Self-Consciousness be the Reason of Personality in Finite Persons And II. Whether it be so in Infinite And First For Finite or Created Spirits I deny Self-Consciousness to be the formal Reason of Personality in these And before I give my Reasons against it I shall premise this one Consideration viz. That wheresoever the formal Reason of Personality is there is Personality And again That wheresoever Personality is there is the formal Reason of Personality viz. That they exist Convertibly and that one Mutually and Essentially infers the other Now this premised and laid down my Reasons why I deny Self-Consciousness to be the formal Reason of Personality in Finite or Created Beings are these 1. Argument According to the Natural Order of Things Self-Consciousness in Persons pre-supposes their Personality and therefore is not cannot be the Reason of it The Argument I conceive is very plain For whatsoever pre-supposes a Thing is in Order of Nature Posterior and Subsequent to the Thing so pre-supposed by it and again on the other hand the formal Reason of any Thing is in Order of Nature precedent to that Thing of which it is the Reason We will therefore prove the Major Proposition And we do it thus Personality is the Ground and Principle of all Action wheresoever it is For where there is a Suppositum whether it be Rational which is another word for Person or not still it is the whole Suppositum which Acts. So that there must be a Person before there can be an Act or Action proceeding from or attributable to a Person In a word there must be a Person in Being before any Action issues from him and therefore the Act must essentially and necessarily pre-suppose the Person for the Agent But now Self-Consciousness does not only do this but which is more it also pre-supposes another Act Antecedent to it self For it is properly and formally a Reflex Act upon the Acts Passions or Motions of the Person whom it belongs to So that according to the Nature of the Thing there is not only a Person but also an Action which is and must be Subsequent to a Person that is Antecedent to Self-Consciousness which being a Reflex Act must needs in Order of Nature be Posterior to the Act reflected upon by it And therefore Self-Consciousness which is by two degrees Posterior to Personality cannot possibly be the formal Reason of it This I look upon as a Demonstration of the Point And I leave it to our Author who is better a great deal at scorning the Schools than at confuting them to answer and overthrow it at his leisure 2. Our Second Argument is this The Humanity or Humane Nature of Christ is perfectly Conscious to it self of all the Internal Acts whether of Knowledge Volition Passion or Desire that pass in it or belong to it and yet the Humanity or Humane Nature of Christ is not a Person and consequently Self-Consciousness is not the proper formal Reason of Personality forasmuch as it may be in that which is no Person That the Humane Nature of Christ is thus Self-Conscious is evident since it has all the Principles and Powers of Self-reflection upon its own Acts whereby it intimately knows it self to do what it does and to be what it is which are in any particular Man whatsoever so that if any Man be Conscious to himself of these things the Humane Nature of Christ which has the same Operative Powers in perfection and those essentially proper to and inseparable from it self which the rest of Mankind are endued with must needs be so too And then as for the Assumption That the Humane Nature of Christ is not a Person is no less evident Since it is taken into and subsists in and by the Personality of the second Person of the Trinity and therefore can have no distinct Personality of its own unless we will with Nestorius assert two Persons in Christ an Humane and a Divine And the Truth is If Self-Consciousness were the formal Reason of Personality since there are two destinct Self-Consciousnesses in Christ no less than two distinct Wills an Humane and a Divine viz. One in each Nature I cannot see how upon this Author's Hypothesis to keep off the Assertion of Nestorius That there are Two distinct Persons in him also 3. My Third Argument against the same shall be taken from the Soul of Man in a state of separation from the Body And it is this The Soul in its separate Estate is Conscious to it self of all its own Internal Acts or Motions whether of Knowledge Passion or Desire and yet the Soul in such an Estate is not a Person And therefore Self-Consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality for if it were it would and must Constitute a Person wheresoever it was Now that the Soul in its separate Estate is thus Self-Conscious I suppose no body will pretend to deny but such as hold a Psychopannychisme viz. such a dormant Estate as renders it void of all Vital Motion or Action during its separation from the Body But this being an Errour which few now a-days think worth owning neither shall I think worth the disproving But for the Minor Proposition That the Soul in its separate Estate is not a Person In this I expect to find some Adversaries and particularly our Author himself who expresly affirms That the Soul in such a separate Estate is a Person Pag. 262. A Soul says he without a Vital Union to an Humane Body is a Person Nor does he bestow the Name and Nature of a Person upon the Soul only as separate from but also as shall be afterwards made appear as it is joyned with the Body which Assertion of his together with some others of near Affinity with it shall in due place be examined by themselves At present in Confirmation of my Argument I shall produce my Reasons against the Personality of the Soul held by this Author and in order to it shall lay down this Conclusion in direct Opposition to his viz. That the Soul of Man is not a Person And since as we have noted he holds that it is so both in its Conjunction with the Body and its separation from it I shall bring my Arguments against the Personality of it in both And First I shall prove That the Soul while joyned to and continuing in the Body is not a Person and as a Ground-work of the proof thereof I shall only premise this one Thing as a Truth acknowledged on all Hands viz. That the Soul and Body together constitute the Person of a Man The same being plainly Asserted in the Athanasian Creed where it tells us That the Reasonable Soul and Flesh is one Man or one Human Person for both signifie but the same Thing which being thus laid down as a Thing certain and confessed I Argue thus If the Soul and Body in Conjunction constitute the Person of a Man then the Soul in such a Conjunction is not a Person
Principle upon which I impugn this Author's New Hypothesis so it does and must as I have noted run through all or most of the parts of this Disputation both about Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness too And accordingly in the first place I Argue against it thus Argument I. No Act of Knowledge can be the Formal Reason of an Unity of Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity But an Act of Mutual-Consciousness is an Act of Knowledge And therefore no Act of Mutual-Consciousness can be the Formal Reason of an Unity of Nature in the Three Divine Persons The Major I prove thus Every Act of Knowledge supposes the Unity of a Thing or Being from which that Act flows as Antecedent to it and therefore cannot be the Formal Reason of the said Being For still I affirm that Being and consequently Unity of Being which is the first Affection of it must in Order of Nature precede Knowledge and all other the like Attributes of Being And if so no Attribute Subsequent to a Thing can be the Formal Reason of that Thing which it is thus in Order of Nature Subsequent to For neither can Omniscience it self one of the greatest and most acknowledged Attributes of the Divine Nature be said to be the Reason either of the Being or of the Unity of the said Nature And therefore neither can any Act of Knowledge whatsoever be so This is my first Argument which I think sufficient fairly to propose without any farther Amplification Argument II. If Unity 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 Reason of the Unity of their Nature But the former is true and therefore the latter is so too As for the Consequence of the Major Proposition it is as evident as that Nothing can be the Cause and Effect of the same Thing And for the Minor That Unity of Nature or Essence in the Divine Persons is the Cause Reason or Principle of Mutual-Consciousness is proved from this That we can no otherwise conceive of Mutual-Consciousness than as of an Essential Property equally belonging to all the Three Persons And all Properties or Internal Attributes are accounted to issue and result from the Essence or Nature of the Things which they belong to and therefore can have no Antecedent Causal Influx upon the said Nature so as to Constitute either the Being or the Unity thereof But 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 And to Assert the contrary is of the like import still allowing for the Disproportion of an Infinite and Finite Nature as if we should make Risibility in a Man the Principle of his Individuation and affirm That Peter's having this Property is that which Constitutes him this particular Individual Man which is egregiously absurd in all the Philosophy I ever yet met with whatsoever it may be in this Author's Argument III. 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 But such a confusion ought by no means to be allowed of and therefore neither ought that to be Asserted from whence it follows Now certain it is That all Acts of several Persons upon one another as all that are Mutual must needs be are properly Acts of Communion by which the said Persons have an Intercourse amongst themselves as acting interchangeably one upon the other But then no doubt both their Essence and Personality must still go before this Mutual-Consciousness since the Three Persons must needs be really one in Nature before they can know themselves to be so And therefore Union of Knowledge as I think Mutual-Consciousness may properly be called cannot give an Union of Nature It may indeed suppose it it may result from it and upon the same Account may infer and prove it but it can never give or cause it nor be that Thing or Act wherein an Unity of Nature does properly consist whatsoever this Author Asserts to the contrary But the Truth is all that he has said both of Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness and he has no more than said it as never offering at the Proof of any Thing is founded in a manifest Perversion of that Natural Order in which Humane Reason Conceives and Discourses of Things Which Order to give an Instance of it in our discoursing of any particular Person or Complete Being proceeds by these steps First we conceive of this Person as possessed of a certain Essence or Nature Constituting or rendring him what he is Then we conceive of this Nature as one which is the first Affection resulting from Being After this we consider this Being as stepping forth or exerting it self in some Acts whether of Intellection Volition Power or the like In which whole process the Order of these Conceptions is such That it cannot with any Accord to Reason be transposed so as to have the second or third put into the place of the first But now let us see how contrary to this Order our Author's Hypothesis proceeds For whereas Nature or Being should be first Unity next and the Acts issuing from thence obtain the Third place and then those Acts stand in their due Order amongst themselves This Author on the contrary makes Mutual-Consciousness which is by two Degrees or Removes posterior to Unity of Nature in the Persons whom it belongs to to be the Cause or Formal Reason of the said Unity For first Self-Consciousness is posterior to this Unity and then Mutual-Consciousness is posterior to Self-Consciousness as being an Act supervening upon it For Mutual-Consciousness is that Act by which each Person comprehends or is Conscious of the Self-Consciousness of the other two and therefore must needs presuppose them as the Act must needs do its Object And therefore to make as this Author does Mutual-Consciousness the Constituent Reason of the Unity of the Three Persons when this Unity is by two degrees in Order of Nature before it runs so plainly counter to all the Methods of true Reasoning that it would be but time lost to pursue it with any further Confutation Argument IV. Our 4th and last Argument proceeds equally against Mutual-Consciousness and Self-Consciousness too and is taken from that known Maxime in Philosophy That Entities or Beings are not to be multiplied without manifest Necessity That is we are not to admit of New Things nor to coin new Notions where such as are known and long received are sufficient to give us a true and full Account of the Nature of the Things we discourse of and to answer all the Ends and
For though the Three Divine Persons differ as really yet it is certain that they do not differ as much But what the Fathers alledged only as an Illustration of the Case this Man is pleased to make a direct proof of his Point which by his Favour is to stretch it a little too far For if he would make the foregoing Example a Parallel Instance to the Thing which he applies it to it would prove a great deal too much as has been shewn and therefore as to the Thing which it is brought for does indeed prove nothing at all Now the Thing it is brought to prove is That the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits but since we have shewn That a Real Difference or Distinction may be much short of such an one as is between two or more Minds or Spirits which we own to be as great as between two or more Men it follows That the Real Difference which is between the Three Divine Persons cannot prove them to be so many distinct Minds or Spirits In short our Author 's whole Argument amounts to no more but this which though it may sound something jocularly is really and strictly true viz. That because Peter Iames and Iohn are so many Men therefore Father Son and Holy Ghost are so many Minds A pleasant way of Arguing certainly I have now examined all that this Author has alledged about the distinction of the Three Divine Persons and I have done it particularly and exactly not omitting any one of his Quotations But how comes it to pass all this while that we have not so much as one Syllable out of the Fathers or School-men in behalf of Self-Consciousness Which being according to this Author the Constituent Reason of the Personality and Personal Distinction of the Three Divine Persons will he pretend to prove the Distinction it self from the Fathers and at the same time not speak one Tittle of the Principle or Reason of this Distinction Or will he profess to prove his whole Hypothesis by the Authority of the Fathers and yet be silent of Self-Consciousness which he himself makes one grand and principal part of the said Hypothesis Certainly one would think that the very shame of the World and that Common Awe and regard of Truth which Nature has imprinted upon the Minds of Men should keep any one from offering to impose upon Men in so gross and shameless a manner as to venture to call a Notion or Opinion the Constant Doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools nay and to profess to make it out and shew it to be so and while he is so doing not to to produce one Father or Schoolman I say again not so much as one of either in behalf of that which he so confidently and expresly avows to be the joynt Sentiment of Both. This surely is a way of proving or rather of imposing peculiar to Himself But we have seen how extremely fond he is of this new Invented Term and Notion And therefore since he will needs have the Reputation of being the sole Father and Begetter of the Hopefull Issue there is no Reason in the World that Antiquity should find other Fathers to maintain it CHAP. VII In which is shewn That the Passages alledged by this Author out of the Fathers do not prove Mutual-Consciousness to be that wherein the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity does Consist But that the Fathers place it in something else OUR Author having undertook to make good his Doctrine about the Blessed Trinity from the Fathers and that both as to the Distinction of the Divine Persons and also as to their Unity in the same Nature And having said what he could from those Ancient Writers for that new sort of Distinction which he ascribes to the said Persons in the former part of his 4th Section which I have confuted in the preceding Chapter he proceeds now in the following and much longer part of the same Section to prove the Unity of the Three Persons in one and the same Nature according to his own Hypothesis And the Proofs of this we shall reduce under these Two following Heads as containing all that is alledged by him upon this point of his Discourse viz. First That it is one and the same Numerical Divine Nature which belongs to all the Three Divine Persons And Secondly That the Thing wherein this Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature does consist is that Mutual-Consciousness by which all the Three Persons are intimately Conscious to one another of all that is known by or belongs to each of them in particular And here the Authority of the Fathers is pleaded by him for both of these and I readily grant it for the first but however shall examine what this Author produces for the one as well as for the other But before I do this I must observe to him That if that Distinction Asserted by him between the Divine Persons whereby they stand distinguished as Three Infinite Minds or Spirits holds good all his proofs of the Unity of their Nature will come much too late For he has thereby already destroyed the very Subject of his Discourse and it is in vain to seek wherein the Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature as it belongs to the Three Persons does Consist after he has affirmed that which makes such an Unity utterly impossible And it has been sufficiently proved against him in our 5th Chapter That Three Infinite Minds or Spirits can never be one Numerical Infinite Mind or Spirit nor consequently one God Three distinct Spirits can never be otherwise One than by being United into one Compound or Collective Being which could such a Thing be admitted here might be called indeed an Union but an Unity properly it could not And hereupon I cannot but observe also That this Author very often uses these Terms promiscuously as if Union and Unity being United into One and being One signified the very same Thing whereas in strictness and propriety of Speech whatsoever Things are United into One cannot be Originally One and è Converso whatsoever is Originally One cannot be so by being United into One for as Suidas explains the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Union is so called from the pressing or thrusting together several Things into one But our Author who with great profoundness tells us of the same Nature in Three distinct Persons being United into One Numerical Essence or God-head Page 118. Lines 9 10. has certainly a different Notion of Union from all the World besides For how one and the same Nature though in never so many distinct Persons since it is still supposed the same in all can be said to be United into any one Thing I believe surpasses all Humane Apprehension to conceive Union in the very Nature of it being of several Things not of one and the same I desire the Reader to consult the place and
