inexisting in one Another and lastly Only distinct in their Subsistence but by no means Separate or Divided Let all this I say be supposed on the Part of the Eternal Father and Son And on the other side let us suppose Two other Persons viz. The Prototype and his Living Image and these without any Necessary Coexistence with one Another and the latter not having it 's sole dependance upon the former and both of them such as cannot mutually exist in one Another and withal are not only distinct in their respective Subsistences but also actually separate and locally divided from each other Now I say when we have collated all these Disparities together must not that Comparison think we give us a blessed edifying Representation of the Unity of the Eternal Father and Son in the same Numerical Divine Nature when one side of the Comparison is so far from being an Explication of that it is a direct Irreconcileable contradiction to the other But as we first waved the consideration of those monstrous Absurdities that were involved in this notion of a Man and his living Image with reference to the Eternal Father and Son so let us at present wave the forementioned gross disparities between them also yet still this Notion is utterly unfit to give us any Explication of the Trinity as being every whit as Difficult if not more Difficult for the Mind of Man to conceive than the Trinity it self For the grand Difficulty here is to conceive how one and the same Infinite Nature can be in several distinct though intimately Vnited Persons And the Thing which this Author would explain this by is a Man and his Image where he supposes one and the same Numerically subsisting human Nature to be in Two locally distinct and separately subsisting Persons But now in this Case is it not much more conceivable that an Infinite Nature whose boundless perfection reaches to more ways of subsisting than one should subsist in several persons and those only distinct than that a Particular finite Nature which can have but one Subsistence should subsist in Two Persons and those also locally distant and separate from one Another I appeal I say to any Man of Judgment alive whether this be not the greater and more inexplicable Difficulty of the Two For the mind of Man finds an utter Contradiction in making a Finite Being exist at onâ—e in Two distant Places or Vbi's but in the former though it finds an insuperable Difficulty yet it can allege no Contradiction And therefore I say again that it is in the highest degree senceless and irrational to assign that as an Explication of a Thing which is more difficult perplexed and Inconceivable than the Thing it self which it pretends to explain Which yet is the case here of a Man and his living Image as the Notion of it has been stated and applied to the present subject So that this wonderful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a clearer Idea of the Trinity than ever the World had before has these Three Excellent Qualifications to recommend it 1. That it supposes and builds upon several Things utterly contradictious and impossible 2. That it makes one Thing the Representation of another between which yet as to the very particulars wherein the Resemblance should be there is the highest and utmost Disparity And Thirdly and lastly That it offers to explain a Thing Difficult obscure and by human Reason not Comprehensible by another Thing which is ten times more so So that if this must be the Lot of the Church of England to sit down and see her most Holy Religion practised upon by such wretched Innovations as can tend only to ridicule and expose the chief Articles of it to the Scorn of Arians and Socinians and all this under pretence of explaining them I can but say God deliver our poor Church from such Explainers and our Creed from such Explications And as I heartily commiserate the Vnhappy State of that so I really pity this Bold Man himself that he should be thus suffered to go on venting his Scandalous Heterodoxies without finding either Friends to Counsel or Superiors to Controll him Nevertheless should we with a non obstante to what has been said comply with this Man 's absurd Notion so far as to allow his Prototype and his living Image to bear such a peculiar Resemblance to the Eternal Father and Son as he pretends but can never prove them to do yet how does this any way explain or give us as he calls it any Idea of the Trinity For are the Father and the Son the Trinity without the Holy Ghost And how does this Prototype and living Image set forth to us the Procession of the Holy Ghost from both of them when it makes no mention of any Third Person at all The Son indeed issues from the Father in the way of Knowledge by a Reflex Act thereof expressing his Infinite Nature and Perfections whereupon as it is the Property both of Knowledge and of an Image to represent some thing so if this Prototype and living Image can be of any Use to help our Notions of the Eternal Generation it must be by its Representing Quality But now the Holy Ghost issues from the Father and Son per modum voluntatis by an Eternal Incomprehensible Act of Love streaming from them both and the Property of Love we know is not to represent as Knowledge does but to unite to the Object Known And here I pray what does the living Image do towards the setting forth of this Why our Author indeed makes the Prototype One Person and his living Image Another but do these Two by an Act of Love or any other Act proceeding jointly from both produce a Third Person If not what Idea of a Trinity can be drawn from these Two But if this Author will say as he says things no less Absurd That the Prototype and his living Image do produce some certain Third Person distinct from Both of them and so answering to the Holy Ghost in the Trinity I desire him to tell the World what kind of Thing this Third Person is and by what Name it is to be called and expressed for I never yet heard or read of any such nor am I so much an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man as to fetch it from my own Invention But besides all the foregoing Absurdities It is worth observing what a notable cast of his Ignorance he gives us about Emanation Def. p. 28. l. 10. And in order to it I think fit to shew What an Emanation and a Cause by Emanation is Now a Cause or Principle by 〈◊〉 Emanation is that which produces its Effect or Term without any intervening Action really distinct from either the Agent or Effect And accordingly That is properly called an Emanation or an Effect by Emanation for the word here signifies passively which issues immediately naturally and necessarily unless hinder'd by a supernatural power from the Substance of its productive
so of the Ignorance of him who thinks that it can prove any Thing else but the Weakness of Him who uses it For I appeal to the whole World to judge what a Consequence this is viz. That because every Person feels himself by Self-Consciousness to be himself and not to be another therefore this Self-Consciousness is that which distinguishes him from all others For can a Person 's perceiving his own Distinction properly make or give him this Distinction Upon the whole matter I must declare that I cannot think any one who looks upon this as serious Arguing worth arguing against And whereas he says that this first Argument of the Animadverter has been sufficiently exposed already I shall securely venture it upon the Bottom upon which it stands without any fear of its being exposed any more than answered especially by one who never yet exposed any Thing or Person but himself And so I pass to the Animadverter's Second Argument Which proceeds thus Nothing in the Nature of it absolute and irrelative can be the Formal Reason of Personality in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity But Self-Consciousness is a Thing in the Nature of it Absolute and Irrelative and therefore it cannot be the Reason of Personality in any of the said Persons In reply to which Argument thus fairly formally and Syllogistically proposed why does not this Author as in all Regular Disputations it ought and uses to be done apply an answer either by denying one of the Two Propositions or by distinguishing one or more of the Terms but this not being to be done without Logick our Author must be so far excused And therefore he very prudently wraps himself up in such a Cloud of Insignificant words as may enable him to escape his Adversary without encountring him For one of these two things he must of Necessity disprove viz. Either first That the Divine Persons and Personalities are perfectly and wholly Relative Or Secondly That Self-Consciousness is a Thing wholly absolute and Irrelative As to the first of which he himself elsewhere acknowledges and affirms That the Three Divine Persons are Three Relative Subsistences And let me tell him further That they are so entirely Relative that their very Subsistere is Referri and their Referri not only consequent upon and supervenient to their Subsistence as it is in Created Persons but one and the same with it so that by vertue thereof they are indifferently termed by all Schoolmen and Divines either Relative Subsistences or Subsisting Relations The Concrete and the Abstract Terms in the Divine Persons being by reason of the peculiar condition of their Personality as well as the Absolute Transcendent Simplicity of the Divine Nature only different ways of expressing the same Thing And therefore whereas this Author says p. 63. l. 8. Does that which makes John a Person make him a Father I answer No but affirm also That that which makes the first Person in the Trinity a Person makes him a Father and convertibly that that which makes him a Father and that only makes him also a Person And the Reason of the Difference here is not as this Ignorant Man alleges because every humane Person has an Absolute Nature belonging to him as the subject of the Relation for each of the Divine Persons has an Absolute Nature distinctly belonging to him though not a distinct Absolute Nature But the Difference lies in this That an humane Person has not only an Absolute Nature to be the