Nature of a Spirit proved not to consist in Vital internal Sensation 17 18 19 The Trinity in Vnity not explicable by Sensation and Continuity of Sensation 20 21 No man's feeling himself a distinct Person can be the Reason of his being so 22 23 The Defender's Complement to the Animadverter returned 24 Mutual Consciousness can never make three distinct Spirits essentially one 26 27 Mutual Consciousness according to this Author's Principles must consist of three distinct Acts 27 28 His profane Assertion concerning the Trinity 30 Each of the Divine Persons as a distinct Person is not a distinct Infinite Mind with a Refutation of his Argument brought to prove it so 31 32 33 34 His absurd Assertions concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Divine Persons 35 36 37 His vain endeavour to justifie his Hypothesis of three distinct infinite Minds from the Allusions used by the Fathers about the Trinity 38 39 An extraordinary Discovery made by this Author of Resemblance without Likeness 40 41 His gross Mistakes and precarious Assertions concerning the sence and use of the Term Person from p. 41 to 50 His ridiculous pleading Theological use for the word Minds as importing the same with Persons while none can be proved to use it so but himself and some few Hereticks besides 46 47 The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sufficient proof of a Numerical Vnity of Nature or Essence in the Divine Persons 51 All Specifick Vnity of Nature or any thing analogous to it in the Divine Persons proved absurd and impossible 52 53 The Divine Nature proved against this Author to be a single or singular Nature together with a Refutation of some other of his false and heretical Assertions from p. 54 to 60 The Vnity of the Divine Nature in the three Persons proved not to be as this Defender would have it partly Specifical and partly Numerical 55 56 The Testimony of Victorinus Afer of little or no Authority with Reference to the Doctrine of the Trinity 60 61 Two other of this Defender's scandalous Assertions refuted 61 62 His Romance of a Man and his living Image so absurdly and profanely brought by him as an Explication of the Essential Union of the Divine Persons examined and exploded from p. 63 to 80 His gross Ignorance of the sence and import of the term Emanation 73 The proper and true Sence of it explained ibid. An account both of the Nature of an Image in general and of an Image by Reflexion in particular 65 66 The Animadverter's Objection That Dr. Sherlock has stated a Trinity in Vnity so as utterly to overthrow the Mysteriousness of it enforced and made good 81 82 The Mysteriousness of the same denied also by Le-Clerk in his Theological Epistles under the Name of Liberius de Sancto Amore where the Reader may find the Materials of this Author 's new Hypothesis and where this Author himself may be supposed also to have found them before from p. 82 to 85 The School-Terms defended and the Vse of them asserted against this Illiterate Innovator 86 87 The Term Formal Reason of a Thing further explained and insisted upon 89 90 The true state of the Point in dispute between Dr. Sherlock and the Animadverter fully and particularly represented from p. 91 to 99 His Blunder about Convertibility and Proprium quarto modo 99 100 c. His flying from the Act of Self-Consciousness to the Principle thereof proved a meer shift and an utter change of the Question 101 102 c. The Animadverter's first Argument proving Self-Consciousness neither Act nor Principle to be the formal Reason of Personality in created Beings enforced from p. 101 to 108 The second Argument vindicated and the defects of the Boetian Definition of a Person noted from p. 108 to 112 The third Argument for the same confirmed also 112 113 c. The Dispute concerning the Personality of the Soul both in and out of the Body resumed and carried on against this Author and all his Hâ—terodox Vnphilosophical Assertions concerning it throughly canvased and confuted from p. 114 to 151 Every man constituted such according to this Author 's avowed Principles not by an Essential Composition but by an Hypostatick Union of the Soul with the Body from p. 147 to 150 The Defender's pretended Answer to the fourth Chapter of the Animadversions proving Self-Consciousness not to be the formal Reason of Personality in the Divine Persons examined and the several Arguments there produced against it made good from p. 152 to 171 He manifestly gives up the Point in dispute between him and his Adversary and that in several places viz. 153 154. item 160 161. and 168. and 204 c. His Blasphemy 170 The Animadverter's Arguments brought to prove That mutual Consciousness cannot be that which makes as this Author affirms the three Divine Persons essentially one God in like manner confirmed and enforced from p. 171 to 183 c. His Shifting Pretence That by Mutual Consciousness he means the Principle not the Act thereof irrefragably overthrown from his own repeated Expressions and Assertions p. 172 to 178 The Thing it self effectually disprov'd by Reason and Argument p. 178 to 182 How the Divine Knowledge is diversify'd 190 191 The Communion of the Divine Persons with one-another asserted and prov'd not to be formally the same with the Union of the said Persons 193 194 A downright shameless unconscionable Lye affirmed by this Defender 195 196 His silly Cavils about Union of Nature and about Personality answer'd 156 157 158 No 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mutual Indwelling of Minds in one another 199 This Author 's great Ignorance in exploding all Priority and Posteriority from our Conceptions and Discourses of God expos'd and laid open and the Necessity of admitting the same unanswerably prov'd against him p. 199 to 203 His Pretence of not disputing about the Essences of Things shewn impertinent to the purpose he alledges it for and withal grosly contradictious to what he himself had positively affirmed elsewhere 204 205 How Knowledge and how all Arts and Sciences are distinguish'd and denominated from their respective Objects which this Author is utterly ignorant of shewn and explained 207 208 Sensation in God as wholly differing according to this Author in kind from the Divine Knowledge disproved and exploded p. 208 to 213 His scandalous Falsification in quite changing the state of the present Question contrary to his own positive frequent and express Assertions throughout the Vindication c. p. 214 to 218 The same made yet more manifest by collating what he says here with what he had affirmed there ibid. The true state of the Question substituted in the room of the preceding false one 219 His vain Endeavour to rescue his Hypothesis of three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits from the Charge of Tritheism 220 His Assertion of the Equipollency of the Terms Infinite Mind and Infinite Intelligent Person proved intolerably false and absurd 223 224 c. The difference
the Sentence thus translated and where it is And if this be a true and proper Translation then I am sure that what appears so in Latine must be equally so in English But why should I spend words in disputing a thing so obvious to any Man of Sence For will any one living who is so deny it to be a most pertinent and proper way to give an Account of Things by the signification of the words which they are couched under and withall to prove and make good that signification yet further by its derivation from another and more remote word What Judgment the Reader will pass upon this Man's Temper and Abilities for this Objection I know not but for my own part I protest I can hardly think him well in his Wits that he should offer such stuff to Publick View which one grain of sence would convince him deserves rather to be hooted at than replyed to But this is not all for we have him again at his old Blunder about the Anti-Nicene Fathers p. 17. l. 2. though he had been so deservedly corrected and exposed for it before But whosoever or whatsoever these Anti-Nicene Fathers were I find it past my skill to perswade the World that the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latine ante signify the same Thing though to this Author I confess they may to whom Hebrew Greek and Latine come all alike And again in a Greek Quotation p. 22. in which sort of Quotations he never fails to shew his Parts we have these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instead of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. which indeed is but a false Concord and that we know ought to pass but for a â—light thing in a Grammarian above Ordinances So that we see here that the Trade of Blunders Solecisms and false Syntax as dead as all other Trading is continues as Quick and full upon this Author's hands as ever And the truth is I have had such Experience of him and know him by so true a measure that wheresoever there is any thing of Grammar in the Case I never expect any other or better from him And I heartily pitty all Greek or Latine that falls under his hands And so I pass from his Critical to his Polemical Atchievements not doubting but I shall find him so extremely like himself in both that neither shall the Critick have any Cause to laugh at the Disputant nor the Disputant to reproach the Critick Now his whole Work consists of these Two Parts I. First A general Scheme or Draught of his Hypothesis II. Secondly An Answer as he calls it to the Animadverter's Arguments I. As to the First of which since it is not brought by way of Reply to the Animadversions it might justly be slighted and according to all the Laws of Disputation passed over without the least notice taken of it And so much the more because it is little else but a dull tedious Crambe recocta of his Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness served up again and again and obtruded upon the Reader ad nauseam usque as if the bare Repetition of his baffled Notions were enough to recover and set them upon their leggs again Nevertheless that he may not think Tautology a Thing of such Virtue as to be able to re-settle his broken Hypothesis upon any firmer ground than it stood on before what has been here offered by him by way of After-game in his forlorn Defence of it shall be duly and fairly examined And here to shew the World that he can write with as little regard to Truth as sense of Shame he begins his Discourse with a very gross Falshood viz. That all that he affirmed in his Vindication c. concerning a Trinity in Vnity was That it is a Possible and Intelligible Notion and no other in Sence and Substance than what the Ancient Fathers made use of to represent this great Mystery by though expressed in other Terms c. p. 4. l. 18. Now the first part of this Assertion I affirm in the Face of the World to be scandalously false For he has not only asserted his Notion of a Trinity in Vnity the only Thing here in Debate to be Possible and Intelligible but also Plain and Easie and such as solves all Doubts and Difficulties and â—lears off all seeming Contradictions about it These are his Words Vindicat Pref. p. 1. l. 13. B. p. 66 68 85. And I do here demand of him Whether they are so or no If they are not Let him declare me an Impudent Falsificator and if they are Let him or any of his Friends of the Tritheistical Tribe prove That barely Possible and Intelligible which is all that he here pretends to signifie the same with Plain and Easie and solving all Doubts and Difficulties about the Trinity which are the very Words of his Vindication if they can As for the next Thing asserted by him and that with every whit as great a Falshood as the former viz. That his Doctrine is the same with that of the Fathers though expressed in other Words He ought as he has been several times urged and required to have given the World a solid Reason why the Fathers Meaning should not be rather gathered from their own than from his Words And why if they had the same meaning with him they did not express it in the same Words the Words being so easie and obvious at hand to be made use of and the Fathers withal so great Masters of Philosophy Rhetorick and Expression And I defie any Man of Sense alive to give a satisfactory Answer to these Queries But not one Tittle does this Author answer to these or to all that have been alledged or argued at large against this his confident bold-begging Asseveration in the 6 th 7 th and 8 th Chapters of the Animadversions In the next place with the same Assurance and Untruth he tells us That the Substance of the Article of the Trinity is not concerned in his Hypothesis Defen p. 4. And that there is no Innovation made by it in the Faith nor any Alteration of the least Term in it p. 5. Which as I said is a very confident Assertion and it were well if the Truth of it could support the Confidence For notorious it is that this Man has advanced not only such Terms but Notions too in his Explication of the Trinity as the Catholick Church never yet made use of and such as the generality of our own Church do at this day condemn as Novel and Heretical And then can this Man say That he has innovated nothing upon the Substance of this Article which certainly does not consist meerly in the Words of it Suppose an Arian should come and brazen it out and pretend Orthodoxy as to the Trinity by saying That he owns Three Persons and One God as in a certain sence of his own he may and no doubt upon occasion would Shall this Profession now warrant him Orthodox
Nature but to the Vnity in Trinity p. 69. l. 29. And will this Man say That any Thing can be essential to the Vnity of the one which is not as essential to the Vnity of the other For though we frequently use the word Vnion of Persons yet strictly speaking it is improper since it is not an Vnion which is but another word for Vnition but an Vnity of Persons in Nature or an Vnity of Nature in the Persons which is the proper expression and therefore we neither say an Vnion in Trinity nor a Trinity in Vnion but always apply the word Vnity to both But our Author closes this Paragraph with these words p. 69. at the end That if mutual Consciousness be essential to this Vnity of Nature so that the Three Persons are thus united and cannot be one without it he will contend no further And so far I think he does discreetly but too late For whether he will contend further or no his Adversary both does and will for as much as this Author has asserted a great deal more than what this Concession amounts to and if he does not prove all that he has asserted he is a baffled Person For he has positively asserted as we have shewn from his own words that mutual Consciousness makes the Three Divine Persons to be Naturally one p. 66. Def. 26. and to be essentially one God Vind. p. 68. l. 6. And this by his favour is quite another thing from only asserting that mutual Consciousness is essential to that Vnity of Nature which is in the Three Persons For that it may be as it is an essential consequent of the said Unity of Nature and no more As also from asserting as he here does p. 69. l. the last That the three Divine Persons cannot be one without it For surely that which is only a Conditio sine quâ non and without which the said Divine Persons cannot be one in Nature and that which formally makes them so or wherein their Vnity does consist are wholly different Things And therefore since it is manifest that this Man has no Logick I heartily wish that he had some shame In the mean time he is for shewing as well as he can how the Animadverter mistakes the whole matter in these words quoted from him Anim. p. 108. l. 14. The Divine Nature or Essence being one and the same in all the Three Persons there is upon this account one and the same knowledge in them also And they are not one in Nature by vertue of their mutual Consciousness but they are therefore mutually conscious because the Perfect Unity and Identity of their Nature makes them so Thus the Animadverter and where is now the mistake why our Author tells us That Three Persons who have the same Nature may know the same Things without feeling one another's thoughts and knowledge in themselves p. 70. l. 22. To which I answer first That the foundation of this reply is That there is such a thing as Feeling in God distinct from knowledge which is the height of nonsence and Absurdity as shall be declared before we pass from this head of mutual Consciousness Secondly I utterly deny That Persons who have the same Divine Nature can know the same Things I mean all the same Things for that only here can be insisted upon without knowing each other's thoughts and knowledge in themselves For as much as whatsoever each of these Divine Persons knows he does and must know by an Infinite Act of Knowledge comprehending both himself and the other Two Persons and all that is Knowable in the World besides and how each of the Divine Persons can know all this without mutually knowing one another I desire this Man to shew But he argues further That if by one and the same knowledge the Animadverter means that the knowledge of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons is but one Individual Act as the knowledge of one single Person is this destroys the Distinction of Persons which cannot be distinct without distinct personal Acts as mutual knowledge is and destroys mutual Consciousness for there is no place for mutual Consciousness or mutual Knowledge where there is but one single Act of Knowledge p. 70. l. 24. In answer to which I observe these Two Notable Instances of his Great Ignorance First His supposing and taking for granted the very Thing in dispute between him and his Adversary viz. That the Distinction of the Divine Persons depends upon certain Distinct Acts of Knowledge as the cause or antecedent Reason of that Distinction whereas his Adversary on the contrary affirms all Distinction of Divine Knowledge as well as all Diversification of the Divine Nature it self to be from the Distinction or distinct Subsistence of the Divine Persons as the Prime and original Reason of it And whereas this Author says again That the Divine Persons cannot be distinct without Distinct Personal Acts as mutual knowledge is it is true That they cannot be without them as Inseparably consequent upon their Personal Distinction but not as constituent of it Secondly The other Instance of his Ignorance here is his affirming that there can be no place for mutual Consciousness or Knowledge where there is but one single or Individual Act of Knowledge Which I utterly deny as false and in order to the proving it so I do here observe That there is but one single Act of Knowledge in all the Three Divine Persons that is to say single as to the Substance of the Act though diversified by the several modifications which it receives from the Persons whom it proceeds from and from the several respects it bears to the several objects it terminates upon Which different modifications and respects do by no means infer diverse or distinct Acts of Knowledge but only variously modify determine and distinguish one and the same Act. Accordingly in the present Case I do here affirm to this Author That mutual Consciousness is nothing else but one and the same Act of Divine Knowledge differently modified as it proceeds severally and after a different manner from Father Son and Holy Ghost as the Persons knowing and jointly terminated in them all as the objects known as on the other side Self-Consciousness is no more than this one and the same Act of Knowledge as it issues only from one of the Persons and terminates upon the same too Though I confess if the Three Divine Persons were Three distinct Minds or Spirits mutual Consciousness could not be one Act only but must be Three This I hold concerning the Divine Knowledge and the respective distinctions of it and I leave this Author to try his best skill in Divinity and Philosophy to confute it In the mean time he gives us one Absurdity more out of his inexhaustible stock viz. That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ascribed by the Fathers to the Three Divine Persons is that very mutual Consciousness which the Dean means For these are his words p. 7.