but Three Hypostases or Subsistences This keep this hold c. Theodoret also speaks very fully upon the same Subject in his first Dialogue contr Anomaeos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say Such Things as belong properly to the Divine Essence or Substance are in like manner common to Father Son and Holy Ghost But the Term Father is not common to them and therefore Father is no Property of the Essence but of the Subsistence or Person But now if one Thing be proper to the Hypostasis or Subsistence and there be other Properties of the Essence it follows That Essence and Hypostasis do not signifie one and the same thing And again a little after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The Essence or Substance of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost is common being equally and alike Immortal Incorruptible Holy and Good And for this Reason we affirm One Essence and Three Hypostases Auctarium sive Tom. 5. Theodoret. p. 286. Edit Paris 1684. Certainly nothing could with greater Evidence state the Personalities of Father Son and Holy Ghost upon Three several Subsistences than the Words here quoted out of this Father And I quote them out of him though I know the same Dialogues are inserted into Athanasius's Works but I am convinced by the reasons given by Garnerius the Learned Editor of this Auctarium that the said Dialogues cannot belong to Athanasius Next to him let us hear Basilius Seleuciensis speaking the same Thing in his first Oration upon the first Verse of the first Chapter of Genesis where upon these words Let us make Man after our own Image and Likeness he discourses thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say The Image here formed is but One but the mention here made is not of One Hypostasis or Person only but of Three For the Thing formed being the common Work of the whole Deity shews the Trinity to have been the Former thereof and so gives us one Image or Resemblance of the Trinity But if the Image of the Trinity be but One the Nature of the Hypostases or Persons must be One too For the Unity of the Image proclaims the Unity of the Substance or Essence Basil. Seleuciens Orat. 1. p. 5. Printed at Paris with Gregorius Thaumaturgus c. Anno Dom. 1622. Zacharias Sirnamed Scholasticus and sometime Metropolitan of Mitylene of the Sixth Century in his Disputation against the Philosophers who held the Eternity of the World to a certain Philosopher asking him How the Christians could acknowledg the same both a Trinity and an Unity too Makes this Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is We affirm a Trinity in Unity and an Unity in Trinity hereby affirming the Subsistences or Persons to be Three and the Essence or Substance to be only One Johannes Damascenus a Writer of the Eighth Century in his Third Book de Orthodoxâ fide Chap. 11. about the end of it speaks thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The Godhead declares the Nature but the Term Father the Subsistence as Humanity does the Humane Nature but Peter the Subsistence or Person For the Term God denotes the Divine Nature in Common and equally denominates or is ascribed to each of the Hypostases or Subsistences Damascen Page 207. Edit Basil. 1575. I shall close up these particular Testimonies with some Passages in the Creed commonly called the Athanasian which I place so low because it is manifest that Athanasius was not the Author of it it being not so much as mentioned in any Antient Writer as the very Learned Dr. Cave affirms till it occurs in Theodulphus Aurelianensis who lived about the latter end of the Eighth Century Now the Passages are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in some Copies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That is Neither confounding the Hypostases or Persons nor dividing the Substance For there is one Hypostasis of the Father another of the Son and another of the Holy Ghost but the Godhead of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is One c. And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The whole Three Hypostases or Persons are Coeternal together and Coequal These Passages are full and plain and the Creed it self may well claim the Antiquity at least of the Eighth Century My next Authorities shall be those of the Councils But before I pass to them I cannot but observe and own to the Reader concerning some of the first of my Quotations viz. those out of Justin Martyr and that out of St. Athanasius that it has been very much questioned by some Learned Men Whether those Books from whence they are taken do really belong to the Authors to whom they are ascribed and among whose Works they are inserted or no. This I say I was not ignorant of nevertheless I thought fit to quote them by the Names under which I found them placed since many very Learned Persons and much more acquainted with the Writings of the Ancients than I pretend to be have upon several Occasions done so before me And the said Tracts are certainly of a very early date and though the Authors of them should fall a Century or two lower yet they still retain Antiquity enough to make good the Point for which I alledged them Nevertheless I must and do confess it very probable That the more distinct and exact use of the Terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as applyed to the Divine Persons did not generally and commonly take place but as by degrees the Discussion of the Arian and other the like Controversies through frequent Disputes grew to still a greater and greater Maturity And that the use of these Terms did obtain then and upon that Account I think a very considerable Argument to authorize and recommend them to all Sober and Judicious Minds And so I pass to the Testimonies of Councils concerning the same Amongst which we have here in the first place the Council of Chalcedon making a Confession or Declaration of their Faith concerning the Person of our Saviour and that both as to the Absolute undivided Unity of his Person and as to the Difference and Distinction of his Two Natures part of which Confession runs thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is We confess One and the same Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God in Two Natures without Confusion c. the difference of the said Natures being by no means destroyed by their Union but rather the property of each Nature being thereby preserved and both concurring to or meeting in One Person or Hypostasis This Account of the Chalcedon Confession we have in the Second Book of Evagrius towards the latter end of the 4th Chapter and a lively Instance it is of the Council's expressing the Personality of Christ by and stating It upon Subsistence In the next place upon Justinian's calling the second Council of
Similitude besides it self to allude to and yet afterwards producing several Similitudes Allusions and Metaphors out of the Fathers to explain both this In-being and this Mutual-Consciousness by God give him a better Memory for as these things represent him no Man living would he but impart his skill could be so fit to teach the Art of Forgetfulness as himself But after all I must not omit to give the Reader notice of another of his Absurdities though of a lower rate viz. That all along Page 57. he takes a Pattern or Example and a Similitude or Metaphor for Terms equivalent whereas a Pattern or Example imports a perfect entire Resemblance between it self and the thing of which it is the Pattern and indeed approaches next to a Parallel Instance while on the other side an Agreement in any one respect or degree is sufficient to found a Metaphor or Similitude upon And therefore tho it may easily be granted this Author That there is no Pattern or Example of such an Union as is between the Father and the Son yet that does not infer that there is nothing in Nature that bears any similitude to it since this may very well be without the other as that place in Iohn 17. 11. and 21. has already proved And now I should here have finished my Remarks upon this particular Head but that there is a certain Passage in order to his proving that there is nothing in Nature like the Unity between the Father and the Son and it is this That in Substantial Unions that which comprehends is greater than that which is comprehended So that if Two Substances should be United by a Mutual-Comprehension of one another the same would be both greater and lesser than the other viz. greater as it comprehended it and less as it was comprehended by it P. 57. Now this Proposition I will neither note as Paradoxical nor absolutely affirm to be false But so much I will affirm viz. That it is nothing at all to his Purpose and that he can never prove it to be True For besides that he still confounds an Example or Parallel Case with a Similitude I would have him take notice First That this Maxim Omne continens est majus contento upon which he founds a Majority of the thing comprehending to the thing comprehended is wholly drawn from and founded upon the Observations made by the Mind of Man about Corporeal Substances endued with Quantity and Dimensions in which the Substance comprehending is and must be of a greater Dimension than the Substance comprehended But what is this to Spiritual Substances Concerning which I demand of this Author a solid Reason Why Two such Substances may not be intimately united by a Mutual-Permeation or Penetration of one another For all that can hinder such a Penetration or Permeation as far as we know is Quantity which in Spiritual Substances has no place and then if such a Mutual-Penetration be admitted these Substances will be mutually in one another and United to one another not indeed by a Comprehension of one another of which there is no need if such a thing could be but by a Mutual-Adequation or exact Coequation of one to the other so that nothing of one Substance shall exist or reach beyond or without the other but the whole of both by such a Permeation mutually exist in each other This I say I neither do nor will affirm to be actually so but I challenge this Author to prove that it cannot be so and till he can it may become him to be less confident In the next place I have one thing more to suggest to him about Substantial Unions which he talks so much of viz. That the Term is Ambiguous and may signifie either First The Union of two or more Substances together and so the Father and the Son who are not two Substances but only two Persons as has been shewn in the foregoing Chapter can never be substantially United Or Secondly It may signifie the Union of Two or more Persons in one and the same Substance which is truly and properly the Union of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity And thus though there is no Instance in Nature of Persons so united yet by way of Allusion and Similitude the Union of the three fore-mentioned Faculties of Understanding Memory and Will in one and the same Soul alledged by St. Austin may pass for a small or as this Author himself calls it Page 126. Line 28. A faint Resemblance of the Union of the said Three Divine Persons in the same Nature or Substance which according to his excellent Talent of Self-Contradiction he positively denies here in Page 57. and as positively affirms in that other now pointed at In fine this Assertion That the Father and the Son cannot possibly be One or in One another which is here the same but by Mutual-Consciousness Page 57. Line 23 24 25. unavoidably infers and implies That they are not One by Unity of Substance Unity of Essence or Unity of Nature For I am sure neither Substance Essence or Nature are Mutual-Consciousness And if the Church will endure a Man asserting this I can but deplore its Condition PARADOX If we seek for any other Essence or Substance in God says this Author but Infinite Wisdom Power and Goodness the Essence of God though considered but as one Numerical Person is as perfectly unintelligible to us as one Numerical Essence or Substance of Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity Page 69 70. Answer This Proposition is False and Absurd and to prove it so I shall lay down these following Assertions First That it is certainly much easier for Humane Reason to conceive one and the same Divine Nature or Deity as Subsisting in one single Person than in Three distinct Persons Secondly That Essence Substance Wisdom Power and Goodness are in the Divine Nature which is a pure simple Act all but one and the same Thing or Being Thirdly That notwithstanding this Essence or Substance and Wisdom Power and Goodness are formally distinct from one another That is to say The Conceptus Objectivus or proper Essential Conception of one does not imply or involve in it the proper Conception of the other Upon which Account one of them cannot properly be said to be the other Now these Three Things thus laid down it is readily granted to this Man That Essence or Substance Wisdom Power and Goodness are really one and the same Being and that therefore it is vain and foolish to seek for any Essence or Substance in God which is not also Wisdom Power and Goodness But this by his favour is not the point For if he will nevertheless say That the Divine Nature expressed by one Infinite Essence or Substance Subsisting in One Person is as unintelligible as the same Subsisting in Three distinct Persons Nay that One and the same Numerical Wisdom Power and Goodness consider'd as Subsisting only in one Person is not more Intelligible than the same
to this Socinian Objection which by a manifest Fallacy proceeds à dicto secundùm quid ad dictum simpliciter viz. That because Equality cannot belong to the Essential Glory or Majesty of the Godhead considered abstractedly from the Divine Persons therefore neither can it agree to the same Glory or Majesty upon any other Account whatsoever which is utterly false forasmuch as considered according to the Three different ways of its Subsistence in the Three Persons it may as Subsisting under any one of them be said to be equal to it self as Subsisting under the other Two PARADOX This Author represents Gregory Nyssen as first asserting a Specifick Sameness or Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons which also he makes all along to be signified by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then asserting that this Specifick Sameness or Unity of Nature makes the said Three Persons Numerically One Page 118. the latter end Answer This is too great an Absurdity for so Learned a Father to be guilty of and therefore ought to lie at this Author 's own Door for that a Specifick Sameness or Unity of Nature should make any Thing or Person Numerically One any more than a generical Unity can make Things specifically One is beyond measure senceless and illogical PARADOX Though the Fathers says he assert the singularity of the Godhead or the Numerical Unity of the Divine Essence yet they do not assert such a Numerical Unity as where there is but one Person as well as one Essence but such a Numerical Unity as there is between Three who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the very same Nature but are not merely united by a specifick Unity but by an Essential Union and therefore are Three and One Page 121 Line 15. Answer In these Words there are several Absurdities which he falsly charges upon the Fathers but ought in all Reason to take to himself As 1. He supposes a specifick Unity and an essential Unity to be distinct Unities whereas every specifick Unity or Union call it at present which you will is also an essential Unity or Union For a specifick Unity is one sort of an essential Unity which in its whole compass contains the Generical the Specifical and the Numerical and therefore thus to contra-distinguish a Species to its Genus is fit for none but such a Logician as this Author it being all one as if one should say of Peter That he is not only a Man but also a Living Creature 2. The second Absurdity is That he owns a specifick Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons which sort of Unity I have abundantly proved in Chap. 7. the Divine Nature not to be capable of for he says here of the Divine Persons That they are not merely United by a specifick Unity which Words must imply that however so united they are 3. He makes Two sorts of Numerical Unity contrary to all Rules of Logick viz. One where there are several Persons of one Nature as here in the Trinity and the other where there is but One Person as well as One Nature But let me here tell him That the Divine Nature is every whit as numerically One in the Three Persons as if there were but one Person in the Godhead and no more And in this very Thing as has been shewn does the Mysteriousness of an Unity in Trinity consist I say The Divine Nature is as Numerically One in the Three Persons as the humane Nature was numerically One in Adam while there was no other Person in the World but himself nay much more so since it is not multiplicable as that was And to affirm That the Numerical Unity of the Godhead is not so perfect or is not the very same Subsisting in Three distinct Persons as if we could imagine it to subsist but in One Subverts and Overthrows such an Unity in Trinity as the Church in all Ages hitherto has maintained PARADOX Having told us That the Fathers universally acknowledged the Operation of the whole Trinity ad Extra to be but One and from thence concluded the Unity of the Divine Nature and Essence for that every Nature has a Virtue and Energy of its own Nature being a Principle of Action and if the Energy and Operation be but One there can be but One Nature He adds within four Lines after That this is certainly true but gives no Account how Three distinct Persons come to have but One Will One Energy Power and Operation nor that any Account that he knows of can be given of it but by Mutual-Consciousness Page 124. Line 7 c. Answ. Were I not acquainted with this Man's way of Writing I should be amazed to see him in so small a compass so flatly contradict himself For will he in the first place assert in the Three Divine Persons a Numerical Unity of Nature And in the next assert also that this Unity of Nature is proved by Unity of Energy and Operation And after this tell us That this gives no Account at all how Three distinct Persons come to have but one Will and Energy Power and Operation For does not Unity of Nature in these three distinct Persons prove this While the said Unity of Nature proves Unity of Operation as the Cause proves its Effect and Unity of Operation again proves Unity of Nature as the effect proves its cause This any one of sense would think is a fair full and sufficient Account how Three distinct Persons having all but One Nature come thereby all to have but one Will Energy and Operation And should any one else argue otherwise I should think him beside himself but this Author in this Discourses like himself PARADOX Knowledge Self-reflection and Love are distinct Powers and Faculties in Men and so distinct that they can never be the same Knowledge is not Self-reflection nor Love either Knowledge or Self-reflection though they are inseparably united they are distinct P. 130. L. 11 12 c. Answ. Here also is another knot of Absurdities For First Knowledge Self-reflection and Love are not in Men distinct Powers and Faculties as this unfledged Philosopher calls them but only distinct Acts. Secondly Admitting that Knowledge were a Faculty as it is not yet I deny that Knowledge and Self-reflection would make Two distinct Faculties forasmuch as it is one and the same Intellectual Faculty which both exerts an Act of Knowledge and an Act of Reflection upon that Act of Knowledge or upon it self as producing the said Act. For which Cause it is as has been observed before that Philosophers hold that the Understanding is Facultas supra se Reflexiva all of them allowing both the direct and the reflex Acts of Knowledge to issue from the same Faculty Thirdly He says That albeit the forementioned Acts are distinct yet they are inseparably united But this also is false for whether an Act of Knowledge may be without an Act of Self-reflection as some not without Reason think it may I am sure in
