet to pretend not to assert three Gods is yet more amazing than the former And lastly for such scandalous Assertions to wear the Stamp of Publick Licence and Authority and the shameless Author of them to be endur'd and not only so but to be also under such Circumstances in the Church of England is to all sober and pious Minds more amazing monstrous and astonishing than all his detestable Heresies put together But to draw to a close of this Argument against his Three Infinite Minds from a Necessity of asserting Three Substances in the Godhead as unavoidably consequent thereupon I find this Author utterly at a loss where to fix and by no means consistent with himself as sometimes denying and sometimes allowing his Three Minds to be Three Substances His denyal of it appears in these words Let the Animadverter says he bring off Three Persons from being Three Substances and the Dâ—â—â— will undertake to bring off his Three Minds from being so as well p. 89. l. 15. On the contrary if this Author does not allow of Three Substances in the Trinity why does he interpret the places alledg'd by the Animadverteâ— out of the Fathers for an Vnity of Substance in the Divine Nature and Persons only of a Specifick Vnity of Substance for that all know
have shewn be not an Attribute which imports only some particular perfection of the Divine Nature but the Subject of all such Attributes yet in these Propositions The Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God it is a Logical Attritube in every one of them And let him champ upon this till he breaks his Teeth upon it if he pleases But as Men sometimes in a drunken fit cry out Fire Fire not from what they see without them but from what they feel within So this Man out of an Internal plenitude of Ignorance cries out here in most Tragical manner What will this Animadverter make of God at last when the Divine Essence is an Attribute and a Divine Person a mere Mode p. 94. l. 30. In answer to which as it has been sufficiently explaiend how the Animadverter makes the Divine Essence concretely expressed by the Term God an Attribute so if this Defender will say further That he makes a Divine Person a mere Mode I do here Challenge him to point out that place in the Animadversions where the Animadverter says so He has indeed over and over declared and that without shuffling from his words to his meaning That he holds a Divine Person to be properly the Divine Nature under such a certain mode of Subsistence or in other Terms such a certain mode of Subsistence of the Divine Nature still including the said Nature in it This I say the Animadverter all along holds and asserts and if this Man calls this the making a Divine Person a meer Mode as it is a gross and direct falshood and utterly disowned by his Adversary so should I take the Liberty of calling Things by their own proper names it might justly entitle him to a very coarse one Now the Proposition from first to last asserted by this Author is this That the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits which the Animadverter affirmed to be contrary to the Athanasian Creed as he shewed by casting it into the same Form and consequently that if the said Form were a True way of Reasoning concerning the Divine Nature and Persons This Proposition ought to be rejected as utterly inconsistent with it And how does our Author counter-argue this Why why by running out into an Impertinent proof that Infinite Mind belongs distinctly to the Three Divine Persons and consequently may be distinctly predicated of each of them Both which are as easily granted him as they can be alleged by him But by his favour the Question here is not Whether each of the Divine Persons be distinctly an Infinite Mind but whether each of them be a distinct Infinite Mind which this Defender affirms and that so positively that he lays the whole stress of his Hypothesis upon it in these remarkable words That if every Person in the Trinity considered as a distinct Person be not a distinct Infinite and Eternal Mind there is an end of the Dean's Notion Def. p. 8. at the end And the Animadverter on the other side as positively denies each of the Divine Persons to be a distinct Infinite Mind or that the Term Distinct Infinite Mind can be truly predicated of or belong to any of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity And therefore for the clearing of this matter and that even to this Man's Understanding if possible we must always distinguish between Attributing a Distinct Thing to each Distinct Person and between Attributing a Thing distinctly to the said Person For there is a vast Difference between these Two and yet this Author perpetually confounds them and still from the latter infers the former which is a manifest Paralogism à Dicto secundùm Quid ad dictum simpliciter viz. to conclude absolutely a diverse or Distinct Thing from a diverse or distinct mode of a Thing As for instance Omnipotence belongs to each of the Divine Persons distinctly but that does not prove that there is a distinct Omnipotence belonging to each of them but only one and the same Omnipotence belonging to the Three Persons according to Three distinct ways and what I have said of Omnipotence holds equally in Omniscience or Infinite Intelligence and in all the Essential Divine Attributes besides For a Thing 's belonging distinctly to the Three Divine Persons distinctly considered imports no more but that it belongs after a distinct manner to each of them so considered which one and the same Infinite Being may without any multiplication of it self very well do But says our Author The Athanasian Form does not forbid us to attribute to each distinct Person what is common to all Three for it does it expresly by affirming that the Father is Vncreate the Son Vncreate and the Holy Ghost Vncreate p. 96. l. 10. In which words as by the Term Vncreate I affirm ought to be understood an Vncreate Being or Essence So I readily grant that Father Son and Holy Ghost distinctly considered are each of them an Vncreate Being but for all that shall never grant each of them to be a distinct Vncreate Being But utterly deny That the Father is a distinct Vncreate Being the Son a distinct Vncreate Being and the Holy Ghost a distinct Vncreate Being as being all of them Propositions absolutely false and founded upon this perpetual Blunder That he shifts the Term distinct from the Subject to the Predicate still arguing thus That because every distinct Person distinctly considered is an Infinite Mind therefore every such Person so considered is a distinct Infinite Mind Which no Logick or Rule of Consequence will or can infer And therefore whereas he makes the Animadverter give this as the Reason of the Athanasian Predication That what is common to all Three Persons does not distinctly belong to each Def. p. 96. l. 22. I must tell him That it is false For the Animadverter affirms the same Nature which is common to all the Persons to belong distinctly to each Person but nevertheless denies That in the same respect in which it is common to all it does or can belong distinctly to any one For it belongs to all as an Essence or Being absolutely considered but it belongs distinctly to each Person according to a distinct way or mode of subsisting which the said Being or Essence has in each Person and consequently since the same Divine Essence or Being has Three Distinct ways of subsisting it does according to each of them belong distinctly to each Person Yet still as I said before not as a distinct Being or Essence in any Person And whereas this Man states the Reason of the Athanasian Form upon this That the Divine Perfections distinctly existing in the Divine Persons are so inseparably united as to be essentially one p. 96. l. 26. That is still Trumping the same old Petitio Principii upon the Reader for it is still positively denied him and will be so for ever That an Inseparable Vnion of Three distinct Infinite Minds were such an Vnion possible can make the said
Minds essentially one Since it is not so much as possible to conceive them to be Three distinct Minds without conceiving them also to be Three particular distinct Essences and surely Three distinct Essences can never be essentially one Besides That he has been told That no Substances can be so Vnited as to be Inseparable by God's absolute Power And therefore as for that precarious Conclusion in which he says That the Dean has not transgressed the Athanasian Form by asserting Three distinct Infinite Minds if we understand by them Three Infinite Intelligent Persons p. 97. l. 8. I answer That since it is impossibble for Three Infinite Minds which by their very Essence are Three Absolute Beings to be Three Relative Subsistences of one and the same Infinite Mind included in all and each of them which the Three Divine Persons are it is evident that he has transgressed and as much as in him lay overthrown the Athanasian Form and that it is impossible for all the Wit of Man to reconcile Three distinct Infinite Minds to the said Form Besides that it is manifest that notwithstanding he says That by Three Infinite Minds he means Three Infinite Intelligent Persons he yet discourses of them all along so that Vice versâ it is evident that by these Three Infinite Intelligent Persons he means no other than Three Infinite Minds For if each of these Infinite Intelligent Persons be a distinct Infinite Mind as this Author has positively affirmed I leave it to the Judgment of any one who can tell Three whether Three distinct Infinite Intelligent Persons be not Three distinct Infinite Minds so that he is still but where he was and all that he has said is nothing but dodging and shewing Tricks In fine it is extreamly in vain to dispute any longer wiâ—â— a Man who has not a clear or True Conception of any one Thing or Term belonging to the subject here disputed upon and therefore I shall add no more upon this Argument but shut up all with the following passage out of the first of those two Latine Tracts inserted into the second Tome of Athanasius's Works and Entituled de unitâ Deitate Trinitatis ad Theophilum p. 551. Colon. Edit Cur Pater Spiritus dicitur Filius Spiritus nuncupatur Spiritus Sanctus Spiritus appellatur Ad haec respondetur An Ignoras quia Pater unus Deus est Filius unus Deus Spiritus Sanctus Vnus Deus est dum unitum nomen sit in Naturâ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sic Vnus Spiritus est quia unita est Deiâ—as eorum Nam si Tu per singula Nomina Personarum Vnitum Nomen Spiritus ter designâsti nunquid Tres Spiritus dicere oportebat Absit Which Testimony I think as plain and full against this Author's Three Spirits or Minds as words can well express a Thing The Author whosoever he was seems to have lived since the Eutychian Heresy and may be placed about the seventh Century And so I take my leave of the Dean's Three distinct Infinite Minds Spirits or Substances that is to say of his Three Gods and having done this methinks I see him go whimpering away with his Finger in his Eye and that Complaint of Micah in his Mouth Iudg. 18.24 Ye have taken away my Gods which I made and what have I more Though I must confess I cannot tell why he should be so fond of them since I dare undertake that he will never be able to bring the Christian World either to believe in or to Worship a Trinity of Gods nor do I see what use they are like to be of even to himself unless peradventure to swear by And so I have examined and gone over all this Author's Exceptions against the Animadverter's Arguments and that with all the Particularity and Impartiality that it was possible to examine any Writing with and upon a survey of what has been said on either side I cannot perceive but that the Animadverter's Arguments stand just as they did before unless possibly something firmer for this Author's attempts to shake them For upon the whole matter I must profess that I never met with a weaker and a lamer defence of any Hypothesis whatsoever But he threatens the Animadverter with an Answer to the Testimonies alleged by him out of the Fathers and others Def. p. 97. l. 18. And I have heard that learned Person mentioned who is generally supposed to be imployed by this Author to do that for him which he cannot do for himself though I reckon him to be one of too much Judgment as well as Learning to appear in the World both as Veterum Vindicator and Novatorum Vindicator too In the mean time as for those Blasphemous Passages extracted out of this Author's Book of the Knowledge of