that all Divines not excepting himself discourse of the Divine Essence as determinable and of the Divine Persons as of those by whom it is determined and again of the Divine Essence as communicable and of the Divine Persons two of them at least as those to whom it is communicated For can this be done without a distinct Conception of that which is to be Communicated and of Those to whom the Communication is to be made or can there be any distinction in the conception where there is not a proportionable Distinguishableness in the Object So that upon the whole matter it appears that nothing could be more contrary to all the Principles of Christian Philosophy and Theology than this Author's denial of all distinction in the sense we have given of it between the Divine Essence and Persons for without such distinction it is impossible to conceive or discourse of the said Persons as one in Essence and Three in Subsistence And so I pass to the Examination of his other Proposition viz. That the Essence makes the Person Concerning which I do with the greatest assurance appeal to all the World whether any Thing more absurd strange and Paradoxical was ever asserted in Divinity For how can the Divine Essence be conceived to make the Person Since all making must of Necessity be one of these Two ways First Either by an efficient production Or secondly By a formal Constitution of a Thing For no third way besides these is assigneable But it cannot be by the first because it is and ever was a received Maxime in Theology That the Divine Essence considered absolutely in it self neither produces nor is produced So that if any Production or Operation be ascribed to it it must be only as it subsists in a Person one or more who is the sole proper Agent or Producer in every Divine Act or Effect from whence it is evident that that which can produce nothing but as it is and operates in the Person cannot produce the Person it self which it must presuppose before it can operate Besides that if the Essence should produce the Person it would follow that it must produce one Person as well as another and consequently the Person of the Father as well as that of the Son and of the Holy Ghost But if the Essence should produce the Person of the Father how could the Father be said to be the fountain of the Deity as the Ancient Writers Term him very often and to be without all Original which is the peculiar Character of his Person For that the Deity or Divine Essence which are but two words for the same thing should produce the fountain of the Deity or a Self-originated Person no Mortal Man I believe this Author still excepted can imagine Since therefore it is so insufferably Absurd to affirm that the Essence makes the Person by way of Production let us see whether it can be said to make it the other way viz. by a formal constitution of it But if this be admitted then the Essence must be that by which a Person is formally a Person whereupon the Essence and the Person being commensurate and convertible it will follow That if there be but one Essence there can be but one Person and that if there be a Plurality of Persons there must be a Plurality of Essences too For the multiplication of the formal Reason of any Thing must of Necessity multiply the Thing it self of which it is so And here I must tell this Author that as much as he disclaims the use of the Term Formal Reason yet this very expression of his That the Essence makes the Person truly and properly neither does nor can import any thing else than that the Essence is the formal Reason thereof And if so let him upon this Assertion keep off the forementioned Consequence viz. That either there are Three Essences or but one Person if he can But after all finding himself pinch'd still harder and harder and not well knowing which way to turn himself at length he cries out It is an amazing thing to think what strange Conceits this man viz. the Animadverter must have of a Trinity of Persons and Vnity of Essence or Substance p. 92. l. 7. To relieve him from which Transport if this Defender instead of looking into the Fathers which he so often mentions will be pleas'd to read them he shall find this amazing Conceit or Notion of the Trinity as he calls it fully and frequently express'd by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek Fathers and in the Latin Fathers Councils Schoolmen and other Divines Popish and Protestant by the Vna Essentia and the Tres Subsistentiae or Modi Subsistendi That is to say by three distinct Modes of Subsisting or three Subsistences of one and the same Infinite Essence or Substance included in all and each of them This is the Animadverter's Notion of One Divine Essence and Three Divine Persons as this man has been more than once told and the Authorities producible for it and in a great measure produc'd already in the Animadversions might one would think have serv'd to cure that Amazement or rather Stâ—por which this Author upon this account has been so deeply seiz'd with On the contrary such a Notion of the Trinity as makes the Divine Nature or Essence a Person and the three Divine Persons to be three distinct Minds or Spirits and consequently three distinct Essences Natures or Substances is Matter of much greater Amazement and Abhorrence too to all that are concern'd for the Faith which they were baptiz'd into And moreover for any one to assert three Infinitâ— Minds and yet to pretend not to assert three Gods is yet more amazing than the former And lastly for such scandalous Assertions to wear the Stamp of Publick Licence and Authority and the shameless Author of them to be endur'd and not only so but to be also under such Circumstances in the Church of England is to all sober and pious Minds more amazing monstrous and astonishing than all his detestable Heresies put together But to draw to a close of this Argument against his Three Infinite Minds from a Necessity of asserting Three Substances in the Godhead as unavoidably consequent thereupon I find this Author utterly at a loss where to fix and by no means consistent with himself as sometimes denying and sometimes allowing his Three Minds to be Three Substances His denyal of it appears in these words Let the Animadverter says he bring off Three Persons from being Three Substances and the Dâ—â—â— will undertake to bring off his Three Minds from being so as well p. 89. l. 15. On the contrary if this Author does not allow of Three Substances in the Trinity why does he interpret the places alledg'd by the Animadverteâ— out of the Fathers for an Vnity of Substance in the Divine Nature and Persons only of a Specifick Vnity of Substance for that all know
have shewn be not an Attribute which imports only some particular perfection of the Divine Nature but the Subject of all such Attributes yet in these Propositions The Father is God the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God it is a Logical Attritube in every one of them And let him champ upon this till he breaks his Teeth upon it if he pleases But as Men sometimes in a drunken fit cry out Fire Fire not from what they see without them but from what they feel within So this Man out of an Internal plenitude of Ignorance cries out here in most Tragical manner What will this Animadverter make of God at last when the Divine Essence is an Attribute and a Divine Person a mere Mode p. 94. l. 30. In answer to which as it has been sufficiently explaiend how the Animadverter makes the Divine Essence concretely expressed by the Term God an Attribute so if this Defender will say further That he makes a Divine Person a mere Mode I do here Challenge him to point out that place in the Animadversions where the Animadverter says so He has indeed over and over declared and that without shuffling from his words to his meaning That he holds a Divine Person to be properly the Divine Nature under such a certain mode of Subsistence or in other Terms such a certain mode of Subsistence of the Divine Nature still including the said Nature in it This I say the Animadverter all along holds and asserts and if this Man calls this the making a Divine Person a meer Mode as it is a gross and direct falshood and utterly disowned by his Adversary so should I take the Liberty of calling Things by their own proper names it might justly entitle him to a very coarse one Now the Proposition from first to last asserted by this Author is this That the Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits which the Animadverter affirmed to be contrary to the Athanasian Creed as he shewed by casting it into the same Form and consequently that if the said Form were a True way of Reasoning concerning the Divine Nature and Persons This Proposition ought to be rejected as utterly inconsistent with it And how does our Author counter-argue this Why why by running out into an Impertinent proof that Infinite Mind belongs distinctly to the Three Divine Persons and consequently may be distinctly predicated of each of them Both which are as easily granted him as they can be alleged by him But by his favour the Question here is not Whether each of the Divine Persons be distinctly an Infinite Mind but whether each of them be a distinct Infinite Mind which this Defender affirms and that so positively that he lays the whole stress of his Hypothesis upon it in these remarkable words That if every Person in the Trinity considered as a distinct Person be not a distinct Infinite and Eternal Mind there is an end of the Dean's Notion Def. p. 8. at the end And the Animadverter on the other side as positively denies each of the Divine Persons to be a distinct Infinite Mind or that the Term Distinct Infinite Mind can be truly predicated of or belong to any of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity And therefore for the clearing of this matter and that even to this Man's Understanding if possible we must always distinguish between Attributing a Distinct Thing to each Distinct Person and between Attributing a Thing distinctly to the said Person For there is a vast Difference between these Two and yet this Author perpetually confounds them and still from the latter infers the former which is a manifest Paralogism à Dicto secundùm Quid ad dictum simpliciter viz. to conclude absolutely a diverse or Distinct Thing from a diverse or distinct mode of a Thing As for instance Omnipotence belongs to each of the Divine Persons distinctly but that does not prove that there is a distinct Omnipotence belonging to each of them but only one and the same Omnipotence belonging to the Three Persons according to Three distinct ways and what I have said of Omnipotence holds equally in Omniscience or Infinite Intelligence and in all the Essential Divine Attributes besides For a Thing 's belonging distinctly to the Three Divine Persons distinctly considered imports no more but that it belongs after a distinct manner to each of them so considered which one and the same Infinite Being may without any multiplication of it self very well do But says our Author The Athanasian Form does not forbid us to attribute to each distinct Person what is common to all Three for it does it expresly by affirming that the Father is Vncreate the Son Vncreate and the Holy Ghost Vncreate p. 96. l. 10. In which words as by the Term Vncreate I affirm ought to be understood an Vncreate Being or Essence So I readily grant that Father Son and Holy Ghost distinctly considered are each of them an Vncreate Being but for all that shall never grant each of them to be a distinct Vncreate Being But utterly deny That the Father is a distinct Vncreate Being the Son a distinct Vncreate Being and the Holy Ghost a distinct Vncreate Being as being all of them Propositions absolutely false and founded upon this perpetual Blunder That he shifts the Term distinct from the Subject to the Predicate still arguing thus That because every distinct Person distinctly considered is an Infinite Mind therefore every such Person so considered is a distinct Infinite Mind Which no Logick or Rule of Consequence will or can infer And therefore whereas he makes the Animadverter give this as the Reason of the Athanasian Predication That what is common to all Three Persons does not distinctly belong to each Def. p. 96. l. 22. I must tell him That it is false For the Animadverter affirms the same Nature which is common to all the Persons to belong distinctly to each Person but nevertheless denies That in the same respect in which it is common to all it does or can belong distinctly to any one For it belongs to all as an Essence or Being absolutely considered but it belongs distinctly to each Person according to a distinct way or mode of subsisting which the said Being or Essence has in each Person and consequently since the same Divine Essence or Being has Three Distinct ways of subsisting it does according to each of them belong distinctly to each Person Yet still as I said before not as a distinct Being or Essence in any Person And whereas this Man states the Reason of the Athanasian Form upon this That the Divine Perfections distinctly existing in the Divine Persons are so inseparably united as to be essentially one p. 96. l. 26. That is still Trumping the same old Petitio Principii upon the Reader for it is still positively denied him and will be so for ever That an Inseparable Vnion of Three distinct Infinite Minds were such an Vnion possible can make the said
in this Article when if he should be put to it to explain this Profession he would never acknowledge those Three Persons to be That One God It is therefore mere Trifling to alledge the Verbal Profession of a Form where it is evident that a Man maintains such Doctrines as utterly overthrow the Sence of that Form For whosoever holds any Proposition inconsistent with or subversive of another Proposition held by him can no more be said truly to own that other Proposition than if he actually and in terminis denied it since surely there may be a Real and Vertual as well as a Verbal and Express Denial of Things But this Author thinks it an abundant Proof of his Orthodoxy in the Point before us that he pleads his entire acknowledgment of the Athanasian Creed in all the Parts and Expressions of it But by his favour I must tell him that neither is this sufficient unless he could prove that he cannot Contradict Himself Forasmuch as a Man He himself especially may make a Verbal profession even of that Creed also and yet own and maintain Assertions directly contrary to and inconsistent with the Sence and Design of it Now the Design of this Creed is to assert such a perfect Vnity in the Divine Nature or Essence and every essential Attribute of it as shall exclude all Multiplication of each notwithstanding the Plurality and incommunicable Distinction of the Divine Persons This I say is the Design of the Athanasian Creed and does our Author's Hypothesis fall in and agree with it If so let us make Trial of it by casting the Principal Part of his Hypothesis into the Athanasian Form thus The Father is Infinite Spirit the Son is Infinite Spirit and the Holy Ghost is Infinite Spirit and yet they are not Three Infinite Spirits but one Infinite Spirit So runs the Athanasian Form but then the illative Proposition viz. That they are not Three Infinite Spirits is a direct Contradiction to this Author's Hypothesis who positively affirms That the Three Divine Persons are Three Infinite Spirits and I as positively affirm That Three Infinite Spirits are Three Gods And this I suppose makes an Alteration in this Article with a vengeance an Alteration in the very Substance of it if a Total Subversion can with any Propriety of Speech be called an Alteration But this Author defends not himself only by his Acknowledgment of the Athanasian Creed but also by alledging his perfect Concurrence with the School-Men viz. That he asserts the Vnity of the Godhead in as high Terms as ever the Schools did even a Natural Numerical Vnity thereof p. 5. lin 3. But does not this Man in his Vindication p. 114. lin 26. tell us That the Fathers and Gregory Nyssen in particular asserted a Specifick Vnity of the Divine Nature and meant no other by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than an Vnion in such an one and that for so holding none ought to quarrel or find fault with them forasmuch as they asserted also a Numerical Vnity of the said Nature And therefore if this Author did indeed hold the Vnity of the Godhead in as high Terms as the Schools did I would Know what should make him talk thus of a Specifick Vnity of the Deity in the forecited place and not only there but of something Analogous to this Specifick Vnity even in this Defence also p. 17. l. 19. For I am sure the Schools allow of no such Thing Nor is this all but he also advances an Absurdity so peculiarly his own how falsly soever he may charge the Fathers that none who had but drank in the first Elements of Logick and Philosophy ever held or I believe so much as dreamed of before viz. Such an Vnity in the Divine Nature as is partly Specifical and partly Numerical that is to say partly Vniversal and partly Particular p. 17. l. 26. A thing so monstrously illogical and contradictious That to mention it is to confute it So that the Reader may here see how grosly he is like to be imposed upon if he takes this Author's word for a Just and True Account of his Hypothesis But he is now entring upon his Grand Project and a great one it is undoubtedly viz. To give the World a fuller a clearer and a more Intelligible Notion of a Trinity in Unity than all the Fathers and the Catholick Church ever had of it for above sixteen hundred Years before And as a Preparation to this he tells us pag. 5. lin 16. That the Great Objection all along against the Article of the Trinity has been the Unconceivableness of it And therefore no doubt there must needs be the highest Reason and Necessity in the World for the Churches admitting this Man 's New Explication of it as the only sure Expedient to remove this mighty Objection and so to render a Trinity in Unity for ever after Plain Easie and Intelligible But I must remind this Author by the way That the Catholick Church having ever looked upon this as the greatest of Mysteries never made the Unconceivableness of it any Objection against it at all and She had been very inconsistent with Her self if she had But he tells us here That the Fathers indeed endeavour'd to help our Conceptions and Imaginations of this mysterious Union by some sensible Images such as the Union of the Sun its Light and Splendour of a Fountain and its Streams and of a Tree and its Branches p. 6. l. 5. Adding very gravely That every one Knows this who has looked into the Fathers as no doubt Mr. Dean has and so have most Book-Sellers too But he proceeds and tells us That these material Images might serve to render the Notion of a Trinity in Unity Possible and Credible p. 6. And if they did so much I affirm that they did that which the Catholick Church being otherwise certain of the Article it self from the Scripture then fully acquiesced in without venturing or proceeding any further And where then I pray was the Defect of these material Images and Resemblances as they were used and applied by the Fathers Why our Author in the next Words tells us That the Defect of them was in this That they could not help us to conceive what kind of Union it is that is between the Divine Persons p. 6. l. 16. But this I deny as utterly false For first this Mysterious Union of the Divine Persons which the Fathers endeavoured to give the World some Resemblance of was as to the Kind of it an Union in Nature Essence or Substance and that in Opposition to an Union by bare Consent or any other Union whatsoever less than that in Nature or Essence So that the Kind of Union is here assigned And then as for what he says of the Inability of these Resemblances to help us to conceive of this Kind of Vnion If he means that they could not help us to any Conception of it at all this also is false for so farr as