which he appeared of old and the other to that Body which he was Born with in the World All which Positions are horrid and monstrous but unavoidably consequent from the foregoing Assertion But for the further Illustration of the Case I do here affirm to this Author That God is as visible in an assumed Body whether of Air or Aether or whatsoever other Materials it might be formed of as in a Body of Flesh and Blood personally united to him I say as visible For notwithstanding the great difference of these Bodies and the difference of their Union and Relation to God One being by a temporary Assumption and the other by a personal Incarnation yet no Corporeal Eye could discern this Difference during the Appearance but that one was for the time as visible as the other and therefore since both of them were truly Symbols of God's peculiar Presence the only way by which the Divine Nature becomes visible to a Mortal Eye it demonstratively overthrows that positive false Assertion of this Author That nothing can make God visible but a personal Union to a visible Nature PARADOX All the Circumstances of our Saviour's Birth and Life and Death were so punctually foretold by the Prophets and so peremptorily decreed by God that after he was come into the World there was no place for his Choice and Election And he could not shew either his Love or his Humility by choosing Poverty Death c. Page 242. Line 5. Answer This is False Absurd and Dangerous and indeed next to Blasphemous as overthrowing the whole Oeconomy of Man's Redemption by the Merits of Christ. For that which leaves no place for Choice leaves no possibility for Merit For all Merit is founded in freedom of Action and that in Choice And if Christ after his Incarnation had not this he could not Merit And whereas the Author says That Christ chose all this as the second Person of the Trinity antecedently to his Incarnation I Answer That this is indeed true but reaches not the present Case For what he did before he was Incarnate was the Act of him purely as God but a meritorious Action must still be an humane Action which could not proceed from the second Person before his Assumption of an humane Nature I readily grant and hold That the Actions of Christ's humane Nature received a peculiar Worth and Value from its Union with his Divine Person yet still I affirm that this Worth and Value was subjected and inherent in his humane Actions as such and thereby qualified them with so high a degree of Merit So that whencesoever this Merit might flow they were only his humane Actions viz. such as proceeded from him as a Man that were properly and formally meritorious And whereas this Author states the Reason of this his horrid Assertion upon the Predictions of the Prophets and the peremptory Decrees of God concerning all that belonged to or befell Christ I do here tell him That neither Predictions nor Decrees though never so punctual and peremptory do or can infringe or take away the freedom of Man's Choice or Election about the things so decreed or foretold how difficult soever it may be for humane Reason to reconcile them and if this Man will affirm the contrary he must either banish all Choice and Freedom of Action or all certain Predictions and peremptory Decrees out of the World let him choose which of these two Rocks he will run himself against for he will be assuredly split upon either This vile Assertion really deserves the Censure of a Convocation and it is pity for the Church's sake but in due time it should find it PARADOX Concerning Person and Personality he has these following Assertions which I have here drawn together from several parts of his Book viz. The Mind is a Person Page 191. Line 21 22. A Soul without a Vital Union to a Body is a Person Page 262. Line 17. And the Soul is the Person because it is the Superiour governing power and Constitutes the Person Page 268. Line 28. A Beast which has no Reasonable Soul but only an Animal Life is a Person c. Page 262. Line 18 19 20. And again We may find the Reasonable and Animal Life subsisting apart and when they do so they are Two Persons and but One Person when United Page the same at the end of it And lastly One Agent is One Person Page 268. Line 2. Answer In all these Propositions so confidently laid down by this Man there are almost as many Absurdities and Falsities as there are Words I have already shewn this of some of them in Chap. 3. and therefore I shall be the briefer in my Remarks upon them here And first for that Assertion That the Mind is a Person To this I Answer That the Mind may be taken Two ways First Either for that Intellectual Power or Faculty by which the Soul understands and Reasons Or Secondly For the Rational Soul it self In the former Sense it is but an Accident and particularly a Quality In the second it is an Essential part of the whole Man and therefore upon neither of these Accounts can be a Person For neither an Accident nor a Part can be a Person which as such must be both a Substance and a compleat Substance too And secondly Whereas he says That a Soul without a vital Union to the Body is a Person I tell him That the Soul without such an Union is still an incomplete Being as being originally and naturally designed for the Completion and Composition of the whole Man and therefore for that reason cannot be a Person And then Thirdly whereas he adds That the Soul is the Person because it is the Superiour governing Power and Constitutes the Person I answer That it is the former and does the latter only as it is the prime essential part of the whole Man and for that very cause is an incomplete Being as every part is and must be and consequently cannot be a Person In the next place for an Answer to his saying That a Beast is a Person I refer him to his own positive Affirmation pag. 69. line 18. That a Person and an Intelligent Substance are reciprocal Terms And the same may serve for an Answer to his next Absurdity That when the Reasonable and the Animal Life subsist apart they are Two Persons For the Animal Life separate from the Rational is void of all Reason and the very Definition of a Person is That it is Suppositum Rationale aut Intelligens In the last place By his saying That One Agent is One Person which I am sure he affirms universally of every single Agent he makes every Living Creature under Heaven a Person For every such Creature is endued with a Principle of Life and Action and accordingly acts by it and by so acting is properly an Agent From all which it follows That this Author as great as his Retinue may be has many more Persons in his Family
yet every Person has his own proper distinct Subsistence by himself which must make as great a difference between Existence and Subsistence as that which unites several Persons into one Nature and that which personally distinguishes them from one another And then also for Christ's Person with reference to his humanity though this subsists by the Subsistence of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet it does not properly subsist by the Existence of it since every distinct Nature must have its own distinct Existence which shews That even in the Oeconomy of this Divine Person Existence and Subsistence must be considered as formally different since something we see may relate to and be affirmed of one which cannot be affirmed of or bear the same relation to the other Now whatsoever Being or Nature this Mode of Subsistence does belong to that is properly called a Suppositum as being a thing which by no means exists in any other but as a Basis or foundation supports such things or Beings as exist in it from which also it receives its Name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Consequence of this is That as Subsistence makes a thing or Being a Suppositum so suppositality makes it incommunicable since that which makes it uncapable of existing in another must also hinder it from being Communicated to another And another Consequence of the same is That every Suppositum or Being thus Subsisting by it self is a compleat Being that is such an one as is not made for the Completion of any other For whatsoever is so must naturally exist in it as a part does in the whole or at least be originally designed so to do This Account being given of Subsistence and of a Suppositum which is Constituted such by it it will be easie to give an Account also what a Person is which is properly defined Suppositum Rationale or Intelligens So that as a Suppositum is substantia singularis completa per se subsistens so the Ratio Intellectiva being added to this makes it a Person which is a farther perfection of Suppositality and the utmost perfection of Subsistence as Subsistence and Suppositality is the utmost Bound and Perfection of Existence in all Beings not Intelligent If it be here now asked Whether Subsistence or Suppositality added to bare Nature does not make a Composition I Answer That in Created finite Persons it does but not in Uncreated and Infinite And the reason is Because though all Composition implys Union yet all Union is not therefore a Composition but something higher and transcendental so that in the Divine Persons of the Trinity The Divine Nature and the Personal Subsistence coalesce into one by an Incomprehensible Ineffable kind of Union and Conjunction And if this does not satisfie as I think it rationally may I must needs profess That my Thoughts and Words can neither rise higher nor reach further Having thus stated and fixed the signification of the fore-mentioned Terms I cannot but remark these two things of the Term or Word Essence As 1. That it is sometimes taken not only for the Ratio formalis entis but simply and absolutely for an entire Entity or Being it self And 2. That those two other Terms Nature and Form are for the most part used as Terms equipollent and of the same signification with it Nature being the Essence of a thing considered as an Active Productive Principle and Form being the Essence or Nature of a thing as it is the chief Principle giving Being and Perfection to it in the way of Composition Nevertheless it is sometimes also applyed to simple uncompounded Natures promiscuously with the other So that we see here That Essence Form and Nature generally taken are only three formally distinct Considerations of one and the same thing which I thought fit to take notice of to prevent all cavil or mistake about the use of these Terms I have now gone over and severally given an Account of the Notions of Being Substance Accident Modes of Being Essence Form Nature Subsistence and Personality and hereby I hope laid some foundation for our clearer and more intelligible discoursing of the great Article we have undertook to rescue from a false Vindication There being hardly any one of all the foregoing Terms of which a clear and distinct Notion is not highly requisite to a clear explicite and distinct consideration of the Subject now before us Concerning which I think fit to note this That so far as I can judge the thing now in dispute is not what fully and exactly expresses or represents the Nature of God for nothing can do that But what is our best and most rational way of conceiving and speaking of him and subject to fewest Inconveniences and for this we shall debate it whether this Author or we take the best course These things being thus premised and laid down we shall now resume the four Heads first proposed to be spoken of by us and Discourse of them severally And 1. I shall shew That the Ground upon which this Author excepts against the use of the Terms Substance Essence Subsistence c. in treating of this Subject is false and mistaken His Exceptions against them we find in Page 68 69 and 70. of his Book The great difficulty says he of conceiving a Trinity of Persons in one Infinite and undivided Essence or Substance arises from those gross and material Ideas we have of Essence and Substance when we speak of the Essence or Substance of God or Created Spirits We can form no Idea of Substance but what we have from matter that is something extended in a triple dimension of length breadth and depth which is the Subject of those Qualities which inhere and subsist in it And therefore as matter is the Subject of all sensible Qualities so we conceive some such Substance of a Mind or Spirit which is the Subject of Will and Understanding Thoughts and Passions and then we find it impossible to conceive how there should be three Divine Persons which are all Infinite without three distinct Infinite Substances each distinct Infinite Person having a distinct Infinite Substance of his own And if we grant this it seems a plain Contradiction to say That these three distinct Infinite Substances are but one Numerical Infinite Substance c. Thus far our Author And I freely grant That this does not only seem as he says but really is a Contradiction And before I have done with him I will prove to him also That to say That three distinct Infinite Minds are but one Numerical Infinite Mind which shall be effectually laid at his Door or That three distinct Infinite Minds are not three distinct Infinite Substances or Essences are as gross and palpable Contradictions as the other But he goes on in the same Page a little lower We know nothing says he of the Divine Essence but that God is an Infinite Mind and if we seek for any other Essence or Substance in God but an
Reason why he pitches upon Truth Wisdom and Goodness rather than upon Eternity Omnipotence and Omnipresence For these in their proportion express the Divine Nature as much as the other but neither the one nor the other can grasp in the whole Compass of the Divine Perfections so as to be properly denominable from all and every one of them as Substance and Essence and such other Terms as barely import Being are found to 〈◊〉 I conclude therefore that in our Discourses of God Essence Substance Nature and the like are so far from being necessary to be laid aside as disposing our Minds to gross and unfit Apprehensions of the Deity that they are much fitter to express and guide our thoughts about this great Subject than Truth Wisdom or Power or all of them together as importing in them both a Priority and a greater Simplicity and larger Comprehensiveness of Notion than belong to any of them and these surely are Considerations most peculiarly suted to and worthy of the Perfections of the Divine Nature I have now done with my Third Proposition and so proceed to the Fourth and last viz That the Difficulty of our Conceiving rightly of the Deity and the Divine Persons does really proceed from other Causes than those alledged by this Author I shall assign Three As First The Spirituality of the Divine Nature For God is a Spirit Joh. 4. 14. And it is certain that we have no clear explicit and distinct Idea of a Spirit And if so must we not needs find a great difficulty in knowing it For we know Things directly by the Idea's the Species Intelligibiles or Resemblances of them imprinted upon the Intellect and these are refined and drawn off from the Species Sensibiles and sensible Resemblances of the same imprinted upon the Imagination And how can a Spirit incur directly into that Indeed not at all For we can have no knowledge of a Spirit by any direct Apprehension or Intuition of it but all that we know of such Beings is what we gather by Inference Discourse and Ratiocination And that is sufficient But 2. The Second Reason of our Short and Imperfect Notions of the Deity is The Infinity of it For this we must observe That we can perfectly know and comprehend nothing but as it is represented to us under some certain Bounds and Limitations And therefore one of the chief Instruments of our Knowledge of a Thing is the Definition of it And what does that signifie but the bringing or representing a Thing under certain Bounds and Limitations as the Geeek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 manifestly imports Upon which Account what a loss must we needs be at in understanding or knowing the Divine Nature when the very way of our knowing seems to carry in it something opposite to the thing known For the way of knowing is by Desining Limiting and Determining and the Thing known is that of which there neither are nor can be any Bounds Limits Definitions or Determinations And this I think is not only a sufficient but something more than a sufficient Reason why we stumble and fail when we would either have or give a distinct Account of the Deity 3. A Third Reason of the same especially with reference to the Trinity of Persons belonging to the Divine Nature is The utter want of all Instances and Examples of this kind For when a long and constant course of Observation has still took notice that every numerically distinct Person and every Suppositum has a numerically distinct Nature appropriate to it and Religion comes afterwards and calls upon us to apprehend the same Numerical Nature as subsisting in three Numerically distinct Persons we are extreamly at a loss how to conform our Notions to it and to conceive how that can be in three Persons which we never saw before or in any thing else to be but onely in One. For humane Nature which originally proceeds by the Observations of Sense does very hardly frame to it self any Notions or Conceptions of Things but what it has drawn from thence Nay I am of Opinion That the Mind is so far governed by what it sees and observes that I verily believe that had we never actually seen the beginning or end of any Thing the generality of Men would hardly so much as have imagined That the World had ever had any beginning at all Since with the greatest part of Mankind what appears and what does not appear determines what can and what cannot be in their Opinion And thus I have shewn Three Causes which I take to be the True Causes why we are so much to seek in our Apprehensions of and Discourses about the Divine Nature and the Three Glorious Persons belonging to it And the Reason of them all is founded upon the Essential Disparity which the Mind of Man bears to so disproportionate and so transcendent an Object So that it is a vain thing to quarrel at Words and Terms especially such as the best Reason of Mankind has pitched upon as the fittest and properest and most significant to express these great Things by And I question not but in the Issue of all wise Men will find That it is not the defect of the Terms we use but the vast Incomprehensibility of the Thing we apply them to which is the True Cause of all our Failures as to a clear and distinct Apprehension and Declaration of what relates to the Godhead From all which I conclude That the Terms Essence Substance Nature c. have had nothing yet objected against them but that they may still claim the place and continue in the use which the Learned'st Men the Christian Church hath hitherto had have allotted them in all their Discourses and Disputes about the Divine Nature and the Divine Persons which are confessedly the greatest and most Sacred Mysteries in the Christian Religion But as in my time I have observed it a practice at Court That when any one is turned out of a considerable Place there it is always first resolved and that out of merit foreseen no doubt who shall succeed him in it So all this ado in dismounting the Terms Essence Substance Nature c. from their ancient Post I perceive is only to make way for these two so highly useful and wonder-working Terms Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness And therefore let us with all due and awful Reverence as becomes us expect their August appearance and for a while suffer the Mountain to swell and heave up its Belly and look big upon us and all in good time no doubt we shall have the happiness to see and admire and take our measures of the Mouse But before I close this Chapter to shew how like a Judge upon life and Death this Man sits over all the formerly received Terms by which Men were wont to discourse of God Sentencing and Condemning them as he pleases not content to have cashiered the words Essence Substance and Nature from being used about this