Iesus Christ and charged by the Animadverter upon him in his Preface the Animadverter continues and persists in the same charge still nor does he find that this Author has at all cleared himself from it in the Defence of that Book here mentioned by him p. 98. Nor are the said lewd Passages as he pretends proposed there by him as Objections to be answered but as his own vile Descants upon the received Doctrine of the Church about some of the most important Points of Christianity Besides that what is said in the Preface upon this subject makes but a small part of the said Preface so that if he should attempt to answer it which he has too much Wit in his Anger to do it would be but like this pittiful little scrap of an Answer published by him against the Animadversions themselves But still after all the Blasphemies there placed to his Account are so very foul and flagrant that none but he who uttered them can pretend to defend them and the whole Plea which he or any of his Partisans ever yet did or could pretend to make for them was that he uttered them in the Person of Dr. Owen and as the Results of his Opinion But since he could never so much as pretend them to be Dr. Owen's words nor yet prove them to be the certain consequent of his Assertions the Blasphemy is and must be his who formed and uttered those Diabolical Expressions For suppose a Mahumetan should single out some passages of St. Paul's Epistles and descant upon them and affix an impious and Blasphemous sense to them and being reproved for his Blasphemy and Impiety should allege in his Defence That he spoke them in St. Paul's Person and as the genuine Result of St. Paul's Writings I desire to know of this Man and his absurd Favourers whether the Charge of Blasphemy ought to lye against St. Paul or against the Mahumetan The Case is exactly the same as to the Thing it self abating for the Disparity of the Persons viz. of an Inspired Apostle and of any the most Learned Modern Doctor whatsoever And therefore I do here charge him afresh as guilty of all those Blasphemies set
TRITHEISM CHARGED UPON D r SHERLOCK's New Notion of the TRINITY AND The Charge made good in an Answer to the Defense of the said Notion against The Animadversions UPON Dr. Sherlock's Book Entituled A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity c. By a Divine of the Church of England LONDON Printed for Iohn Whitlock near Stationers-Hall MDCXCV TO ALL Professors of Divinity in the Two UNIVERSITIES OF THIS KINGDOM Reverend and Learned Sirs SInce the Work I here present you with needs so great a Patronage it were to be wished that it could bring something with it besides the Cause defended by it worthy of such Patrons as I address it to But as much below you as I know it to be I could think of none to whom I could so properly apply my self as Those whose eminent Stations in our Vniversities have made them the Fittest as well as Ablest to countenance a Defense of so high a Point and so vital a Part of our Religion Our Church's Enemies of late seem to have diverted their main Attacks from her Out-Works in matters of Discipline and Ceremony and now it is no less than her very Capitol which they invade her Palladium if I may allude to such Expressions which they would rob her of even the Prime the Grand and Distinguishing Article of our Christianity the Article of the Blessed Trinity it self without the Belief of which I dare aver that a Man can no more be a Christian than he can without a Rational Soul be a Man And this is now the Point so fiercely laid at and assaulted both by Socinianism on the one hand and by Tritheism or rather Paganism on the other For as the former would run it down by stripping the Godhead of a Ternary of Persons so the other would as effectually but more scandalously overthrow it by introducing a Trinity of Gods as they inevitably do who assert the Three Divine Persons to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits which I positively affirm is equivalent to the asserting the said Three Persons to be Three Gods And I doubt not of your learned Concurrence with me and Abettment of me in this Affirmation And I do moreover refer it to your profound and known Learning to consider and to judge whether ever the Catholick Church explained the Trinity by Self-Consciousness as that wherein the Personality Personal Unity and Distinction of each of the Divine Persons does properly and formally consist and by Mutual Consciousness as that wherein consists the Essential Unity of the said Persons and whereby they are all Three essentially one God together with several other such like Terms set down in the Collection immediately subjoined to this Epistle And lastly whether the Primitive Church having decreed and denounced an Anathema to all Vsers of any 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in these Mysteries the Church of England and the Nurseries thereof the Universities ought to suffer the greatest Mystery of our Christian Faith to be perplexed confounded and even ridiculed by this Man 's pretending to explain it by such odd Vncouth as well as new Expressions which were never entertained as Terms of any Note or Vse even in Philosophy till Des Cartes and his Followers introduced them and that without the least thought that appears of applying them to the Trinity I desire I say all our Learned Divines seriously to consider what this must tend to and will in all likelihood end in The Arguments which this daring Innovator whom I write against pretends to support his Tritheism and Innovations by are but slight and trivial or rather indeed bare bold Assertions without Arguments And those also in the Opinion of most so throughly broken and confuted already that what they need more is rather a Discountenance than a Confutation Nor indeed is there any thing formidable in the whole Book which I have here answered but that one word appearing in the Front of it viz. licensed and that I must confess looks very formidably and threatningly both upon our Church and Religion and it cannot but go to the heart of every Well-wisher to Both to consider what Advantage our watchful Enemies the Papists will be sure to make of it who in such Cases never fail to take whatsoever is given them And now Reverend Sirs what can my design be in thus applying my self to you Surely it is not so to offer you my poor Iudgment as at all to prescribe to Yours No I understand you and my self too well to be guilty of so sottish a Presumption Nor is it to put you upon writing Books against this Innovator for that I think extreamly below you But since the World has heard of such a Thing as the Decretum Oxoniense and that so justly to the Credit of that Vniversity If now Both our Vniversities would concur in passing their Theological Censure upon such Propositions as have of late so much impugned our Faith and disgraced our Church as that of Oxford had passed before upon such Doctrines as undermined and struck at our Civil Government as I think all Christians should be at least as zealous for the former as for the latter it could not but highly vindicate the Honour of the Church of England the Orthodoxy of our Clergy and of our Two great Seminaries of Learning which I assure you many Foreigners how undeservedly soever begin to be something suspicious of and dissatisfied about by reason of some late Books published amongst us and not yet answered by us And for what concerns this Author's first Discourse concerning the Trinity I have been assured from a very Authentick hand corresponding with several Persons of Note for Learning in Germany that it had given no small offence to the Divines abroad and particularly that those learned Gentlemen at Lipsick who write the Transactions would have censured the new Heterodox Notions and equally new and unjustifiable Expositions of Scripture which it is full of and those not wholly unreflected upon by them neither at much another rate than they have done in the Remarks of the Year 1691. p. 216. but that out of a peculiar respect to the Church of England they forbore in expectation that some Divine of her own Communion would undertake the Confutation of it And therefore since those Animadversions upon it came out so opportunely as an Answer to so just an Expectation as well as to so Ill a Book which had both given such offence to foreign Churches and brought such Scandal upon our own I hope this Defence of them will find an Acceptance worthy of Those Great Injured Truths asserted in that Discourse and re-asserted in this For high time certainly it is for all who heartily espouse the Concerns of our Excellent Church so Practised upon on all Hands now if ever to appear for Her Considering That from a New Christianity the Grand Project of some of late the Natural and Next step is to None And so Reverend Sirs to create
Nature of a Spirit proved not to consist in Vital internal Sensation 17 18 19 The Trinity in Vnity not explicable by Sensation and Continuity of Sensation 20 21 No man's feeling himself a distinct Person can be the Reason of his being so 22 23 The Defender's Complement to the Animadverter returned 24 Mutual Consciousness can never make three distinct Spirits essentially one 26 27 Mutual Consciousness according to this Author's Principles must consist of three distinct Acts 27 28 His profane Assertion concerning the Trinity 30 Each of the Divine Persons as a distinct Person is not a distinct Infinite Mind with a Refutation of his Argument brought to prove it so 31 32 33 34 His absurd Assertions concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Divine Persons 35 36 37 His vain endeavour to justifie his Hypothesis of three distinct infinite Minds from the Allusions used by the Fathers about the Trinity 38 39 An extraordinary Discovery made by this Author of Resemblance without Likeness 40 41 His gross Mistakes and precarious Assertions concerning the sence and use of the Term Person from p. 41 to 50 His ridiculous pleading Theological use for the word Minds as importing the same with Persons while none can be proved to use it so but himself and some few Hereticks besides 46 47 The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sufficient proof of a Numerical Vnity of Nature or Essence in the Divine Persons 51 All Specifick Vnity of Nature or any thing analogous to it in the Divine Persons proved absurd and impossible 52 53 The Divine Nature proved against this Author to be a single or singular Nature together with a Refutation of some other of his false and heretical Assertions from p. 54 to 60 The Vnity of the Divine Nature in the three Persons proved not to be as this Defender would have it partly Specifical and partly Numerical 55 56 The Testimony of Victorinus Afer of little or no Authority with Reference to the Doctrine of the Trinity 60 61 Two other of this Defender's scandalous Assertions refuted 61 62 His Romance of a Man and his living Image so absurdly and profanely brought by him as an Explication of the Essential Union of the Divine Persons examined and exploded from p. 63 to 80 His gross Ignorance of the sence and import of the term Emanation 73 The proper and true Sence of it explained ibid. An account both of the Nature of an Image in general and of an Image by Reflexion in particular 65 66 The Animadverter's Objection That Dr. Sherlock has stated a Trinity in Vnity so as utterly to overthrow the Mysteriousness of it enforced and made good 81 82 The Mysteriousness of the same denied also by Le-Clerk in his Theological Epistles under the Name of Liberius de Sancto Amore where the Reader may find the Materials of this Author 's new Hypothesis and where this Author himself may be supposed also to have found them before from p. 82 to 85 The School-Terms defended and the Vse of them asserted against this Illiterate Innovator 86 87 The Term Formal Reason of a Thing further explained and insisted upon 89 90 The true state of the Point in dispute between Dr. Sherlock and the Animadverter fully and particularly represented from p. 91 to 99 His Blunder about Convertibility and Proprium quarto modo 99 100 c. His flying from the Act of Self-Consciousness to the Principle thereof proved a meer shift and an utter change of the Question 101 102 c. The Animadverter's first Argument proving Self-Consciousness neither Act nor Principle to be the formal Reason of Personality in created Beings enforced from p. 101 to 108 The second Argument vindicated and the defects of the Boetian Definition of a Person noted from p. 108 to 112 