Man living knows any thing at all for this Enumeration Substances Essences Reasons Unions Properties Operations comprehends all things even the whole of created and uncreated Nature It is certain and confess'd by all Men but this Gentleman who seems to delight in nothing so much as Paradoxes and thinks the Pulpit and Press the likeliest Places to make 'em famous and remarkable that our Reason can be no otherwise imployed but either about Substances or their Unions essential Reasons Operations or Properties What is it Sir I pray but either it is a Substance or the Property or Operation of a Substance For as to essential Reasons and Vnions the former as well as Modes and Accidents come under the general name of Properties Risibility for instance is an essential Reason of Man as he is Man and yet it is reckoned among the Properties as well as Gracility Grossness Agility Slowness Whiteness Redness and such like Modes and Accidents are called the Properties of particular Men Properties by which they are distinguished from one another As essential Reasons are but Properties so Unions are but the Operations of Substances or their Properties In short I say that without being needlesly nice Substances with their Properties and Operations will denote the whole Complex of things their Reasons and Vnions are superfluously added And if these are not the Objects of Reason Reason has no Objects at all In truth they are the only things about which Reason is conversant Metaphysicians consider spiritual Substances their Properties and Operations Natural Philosophers consider Bodies or corporeal Substances their Operations and their Properties Particular Arts and Crafts are conversant about particular Bodies as Physicians and Chirurgions about the humane Body Chymists about Plants and Metals the Lapidary about Jewels the Apothecary about Drugs Do these Artists know nothing about the Substances their Properties or Operations their Vnions and essential Reasons about which both their Minds and Bodies are every day imployed Assuredly when the Court desired Mr. Dean of St. Paul's to print this Sermon they could not have done him a greater Disservice than thus to prompt his Vanity to expose his scandalous Inadversions to the View and Scorn of every body It is well seen why this Dean has preach'd against Philosophy Because he hath very little himself He has heard of Essence Properties Operations essential Reasons and not knowing well what they mean he guesses they are things that a zealous Preacher ought to bestir himself against A little more Zeal and Ignorance might have qualified him to be one of my Lords the Inquisitors in the Inquisition-Office at Lisbon where lately they condemned an English Mare to be burnt as a Witch because she could signify the Hour of the Day on a Watch or Clock could dance to a Fiddle with several such little Feats as are easily taught to Beasts Some Persons interceded with the Holy Fathers for the Mare telling 'em she had been shown all over Christendom and that these Tricks had been often taught to other docile Beasts especially to Elephants But the Fathers as zealous as some body else against what they did not understand answered she shall be burnt for admitting she is not a Witch be sure coming from England she is a Heretick He says Lastly This that the Question is about Essences Vnions Properties is all the Incomprehensibleness that can be charged on the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation For my part to deal frankly after all the bustle and noise that has been made on both sides about Mysteries and Incomprehensibles I know no Incomprehensibleness or Mystery in the Catholick Doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation I mean as they are explained and declared by the Church and now received by the Unitarians themselves not as they are perverted and misrepresented by a little Faction that have learned from Dr. Cudworth to call themselves Realists as if their Tritheism were the only real Trinity The Church teaches that there is but one Eternal All-perfect Spirit but one infinite spiritual Substance and this is what we indifferently call GOD the Divinity the Deity the Divine Nature the Divine Essence or Substance As to the distinction of Persons in the Deity to use the Words of the Bishop of Worcester When we consider a Divine Essence there can be no distinction conceived in it but by different Modes of Subsistence or what is the same different relative Properties The Trinity then is the Divine Essence Godhead or Deity consider'd under three different Modes of Subsistence which are called Relative Properties because they distinguish and because a threefold Relation arises in the Deity from them and Persons they are called because distinguishing characterizing Properties whether in a common Nature or in particular Natures or Substances when considered with the Nature or Substance make what antient and constant Custom nameth Persons These Modes or Properties are by some more particularly described St. Austin and from him the Divines of the Schools insist upon Intellectus Notitia Amor or Original Mind