Remote subject of the Relation but also an Absolute Personality as the Immediate subject of the same by vertue whereof the Person of Iohn continues after the Relation of a Father ceases But in the Trinity every Person and Personality is wholly Relative forasmuch as the very Subsistence of each of them is so So that the Eternal Father is and subsists as a Father by having a Son and not by knowing himself to be a Father and by Communicating his Essence to Another not by an Act passed upon and wholly Terminated in his own Person No this is postnate to the former as all other Personal Acts whatsoever are and must be And therefore the Godhead or Divine Nature which is absolute is not as this Man precariously pretends originally distinguished by Three Self-Consciousnesses p. 63. l. 24. But by Three original Relative properties viz. the Innascibility and Paternity of the first Person which make one Personal Property and the Two distinct Originations of the other Two Persons whereby they are both mutually distinguished from and opposed to one Another as all Relatives are But this Man's offering here at an Explication of these Divine Relations by that exploded Figment of a Man and his living Image p. 63. l. 21. is an unsufferable Profaneness as well as an arrant Petitio Principii For will he pretend to explain a Thing in it self obscure by another that is more obscure and which is worse impossible besides Let him for the future learn that no Man who understands what arguing is ought to bring that as a medium either of Explication or Probation which he knows to be doubtful or has just cause to suspect that his Adversary may reject as Absurd and Unreasonable But in the next place to shew whether Self-Consciousness be a Thing in the Nature of it perfectly Absolute and Irrelative and consequently unable to give such a Subsistence and Personality to the Three Divine Persons as shall be wholly Relative There needs only a Repetition of what is said to this purpose in the Animadversions and which this Author has very discreetly said not so much as one word to viz. That Self-Consciousness is a Thing in the Nature of it Absolute and Irrelative as being that Act by which each Person intimately knows and is conscious to himself of his own Being Acts Motions and every Thing personally belonging to him so that as such it terminates within and looks no further than that one Person whom it is an entire survey and comprehension of And as it is an Absolute and Irrelative Term so it may be conceived distinctly and fully without conceiving or implying the conception of any Thing or Person besides And now what Relation does or can such an Act of Self-Consciousness imply in it It is indeed on the contrary a direct contradiction to all that is Relative For it encloses the Person wholly within himself neither pointing nor looking further nor referring to any one else Anim. p. 99. All which is so very plain and full that I defy this Author or any Man alive to prove either that this is not a True account of Self-Consciousness as to the Absolute and Irrelative Nature of it or if it be that it can give a Subsistence purely Relative to the Person which it shall belong to But to make short work with this Man of words without Sence There are in every Relation these Things to be considered The subject of the Relation both Remote and Immediate the foundation of
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
alleaged And if they are not I demand with what face he can reiect the Material Representations made by the Fathers of this Mysterious Union and give the World another of his own from an Instance altogether as gross and Material but withal Impossible and Unintelligible as shall appear in the process of what we have to say upon it But all this Author's Writings are such perfect Antipodes to themselves that no Man who knows him will expect to find him consistent with himself in any thing But to proceed I come now to examine whether this Notion of a Man and his living Image has in it such a peculiar fitness as this Author pretends to represent and explain to us the Mystery of the Trinity and in order to it I shall lay down this Assertion viz. That a Notion supposing a Thing Impossible and implying in it a Contradiction to and Inconsistency with it self can never explain any and much less the highest Mystery of our Religion In order to the proving of which I shall consider Three Things 1. What an Image in the proper Signification of the Word is 2. What an Image by Reflexion is 3. What is to be understood by an Impossible Supposition 1. As to the first of which An Image according to the general Nature of it is such a Likeness of a Thing as both represents it and proceeds from it and that either as from a Principal Efficient producing it or as from a Causa exemplaâ—is at least according to which it is produced Which I add because of Artificial Images formed according to and so proceeding from that Idea or Pattern in the Mind of the Artificer drawn from the Thing which the Image designed by him is to represent So that an Image whether Natural or Artificial essentially implies these Two Things as the General Conditions of it viz. A Representation of and a Production either by or from the Thing represented by it 2. Secondly An Image by Reflexion is when the visible Species flowing from any Thing and striking upon some such Body as Glass Water or polish'd Metal are return'd back from thence and thereby represent the Body which they originally flow'd from And such an Image this Author here speaks of for he says It is a Man's Image by Reflexion 3. In the third place An Impossible Supposition may be said to be so in a double respect First In respect of all Natural Second Causes as exceeding all the Force and Vertue of such Causes to effect the Thing so supposed And I deny not but that the Supposition of a Thing Impossible in this sense may have its Use sometimes to give us some Light into and Explication of other Things Secondly A thing may be said to be impossible in respect of a Contradiction involved in it so that no Power whatsoever can effect it And the Supposition of such Impossibles I affirm to be of no Use for the Explication of any Thing whatsoever Forasmuch as the Mind of Man can have no formed Conception of them and yet whatsoever helps it to the Knowledge of another Thing must do it by being first known it self Which things premised Let us now see what this Author holds and asserts concerning this living Image set up by him that we may hereby find whether it involves in it any Contradiction or no and it will appear that he asserts these Three Things concerning it 1. That this living Image by Reflexion has its whole and sole dependence upon the Prototype 2. That there is one and the same Numerical Humane Nature both in the Prototype and the Image 3. That the Prototype and the Image are Two distinct Persons These Things I say he asserts of his living Image concerning which I remark as follows 1. That to assert an Image by Reflexion to have its sole and total dependence upon the Prototype as this Author says it has while it has an equally necessary and essential Dependence upon the Body which it is reflected from is a Contradiction 2. To assert That One and the same Particular Humane Nature subsists in Two Particular Persons locally distant from one another as the Prototype and the Image are is a Contradiction 3. To assert That an Image by Reflexion which is a Being uncapable of subsisting by it self is a completely subsisting Person endued with an Humane Nature and consequently consisting of an Humane Soul and Body is a Contradiction and again For It to be an Humane Person endued with an Humane Nature as this Author asserts it is and yet not to consist of such a Soul and Body is another Contradiction These Absurdities and innumerable more derivable from them are all involved in this Author's Notion of a Living Image by Reflexion having the same Numerical Humane Nature with the Man himself and having its sole Dependence upon him and yet being a separate Person from him But not to insist upon these Absurdities at present which common sence and Reason must needs abhor and fly from yet since this Notion is designed to explain and represent to us the Vnion or rather Unity of the Father and the Son in one and the same Divine Nature surely there ought at least to be no gross disparity between this living Image and the Thing intended to be explained by it especially as to those particulars wherein the Resemblance must and ought to consist But whether this be so or no will appear from the following comparison As First There is a mutually necessary Existence both of the Father and the Son so that the Father can be no more without the Son than the Son without the Father the Relation being Inseparable But it is not so in the Man and his Image for the Man may cease to be a Prototype and subsist without the Image though the Image cannot subsist without the Man Secondly The Son has an entire Total dependance upon the Father But so has not the Image upon the Prototype as depending as much on the Body from which it is reflected as it does or can upon the Man whom it represents and perhaps more Thirdly The Father and the Son are mutually in one another and that by an Intimate Inexistence as the words of our Saviour expresly prove Iohn 14.11 But the Prototype and the Image cannot be in one Another as being locally distant from each other Fourthly The Person of the Father and of the Son are only distinct but otherwise inseparably United But the Prototype and the Image are so Divided as to subsist in an Actual Separation from one Another The Place and Vbi of the one as we observed being not the Place or Vbi of the other And now to sum up and draw the foregoing Particulars together Let us on the one side suppose Two Persons viz. The Eternal Father and Son and these first by a mutual Necessity Coexisting and then one of them viz. The Son having his sole and total dependance upon the other and thirdly Both of them mutually
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