The third Argument for the same confirmed also 112 113 c. The Dispute concerning the Personality of the Soul both in and out of the Body resumed and carried on against this Author and all his Hâ—terodox Vnphilosophical Assertions concerning it throughly canvased and confuted from p. 114 to 151 Every man constituted such according to this Author 's avowed Principles not by an Essential Composition but by an Hypostatick Union of the Soul with the Body from p. 147 to 150 The Defender's pretended Answer to the fourth Chapter of the Animadversions proving Self-Consciousness not to be the formal Reason of Personality in the Divine Persons examined and the several Arguments there produced against it made good from p. 152 to 171 He manifestly gives up the Point in dispute between him and his Adversary and that in several places viz. 153 154. item 160 161. and 168. and 204 c. His Blasphemy 170 The Animadverter's Arguments brought to prove That mutual Consciousness cannot be that which makes as this Author affirms the three Divine Persons essentially one God in like manner confirmed and enforced from p. 171 to 183 c. His Shifting Pretence That by Mutual Consciousness he means the Principle not the Act thereof irrefragably overthrown from his own repeated Expressions and Assertions p. 172 to 178 The Thing it self effectually disprov'd by Reason and Argument p. 178 to 182 How the Divine Knowledge is diversify'd 190 191 The Communion of the Divine Persons with one-another asserted and prov'd not to be formally the same with the Union of the said Persons 193 194 A downright shameless unconscionable Lye affirmed by this Defender 195 196 His silly Cavils about Union of Nature and about Personality answer'd 156 157 158 No 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mutual Indwelling of Minds in one another 199 This Author 's great Ignorance in exploding all Priority and Posteriority from our Conceptions and Discourses of God expos'd and laid open and the Necessity of admitting the same unanswerably prov'd against him p. 199 to 203 His Pretence of not disputing about the Essences of Things shewn impertinent to the purpose he alledges it for and withal grosly contradictious to what he himself had positively affirmed elsewhere 204 205 How Knowledge and how all Arts and Sciences are distinguish'd and denominated from their respective Objects which this Author is utterly ignorant of shewn and explained 207 208 Sensation in God as wholly differing according to this Author in kind from the Divine Knowledge disproved and exploded p. 208 to 213 His scandalous Falsification in quite changing the state of the present Question contrary to his own positive frequent and express Assertions throughout the Vindication c. p. 214 to 218 The same made yet more manifest by collating what he says here with what he had affirmed there ibid. The true state of the Question substituted in the room of the preceding false one 219 His vain Endeavour to rescue his Hypothesis of three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits from the Charge of Tritheism 220 His Assertion of the Equipollency of the Terms Infinite Mind and Infinite Intelligent Person proved intolerably false and absurd 223 224 c. The difference
do or can inferr in it a Plurality of Minds forasmuch as the said Acts belong to the Three Divine Persons as has been just now observed by vertue of that One Infinite Mind from which they flow and which is numerically one and the same in all Three But this Author is now upon an higher strain and resolving under the Protection of a Licence to open himself farther than before tells us in plain Terms That if every Person in the Trinity considered as a distinct Person be not a distinct Infinite and Eternal Mind there is he confesses an end of his Notion p. 8. And I think it had been well for the Church and himself too if it had never had a Beginning But then he adds with unsufferable Presumption and equal Falshood That with that there will be an End of a Trinity of Persons also and that we shall have nothing left but a Trinity of Modes Postures and Names not in the Vnity of the Godhead but in the Vnity of One Person who is the whole Deity These are his detestably Heretical and senseless Words In answer to which I demand of this Confident Man How he dares in defiance of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church place a Trinity of Modes Postures and Names upon the same Level as if they all indifferently amounted but to the same Thing Whereas Names are certainly of Arbitrary Imposition whether God or Man imposes them and Postures none ascribe to God but that silly Sort of Men the Anthropomorphites But as for Modes they result eternally and necessarily from the Divine Nature and eternally and inseparably remain in it and withal import such distinct Relations as can never coincide in one and the same Person and how then can this Ignorant Man talk of the Vnity of one Person who is the whole Deity or Godhead when these Three Relations can never concur in such an Vnity of Person but all of them may and do concur in the Vnity of the Godhead In a word I do here ask this bold Man whether he will venture to affirm That the Divine Nature determined or modified by such a certain subsistence or subsisting Relation is a meer Mode or no and I do here leave it to his second Thoughts whether he will venture to say so And if not why does he here against his Conscience reproach the Doctrine of the Catholick Church for so it is as if it established a Trinity of meer Modes Which it is so far from that I do here affirm against this Author and others who speak like him upon this Subject That according to the sence of the Catholick Church The Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Relative Modes of Subsistence or Three subsisting Relations of one and the same Infinite Divine Nature included in all and each of them or again They are the Divine Nature it self subsisting with Three distinct Relations This I say I affirm and doubt not but that to all Men of sence it confutes the Three Divine Persons being Three meer Modes and shews withal what an irrational Blasphemous Cavil it is to call them so For certainly a Mode in concretion with the Essence cannot with the least pretence of Reason be called a meer Mode And This I do again avouch for the Doctrine of the Catholick Church concerning the Trinity and do over and over challenge this Pert Novellist to disprove it if he can But in the next place he is for confirming his Trâ—â—â—theistical Assertion with this Invincible Argument as he thinks Poor Man p. 8 9. If says he every distinct Person in the Godhead considered as Distinct be not an Infinite and Eternal Mind as it must be if every distinct Person be God unless any Thing else than an Infinite Mind can be God then though it be an unusual way of speaking to call them Three Eternal Minds yet there is no Heresy in it nor any intended by it In answer to which I must tell him That I shall not much concern my self about what he intends it being his old way when he is pressed with his Words to fly to his Intentions but shall only consider what his words express or infer And whether they carry any Heresy in them or no shall appear presently And in order to this I must remind him of these Two Things First That God and Infinite Eternal Mind are Terms perfectly equipollent And Secondly That in Terms equipollent putting one in the room of the other you may argue with the same consequence from one that you can from the other According to which rule we will try the force of his Argument by proposing it with the bare change of one of the forementioned Terms for the other Thus. If every distinct Person in the Godhead considered as distinct be God as it must be if every distinct Person be an Infinite and Eternal Mind unless any thing else than God can be an Infinite Mind then though it be an unusual way of speaking to call them Three Gods yet there is no Heresy in it nor in spight of his words any intended by it Now let this Author consider how he will allow of this Conclusion for if his own Conclusion holds good this is certainly good also since the Validity of the Consequence is the same in Both the Matter of the Argument being the same and the Form of it the same too There must be therefore a gross Fallacy in the Argument it self and it lies in the Homonomy of the Term as distinct For the English Particle as and the Latine quà or quatenus thus applied has Two Significations 1. The first importing any Qualification specifying affecting or any way denominating the Subject and so a Person as distinct signifies no more than a Person who is distinct or a Person under this Qualification or Denomination 2. But secondly the other Signification of the Particle as is causal and imports a causal Connexion of the Term to which it is joined with some Predicate or Attribute belonging to the Subject and so a Person as distinct signifies as much as a Person because distinct or by reason of his distinction And this makes an Attribute to be necessarily and universally predicated of its Subject so that if the Subject be multiplied the Thing predicated of it must be multiplied too but in the former Signification of the Particle as it is not so for as much as the Predication imported thereby is only Accidental and has no causal necessary nor Universal Connexion with it's Subject Accordingly in the causal sence of the Term as distinct I must tell him that no Person in the Godhead as distinct is an Infinite Eternal Mind that is to say This Attribute belongs not formally to his Distinction and that his Distinction is not the cause or reason that it is affirmed of him For it is an Attribute Springing from the Divine Nature which is in the Person and not from his Personality or Personal Distinction for as much as that does
I hinted before though this Writer be confuted never so often he takes no notice of it but still keeps on Writing and for ought I see will never hold his hand till the Bookseller holds his In the next place he seems to fall a pitch Lower than usual and to be upon the complaining strain as that Men are spightful and will not treat Mr. Dean and his Absurdities according to their Dignity nor allow him such fair Quarter as other Writers he says have met with in the same Cause Adding withal That it is not to be expected that in a matter of so high in Nature we should have such a comprehension of it as to leave no difficulties unexplained Which I confess would be a fair Allegation from another Man but not from him For has he not declared That his Notion of a Trinity solves all doubts and difficulties about it See his Vindication p. 66. l. 2. and 85. l. last and where all difficulties are solved can there remain any Vnexplained Now I ask this Man Are the words here quoted by me his or are they not If they are his then let all Mankind judge whether this Man has not eaten shame and drunk after it as the word is who can without the least sence of it so grosly contradict himself in the face of the World But however let us hear what he says And here we have him alledging the Fathers setting forth the Trinity by the Sun and its light and splendor by a Tree and it's Branches a Fountain and it's Streams or a Mathematical Cube and then bringing up the Rear of all with these Questions Are not these Accounts says he much more chargeable with Tritheism or Sabellianism than the Account he gives of them by Three Minds or Spirits For are not the Sun and its light and splendor as much Three but not so much one as Three Conscious Minds p. 9. To which I answer peremptorily That the Sun and its light and splendor not being Three distinct Supposita are much more one than Three distinct Minds or Spirits which are Three Supposita can possibly be and cannot be more Three than Three distinct Minds or Spirits necessarily and essentially are But I would have the Reader here observe what a wretched Sophism he is now Trumping upon him by arguing ab Imparibus tanquam paribus For is an Account of a Thing by way of Allusion and an Account analogous to a Definition all one Is a similitude or bare Resemblance of a Thing and a proper Representation or Description of the Nature of that Thing the same Is there not a wide difference between shewing what a Thing is like and what it really and properly is And to demonstrate that the Fathers applyed the fore-alleged Instances of Resemblance to the Trinity in a quite different way from what this Author here does when he represents the Three