Animadversions UPON Dr. SHERLOCK's Book ENTITULED A Vindication of the Holy and Ever-Blessed Trinity c. TOGETHER With a more Necessary Vindication of that Sacred and Prime Article of the Christian Faith from his New Notions and False Explications of it Humbly offered to His Admirers and to Himself the Chief of them By a Divine of the Church of England The Second Edition with some Additions LONDON Printed for Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall MDCXCIII A PREFACE OR INTRODUCTION To the following Animadversions TO be Impugned from without and Betrayed from within is certainly the worst Condition that either Church or State can fall into and the best of Churches the Church of England has had experience of Both. It had been to be wished and one would think might very reasonably have been expected That when Providence had took the Work of destroying the Church of England out of the Papists Hands some would have been contented with her Preserments without either attempting to give up her Rites and Liturgy or deserting her Doctrine But it has proved much otherwise And amongst those who are justly chargeable with the latter I know none who has faced the World and defied the Church with so bold a Front as the Author of Two very Heterodox Books the first Entituled A Discourse concerning the Knowledge of Jesus Christ c. Published in the Year 1674. And the other A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and ever-Blessed Trinity c. Published in the Year 1690. And as one would think Wrote purposely to let the World see that the Truth cannot be so much shaken by a direct Opposition as by a Treacherous and False Defence I shall in this Preliminary Address to the Reader pass some brief Remarks upon both these Books But first upon this which I have here undertook to Animadvert upon It is now of about Three Years standing in the World and I have wondered even to Astonishment that a Book so full of Paradoxes and those so positively as well as absurdly delivered could pass Unanswered for so long a time For the Author having therein advanced a Notion immediately and unavoidably inferring Three Gods has yet had the Confidence not only to Assert it but to Declare it Heresie and Nonsence to think or hold otherwise that is in other Words to call the whole Christian Church in all Ages and Places Fools and Hereticks For I do here averr and will undertake to prove it as far as a Negative may be proved That no Church known to us by History or otherwise ever held this Notion of the Trinity before And must we then be all Fools and Hereticks who will not acknowledge the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits that is in other Terms to be Three Gods And can so Learned and every way Excellent a Clergy bear this For if they could not whence is it that some Writers amongst them while they are declaring their dislike of his Opinions yet do it with so soft an Air and so gentle a Touch as if they were afraid either to Condemn the Opinion or to Attack the Author Nay and some I find creeping under his Feet with the Title of Very Reverend while they are charging him with such Qualities and Humours as none can be justly chargeable with and deserve Reverence too For my own part I franckly own That I neither Reverence nor Fear him that is I Reverence none who gives whole Communities and Churches such Words nor Fear any One who Writes such Things and in such a manner For even those Mean Spirits who can both Court and Censure him in the same Breath complain That he gives no Quarter where he supposes he has his Adversary upon the least Advantage And if this be his Way and Temper never to give Quarter I am sure he has no cause to expect any whatsoever he may find But still methinks I can hardly believe my Eyes while I read such a Pettit Novellist Charging the Whole Church as Fools and Hereticks for not Subscribing to a Silly Heretical Notion solely of his own Invention For does he or can he think to Live and Converse in the World upon these Terms And to throw his Scurrility at High and Low at all About him Above him and Below him if there be any such at this insufferable rate Does he I would fain know in this speak his Judgment or his Breeding Was it the School the University or Gravel-Lane that taught him this Language Or does he never reflect upon himself nor consider That though he does not others assuredly will One would think by his Words and Carriage that he had ingrossed all Reason and Learning to Himself But on the contrary that this his scornful looking down upon all the World besides is not from his standing upon any higher ground of Learning and Sufficiency than the rest of the World and that he Huffs and Dictates at a much more commanding rate than he Reasons the perusal of my Ninth Tenth and Eleventh Chapters will or I am sure may sufficiently inform the Impartial Reader and shew him how many things there are in this Author's Vindication which too much need Another but admit none In the mean time I do and must declare both to himself and to all others That the forementioned Charge of Heresie and Nonsence as he has laid it is so very Rude Scandalous and Provoking that it is impossible for the Tongue or Pen of Man to reply any Thing so severely upon him which the foulness of the said Expression will not abundantly warrant both the Speaking and the Writing of The Church of England is certainly very Merciful Merciful as a Great Judge once said of K. Charles II. even to a Fault For who by her silence upon what this Bold Man has Wrote and the Encouragement he has since received would not be shrewdly induced after some consider able number of Years if his stuff should live so long to believe that his Notions were the Current Doctrine of our Church or at least of our Church-men at that time None then opposing them most over-looking them and some countenancing and advancing the Author of them and perhaps for them too This is truly the Case and I hope to do the Church of England so much Service at least as to break the Universality both of the Silence and the presumed Acceptance by one plain resolute and full Negative put in against it For upon a due Consideration of the Things vented by this Author and comparing them with the Proceedings and Zeal of the Primitive Church in its Councils I do from my Heart believe That had he lived and published this Book in those Days and Asserted That the Three Divine Persons in the Trinity were Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits And that Their Personal distinction consisted only in Self-Consciousness and their Unity only in Mutual-Consciousness And withal That the Terms Essence Nature Substance