compound viz. the whole Man or Person as the Subjectum ultimum and Principium Quod and as that which receives the whole Denomination from what belongs immediately to any Part of it For it is the whole Man or Person who is properly said to be a living Reasonable Sensible Creature though it be by Virtue of his Soul as the Principium Quo that he is so After this comes another Absurdity where he tells us p. 48. l. 2. That an Hypostatical Vnion is the swallowing up of a Natural Personality in its Vnion with a superior Person Which if it be so Then say I where is the Hypostatical Union of Christ's Person with the humane Nature for the humane Nature which was united to his Divine Person had no Personality of its own to be swallowed up for Christ assumed it without any Subsistence or Personality belonging to it which it neither has nor ever had and consequently could never be said to be lost or swallowed up by this Union So that we have a new sort of Heresie started viz. That as Eutyches heretofore affirmed Christ's Humane Nature to have been swallowed up by His Divine so this Author holds an Humane Personality to have belong'd to this Humane Nature which in like manner is swallowed up by the Superior Person of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But where these vile Heterodoxies will stop God only knows For I cannot see but this Innovator may freely and uncontrollably vent as many of them as he pleases and no doubt he has a great many more such in Reserve and will in due time produce them But the Animadverter had argued against the Personality of the Soul in Conjunction with the Body thus If the Soul in the Composition of a Man's Person were an entire Person it self and as such concurred with the Body towards the Constitution of the Man then the Man would be an Imperfect Accidental and not a Perfect Natural Compound He would be that which Philosophy calls Unum per Accidens that is a Thing made up of such Beings as cannot perfectly coalesce and unite into One Animadvers p. 75. And what says he to this Why he tells us That the Soul and the Body are vitally united and that the Animadverter's own beloved Philosophy never calls Things vitally united Unum per Accidens To which I answer That no Created Person ever was or could be vitally united to any Being distinct from it self And therefore since it is certain That the Soul is vitally united to the Body it is impossible that the Soul should be a Person For this beloved Philosophy teaches me That in Created Beings there can be no Vital Vnion but between Parts and consequently that since there is a Vital Vnion between Soul and Body this Soul and Body must be united as concurrent Parts of the same Compound And this by this Author's Favour must utterly destroy his senceless Notion of the Personality of the Soul since that which is a Part cannot be a Suppositum or completely subsisting Nature and whatsoever is not so can never be a Person So that the Animadverter's Argument stands good viz. That in created Beings an Entire Person united to a Body would make an Unum per Accidens and consequently that a Vital Vnion between them would be impossible Yet nevertheless since it is certain that there is actually such a Vital Vnion between Soul and Body it is upon the same account also as certain That the Soul which must be one of the Terms of that Vnion and by consequence a Part cannot be a Person So that all this is but a meer Petitio Principii first to suppose the Soul a Person which is the principal Thing in Dispute and then to say that its being vitally united to the Body keeps it from making a Man That which we call Vnum per Accideâ—s Whereas it is affirmed and argued against him That this very Vital Vnion of the Soul with the Body overthrows the Soul's Personality as a Thing which this Vnion is utterly inconsistent with In short the Soul 's being a Person if it were so can never prove it vitally united to the Body but its being vitally so united irrefragably proves it to be no Person But he is now for confounding the Animadverter with Two Questions but still in pursuit of the same Point First Whether the Eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before the Incarnation were a Compleat Being which is readily answered in the Affirmative That he was Secondly Whether the Humane Nature assumed by him were a Compleat or Incompleat Being I answer That though it were a Perfect Nature yet since it was without a proper Natural Subsistence of its own it was upon that account an Incompleat Being But then I add that this was a Peculiar and a Supernatural Case there being no other particular Humane Nature in the World without its particular proper Subsistence but this alone which subsists wholly by a borrowed Subsistence as being assumed into that of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But now what is all this to the Vnion between the Soul and Body which are vitally united as essential Parts of the whole Humane Person But the Person of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not vitally united to the Humane Nature as to a Part of it And though as I noted before it be impossible for a Finite Person to be vitally united to any other Being distinct from it self yet an Infinite Person as we see in the Person of our Saviour may be united to another distinct Being or Nature For this is neither a Composition nor yet a Natural Vnion But to this our Author very Learnedly excepts and affirms the Vnion between the Person of Christ and his Humane Nature to be a Natural Vnion and gives this as a Reason for it Because it is a Vnion of Natures and that an Vnion of Natures is a Natural Vnion by whatsoever Power it is done p. 49. In answer to which though I might say That This is not properly at least not immediately an Vnion of Natures but of the Divine Person of Christ to the Humane Nature which by and through the Person comes to be united to the Divine Nature yet to let that pass I absolutely deny both his Propositions viz. That the Vnion between the Person of Christ and his Humane Nature is a Natural Vnion And that all Vnion of Natures must be a Natural Vnion by what Power soever it is wrought Both which are absolutely false Forasmuch as a Natural Vnion is only that which is wrought by a Natural Cause or Principle acting according to the Ordinary Course and Measures of Nature which an Vnion between Two Natures so vastly disproportioned as a Finite and an Infinite can never be effected by For will this Man affirm That GOD by the ordinary Exercise of that Power by which He carries on the daily Production of Things in the World and which is properly called Nature united the Divine Person of the 〈◊〉
not but the complaints of one and the scoffs of the other will in a short time declare At present I shall only venture to say thus much that if this Audacious Innovator and Abuser of our Excellent Religion shall after all these scandalous Paradoxes escape the censure of the Church the Church must not expect to escape the censure of the World In the mean time I know no security that our Religion has against such Invaders and Invasions but this That though they get Ten thousand Imprimatur's to introduce their New Christianity amongst us yet thanks be to God there is no such Thing as Licensing Heresy into Truth or Nonsence into Sence And so I now pass from hence to his pretended Answer to some part of the fourth Chapter of the Animadversions But before I enter upon it it may be pleasant to observe how at the Close of the preceding Dispute he beggs his Friend's Pardon for his long Excursion upon this Subject p. 61. l. 14. whereas before at his Entrance upon the same he had declared That he would only make some short Reflections upon it p. 44. l. 26. And now how short Reflections can pass for a long Excursion or a long Excursion be truly called short Reflections I must confess I do not understand But catch this Man out of a Self-Contradiction and you may as well expect to catch him out of himself But let us see what he says to the Animadverter's Fourth Chapter Why he says That it is an Answer to it self though I hope not in this Author's way by contradicting it self but how does this appear Why because as he tells us it undertakes to prove That Self-Consciousness is not the Formal Reason of Personality in the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity Nor says he does the Dean say it is No Does he not say it when it has been proved over and over to his Face from his own Words That he positively affirms Self-Consciousness to be That wherein their Personal Vnity and Distinction from all others does essentially consist Vindic. pag. 74. And to be That which makes I say makes Each of the Divine Persons to be One in himself and Distinct from all others pag. 68. Vind. And having affirmed the Three Divine Persons to be Three Spirits does he not say That the Self-Vnity of a Spirit can be nothing else but Self-Consciousness Vindic. pag. 48. Again Does he not affirm That the Nature of a Spirit consists in an Internal Self-Sensation which he uses only as another Word for Self-Consciousness Defence p. 7. Nay and does he not repeat the same in several places of both his Books as we have from several passages cited out of them before demonstrated And now what I pray does the Animadverter or any one else pretend the formal Reason of a Thing to be but that which makes it originally and essentially one with it self and distinct from all other Things or in other Terms that wherein the said Unity and distinction does consist Well but having thus seen what this Author has unsaid let us see what it is that he does say Why he tells us That the Question is only this Whether Three Self-Consciousnesses do not prove Three Persons each of which is Self-Conscious to be really distinct from one Another p. 61. l. 28. In answer to which I do earnestly desire the observing Reader to note First how shamelesly he falsifies in this matter contradicting his own most positive and frequently repeated Assertions and then how utterly he changes the whole question For the Question has been all along as appears from what has been so faithfully quoted and set down Not what proves the Divine