Divine Persons as Three Infinite Minds can he shew us That the Fathers ever positively affirmed or predicated any of the said Resemblances used by them of the Three Divine Persons so as to say Father Son and Holy Ghost are Sun Light and Splendor But this Author Categorically affirms That Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three distinct Minds or Spirits and will he call this a bare Resemblance and no more Nay does he not give this as their True and proper Denomination joining them together and affirming one of the other by a strict and logical Predication and must this pass for a meer Resemblance too Wherefore I would have his Ignorance take notice for the future that an Allusion to a thing per modum similitudinis and a proper Account of it quoad rei veritatem and dogmatically representing the Nature of the said Thing do vastly differ and consequently That to argue from one to the other can be fit for none but him whose Known Talent it is only to shift and to shuffle and instead of answering his Adversary to put a Trick upon his Reader But he tells us That he is now for discoursing something in general concerning a Trinity in Vnity and concerning the words whereby to express it And here as a foretast of the rest it is something pleasant to see how he expresses himself page 10. lines 17 18. Where having said that a Trinity in Vnity is such a Distinction and such an Vnion and why not Unity as is peculiar to the Godhead He adds That there are some faint Resemblances of it in Nature yet Nature has nothing like it Now I would have this Acute Author tell me How there can be Resemblances without Likeness or Likeness without Resemblance For I never knew Two Things resemble one Another but they were like one Another too Resemblance being nothing else but the Agreement of Two or more Things in any one Qualification and it is that Agreement which renders and denominates them properly like But if this Man means by Likeness an entire Universal Agreement in all Respects I must take the boldness to tell him that he speaks Nonsence Forasmuch as to be properly like a Thing and to be an Absolute Exact Copy of a Thing wholly differ there being a Rule in Logick which I can assure him is as little a Friend to him as he can be to that That Omne simile est dissimile that is That all Likeness in the very Essence of it imports a Disagreement in some Respects as well as it denotes an Agreement in others After which horrible Thick-piece of Nonsence it might justly be expected that I should sprinkle this Rude Author with some of those Rhetorical Flowers which he had so liberally bestowed upon the Animadverter such as Ingenious Blunderer and one without Sence or Reason c. but I shall only admire him under the Character which he has so modestly assumed to himself pag. 43. of being forsooth an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man since if ever he could pretend to that Title it must be here for surely to find out a Resemblance where there is no Likeness must be an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worthy of the greatest and most celebrated Invention Otherwise to give it its due Character it is a confounded shameless Nonsensical contradiction and it is hard to imagine what it is like unless it be this Author's Case of Non-resistance set off with Horse and Armes as a Comment upon the Text or a Gloss upon the Case And now in accounting for the words by which the Trinity is expressed according to his usual way of complementing the Fathers he tells us page 12. line 18 19. That they in their disputes upon this subject wanted words adequately to express their sence Which I for my part can see no Reason to grant him for though their sence and conceptions fell exceedingly short of the sublimity of that subject as when a finite Reason discourses of an Infinite Being it cannot but do yet it is wholly gratìs dictum That the Fathers wanted words fully and adequately to express their
own sence and conception of it for surely so far as any one conceives of a Thing if he has a Command of the Language he makes use of as the Fathers plentifully had he may express himself proportionably to what he conceives But not to insist any further upon this We have our Author in the next place upon no small Tryal of his skill and that in such an Instance as he well knows will very nearly affect his whole Hypothesis For finding the World not very ready to digest his Scandalous Notion of Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits he would fain slide it out of their sight by casting a mist before their Eyes and that is by offering to perswade the World That the word Mind may be as well applyed to the Three in the Godhead as the word Person To which purpose he tells us page 13 line 17. That the word Person signifies not only distinct but also separate subsistence and was first used to signify separately subsisting Beings such as Men and Angels and from thence was applyed by Theological use to signify also Persons having only a distinct subsistence as these in the Blessed Trinity have no more Thus says He. In Answer to which and in direct contradiction to what he has here affirmed I deny that the Term Person does or ever did signify separate subsistence but only complete subsistence For though in its original use it signified indeed separately subsisting Persons such as Men and Angels yet I deny that it signified them under the Particular Notion or formality of separate or properly denoted their separation but only their completeness And this is undeniably proved from the Received Definition of a Person That it is an Intelligent Completely subsisting Nature or an Intelligent Nature with or under a complete subsistence So that an Intelligent Nature is one part of the Definition and the complete subsistence of it the other which making up the whole of it it is manifest that it is Indifferent to signify all Intelligent Natures thus completely subsisting whether they be separate or only distinct and that without any regard either to their Separation or bare Distinction forasmuch as neither of these make any part of the Definition of a Person as has been shewn And therefore though I grant that the word Person was first applied to signifie separate Subsistences and afterwards used to signify the Subsistences of the Godhead which were only distinct but not separate yet I deny that it did this by a Translation of the word from one sence or signification to another but only by enlarging and extending the use of it mark that to more Things than it was actually applyed to at first yet still so that it was applyed with the same Propriety to them all and without the least change of its original Signification From all which I inferr That the word Person is a common Term equally drawn off from and equally predicable of Persons under both these ways of Subsistence viz. Separate and barely Distinct. But before I proceed further I shall from the foregoing Particulars remark these Two Things First That this Author by asserting the word Person to signifie originally not only distinct but what is more Separate Subsistence has given the Socinians that Advantage which the contrary Notion of it quite cuts them off from For most of their Arguments against a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead are drawn from a Supposal That the very Notion of a Person imports and signifies a separately subsisting Being and if this Author asserts the same too he fairly plays so much of the Game into their hands and he must not think to resume it at his pleasure and to beat them off from the True and Proper Signification of the Term as he makes it without being told by them That it is wholly precarious for him so to do and a meer Petitio Principii But Secondly I must tell him also which yet can be no News to any one that he does by the same very grosly contradict himself For having in the 13 th Page said that the Term Person signifies not only a Distinct but something more viz. a separate Subsistence afterwards in the 15 th Page He says That the Word Person is properly enough applied to the Three Divine Persons because all that is essential to the Notion of a Person belongs to each of them though they do not subsist sepaâ—ately which is a manifest Contradiction to what he had said before in the 13 th Page For if a Person signifies as he there affirms not only a Distinct but also a Separate Subsistence then how can the Word Person be properly applied to these Three Subsistences which are Distinct but not Separate Or how can he truly affirm That all that is essential to the Notion of a Person belongs to each of them if a Person signifies as he said before not only a Distinct but a Separate Subsistence For whatsoever is included in the proper Signification of it must needs be essentially included in the Notion of it too But let him go on for while he is contradicting himself he is in his Element and it would be as unkind as difficult to offer to take him out of it But he proceeds and with great confidence and without the least pretence of Proof tells us That it has by Vse obtained That the Term Persons signifies such as have a separate Subsistence and the Term Subsistences such as have only a Distinct Subsistence as those of the Trinity have and no more To which I answer positively That no such Distinguishing Vse has ever yet obtained but that the Use of Both Terms is and all along has been promiscuous the Persons of the Trinity having for these 14 or 15 Centuries at least been as often and commonly expressed by the Term Persons as by the Term Subsistences if not much oftner And therefore this Difference of the Signification of these Terms is perfectly arbitrary and of this Man 's own Invention as he who takes upon him to make Divinity may as well take upon him to make Distinctions too And therefore whereas he would make the word Person signifie one sort of Persons and the word Subsistence signifie another sort I do again tell him here That Person is a common word to both and in this Mystery differs no more from Subsistence than Two synonymous Words differ from one Another And I challenge him to produce out of the Writers of the Church any thing so much as tending to a Proof That it is otherwise But he now comes as he says to apply this Discourse of his about Persons and Subsistences to his own Hypothesis about Minds or Spirits and that in these Words What I have said of the Word Person is with equal Reason applicable to the Word Mind The Animadverter he says objects against the Dean That a Mind or Spirit is an Absolute Being Nature and Substance And I grant it is so in the Common
Easy and withal such as solves all doubts and difficulties about it and clears off all seeming Contradictions to it that Thing is fully and perfectly Intelligible and consequently can upon no Account be reckon'd Vnconceivable And such a Notion of the Trinity has this Author in his Vindication c. forty times told us that his Hypothesis affords and therefore according to the said Hypothesis a Trinity in Vnity can have nothing Mysterious or Vnconceivable in it As for the Instance he brings of God's Eternity which as he says must be owned to have a great deal in it Vnconceivable by our Reason and yet to be Intelligible enough so far as that Notion of it reaches viz. That it is a duration without Beginning or End p. 36. l. 15. I say this comes not up to his Case Since he neither does nor can pretend That this Account or Description of Eternity makes the Notion of it so plain and easy as to solve all doubts and difficulties about it and clear off all seeming contradictions to it which yet he affirms that his Notion of a Trinity does For if there could be such a Notion of Eternity as should do all this I affirm that even that high Attribute of God could have nothing Vnconceivable remaining in it Let him therefore leave off such Sophistical Trifling with his Reader since for an Object to be in some Degree Intelligible is one Thing and to be so intelligible as to be plain and easy with all doubts and difficulties about it solved and all seeming contradictions cleared off is quite Another The former indeed may consist with the Mysteriousness of the said object upon several other Accounts but this latter neither does nor can upon any Account whatsoever So that if this Man would but keep to the Question and abide by his own positive repeated Assertions which he is perpetually shifting and flying from the Charge of his making the Trinity no mystery at all stands as