I hinted before though this Writer be confuted never so often he takes no notice of it but still keeps on Writing and for ought I see will never hold his hand till the Bookseller holds his In the next place he seems to fall a pitch Lower than usual and to be upon the complaining strain as that Men are spightful and will not treat Mr. Dean and his Absurdities according to their Dignity nor allow him such fair Quarter as other Writers he says have met with in the same Cause Adding withal That it is not to be expected that in a matter of so high in Nature we should have such a comprehension of it as to leave no difficulties unexplained Which I confess would be a fair Allegation from another Man but not from him For has he not declared That his Notion of a Trinity solves all doubts and difficulties about it See his Vindication p. 66. l. 2. and 85. l. last and where all difficulties are solved can there remain any Vnexplained Now I ask this Man Are the words here quoted by me his or are they not If they are his then let all Mankind judge whether this Man has not eaten shame and drunk after it as the word is who can without the least sence of it so grosly contradict himself in the face of the World But however let us hear what he says And here we have him alledging the Fathers setting forth the Trinity by the Sun and its light and splendor by a Tree and it's Branches a Fountain and it's Streams or a Mathematical Cube and then bringing up the Rear of all with these Questions Are not these Accounts says he much more chargeable with Tritheism or Sabellianism than the Account he gives of them by Three Minds or Spirits For are not the Sun and its light and splendor as much Three but not so much one as Three Conscious Minds p. 9. To which I answer peremptorily That the Sun and its light and splendor not being Three distinct Supposita are much more one than Three distinct Minds or Spirits which are Three Supposita can possibly be and cannot be more Three than Three distinct Minds or Spirits necessarily and essentially are But I would have the Reader here observe what a wretched Sophism he is now Trumping upon him by arguing ab Imparibus tanquam paribus For is an Account of a Thing by way of Allusion and an Account analogous to a Definition all one Is a similitude or bare Resemblance of a Thing and a proper Representation or Description of the Nature of that Thing the same Is there not a wide difference between shewing what a Thing is like and what it really and properly is And to demonstrate that the Fathers applyed the fore-alleged Instances of Resemblance to the Trinity in a quite different way from what this Author here does when he represents the Three Divine Persons as Three Infinite Minds can he shew us That the Fathers ever positively affirmed or predicated any of the said Resemblances used by them of the Three Divine Persons so as to say Father Son and Holy Ghost are Sun Light and Splendor But this Author Categorically affirms That Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three distinct Minds or Spirits and will he call this a bare Resemblance and no more Nay does he not give this as their True and proper Denomination joining them together and affirming one of the other by a strict and logical Predication and must this pass for a meer Resemblance too Wherefore I would have his Ignorance take notice for the future that an Allusion to a thing per modum similitudinis and a proper Account of it quoad rei veritatem and dogmatically representing the Nature of the said Thing do vastly differ and consequently That to argue from one to the other can be fit for none but him whose Known Talent it is only to shift and to shuffle and instead of answering his Adversary to put a Trick upon his Reader But he tells us That he is now for discoursing something in general concerning a Trinity in Vnity and concerning the words whereby to express it And here as a foretast of the rest it is something pleasant to see how he expresses himself page 10. lines 17 18. Where having said that a Trinity in Vnity is such a Distinction and such an Vnion and why not Unity as is peculiar to the Godhead He adds That there are some faint Resemblances of it in Nature yet Nature has nothing like it Now I would have this Acute Author tell me How there can be Resemblances without Likeness or Likeness without Resemblance For I never knew Two Things resemble one Another but they were like one Another too Resemblance being nothing else but the Agreement of Two or more Things in any one Qualification and it is that Agreement which renders and denominates them properly like But if this Man means by Likeness an entire Universal Agreement in all Respects I must take the boldness to tell him that he speaks Nonsence Forasmuch as to be properly like a Thing and to be an Absolute Exact Copy of a Thing wholly differ there being a Rule in Logick which I can assure him is as little a Friend to him as he can be to that That Omne simile est dissimile that is That all Likeness in the very Essence of it imports a Disagreement in some Respects as well as it denotes an Agreement in others After which horrible Thick-piece of Nonsence it might justly be expected that I should sprinkle this Rude Author with some of those Rhetorical Flowers which he had so liberally bestowed upon the Animadverter such as Ingenious Blunderer and one without Sence or Reason c. but I shall only admire him under the Character which he has so modestly assumed to himself pag. 43. of being forsooth an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man since if ever he could pretend to that Title it must be here for surely to find out a Resemblance where there is no Likeness must be an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worthy of the greatest and most celebrated Invention Otherwise to give it its due Character it is a confounded shameless Nonsensical contradiction and it is hard to imagine what it is like unless it be this Author's Case of Non-resistance set off with Horse and Armes as a Comment upon the Text or a Gloss upon the Case And now in accounting for the words by which the Trinity is expressed according to his usual way of complementing the Fathers he tells us page 12. line 18 19. That they in their disputes upon this subject wanted words adequately to express their sence Which I for my part can see no Reason to grant him for though their sence and conceptions fell exceedingly short of the sublimity of that subject as when a finite Reason discourses of an Infinite Being it cannot but do yet it is wholly gratìs dictum That the Fathers wanted words fully and adequately to express their
own sence and conception of it for surely so far as any one conceives of a Thing if he has a Command of the Language he makes use of as the Fathers plentifully had he may express himself proportionably to what he conceives But not to insist any further upon this We have our Author in the next place upon no small Tryal of his skill and that in such an Instance as he well knows will very nearly affect his whole Hypothesis For finding the World not very ready to digest his Scandalous Notion of Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits he would fain slide it out of their sight by casting a mist before their Eyes and that is by offering to perswade the World That the word Mind may be as well applyed to the Three in the Godhead as the word Person To which purpose he tells us page 13 line 17. That the word Person signifies not only distinct but also separate subsistence and was first used to signify separately subsisting Beings such as Men and Angels and from thence was applyed by Theological use to signify also Persons having only a distinct subsistence as these in the Blessed Trinity have no more Thus says He. In Answer to which and in direct contradiction to what he has here affirmed I deny that the Term Person does or ever did signify separate subsistence but only complete subsistence For though in its original use it signified indeed separately subsisting Persons such as Men and Angels yet I deny that it signified them under the Particular Notion or formality of separate or properly denoted their separation but only their completeness And this is undeniably proved from the Received Definition of a Person That it is an Intelligent Completely subsisting Nature or an Intelligent Nature with or under a complete subsistence So that an Intelligent Nature is one part of the Definition and the complete subsistence of it the other which making up the whole of it it is manifest that it is Indifferent to signify all Intelligent Natures thus completely subsisting whether they be separate or only distinct and that without any regard either to their Separation or bare Distinction forasmuch as neither of these make any part of the Definition of a Person as has been shewn And therefore though I grant that the word Person was first applied to signifie separate Subsistences and afterwards used to signify the Subsistences of the Godhead which were only distinct but not separate yet I deny that it did this by a Translation of the word from one sence or signification to another but only by enlarging and extending the use of it mark that to more Things than it was actually applyed to at first yet still so that it was applyed with the same Propriety to them all and without the least change of its original Signification From all which I inferr That the word Person is a common Term equally drawn off from and equally predicable of Persons under both these ways of Subsistence viz. Separate and barely Distinct. But before I proceed further I shall from the foregoing Particulars remark these Two Things First That this Author by asserting the word Person to signifie originally not only distinct but what is more Separate Subsistence has given the Socinians that Advantage which the contrary Notion of it quite cuts them off from For most of their Arguments against a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead are drawn from a Supposal That the very Notion of a Person imports and signifies a separately subsisting Being and if this Author asserts the same too he fairly plays so much of the Game into their hands and he must not think to resume it at his pleasure and to beat them off from the True and Proper Signification of the Term as he makes it without being told by them That it is wholly precarious for him so to do and a meer Petitio Principii But Secondly I must tell him also which yet can be no News to any one that he does by the same very grosly contradict himself For having in the 13 th Page said that the Term Person signifies not only a Distinct but something more viz. a separate Subsistence afterwards in the 15 th Page He says That the Word Person is properly enough applied to the Three Divine Persons because all that is essential to the Notion of a Person belongs to each of them though they do not subsist sepaâ—ately which is a manifest Contradiction to what he had said before in the 13 th Page For if a Person signifies as he there affirms not only a Distinct but also a Separate Subsistence then how can the Word Person be properly applied to these Three Subsistences which are Distinct but not Separate Or how can he truly affirm That all that is essential to the Notion of a Person belongs to each of them if a Person signifies as he said before not only a Distinct but a Separate Subsistence For whatsoever is included in the proper Signification of it must needs be essentially included in the Notion of it too But let him go on for while he is contradicting himself he is in his Element and it would be as unkind as difficult to offer to take him out of it But he proceeds and with great confidence and without the least pretence of Proof tells us That it has by Vse obtained That the Term Persons signifies such as have a separate Subsistence and the Term Subsistences such as have only a Distinct Subsistence as those of the Trinity have and no more To which I answer positively That no such Distinguishing Vse has ever yet obtained but that the Use of Both Terms is and all along has been promiscuous the Persons of the Trinity having for these 14 or 15 Centuries at least been as often and commonly expressed by the Term Persons as by the Term Subsistences if not much oftner And therefore this Difference of the Signification of these Terms is perfectly arbitrary and of this Man 's own Invention as he who takes upon him to make Divinity may as well take upon him to make Distinctions too And therefore whereas he would make the word Person signifie one sort of Persons and the word Subsistence signifie another sort I do again tell him here That Person is a common word to both and in this Mystery differs no more from Subsistence than Two synonymous Words differ from one Another And I challenge him to produce out of the Writers of the Church any thing so much as tending to a Proof That it is otherwise But he now comes as he says to apply this Discourse of his about Persons and Subsistences to his own Hypothesis about Minds or Spirits and that in these Words What I have said of the Word Person is with equal Reason applicable to the Word Mind The Animadverter he says objects against the Dean That a Mind or Spirit is an Absolute Being Nature and Substance And I grant it is so in the Common
been more proper Terms used by the Church to express a Trinity in Vnity by than those Ancient ones made use of all along about it viz. than Three Subsistences in one Individual Nature which he says differ nothing from each other but in their different manner of Subsistence These are his Words And when the Impartial Reader has perused them and compared them with what is cited out of his Vindication concerning this very Term Subsistence and Subsistences amongst others set down in the second Chapter of the Animadversions and the 63 and 64 th pages I suppose he will find it high time to bless himself For I here challenge this shameless Man to reconcile or do any thing like reconciling what he says here to what he has said there if he can And yet as great a Perversion as a word mis-applied and forced from its true Signification must inevitably cause in so nice as well as great a Point as this is it is not however barely this Author 's not hereafter using this Term Three Minds as equipollent to Three Persons that will justifie him if he still retains the Sence of it and therefore I must here tell him That if he holds the Three Divine Persons to be Three Distinct Infinite Absolute Beings Three Distinct Infinite Spirits Three Distinct Infinite Substances as Substance stands contradistinct to Subsistence let him abandon and lay aside the Use of the word Minds never so much he is yet a Tritheist and a Real Assertor of Three Gods But after all the Judicious Reader may here observe what a pleasant Manager of Controversie this Man is For he first asserted the Three Divine Persons to be Three Distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits affirming withal in most impudent manner That to hold otherwise was Heresie and Nonsence see his Vindicat. p. 66. lin 26. But when the World cried out of this scandalous Tritheism and the Animadverter even in the Judgment of the Animadverter's spightfullest Enemies had throughly confuted it and on the contrary maintained That the Three Divine Persons are Three Distinct Subsistences of one and the same Infinite Eternal Mind included in or belonging to all and each of them Why then this Man according to his Excellent and Known Talent of Tacking about fairly comes over to his Adversary so far as to proclaim shamelesly to the World That though he spoke indeed of Minds yet he meant only Subsistences whereas it is impossible that Minds should be Subsistences or Subsistences Minds Such a Felicity is it for a Man whose Word is so apt to throw him into a Plunge to have a trusty Meaning still ready at hand to fetch him out again But if this be to defend an Hypothesis then the way to carry a Cause is to give it up and the surest Conquest to quit the Field In the next place he passes from the distinction of the Divine Persons to the Unity and Identity of their Divine Nature And here according to his constant custom of charging the Fathers with some defect or other in expressing themselves he tells us That they were at a greater loss for words to express this latter by than the former p. 16. l. 26. There being but one word to do it viz. the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this too of it self not sufficient Concerning which I must tell him in the first Place That the Truth receives no prejudice at all from there being no other one word to express this Unity or Identity of the Godhead in the Divine Persons