Persons to be thus distinct but what makes them so And will this Man say That the proving of a Thing to be thus and thus and the making it to be so are the same And besides supposing that Self-Consciousness may prove the Divine Persons distinct yet it can prove them so onely as a consequent Note or Sign not as the original Cause or Reason of that Distinction or as an effect proves its cause not as a cause proves its effect For the Person is originally distinguished by its personal Subsistence which Subsistence is not owing to any Act or Principle of Self-Consciousness as shall be fully proved against him in the Vindication of the fourth Argument In the mean time I do here refer it to every Man of sence to judge whether by this utter change of the Question this Author does not plainly give up the whole Thing here in dispute between him and his Adversary And accordingly we shall see how by the help of this and the like wretched evasions he endeavors to slink away from the Animadverter's First Argument which is this No personal Act can be the formal Reason of Personality in the Person whose Act it is But Self-Consciousness is a Personal Act and therefore cannot be the formal Reason of Personality This is the Argument and what is the Defender's or rather the Dean's Answer to it Why he tells us That neither did he consider Self-Consciousness as a Personal Act nor assign it as the formal Reason of Personality To the first of which I answer that it is as manifest and barefaced a falshood as any that he has uttered and that if Knowledge Self-Conscious feeling or sensation be Acts and Things are to be understood by words then Self-Consciousness which he has constantly expressed by the forementioned words is as truly really and properly an Act and nothing else as Knowledge feeling or sensation are or can be said to be Acts. And as for the other part of his Answer viz. That he did not assign Self-Consciousness for the Formal Reason of Personality We have superabundantly proved that he has plainly and fully asserted the thing and we must pardon the poor Untaught Man for being Ignorant of the word Nevertheless he adds That if we consider Self-Consciousness as a Personal Act though it cannot make the Person yet it distinguishes one Person from another p. 62. l. 21. To which I answer That nothing but that which makes the Person can originally distinguish the Person and consequently that Self-Consciousness distinguishes one Person from another only by a secondary or consequent Distinction and for that Reason can no more originally distinguish than it can make the Person As for instance a Man's Bodily Stature and Dimensions with a Concurrence of all other Accidents belonging to him do really distinguish him from other Men but for all that they do not originally distinguish him for it is only his individual Numerical Nature which does or can do that But it is worth observing how this Ignorant Man pursues his point viz. that Self-Consciousness is that which gives personal Unity and distinction For says he by this actual Self-Consciousness every Person feels himself to be himself and not to be another p. 62. l. 23. And is not this think we a Demonstration Yes no doubt it is
closes his wretched trifling dodging answer to the Animadverter's Argument with Thus says he All his Arguments vanish like smoak rise in a dark Cloud but immediately disperse and are seen no more till they return as such vapours use to do in Thunder and lightning or some Threatning storm p. 87. at the end But was there ever such a Rhodomontade in words so Big with Nothing and without one grain of sense at the Bottom of them For is this the way to expose an Adversarie's Argument to contempt first to represent it as vanishing into smoak and vapour and afterwards returning in storm and thunder But it shews that his Rhetorick keeps pace with his Logick and that whether he would describe or prove a Thing it is much at the same rate In the mean time the Reader may take this for an Observation that will never fail him viz. That this Author is never so high upon the Huff and Rant as when he is lowest nay and knows himself lowest in Point of Reason And so I pass to the Vindication of the Second Argument Which is this If Vnity of Nature in the Divine Persons be the Cause Reason or Principle of mutual Consciousness in the said Persons then their mutual Consciousness is not the cause or principle of the Vnity of their Nature but the former is true and therefore the latter is so too This is the Argument and a plainer and clearer there cannot well be To which our Author answers thus That the Divine Persons may be thus essentially one by mutual Consciousness or mutual Consciousness may be essential to this Vnity though they could not be thus actually conscious to each other unless they were thus united as to have and to feel each other in themselves Def. p. 68. l. 22. Which Enigmatical obscure and confused stuff if the Reader understands it is well for I profess that I do not But so far as the Term Essential made use of here may seem to make any Thing for his Purpose I answer That mutual Consciousness is Essential to the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons not as that wherein this Unity does consist but as that which is essentially consequent upon it and inseparable from it So that there is an Homonymy in the Term Essential as either importing that Essential Principle wherein the Nature or Essence of a Thing is placed or some thing necessarily resulting from it in which latter sense alone mutual Consciousness is essential to the Unity of the Divine Nature And whereas he says That if by Vnity of Nature in the Divine Persons the Animadverter means the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he says is indeed a Necessary foundation of this mutual Consciousness but not the immediate Cause of it For that the Fathers he pretends were sensible that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could not of it self make this Essential Vnity and therefore added the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he affirms to be that very mutual Consciousness here maintained by him to perfect it p. 68. l. 27. In which words there are several very vile Heterodoxyes For first I affirm That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adequately perfectly and sufficiently makes the Vnity and Identity of the Divine Nature in the Divine Persons and that as I have already shewn not meerly from the force of the word it self but from the peculiar condition of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which it was applyed to which being Infinite could not possibly be otherwise than numerically one and the same and consequently that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or agreement of the Divine Persons in such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could be no other than a Numerical Vnity and Identity of Nature belonging to them upon that account And therefore I deny That the Fathers ever reckoned the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 insufficient of it self to make this Unity and challenge him to prove they did And I deny further that they ever alleged the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as an addition to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to perfect this Unity but as an Explication and Illustration of it and I add moreover That the Fathers never accounted this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either to be mutual Consciousness or to consist in it but to be the mutual Inexistence or Indwelling of the Divine Persons in each other founded upon and resulting from their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mutual Inexistence being no more mutual Consciousness than bare Existence can be said to be Knowledge and lastly I affirm that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ascribed to the Three Divine Persons to which this Author may add his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too if he pleases is not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self but a consequent or effect of it for as much as they are not therefore in one another because they mutually know one another but they thus know one another because by the essential Identity of their Nature they mutually are and exist in one Another All which having been so fully proved in the seventh Chapter of Animadv p. 201 202 203 204 205 206. and the ninth Chapter p. 295. 6 7 8 9. and 300 301. to allege it again is in effect but dictum dicere which though it is the constant practice or rather Trade of this Author is the scorn of the Animadverter But to go on the Animadverter having said as is here alleged That Vnity of Nature is the Cause and Principle of mutual Consciousness which being an Essential Property equally belonging to all Three Persons must issue and result from the Divine Nature and so can have no Antecedent Causal Influx upon the same Nature Our Author in answer to this tells us That mutual Consciousness belongs not immediately to Nature but to Persons p. 69. l. 20. And I dare say he tells us the best he knows But in reply to it I must tell him again That it belongs immediately to both but upon a different account viz. to Nature as the immediately producing Principle of the Act and to the Person as to the immediate proper subject of Denomination from the Act. But he adds That he for his part will not Philosophies upon Antecedent causal Influxes in the Divine Nature p. 69. l. 24. Nor does any one else in the strict proper and Philosophical sense of these Terms pretend to do so but only by accommodating them to help us with the better Method and Distinction to conceive and discourse of so high a Subject as the Divine Nature is And therefore it was not for nothing That he passed over the Nine preliminary Considerations at the beginning of the fourth Chapter of the Animadversions without so much as touching upon them For they would have corrected his Ignorance and taught him how these words are to be understood and used about the Divine Nature and Persons But his Modesty adds That it contents him to know what is Essential not Absolutely to the Vnity of the Divine