full and clear against him as that two Contradictory Propositions can never in their full Latitude be verified of one and the same subject But since a Plain and easy Notion of a Trinity in Vnity and such as solves all doubts and difficulties about it must needs found very oddly in the Ears of all sober Christians who have hitherto accounted it Incomprehensible in the very Notion of it I cannot see how this Author will relieve himself but by finding some Theological Vse of the word Mystery that may over-rule the common and received sence of it And here to help him in such a strait for once I will refer him to a Choice Author called Liberius de Sancto Amore but his true name is Le Clerk who in his first Theological Epistle Entituled de Vnione Hypostaticâ duarum Christi Naturarum affirms That a Mystery and particularly that of the Union of Two Natures in the Person of Christ as it has been all along accounted has nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. Incomprehensible in it Mysterium magnum est non quòd sit in se 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sed quia de eo sinè Revelatione Novi Testamenti nunquam homines cogitâssent p. 10. Again in this third Epistle bearing this Title In quâ S. Trinitatis Mysterium explicatur after he had congratulated the present Age that amongst the many Advantages accrewing to it from the Cartesian Philosophers they had made those Things plain easy and obvious to the World which our Ancestors had represented as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. unsearchable and unintelligible He proceeds to these Passages with reference to the Trinity Mysterium illu◠quod hactenus Theologis omnibus crucem fixit facile explicatu esse modò recta ineatur via contendimus p. 96. and that he himself took this right way of explaining it he all along supposes And again p. 99. Horum alterutrum fuisse oportet vel S. Trinitatis Mysterium facile tum conceptu fuisse scil Temporibus Apostolorum vel nullum tale Mysterium quale hodie creditur ab Apostolis fuisse praedicatum Again p. 100. He tells his Friend and that with Equal Impudence and Falshood that upon the Principles of the Reformed Churches Necesse est fatearis nihil esse in hoc negotio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 idque clarâ nisi fallor explicatione verum esse non frustra Tibi ostendemus And again p. 102. Incomprehensibilis non aliâ de causa habita est S. Trinitas quà m quia hactenus Theologorum omnium scopulus fuit non quòd in se capi non possit c. So that we have here furnished our Author with some Theological Vse of that Expression thanks to Le Clerk for it That the Notion of a Trinity is a plain and easy Notion and contians a full solutionn of all doubts and difficulties belonging to it But then we are to take notice withal that we must not think to attain to such a Notion of it but conditionally viz. by following the Explications he gives us in his forementioned Epistle De Vnione Hypostaticâ c. nor can we as he tells us make use of the Notions there laid down by him to any purpose without a previous and thorough knowledge of the Cartesian Method p. 7. as indeed nothing can be so kindly as a New Philosophy to graft a New Divinity upon Well then in this his first Epistle he asserts as he does likewise in the Two next That the Three Divine Persons are Tres distinctae Cogitationes or distincti modi cogitandi or Distinctae Series Cogitationum in one and the same Divine Essence or Nature sustaining the said three Cogitations or Modes or Series of Cogitation He defines also Cogitation to be quicquid in mente nostrâ fit cujus conscii sumus p. 5. which manifestly implies and amounts to Self-Consciousness From which particulars so prepared it is not unlikely but that our Author according to the old Rule of Inventis addendi might carry the Notion something further and improve the Three Cogitationes into Three Spiritus aut mentes Cogitantes Substantia Cogitans being the Definition which Le Clerk gives of a Spirit p. 6. So that as Le Clerk had provided three distinct Cogitations or Self-Consciousnesses our Author might very easily find out three distinct Minds or Spirits for them to belong to especially since Le Clerk had also marked him out a way to Vnite those Three Spirits again in that Proposition laid down by him p. 7. Spiritus per solam Cogitationem Vniri possunt which might naturally enough lead our Author to some Acquaintance with Mutual Consciousness too And then for three Distinct Infinite Spirits which make the third part of his Hypothesis though Le Clerk as we have observed says nothing of them here yet in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Metaphysicks he speaks of the Three Divine Persons as of Three Infinite Minds United Which Opinion he says is Platonick and Intelligible and prefers it before
here let the Reader judge by that passage in this very Defence p. 66. l. 23. As Self-Consciousness sayâ— he makes a Person one with itself so a Natural 〈◊〉 Consciousness makes Three Persons as Naturally one as it â—s possible for Three to be one And how far it does that he 〈◊〉 us in his Vindication p. 68. viz. That the mutual Consciousness of all the Three Divine Persons makes them all but one Infinite God And this I hope is something more than only to assert That Three Persons mutually conscious to each other must be essentially one which none denies provided that by Persons he means not Three distinct Minds for the words cited expresly say That this mutual Consciousness makes all the Three Persons to be essentially one God And whatsoever makes them so is the formal Reason of their being so And therefore this Man would do well to take notice for the future That whensoever he asserts the Definition of a formal Reason or of any Thing else he does by the very same assertion assert the Definitum too whether he owns it or no. But because he is here making use of his old Subterfuge again as I think he will never have done with it by pretending That when he argues from Self-Consciousness and mutual Consciousness he means not the Act but the Principle of each whether that forlorn pretence is to be allowed of the Reader is left to judge yet further from the following Considerations As First From the Account which this Author himself gives of the Terms Self-Consciousness and mutual Consciousness in the Book wherein he first made use of them and built his whole Hypothesis upon them viz. his Vindication c. From every page of which where the said words are mentioned it may be made out as clear as the Light that he neither understands nor uses them in any other sence but as they import the respective Acts of each of them As first p. 48. l. the last but one where he tells us That the Self-Vnity of a Spirit can be nothing else but Self-Consciousness he explains the same by its being conscious to its own Thoughts Reasonings Passions which no other finite Spirit is conscious to but it self Which expressions neither do nor can signify any thing else but the Acts of Self-Consciousness And again p. 49. l. 2. This says he makes a finite Spirit numerically one that every Spirit feels its own thoughts and passions but is not conscious to the thoughts and passions of another Spirit And again p. 49. l. 7. If three-created Spirits were so united as to be conscious to each others thoughts and passions I cannot see any Reason why we might not say that three such Persons were Numerically one c. Now what can any mortal Man make of all this but Actual Consciousness And what does his Metaphor of feeling mean but something which is as much an Act of the Mind as that in the proper sence of it is of the Body So p. 50. l. 11. We know says he the Vnity of a Spirit reaches as far as its Self-Consciousness does for that is one Spirit which knows and feels it self and its own thoughts and motions c. In like manner for the Allusion he quotes out of St. Austin l. 15. ibid. Which he says represents this much better by that Consciousness which is between those distinct faculties in us of Memory Vnderstanding and Will And what is that Why the very Acts of these faculties which as he says know and feel whatsoever is in each other viz. We remember what we understand and will likewise We understand what we remember and will and lastly We will what we remember and understand All which I suppose are Acts of those respective faculties and not the faculties themselves And yet this he translates to the Trinity l. 23. ibid. If says he we can suppose three Infinite Minds and Persons thus conscious of whatsoever is in each other c. that is to say by Acts of Consciousness as the forementioned faculties know and feel what is in each other for otherwise that Particle thus is insignificant and means nothing at all And he speaks it out fully and plainly p. 52. l. 2. in these words This Intimate Vnion and Inbeing when we speak of an essential Vnion of pure and infinite Minds is a mutual Consciousness And what is that Why it follows It is says he as I may so speak an Inward Sensation of each other to know and feel each other as they know and feel themselves And yet more plainly if possible Father Son and Holy Ghost says he are one by an Internal Consciousness p. 56. l. 5. And then he explains the same in this manner If I may so speak says he because we want proper words to express it they feel each other in themselves know the same Things by feeling each others Knowledge and will and love alike by feeling what each other loves and wills just as every Man feels his own thoughts knowledge will and passions It were endless to transcribe all the Passages in his Vindic. which are to the same Purpose and the Reader may find five hundred more if he has a mind to it But because a Person so eminent for contradicting and forgetting himself may perhaps have forgot what he had said in his Vindication let us see what he says in this very Defence where he asserts the same Thing in the same words with reference to finite Spirits p. 37. at the end If that says he be one distinct separate Mind which is conscious only to it self which feels all that is in it self and nothing else and those be 〈◊〉 distinct separate Mindâ— each of which is thus conscious to it self c. And with respect to the Unity in Trinity p. 32. He expresly tells us That the Dean places the Vnity of the Three Persons in mutual Consciousness and then tells us what that is viz. That they have a conscious Sensation of each other in themselves as they have of themselves And what I ask is having a conscious Sensation but actual Consciousness And again Can they be one before they are mutually conscious and before they know themselves to be one and that even in the order of conceiving it p. 74. l. 16 17 18. And now what is all this to the Principle of Consciousness I have found it a Tedious task to transcribe so much of his stuff only to make a confident shifting Caviller see his own words while he will not own them But by what has been quoted it appears irrefragably That by Self-Consciousness and mutual Consciousness and that both with respect to Spirits finite and infinite this Author could understand nothing but the Acts of them if these Terms is conscious to be conscious sensation knowing feeling do properly import Acts. And I defy the whole World and this Author himself to make any other Rational sense of them Upon the whole matter therefore I desire the Judicious