by since God be thanked there are several very significant words and ways to explain this one word by But the main question is whether the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be sufficient to express this or no And here I must tell this presuming Man who denies it to be so First That the Nicene Fathers and the Catholick Church with them then thought it so And secondly That the Nature of the Thing necessarily proves it so And in order to this I would have him take notice That the sence of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be measured by the proper condition of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which it relates to and therefore though the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may in it self be indifferent to signify either a specifick or numerical Agreement in Nature according as the Nature is to which it refers yet when the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is joined with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 importing such an Essential Unity in it as renders it uncapable of all multiplication as an Eus summà perfectum or an Infinite Nature in the very notion of it must be there the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must of necessity signify an Agreement in a numerical Unity and Identity of Nature and no other for still the condition of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to measure the sence of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And accordingly I do affirm against this Man That there is no such Thing as Specifick Vnity or Identity or any Thing like it or Analogous to it belonging to the Divine Nature but only a Numerical Vnity and no more Which being the highest and perfectest sort of Vnity is above and instead of all other Unities whatsoever And the reason of this is because all Specifick Vnity of Nature is founded in the Imperfection and defect of the said Nature as rendring it capable of multiplication which is certainly a defect And let him take this Rule with him for once which I defy him to overthrow viz. That in Naturam non multiplicabilem non cadit Vnitas Specifica for as much as Specifick Vnity is but one common conception of the Mind gathered from the Agreement it finds in a Plurality of Particular Natures amongst themselves as every Created Individual has it's particular distinct Nature to it self and not a Part of a Common Nature shared amongst all the Individuals But will this Man affirm that there are Three particular Divine Natures out of which the Mind may form such a Specifick Vnity as we have been speaking of Let him therefore either renounce his very share in common sence and Reason or disclaim this abominable Absurdity of a Specifick Vnity in the Divine Nature or of any Thing so much as like it or Analogous to it or in his own words p. 17. that perfectly answers it And whereas he alleges the Fathers explaining the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by examples of a Specifick Vnity in Created Beings I tell him that the Fathers used not these Examples as Instances for representation of the like Vnity amongst the Divine Persons but as a ground for arguing aà minore ad majus against the Arians who would not allow so much as a Specifick Vnity of Nature between the Father and the Son whereupon the Fathers thus argued against them If you will allow the Generation of a Son in the Divine Nature certainly it ought to be more perfect or at least as perfect as that
the Relation the Correlate or Term of the Relation and lastly the Relation it self Accordingly to give an Instance of this in the Paternal Relation of the First Person of the Blessed Trinity The Remote subject of it is the Divine Nature the Immediate subject is the Person of the Father the foundation of it is that Eternal Act by which the Father communicates his Nature to the Son and the correlate or Term of the Relation is the Son and lastly the Relation it self is that mutual respect resulting from the forementioned Act which the Father and the Son reciprocally hear to one Another And here I confess that in the Divine Relations there is a real Identity between the subject the foundation and the relation it self contrary to what it is in Created Persons in whom they are really distinguished Upon the whole matter then let this Man in the present Instance of the Eternal Person of the Father shew that Self-Consciousness is either the subject the foundation the correlate or Term of the Relation or lastly the Relation it self And then let him make it the formal Reason of a Relative Personality in that or in any other Person of the Trinity if he can And if he cannot I think a little less Confidence with a little more Knowledge would do well But in the last place quitting all that he had so peremptorily contended for before He tells us in plain Terms p. 64. l. 5. That if each of the Divine Persons have a Self-Consciousness of its own this distinguishes the Divine Persons and proves them to be really Distinct which is all that the Dean desires Now what Mr. Dean desires more than what Deans generally do I cannot tell but what he has declared is this viz. That Self-Consciousness makes each of the Divine Persons to be one in himself and distinct from all others and is that wherein the said Vnity and Distinction properly and formally does consist And now for Self-Consciousness to be the Cause and Reason of all this and for it only to prove this I must tell him in the Name of Sence and Logick are quite different things And the first of them as appears from the fore-alleaged passages he has asserted hitherto and the latter he fallaciously sneaks into now But to the same repeated assertion I must still give the same Answer viz. That Self-Consciousness can distinguish the Divine Persons only by a Secondary Distinction not by a Primary and Original since nothing can originally distinguish as I have shewn but that which also Constitutes For still Philosophy will have one and the same Principle both Constitutive and Distinctive too So that this is manifestly and fairly another delivering up and quitting of the Point which he had all along in his Vindication asserted and disputed for For there he had asserted that Self-Consciousness gave Original Self-Vnity and Distinction to each of the Divine Persons and here he declares himself content if we allow Self-Consciousness but to prove the same Though we have told him that this is wholly another Case and it has been inculcated over and over But it seems there is no forcing it into his Pate any more than pouring a Pottle into a Pint. And so I proceed to examine what he says to the Animadverter's Third Argument which proceeds thus If Self-Consciousness be the formal Reason of Personality in the Three Divine Persons then there is no Repugnancy in the Nature and Reason of the Thing it self but that there might be three thousand Persons in the Deity as well as Three Which consequence appears from this That neither is there any Repugnancy that there might be so many Self-Consciousnesses or Self-Conscious Minds or Spirits for the Deity to be communicated to nor any repugnancy proved in the Nature of the Deity it self that it should be so communicated This is the sum of the Argument and what is this Defender's Reply to it Why he first tells us That had the Dean said That Self-Consciousness made the Trinity this had been a Notable Argument p. 64. l. 14. And will he grant This Then I shall prove That he did say it and that as fully as words could express it in his Vindication p. 68. l. 4. Where he has this Passage As the Self-Consciousness of every Person to it self makes them Three distinct Persons so the mutual Consciousness of all the Three Divine Persons makes them all but one Infinite God Now I ask this Self-Contradictor first whether any words can be more plain and expressive than these And in the next place whether they are not his own If he doubts it let him turn to the place alleged And if they are his own then I hope That that which makes the Divine Persons Three distinct Persons makes the Trinity also Unless the Three distinct Persons are one Thing and the Trinity Another So that this Argument effectually concludes against this Shameless Man even by his own Concession But he adds in the next place of the same page That he hopes however that Self-Consciousness may distinguish the Three Persons p. 64. l. 16. To which it has been answered again and again that it can distinguish them only secondarily and consequentially not primarily and originally But I am weary of these Repetitions though he is not ashamed to outdo Battus himself in Tautology And therefore whereas he says further That Self-Consciousness proves the Distinction though it does not limit the Number of the Persons p. 64. l. 23. I deny that it can originally distinguish them without limiting the Number of them also For as I have proved nothing can originally distinguish the Persons but that which makes them Persons And that which makes them Persons by the very same makes them Three Persons it being as essential to them to be Three as to be Persons And therefore to that Question of his Does the formal Reason of Personality make or limit the Number of Persons l. 33. ibid. I answer That in Persons wholly Relative as the Divine Persons are it does and must do so For the further clearing of which it must be observed That the Animadverter in the Present Argument considered the Divine Nature as wholly abstracted from all Personality belonging to it and so in it self as upon such an Abstraction it must needs be only communicable and Determinable and consequently such as cannot be supposed to communicate or determine it self but to receive this Communication and Determination from the Personalities considered as actually joined with it The number of which Personalities must be taken from such a Peculiarity of their condition as shall make one certain Number of them necessary and no other And that wherein this peculiarity of condition does consist is the Relative opposition of the said Persons to one another by vertue whereof they are necessarily Three and no more For as there are Two and but Two such Oppositions in this Divine Oeconomy viz. one between Generation and Filiation and the other between
them can be said to be an Intelligent Person But let us see whether Infinite mind and Intelligent Person do or can properly and logically import the same Thing which I utterly deny and that for these Reasons 1. Because Mind signifies an Absolute Being nothing relative belonging to the Definition of it nor was it ever used by Writers but in an Absol ute Irrelative sence so that we have here both Signification and Definition together with Vniversal Vse for the Absoluteness of the Term mind But the Term Person applied to the Divine Persons is always Relative and does and must signify Relatively 2. Because the Term Infinite mind is adequately predicated of God and we properly say that God is an Infinite Mind But the Term Infinite Intelligent Person cannot be so predicated of God for if there be Three such Intelligent Persons in the Godhead we can no more by a proper and Natural Predication say that God is an Intelligent Person that we can say That God is the Father 3. Because if Infinite mind and infinite Intelligent Person be Terms equipollent and importing the same Thing Then since this Author elsewhere affirms that Three Infinite minds may be one Infinite mind it will follow as we observed before that Three Infinite Intelligent Persons may be also one Infinite Intelligent Person for as much as in Terms Equipollent the same Things may and must be equally affirmed and denied of both of them And this Consequence will affect this Author throughout this whole Dispute From all which I conclude That an Infinite mind is not formally and properly an Infinite Intelligent Person nor Equipollent to it and since it is not so I conclude further That unless it may be allowed to any particular Member of the Catholick Church and a private one too to draw off a word from its proper Signification Definition and Universally received use and that in a Principal Article of Faith and to fasten an arbitrary sence of his own upon it quite different from all These as a Relative sence is from an Absolute then it cannot be allowed to this Author to interpret Three Infinite Minds by Three Infinite Intelligent Persons in the Article of the Trinity For at this Rate there can be nothing certain in any Article or Proposition of the Christian Faith as setled by Councils and received by the Church But to shew how far this Man of Confidence without shame can stretch his Interpreting faculty let this Notable Instance suffice For having affirmed over and over in his Vindication and particularly p. 66. That not to acknowledge the Three Divine Persons to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits was Heresy and Non-sense Here in his Defense p. 81. l. 20. He tells us That his meaning there was That to assert Three distinct Divine Persons who are not Three distinct Infinite Intelligent Persons was Heresy and Nonsence And Nonsence no doubt it is with a vengeance But in answer to so wretched an Evasion I demand of this Man whether ever he knew any Divine or Writer in the World who owned a Person and did not understand by the same an Intelligent Person Nay so far is he from having any ground for such a Pretence that in strictness of speech the Term Intelligent added to Person is a meer Redundancy and Tautology For as much as it is Essentially Implyed in the formal Notion of a Person which is defined Suppositum Intelligens and therefore for this Man to suppose any one to assert Three Persons and to deny them to be Three Intelligent Persons is as much as to suppose that a Man may assert Three Persons and yet deny them to be Three Persons The very supposal of which is certainly a Degree of Nonsence next to the asserting it But besides I hope this Man is not so very Ignorant as to affirm that a Mind and an Intelligent Person have the same signification For suppose that it might be truly said That a Mind is an Intelligent Person that does not prove it to signify the same that Intelligent Person does any more than because Homo is truly said to be Animal therefore Homo and Animal are Terms perfectly Synonymous and that by one we are still to understand the other which yet if they properly signified the same Thing we certainly ought to do In a word I refer it to the whole World to judge Whether if a Man may be suffered thus to interpret what he writes or says he may not upon these Terms discourse of Men and explain his meaning by Angels discourse of Trees and say he means Houses But such Absurd Liberty especially in strict disputation must not be endured And accordingly after all these shiftings and struglings he begins to despond and plainly declares p. 81. l. 19. That he will not contend about the Term Three Infinite Minds By which I must tell him that he effectually gives up the Thing in dispute for as much as the main stress and force of the Argument rests upon the proper and received sence of the Terms And whereas he says that no body before him had so expresly used these Terms Three Infinite Minds or Spirits it has been already proved against him that they were actually used and insisted upon long before by several Hereticks on the one Hand and condemned by the Catholick Church on the other But to shew That He and his Tritheism are not to be parted so but that however to save a broken Pate he quits the Term Three Infinite Minds he yet holds fast the Thing signified by it as if the Heresy lay not in the Thing but in the word He tells us p. 81. l. 29. That if the Dean thinks an Intelligent Person to be a Mind and means no more by Three Minds than Three Intelligent Persons let the Animadverter confute him if he can Which is just as if he should say If the Dean by a Cock means a Bull let the Animadverter confute him for saying a Cock has two horns and four legs if he can But to his ridiculous Plea I answer First That the Animadverter will dispute with no Man's thoughts or meaning but with his words Secondly That the Defender here quite changes the Question Which is not Whether an Intelligent Person be a Mind but whether A Mind be formally and Convertibly an Intelligent Person which has been already both denied and disprove And thirdly and lastly That in the Holy Trinity the Animadverter admits abating still for the forementioned Absurdity of the Tautology every Intelligent Person to be a Mind but for all that denies Three Infinite Intelligenâ— Persons to be Three Minds For as much as they are Intelligent by vertue of one Infinite Intelligent Mind common to them all And whereas he adds That of he means by Three Minds Three Intelligent Persons let the Animadverter try his skill to make Tritheism of Three Minds and excuse Three Intelligent Persons from the same Charge My answer is First That the Animadverter