in the former with some Analogy Reference and Affinity to the first use of the Word viz. That as by this Military Oath Soldiers did solemnly devote themselves to their Emperor's Service so in these two Religious Rites Men do much more solemnly devote and bind themselves over to the Obedience and Service of Christ according to all the Rules and Precepts of his Holy Religion I conclude therefore by a Parity of the Case That Mysterium according to the Christian Use of the Word imports not only Quid in sacris secretum by reason of an actual Concealment of the same but moreover something that is so much a Secretum in Religion as to transcend and surpass all Human Comprehension And it is the Authority of the Ancient Writers using the word thus which I state this Sence of it upon as abundantly sufficient to enfranchise and render it Authentick in the Church Though I confess as to the Adversary whom I am to deal with my purpose would be sufficiently serv'd against him even by the first and narrowest Signification of the Word as it imports only something in Religion actually secret hidden and not open to a common view or perception I have now given the Notation Signification and Definition of the word Mystery But after all there is a new Light sprung lately into the World which tells us the use of the Word in Scripture determines the Case quite another way for that the Scripture knows no such signification of the word as we have insisted upon nor that any thing that is Incomprehensible is or ought to be accounted a Mystery The Asserter of this as we may well perceive is a bold Man but being at present engaged with a much bolder I shall only say thus much of this Socinian Tract here viz. That as to the Argument which the Author would raise against the Trinitarians as he calls them from the Sence of the Word Mystery as he has there stated it it has been throughly baffled and overthrown by a Learned Person in a short Discourse in Vindication of the Mysteries of the Christian Faith c. And when this Anti-Trinitarian has answer'd that Learned Person if there appears need of any further answer to the foremention'd piece he may all in good time receive one in a distinct Discourse by it self And so I immediately address my self to the Author undertook by me who by pretending to defend the great Article of the Trinity has given the Adversary those great Advantages against it which the bare Article left to defend it self as the Faith is generally its own best Defender could never have given him The Socinians charge it with Paradox and downright Contradiction For the repelling and staving off which Charge from this Doctrine our Author has thought fit to give us some Rules to judge of a Contradiction by and in so doing has laid down this Remarkable Assertion viz. That it is a vain and arrogant presumption 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. This I say is a very remarkable Assertion and the first thing remarkable in it is That according to a Custom very usual with him he promiscuously joyns together words as if they were of the same Import and Extent of Signification when really they are very different For to understand a thing is to know it in any respect or degree in which it is knowable and to comprehend a thing is to know it in every respect in which it is knowable And as it is certain that we cannot know God this latter way so it is as certain that we may know him the former For we do and may know him by inadequate and imperfect and uncommensurate Conceptions as that he is Just Wise Good and the like which are several Inadequate ways of representing him to our mind But now if this Author's Assertion should take place viz. That we cannot say what is or what is not a Contradiction when we confess we do not comprehend the thing we speak of then we cannot pronounce these Propositions Iupiter Olympius is the Supreme God the Sun is the Supreme God or the World is the Supreme God to be Contradictions Forasmuch as it is certain that speaking here of God we do not comprehend the thing we speak of And yet since Iupiter Olympius the Sun and the World are all of them finite Material Beings and God both Infinite and Immaterial I doubt not but that to affirm one of the other is a real and manifest Contradiction And to shew that it is so this Author should do well to consider That a Contradiction is not properly or universally at least oppos'd to the compleat and adequate knowledge of a thing but to the true knowledge of it And we may have a true knowledge even by such inadequate imperfect incomplete Conceptions of it as we have mention'd For he who knows God to be Just though he cannot comprehend every way and respect in which he is or may be so and much less all his other Perfections has thereby a true knowledge of God though an Imperfect one That is he knows and understands though he does not comprehend him But according to this Author's Assertion we cannot say that any thing is a Contradiction with reference to God since it is certain and evident that we neither do nor can comprehend him And what absurd and insufferable Consequences this must needs draw after it in our Discourses of God I leave to any one but the Author of this Assertion to judge But the Consequences of it as bad as they are do not stop in God For in the 7th Page our Author proceeds farther and affirms That it is so far from being a wonder to meet with any thing whose nature or rather the Nature of which we do not perfectly understand that he knows nothing in the World which we do perfectly understand or in his other word comprehend for to understand a thing perfectly and to comprehend it I take to be the same And now let us apply his former Rule viz. That we cannot say what is or is not a Contradiction when we confess we do not comprehend the thing we speak of I say let us apply this Rule here also and since he positively avers That there is nothing in the World which we do comprehend or perfectly understand it must roundly follow That there can be no such thing as a Contradiction since whatsoever is so is and must be a Contradiction to something or other Now for the Truth and Reason of his Assertion I cannot undertake but certainly the Prudence and Forecast of it is admirable as being like to do him Knight's Service as I shall shew hereafter at many a turn and next to a Convocation-Book help him out at a dead Lift. In the mean time let us see how our Author makes good this strange and loose Proposition