the said Persons But the former is true and therefore the latter must be so too The consquence is evident from this That the formal Reason of a Thing cannot be conceived of as Posterior to that of which it is the formal Reason And the Truth of the Assumption is as clear because Vnity in order of Nature is the first affection or Attribute of the Divine Essence whether as considered in it self or as subsisting in the Three Persons and therefore must be conceived of antecedently to any other particular Perfection or Attribute belonging to the same and consequently may be conceived of without it too which makes it impossible for any such Perfection or Attribute to be the formal Reason of this Unity Accordingly since there is the same order of Priority and Posteriority between such of the Divine Attributes as immediately affect and relate to the Divine Essence or Being and such as immediately import and relate to some Divine Act which there is between Being and Action themselves and since withal Vnity is the first and principal of the former sort and the Divine Intellect which is the proper immediate Principle of all Acts of Consciousness in the Divine Persons is only an Attribute or Perfection of the second sort it is impossible that the said Principle of mutual Consciousness should be the formal Reason of the Essential Unity of the Divine Persons or that wherein the said Unity of Essence properly consists 2. The Formal Reason that the Three Divine Persons are essentially one God is the Community of One and the same Individual Divine Nature to the said Three Persons But a Principle of mutual Consciousness is not a community of the same Individual Nature to the Three Divine Persons And therefore such a Principle is not the formal Reason that the said Three Persons are essentially one God The Major is proved thus Because we cannot conceive such a community of the same Individual Divine Nature to the Three Persons without conceiving a Numerical Vnity of the said Nature in the said Persons nor vice versa can we conceive the latter without the former The Minor is proved thus No particular perfection of the Divine Nature is properly and formally a Community of the Divine Nature considered under all its perfections But the community of the Divine Nature to the three Persons is a community of the Divine Nature so considered And a Principle of mutual Consciousness is but a Particular Perfection of the Divine Nature viz. the Divine Intellect which is the Divine Nature as formally determined to one particular sort of Acts and Objects and therefore this Principle of mutual Consciousness is not formally the Community of the Divine Nature to all the Three Persons 3. If the Principle of mutual Consciousness in the Divine Persons must be multiplied according to the Number of the said Persons then it is impossible that this Principle should give a Numerical Unity of Essence to those Persons But according to this Author's Hypothesis the Principle of mutual Consciousness is and must be multiplied according to the Number of the Divine Persons and therefore the said Principle can never be the formal Reason of a Numerical Essential Unity in them The consequence is evident For three Numerically distinct Principles can never as such formally give Numerical Unity to any Thing and much less to the most transcendently simple and uncompounded of all Beings as the Divine Nature in the three Persons confessedly is And then as for the Assumption viz. That according to this Author's Hypothesis the Principle of mutual Consciousness must be multiplied according to the Number of the Divine Persons this also is as evident Because he asserts the three Divine Persons to be three distinct Infinite Minds which are Three distinct Essences And since they are so I affirm that the Principle of Action in every Mind or Essence is and must be as distinct as the Mind or Essence which it belongs to and which it is comprehended in And therefore since these three Numerically distinct Minds must have each of them a Numerically distinct Principle of mutual Consciousness it is impossible that these three distinct Principles should either have a Numerical Vnity themselves or give a Numerical Vnity of Essence to the said Three Infinite Minds or to the Divine Persons which this Author holds to be Three such Minds 4. If a Principle of mutual Consciousness may make Three Infinite Minds essentially one Infinite Mind then it may also make Three Infinite Intelligent Persons essentially one Infinite Intelligent Person But this latter is impossible and therefore the former must needs be so too Nevertheless the consequence is evident because according to this Author Infinite Mind and Infinite Intelligent Person are Terms perfectly equipollent p. 32 l. 23. and consequently whatsoever is affirmed or denied of the one must be equally affirmed or denied of the other so that if it be truly affirmed that Three distinct Infinite Minds may by a Principle of mutual Consciousness become essentially one Infinite Mind it may be as truly affirmed that three Infinite Intelligent Persons may become one Infinite Intelligent Person since there is a Perfect equipollence in these Two Predications As for the Assumption That it is impossible for Three Infinite Intelligent Persons to be one Infinite Intelligent Person This is so Self-evident that I suppose neither my Reader not my Adversary unless a Sabellian will expect any further proof of it These are my Reasons upon which I conclude that this new 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Principle of mutual Consciousness cannot formally give a Numerical Unity of Essence to the Three Divine Persons And I doubt not but this Defender who is such an utter stranger to all Metaphysical Knowledge will call these Arguments as he does others in p. 2. l. 20. of this Defence Thin airy Weapons though by his favour they may be never the less piercing for that but I would have him know That Arguments drawn from and founded upon the general Reason and notions of Things are as strong and conclusive as any that are taken from any particular material objects incurring into the sense And as for the Divine Nature in the Divine Persons the only subject now before us since it is a Being absolutely and entirely simple and as the Schools call it Simplicissimè simplex I affirm that there is no ground of Reason to discourse of it Philosophically upon but the Natural order and distinction of our conceptions of it founded upon the several Modes Acts and Objects belonging to it And this Man who explodes all prius and posterius in the conceptions which our Reason forms of the Deity is extremely Ridiculous and yet withal affirms Three absolute distinct beings as three Minds are in one Numerical Absolute and most simple being is if possible infinitely more so And therefore without adding any thing further I leave the Reader to make himself merry with that silly swaggering Conclusion which he
Nature but to the Vnity in Trinity p. 69. l. 29. And will this Man say That any Thing can be essential to the Vnity of the one which is not as essential to the Vnity of the other For though we frequently use the word Vnion of Persons yet strictly speaking it is improper since it is not an Vnion which is but another word for Vnition but an Vnity of Persons in Nature or an Vnity of Nature in the Persons which is the proper expression and therefore we neither say an Vnion in Trinity nor a Trinity in Vnion but always apply the word Vnity to both But our Author closes this Paragraph with these words p. 69. at the end That if mutual Consciousness be essential to this Vnity of Nature so that the Three Persons are thus united and cannot be one without it he will contend no further And so far I think he does discreetly but too late For whether he will contend further or no his Adversary both does and will for as much as this Author has asserted a great deal more than what this Concession amounts to and if he does not prove all that he has asserted he is a baffled Person For he has positively asserted as we have shewn from his own words that mutual Consciousness makes the Three Divine Persons to be Naturally one p. 66. Def. 26. and to be essentially one God Vind. p. 68. l. 6. And this by his favour is quite another thing from only asserting that mutual Consciousness is essential to that Vnity of Nature which is in the Three Persons For that it may be as it is an essential consequent of the said Unity of Nature and no more As also from asserting as he here does p. 69. l. the last That the three Divine Persons cannot be one without it For surely that which is only a Conditio sine quâ non and without which the said Divine Persons cannot be one in Nature and that which formally makes them so or wherein their Vnity does consist are wholly different Things And therefore since it is manifest that this Man has no Logick I heartily wish that he had some shame In the mean time he is for shewing as well as he can how the Animadverter mistakes the whole matter in these words quoted from him Anim. p. 108. l. 14. The Divine Nature or Essence being one and the same in all the Three Persons there is upon this account one and the same knowledge in them also And they are not one in Nature by vertue of their mutual Consciousness but they are therefore mutually conscious because the Perfect Unity and Identity of their Nature makes them so Thus the Animadverter and where is now the mistake why our Author tells us That Three Persons who have the same Nature may know the same Things without feeling one another's thoughts and knowledge in themselves p. 70. l. 22. To which I answer first That the foundation of this reply is That there is such a thing as Feeling in God distinct from knowledge which is the height of nonsence and Absurdity as shall be declared before we pass from this head of mutual Consciousness Secondly I utterly deny That Persons who have the same Divine Nature can know the same Things I mean all the same Things for that only here can be insisted upon without knowing each other's thoughts and knowledge in themselves For as much as whatsoever each of these Divine Persons knows he does and must know by an Infinite Act of Knowledge comprehending both himself and the other Two Persons and all that is Knowable in the World besides and how each of the Divine Persons can know all this without mutually knowing one another I desire this Man to shew But he argues further That if by one and the same knowledge the Animadverter means that the knowledge of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons is but one Individual Act as the knowledge of one single Person is this destroys the Distinction of Persons which cannot be distinct without distinct personal Acts as mutual knowledge is and destroys mutual Consciousness for there is no place for mutual Consciousness or mutual Knowledge where there is but one single Act of Knowledge p. 70. l. 24. In answer to which I observe these Two Notable Instances of his Great Ignorance First His supposing and taking for granted the very Thing in dispute between him and his Adversary viz. That the Distinction of the Divine Persons depends upon certain Distinct Acts of Knowledge as the cause or antecedent Reason of that Distinction whereas his Adversary on the contrary affirms all Distinction of Divine Knowledge as well as all Diversification of the Divine Nature it self to be from the Distinction or distinct Subsistence of the Divine Persons as the Prime and original Reason of it And whereas this Author says again That the Divine Persons cannot be distinct without Distinct Personal Acts as mutual knowledge is it is true That they cannot be without them as Inseparably consequent upon their Personal Distinction but not as constituent of it Secondly The other Instance of his Ignorance here is his affirming that there can be no place for mutual Consciousness or Knowledge where there is but one single or Individual Act of Knowledge Which I utterly deny as false and in order to the proving it so I do here observe That there is but one single Act of Knowledge in all the Three Divine Persons that is to say single as to the Substance of the Act though diversified by the several modifications which it receives from the Persons whom it proceeds from and from the several respects it bears to the several objects it terminates upon Which different modifications and respects do by no means infer diverse or distinct Acts of Knowledge but only variously modify determine and distinguish one and the same Act. Accordingly in the present Case I do here affirm to this Author That mutual Consciousness is nothing else but one and the same Act of Divine Knowledge differently modified as it proceeds severally and after a different manner from Father Son and Holy Ghost as the Persons knowing and jointly terminated in them all as the objects known as on the other side Self-Consciousness is no more than this one and the same Act of Knowledge as it issues only from one of the Persons and terminates upon the same too Though I confess if the Three Divine Persons were Three distinct Minds or Spirits mutual Consciousness could not be one Act only but must be Three This I hold concerning the Divine Knowledge and the respective distinctions of it and I leave this Author to try his best skill in Divinity and Philosophy to confute it In the mean time he gives us one Absurdity more out of his inexhaustible stock viz. That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ascribed by the Fathers to the Three Divine Persons is that very mutual Consciousness which the Dean means For these are his words p. 7.