Terms every way adequate and convertible as even this Author himself grants and that God and Infinite Intelligent Person are not so But he goes on and tells us That it is custom only which has more reconciled us to the word Person than Mind and that setting aside this Dispute viz. of the Trinity it is the sense of all Mankind which he learnedly proves from its being the sense of the Socinians That the same Thing is to be understood by an Infinite Mind and an Infinite Person Thus He p. 83. l. 4. But can any Thing be more absurd and Ridiculous than to talk of setting aside this Dispute viz. Concerning the Trinity when it is the Subject of this Dispute alone which we are here concerned in and to allege the sense of all Mankind about these Terms before there was any Revelation of a Trinity to apply them to and this also in opposition to the Universal sense of the Christian Church concerning the same founded upon such a Previous Revelation Those indeed who in Ancient Times owned one God but knew nothing of a Trinity might use the Terms Infinite Mind and Infinite Person indifferently and take the latter in as absolute a sense as they did the former But what is this to us Christians after General Councils and the Universal constant use of the Church has added a Relative signification to the word Person as applied to this subject but never used the words Mind or Spirit but according to their Original and Universal signification in a sense Absolute and Irrelative And therefore admitting his Evangelist Plato as he reads him quoted by Dr. Cudworth to have held Three Infinite Minds to be one God it is not at all the less an Absurdity and a Contradiction to all Principles of Reason and Religion for its being held by Plato though I confess it appears more manifestly so by this Author 's holding it too whose talent lyes so remarkably this way But he tells us That the Dispute whether there be one or Three Infinite Minds or Intelligent Persons in the Godhead is of an higher Nature than to be determined by convertible Terms p. 83. l. 12. which I positively deny and affirm that although the Thing disputed be of never so high a Nature yet Reason is able to determine these Two Things concerning it First Whether it be contrary to Reason or no And secondly That if it be so it ought not to be reckoned as an Article of Religion To both which I add that to argue from Terms convertible is as sure a way of Ratiocination as the Mind of Man can proceed by and consequently that if Reason arguing this way proves the Absurdity and Impossibility of Three distinct Infinite Minds in one and the same Infinite Mind or Godhead we need no further Arguments to overthrow it But as for the Author's Complement to the Animadverter viz. That he learnedly proves what every School-Boy knows The Animadverter bids me tell him that School-Boys generally know Greek Latine and Grammar which is more than some confident Writers or rather Copy-mongers can pretend to But he proceeds and says that since the Animadverter has made God and Infinite Mind or Spirit only equipollent and convertible Terms the Defender may allow him this and still deny his Major Proposition That therefore Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits are Three distinct Gods For though God is an Infinite Mind and an Infinite Mind is God yet it does not follow That Three distinct Infinite Minds are Three distinct Gods no more than that Three Infinite Intelligent Persons are Three distinct Gods p. 83. l. 27. All which is profound Reasoning indeed viz. That because in Terms not Equipollent or Convertible as the Terms God and Infinite Intelligent Person are not the multiplication of one Term does not multiply the other therefore neither must it do so in Terms perfectly Equipollent as God and Infinite Mind confessedly are But I shall divide my Answer to what he has here said into Two parts and consider First The force of Arguing from Equipollents And secondly Examine whether the Term Distinct Infinite Persons which puts the case as high as it can be does as much infer Three distinct Gods or Three distinct Infinites as the Animadverter contends that Three distinct Infinite Minds do and must And First For the matter of Equipollency Whereas this Author in the forecited place says That he may allow the Animadverter That God and Infinite Mind or Spirit are equipollent and convertible and yet deny that therefore Three distinct Minds are Three distinct Gods I answer That an Ignorant unwary Adversary may allow a great deal more than will do him good But whatsoever this Man either grants or denies as for ought I see Cross and Pile may be the Logick he proceeds by in both I do affirm that if God and Infinite Mind are Terms equipollent then according to all the Principles of Reason and Rules of Argumentation which have hitherto obtained in the World the multiplication of one equipollent necessarily and unavoidably infers the multiplication of the other And the better to make this out and to relieve his Ignorance in some measure I would have him take notice First That the Reason of this mutual Inference between Terms equipollent is because the equipollency of Terms imports a perfect formal Identity in their signification or Thing signified by those Terms for I speak now of equipollent Terms only not Propositions As for instance Homo and Animal Rationale are Terms properly and formally equipollent and then I hope that for one and the same thing I say formally the same to be multiplied and not to be multiplied will be granted impossible In the next place I must tell this Author That the Conditions of equipollent Terms are these First That they require the same Signs viz. of Universality Singularity and Particularity Secondly That they require the same Predicates whether affirmative or negative And thirdly and lastly That they have the very same consequents These I say are the Necessary and Essential Conditions of equipollents for supposing a failure of any of them they cannot be so much as equipollent Which thus premised we are to observe further That this Author himself allows the Terms God and Infinite Mind or Spirit to be Terms equipollent p. 82. l. 25. From whence I infer that if there be a plurality of Infinite Minds there must be a plurality of Gods too since if one should be multiplied and not the other there could be no Identity of signification nor consequently equipollency in the Terms which can never take place where one equipollent Term may be truly affirmed and the other as truly denied of any Thing or any Thing of either of them which is so very plain that that fundamental ground of all discourse Impossibile est idem simul esse non esse cannot be more self-evident And therefore let us see what this Man alleges next If God says he be an Infinite
a Subject are Three distinct Substances But Three distinct Minds are Three such Absolute Beings and Therefore Three distinct Minds are Three distinct Substances In which Syllogism to shew the disparity between Minds and Persons let the Term Three Persons be put into the Room of Three Minds and then the Minor which is true and must be granted of Minds must be denied of Persons for they are not Three distinct Absolute Beings so existing as was expressed in the Major Proposition and therefore that Argument which concludes Three Minds to be Three Substances can never conclude Three Persons to be so too And whereas the Defender affirms p. 89. l. 27. That Three Eternal Minds are but Three Eternal subsistences of one and the same Individual Eternal Mind I answer That it is the height of Absurdity and utterly impossible in Reason and Philosophy for a Mind which is an Absolute entire Being existing by it self to be the Subsistence of another Absolute Being For as much as Subsistence is properly and formally a Mode of substance and in the Divine Substance or Nature a Relative Mode too though still implying in it the said Nature as modified or determined by it So that we see here this Man's Philosophy in making one Mind the Subsistence or Modification of another Mind and Three distinct Minds so many distinct Subsistences or Modifications of one and the same Mind Which I am sure all the Schools in Christendome will with one voice explode And so I leave this Defender or rather this Dean in Masquerade to bring off his Three distinct Minds from being Three distinct Substances at his leisure But I fear it will cost him a new cast of his meaning to do it though let that be what it will it is not any one Man's meaning especially founded upon his Ignorance but the Universal Judgment and consent of all Learned Men that must determine the proper and distinct sences both of Substance and Subsistence in this Dispute But the Animadverter in proving an Absolute Unity and disproving all plurality of substance in the Godhead had first strengthned his Assertion with the Authorities of some of the most eminent Fathers positively asserting the former and not without indignation rejecting the other And what does this Defender answer to these Why he tells us That the Fathers by denying Three Substances principally rejected Three divers Natures of different Kinds or Species in Opposition to Arianism p. 90. l. 5. Very good they principally rejected a plurality of specifically distinct Substances and will this Man infer from hence that they did not reject also a Plurality of Individual Substances in the Godhead Why yes if he will invalidate the Authorities alleged by the Animadverter he does and must do so And accordingly he tells us That the Fathers by Unity of Substance here understand only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies only a Specifick Vnity of Substance the Fathers in Opposition to Arianism designing only to disprove a Specifick plurality of substance in the Godhead not a plurality of numerical distinct Individuals So that it seems they resolved though they fell foul upon the Arians yet to do it so as to keep fair Quarter with the Heathens In answer to which since 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports an Union of Persons in such a Nature Essence or Substance as is uncapable of being numerically multiplied as the Divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 essentially is and cannot but be I affirm that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 irrefragably proves a Numerical Unity or Identity of substance in the Divine Persons and withal that all Specifick Unity in the Divine Nature or Persons is absurd and impossible for I must tell this puny Logician That it is one thing to disprove a Specifick diversity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons and quite another to prove a positive specifick Vnity of the same which can never be done where there are not several Individual Natures of the same kind to collect it from Secondly I answer That though the Fathers in their disputes with the Arians alleged several Things for the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons which strictly reached no further than to Specific Vnity yet when they disputed this matter more exactly with the Heathen Polytheists they rested not in this but still insisted upon and contended for a Numerical Vnity of the Divine Nature Essence or Substance as the Catholâ—ck Church has done ever since And besides the Truth is Those very Arguments or rather Instances of Resemblance brought by the Fathers against the Arians though taken from things having no more than a Specifick Unity of Nature yet did not determinately prove either a Specifick or a Numerical Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons but only an Unity or Sameness of Nature indefinitely which being laid as a foundation the peculiar Condition of the Divine Nature quickly determined the kind of its Unity and by vertue of its Infinity proved that that Vnity or Sameness could be no other than Numerical And thus having answered what he has said about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Testimonies of the Fathers if he still persists in this Scandalous Assertion That the Fathers were only against several Kinds and Species of Substance in the Godhead and Divine Persons but not against several Individual and Numerically distinct Substances in the same I desire him to satisfy the World in these Two Things First How the Fathers came to look upon the Divine Nature or Essence in Three distinct Persons as such an amazing Incomprehensible Mystery as they still avowed it to be if the said Nature were not more than specifically one for that one and the same specifical Nature should be in a plurality of Individual Persons is no wonder at all Secondly I desire him to satisfy the World also Why the Primitive Latine Church with so much Zeal and for so long a time refused the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 declaring this for the only reason of their refusal thereof that they reckoned it to signify Three Substances for they could not reckon it to signify Three specifically distinct Substances For as much as they knew that the Greek Church which used the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and contended for it had constantly zealously and most expresly opposed the Arians in their asserting Three Species of Substance in the Trinity and therefore it is evident even to a demonstration that they were only jealous of Three Individual Substances which they feared the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might introduce and so betray them into another sort of Arianism or rather Gentilism as bad as the first These Two Quaeries I say I challenge this Author to answer me in by making it appear notwithstanding the foregoing Particulars that while the Fathers asserted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Divine Essence or Substance it was only a Specifick not an Individual Vnity of the same which they
all along pleaded for But after the fore-alleged Testimonies of the Fathers the Animadverter thought fit to add the Modern Testimony of Bellarmine in those words That to assert that the Father and the Son differ in substance is Arianism In reply to which he first scoffingly excepts against Bellarmine's Orthodoxy because forsooth he was a Papist like that profound Dotard who reprov'd a young Student for reading Clavius upon Euclid telling him That he ought to read none but Protestant Mathematicks for surely the Romish Writers are as orthodox about the Article of the Trinity as any Protestant Writers whatsoever Accordingly from these words of Bellarmine the Animadverter argued That if in the Trinity the Father and the Son were two distinct Substances for them not to differ in Substance would be impossible To which this man replies in these words As if says he to be distinct and to differ in Substance were the same thing No Trifler no for Accidents may be distinct and Modes may be distinct which cannot differ in Substance and the Animadverter speaks not here of any sort of Distinction in general but only of the distinction of Substances and as to that he affirms That for Substances to be distinct must infer them to differ in Substance too But he asks us hereupon a very wise Question Are not two Men says he Unius Substantiae of one and the same substance because they are two distinct Men and each of them has a distinct Nature of his own P. 90. l. 19. I answer That a distinct Human Nature is a distinct Substance and that altho ' two Men are notionally and specifically of the same substance or nature yet really and numerically they neither are nor can be so But he has not done with his Questions yet but asks us Whether to differ in Number and to differ in Substance and Nature be the same thing and Whether difference in Number prove a diversity of Nature too Yes Sir a Numerical Diversity of Individual Natures or Substances it does prove tho' their Specifick Nature which is but a Notion founded upon things be the same And here I must tell His Ignorance what it was that betray'd him to these silly Questions viz. his supposing That there is no Essential Difference or no Diversity of Nature but a Specifick Difference or Diversity Whereas an Essential Difference as well as an Essential Unity is threefold viz. a Generical a Specifical and a Numerical and this last is as much and as truly an Essential Difference as any of the two former or rather more so for the two former are properly Notions existing only in the Mind tho' collected from things actually existing in Nature but the last has no dependance upon the conception of the Mind at all but is wholly in the thing itself whereof it is the difference And therefore I do here tell this man That three numerically distinct Substances are three numerically distinct Essences or Natures and consequently differ from one another as three such Essences or Natures do As for the Complement he passes upon the Animadverter at the end of this Paragraph p. 90. as if he were to be taught by this man to construe the Fathers For that and sundry other of his Scurrilities I will not fail to reckon with him in due place But after the several Testimonies produc'd by the Animadverter against a Plurality of Substances in the Godhead he proceeded to argue against the same from Reason And what does the Defender reply upon this Topick Why says he Whereas the Animadverter would prove That the Three Divine Persons cannot be Three distinct Minds because they are not Three distinct Substances the Dean may safely deny the Consequence p. 90. at the latter end And may He so I must tell him That if the denyal of the Genus does and must infer a denyal of the Species as that which is not an Animal cannot possibly be a Man then that which proves the Three Persons not to be Three Substances must prove them also not to be Three Minds for Substance respects Mind as a Genus does its Species and the consequence from the Genus to the Species negatively is unavoidable But what then would he have the Animadverter to prove Why this That if Three Minds are Three Intelligent Persons and a Mind is a Substance therefore three distinct Minds or Persons are Three distinct Substances p. 91. l. 1. But what illogical confused stuff is this However since it affords Three Terms I will cast it for him into a Syllogistical Form and that will quickly shew what may be concluded in this matter and what cannot Thus. Three distinct Minds are Three distinct Substances but Three distinct Persons are Three distinct Minds therefore Three distinct Persons are Three distinct Substances The Major of which Syllogism has been effectually proved from the Definition of a Mind already and the Minor being the Defender's avowed Principle and Assertion can any Thing conclude more plainly than this Syllogism does That according to this Man's Principles The Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Substances Which is the Thing that the Defender here calls upon the Animadverter to prove and accordingly proved it is But says he Three distinct Minds may subsist distinctly and inseparably in one Eternal and Infinite Substance as Three Intelligent Persons do ibid. To which I answer First That let them exist never so inseparably in one Infinite Substance they are really Three Minds still and can never be one Individual Substance or Mind but collectively And that I am sure is neither naturally properly or simply one Secondly That Three Minds may as well be in one Infinite Substance as Three Persons are This is perfectly gratìs dictum and according to his usual way a gross downright presuming the thing in dispute For it is and has been all along absolutely denied him and the contrary more than once proved against him viz. That Three distinct Minds being Three absolute entire Beings Essences or Substances can never subsist in one absolute Being Essence or Substance and that on the other side Three Intelligent Divine Persons being Relative Subsistences not absolute Beings may subsist in one Absolute Being or Substance So that the disparity between Minds and Persons is manifest and as to the present Case irreconcileable Nay and I shall add one consideration more to the same purpose and that of no small moment viz. That no Two or more Substances nor consequently Minds or Spirits do or can subsist inseparably which yet this Man takes for granted but that as they are in their own Nature capable of existing by themselves and for that Reason separable so by the Absolute Power of God they may be actually separated provided his Decree does not hinder And this makes another vast disparity between Minds Spirits and Substances on the one hand and the Divine Persons on the other viz. That the Divine Persons from the very nature of the Thing are even by the Divine