viz. That there is nothing in the World that we perfectly understand And in order to this Let us bring and lay together what he Asserts in several places And here first in Page 7. line 20. c. It is agreed by all Men That the Essences of things cannot be known but only their Properties and Qualities and that the World is divided into Matter and Spirit and that we know no more what the substance of Matter than what the sâ—bstance of Spirit is And then he enumerates some of the Essential Properties of each and owns that we know them in Confirmation I suppose of his fore-going Assertion that we know nothing After which in Pag. 8. line 15. he adds As for the Essential Properties Operations and Powers of Matter Sence Experience and Observation will tell us what they are And then I hope we may know also what they are when Sence and Experience has told us So that we see here what our Author asserts But may we rely upon it and hold him to his Word Alas That I fear may prove something hard and unkind For a Man to whom a whole Convocation has given a large scope and liberty of thinking and who has given himself as large an one for speaking loves not of all things in the World to be held too strictly to what he says For in Page 4. line 25. reckoning up some of the Absurdities and Contradictions attending the Doctrine of Transubstantiation he tells us That we know them to be so because we know the Nature of a Body and this also we must suppose said in further Confirmation of his other Assertion that we know not the Nature of any thing and moreover That we know that such things as he there mentions are a Contradiction to the Essential Properties of a Body line 26. All this he says here and that in very plain terms But in Page 7. in which it is high time for a Man to forget what he said in the 4th He tells us That the Essences of things cannot be known and consequently one would think That the Essence of a Body could not be known And yet for one to know the nature of a Body which in Page 4. he says we do without knowing the Essence of it which in Page 7. he says we cannot know is I conceive a way of knowledge peculiar to this Author In the next place as for the property of things he tells us very positively in Page 8. line 33 34. That the Properties and Operations both of Bodies and Spirits are great Secrets and Mysteries in Nature which we understand nothing of c. And yet in Page 7. line 32. he tells us That we know the Essential Properties of a Spirit that it is a thinking substance with the Faculties of Understanding and Will c. Now to know the Essential Properties of a Spirit And yet for these Properties to be such Secrets and Mysteries in Nature that we understand nothing of them both which this Author expresly affirms in the compass of two Pages is another sort of knowledge which ought in all reason to be reckon'd peculiar to himself And thus having consider'd some of his Assertions in Contradiction to one another if there be any such thing as a Contradiction I will consider some of them severally by themselves And here as I have already shewn That he says positively Page 4. line 28. That we have no clear and comprehensive Notion of a Spirit So he adds in the next words That it is impossible to know what is contrary to the Nature of a Spirit if we know not what the Nature of a Spirit is i. e. Comprehensively as he must still mean But this by his favour I very much question and desire him to tell me Whether we may not know That it is contrary to the Nature of a Spirit to be Material to be extended and to be compounded of the Elements c. These things I take to be such as are contrary to the Nature of a Spirit and such as may be certainly known to be so and consequently such as may safely rationally and consonantly to all Principles of Philosophy be pronounced to be so And therefore this Author's Assertion viz. That it is impossible to know what is contrary to the Nature of a Spirit if we have not a clear comprehensive Notion of the Nature of a Spirit is apparently False Absurd and Ridiculous But to proceed This Author having said That he knows nothing in the World that we do perfectly understand And for the proof of it alledged That the Essences of Things cannot be known and for the farther proof of that affirm'd That the whole World is adequately divided into Matter and Spirit the Natures of which as he says are wholly unknown to us Suppose now I should as I do deny this whole Argument and affirm That there is a third sort of Beings which are neither Matter nor Spirit which yet as to some of them at least may be perfectly understood and known by us and these are Accidents which according to the ablest Philosophers hitherto do together with substance make a much better and more comprehensive Division of the whole World than Matter and Spirit For certain it is That Accidents as contradistinct to Substance are real Beings and have their respective Essences and Properties belonging to them and such as may be matter of Demonstration which kind of Argument is known to be the proving of any Property or proper Attribute of its Subject by a third thing or Principle bearing an Essential Connexion with both And amongst Accidents I do particularly affirm this of Numbers Figures and Proportions that they are such things as may be perfectly understood by us in the strength of Natural Reason For I think it may be perfectly and comprehensively known That two and two make four and that a Circle is a Figure every part of the Circumference whereof is equidistant from the Centre and a thousand more such things all which are capable of being Scientifically made out to us by Demonstration And this indeed to such an height that as some will admit of no Demonstrations but in the Mathematicks viz. in Numbers Figures and Proportions So there are few or none but readily grant That the Demonstrations about these Matters are the Clearest the most Scientifick and Convincing of all other Demonstrations whatsoever From all which I conclude That what this Author has affirm'd viz. That there is nothing in the World but Matter and Spirit and withal That there is nothing which we do perfectly understand is not only a crude loose unwary but really and in strictness of truth a very false Assertion And therefore though this Author pleaseth himself with a fanciful Harangue about our Ignorance of the Philosophy How the Fire burns and the Waters are condens'd as he calls it into Ice How Stones fall to the Ground and Vapours ascend and thicken in Clouds and fall down again to the
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
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