them can be said to be an Intelligent Person But let us see whether Infinite mind and Intelligent Person do or can properly and logically import the same Thing which I utterly deny and that for these Reasons 1. Because Mind signifies an Absolute Being nothing relative belonging to the Definition of it nor was it ever used by Writers but in an Absol ute Irrelative sence so that we have here both Signification and Definition together with Vniversal Vse for the Absoluteness of the Term mind But the Term Person applied to the Divine Persons is always Relative and does and must signify Relatively 2. Because the Term Infinite mind is adequately predicated of God and we properly say that God is an Infinite Mind But the Term Infinite Intelligent Person cannot be so predicated of God for if there be Three such Intelligent Persons in the Godhead we can no more by a proper and Natural Predication say that God is an Intelligent Person that we can say That God is the Father 3. Because if Infinite mind and infinite Intelligent Person be Terms equipollent and importing the same Thing Then since this Author elsewhere affirms that Three Infinite minds may be one Infinite mind it will follow as we observed before that Three Infinite Intelligent Persons may be also one Infinite Intelligent Person for as much as in Terms Equipollent the same Things may and must be equally affirmed and denied of both of them And this Consequence will affect this Author throughout this whole Dispute From all which I conclude That an Infinite mind is not formally and properly an Infinite Intelligent Person nor Equipollent to it and since it is not so I conclude further That unless it may be allowed to any particular Member of the Catholick Church and a private one too to draw off a word from its proper Signification Definition and Universally received use and that in a Principal Article of Faith and to fasten an arbitrary sence of his own upon it quite different from all These as a Relative sence is from an Absolute then it cannot be allowed to this Author to interpret Three Infinite Minds by Three Infinite Intelligent Persons in the Article of the Trinity For at this Rate there can be nothing certain in any Article or Proposition of the Christian Faith as setled by Councils and received by the Church But to shew how far this Man of Confidence without shame can stretch his Interpreting faculty let this Notable Instance suffice For having affirmed over and over in his Vindication and particularly p. 66. That not to acknowledge the Three Divine Persons to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits was Heresy and Non-sense Here in his Defense p. 81. l. 20. He tells us That his meaning there was That to assert Three distinct Divine Persons who are not Three distinct Infinite Intelligent Persons was Heresy and Nonsence And Nonsence no doubt it is with a vengeance But in answer to so wretched an Evasion I demand of this Man whether ever he knew any Divine or Writer in the World who owned a Person and did not understand by the same an Intelligent Person Nay so far is he from having any ground for such a Pretence that in strictness of speech the Term Intelligent added to Person is a meer Redundancy and Tautology For as much as it is Essentially Implyed in the formal Notion of a Person which is defined Suppositum Intelligens and therefore for this Man to suppose any one to assert Three Persons and to deny them to be Three Intelligent Persons is as much as to suppose that a Man may assert Three Persons and yet deny them to be Three Persons The very supposal of which is certainly a Degree of Nonsence next to the asserting it But besides I hope this Man is not so very Ignorant as to affirm that a Mind and an Intelligent Person have the same signification For suppose that it might be truly said That a Mind is an Intelligent Person that does not prove it to signify the same that Intelligent Person does any more than because Homo is truly said to be Animal therefore Homo and Animal are Terms perfectly Synonymous and that by one we are still to understand the other which yet if they properly signified the same Thing we certainly ought to do In a word I refer it to the whole World to judge Whether if a Man may be suffered thus to interpret what he writes or says he may not upon these Terms discourse of Men and explain his meaning by Angels discourse of Trees and say he means Houses But such Absurd Liberty especially in strict disputation must not be endured And accordingly after all these shiftings and struglings he begins to despond and plainly declares p. 81. l. 19. That he will not contend about the Term Three Infinite Minds By which I must tell him that he effectually gives up the Thing in dispute for as much as the main stress and force of the Argument rests upon the proper and received sence of the Terms And whereas he says that no body before him had so expresly used these Terms Three Infinite Minds or Spirits it has been already proved against him that they were actually used and insisted upon long before by several Hereticks on the one Hand and condemned by the Catholick Church on the other But to shew That He and his Tritheism are not to be parted so but that however to save a broken Pate he quits the Term Three Infinite Minds he yet holds fast the Thing signified by it as if the Heresy lay not in the Thing but in the word He tells us p. 81. l. 29. That if the Dean thinks an Intelligent Person to be a Mind and means no more by Three Minds than Three Intelligent Persons let the Animadverter confute him if he can Which is just as if he should say If the Dean by a Cock means a Bull let the Animadverter confute him for saying a Cock has two horns and four legs if he can But to his ridiculous Plea I answer First That the Animadverter will dispute with no Man's thoughts or meaning but with his words Secondly That the Defender here quite changes the Question Which is not Whether an Intelligent Person be a Mind but whether A Mind be formally and Convertibly an Intelligent Person which has been already both denied and disprove And thirdly and lastly That in the Holy Trinity the Animadverter admits abating still for the forementioned Absurdity of the Tautology every Intelligent Person to be a Mind but for all that denies Three Infinite Intelligenâ— Persons to be Three Minds For as much as they are Intelligent by vertue of one Infinite Intelligent Mind common to them all And whereas he adds That of he means by Three Minds Three Intelligent Persons let the Animadverter try his skill to make Tritheism of Three Minds and excuse Three Intelligent Persons from the same Charge My answer is First That the Animadverter
Self-Contradiction I pretend not to Arithmetick enough to number them Thirdly That when he finds himself overborn by an Argument he flyes off and quite alters the state of the Question and in the Room of that Term which he finds indefensible he presently substitutes another As instead of the Act of Self-Consciousness which he had so frequently and so expressly made use of and insisted upon he puts the principle of the said Act Def. p. 39. l. 15. Fourthly That he takes shelter in several fallacious expressions which being once stripped of their Ambiguity by distinctions duly applyed leave the Thing they would prove in the lurch and vanish into Nothing such as for instance amongst many others is his insisting upon a substantial Trinity in opposition to such a one as admits of no greater than a Modal distinction between the Divine Persons by which if he means That the said Three Persons are Three distinct Substances it is false but if he means that they are Three Substantial Persons so called from one and the same Infinite Substance common to them all and subsisting differently in each of them it is True and every one grants such a Substantial Trinity but this makes nothing at all for his Hypothesis the Argument resting wholly upon the Ambiguity of the Term Substantial Fifthly That finding some of the chief Notions which he built his whole Hypothesis upon quite baffl'd and by none of his palliating Tricks to be justified he fairly quits and gives them up and thereby whether he will or no absolutely yields the Point in debate to his Adversary See this grosly exemplified in his Notion of Mutual Consciousness which frequently comes in my way made by him at first the Reason of the Essential Vnity of the Divine Persons and afterwards allow'd by him to be no more than the Result and Consequent of the said Unity Defence p. 75. l. 20. Sixthly That when he is nonplus'd in any Proposition taken and understood according to the universally receiv'd sense of the Words of it he presently strikes off from thence to his Meaning and tells the Reader That he for his part means quite another thing by it See his Def. p. 81. l. 28. These I say are some of those Arts and Shifts with which he all-along encounters the Animadverter but Shifts by his Favour will neither pass for Arguments nor yet for Answers to them any more than Shuffling the Cards can be reckon'd Winning the Game But because his chief Engine of all and which he makes most use of is his frequent allegation of his Meaning in opposition to his plain express Assertions I think it not amiss to illustrate it by some Examples Thus for instance 1. When he says That we know the Nature of a Body Vind. p. 4. l. 25. his Meaning is that we know the Nature of Nothing in the World Vindic. p. 7. l. 19. 2. When he says That a Person and an Intelligent Substance are reciprocal Terms Vind. p. 69. l. 18. his Meaning is That a Beast or Brute which is not an Intelligent Being is and may be called a Person Vindic. p. 262. l. 18. 3. When he says That Susistence and the like Terms reckon'd up by him serve only to perplex and confound Mens Notions about the Trinity Vindic. p. 138. l the last 139. l. 1. his Shameless Meaning as we have shewn p. 25. l. 13. of his Def. is That there could not have been a more proper Word thought on to represent the Trinity by than Three Subsistences in One Individual Nature 4. When he says A Trinity in Vnity is a Venerable Mystery and that there may be a great deal more in it than we can Fathom Vind. p. 86. l. 1 2. his Meaning is That it is a plain easie and intelligible Notion as explain'd by him and such as gives a plain solution of all the Difficulties and seeming Contradictions in the Doctrine of the said Article Vind. p. 66. l. 2 3. 