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
this he had told us before in the 7 th and 8 th pages of his Vindication and that therefore not being able to express it adequately we must be contented to express it as well as we can viz. by so speaks and so says and by Continuity where there can be no Parts for such a Plea though admitted would manifestly give up his Cause by shewing that he had undertook to explain the Vnity in Trinity by such an Vnity as he himself can neither conceive nor express We have seen therefore what these two Propositions viz. That the very Nature of a Spirit consists in Internal Sensation and the Vnity of a Spirit in Continuity of Sensation amount to but let us now see how he proves them for I fansie the World will hardly take them upon his bare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And here supposing that I need not tell the Reader That this Author by Sensation and Continuity of Sensation means Self-Consciousness we shall find that his Argument runs thus So far as a Man feels himself or is self-conscious so far he is one â—â—tire Person For it is a self-evident Proposition That in an Intelligent Self-Conscious Being self can reach no further than he feels himself And I would desire any thinking Man to tell me how he Knows himself to be a distinct and separate Person from all other Men but only by this That he feels his own Thoughts Volitions Passions c. but feels nothing of all this in other Men p. 7. l. 14. But what wretched Inconsequences are these Self can reach or exist no further than a Man feels himself and therefore a Man's feeling himself and his Existence is that wherein Self and the Existence of self does consist It follows indeed from hence That his Feeling is the measure of his Existence So that one cannot extend beyond the other but that does not therefore place his Existence in his feeling that he does exist A particular determined Portion of Matter cannot reach or exist beyond the Quantity that bounds or determines it but does the Existence and Being of that Matter therefore consist in this Quantity The Body of a Man cannot extend further than its just Stature but does the Body therefore consist in its Stature Again A Man cannot as this Author-says Know himself to be a separate distinct Person from all other Men but by Self-Consciousness and Internal Sensation and therefore forsooth these are and must be the Things wherein his being a distinct Person does consist And let any one alive shew that this Argument proves any more if he can But this Man confounds the Principle of Knowledge with the Principle of Being all along Whereas the Point here is Whether the Vnity and Distinction of a Spirit consists in Internal Sensation as the formal Reason of it not whether Internal Sensation be that whereby alone a Spirit can Know it self to be one with it self and distinct from all others For though this latter be granted to this Author as often as he pleases yet the former will be as stiffly denied him I find and feel my self to be one Man and to be distinct and separate from all others but does this therefore make me to be so Or does my being so consist in my feeling my self to be so One would think that a Man should be ashamed to argue at this Rate especially having been baffled in it more than once But it is a Custom which he is grown old in To be baffled and to talk on and it is too late to cure him of it now In the mean time there are some other choice Things which deserve our consideration and particularly this So far says He as a man feels himself or is Self-Conscious he is one entire Person where this Self-Conscious Sensation ends he becomes a distinct and separate Person p. 7. l. 13. But is it possible for the mind of Man to imagine any one to be an entire Person and consequently one in himself and yet nor distinct from all others besides when the very essential Notion of Vnity connotes Distinction too and when according to all the Rules of Philosophy that which is the Principle of Constitution to any thing is the Principle also of Distinction to the same Every Thing being distinguished from all other Things by what it is in it self Continuity of Sensation he says makes a Man one in himself and the ending or ne plus ultrà of that Sensation makes him a distinct Person And yet he appeals to every Thinking Man whether he knows himself to be a distinct Person any other way than by this Self-Conscious Sensation Whereas he had said but just before that it is the ending of this Self-Conscious Sensation which makes him a distinct Person and if so can he then know himself to be a distinct and separate Person by that which must be at an end before he can be a distinct Person Certainly a grosser and more fullsome contradiction scarce ever dropped from the Tongue or Pen of Man and if this be not Non-sence in the highest and gibberish truly so called I dare averr that Bedlam affords none But his Complement to the Animadverter must not be passed over so for whose Instruction forsooth he says he was so large in his Discourse about Sensation and Self-Consciousness p. 7. For since he is so very kind he must give me leave to be as Charitable in my Admonitions as he was liberal in his Instructions and accordingly to advise him for the future to keep his Instructions to himself and what he can spare to bestow upon his Boys that so they may not at their Father's Age come to need such correction as their Father has had And whereas he says the Animadverter understood not one word of his Hypothesis I must here tell him in the Animadverter's Name That he accounts it no disparagement at all to any Man of Sence not to understand Him who speaks none But he proceeds and to shew us how methodical he is in his Absurdities he tells us That the Dean as certainly no man living was ever so much a Dean in his own Eyes having observed That the Vnity of a single Spirit consists in such a Natural Self-Conscious Sensation this led him on to that other Notion of mutual Consciousness which may be between Three distinct Spirits and make them Naturally one as much as Three can be one p. 7. l. 29. And that in good earnest is a limitation with a Witness a limitation amounting to an utter Negation of the Thing which it is applyed to It being impossible for Three distinct Absolute Beings which Three distinct Spirits certainly are to be One by one Numerical Nature belonging in common to them But besides observe the fallacy couched under this Ambiguous Parenthesis as much as Three can be one for by Three here he may either mean Three Spirits or Three Persons And he imposes grosly upon his Reader and begs the Question besides if he
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
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
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
signalize his little Self by the Character of holding what the whole World besides denies and of denying what it holds And now in the close of this Argument p. 75. l. 20. we have him again flying off from his first Hypothesis in which he had with so much earnestness affirmed Self-consciousness to be that which made the Divine Persons originally distinct both from one-another and all other things besides and mutual Consciousness to be that which made them naturally and essentially one I say we have him quite falling down from their making to their bare supposing inferring and proving them to be so Which as the whole World must needs fee is wholly another thing and absolutely quits and gives up the first assertion but that by his good leave shall not serve his Turn For as he has been several times told he shall be still held to it and justly accounted a baffled Person if he does not make it good For in all Philosophy and even in common sense making is one thing and proving is another And therefore whereas he says in the last place viz. p. 75. lin 30. That to dispute about the Cause of Self-consciousness and mutual Consciousness is to dispute about the naked Essences or Essential Properties of Things which the Dean rejected from the Beginning as without the compass of Human Knowledge There are in these words several things to be remark'd upon As first I must tell him That the Dispute here is not directly about the Cause of Self-consciousness or mutual Consciousness but whether Self-consciousness it self be the Cause or formal Reason of Personality Personal Unity and Distinction and mutual Consciousness be the formal Cause or Reason of the Essential Unity and Identity of the Divine Persons in one and the same Nature And in the next place supposing that the Dispute here were about the Cause of Self-consciousness and mutual Consciousness yet I deny that to dispute of them under the Notion of a Cause or an Effect is to dispute about the naked Essences or Essential Properties of Things Forasmuch as we may consider and dispute about the Essences and Properties of Things without any consideration of their Causality at all and on the other side we may know a thing to be actually a Cause and dispute of it as such tho' we cannot tell what the Essence of the said thing is We do not indeed know that is by an immediate inspection of the Things themselves what the Essences or Forms of Things are but we know that in every Thing the Essence or Form of it is the Cause or Principle of all the Acts proceeding from it and belonging to it and consequently that no Act so proceeding from the said Thing can be the Essence or Form of it But 3 dly and lastly in reply to his saying That the Dean from the beginning rejected all Disputes about the Essences and Essential Properties of Things as without the compass of Human Knowledge I do here referr the Reader to the 9th and 10th Pages of the First Chapter of the Animadversions to see there how horribly he contradicts himself upon this Subject For there it is proved against him out of page 7. of his Vindic. lin 20. That he says that the Essences of Things cannot be known but only their Properties and Qualities Which surely inferrs that then their Properties may be known