But the former is true and therefore the latter must be so too The Proposition is proved thus Nothing which together with the Body Constitutes a Person is or can be it self a Person For if it be then the Body must be joyned to it either by being assumed into the Personal Subsistence of the Soul as the Human Nature of Christ is assumed into the Personal Subsistence of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereupon the Composition and Constitution of a Man will be an Hypostatick Union between Soul and Body which I suppose no body will be either so bold or absurd as to affirm all Divines accounting an Hypostatical Union so peculiar to Christ's Person as not to be admitted in any other Person or Being whatsoever For an Hypostatick Union and an Hypostatick Composition viz. Such an one as makes a Compound Hypostasis are quite different things and this Author shall in due time be taught so much if he has any thing to object against it Or Secondly The Body must be joyned with the Soul as one part joyntly concurring with another to the Composition of the whole Person And if so then the Soul being a Part cannot possibly be a Person Forasmuch as a Part is an Incomplete Being and therefore in the very Nature of it being designed for the Completion of something else must subsist in and by the Subsistence of the whole But a Person imports the most complete Degree and Mode of Being as Subsisting wholly by it self and not in or by any other either as a Subject of Inherence or Dependence So that it is a direct Contradiction to the very Definition and Nature of the Thing for the same Being to be a Part and a Person too And consequently that which makes the Soul the former does irrefragably prove it not to be the other Besides if the Soul in the Composition of a Man's person were an entire person it self and as such concurred with the Body towards the Constitution of the Man then a Man would be an Imperfect Accidental and not a Perfect Natural Compound He would be that which Philosophy calls Unum per Accidens that is a thing made up of two such Beings as cannot perfectly coalesce and unite into one For a Complete Being as every Person essentially is having received the utmost degree of Subsistence which its Nature can give it if it comes afterward to be compounded with another Being whether Complete or Incomplete it must necessarily make such a loose unnatural Union and Composition But to assert That the person of a Man is such a Compound would be exploded by all who understood any thing of Natural Philosophy So that it would be a very idle thing to attempt any further Confutation of it Let this Author overthrow these Reasonings and support his Assertion against them if he can But having thus disproved the Personality of the Soul while in Conjunction with the Body I go on to disprove it also while in a state of Separation from it Which I do thus If the Soul in such a state be a Person then it is either the same Person which the Man himself was while he was living and in the Body or it is another Person But to Assert either of them is extreamly Absurd and therefore equally Absurd That the Soul in such a state should be a Person And First It is Absurd to affirm it to be the same Person For a Person compounded of Soul and Body as a Man is and a simple uncompounded Person as the Soul if a Person at all must needs be can never be numerically one and the same For that differing from one another as Simple and Compound they differ as two things whereof one implies a Contradiction and Negation of the other A Compound as such including in it several parts compounding it And a simple Being utterly excluding all Parts and Composition So that if a Man while alive be one Person and his Soul after his Death be a Person too it is impossible for the Soul to be one and the same Person with the Man And then for the other part of the Disjunction To Assert That they are two distinct Persons is as Absurd as the other as drawing after it this Consequence viz. That it is one Person who lives well or ill in this World to wit the Man Himself while he was personally in the Body and another Person who passes out of the Body into Heaven or Hell there to be rewarded or punished at least till the Resurrection for what that other Person had done well or ill here upon Earth And does not this look mightily agreeable to all the Principles of Reason and Divinity Nevertheless so much is certain That wheresoever there are two distinct Persons we do and must by all the Rules of Grammar and Logick say That one of them is not the other and where one is not the other we cannot in Truth or Justice say That one ought to account for what was done or not done by the other But then if it be intolerably Absurd as no doubt it is That the Soul in the other World should not be responsible for what the Man himself in Person had done in this then it is altogether as Absurd and Intolerable for any one to represent and speak of these Things under such Terms and Notions as must necessarily throw all Discourse and Reasoning about them into Paradox and Confusion But 't is needless to insist any longer upon a thing so clear or to add any other Arguments in so plain a Case And indeed to me the Soul 's thus changing its state forwards and backwards from one manner of Subsistence to another looks very odd and unnatural As that from an Incomplete state in the Body it should pass to a Personal and Complete state out of the Body which state is yet preternatural to it and then fall back into an Incomplete state again by its re-union to the Body at the Resurrection which yet one would think should rather improve our principal parts in all respects not merely relating to the Animal Life as the bare Subsistence of them I am sure does not These things I say seem very uncouth and improbable and such as ought not without manifest Necessity to be allowed of which here does not appear since all this Inconvenience may be avoided by holding That the Soul continues but a Part of the whole Person and no more in all its Conditions And thus having proved our Assertion against the Personality of the Soul Whether in the Body or out of it let us now see what may be opposed to it And here I suppose some will object That the Soul in a state of Separation is not properly a Part forasmuch as it exists not in any Compound nor goes to the Composition of it To which I answer That an Actual Inexistence in a Compound is not the onely Condition which makes a Thing a Part but its Essential Relation to a Compound
Reason of it is with equal mistake and impertinence alledged by him in this case For he might and should have known That personal Acts are often ascribed to Faculties Vertues and Graces not in strict propriety of Philosophical speaking but Tropically and Figuratively by a Figure which he shall hear further of hereafter called Prosopopoeia which represents Things that are not Persons speaking and doing as if they were so But besides this there are here two Things which this Author takes for granted which yet such dull Mortals as my self will be apt a little to demurr to As First That he takes the Mind and the Soul of Man for one and the same thing whereas very Learned Men both Grammarians and Philosophers hold That in Men there is a great difference between Animus and Anima and that as Anima imports the Spiritual Substance which we call the Soul so Animus signifies only a Power or Faculty viz. The Supreme Intellectual Reasoning Governing Faculty of the Soul or at least the Soul it self considered as exerting the forementioned Acts. But whether it be one or the other we have sufficiently proved against this Author That neither of them can be a Person The other Thing here supposed by him is the Unity or Sameness of the Powers or Faculties of the Soul with the Soul it self which yet the Peripateticks generally and most of the School-men with Thomas Aquinas in the Head of them do positively deny and think they give very good Reason for such their Denial For if Substances and Accidents are Beings really distinct and if Qualities be Accidents and the Powers and Faculties of the Soul come under the second Species of Quality as Aristotle reckons them then it is manifest that they are really distinguished and that there is no Identity between them Nor does there want a further Reason for the same For since the bare Substance or Essence of the Soul considered nakedly in it self may rationally be supposed undetermined and therefore Indifferent to all those Acts or Actions that naturally proceed from it and since withal bare Objects can of themselves neither enable nor dispose the Agent to exert any Action there seems a Necessity of asserting the Intervention of some Third Thing distinct from both which may thus enable dispose and determine the Soul to exert it self in such a particular way of acting rather than another sutably to the several Objects which shall come before it which thing is properly that Quality residing in the Soul which we call a Faculty or Power And this to me seems the true Philosophy of the matter But I need not here press the Decision of the Case one way or other as not directly affecting the Point in debate between us Only I thought fit to suggest these Remarks to check this Author 's bold unwary way of dictating and affirming in things disputable and dubious and to remind him how much it becomes and concerns one that writes Controversies to be more liberal in his Proofs and less lavish in his Assertions But before I quit this Point about the Personality of the Soul since this Author has so absolutely and expresly affirmed That the Soul or Mind of Man is a Person and given this for the Reason of it That being the Superiour Governing Power in Man it does as such Constitute the Person over and above the Arguments which have been already brought for the Confutation of it I desire to leave with him two or three Questions which seem naturally to rise from this Wonderful Position As First Whether the Soul or Mind of Man be one Person and the Man himself Another Secondly Whether the asserting of the Soul to be a Person because it Constitutes the Person does not infer so much viz. That the Soul is the Person that Constitutes and the Man the Person that is Constituted unless we will say That the Soul Constitutes it self a Person And then Thirdly Whether to say or assert this does not infer Two distinct Personalities in the same Soul one in order of Nature before the other viz. That by which it is it self formally a Person and that other which by its Constituting it self a Person is Constituted and caused by it But since it is too hard a Task to drain any one Absurdity especially a very great one so as to draw forth and represent all its naturally descending Consequences I desire the Author with the utmost if Impartial strictness to compare the foregoing Questions with his own Assertion and to see First Whether they do not directly spring from it And next Whether the Matter couched under the said Questions if drawn out into so many Positive Propositions would not afford as many Intolerable Defiances to Common Sense Reason and Philosophy But thus it is when Men will be Writing at Thirty and scarce Thinking till Threescore But to proceed and shew That it is not only the Soul or Mind of Man which our Author dignifies with the Name and Nature of a Person but that he has almost as free an hand in making every thing he meets with a Person as K. Charles the Second had in making almost every Person he met with a Knight So that it was very dangerous for any one who had an Aversion to Knighthood to come in his way our Author out of the like Over-flowing Communicative Goodness and Liberality is graciously pleased to take even the Beasts themselves into the Rank and Order of Persons in some imitation I suppose of the Discreet and Humble Caligula so famous in History for making his Horse Consul And for this Let us cast our Eyes upon Page 262. where he has these words worthy in sempiternam rei memoriam to be wrote in Letters of Gold A Beast says he which has no Rational Soul but only an Animal Life as a Man has together with an Humane Soul is a Person or Suppositum or what you will please to call it But by your favour Good Sir the Matter is not so indifferent for Person and Suppositum are by no means the same Thing and I pity you with all my heart that you should think so For any single Complete Nature actually subsisting by it self is properly a Suppositum but not therefore a Person For as Subsistence superadded to Nature Constitutes a Suppositum so Rationality added to Suppositality Constitutes a Person which is therefore properly defined Suppositum Rationale or Intelligens as we have sufficiently shewn already in our Second Chapter So that to call a Beast a Person is all one as to call it a Rational Brute Which this Author who can so easily reconcile Contradictions or which may serve him as well swallow them may do if he pleases and so stand alone by himself in this as well as he says he had done in some other Things But others who think themselves obliged to use Philosophical Terms only as Philosophers intended them dare not venture to speak thus for fear Aristotle should bring an
But what is this to our Author's Purpose And how does he prove this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be Mutual Consciousness Why truly by no Argument or Reason produced or so much as offered at by him but only by a confident Over-bearing Affirmation That there is no other Account to be given of that Mutual In-being of the Divine Persons in each other which the Fathers call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but by Mutual Consciousness Page 125. Lines 6 7 8. But by his leave I must debate the case a little with him before he carries it off so And in order to this I must tell him in the first place That the Question is not whether Mutual Consciousness best explains this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but whether it be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons And in the next place I demand of him Whether our Saviour's Words do not plainly and expresly signifie the Mutual In-being or In existence of the Persons in one another without any signification of their Mutual Consciousness at all And if so let me hear a Reason Why we should not take our Saviour's meaning from the Native signification of his own Words rather than from those of this Author For will he venture to affirm That the Father cannot be in the Son and the Son in the Father by a Mutual In-existence in one another but only by a Mutual Knowledge of one another Let him take heed what he says and how he ventures beyond his Depth Or will he say That our Saviour meant the same Thing with himself but was not so happy in expressing it For no other Reason but one of these two can be assigned That when our Saviour expresses himself in Terms importing Mutual In-existence this Man shall dare to say That he means nothing by them but Mutual Consciousness I referr it to the Serious and Impartial Reader to Judge of the Horrible Boldness of this Man and withal to observe how extremely he varies from himself about this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Mutual Consciousness For First He sometimes says That Mutual Consciousness is the only thing wherein both the Unity of the Divine Nature and this Mutual In-dwelling of the three Divine Persons does Consist Page 124. lines 4 5. And Secondly He says That Mutual Consciousness is the only thing that can explain or give an account of this Mutual In-dwelling or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Page 125. lines 6 7. To which I Answer That when he speaks of giving an account of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if he means only an Account that there is such a Thing belonging to the Divine Persons our Saviour's Words have given a sufficient Account of that already But Secondly If he means such an Account of it as explains and makes clear to us the Nature of it by shewing what it is and how it is I deny that any such Account can be given or perhaps understood by Humane Reason and much less that his Mutual Consciousness does or can give it Concerning which I shall ask him this one Question viz. Whether the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are not Mutually Conscious to one another of their Mutual In-existence in one another I suppose he will not because he dares not deny it And if he grants it then it manifestly follows That their Mutual In-existence in one another is in Order of Nature before their Mutual Consciousness and consequently cannot be the same with it nor consist in it For certainly those Divine Persons must Exist Mutually in one another before they can know or be Conscious to themselves that they do so So that we see here that nothing is or can be concluded from this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for his Mutual Consciousness whether we consider the Use of the Word or the Nature of the Thing But let us see how he makes good his Point from the Authority of the Fathers which was the grand Thing undertook by him in this his 4th Section And here as for the Fathers he both Despises and Reproaches them and that very grosly too For first he tells us That such an Union amongst the Divine Persons as is expressed by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they all agree in but how to explain it they knew not Page 125. lines 17 18. And why then in the Name of God does he referr to the Fathers to justifie his Explanation of that which in the very same Breath he says They knew not how to Explain And the Truth is the Fathers never owned themselves able to explain it and that for a very good Reason viz. because they held it unexplicable and unconceivable and not for that scandalous Reason given by him viz. That they had gross Material Conceptions of the Deity by conceiving of it as of a Substance Page 125. lines 27 28. For says he within two lines after Had they Contemplated God as a pure Mind it had been easie to explain this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Indwelling of the Divine Persons in each other Good God! That any Professor of Divinity should call that easie to explain which the Reason of all Mankind has hitherto bent under as a thing too great and mysterious for it to comprehend or to grapple with So that if ever we have cause to cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is here Or that he should tax all those who own themselves at a loss about it for not Contemplating God as a pure Mind But to him I confess who can conceive of such a pure Mind as is no Substance that is to say in other words No being For I am sure he will not so much as pretend it to be an Accident to Him I say I cannot wonder if nothing seem difficult or mysterious In the mean time it is shameless and insufferable in this Man to say as he does Page 100 101. That his Explication of the Trinity is not new but the same with that of the Fathers and afterwards in pursuance of this Assertion to say That the Fathers knew not how to explain it and to give this as a Reason of their not knowing how to do so viz. That they had such gross Notions of God that they could not conceive rightly of this Mystery For this he has roundly affirmed and therefore ought in all Reason either to prove this Charge upon the Fathers or to give the World and the Church of England in particular satisfaction for speaking so falsely and scandalously of such glorious Lights and principal Pillars of the Christian Church and such as I dare say never Preached nor Prayed in any Conventicle But what the Doctrine of the Fathers is concerning this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and how they understood those words of our Saviour expressed by this Term is manifest from the Testimony of two or three of them which I shall set down as in so known a