5. When he professes to explain the Mysterious Vnion between the Eternal Father and the Son by the Vnity of a Spirit as the best way of explaining it Def. p. 6. l. 22. his Meaning in the same Def. from p. 19. to p. 35. is That the said Mysterious Vnion is best explain'd by a Man and his Living Image though neither of them is a Spirit And I suppose that that which is not a Spirit can neither have the Vnity of a Spirit belonging to it 6. When he makes Self-Consciousness the Reason of Personality Personal Vnity and Distinction in each of the Divine Persons and Mutual Consciousness the Reason of their Essential Vnity as we have shewn he does his Meaning is That Self-Consciousness and Mutual Consciousness do only suppose result from Prove and inferr the said Distinction upon the former account and the said Vnity upon the latter That is to say When he speaks of a Cause or Antecedent he always means an Effect or Consequent And I need not quote Page and Line for this having quoted them so often before 7. When he speaks of an Infinite Mind and of Three Infinite Minds as he does very often he tells us That by Mind he means a Person Def. p. 81. l. 32. though Mind and Person are Terms quite differing from one-another both in Signification and Definition and accordingly are and ever have been so used 8. When he says That not to allow the Three Divine Persons to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits is Heresie and Nonsense as he affirms in words equally express and impudent he tells us his Meaning is That it is Heresie and Nonsence to assert Three Persons who are not Three distinct Intelligent Persons Def. p. 81. l. 21. which I dare say no Man alive ever asserted or any Man of Sence ever imagin'd any more than any one ever asserted Peter and Iames and Iohn to be Three Men and yet deny'd them to be Three Rational Creatures But an impudent Copy-monger will venture to say something though in defiance of Sence and in spight of Nonsence too 9. When he calls a Man a Person as he often does in his Writings his Meaning is Not that the Man but that the Soul is the Person and the Body the Vital Instrument of the Soul and that neither Soul nor Body are Parts of the Person Nor is this soveraign thing of use only in Matters of Argument and Dispute but also in Matters of a very different nature As for example 1 st When a known Writer publish'd some Queries against the Commission and Commissioners for making Alterations in our Liturgy severely reflecting upon both his Meaning was only to inform the World what Excellent Persons as he styles them they were who so zealously design'd and promoted the said Alterations See An Apology c. p. 5. l. 20. 2 dly When a certain Divine told an Irish Bishop as was hinted before in the Animadversions p. 358. l. 2. Edit 2. That he would be Crucified before he would take
supposes that Three Divine Persons cannot be more United than Three Spirits or that mutual Consciousness is the greatest Union that Three Persons are capable of Both which are utterly false and the very Things now under Dispute And we shall presently shew the vast disparity between Persons and Spirits with reference to the Union which each of them may admit But our Author goes on thus If says he a Natural Self-Conscious Sensation makes a Spirit one with it self why should not a mutual Conscious Sensation Vnite Three into One For if Natural Vnity extends as far as Conscious Sensation then if Conscious Sensation extends to Three why should not These Three be acknowledged to be Naturally One p. 8. l. 1. To which I answer First That it has been already shewn that although this Conscious Sensation be that whereby a Spirit knows it self to be One and distinct from all others yet it is not that which makes it so and the supposing of this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which runs through this Man's whole Hypothesis and consequently whatsoever is argued from this supposition towards the proving the same of mutual Consciousness with reference to Three Spirits which had been asserted of Self-Consciousness with reference to one must fall to the ground with it But secondly Because he asks a Reason why mutual Consciousness may not give Natural Unity to Three Spirits as well as Self-Consciousness does to one though the former is the greater Absurdity of the Two yet since both Assertions are equally false I shall give this one Reason against Both viz. Because Consciousness or Sensation is not properly Nature but an Affection of Nature or an Act springing from it and therefore Unity of Consciousness or Sensation cannot be properly Vnity of Nature nor consequently can it constitute the subject it belongs to Naturally One. And whereas according to his Sophistical way he calls it a Natural Self-Conscious Sensation p. 7. l. 30. If by Natural he means that wherein Nature does consist or which gives Being and Vnity to a Thing in that Sence as it has been proved all along Self-Consciousness cannot be termed Natural But if by Natural he means that which proceeds from Nature that is true but comes not up to his Purpose Well but supposing that Consciousness or Sensation were indeed the Nature of the Thing Conscious or in other words that wherein the Being of the said Thing did consist and consequently that Unity of Consciousness were Unity of Nature too as it is certain that neither of them are yet for that very cause I deny that this Consciousness and Unity of Consciousness can belong in common to Three distinct Absolute Beings For as much as every Absolute Being is constituted such by a Particular Proper and Distinct Nature of it's own belonging to it and included in it and distinguishing it from every other Absolute Being besides and therefore it is impossible for any particular Nature Numerically one to be in any more Absolute Beings than in one Alone In three several Persons indeed whose several Personalities and Personal Distinctions consist properly in Three Distinct Relations nothing hinders but that the same Numerical Nature if Infinite may be in them all for as much as the same Numerical Nature may sustain all these Three distinct Relations And herein consists the great Disparity between Spirits which are absolute Beings and the Divine Persons which are not so and this is true Reason and Consequence and proof against all that this Novellist can alledge against it But after all in the third and last place The very ground upon which this Man builds from first to last in proving That Mutual-Consciousness or Sensation gives natural Vnity to Three distinct Spirits is false and sinks under him For he supposes all along that this Mutual-Consciousness is one Numerical Natural Act which upon his Principle viz. That the Three Divine Persons are Three Infinite Spirits I utterly deny and on the contrary affirm it to be only a complex and collective Unity consisting of and containing in it Three distinct Acts of Consciousness whereof one belongs to each of his Three Spirits and is that whereby each Spirit knows or feels let him call it which he will all that is in or is known or felt by the other Two Spirits This I affirm and challenge this Author when he enters upon this dispute again to disprove For whatsoever is the Act of an Absolute distinct Being must it self be as distinct as that Being is And so his Principal Notion of Three distinct Spirits being naturally one by one Mutual Consciousness extending to them all falls to nothing For surely Three distinct Consciousnesses or Acts of Consciousness which this Mutual Consciousness consists of can never make Three Spirits naturally One since these Three Acts are not Naturally but only Collectively one themselves and accordingly under that Unity and no other can they be expressed by that one Denomination Mutual Consciousness But he proceeds and to shew the World what an Iron-Necessity or rather what a Cruel Bondage one Imperious Absurdity will bring the Maintainer of it under he tells us in the 8 th page That it was This viz. his Notion of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness that forced the Dean as no Absurdity affects Mr. Dean's Priviledge of standing alone by it self to speak of the Three Infinite and Eternal Persons in the Godhead under the Character of Three Infinite and Eternal Minds For this Conscious Sensation whether Self-Consciousness or Mutual-Consciousness can belong only to Minds Which latter I here absolutely deny and in this one word Minds plurally used by him he manifestly begs the Question again and supposes the Chief Thing to be proved viz. That there is a Plurality of Infinite Minds to which this Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness must belong For what Minds else can he here mean Not finite or created Minds For he himself in the 67 th page of his Vindication denies that this Mutual-Consciousness can belong to any created Minds or Spirits So that it is evident that he here speaks of Infinite Minds which as I said being the Thing chiefly disputed ought to have been proved by him before presumed and consequently that he speaks also of such a Self-Consciousness and such a Mutual-Consciousness as import Infinite Knowledge and since they do so I deny that they can belong to any more Minds than one I say than to One Eternal Infinite Mind which is God blessed for ever For being Acts of Knowledge they follow and flow from the Divine Essence and Nature common to the Three Persons and are no more than the Divine Omniscience terminating upon all and each of the Persons as so many Particular Objects contained within its adequate Object which is all Things Knowable Admitting therefore that this Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness being nothing else but the Divine Omniscience thus diversly terminated may inferr a Plurality of Persons Knowable in the Godhead yet I utterly deny that they