or Wisdom the Logos or reflex Wisdom generated by Mind and the Spiration of Divine Love The first as generating is named the Father the second being generated by a condescension to humane Language is called the Son the third being a Spiration has the name of Spirit I know not as I said what Mystery or Incomprehensibleness there is in this account which has been the Language and Explication of the Church ever since St. Austin and not of the Latin Church only but of the Greek as I intend to prove at large whenever leisure and a fit opportunity shall serve I see plainly that the occasion of calling the Trinity a Mystery except only among the Unlearned or not Learned in Scholastick and Philosophical Terms and the various Acceptations of them I say the occasion of calling the Doctrine of the Trinity a Mystery was this because the term Persons and again Father Son and Spirit are used concerning the Deity in a very different Sense from their Import or Meaning when used of Men or other created Beings For all humane Persons and Father and Son among Men are distinguished not only by different Modes and Properties but by distinct Substances Intellects and Wills but the Deity is but one Essence or spiritual Substance with one Understanding Will and Energy in number Thus the Idea of Persons and of Father Son and Spirit in God implying a Notion so very different from the meaning of the same terms when spoken of Men and created Beings 't was thought sit to say they are used concerning God in a mystical Sense concerning other Beings in a profane or common Sense A Sense of Words or Terms not so usually applied or rather contrary to the vulgar and secular Use of them was named Mystery at first I judg only by the less Learned afterwards to conciliate the greater Reverence to the Article by the more Learned also As to the Incarnation The Doctrine of the
Reason or that any Man living can know any thing of them And this he adds is all the Incomprehensibility and Contradiction that Men can charge on the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation P. 17 18 19. The second Objection is To what purpose can such a Revelation serve or of what use can such a Faith be which is concerning things we cannot comprehend or understand and to which Reason disagrees He answers First we may use the World and every thing in it as fully and to as good purpose as if we understood the Reasons and internal Natures of things The Objection if it hath any force takes place as much against created Nature or the Complex of things called the World as against the Gospel-Mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation for the former is all inconceivable Mystery as well as the latter He answers again Secondly Tho we understand not the Trinity the Incarnation or the necessity of the Satisfaction by the Death of the Son of God 't is for all that a very useful Knowledg even this that God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son to the end that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting Life P. 21 22 23. This is the Substance and Force of the Sermon And one would think on a general View of this Discourse that all Dr. Sherlock's Care and Concern were for the poor distressed Articles of the Christian Faith that there is nothing in his Thoughts however nothing equally in his Thoughts as the Defence and Patronage of the Catholick Doctrines of the Trinity the Incarnation and Satisfaction But I know no body but himself and his Party of Realists as they call themselves that question the Articles of the Trinity the Incarnation or the Satisfaction in the Sense they are held by the Catholick Church It is even necessary to caution his Hearers and Readers what this Doctor 's true meaning is when he pretends to plead for the Trinity and the Articles thereon depending For when he cries Trinity he means three Eternal and Infinite Spirits that is he says Trinity and means Tritheism and this is the Reason why his Defences of the Catholick Doctrine of the Trinity are as false and weak as his Explication of that Doctrine that I may use the words of the Oxford-Decree concerning it is heretical and impious The whole Catholick Church believes that Almighty God is one Infinite and Eternal Spirit That the Divinity was so incarnate in the Humanity of the Lord Christ as to exert in it the Divine Attributes as Omniscience or the Knowledg of the Thoughts and of the Future and Omnipotence or the Power of Miracles Whereupon there followed as Divines speak a Communication of Idioms Which is to say in consideration of this Incarnation we say God was made Man and the Lord Christ is true God But by the former 't is only meant that by his Incarnation or Indwelling in the Humanity it may be said somewhat Catachrestically or improperly that God became Man by the other that the Lord Christ is true God is meant he is God and whatsoever may be said of God in respect of God in him Farther that our Blessed Saviour by his active and passive Obedience did reconcile Men to God and God to Men and satisfied whatsoever the Justice of God required for the Pardon of Sin and the Donation of eternal