case abundantly sufficient St. Cyril of Alexandria says expresly Christ's saying that he is in the Father and the Father in him shews the Indentity of the Deity and the Unity of the Substance or Essence And so likewise Athanasius Accordingly therefore says he Christ having said before I and my Father are one He adds I am in the Father and the Father in me that he might shew both the Identity of the Divinity and the Unity of Essence And so again St. Hilary The Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father by the Unity of an inseparable Undivided Nature By which Passages I suppose any Man of sense will perceive That the thing which the Fathers meant and gathered from those words of our Saviour since expressed by this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was no Unity of Mutual Consciousness which they never mention but an Unity of Essence or Nature which they expresly and constantly do Nor does this very Author deny it as appears from his own words though he quite perverts the sence of the Fathers by a very senceless Remark upon them Page 125. lines 20 21. This Sameness or Unity of Nature says he might be the Cause of this Union in the Divine Persons viz by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but not explain what this Intimate Union is Now this Author has been already told That the Question here is not what explains this Union but what this Union is But besides this his mistake of the Question I desire him to declare what he means by the Cause of this Union as he here expresses himself For will he make an Union as he calls an Unity in the Divine Persons by Sameness of Nature a Cause of their Intimate Union by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mutual In-being of them in each other and affirm also this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the same thing with Mutual Consciousness If he does so he makes the same thing the Cause of it self For the Sameness of Nature in the three Persons and their Mutual In-being or Indwelling are the very same thing and the same Unity though differently expressed But however if we take him at his own word it will effectually overthrow his Hypothesis For if the Sameness of the Divine Nature in the three Persons be as he says the cause of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be the same with Mutual Consciousness it will and must follow That this Sameness or Unity of Nature can no more consist in Mutual Consciousness than the Cause can consist in its Effect or the Antecedent in its Consequent And this Inference stands firm and unanswerable against him But as to the Truth of the Thing it self though we allow and grant the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons and the Mutual In-being or In-dwelling of the said Persons in each other to be the same Thing yet we deny That this their Mutual In-being is the same with their Mutual Consciousness But that their Mutual Consciousness follows and results from it and for that cause cannot be formally the same with it And so I have done with his 3d. Argument which he has drawn from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is indeed nothing else but a bold down-right Perversion of Scripture and a gross Abuse of the Fathers 4. His fourth Argument is from an Allegation out of St. Austin who though he does not as our Author confesses Name this Mutual Consciousness yet he explains a Trinity in Unity as he would perswade us by Examples of Mutual Consciousness particularly by the Unity of three Faculties of Understanding Memory and Will in the same Soul all of them Mutually Conscious to one another of the several Acts belonging to each of them And his 9th Book is spent upon this Argument In which he makes the mind considered with its knowledge of it self and its love of it self all three of them as he says but one and the same Thing a faint Resemblance of the Trinity in Unity And this is what he Argues from St. Austin To which I Answer First That Faint Resemblances are far from being solid Proofs of any Thing and that although similitudes may serve to illustrate a thing otherwise proved yet they prove and conclude nothing The Fathers indeed are full of them both upon this and several other Subjects but still they use them for Illustration only and nothing else And it is a scurvy sign that Proofs and Arguments run very low with this Author when he passes over those Principal Places in which the Fathers have plainly openly and professedly declared their Judgment upon this great Article and endeavours to gather their sence of it only from Similitudes and Allusions which looks like a design of putting his Reader off with something like an Argument and not an Argument and of which the Tail stands where the Head should For according to the true Method of proving things the Reason should always go first and the Similitude come after but by no means ought the Similitude ever to be put instead of the Reason But Secondly To make it yet clearer how unconclusive this Author's Allegation from St. Austin is I shall demonstrate That this Father does not here make use of an Example of Mutual Consciousness by shewing the great disparity between the thing alledged and the thing which it is applyed to and that as to the very Case which it is alledged for For we must observe That the Mutual Consciousness of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity is such as is fully and entirely in each Person so that by virtue thereof every one of them is truly and properly Conscious of all that belongs to the other Two But it is by no means so in those three Faculties of the Soul Understanding Memory and Will For though the Understanding indeed be Conscious to all that passes in the Will yet I deny the Will to be Conscious to any Thing or Act that passes either in the Understanding or the Memory and it is impossible it should be so without exerting an Act of Knowledge or Intellection which to ascribe to the Faculty of the Will would be infinitely absurd It is true indeed That one and the same Soul is Conscious to it self of the Acts of all these three Faculties But still it is by virtue of its Intellectual Faculty alone that it is so And the like is to be said of its Knowledge and of its Love of it self For though it be the same Soul which both Knows and Loves it self yet it neither knows it self by an Act of Love nor loves it self by an Act of Knowledge any more than it can Will by an Act of the Memory or Remember by an Act of the Will which is impossible and amongst other proofs that it is so it seems to me a very considerable one That if a Man could remember by his Will this Author in all likelyhood would not forget
Constantinople being the Fifth General one in the Year 553 for Condemning of the Tria Capitula we have a large and Noble Confession of Faith made by that Emperour and owned and applauded by all the Council and inserted amongst the Acts of it And in this we have the Three Divine Persons several times expressed by so many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Term equivalent to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and indeed importing withall the Personality or Formal Reason of the same and that so fully and plainly that nothing could or can be more so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That is We profess to Believe One Father Son and Holy Ghost Glorifying thereby a Consubstantial Trinity One Deity or Nature or Essence and Power and Authority in Three Subsistences or Persons And again to the same purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We worship says he an Unity in Trinity and a Trinity in Unity having both a strange and wonderful Distinction and Union that is to say an Union or Singularity in respect of the Substance or God-head and a Trinity in respect of Properties Subsistences or Persons with several more such Passages to the same Purpose and Signification And then as for the Council it self the first Canon of it speaks thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is If any one Confess not One Nature or Substance One Power and Authority of Father Son and Holy Ghost a Coessential Trinity and One Deity to be Worshipped in Three Subsistences or persons Let such an one be Accursed In the next place we have the Sixth General Council and the Third of Constantinople called by Constantinus Pogonatus against the Monothelites in the Year 681. In the Acts of which Council Article 6. we have the Council owning the same Thing and in the same words which a little before we quoted out of the Council of Chalcedon And moreover in the Tenth Article the Council declares it self thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That is We believing our Lord Iesus Christ to be the True God do affirm in him Two Distinct Natures shining forth in One Subsistence or Person Agreeably to this the Council immediately following called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by the â—atines Concilium Quini Sextum Consisting chiefly of the same Persons with the former and called by the same Constantine about Ten Years after for the making of Canons about Discipline by way of Supplement to the Fifth and Sixth Councils which had made none This Council I say in the first of its Canons which is as a kind of Preface owns and applauds the Nicene Fathers for that with an Unanimous Agreement and consent of Faith they had declared and cleared up one Consubst antiality in the Three Hypostases or Subsistences of the Divine Nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And Lastly in the Florentine Council held in the Fif teenth Century in which the Greeks with their Emperor Iohannes Palaeologus met the Latines in order to an Accord between them touching that so much controverted Article about the Procession of the Holy Ghost In this Council Isay we have the Greeks also expressing the Personality of the Holy Ghost by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For whereas the Latines affirmed that the Holy Ghost the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say stream or flow from the Son the Greeks desired them to explain what they meant by that Expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and whether they understood that he derived both his Essence and Personality from him and that in these words very significant to our purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By which we see that even with these Modern Greeks also the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is all one with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifie Essence and Person as applyed to the Persons of the Blessed Trinity Hist. Concil Florent in the last Chapter and Question 7. of Section 8. Pag. 246. set forth by Dr. Creyghton 1660. I cannot think it requisite to quote any Thing more from the Greeks upon this Subject it being as clear as the Day that both Fathers and Councils stated the Personalities of Father Son and Holy Ghost upon Three distinct Hypostases or Subsistences of one and the same God-head Essence or Substance distinguished thereby into Three Persons And so I pass from the Greeks to the Latines whom we shall find giving an Account of the same partly by subsistences and Modes of subsistence and partly by Relations But not equally by both in all Ages of the Church For we have before shewn That there was a long and sharp Contest between the Greeks and the Latines about the Word Hypostasis and that the Latines dreaded the use of it as knowing no other Latin Word to render it by but Substantia which they could by no means ascribe plurally to God and as for the Word Subsistentia that was not then accounted properly Latin and it was but upon this occasion and to fence against the Ambiguity of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it came at length into use amongst the Latines And even after all it must be yet further confessed That notwithstanding that fair foundation of Accord between the Greeks and Latines laid by the forementioned Council of Alexandria and the hearty Endeavours both of Athanasius and of Gregory Nazianzen after him to accommodate the business between them the Latines were not so ready to come over to the Greeks in the free use of the Word Hypostasis as the Greeks were to comply withthe Latines in the use of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 answering to their Persona And therefore in vain would any one seek for an Explication of the Divine Persons in the Trinity by the Terms Subsistentiae or Modi Subsistendi in the earlier Latin Writers such as Tertullian about the latter end of the second Century and St. Cyprian about themiddle of the Third and Lactantius about the latter end of the same and the beginning of the Fourth Nevertheless find it we do in the Writers of the following Ages And how and in what sence it was used by them shall be now considered And here we will begin with St. Ambrose who is full and clear in the case in his Book in Symbolum Apostolicum Cap. 2. Tom. 2. in these Words Ità ergò rectum Catholicum est ut unum Deum secundùm Unitatem Substantiae fateamur Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum in suâ quemque Subsistentiâ sentiamus A Passage so very plain that nothing certainly could more effectually declare That this Father reckoned the Personalities of the Three Divine Persons to consist in their several and respective Subsistences The next whom we shall alledge is St. Hilary who flourished in the Fourth Century and wrote Twelve Books
examined and laid open in the foregoing Animadversions I shall now set down without any further Descant or Enlargement upon them or at least with very little But as for those which I there passed over without any Notice or Remark as I did it all along with full purpose to treat of them by themselves so I shall particularly insist upon them now And the Reader may please to take them as they follow PARADOX It is a vain and arrogant presumption says this Author to say What is or what is not a Contradiction when we confess we do not understand or comprehend the thing we speak of p. 4. And again I know nothing in the World that we do perfectly understand p. 7. line 19. Answer According to these Two Assertions taken together I affirm That though a Man discourses never so falsly and inconsistently of God or indeed of any thing in the World besides yet he cannot justly be charged as guilty of a Contradiction And moreover since this Author affirms page 97 That for any one to say That Three Divine Persons who are divided and separated from each other are each of them God and yet that they are not Three Gods but one God is a direct Contradiction I desire to know of him Whether he comprehends what the Godhead and what the Divine Persons are And if not Whether according to his own Rule it is not a vain and arrogant Presumption in him to say what is a Contradiction when he professes himself not to comprehend the thing he is speaking of and about which the Contradiction is said to be PARADOX This Author having declared the Intimate and Essential Unity between the Father and the Son from those Words of our Saviour John 14th Chap. 10. Ver. I am in the Father and the Father in me Subjoyns That this Oneness between them is such an Union as there is nothing in Nature like it and we cannot long doubt what kind of Union this is if we consider that there is but one possible way to be thus United and that is by this Mutual-Consciousness p. 57. Answer These Words I charge with Contradiction and consequently with Absurdity upon two Accounts First because they Contradict our Saviour's Words And Secondly Because they Contradict the Author 's own Words 1. And first concerning those of our Saviour Whereas this Author says That this Oneness between the Father and the Son is such an Union as there is nothing in Nature like it Our Saviour in Iohn Ch. 17. where this whole Passage is repeated twice affirms something to be like it viz. in ver 11. where he prays to his Father That they viz. Believers may be One as We viz. his Father and Himself are One And again ver 21. That they may be One as thou Father art in me and I in thee So that our Saviour expresly asserts a Likeness of something to this Union on the one side and this Author as expresly denies it on the other In which according to his blundering undistinguishing way he confounds Likeness and Sameness of kind as all One as shall presently be further shewn In the next place our Saviour as plainly as Words can express a Thing says That he and his Father are One by a Mutual In-being or In-existence in one another And this Man as expresly says That there is no possible way for them to be one but by Mutual-Consciousness But I on the contrary deny That Mutual-Consciousness is Mutual-Inexistence or Mutual-Inexistence Mutual-Consciousness any more than that Being or Existence is properly Consciousness or Knowledge and therefore if they cannot possibly be one but by Mutual Consciousness it is certain that they are not so by Mutual-Inexistence which yet our Saviour in Words properly and naturally signifying Inexistence affirms that they are And the more intolerable is this Assertion in this Author for that in Pag. 56. he affirms that these Words of our Saviour ought to be understood properly and if so I hope they do not only exclude Metaphors but all other Tropes and Figures also for Proper is not adequately opposed to Metaphorical but to Figurative whatsoever the Figure be And I do here affirm That if our Saviour's words be understood of Mutual-Consciousness they do not signifie properly but figuratively and the Figure is a Metonymy of the Subject for the Adjunct forasmuch as in God Being or Inexistence are to be look'd upon as the Subject and Knowledge and the like Attributes as the Adjuncts And therefore I do here tell this bold Man again that for him to say as he does that the forementioned words of our Saviour ought to be understood properly and yet to interpret them to a sense not Proper but Figurative which by interpreting them of Mutual-Consciousness he evidently does is both an Absurdity and a Presumption equally insufferable But in the 2d Place I charge the forecited Passage of this Author with the same Absurdity for being as Contradictory to his own words as it was to those of our Saviour For whereas he here says First That this Oneness between the Father and the Son expressed in those words I am in the Father and the Father in me can be no other kind of Union than an Union by Mutual-consciousness And Secondly That it is such an one that there is nothing in Nature like it I desire him to turn to Page 106. of his Book where he tells us That the Fathers use several Examples and allude to several sorts of Union thereby to form a Notion of the Unity of the Godhead in the Three Divine Persons Let him I say read this and tell me Whether those Examples and Allusions could be of any use to form a Notion of that Unity to which they bore no Resemblance at all For I for my part ever thought that there can be no Allusion of one thing to another without some similitude between them and that a similitude is always on both sides it being not possible for Peter to be like Iohn but Iohn must be like Peter too And if this Man does not yet blush at such contradictory Assertions let him turn a little farther to Page 126 127. where he tell us particularly that St. Austin explains this Unity by Examples of Mutual-Consciousness and by several Similitudes mark the words of which the Unity of Understanding Memory and Will with the Soul of Man is alledged by him for One and that a notable one too for that these Faculties as he there says are mutually in one another and the Example of Love and Knowledge in the same Mind is alledged by him as another such a Simile affirming them in like manner to be mutually in one another Now I say after all this ought not the Reader to stand amazed when he reads the Man first affirming that the Unity between the Father and the Son mutually existing in one another by virtue of the Mutual-Consciousness between them has nothing like it in Nature nor has any Example Metaphor or