And again That as for the Essential Properties Operations and Powers of Matter sence experience and observation will tell us what they are Vindicat. p. 8. line 15. Which Passages I would have him reconcile to what he has said here viz. That the Essential Properties of Things are without the compass of Human Knowledge which how they can be and yet Sence Experience and Observation be able to give us such an account of them as to tell us what they are I must confess I cannot comprehend And whereas again he excludes here the Essences of Things which I averr to be only another word for the Natures of them from the compass of Human Knowledge does not this very man in this his Defence p. 7. lin 11. tell us That the Nature of a Spirit consists in Internal Vital Sensation And now after that he has given us this account of the Nature of a Spirit and told us wherein it does consist will he tell us That he looks upon the Natures of Things as out of the compass of Human Knowledge I shall say no more of him at present but humbly beg the Reader seriously to reflect upon the Temper and Confidence of this man And so I dismiss him for an everlasting shameless Self-contradictor as he is and pass to the examination of what he brings against the Animadverter's Fourth and Last Argument which proceeds equally against mutual Consciousness and Self-consciousness too and is founded upon that Rule of Philosophy That Entities or Beings ought not to be multiply'd nor new Notions to be admitted where the old received ones are sufficient and that therefore the Terms and Notions of mutual Consciousness and Self-consciousness in the present Subject ought to be rejected not only as New and Suspicious but as wholly needless and superfluous forasmuch as nothing can be signified by them which is not fully and clearly signified by that one plain word and known attribute the Divine Omniscience To which the Defender replies in this fleering Expostulation p. 76. lin 4. Pray what hurt have these seemingly innocent words done I answer Too much a great deal if we may believe his own words to suffer them to pass for so much as seemingly innocent For p. 8. lin 19. of this Defence he tells us That these were the words which directly led him to the Assertion of Three Infinite Minds which is direct Tritheism and not only so but forced him also to the trouble of a long senceless Apology to perswade the World that by Minds he did not mean Minds as we shall more particularly shew in the discussion of his Answers to the Animadverter's Arguments upon that Subject In the mean time he answers further That admitting that all that is imported by Self-consciousness and mutual Consciousness may be fully signified by the Divine Omniscience yet why says he may not that one comprehensive Attribute very properly receive different Names according to its different Objects as the several Arts and Sciences do To which I answer his Ignorance That neither do several Arts nor Sciences nor yet several kinds of Action receive their denomination from any of their particular Objects but only from their adequate and general Object formally consider'd that is as apprehensible after such a certain way As for instance Natural Philosophy is so denominated not from this or that Natural Body but from Natural Body generally and universally consider'd and that only in order to the Knowledge of the Nature Properties and Affections thereof And so likewise in Natural Acts such as those of Seeing and Hearing and the like every particular different
colour which is seen does not give a diverse denomination to the Act that perceives it since it affects it only after the same general way nor does every different Sound or Tune diversly denominate each particular Act of Hearing which takes them in but they have all one general denomination from one adequate Object so consider'd as before express'd which to Seeing is omnâ— visibile quatenus visibile and to Hearing omne audibile quatenus audibile And in like manner the adequate Object of Omniscience is omne scibile quatenus scibile and the Three Divine Persons as this Omniscience terminates upon them are as properly and truly Three particular Objects of it as any Three created Finite Beings may be And it would make very odd work in good earnest to distinguish the Divine Omniscience by as many different Names as it has particular different Objects which yet this man here most absurdly contends for for according to this his Assertion Omniscience as it terminates upon an Angel must have one Name as upon a Man another and as upon a Beast or a Fowl another And as God is said upon the Account of his Omniscience to know and number the Stars and to call them all by their Names Psal. 147.4 his Omniscience being terminated distinctly upon every one of them must by consequence have as many different denominations as there are Stars in the Firmament And therefore let this ignorant man know for the future that the Divine Knowledge is denominated only from its adequate Object which comprehends all that is knowable and that only under this consideration as knowable And if he can prove Self and Others as he speaks not to come within the compass of that Object then we will allow that the Knowledge distinctly terminated upon Self and Others ought to receive from thence different denominations But till then he and his Party may to my knowledge find much fitter Objects to apply their Self-consciousness and mutual Consciousness to than the Divine Persons But as if he had not sufficiently disturb'd the Church with his Heretical Novelties already he is now for starting another as great as any of the rest For the World it seems has been hitherto under a Mistake which he will now graciously correct by informing us That there is in Almighty God a certain Thing specifically different from his Divine Knowledge call'd Intellectual Sensation p. 77. lin 22. And that he who does not know the difference between these is as unfit to meddle in this Controversie as a blind man to dispute of Colours And accordingly he tells us That though Self-consciousness and mutual Consciousness may in some respect be call'd Knowledge yet in truth they are of a quite different kind from it For that Self-consciousness is that Intellectual Sensation by which each Person feels his own Thoughts Knowledge Volitions c. and that the mutual Consciousness of the Three Persons is not their Knowledge of each other but their mutual Sensation and feeling each other in themselves So that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man has here given us a piece of New Philosophy and Divinity which the World knew nothing of before But a Notion so odd as well as New must not pass without Examination and in order to that I shall advance this Proposition in direct contradiction to the Defender viz. That there is no such Thing in the Divine Nature as Spiritual Sensation distinct from spiritual Knowledge or Intellection And in opposition to the contrary assertion I offer these following considerations 1. The Universal Authority of all Philosophers and Divines both Schoolmen and others who have treated Scholastically of the Divine Nature and Attributes Unanimously acknowledging and asserting That there are no other Immanent Acts in God but Acts of Intellection and Volition which are absolutely necessary to the conceiving of God as of an Intelligent Being and consequently that there is no such Thing as an Act of Sensation in God distinct from These 2. That God is entirely and adequately comprehensible by himself these two ways 1. By a Representation of the entire Idea of all his own Divine Perfections to himself which is done by Intellection And 2. By way of Love of and complacency in these his Infinite Perfections thus represented to him which is done by Volition and consequently there can be no such Third way Necessary to comprehend himself by as this Author here calls Spiritual Sensation 3. That if there be such an Act in the Divine nature as Sensation distinct from Intellection and Volition then there is such a Thing also in the Divine Nature as a Vis or Potentia Sensitiva different and distinct from the Vis Intellectiva and Volitiva in the same For since in the Case of mutual and Self-Consciousness this Author has asserted in the said Nature a Power or Principle of Consciousness distinct from the Acts thereof and has affirmed likewise Consciousness and Self-sensation to be the same Thing he must for the same Reason necessarily assign also a Principle or Power of Sensation distinct from the Acts of Sensation That is to say a certain new thing called a Spiritual Sensitive Power in God which is neither Intellective nor Volitive and yet absolutely necessary for the said Acts of Spiritual Sensation to issue from But now for any one to assert the Addition of such a New Power to the Divine Nature is a thing in it self so uncouth and unphilosophical and contrary to the common sence of all the learned Men in the World that there needs not one word to be argued against it And as for this Author I desire him to reconcile this new power in God with that zealous Harangue p. p. 74 75. made by him for the Actuality and simplicity of the Deity even to the Explosion of all Priority and Posteriority of our conceptions about it But 4 ly If there be such a Thing as Sensation and a Vis sensitiva in God distinct from the Vis Intellectiva and Volitiva let this Man assign a solid Reason if he can why there are not four Persons in the Godhead For since as the Schools affirm Totus Deus foecundus est there being no Act in God but what is productive of some thing what should hinder but that as the Father communicates the Divine Essence per Intellectum and so begets a Son and both Father and Son communicate their Divine Essence per voluntatem and so breath forth the Holy Ghost so all Three should produce a fourth Person in the Godhead by communicating their Divine Essence by this way of Internal Sensation I will not I declare presume to assert any Thing in such a Case but shall leave it to the Learned and Judicious to judge of the whole matter But I am sure it must preâ—s hard upon this New Invention And now after all that we have here argued upon this point I demand of this Man upon what ground he asserts in God such a Thing as Spiritual Sensation