Life on the Conditions however on our part of Faith Repentance and Newness of Life As to the Divine Persons that the Divine Essence or Substance or the Divinity it self can be no otherwise distinguished or diversified but only as the Bishop of Worcester words this matter by different Modes of Subsistence or relative Properties which being considered together with the Divine Essence and Attributes are named Persons In this Faith all the Denominations of Christians do acquiesce As it is the Churches Doctrine and her whole Doctrine about these Matters 't is also imbraced by all the Sects of Christians except only the Arians of which Perswasion there are none I think in England nor in the Dominions of any Christian Prince or State But Dr. Sherlock and with him some few others endeavour to disturb this happy Agreement and Consent they would divide us by novel Doctrines and a new Explication of the Trinity an Explication which is as manifest Polytheism and Paganism as any of the old or modern Heathens were ever guilty of He hath not indeed in this Sermon declared expresly what kind of Trinity he pleads for but he intimates it and plainly points to it at p. 7 and 10. He owns at p. 10. 't is the new Explication and at p. 7. the real Trinity by which Names all Men know he and his Party call their Trinity of Spirits and Substances in all their Books Therefore tho if another Man had preached this Sermon the Errors and Weaknesses for which 't is so remarkable might have been charitably overlook'd yet coming from him who designs to establish a Heresy that subverts the grand Design of Christianity and revives Paganism under the disguise of a false Zeal for the Catholick Doctrines of the Trinity the Incarnation and the Satisfaction it would be a very drowsy Neglect not to give notice and warning of this Wolf in Sheeps Clothing or not to detect the Falseness of his Reasonings as well as the Impiety of his Principles and Doctrine I come therefore now to a particular Discussion of the several Parts of his Sermon which I have already represented in distinct Propositions The first was Philosophy and Reason are the only things which those Men adore who would have no God at all And what makes some Men Atheists and Infidels even the Philosophick Tincture and their Adherence to natural-Reason the same makes others to be Hereticks that is to be Arians Socinians and Pelagians He intended it without doubt as a mighty Prejudice against Reason and Philosophy that Atheists and Infidels pretend to both and that they seem to esteem nothing else And in truth a notable Reasoning it is for a Sermon as Sermons ordinarily now go but from the Press or in a Book 't is a contemptible Weakness Atheists and Infidels magnify Philosophy and Reason therefore Divines and good Christians must be hence cautioned that Philosophy and Reason will despoil 'em of their Piety towards God and their Faith as Christians Sir Francis Bacon Lord Verulam is often quoted for a contrary Aphorism namely this that indeed a smattering in Philosophy inclines Men to Atheism and Irreligion but a Mastery in it begets and nourishes Piety and Faith And surely Experience has shown he was in the right For those Divines who have also been Philosophers are the Men that have by their Writings done the greatest and most successful Service to Religion Which in such an Age as this would hardly have stood its Ground under the Management of Divines that were not Philosophers also The Weapons of Atheists and infidels Dr. Sherlock
desperate Cause requires when he so carefully adds As to Contradictions and Impossibilities there will be many whenever we will be reasoning about such things as we understand not I shall tell him not if there be many as he says but if there be any Contradictions or Impossibilities the thing proposed becomes thereby incredible But if we will be reasoning he says about what we do not understand there will be many Contradictions and Impossibilities in our Guesses concerning such things I answer if those Guesses do imply Contradictions or Impossibilities they are such Guesses as none but Fools would make for an Impossibility or a Contradiction is an obvious thing of which none but Philosophers of Gotham will be guilty If we are reasoning about things that we do not understand and there is no occasion that I know of to reason about any thing else Why must we needs be overseen as far as Contradictions and Impossibilities are there no Mistakes to be made but those gross ones Impossibilities and Contradictions It has been ever held by the soberest Divines that Contradictions cannot be verified by the Divine Omnipotence or Omniscience it self and that when we say all things are possible to God we ought to mean it of possible things for as for Impossibilities they are not the Objects of Omnipotence God can no more do impossible things than he can know false things to be true things which most certainly is not knowable A Sermon therefore on behalf of Contradictions and Impossibilities cannot be more absurd than 't is Heterodox and universally condemned by Divines of all Perswasions But this Dean has outfaced