Subject supporting it and without which it cannot exist or support it self Which Division being made by Terms contradictory viz. Inhering in another and not inhering in another must needs be adequate and perfect and fully comprehensive of the whole that is divided thereby But now besides these two Terms of Substance and Accident there is another assigned by Logicians Metaphysicians and School-men called a Mode of Being viz. such a thing as being added to another does not make any addition of another Being or degree of Being to it but only restrains and determines it and may be defined an Affection of a thing or Being by which the Nature of it otherwise indeterminate and indifferent is determined to some certain respect state or condition Thus whereas the Nature of a thing may be considered either as yet in its Causes or as actually produced and existing out of them either of these is a Mode of that Nature the first rendring it only Potential the other Actual Nor is this a meer Ens Rationis forasmuch as it affects the Being of a thing antecedently to any Operation of the mind passing upon it And the Reason assigned by some Logicians for the allowing and asserting these Modes is this That some things must necessarily be admitted to belong to Being which are not Beings themselves to prevent an Infinite progress in Beings For since every thing is capable of being defined or described and yet nothing can be defined merely by it self an Identical Proposition being no Definition it must needs be defined by somewhat or other distinct from it self but now if that be also a Being then that likewise must be defined by another Being and that by another and so on in insinitum which would be most absurd Whereas if this definition or description of a thing be made by some Modus of it which is not strictly and properly a Being it self the thing presently stops here without any necessity of proceeding to any more Beings But perhaps it will be here said if these Modes are not so many meer Nothings or Entia Rationis what order or rank shall they be placed in Since those ten heads of Being which we call Predicaments cannot seem the proper Receptacles of things which we own not to be properly or formally Beings I Answer That though they are not Beings properly so called and so not directly and upon their own Account placeable under any of the Ten fore-mentioned Heads of Being yet since they are Appendages of Being as cleaving to it and depending upon it they are accounted under and reduced to those respective Heads or genera of Being to which the Beings modified by them do directly belong Now the Nature of these Modi being thus accounted for we are in the next place to take notice of the difference resulting from them which we call Modal and that is either between two or more such Modes differing from one another as the Personalities belonging to several Persons differ amongst themselves or when a thing or Being differs from the Mode affecting it or Lastly When several things thus modified or affected do by vertue of those Modes differ from one another and thus the Persons in the Blessed Trinity may be said to differ amongst themselves I proceed now to those other Terms of Essence Existence Nature Subsistence and Personality And first for Essence As I shewed that Ens or Being might be truly defined That which is so Essence may be as truly and properly defined That by which a thing is what it is that is to say by which it is Constituted in such a kind or order of Being And this difference I take to be founded in the different ground upon which we conceive of the same thing Accordingly the Essence of a thing no less than the thing it self may be considered either as yet in the Power of its Causes and only producible by them or as actually existing and produced by them By which we see that an Essence as such may be indifferent to exist or not exist and that from hence springs the difference between Essence and Existence There is indeed a Reality ascribed to it even without Existence But that is not properly a reality in the thing it self but partly in respect of the power of its Causes enabling them to produce it and partly because it is properly the Subject of Science and capable of having true Propositions formed of it and Demonstrations built upon it As we may form as true Propositions of a Rose in Winter and demonstrate all the Properties of it as of their proper Subject by their proper respective Principles as well as while it is actually flourishing upon the Tree And this is all the reality which I think can be ascribed to Essence in its separation from Existence As for Existence it self it may be defined that Mode or Affection of Being by which a thing stands actually produced out of the power of its Causes or at least not actually included in any Cause in which sense God himself does exist From whence it appears That in Created Beings Essence bears no such necessary Connexion with Existence since it is not necessarily included in the Nature of any finite Being that it must needs be produced or actually Exist But it must be confessed That Existence being a perfection and in God especially a very great one must of necessity be included in his very Essence as containing in it formally or eminently all sorts or degrees of perfection The next Term is Subsistence which is a Mode of Being by which a thing exists by it self without existing in another either as a part in the whole or an Adjunct in the Subject I say an Adjunct not an Accident for a Substance may be an Adjunct And I think if we would assign a way by which the humane Nature of Christ exists in the Person of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we shall hardly find out a fitter than to say That it exists in it as an Adjunct in the Subject For it is certain That it does not exist in it as a part in the whole since by this means the second Person in the Trinity must till his Incarnation have wanted one part of his Person But I shall not be positive in the Application of this Term here In the mean time it must be observed That Essence and Subsistence really differ so far as a Modal difference is reduced to a Real not only in Created Beings but also in Uncreate In Created it is evident forasmuch as a part divided from the whole loses the Subsistence which it had from thence but still continues its Existence as being still a Substance actually subsisting by it self and not inhering in any Subject as Accidents do Nor is it less evident in the Deity it self and the Divine Persons belonging to it For one and the same undivided Existence as well as one and the same Essence or Nature belongs to all the three Persons equally whereas
Action of Battery against them who certainly has a Pate to break as well as Priscian and is as sensible of hard usage how patiently soever he has took it hitherto at this Author's hands But to give the said Author his due he is not so much a Slave to his word as to speak the same Thing in all places of his Book For to quote his own Authority though of little value but when brought against himself in page 62. of this very Tract he has these words A Person says he and an Intelligent Substance are Reciprocal Terms And are they so Why how then comes a Beast in page 269. to be a Person Is a Beast an Intelligent Substance Or can a Beast be a Person and yet not an Intelligent Substance when he affirms That they are Terms Reciprocal If I have not quoted this Author fairly and justly let the Advantage be his and the shame mine But if I have then let all the Learned and Impartial World which I appeal to judge whether one who talks thus Ignorantly and Self-Contradictiously about the Nature of a Person be fit to prescribe to the whole Church New Terms and Models never heard of before to explicate the Persons of the Sacred Trinity by But the Truth is the distance between the 69. and the 262. pages was so great and the Contradictions which passed within that compass so Numerous that how gross and bulky soever this one might be yet with the help of a little good luck it might well escape the Author's Eye in such a Crowd And perhaps it had been never the worse luck for the Author Himself if it could as easily have escaped the Reader 's Eye too And now to sum up in short the Chief Heads of what has been treated of in this Chapter I have proved against this Author That Self-Consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality in Created Beings And that first by an Argument drawn from the very Nature of the Thing For that Self-Consciousness presupposes Personality and therefore cannot be the formal Reason of it As also from two Notable Instances One of the Humanity or Humane Nature of Christ. The other of the Soul of Man in its state of Separation from the Body Both of which I have shewn to be perfectly Self-Conscious of all the Internal Acts Motions and Passions respectively belonging to each of them and yet that they were neither of them Persons And pursuant to this Subject I have by clear and solid Reasons overthrown the pretended Personality of the Soul both in a state of Conjunction with the Body and of Disjunction from it which in both is asserted by this Author And Lastly I have examined his Absurd Unphilosophical Assertions about these Matters in one whereof he ascribes a Personality even to Beasts themselves By all which it is but too manifest against this Assuming big-talking Man that as loftily as he carries it yet in very Deed and Truth he does not understand what those Terms Suppositum and Subsistence Person and Personality mean So fit is he as I have said to treat of the Divine Persons of the God-head whom yet he has made so bold with And here I should judge it high time to conclude this Chapter but that methinks it is pity to leave this fine Trim Notion of Self-Consciousness so without taking a little further View of the Curious Artifice and admirable Contrivance of so rare a production For if it were not such could this Author vaunt of it at such a rate as he does pleasing himself and proclaming his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as upon an Invention forsooth which all Antiquity before him could never yet reach to Nevertheless to deal clearly and plainly amongst Friends such a Cheating Lurching thing does this Expectation usually prove that after all these Pompous Shews and Glorious Boasts of Self-Consciousness Self-Consciousness ushered in with twenty Encomium's at least like so many Heralds or Tip-staves or rather Yeomen of the Guard marching before it yet in Truth after all this noise it is like an Owl stripp'd of its Feathers but a very Mean Meagre Ordinary Thing being in down-right Terms neither more nor less than only one Property of a Rational or Intelligent Being by vertue whereof the Soul is as the Schools express it Supra se Reflexiva that is to say Able by a Reflex Act of Knowledge intimately to know and consider it self and its own Being together with its own Acts Motions and Operations This is the Sum Total of the Matter and all that Self-Consciousness is or can truly pretend to be And which is yet a further Diminution to it as poor and mean a Notion as it is it is Borrowed too But you will say From whom Why Even from Honest Des Cartes and his Cogito ergo sum Only with this unhappy difference in the Application of it That this Proposition which Des Cartes lays as the Basis and Ground-work of his Philosophy our Author places with its Heels upwards in his Divinity For whereas Des Cartes insists upon Cogitation only to prove and infer Being as one would prove a Cause from its Effects or rather an Antecedent from its Consequent Our Author on the contrary makes Cogitation the very Cause and Principle of Being and Subsistence by making it the formal Constituent Reason of Personality in the Person who Thinks or Reflects than which nothing can be more false and ridiculous And this according to the Truest and most Philosophical Account of the Thing is the very utmost which this New and so much bragg'd of Notion amounts to And I do hereupon Challenge this Author to prove these two Things if he can First That the Self-Consciousness hitherto spoken of by him is any Thing more than a bare Property of an Intelligent Being whereby it reflects upon it self and its own Thoughts and Actions And in the next place That such a Property does or can Constitute the Being or Nature which it flows from and belongs to properly a Person These two things I say I call upon him to prove and if he does not by dint of Argument make them good he exposes a poor senceless infant Hypothesis to the wide World and then very unmercifully leaves it to shift for it self In fine I cannot but again and again own my Amazement at the Confidence of some bold presuming Men who set up for Enlightners of the Church and new Modellers of Divinity in the strength of some odd upstart Notions which yet are not able to acquit or support themselves upon and much less against the very first Elements and Principles of a long tryed and never yet baffled Philosophy CHAP. IV. In which is proved against this Author That neither is Self-Consciousness the formal Reason of Personality in the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity nor Mutual-Consciousness the Reason of their Unity in one and the same Nature HAving thus examined and as I think overthrown our Author's Notion of Self-Consciousness with reference to
to extract the best sense out of it that he can And thus having presented our Author with this Preliminary Observation I shall now proceed to consider how he acquits himself in the first Thing undertook by him viz. The proving a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Three Divine Persons out of the Fathers which tho' I do as readily grant and as firmly believe as this Author does or can yet I think it worth while to shew with what Skill Decency and Respect he Treats the Fathers upon this Subject And here in the first place he tells his Reader That this being a Mystery so great and above all Example in Nature it is no wonder if the Fathers found it necessary to use several Examples and to allude to several kinds of Union to form an adequate Notion of the Unity of the God-head And withall That they take several steps towards the Explication of this great Mystery viz. of an Unity of Nature in a Trinity of Persons page 106. In our Examination of which Passages reserving his former words to be considered elsewhere we will first consider the steps which he says the Fathers made towards the Explication of this Mistery And these he tells us are Two First The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Coessentiality of the Divine Persons whereby all the Three Persons of the God-head have the same Nature Page 106. Secondly the other is a Numerical Unity of the Divine Essence or Nature Page 121. Line 6. which to answer one Greek word with another we may call the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Cyril authorizing the Expression whom we find speaking of an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Ammonius Cites him in his Catena upon Iohn 17. 11 21. Now as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sameness of Nature and this Numerical Unity of Nature lying fifteen whole Pages in this Author's Book distant from one another must be confessed to make a very large stride so for all that they will be found to make but an insignificant step as setting a Man not one jot further than he was before For as touching those Words and Terms which the Fathers used to express the Unity of the Divine Nature by I do here without any demurr affirm to this Author That Coessentiality Sameness of Nature and Sameness of Essence all signified by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as also Unity of Nature and Unity of Essence expressed by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do all of them in the sense of the Fathers denote but one and the same Thing viz. A Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature only I confess with some Circumstantial Difference as to the way or manner of their signification For 1. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Unity of Nature with a Connotation of some Things or Persons to whom it belongs Upon which Account it is that St. Ambrose whom this Author cites speaking of this word in his 3d Book Chap. 7. tells us That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aliud alii non ipsum est sibi Nor indeed is any Thing said to be the same but with respect to some Thing or Circumstance besides it self And therefore no wonder if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was anciently rejected since the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 relating to the Person whom the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 belongs to must import a Singularity of Person as well as an Unity of Essence which would be contrary to the Catholick Faith But 2. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Unity of Nature or Essence without Connotation of any to whom it belongs Not but that it does really and indeed belong to the Three Divine Persons but that according to the strict and proper signification and force of the word it does not connote or imply them but abstracts or prescinds from them And this is a true Account of these words by which the Fathers without making more steps than one intended and meant the same Thing viz. a Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature belonging to all the Three Persons only with this difference That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the Unity of the Divine Nature with a Connotation of the Persons in whom it is which also gives it the Denomination of Sameness and that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the Unity of the same Nature absolutely and abstractedly without imploying or co-signifying any respect to those in whom it is and to whom it belongs So that these words as much Two as they are yet in the sense and meaning of the Fathers import but one and the same Unity But our Author tells us That though indeed the Fathers own an Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons yet since there is a Specifick as well as a Numerical Unity the Dispute is here which of these two Unities we shall assign to the Divine Nature with reference to the Divine Persons And for this He tells us That Petavius and Dr. Cudworth have abundantly proved That the Nicene Fathers did not understand the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Numerical but of a Specifical Sameness of Nature or the agreement of Things Numerically different from one another in the same Common Nature Page 106. about the end In Answer to which I must confess my self very unfit to take such Great and Truly Learned Persons to task and that upon comparing this Author and Petavius together if there can be any comparison between them I find much more Reason to believe that he mistook the meaning of Petavius than that Petavius could mistake the meaning of the Fathers But however I shall lay down this as a Conclusion which I take to be undoubtedly true viz. That the Ancient Fathers as well the Nicene as those after them held only a Numerical Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity That is in other words They held and acknowledged one Numerical God and no more This Conclusion I hold and have good reason to believe That neither Petavius nor Dr. Cudworth shall be able to wrest it from me For the chief Reason of some Men's charging the Fathers with holding a Specifick Unity of Nature amongst the Divine Persons is drawn from this That some of them and particularly Maximus and Nyssen cited by this Author seem to argue from that Specifick Unity of Nature which is found in several Individual Men to an Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity To which I Answer That the Fathers never used the Example of Three or more Individual Men agreeing in the same Nature as a Parallel Instance of the same sort or degree of Unity with that which is in the Three Divine Persons but