Socinians of which number this Author professes himself to be one And for this he will find Dr. Sherlock reproaching them in his Vindication for having neither Greek nor Latine and thereupon very magisterially sending them to School again I suppose in his own Room Likewise charging them with Nonsense and calling their Opinion one of the most stupid senceless Heresies that ever infested the Christian Church Pref. to Vind. at the end Vowing withal never to put up his Goose-quill in this Quarrel against them Ibid. and in short treating them with the utmost scorn that it was possible for words to express whereas on the contrary the Animadverter though he could by no means be of their Opinion nor yet come up to the Lambeth-strain in declaring them the only Scholars and Disputants in the World and in comparison of whom some of the most eminent upon both accounts that Christendom ever had were but meer Bunglers yet with a due and just deference to Truth he frankly acknowledged their Parts and Learning and asserted the Reputation of both against their Beloved Dr. Sherlock who had with the utmost contumely and disdain vilified them All which considered the whole conduct of this spightful usage of the Animadverter by Persons even by their own Confession Consid. p. 12. 2 Col. l. 41. wholly unprovoked by him is to me I must confess all Riddle and I believe to all sober Persons besides nor can I see what tolerable account can be given of it but that they did all this by particular Orders and then it is easy to judge from whom those Orders came which by such a mighty Act of restraining Grace put a stop to all Socinian Pens from writing against such a Bosome-Favourite and turned them against that sawcy Church of England-Animadverter for daring to assert the old Doctrine of the Trinity against the Sentiments of those New Dons who may perhaps for fashion-sake own a Trinity and some such other Articles of the Church of England but according to Mr. Dean's excellent and never to be forgotten words not perfectly in her own way Now as to the Argument debated in the Animadversions the Grand Charge this Considerer brings against the Animadverter is That he makes the Three Divine Persons in the Blessed Trinity only Three different Postures of the Godhead Consid. p. 22. Col. 1. l. 4. repeating the same objection again and again that none may mistake him But is this fair dealing in disputation or a just and true Representation of the Animadverter's Assertion He asserted indeed That as Posture and Figure were Modes affecting the Body without superadding any new Entity properly so called to it So a Spirit whether Finite or Infinite might have its proper Modes also affecting it sutably to its particular Nature without superadding to it any new Entity or Being distinct from it For since the General Nature of a Mode consisted only in this viz. That it determined a Being in it self Absolute and undetermined to some certain state or condition without superadding to it any such new distinct Entity as we have mentioned I would gladly know why there might not be an Agreement and Analogy in this general Nature of a Mode between such particular Modes as do yet otherwise upon their proper Accounts vastly and infinitely differ from one Another as the Modes of an Infinite Vncreate Being and the Modes of all finite Created Natures must needs do Why I say these notwithstanding their peculiar differences may not agree as Analogous in the general Nature of a Mode as well as an Infinite and a finite substance do agree in the General Nature of Substance Let any one by some solid Reason prove But besides this the Animadverter affirmed also That the Personal Modes belonging to the Deity were of that peculiar kind as to affect it Eternally Necessarily and Inseparably though there are several Modes of another kind belonging to the said Nature which do not so This I say and no more was the Doctrine delivered by the Animadverter concerning the Divine Modes which is so utterly uncapable of the Representation made of it by this Considerer that though he is pleased to sport himself with a thing by no means fit to be sported with yet I am confident in the present Case his own judgment will not suffer him to believe his own words But he is for putting the whole Dispute to a short issue if he will say and hold by the decision of this one Question To which he says if the Animadverter will give a clear and Categorical Answer it will appear to all Men That either he falls in with Dr. Sherlock and the Tritheists or with the Socinians And the Question is this Whether there are in God Three distinct all knowing Almighty understandings wills and energies as there are Three distinct Persons Or whether the Three Persons have but one onely self-same understanding will and energy as there is but one self-same substance in Number Consider p. 24. Col. 2. l. 25. To which I answer and that as Categorically as he can desire First That there are not Three distinct Infinite Vnderstandings c. in God as there are three Persons and that to assert that there are is as arrant Tritheism as any that Dr. Sherlock is guilty of and greater there cannot well be Secondly That there is but one Numerical infinite Understanding in God or in the three Persons But then I affirm withal That this one Numerical infinite Understanding has three distinct ways of subsisting according to which it subsists distinctly and differently in each of the Three Divine Persons For still Three distinct infinite Vnderstandings and one infinite Understanding subsisting after Three distinct ways or modes are two vastly different Hypotheses And if by this latter the Animadverter falls in with the Socinians it is certain that the Socinians must also fall in with him Which I should be very glad to find for I 'm sure it is the received Doctrine of the Church and that which the Animadverter has all along contended for and this very Man with so much spight and personal Reflection beyond all that I ever met with has opposed and reviled However I have answered him civilly which is a way of answering which he seems a stranger to But to pass to the main Business of his Paper which is to expose and ridicule the Animadverter as much as in so small a compass he can The first Instance of his Spleen against him though I think very little savouring of the Spirit of a Gentleman is his expressing a Grudge at the very Support and Maintenance which the Animadverter has from the Church telling him That he is full and even overflows with the Blessings of his Holy Mother Consid. p. 20. Col. 1. l. 36. And so much I hope I may say in the Animadverter's behalf That if he does indeed overflow there are many about him who find themselves the better for it though yet I know several in
you no further trouble having with all the Respect and Reverence due to such great and renowned Bodies given you an account of the Occasion of this Address to you as a Thing well deserving your most serious Thoughts and representing the cause of our Venerable Old Religion now at stake as in truth it is I humbly leave the whole matter before you and remain As by Duty and Inclination equally bound Honoured Sirs Your most faithful and devoted Servant A. A. A Collection of several Choice New Theological Terms made use of in Two Books One Entituled A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Holy and ever Blessed Trinity c. The other A Defense of Dr. Sherlock 's Notion of the Trinity c. and first Introduced by the said Doctor for giving the Church a better Explication and a clearer Notion of a Trinity in Unity than it has had for above sixteen hundred years before Which Collection is as follows SElf-Consciousness Vind. p. 49. l. 27. Mutual Consciousness Vind. p. 52. l. 4. Natural Self-Consciousness Def. p. 8. l. 7. Natural Mutual Consciousness Def. p. 18. l. 8. Intimate conscious Knowledge Vind. p. 59. l. 4. Conscious life Def. p. 60. l. 20. Self conscious Principle Def. p. 67. l. 16. Natural Principle of mutual Consciousness Def. p. 67. l. 22. Conscious Union Def. p. 9. l. 10. Natural Unity of Mutual Consciousness Def. p. 33. l. 2. Communion of Mutual Consciousness Def. p. 72. l. 9. Self-Conscious Love and Self-Conscious Complacency Def. p. 68. l. 2 4. Intellectual Sensation Def. p. 77. l. 16. Self-Sensation Def. p. 39. l. 24. Conscious Sensation Def. p. 8. l. 4. Self Conscious Sensation Def. p. 7. l. 15. Natural Self Conscious Sensation Def. p. 7. l. 30. Natural Mutual Conscious Sensation Def. p. 8. l. 2. Feeling each other's Knowledge Vind. p. 56. l. 24. Self-Consciousness between the Father and the Son Vind. p. 60. l. 14. The Son 's feeling the Father's Will and Wisdom in himself Vind. p. 60. l. 22. The Son the Self Conscious Image of his Father's Will and Knowledge Vind. p. 60. at the end Continuity of Sensation Def. p. 7. l. 12 13. Three distinct Infinite Minds Vind. p. 66. l. 22. One Individual Nature subsisting thrice not by multiplying but only by Repeating it self Def. p. 24. l. 2 3. The Divine Nature repeated in its Image without multiplication Def. p. 37. l. 1. The same Substance repeated in Three distinct Subsistences Def. p. 91. l. 8. The same Individual Nature repeated in its living Image Def. p. 70. l. 4. One Eternal Infinite Mind repeated in Three Subsistences Def. p. 94. l. 6 c. Which Terms with some others like-them are to be substituted in the room of Nature Essence Substance Subsistence Suppositum Person Hypostasis and Relation All which though constantly used hitherto both by Fathers and Councils yet serving only as this Author affirms to pervert and confound mens Notions and Discourses about the Divine Nature and Persons ought utterly to be exploded and laid aside as meer Gibberish and Gipsie Cant especially by such as account all Greek and Latin so too Several New Heterodox and Extraordinary Propositions partly in Divinity and partly in Philosophy extracted out of the Two forementioned Books 1. THE Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits and not to hold so is both Heresie and Non-sense Vind. p. 66. l. 25. 2. Unless every Person of the Blessed Trinity considered as a distinct Person be allowed to be a distinct Infinite Eternal Mind we shall have nothing left us but a Trinity of meer Modes Names and Postures Defen pag. 8. lin 24. pag. 30. lin 24. 3. That which makes a Spirit whether Finite or Infinite and consequently each of the Divine Persons which according to this Author are Three distinct Infinite Spirits One with it self and distinct from all others is Self-Consciousness and Nothing else Vind. p. 67. lin 11. p. 68. lin 5. 13. 74. lin 15 c. 4. A natural Self-Consciousness makes a Natural Person Def. p. 8. lin 7. 5. If the formal Reason of Personality be that which makes a Mind or Person which with this Author are always Terms convertible one with it self and distinguishes it from all others then Self-Consciousness is the formal Reason of Personality Def. p. 37. l. 8 9 10 c. 6. Mutual Consciousness is that which formally unites the Divine Persons in Nature or Essence and makes them all essentially and numerically one God Vind. p. 68. l. 6 7 8. and p. 84 l. 29 and elsewhere frequently 7. There is no other mutual In-being or In-dwelling of the Father in the Son and of the Son in the Father called by the Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conceivable or possible but by mutual Consciousness Def. p. 9. l. 15 16 c. 8. The Son and the Holy Ghost are in the Father as in their Cause Vind. p. 69. l. 29. Which Term Divines generally decline the use of using the word Principle instead thereof However this overthrows the foregoing Proposition viz. That the Son can be no otherwise in the Father than by mutual Consciousness 9. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used with reference to the Divine Persons by the Nicene Fathers is not sufficient to prove a Numerical Vnity of Nature or Essence in the said Persons Def. p. 69. l. 1 2 c. 10. The Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Divine Persons is partly specifick partly numerical Def. p. 17. l. 27. 11. It is impossible to conceive a more close and intimate Union in Nature than mutual Consciousness Def. p. 35. l. 22. Whereas an Vnion in one Numerical Essence or Nature is and must be in the very Conception or Notion of it greater and more intimate as being the Ground the Reason and Foundation of the other 12. The very Nature and Subsistence of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is wholly Relative Def. p. 27. l. 21. And for their Subsistence I grant it to be so but if their Nature be wholly Relative too I am sure there is nothing absolute belonging to the Deity 13. The Case of a Man and his living Image though even by this Author 's own confession a meer Fiction or Supposition is a plain Account of the essential Vnity between God the Father and God the Son Def. p. 21. l. 10. That is to say in a Romance we have a clear Explication of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the first and second Person of the Trinity And in Two who are actually separate and loco-distant from one another we have a plain Account of the Union of Two who both in their Essence and Persons are actually and absolutely inseparable 14. If the Three Divine Persons be considered as Three Infinite Minds distinguished from each other by a Self-Consciousness of their own and essentially united to each other by a mutual Consciousness which is the only way of distinguishing and uniting Minds then a Trinity
prove it Impossible for Self-Consciousness to be that wherein the Personality of Created Beings doth consist And so long as the Being or Entity of the Agent must in Order of Nature precede its Action I affirm the Argument to be unanswerable and am not ashamed again and again to own it for a Demonstration Nevertheless since this Author to evade the force of the forementioned Argument shamefully changes the Terms of it by putting the Principle instead of the Act it self pag. 39. it is not impossible but that in his next Defence he may do the same here and tell us That by Sensation he means not the Act but the Principle of Sensation that is to say that he means that by it which the word never did or can properly signify In short therefore I demand of this Man whether this Term Sensation so often used by him signifies the Act or the Principle of Action If he owns it to signify the Act as all Men of Sence and Philosophy know it does then I affirm that it cannot signify the Principle of Action but by a Metonymy of the effect for the Cause And I do affirm further that since in declaring the strict and Philosophical Truth of Things Tropes and Metonymies are by no means to be allowed of no Man's after-meaning ought in dispute to be admitted in bar of the Confutation of his express words For if this should take place there could be no discoursing ad idem and consequently no Argumentation in any Case And yet this is this Author 's constant way and that even to the Degree of Impudence that being baffled in his words he still takes Sanctuary in his meaning which practice we shall have frequent occasion to expose him for But however to cut off all subterfuge from this Shifter if we here admit Sensation to be taken for the Principle of Sensation it is certain that this Principle must be the Essence of the Spirit which this Sensation is said to belong to the Essence of every Thing being the proper Productive Principle of all the Operations of that Thing But then we must observe also That the Essence of every Thing sustains the office of a double Principle First of an Internal Principle giving Being to the Thing of which it is the Essence and Secondly of an efficient Principle of all the Actions or Operations belonging to that Thing and it discharges the office of the former antecedently in Nature to that of the Latter So that the same Essence is a Principle of Being before it is a Principle of Action even with reference to the same Agent and consequently as it is a Principle of Action it is not properly and formally a Principle of Being And this Argument with any one acquainted with the True Principles of Philosophy of which this Author understands not one Tittle quite overthrows that assertion of his viz. That the very Nature of a Spirit consists in Sensation and that whether we take it for the Act or Principle of Sensation and plucks it up by the very roots But I shall refer the Reader for his further satisfaction to my Vindication of the forementioned Argument where I shall more fully canvas and confute this pittiful shift not being willing to anticipate that here which will come in more directly and naturally in another place Thirdly As I have shewn That the Nature of a Spirit cannot consist in Sensation so I affirm That neither can the Vnity of a Spirit consist in the fame For Unity being the first Transcendental mode or Affection of Being and so in reality the same with it and consequently in order of Nature preceding all Acts flowing from it can never consist in any such Act or Number of Acts whatsoever These Arguments I know are wholly Metaphysical but the Dispute being about Spirits as to the Nature Unity and Actings of them things essentially abstracted from matter the very condition of the subject neither affords not admits of any other Well but notwithstanding what has been argued against bare Sensation may not the Unity of a Spirit consist in continuity of Sensation For this is it which this Author here expresly asserts p. 7. In answer to which I must demand of him whether he has a clear and distinct Knowledge what this continuity of Sensation is and wherein it does consist If he has such a Knowledge of it why then does he usher it in with those Terms of doubting and uncertainty as I may so speak for so speaks and so says must not be admitted in giving a Philosophical state and account of Things But if on the other side this Author has not a distinct Knowledge of Continuity of Sensation as it is manifest from his inability clearly to express it that he has not then let us consider what an Explication of an Unity in Trinity he is like to give us from a Thing which he neither distinctly knows nor can clearly express For if he could do the former what Reason can there be why he should not be able to do the latter Now his method in explaining the Trinity which he promises us such great Things from is this He first tells us That he is certainly in the right in seeking for an Image of the mysterious Vnity of the Divine Persons in the Vnity of a Spirit p. 6. l. 21. and in the next place he tells us That we can know nothing of the Vnity of a Spirit but what we feel in our selves And here in the last place he tells us That all that we feel in our selves is this Continuity of Sensation but what this is he does not express and gives us but too much Reason from his own words to conclude that he cannot So that here we have an Explication of Unity in Trinity by Continuity of Sensation but who shall explain to us this Explication it self For admit that the Unity of a Created Spirit â—arries in it the nearest Resemblance to the Unity of the Godhead in the Three Persons yet how can this Unity of a Created Spirit be explain'd by Continuity of Sensation when the very Terms of this Explication import a direct contradiction to the Nature of the Thing pretended to be explained by them For I defy all Mankind to form in their Minds such a Conception of Continuity as does not essentially imply in it connexion of Parts and where there are Parts there must be extension and consequently Divisibility So that the sum of all is this That the mysterious Unity of the Trinity is explained to us by the Vnity of a Spirit and the Vnity of a Spirit which can have neither Parts Extension nor Divisibility is explained to us by something which necessarily implies them all For in giving an Account of the Nature of a Thing by Continuity nothing but a Real Continuity a Continuity properly so called can take place And it will be in vain here for this Author to plead that we Know not the Nature of a Spirit For