distinct in kind from Divine Knowledge for it is his way to advance the most Heterodox Propositions without the least offer of a proof of them why I defy all Mankind to find out any other ground of this assertion besides the Thing it self asserted by him viz. That each of the Divine Persons intimately feels himself to be what he is and not another and that feeling and knowing are quite different Things This is all that he says or pretends to say In answer to which I demand of him whether he derives the Necessity of this Expression of Feeling as contra-contra-distinct in God to Knowing this being the sole ground of his assertion from Scripture or Reason or the proper signification of the word it self requireing it If from Scripture let it be produced and we submit If from Reason let some Argument from the Nature of the Thing be produced proving that there is some Apprehensive Act in God of a quite different kind from Knowledge but no such Argument ever yet appeared And much less in the Third and last place can the genuine signification of the word feeling infer this For does the word feeling in the proper use of it signify any thing Spiritual or can it be properly applied to God if it does not No it is certain that it properly signifies no such Thing but on the contrary only a Corporeal Act requiring a Corporeal subject to lodge it in So that as has been observed before Spiritual feeling is an arrant contradiction in Adjecto And therefore the Truth is Feeling can be no otherwise applied to Spiritual Beings and especially to God himself than by a Trope and Metaphor and as seeing hearing and smelling are applied to him and we may as well ascribe to God a Self-Conscious seeing a Self-Conscious hearing and a Self-Conscious smelling and all distinct from his Knowledge as a Self-Conscious Feeling God in Scripture is said to see and to hear to express to us the Clearness and Quickness of his Knowledge and in like manner may be said to feel to express the Intimacy of his knowledge to the object known there being no Act of sence in which there is so near an application of the object to the faculty as in feeling So that this whole new assertion is founded upon nothing but meer Trope and Metaphor translating Terms from their proper sensible signification to a figurative and spiritual which nothing but an absolute necessity from the very Nature of Things can ever justify And now I desire all Professors of Divinity to consider the confidence of this Man and whither it may tend who by drawing words from their proper signification to a Tropical and this of his own head shall presume to found a New Notion about the Divine Nature and Actings For let him prove any other ground for this Notion of Spiritual sensation or feeling distinct from Knowledge in God if he can And therefore since this is wholly a new Invention of his own and not hitherto proved by any Argument but his own bare word affirming it I do here require him to produce his Arguments for it for it being a Proposition wholly new it is incumbent upon the Proposer of it first to prove it and not upon his Adversary maintaining the contrary Thesis in actual and long possession to disprove it but only to expect and answer his Arguments as they shall be offered I have I confess produced some Reasons against it already but it was more than what the Rules of Disputation obliged me to And therefore I do here again call upon this Man to produce his Arguments for his new Assertion declaring withal That I here undertake to maintain this Thesis against him viz. That there is no such thing as Spiritual Sensation in God distinct from his Knowledge This I say I declare my self ready to defend against him as publickly as he has asserted the contrary Affirmative And accordingly in the Face of the World I challenge him to the Dispute and do otherwise declare him a disturber of the Church and a perverter of our Religion by Paradoxes which he is not able to speak one word in the Defence of In the next place we have him making his last effort to keep up his sinking Cause and Credit with a downright Falsification and an utter Change of the whole Question hitherto in dispute between him and his Adversary and that in these following words p. 78. lin 9. That he hopes that if the Animadverter will try his Skill again he should hear no more of his formal Reasons of Personality and Vnion but that he will be pleas'd to speak to the True Point viz. Whether a Self-conscious person be not one with himself and distinguish'd from all other persons and whether he does not feel himself to be thus one and thus distinguish'd by Self-consciousness and whether Three Divine Persons who are thus mutually conscious to each other be not naturally and essentially Vnited into One God And all other Disputes are certainly beside the Question And if so then I am sure his whole Vindication and a great part of his very Defense of it are so too But has this man's Confidence so totally swallow'd up his Conscience that he dares offer so notorious a Falshood to the World in print I do here solemnly averr That what he has now set down as the True State of the Question between him and the Animadverter is as far from it as the bare Consequent of any thing is or can be from being the Cause of it And that this may be made as clear to the Reader as the Day he is desir'd to take notice that the Animadverter wrote against this man's new Hypothesis about the Trinity as he found it deliver'd in his Book entituled A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity c. and consequently that the true state of the Question must be drawn from thence And this has been fully and fairly done already in those several Propositions quoted and set down by me in my entrance upon the examination of his Answers to the Animadverter's Arguments where the Reader will find the true and whole state of the Question laid before him in this man 's own words which tho' it be abundantly enough to shew his insufferable Falsification yet to shew it more fully still if possible and to save the Reader the trouble of casting his Eye backward and forward I will here set down both what he says in this his Defense and what he first asserted in his Vindication together that so by comparing what he retracts or rather falsifies here with what he had so positively affirm'd there the Reader may impartially judge whether such a one upon such a Subject can be fit either to dispute or to be disputed with And this shall be done in the following Particulars As First This Author in his Defense declares That the Question is only this Whether Three Self-consciousnesses do not prove Three Self-conscious
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
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
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men in the several Ages they lived in Nor were there any whom the Primitive Church still kept so watchful an Eye and so severe an hand over as these Novellists and had this Author lived not only under the Discipline of the Church of those Ages but even of that excellent Copy of it the Church amongst our selves before the great Rebellion which gave it such an Incurable Wound he would have found to his Cost what it had been to play the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man upon the Trinity for whatsoever else it might have done for him it would have been sure to have stopp'd him in his way to St. Paul's But this is not all his Civility to the Animadverter for he allows him not only able to Transcribe but to make a shift to read too for this Author has convinced me that 't is not impossible for one to Transcribe what he cannot Read In requital of which Complement I do here tell this Man that if he could and should pay to the Crown a penny for every Greek word which he can neither Read nor Spell nor make any Thing of I dare undertake that it might save the Nation a Tax for one year at least In fine as much a Transcriber as his foul mouth would make the Animadverter let him but prove that he ever transcribed any thing out of His Writings and I will give him leave to prosecute him not only for a Thief but for the very worst the basest and meanest of Thieves viz. A Robber of the Spittle But I assure him that for what concerns his own Writings he is safe for as to them let any Man but first Read and I dare undertake he will never be tempted to transcribe Secondly The next passage I shall take notice of is that in p. 38. at the end and 39. at the beginning where with the grossest Ignorance pretending to prove Risibility the formal Reason of Humanity from an Assertion of the Animadverter which he understood not This says he makes well for the Animadverter to prove him to be a Man though he is seldom in so good an Humor as to laugh without grinning which belongs to another Species Thus the Courtier of Gravel-lane By which words it is evident that the poor man is here offering at Wit but cannot reach it But as for the Risibility he is so much concerned against do not all the Schools of Philosophy make Risibility the Property of a man and withal deny the Form or Nature of any Thing to consist in the Property of it as well as the Animadverter But let him set his heart at rest for whatsoever Risibility may be in others yet so far as it concerns himself the Animadverter will hardly allow it for an Argument of Rationality as it is in him but as it is imployed upon him But to cut off the Unfortunate Animadverter from all Hopes of ever proving his Rationality by his Risibility with one terrible blow he strikes him down into the grinning Species the meaning of which word is very well known and a word it is as fit for this Man 's Billingsgate mouth as his mouth is peculiarly fitted for that Though by his Favour he shall never make the Animadverter so far of the grinning Species as either to find him amongst the sneaking Spaniels or the Hybrid Mongrils but rather of that genuine English kind which having once fastned