when he has done so he opposes them Both to a Numerical Sameness of Nature as appears from the Adversative Particle But placed between them In which let me tell him he is guilty of a very great mistake both by making those Things the same which are not the same and by making an Opposition where there is a real Coincidence For by his favour one and the same Numerical Divine Nature is a Common Nature too forasmuch as without any Division or Multiplication of it self it belongs in Common to the Three Divine Persons The Term Deus indeed is neither a Genus nor a Species Nevertheless all Divines and School-men allow it to be a Terminus Communis as properly predicable of and Common to Father Son and Holy Ghost and in this very Thing consists the Mystery of the Trinity That one and the same Numerical Nature should be Common to and Exist in Three Numerically distinct Persons And therefore for one who pretends to teach the whole World Divinity while he is Discoursing of the Divine Nature and Persons to oppose Common Nature to Nature Numerically One and from the Commonness of it to make the Fathers Argue against its Numericalness whereas the same Divine Nature may be and really is both it is a shrewd sign of the want of something or other in that Man that must needs render him extremely unfit to prescribe and dictate in these Matters In fine the sole Point driven at all along by the Fathers as to the Question about the Unity of the Divine Nature for their Arguments to prove the Coequality of the Three Divine Persons against the Arians are not now before us is an Assertion of a Real Numerical Existing Unity of the said Nature in the said Persons I say a Numerical Unity without making any more steps or degrees in it than One or owning any distinction between Sameness of Nature and Sameness of Essence And much less by making as this Author does a Specifick Sameness of Nature one thing wherein they place the Unity of the Divine Nature and then making Sameness of Essence another and further degree in the Unity of the said Nature and when they have done so by a return back explaining this Sameness of Essence by the Sameness of Nature newly mentioned as he says they do in these words immediately following by way of Exegesis of the former viz. That there is but one God because all the Three Divine Persons have the same Nature Page 107. and the two last Lines All which is a Ridiculous Circle and a Contradiction to boot making Sameness of Nature one step and Sameness of Essence another and then making this Sameness of Essence no more than a Sameness of Nature again so that according to him the Fathers must be said to go further by resting in the very same step which they first made Which way of Reasoning I confess may serve well enough for one who can forget in one Page what he had said in the other just before But by his favour the Fathers were a little more Consistent and understood themselves better than to run Divisions in such a senseless manner upon a Thing that admitted none And thus having shewn how he has dealt with the Fathers in the Account given by him of their Opinion about the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Persons of the Blessed Trinity which was the first Head under which I reduced his Allegations from them I come now in the 2d Place to the other and Principal Head under which he undertakes to prove the chief and more peculiar part of his Hypothesis from the said Fathérs viz. That the Unity and Identity of Nature belonging to the Three Divine Persons consists in the Mutual-Consciousness which is between them That is in Truth That they are therefore One God because they are Conscious to themselves that they are so And here I shall begin with shewing how this Author overthrows the Point undertook by him before he produces any Arguments from the Fathers for it And to this Purpose I shall resume those words of his before cited by me out of Page 106. In which he reminds his Reader That Trinity in Unity being so great a Mystery and of which we have no Example in Nature it is no wonder if it cannot be explained by any one kind of Natural Union and that therefore it was necessary to use several Examples and to allude to several kinds of Union to form an adequate Notion of the Unity of the God-head Now here since our Author's Notion and the Fathers too as he says of this Unity is nothing else but Mutual-Consciousness I desire to Learn of him what necessity there was or is of using several Examples and alluding to several kinds of Union to explain or form an adequate Notion of that And I wonder what kind of Thing he would make of his Mutual-Consciousness should he come to explain and describe it by several Examples and several Kinds of Union But this is not all for he tells us likewise as we also observed before that there are several steps to be taken towards the Explication of this Mystery Whereupon I would again learn of him how many steps are necessary to explain Mutual-Conciousness for one would imagine one single step sufficient to represent and declare a Thing which every Body understands This Author indeed confidently enough Asserts That the Fathers give no other Account of a Trinity in Unity than the same which he gives of it Pag. 101. Line 2. But certainly if the Fathers thought several Examples Steps and Kinds of Union absolutely necessary to explain the Notion they had of this Unity and if these cannot be necessary to explain the Notion of Mutual-Consciousness then it must follow That the Fathers neither did nor possibly could by that Unity mean Mutual-Consciousness And if this Author doubts of the force of this Reasoning let him try his skill and see what Learned stuff he is like to make of it when he comes to explain his Notion of Mutual-Consciousness by several Examples Steps and Sorts of Union and out of them all to form one adequate Notion of this so much admired Thing Wherefore I conclude and I think unanswerably That the Fathers by this Unity between the Divine Persons mean one Thing and this Man quite another and consequently that they have given a very different Account of it from what he gives contrary to his equally bold and false Asseveration affirming it to be the very same And now I am ready to see what he has to offer us from the Fathers in behalf of his Mutual-Consciousness but because I am extremely desirous that the Reader should keep him close to the Point and not suffer him to wander from it which in dispute he is as apt to do as any Man living I shall presume to hint this to him That the Point to be proved by this Author is not that the Three Divine Persons have one and the same
Numerical Nature or Essence nor that they are Mutually Conscious to one another of whatsoever each of them is or knows no nor yet that this Mutual-Consciousness inferrs an Unity of Nature in them as a Thing inseparable from it But he is to prove That this Unity of Nature and this Mutual-Consciousness are Convertibly one and the some Thing or that this latter is to the former what the Essence or Form of any Thing is to that Thing That is to say That the Unity of the Divine Nature formally Consists in and is what it is by that Mutual-Consciousness which belongs to the Three Divine Persons This I say is the Thing to be proved by Him And so I proceed to his Arguments which I assure the Reader he shall find very strange ones nevertheless to give him as easie and distinct a view of them as I can I will set down the several Heads of them before I particularly discuss them 1. The First of them is from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ascribed by the Fathers to all the Three Divine Persons joyntly 2. The Second from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. The Third from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Circumincession attributed likewise by the Fathers to them 4. The Fourth from the Representation which St. Austin makes of the Trinity by the Mind and its Three distinct Faculties of Understanding Memory and Will And 5. The Fifth and Last from the Unity of the Original Principle or Fountain of the Deity or rather say I of the second and third Persons of the Trinity All which I shall examine distinctly and in their order But before I do so I think fit to give the Reader an Account in one word of this Author 's whole design in all the Particulars above specified And that is to prove that the Unity of the Divine Nature consists in Unity of Operation and then to suppose for he does not so much as to go about to prove it that this Unity of Operation is Mutual-Consciousness This is the Sum Total of the Business but I now come to Particulars And First for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quoted by him out of Greg. Nyssen Where before we see how far it may be formed into an Argument I think it requisite to give some Account how this Author Discourses of it I must confess I have sometimes wondred what design he could have in so zealously exploding those commonly received Terms of Substance Essence and Nature from any application of them to God which here he does again afresh telling us in Page 115. lines 24 25 26 27. That it confounds our minds when we talk of the Numerical Unity of the God-head to have the least Conception or Thought about the Distinction and Union of Natures and Essences And that therefore we are to speak of God only in words importing Energy or Operation And accordingly for this reason Gr. Nyssen expresses God by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 words not signifying Nature or Essence but only Sight and Inspection Nay and this Author has gone a step much beyond this plainly telling us That the Father and the Son are Energy or Operation Page 132. Line 13. And that Nature and Energy are the same in God P. 133. L. 20. and consequently That we are to entertain no other Conception of God but as of a pure simple Operation And thus when we have degraded the Divine Nature from Substance to Operation it is but one step more to degrade it to bare Notion This conceit of this Author I say at first I could not but wonder at but am since pretty well aware of what he drives at by it And that is in short That he thinks it a much easier Matter to make Action or Operation than Substance Essence or Nature pass for Mutual Consciousness And this upon good Reason I am satisfied is the Thing he designs But I believe he will fall short of fetching his Mutual-Consciousness out of either of them And therefore first to Correct that Crude Notion of his That we must not speak of God in Terms importing Nature but Operation I desire this Bold Man as I urged before in Chap. 2 to tell me whether the Names of Iah and Iehovah and I am that I am by which God revealed himself to his People were not Names of Nature and Essence and whether God revealed them for any other purpose than that he might be known and understood by them But for all this he will have us to know from Gr. Nyssen That the Divine Nature is quid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Thing above Name or Expression And it is so I confess as to an adequate complete Conception or Description of it But then I ask him are not the Divine Operations so too Are we able to comprehend them perfectly and to the utmost of what and how they are When the Psalmist tells us that God has put darkness under his feet Psal. 18. 9. and that his footsteps are not known Psal. 77. 19. And the Apostle in Rom. 11. 33. That his judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out And are not these passages an Account of his Dealings and Operations in the Government of the World And yet surely notwithstanding all this we may have some true though imperfect Conceptions both of his Nature and of his Operations also And I desire this Assuming Man to inform me What should hinder but that so much as we Conceive of God we may likewise express and what is more prove too For though Gregory Nyssen has told us That the Divine Nature is unexpressible yet I hope a Thing may be proved though the Nature of it cannot always be throughly expressed But the Truth is he makes this Father Argue at a very odd rate For he tells us Page 115. That one way by which Gregory Nyssen undertakes to prove That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Specifick Sameness of Nature as this Man understands it proves a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons is because the Name God does not so properly signifie the Divine Nature as something relating to it Which is a rare Proof indeed it being as much as to say that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sameness of Nature proves one God because God does not signifie Nature But St. Gregory is far from arguing so which besides the Absurdity of it is only denying instead of proving but he proves Sameness and Unity of Nature by Sameness or Unity of Operation and that surely he might very well do without making Unity of Nature only an Unity of Operation And no less absurd is it to represent St. Gregory making Unity of Operation one way whereby the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Specifick Sameness of Nature proves a Numerical Unity of Nature For though Unity of Operation it self proves this yet surely it is not a Medium whereby a Specifick Unity of the said Nature does or can prove it But
make an Explication of it superfluous this Author having quoted Peter Lombard in such or such a sence ought in all Reason to have produced the Major and more eminent part of the School-men and Writers upon him and shewn their Unanimous Concurrence in the same Sence and Notion which he took him in and quoted him for And this indeed would have been to his Purpose and look'd like proving his Opinion to have been the Doctrine of the Schools Otherwise I cannot see how the Master of the Sentences can be called or pass for all the School men any more than the Master of the Temple can pass for all the Divines of the Church of England Unless we should imagine that this Peter Lombard had by a kind of Mutual Consciousness gathered all his Numerous Brood into Himself and so united them all into one Author So that the Sum of all is this That this Author having declared his Opinion the constant Doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools to make his words good has produced for it Three or Four Greek Fathers and Two Latin though even these no more to his purpose than if he had quoted Dod and Cleaver or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of Homer and lastly One Sentence out of one School-man Which if it be allowed to pass for a good just and sufficient Proof of any Controverted Conclusion let it for the future by all means for this our Author's sake be an Established Rule in Logick from a Particular to infer an Universal And now that I am bringing my Reader towards a close of this long Chapter I must desire him to look a little back towards the beginning of the foregoing Chapter wherein upon this Man 's Confident Affirmation That his Opinion was the constant Doctrine both of the Fathers and the Schools I thought it necessary to state what his Opinion was and accordingly I shew'd that it consisted of Four Heads 1st That the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity were three distinct infinite Minds or Spirits which how far he was from being able to prove from the Authority of any of the Fathers cited by him was sufficiently shewn by us in the preceding Chapter The 2d Was That Self Consciousness was the formal Reason of Personality in the said three Persons and consequently That whereby they were distinguished from each other which in the same Chapter I shew'd he was so far from proving from the Authority of those Ancient Writers that he did not alledge one Tittle out of any of them for it nor indeed so much as mention it in any of the Quotations there made by him And as for the 3d. Member of his said Hypothesis viz. That the Unity of the Divine Nature in the three Blessed Persons Consisted in the Mutual Consciousness belonging to them This we have Examined at large and confuted in this Chapter But still there remains the 4th And last to be spoken to as completeing his whole Hypothesis and resulting by direct Consequence from the other Three viz. That a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity explained by the three forementioned Terms or Principles is a very plain easie and intelligible Notion which having been in a most Confident Peremptory manner affirmed by him all along as I shew in Chap. 1. and upon that Score making so great a part of his Hypothesis ought in all reason to be proved to have been the Sence and Doctrine of the Fathers concerning this Article But not one word does he produce upon this Head neither Nor for my own part do I expect ever to find the least Sentence or Syllable in any Ancient Writer tending this way And I challenge this Author to produce so much as one to this purpose In the mean time how and with what kind of words I find these Ancient Writers expressing themselves about this venerable Mystery I shall here set down Only I shall premise a Sentence or two out of this Author himself and which I have had occasion to quote more than once before from Page 106. line 7. viz. That the Unity in Trinity being as he confesses so great a Mystery that we have no Example of it in Nature it is no wonder if it cannot be explained by any one kind of Natural Union and that therefore it was necessary to use several Examples and to allude to several kinds of Union to form an Adequate Notion of the God head and moreover Page 139. line 26. c. That there is nothing like this Mysterious Distinction and Unity and that we want proper words to express it by All which Passages lying clear open and express in the fore-cited places of this Author I must needs ask him Whether all these are used by him to prove the Unity in Trinity a plain easie and intelligible Notion as he has frequently elsewhere asserted it to be As to go over each of the Particulars First Whether we must account it plain because he says It is a great Mystery of which we have no Example in Nature And Secondly Whether we must reckon it easie because he says That it cannot be Explained by any one kind of Natural Union but that several Examples must be used and several sorts of Union alluded to for this purpose And Lastly Whether it must pass for Intelligible because he tells us That we want proper Words to express it by that is in other Terms to make it Intelligible since to express a Thing and to make it Intelligible I take to be Terms equivalent In fine I here appeal to the Reader Whether we ought from the forementioned Passages of this Author to take the Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity for a plain easie Intelligible Notion according to the same Author's affirmation so frequently inculcated in so many Parts of his Book But I shall now proceed to shew as I promised how the Fathers speak and declare themselves upon this great Point And here we will begin first with Iustin Martyr A Singularity or Unity says he is understood by us and a Trinity in Unity is acknowledged But how it is thus I am neither willing to ask others nor can I perswade my self with my Muddy Tongue and Polluted Flesh to attempt a Declaration of such Ineffable Matters And again speaking of the Oeconomy of the blessed Trinity the nature and manner says he of this Oeconomy is unutterable And yet again speaking of this Mysterious Oeconomy of the Deity and the Trinity as one of the greatest Mysteries of the Christian Faith I cry out says he O wonderful For that the Principles and Articles of our Religion surpass and transcend the Understanding Reason and Comprehension of a Created Nature In the next place Dionysius the Areopagite or some very Ancient Writer under that Name calls it the Transcendent Superessential and Superlatively Divine Trinity In like manner Gregory Nyssen we apprehend says he in these viz. the three Divine Persons a certain Inexpressible Inconceivable