this he had told us before in the 7 th and 8 th pages of his Vindication and that therefore not being able to express it adequately we must be contented to express it as well as we can viz. by so speaks and so says and by Continuity where there can be no Parts for such a Plea though admitted would manifestly give up his Cause by shewing that he had undertook to explain the Vnity in Trinity by such an Vnity as he himself can neither conceive nor express We have seen therefore what these two Propositions viz. That the very Nature of a Spirit consists in Internal Sensation and the Vnity of a Spirit in Continuity of Sensation amount to but let us now see how he proves them for I fansie the World will hardly take them upon his bare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And here supposing that I need not tell the Reader That this Author by Sensation and Continuity of Sensation means Self-Consciousness we shall find that his Argument runs thus So far as a Man feels himself or is self-conscious so far he is one â—â—tire Person For it is a self-evident Proposition That in an Intelligent Self-Conscious Being self can reach no further than he feels himself And I would desire any thinking Man to tell me how he Knows himself to be a distinct and separate Person from all other Men but only by this That he feels his own Thoughts Volitions Passions c. but feels nothing of all this in other Men p. 7. l. 14. But what wretched Inconsequences are these Self can reach or exist no further than a Man feels himself and therefore a Man's feeling himself and his Existence is that wherein Self and the Existence of self does consist It follows indeed from hence That his Feeling is the measure of his Existence So that one cannot extend beyond the other but that does not therefore place his Existence in his feeling that he does exist A particular determined Portion of Matter cannot reach or exist beyond the Quantity that bounds or determines it but does the Existence and Being of that Matter therefore consist in this Quantity The Body of a Man cannot extend further than its just Stature but does the Body therefore consist in its Stature Again A Man cannot as this Author-says Know himself to be a separate distinct Person from all other Men but by Self-Consciousness and Internal Sensation and therefore forsooth these are and must be the Things wherein his being a distinct Person does consist And let any one alive shew that this Argument proves any more if he can But this Man confounds the Principle of Knowledge with the Principle of Being all along Whereas the Point here is Whether the Vnity and Distinction of a Spirit consists in Internal Sensation as the formal Reason of it not whether Internal Sensation be that whereby alone a Spirit can Know it self to be one with it self and distinct from all others For though this latter be granted to this Author as often as he pleases yet the former will be as stiffly denied him I find and feel my self to be one Man and to be distinct and separate from all others but does this therefore make me to be so Or does my being so consist in my feeling my self to be so One would think that a Man should be ashamed to argue at this Rate especially having been baffled in it more than once But it is a Custom which he is grown old in To be baffled and to talk on and it is too late to cure him of it now In the mean time there are some other choice Things which deserve our consideration and particularly this So far says He as a man feels himself or is Self-Conscious he is one entire Person where this Self-Conscious Sensation ends he becomes a distinct and separate Person p. 7. l. 13. But is it possible for the mind of Man to imagine any one to be an entire Person and consequently one in himself and yet nor distinct from all others besides when the very essential Notion of Vnity connotes Distinction too and when according to all the Rules of Philosophy that which is the Principle of Constitution to any thing is the Principle also of Distinction to the same Every Thing being distinguished from all other Things by what it is in it self Continuity of Sensation he says makes a Man one in himself and the ending or ne plus ultrà of that Sensation makes him a distinct Person And yet he appeals to every Thinking Man whether he knows himself to be a distinct Person any other way than by this Self-Conscious Sensation Whereas he had said but just before that it is the ending of this Self-Conscious Sensation which makes him a distinct Person and if so can he then know himself to be a distinct and separate Person by that which must be at an end before he can be a distinct Person Certainly a grosser and more fullsome contradiction scarce ever dropped from the Tongue or Pen of Man and if this be not Non-sence in the highest and gibberish truly so called I dare averr that Bedlam affords none But his Complement to the Animadverter must not be passed over so for whose Instruction forsooth he says he was so large in his Discourse about Sensation and Self-Consciousness p. 7. For since he is so very kind he must give me leave to be as Charitable in my Admonitions as he was liberal in his Instructions and accordingly to advise him for the future to keep his Instructions to himself and what he can spare to bestow upon his Boys that so they may not at their Father's Age come to need such correction as their Father has had And whereas he says the Animadverter understood not one word of his Hypothesis I must here tell him in the Animadverter's Name That he accounts it no disparagement at all to any Man of Sence not to understand Him who speaks none But he proceeds and to shew us how methodical he is in his Absurdities he tells us That the Dean as certainly no man living was ever so much a Dean in his own Eyes having observed That the Vnity of a single Spirit consists in such a Natural Self-Conscious Sensation this led him on to that other Notion of mutual Consciousness which may be between Three distinct Spirits and make them Naturally one as much as Three can be one p. 7. l. 29. And that in good earnest is a limitation with a Witness a limitation amounting to an utter Negation of the Thing which it is applyed to It being impossible for Three distinct Absolute Beings which Three distinct Spirits certainly are to be One by one Numerical Nature belonging in common to them But besides observe the fallacy couched under this Ambiguous Parenthesis as much as Three can be one for by Three here he may either mean Three Spirits or Three Persons And he imposes grosly upon his Reader and begs the Question besides if he
do or can inferr in it a Plurality of Minds forasmuch as the said Acts belong to the Three Divine Persons as has been just now observed by vertue of that One Infinite Mind from which they flow and which is numerically one and the same in all Three But this Author is now upon an higher strain and resolving under the Protection of a Licence to open himself farther than before tells us in plain Terms That if every Person in the Trinity considered as a distinct Person be not a distinct Infinite and Eternal Mind there is he confesses an end of his Notion p. 8. And I think it had been well for the Church and himself too if it had never had a Beginning But then he adds with unsufferable Presumption and equal Falshood That with that there will be an End of a Trinity of Persons also and that we shall have nothing left but a Trinity of Modes Postures and Names not in the Vnity of the Godhead but in the Vnity of One Person who is the whole Deity These are his detestably Heretical and senseless Words In answer to which I demand of this Confident Man How he dares in defiance of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church place a Trinity of Modes Postures and Names upon the same Level as if they all indifferently amounted but to the same Thing Whereas Names are certainly of Arbitrary Imposition whether God or Man imposes them and Postures none ascribe to God but that silly Sort of Men the Anthropomorphites But as for Modes they result eternally and necessarily from the Divine Nature and eternally and inseparably remain in it and withal import such distinct Relations as can never coincide in one and the same Person and how then can this Ignorant Man talk of the Vnity of one Person who is the whole Deity or Godhead when these Three Relations can never concur in such an Vnity of Person but all of them may and do concur in the Vnity of the Godhead In a word I do here ask this bold Man whether he will venture to affirm That the Divine Nature determined or modified by such a certain subsistence or subsisting Relation is a meer Mode or no and I do here leave it to his second Thoughts whether he will venture to say so And if not why does he here against his Conscience reproach the Doctrine of the Catholick Church for so it is as if it established a Trinity of meer Modes Which it is so far from that I do here affirm against this Author and others who speak like him upon this Subject That according to the sence of the Catholick Church The Three Divine Persons are Three distinct Relative Modes of Subsistence or Three subsisting Relations of one and the same Infinite Divine Nature included in all and each of them or again They are the Divine Nature it self subsisting with Three distinct Relations This I say I affirm and doubt not but that to all Men of sence it confutes the Three Divine Persons being Three meer Modes and shews withal what an irrational Blasphemous Cavil it is to call them so For certainly a Mode in concretion with the Essence cannot with the least pretence of Reason be called a meer Mode And This I do again avouch for the Doctrine of the Catholick Church concerning the Trinity and do over and over challenge this Pert Novellist to disprove it if he can But in the next place he is for confirming his Trâ—â—â—theistical Assertion with this Invincible Argument as he thinks Poor Man p. 8 9. If says he every distinct Person in the Godhead considered as Distinct be not an Infinite and Eternal Mind as it must be if every distinct Person be God unless any Thing else than an Infinite Mind can be God then though it be an unusual way of speaking to call them Three Eternal Minds yet there is no Heresy in it nor any intended by it In answer to which I must tell him That I shall not much concern my self about what he intends it being his old way when he is pressed with his Words to fly to his Intentions but shall only consider what his words express or infer And whether they carry any Heresy in them or no shall appear presently And in order to this I must remind him of these Two Things First That God and Infinite Eternal Mind are Terms perfectly equipollent And Secondly That in Terms equipollent putting one in the room of the other you may argue with the same consequence from one that you can from the other According to which rule we will try the force of his Argument by proposing it with the bare change of one of the forementioned Terms for the other Thus. If every distinct Person in the Godhead considered as distinct be God as it must be if every distinct Person be an Infinite and Eternal Mind unless any thing else than God can be an Infinite Mind then though it be an unusual way of speaking to call them Three Gods yet there is no Heresy in it nor in spight of his words any intended by it Now let this Author consider how he will allow of this Conclusion for if his own Conclusion holds good this is certainly good also since the Validity of the Consequence is the same in Both the Matter of the Argument being the same and the Form of it the same too There must be therefore a gross Fallacy in the Argument it self and it lies in the Homonomy of the Term as distinct For the English Particle as and the Latine quà or quatenus thus applied has Two Significations 1. The first importing any Qualification specifying affecting or any way denominating the Subject and so a Person as distinct signifies no more than a Person who is distinct or a Person under this Qualification or Denomination 2. But secondly the other Signification of the Particle as is causal and imports a causal Connexion of the Term to which it is joined with some Predicate or Attribute belonging to the Subject and so a Person as distinct signifies as much as a Person because distinct or by reason of his distinction And this makes an Attribute to be necessarily and universally predicated of its Subject so that if the Subject be multiplied the Thing predicated of it must be multiplied too but in the former Signification of the Particle as it is not so for as much as the Predication imported thereby is only Accidental and has no causal necessary nor Universal Connexion with it's Subject Accordingly in the causal sence of the Term as distinct I must tell him that no Person in the Godhead as distinct is an Infinite Eternal Mind that is to say This Attribute belongs not formally to his Distinction and that his Distinction is not the cause or reason that it is affirmed of him For it is an Attribute Springing from the Divine Nature which is in the Person and not from his Personality or Personal Distinction for as much as that does