as the Animadverter has upon this Man will not be made to quit their Hold. But if he were desirous to learn that Canine Art of fetching and carrying especially between Paul's and Lambeth he knows where to find one very well able to instruct him In the mean time I humbly present the World with this Specimen of Mr. Dean's refined Breeding Civility and Discretion that he has no other Answer to give his Adversary but by calling him Grinning Dog Which yet I confess is very agreeable to the Rage I hear the Animadversions have put him into which is such that in most Companies he speaks of nothing but Daggers Gibbets and Furnaces the very mention either of the Animadverter or Animadversions transporting him into such Fits and Agonies as render him extremely troublesom both to himself and to all who are so unhappy as to be with him and much ado has he in one of those Fits to forbear cursing Both of them by his Gods But Thirdly I pass on to present the Reader with another of his Flowers gather'd out of p. 90. l. 25. of this Defence where he closes a Paragraph with these Magisterial Words pronounc'd one would think out of the Chair of Aristarchus himself or some such eminent Grammarian It is says he a tedious thing to dispute with Men who must be taught to construe the Fathers and understand Common Sence But will this Abcedarian venture to reproach any one for that who but a few Pages before this construes that Expression of the Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Mutual Consciousness p. 71. l. 6 And that in those remarkably positive words This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says he is that very Mutual Consciousness which the Dean holds that is to say With the grossest Ignorance he construes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies an Act of the Will by Mutual Consciousness which is an Act of Knowledge or as he whimsically calls it of Sensation And therefore let me tell this Anti-nicene Quadrigesimal Chrysom Paraphrases-man That the Animadverter can construe the Fathers and understand them too at much another rate than this comes to provided that he reads them in their own Works but he confesses that when he reads them quoted by him in his Writings he cannot construe them for Solecisms In the mean time I for my part am so far from thinking this Author fit to set up for a Construer of the Fathers and much less for a Teacher of others to construe them that I shrewdly suspect that it has been for want of a Construing-Book that he is no better acquainted with his Grammar Fourthly The next thing which I think fit to take notice of is his frequent reproaching the Animadverter with the Character of a Wit though joyn'd with such ill-favour'd Epithets as his Witless Malice has thought fit to degrade it with as p. 9. l. 19. That he is a Spightful Wit and p. 66. i. 21. a Wrangling Wit and p. 1. l. 6. a Satyrical Wit and the witty subtile good-natur'd Animadverter p. 38. l. 26. c. Though after all I think there is but very little Wit shewn in making such Charges However if Wit be a Reproach be it of what sort it will the Animadverter is too just to return this Reproach upon the Defender and withal understands himself and what becomes him too well either to assume to himself or so much as to admit the Character of a Wit as at all due to him especially since he knows that Common Sence a thing much
Socinians of which number this Author professes himself to be one And for this he will find Dr. Sherlock reproaching them in his Vindication for having neither Greek nor Latine and thereupon very magisterially sending them to School again I suppose in his own Room Likewise charging them with Nonsense and calling their Opinion one of the most stupid senceless Heresies that ever infested the Christian Church Pref. to Vind. at the end Vowing withal never to put up his Goose-quill in this Quarrel against them Ibid. and in short treating them with the utmost scorn that it was possible for words to express whereas on the contrary the Animadverter though he could by no means be of their Opinion nor yet come up to the Lambeth-strain in declaring them the only Scholars and Disputants in the World and in comparison of whom some of the most eminent upon both accounts that Christendom ever had were but meer Bunglers yet with a due and just deference to Truth he frankly acknowledged their Parts and Learning and asserted the Reputation of both against their Beloved Dr. Sherlock who had with the utmost contumely and disdain vilified them All which considered the whole conduct of this spightful usage of the Animadverter by Persons even by their own Confession Consid. p. 12. 2 Col. l. 41. wholly unprovoked by him is to me I must confess all Riddle and I believe to all sober Persons besides nor can I see what tolerable account can be given of it but that they did all this by particular Orders and then it is easy to judge from whom those Orders came which by such a mighty Act of restraining Grace put a stop to all Socinian Pens from writing against such a Bosome-Favourite and turned them against that sawcy Church of England-Animadverter for daring to assert the old Doctrine of the Trinity against the Sentiments of those New Dons who may perhaps for fashion-sake own a Trinity and some such other Articles of the Church of England but according to Mr. Dean's excellent and never to be forgotten words not perfectly in her own way Now as to the Argument debated in the Animadversions the Grand Charge this Considerer brings against the Animadverter is That he makes the Three Divine Persons in the Blessed Trinity only Three different Postures of the Godhead Consid. p. 22. Col. 1. l. 4. repeating the same objection again and again that none may mistake him But is this fair dealing in disputation or a just and true Representation of the Animadverter's Assertion He asserted indeed That as Posture and Figure were Modes affecting the Body without superadding any new Entity properly so called to it So a Spirit whether Finite or Infinite might have its proper Modes also affecting it sutably to its particular Nature without superadding to it any new Entity or Being distinct from it For since the General Nature of a Mode consisted only in this viz. That it determined a Being in it self Absolute and undetermined to some certain state or condition without superadding to it any such new distinct Entity as we have mentioned I would gladly know why there might not be an Agreement and Analogy in this general Nature of a Mode between such particular Modes as do yet otherwise upon their proper Accounts vastly and infinitely differ from one Another as the Modes of an Infinite Vncreate Being and the Modes of all finite Created Natures must needs do Why I say these notwithstanding their peculiar differences may not agree as Analogous in the general Nature of a Mode as well as an Infinite and a finite substance do agree in the General Nature of Substance Let any one by some solid Reason prove But besides this the Animadverter affirmed also That the Personal Modes belonging to the Deity were of that peculiar kind as to affect it Eternally Necessarily and Inseparably though there are several Modes of another kind belonging to the said Nature which do not so This I say and no more was the Doctrine delivered by the Animadverter concerning the Divine Modes which is so utterly uncapable of the Representation made of it by this Considerer that though he is pleased to sport himself with a thing by no means fit to be sported with yet I am confident in the present Case his own judgment will not suffer him to believe his own words But he is for putting the whole Dispute to a short issue if he will say and hold by the decision of this one Question To which he says if the Animadverter will give a clear and Categorical Answer it will appear to all Men That either he falls in with Dr. Sherlock and the Tritheists or with the Socinians And the Question is this Whether there are in God Three distinct all knowing Almighty understandings wills and energies as there are Three distinct Persons Or whether the Three Persons have but one onely self-same understanding will and energy as there is but one self-same substance in Number Consider p. 24. Col. 2. l. 25. To which I answer and that as Categorically as he can desire First That there are not Three distinct Infinite Vnderstandings c. in God as there are three Persons and that to assert that there are is as arrant Tritheism as any that Dr. Sherlock is guilty of and greater there cannot well be Secondly That there is but one Numerical infinite Understanding in God or in the three Persons But then I affirm withal That this one Numerical infinite Understanding has three distinct ways of subsisting according to which it subsists distinctly and differently in each of the Three Divine Persons For still Three distinct infinite Vnderstandings and one infinite Understanding subsisting after Three distinct ways or modes are two vastly different Hypotheses And if by this latter the Animadverter falls in with the Socinians it is certain that the Socinians must also fall in with him Which I should be very glad to find for I 'm sure it is the received Doctrine of the Church and that which the Animadverter has all along contended for and this very Man with so much spight and personal Reflection beyond all that I ever met with has opposed and reviled However I have answered him civilly which is a way of answering which he seems a stranger to But to pass to the main Business of his Paper which is to expose and ridicule the Animadverter as much as in so small a compass he can The first Instance of his Spleen against him though I think very little savouring of the Spirit of a Gentleman is his expressing a Grudge at the very Support and Maintenance which the Animadverter has from the Church telling him That he is full and even overflows with the Blessings of his Holy Mother Consid. p. 20. Col. 1. l. 36. And so much I hope I may say in the Animadverter's behalf That if he does indeed overflow there are many about him who find themselves the better for it though yet I know several in