Men of whom alone we now speak both an Act of Knowledge and of Self-reflection too may be without an Act of Love consequent thereupon And if the former may be without the latter then they are not inseparably united as this Author here says they are PARADOX He says That Love is a distinct Act and therefore in God must be a Person P. 133. Answ. If this be a true and good Consequence then the Ground and Reason of it must be This That every distinct Act in God is and must be a distinct Person And if so then every Decree in God whether it be his Decree of Election or of Reprobation if there be such an one or of creating the World and sending Christ into it and at last of destroying it and the like are each of them so many Persons For every Divine Decree is an Act of God and an Immanent Act too as resting within him and as such not passing forth to any Thing without Him that Maxim of the Schools being most true that Decreta nihil ponunt in esse Nor is this all but most of the Divine Acts are free also so that there was nothing in the Nature of them to hinder but that they equally might or might not have been which applied to the Divine Persons would make strange work in Divinity In the mean time if this Author will maintain this Doctrin viz. That Acts and Persons are the same in God as I think he ought in all Reason to maintain the immediate consequences of his own Assertion I dare undertake that here he will stand alone again and that he is the only Divine who ever owned or defended such wretched Stuff PARADOX These three Powers of Understanding Self-reflection and Self-Love are one Mind viz. in Created Spirits of which alone he here speaks adding in the very next words What are mere Faculties and Powers in Created Spirits are Persons in the Godhead c. Pag. 135. at the latter end Answer This is a very gross Absurdity and to make it appear so I do here tell him That the Three foremention'd Powers are no more one Mind than three Qualities are one Substance and that very Term Powers might have taught him as much Potentia and Impotentia making one Species of Quality under which all Powers and Faculties are placed So that his three powers of Understanding Self-Reflection and Self-Love are one only Unitate Subjecti as being subjected in one and the same Mind but not unitate Essentiae as Essentially differing both from one another and from the Mind it self too in which they are Certainly if this Man did not look upon himself as above all Rules of Logick and Philosophy he would never venture upon such absurd Assertions PARADOX He tells us That the Son and Holy Ghost Will and Act with the Father not the Father with the Son and the Holy Ghost Pag. 169. Line 13 14 c. Answ. This is a direct Contradiction For if the Son and Holy Ghost Will and Act with the Father the Father must Will and Act with the Son and the Holy Ghost And he who can find a distinct sense in these two Propositions and much more affirm the first and deny the latter has a better Faculty at distinguishing than any Mortal Man using his Sense and Reason will pretend to It being all one as if I should say I saw Thomas William and John together of whom William and John were in the Company of Thomas but Thomas was not in the Company of William and John And I challenge any sensible thinking Man to make better sense of this Author 's fore-mention'd Assertion if he can But this must not go alone without a further cast of his Nature by heightning it with another Contradiction too which you shall find by comparing it with pag. 188. line 4. where he affirms That Father Son and Holy Ghost act together having before expresly told us here That the Father does not will and act with the Son and Holy Ghost which very Assertion also to shew him the further fatal Consequences of it absolutely blows up and destroys his whole Hypothesis of Mutual Consciousness by destroying that upon which he had built it For if the Father may and does Will and Act without the Son and Holy Ghost then farewel to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for they must never be alledged in this Cause more PARADOX Nothing can make God visible but a personal Union to a visible Nature Page 234. Line 22 23. Answer This is a most false Assertion and directly contrary to Scripture And to prove it so I shall lay down these Four Conclusions First That the Godhead or Divine Nature neither is nor can be visible to a Corporeal Eye by an immediate sight or Intuition of the Godhead it self Secondly That God is visible to such an Eye only by the special Signs or Symbols of his Presence Thirdly That God is visible by a Body personally united to him only as the said Body is such a Sign or Symbol of his peculiar Presence And Fourthly and Lastly That a Body actually assumed by God for a Time is during that Time as true and visible a Symbol of his Presence as a Body or Nature personally united to him can be And thus it was that God appeared visibly to the Patriarchs in Old Time and particularly to Abraham to Gideon and to the Father and Mother of Sampson who thereupon thought that they should Die for having seen God Face to Face For generally all Interpreters hold the Person who thus appeared to have been the Second Person of the blessed Trinity the Eternal Son of the Father though sometimes called simply the Angel and sometimes the Angel of the Covenant from the Office he was then actually imployed in by his Father as the extraordinary Messenger and Reporter of his Mind to holy Men upon some great Occasions This supposed I desire this bold Author to tell me Whether the second Person of the Trinity God equal with the Father was personally united to the Body which he then appeared in or not If not then the forementioned Assertion That nothing can make God visible but a personal Union to a visible Nature falls shamefully to the Ground as utterly false But if he was personally united to it then these Paradoxes must follow 1. That he either laid down that assumed Body afterwards or he did not if he did then an Hypostatical Union with God may be dissolv'd and not only so but there may be also a thousand personal Unions one after another if God shall think fit to assume a Body and appear in it so often which would be contrary to the sense of all Divines and to all Principles of sound Divinity which own but one hypostatical Union and no more Or 2. He still retains an Union to that assumed Body and then there is a double hypostatical Union viz. One to the visible Body assumed by him in
is an act of Intellection and so must issue from an Intellective Faculty which the Body is not endued with and therefore cannot act by and withal every act of the Will is only an Intelligible and not a sensible Object and consequently cannot be otherwise apprehended and perceived than intellectually And as for the Commands of it a Command operates and moves only by way of moral Causation viz. by being first known by the Thing or Agent which it is directed to which thereupon by such a Knowledge of it is induced to move or Act accordingly But now the Will does not thus Act upon the Body the Body having no Principle whereby to know or understand what it Commands And therefore when we say That the Will Commands the Body in strictness of Truth it is only a Metaphorical Expression For the Will or Soul exerting an Act of Volition moves the Body not by Command but by Physical Impulse That is to say It does by its native Force Energy and Activity first move and impell the Spirits and by the instrumental Mediation of them so moved and impelled it moves and impells the Body and this by as real an Impulse as when I push or thrust a thing with my hand For though indeed a material Thing cannot actively or efficiently move or work upon an Immaterial yet Philosophers grant that an Immaterial as being of the nobler and more active Nature can move impell or work upon a Material and if we cannot form in our Minds an Idea of the Mechanism of this Motion it is because neither can we form in our Minds an Idea of a Spirit But nevertheless Reason and Discourse will Evince That the Thing must be so PARADOX He tells us That the Human Nature of Christ may be Ignorant of some things notwithstanding its personal Union to the Divine Word because it is an Inferiour and Subject Nature Page 270. Line 12 13 14. Answer These Words also are both absurd and false And First They are Absurd because no Rules of Speaking or Arguing permit us to say of any Thing or Person That it may be so or so when necessarily it is and must be so For the Term may imports an Indifference or at least a possibility to both sides of the Contradiction So that when a Man says That a Thing may be thus or thus he does by consequence say also That it may not be thus or thus And therefore to say That the Human Nature of Christ notwithstanding its personal Union to the Word may be ignorant of some Things when it cannot but be ignorant of some nay of very many Things is Absurd And in the next place also To make the Subjection of the Human Nature to the Divine the proper Cause of this Ignorance is false and the Assignation of a non causa pro causâ It being all one as if I should say That such an one cannot be a good Disputant because he has a blemish in his Eye For it is not this Subjection of it to the Divine Nature that makes it ignorant of many Things known by that Nature but the vast disparity that is between these Two Natures viz. That one of them is Infinite the other Finite which makes it impossible for the Infinite to communicate its whole Knowledge to the Finite Forasmuch as such a Knowledge exceeds its Capacity and cannot be received into it so as to exist or abide in it any more than Omnipotence or Omnipresence or any other Infinite Divine Perfection can be lodged in a Finite Being And besides this this very Author in the immediately foregoing Page had not only allowed but affirmed That the Body which certainly is both united to the Soul and of a Nature Subject and Inferiour to it was yet conscious to the Dictates and Commands of the Soul Wherefore where Two Natures are united the bare Subjection of one to the other is not the proper Cause that the Nature which is Subject is ignorant of what is known by the Nature which it is subject to For if Subjection were the sole and proper Cause of this Ignorance the Inferiour Nature would be equally ignorant of every Thing known by the Superiour which yet according to this Man 's own Doctrine of the Consciousness of the Body to the Soul is not so This Consideration I alledge only as an Argument ad hominem having already by the former Argument sufficiently proved the falseness of his Assertion But I shall detain my Reader no longer upon this Subject though I must assure him that I have given him but a Modicum and as it were an handful or two out of that full heap which I had before me and from which I had actually collected several more Particulars which I have not here presented him with being unwilling to swell my Work to too great a Bulk Nevertheless I look upon this Head of Discourse as so very useful to place this Author in a true Light that if I might be so bold with my Reader I could wish that he would vouchsafe this Chapter of all the rest a second Perusal upon which I dare undertake that it will leave in him such Impressions concerning this Man's fitness to Write about the Trinity as will not wear out of his Mind in haste And yet after all this I will not presume to derogate from this Author's Abilities how insolently soever he has trampled upon other Mens but content my self that I have fairly laid that before the Reader by which he may take a just and true measure of them And so I shall conclude this Chapter with an Observation which I have upon several occasions had cause to make viz. That Divinity and Philosophy are certainly the worst Things in the World for any One to be Magisterial in who does not understand them CHAP. X. In which the Author 's Grammatical and such like Mistakes as they are found here and there in his Writings are set down and remarked upon COuld this Author have carried himself with any or dinary degree of Candor and Civility towards those whom he wrote against he had never had the least Trouble given him by me upon this Head of Discourse But when I find him treating Learned Men with so much Disdain and Insolence and much liker a rough ill-bred School-Master domineering over his Boys than a fair Opponent entring the Lists with an Ingenuous Antagonist I must confess I cannot think my self obliged to treat him upon such Terms as I would an Adversary of a contrary Temper and Behaviour One Man and a very Learned one too he flirts at as if he could not distinguish between Conjunctive and Disjunctive Particles Vindication of his Case of Allegiance pag. 76. the Two last Lines Another he Scoffs or rather Spits at as neither understanding Greek nor Latine Vindic. Trin. Pag. 95. Line 25. and thereby I suppose would bear himself to the World as no small Critick in both As for the Socinians of which number this latter is
Haughtiness for the future to forbear calling his Antagonists Little Writers till by his Answers he has made them so A further discovery of his rude undecent way of treating such as he writes against is the Language he has bestow'd upon a certain Writer a Nonconformist indeed but yet a Man of Learning as a much greater Man than this Author has found by experience whom he calls a Trifling Scribler who understands little more than Quibbles and Iests Charging him withal with Pertness and Folly to complete his Character p. 15. of his Preface to his Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet And in the 12. page of the Book it self and the five first lines He represents him under the name of the Inquirer as one who cannot understand plain and familiar sense nor carry the Connexion of three or four Sentences together Very civil Language indeed becoming a Scholar a Divine and a well-bred Man to a Person who had not in the least provok'd Him For my own part I have no knowledge of the Man but from his Writings and upon the Stock of that knowledge have often wondred that one so able to humble this Reviler would take such gross Reproaches at his hands But the Truth is when I consider as I noted first in my Preface how patiently our whole Clergy has hitherto suffered him to call them Fools and Hereticks by charging all those as such who concur not with him in holding the Three Divine Persons to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits which I dare say not one of them held at the time of his uttering this Lewd Reproach I say when I consider this I have cause to surcease all wonder that any Private Man should indure this Insolent Huff to insult over him in such a manner But I shall insist no further upon this master-piece of his Scurrility having in some measure accounted with him for it already Only I shall add this That as it is beyond Example marvellous that any one single Member of a Church should presume to load all the rest with such a charge so it is yet a greater marvel that all should bear it It would be endless to set down all the dirty stuff that has flowed from his Billingsgate Pen. But to repeat and bring together so much as we have taken notice of the Reader may be pleased to bear away in his Memory such Expressions and Appellations as these viz. Epicurean and Ridiculer of Providence Popishly inclined and looking towards an Infallible Interpreter Disaffected to and a slanderer of the Government Little Writers Fools and Hereticks Errant Fopp Trifling Scribler shamefully Ignorant and Impudent Fit to be sent to School again One that understands little else but Iests and Quibbles One that cannot understand plain and familiar sense One that understands neither Greek nor Latine and the like These are the choice Embellishments of his Style But above all that beloved word Nonsense is always ready at hand with him and out it flies at all Persons and upon all Occasions And hardly can he write three or four Pages together but right or wrong he throws it in his Adversary's Face One would think that he was Born with the Word in his Mouth and that it grew up with him from his Infancy and that in his very Cradle he Cryed Nonsense before he could Speak it But to check this ungovern'd Humour of his in thus using this word at all Adventure Let me tell him that it is both a very rude unmannerly Word and most commonly as applyed by him a very false Charge As for the rudeness of it since he owns himself a Son of the Church of England I think he would be much his own Friend if he would remember the Reprimand given him by his old Acquaintance and Antagonist Dr. Owen who in his Vindication c. p. 72. having upon occasion of some of his profane Scoffs called him Goodly Son of the Church of England Immediately subjoyns That he intended it not as a Reflexion upon the Church it self but only to remind this Man of his Relation to that Church Which he there says to his Knowledge taught better Learning and better Manners In the next place as for the falseness of the Charge in his usual application of this Word I would have him know That the Charge of Nonsense does not properly lie against every one who asserts a false Proposition or is guilty of a mistake For Nonsense is not properly opposed to strict Truth but to such plain and manifest Truth as is obvious to Common sense For Truth oftentimes lies deep and abstruse and requires a more than ordinary sagacity to reach and fetch it out which that low Pitch of Reason which we call Common sense cannot always do For in Discourse a Man may be sometimes mistaken in laying his Foundation or Principle and yet be very Clear and Rational in the Consequences he draws from it and sometimes he may fail in drawing Consequences from a True and well-laid Principle in both which cases the whole Discourse is certainly False and Inconsistent Nevertheless according to the common acception of the Word this cannot be called Nonsense It may indeed be called Error or Mistake which is a weakness cleaving too close to Humane Nature for any one of the same Nature to reproach another for it But on the contrary if every Thing that is not strict Demonstration and certain Truth must pass for Nonsense I fear it would overlay whole Volumes and not only prevent the 2d 3d. and 4th Editions of many Books but shrewdly also endanger the Sale of the First Especially if 2d and 3d. by the unlucky escape of some scattering Copies should chance all to appear in the space of Three or Four Days As in the first Publication of a certain Book Entituled The Case of Allegiance c. it fell out But great no doubt is the Art of Bestowing several Title-Pages importing divers Editions upon Books of one and the same Impression And may serve to teach the World what a fruitful Thing the Press is when impregnated by the Prolifick Genius of some Writers and that when it is for the credit of any extraordinary Book and it's Author it can bring forth four five or six Editions of it at the same time Which certainly is a most Ingenious Contrivance but whether it were the Author 's or the Bookseller's is a Question though some think it uses to be done by a kind of Mutual-Consciousness between both But to return to the Point in hand According to the common use of the Word Nonsense He who Discourses of Things obvious to the ordinary Apprehensions of Men with gross and palpable Contradictions of one thing to another or with a plain manifest Incoherence of one part of his Discourse with the other that Man is properly and justly chargeable with Nonsense And let those in the Name of Sense and Reason take it to themselves who have most claim to it But because the