a Decree of the University of Oxford in a matter in which if they had mistaken all the Universities of Christendom had been obliged to declare against them and would have declared therefore we need not to wonder that now in a Sermon he as little scruples to contravene the known and agreed Sense and Judgment of all the several Denominations or Sects of Christians I shall confess I am for an ingenuous Liberty and that too in Questions of the greatest Importance but every body knows how bitterly Dr. Sherlock has always opposed and still opposes all Dissenters either from the Doctrine or Discipline of the Church therefore tho I should not object it to another yet to him 't is but his due to tell him of the unparallel'd Immodesty of his Dissent and Separation from the Catholick Church That he has advanced a Heresy concerning the Blessed Trinity condemned by General Councils Decrees of Universities and Consent of Writers and he maintains it by Pleas against Philosophy and Reason and for Contradictions and Impossibilities no less generally reprobated on all hands than his Heresy it self is On his Answer to the first Objection AFter such a Defence of his Heterodoxies as never was before heard he proceeds to answer to two Objections that never were made or however by none but himself And tho it is a very injudicious and needless Confession of a conscience to a Man 's own Insufficience to pass over known and very dangerous Objections and answer only to Chimeras and Follies never suggested or thought of by any Yet Dr. Sherlock is overseen much farther and worse than that for he not only overlooks the Objections of the Socinians and replies to some Weaknesses that no body would have thought of but the Answerer but his Answers are not to those Objections but to something else The Reader shall not again rely upon me if I do not satisfy him and without the trouble of an intent Application that this Maintainer of Paradoxes had forgot his Objection when he came to his Answer He objects first It seems very unnatural that God having made us reasonable Creatures and thereby made Reason to be to us the Measure of Truth and Falshood we should be required to believe without Reason And if we must believe with our Understandings how can we believe what we do not understand I do not believe as I said any Sect of Religious ever made this or the like Objection For 't is very obvious to be seen and understood that tho we are made reasonable Creatures and do believe or assent with out Understandings yet because we cannot but be aware that our Reasons and Understandings are finite and imperfect often short-sighted and as often overseeing things and the Wisdom and Power of God seen in the Contrivance and Structure of the World most perfect therefore he may reveal many things to us to be believed by us tho we understand them not nor have any other Cause of our believing them but only God's Revelation of them We ought to believe God as Children do their Parents or as we our selves believe sage and sober Persons in Matters belonging to their particular Art or Craft that is to say believe them on their Word and for the just Opinion we have of their superiour Knowledg in such Matters To dispute against this is such a degree of Folly that tho I dare not answer for every particular Man yet I know well and any reasonable body will suppose there never was any Party of Men or Sect of Religious that could be so overseen I grant indeed as 't is in the Objection that Reason is the measure of Truth and Falshood but not the frail fallible Reason of Men but the infallible Wisdom of God And in this all Sects agree The Objection therefore is Chimerical and was never made by any sort of Opposers 't is only a loose Thought of this Preacher and advanced to help sill up a crude Sermon Well but what is the wise Answer to a silly Objection Why this When an Objection is made against any thing that it is as we apprehend without Reason or against and contrary to Reason the Objection is of no value if such thing is not the proper Object of Reason Such as the Natures and Essences of things their essential Reasons Vnions Operations and Properties which no Man can pretend are the Objects of Reason or that any Man living can know any thing of them And this he adds farther is all the Incomprehensibility or Contradiction that any can charge on the Trinity or Incarnation By the Trinity meaning his Trinity of Spirits As I said in the name of Goodness what is this Answer to that Objection The Objection is why should reasonable Creatures be obliged to believe things without Reason The Answer is an Objection is of no value if the Matter under dispute is not the Object of Reason Plainly this Answer is not to that Objection but concerning quite another thing namely that we must argue by Reason only for or against such things as are the Objects of Reason But that this wild Answer might look life somewhat he adds the Substances Essences Reasons Properties Vnions and Operations of things are not Objects of Reason and no Man living can know any thing of them Then there is nothing that is the Object of Reason and no