which we observe in men and since the perfection of Generation in them is for a Father to produce his like shall men generate others of the same nature with themselves and shall God generate one of quite another Nature from his own as a Finite Nature must necessarily be This was the force of their Argument and it was directed against the Arians but never were these Explications alledged as adequate Representations of the same Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons that was in Men. But as it was intimated before in the Animadversions no doubt this Author has been all along pursuing this Tritheistical Whimsey of a Specifick Vnity only in order to the providing an Unity of Nature for his Three Infinite Minds or Spirits which by all the Wit of Men and Angels can never be proved capable of any greater Vnity than Specifick But this Point about a Specifick Vnity of the Godhead has been so throughly debated and the Impossibility of it so clearly demonstrated by the Animadverter Chap. 7. from the 178 to the 188 page That this Man should have done well to have answer'd what was to be found there before he troubled the Reader with the same old baffled story again I conclude therefore against this Author that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 applyed to the Divine Persons does fully and sufficiently express the Numerical Vnity and Identity of the Divine Nature belonging to them without importing any Thing of Specifick Vnity in the same or any thing so much as Analogous to it After he has done with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he excepts against the Terms Single and Singular as applied to the Divine Nature But he first draws them off from their proper and received Signification according to which all Divines whether Schoolmen or others have in treating of the Divine Nature generally used them expressing the said Nature by no word more commonly than by Singularis essentia singularis Natura And does this Man now think to take this word by a wrong exotick signification of which more presently and in the strength of that to run down and casheir the True and Genuine sence of it Which besides the confusion it must needs bring upon all Discourses about the Godhead and the Divine Persons will not fail also to give mighty scandal to all sober and learned Men both Papists and Protestants who are concerned to have these weighty Points not only truly stated but also warily treated of For my own part I must declare That I never met with stranger and more untheological Assertions than what this Author has concerning the Application of the Terms single and singular to the Divine Nature and yet the true sence of them lies pain and obvious almost in all Scholastick Writers So that whatsoever is signified by Hoc unum Individuum and numericè unum the same also is signified by singulare they being all but Synonymous words to express that greatest and perfectest Vnity which we call Numerical and it will be hard to assign where we may properly apply any one of them and not as properly apply the other So that if this Author would but have understood these and the like Terms in the same sence in which both Philosophers and Divines use them he could never have abused the Subject he wrote upon nor exposed himself with such false and scandalous Assertions as these that follow 1. That the Vnity of Nature between the Eternal Father and Son is such an Vnity as is both Specifick and Numerical 2. That the Divine Nature is not a Single or Singular Nature p. 18. lin 13. 3. That upon supposal of the Singleness or Singularity of the Divine Nature the whole Divine Nature cannot be Incarnate in the Incarnation of the Son without the Incarnation of the whole Trinity thereby p. 18. lin 18. 4. That one Single Nature can subsist but once or have but one Subsistence p. 19. lin 23. All which Four Propositions I find in the compass of less than three whole Pages viz. 17 18 19. And they are of that vile Import that I defie either Arian or Socinian to speak more against the Vnity of the Three Divine Persons in one and the same Infinite Divine Nature than this Man in some of the forementioned Propositions has done But I shall consider them particularly though they are much fitter for the Publick Censure of the Church than for any Private Man's Confutation And first for the 1. First Proposition viz That the Vnity of Nature between the Eternal Father and Son is such an Vnity as is both Specifical and Numerical This is fully and plainly asserted by this Author though not in these very Words as the Reader will find in the 17 th page and 19 th line of this Defence Where speaking of the Vnity of Nature between the Eternal Father and Son he affirms That there must be that in it that perfectly answers that Specifick Sameness of Nature that is between Father and Son in Humane Persons of which but four or five Lines before he had given an Instance in Abraham and Isaac and withal that it must not only perfectly answer but much out do it too But now on the one hand Nothing can perfectly answer one Instance of Specifick Unity or Sameness but another Instance of the same Kind forasmuch as Two Kinds or Sorts of Unity can never perfectly answer one another nor on the other hand can any Sort of Unity out do a Specifick Vnity but a Numerical For no one Specifick Vnity can do more towards the Uniting the Things it belongs to than another there being but one and the same formal Effect common to all Specifick Vnities which is to render and denominate their respective Subjects Specifically one and no more This I say is all that a Specifick Vnity can do and if more be done it must be by a Numerical But again in the 27 th Line of the same Page He tells us to the same purpose That the Vnity or Sameness of Nature between the Father Son and Holy Ghost is not a meer Specifick Sameness which Words must imply and inferr That it is a Specifick Sameness though he affirms it to be also something more To which Passages we may add Two more altogether as full for this Complex Sort of Vnity viz. One in page 114. line 26. and the Other p. 121. l. 22. of his Vindication From all which it is manifest That this Author holds such an Vnity or Sameness of Nature in the Divine Persons as is both Specifick and Numerical which I affirm to be as gross an Absurdity as the Reason of Man can well imagine For a Specifick and a Numerical Unity are not Two degrees of one Kind but Two several Kinds of Unities Two Unities differing toto genere and consequently such as cannot possibly coincide into any one Unity which shall comprehend and partake of both For a Numerical Vnity is the Unity of One Individual Nature or Being and no
alleaged And if they are not I demand with what face he can reiect the Material Representations made by the Fathers of this Mysterious Union and give the World another of his own from an Instance altogether as gross and Material but withal Impossible and Unintelligible as shall appear in the process of what we have to say upon it But all this Author's Writings are such perfect Antipodes to themselves that no Man who knows him will expect to find him consistent with himself in any thing But to proceed I come now to examine whether this Notion of a Man and his living Image has in it such a peculiar fitness as this Author pretends to represent and explain to us the Mystery of the Trinity and in order to it I shall lay down this Assertion viz. That a Notion supposing a Thing Impossible and implying in it a Contradiction to and Inconsistency with it self can never explain any and much less the highest Mystery of our Religion In order to the proving of which I shall consider Three Things 1. What an Image in the proper Signification of the Word is 2. What an Image by Reflexion is 3. What is to be understood by an Impossible Supposition 1. As to the first of which An Image according to the general Nature of it is such a Likeness of a Thing as both represents it and proceeds from it and that either as from a Principal Efficient producing it or as from a Causa exemplaâ—is at least according to which it is produced Which I add because of Artificial Images formed according to and so proceeding from that Idea or Pattern in the Mind of the Artificer drawn from the Thing which the Image designed by him is to represent So that an Image whether Natural or Artificial essentially implies these Two Things as the General Conditions of it viz. A Representation of and a Production either by or from the Thing represented by it 2. Secondly An Image by Reflexion is when the visible Species flowing from any Thing and striking upon some such Body as Glass Water or polish'd Metal are return'd back from thence and thereby represent the Body which they originally flow'd from And such an Image this Author here speaks of for he says It is a Man's Image by Reflexion 3. In the third place An Impossible Supposition may be said to be so in a double respect First In respect of all Natural Second Causes as exceeding all the Force and Vertue of such Causes to effect the Thing so supposed And I deny not but that the Supposition of a Thing Impossible in this sense may have its Use sometimes to give us some Light into and Explication of other Things Secondly A thing may be said to be impossible in respect of a Contradiction involved in it so that no Power whatsoever can effect it And the Supposition of such Impossibles I affirm to be of no Use for the Explication of any Thing whatsoever Forasmuch as the Mind of Man can have no formed Conception of them and yet whatsoever helps it to the Knowledge of another Thing must do it by being first known it self Which things premised Let us now see what this Author holds and asserts concerning this living Image set up by him that we may hereby find whether it involves in it any Contradiction or no and it will appear that he asserts these Three Things concerning it 1. That this living Image by Reflexion has its whole and sole dependence upon the Prototype 2. That there is one and the same Numerical Humane Nature both in the Prototype and the Image 3. That the Prototype and the Image are Two distinct Persons These Things I say he asserts of his living Image concerning which I remark as follows 1. That to assert an Image by Reflexion to have its sole and total dependence upon the Prototype as this Author says it has while it has an equally necessary and essential Dependence upon the Body which it is reflected from is a Contradiction 2. To assert That One and the same Particular Humane Nature subsists in Two Particular Persons locally distant from one another as the Prototype and the Image are is a Contradiction 3. To assert That an Image by Reflexion which is a Being uncapable of subsisting by it self is a completely subsisting Person endued with an Humane Nature and consequently consisting of an Humane Soul and Body is a Contradiction and again For It to be an Humane Person endued with an Humane Nature as this Author asserts it is and yet not to consist of such a Soul and Body is another Contradiction These Absurdities and innumerable more derivable from them are all involved in this Author's Notion of a Living Image by Reflexion having the same Numerical Humane Nature with the Man himself and having its sole Dependence upon him and yet being a separate Person from him But not to insist upon these Absurdities at present which common sence and Reason must needs abhor and fly from yet since this Notion is designed to explain and represent to us the Vnion or rather Unity of the Father and the Son in one and the same Divine Nature surely there ought at least to be no gross disparity between this living Image and the Thing intended to be explained by it especially as to those particulars wherein the Resemblance must and ought to consist But whether this be so or no will appear from the following comparison As First There is a mutually necessary Existence both of the Father and the Son so that the Father can be no more without the Son than the Son without the Father the Relation being Inseparable But it is not so in the Man and his Image for the Man may cease to be a Prototype and subsist without the Image though the Image cannot subsist without the Man Secondly The Son has an entire Total dependance upon the Father But so has not the Image upon the Prototype as depending as much on the Body from which it is reflected as it does or can upon the Man whom it represents and perhaps more Thirdly The Father and the Son are mutually in one another and that by an Intimate Inexistence as the words of our Saviour expresly prove Iohn 14.11 But the Prototype and the Image cannot be in one Another as being locally distant from each other Fourthly The Person of the Father and of the Son are only distinct but otherwise inseparably United But the Prototype and the Image are so Divided as to subsist in an Actual Separation from one Another The Place and Vbi of the one as we observed being not the Place or Vbi of the other And now to sum up and draw the foregoing Particulars together Let us on the one side suppose Two Persons viz. The Eternal Father and Son and these first by a mutual Necessity Coexisting and then one of them viz. The Son having his sole and total dependance upon the other and thirdly Both of them mutually
Principle Concerning which we are to observe also That though a Cause or Principle by Emanation in a large sence is reckoned an Efficient Cause and reduced to it yet in the strictest and properest sense of an Efficient Cause it is not so as not producing its Effect by an Action or Efficiency properly so called but only by Resultance or Efflux which are the best words which Philosophers have to express the peculiar Causality of it by And now to explain what I have said by Instances All Properties are said to be Emanations or Effects resulting from their Forms And all Accidents immediately affecting and issuing from their Subjects are Emanations And all sensible and intelligible Species flowing from the Things which they represent are Emanations And the Light issuing from the Sun is an Emanation To all which we may add the Substantial derivative Modes belonging to the Divine Nature Which being premised let us see what Propositions this Man advances upon this Subject As First That an Image is not an Emanation but a Reflexion which is manifestly Oppositum in Apposito For an Image by Reflexion in Things Material is Both viz. an Emanation from the Prototype or Exemplar from which the Species Sensibiles issue or proceed and a Reflexion from that whether Medium or Object upon which they terminate and from which by Repercussion they are return'd back again Secondly He tells us That the Son and the Holy Ghost are not Emanations from the Father But on the contrary I affirm That the Son is an Emanation from the Father and the Holy Ghost from Both. For though Generation expresses the particular way of the Son 's issuing from the Father and Procession the particular way of the Holy Ghost's issuing both from Father and Son yet Emanation is here a general word properly applicable to and expressive of both of them And accordingly Aquinas affirms That the Son proceeds from the Father not as an Effect from a Cause viz. an Efficient Cause properly so called but by way of Intellectual Emanation Affirming withal That this is the Catholick Faith And one of higher Note in the Church than Aquinas even the Great Athanasius himself owns and commends the Doctrine of Dionysius concerning the Eternal Generation of the Son for that in his explaining of it and speaking of the Father as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mind and of the Son as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word of that Mind he expresly calls the latter an Emanation from the former in those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies properly Emanatio aut Effluviam which all know are Terms Synonymous Athanas. Tom. 1. p. 565. Edit Colon. It is true indeed That in the Son 's issuing from the Father and the Holy Ghost's issuing from Both there is besides the Terminus producens and the Terminus productus assigned also an Act or Action viz. Generation with reference to the Son and Spiration to the Holy Ghost yet because these are not Actions or Efficiencies properly so called viz. distinct Entities from the Terminus producens and productus but really identified with both therefore the Production both of Son and Holy Ghost are truly and properly to be reckoned Emanations Thirdly The Defender affirms Than an Emanation is of the same Substance viz. specifically the same with that from which it proceeds of which I desire him to shew me so much as one Instance in the whole World if he can Fourthly That an Emanation multiplies Natures and Substances as being individually distinct from that from which it issues which yet in the Son 's issuing from the Father and the Holy Ghost's issuing from both is certainly false for though these Emanations multiply Persons yet they do not multiply Substances Nor are these two Propositions viz. the Third and Fourth less false with reference to those other forementioned Emanations or Emanative Effects set down by us for since none of them all are Substances they can neither be said to be Substances specifically the same with nor Substances individually distinct from those several Substances from which they flow Fifthly and lastly he tells us That when the Fathers call the Holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not in the Sence of Emanation but of Mysterious Procession To which I answer as before That he here opposes Things fairly subordinate viz. a General Term to a Particular For Procession is really and truly an Emanation though every Emanation it being a more general word is not a Procession and therefore for this Man to say as he here does That the Holy Ghost is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not by Emanation but by Procession is just as if one should say of Peter That he is not a living Creature but a Man From all which it follows That this Author is grosly ignorant of the True Philosophical Sence of the Term Emanation sometimes applying it to one Thing and sometimes denying it of another but Both at a venture and just as People use to play at Blind-Man's Buff. In fine I conclude from what has been discoursed upon this whole Matter That this Autor's Fiction of a Man and his living Image ought not to be admitted or endured as at all Explicatory of the Trinity but to be rejected as a most senseless self-repugnant absurd Notion as he has started it and fit only to abuse the Minds of Men with wrong and perverse Apprehensions of this great Mystery The Scriptures indeed call the Eternal Son the Image of the Father Coloss. 1.15 and speak also of Adam's begetting a Son after his own Likeness Genes 5.3 But both these places import a quite different sort of Image from the living Image insisted upon by this Author For the Ratio Imaginis in both these consist not barely in Representation and Production but in such a peculiar sort of Production as is by Generation For the Holy Spirit has all the Natural Eâ—â—ential Perfections of the Father and the Son and consequently a substantial Likeness to both and is withal produced by them and proceeds from them But because this is not by a Generative Production which is the Proper Natural way of conveying Substantial Likeness therefore the Latine Fathers never give the Title of Image to the Holy Ghost though some of the Greek Fathers indeed upon the forementioned Account sometimes in a less proper and strict sence do From which it follows That since the Son 's being the Image of the Father consist not barely in his Representing him or being produced by him but in his being produced by way of Generation nothing can truly and strictly represent How he is the Image of his Father but a begotten Image an Image intellectually begotten and begotten not only in the Likeness of a Specifick Nature but of the same Numerical Nature with him who begot it And since none of all these Conditions do or can possibly agree to this Author 's living Image with reference to
its Prototype it follows That it can never be a True and Proper Representation of the Eternal Image of the Father as being upon all Accounts wholly of another Kind and therefore unspeakably dishonourable in its Application to the Son of God The Fathers indeed sometimes set forth the substantial likeness between the Eternal Father and the Son by a Man's seeing himself in a Glass But never did they intend this for a true and proper Representation of but only for a Popular Allusion to the Mystery they were treating of nor as sufficient to afford Arguments to prove any Thing strictly and logically conceâ—ning it whereas this Author frequently argues and that in the strictest way he can from this Case of a Man and his living Image but only as Instances fit enough to found Similitudes Resemblances and Illustrations upon further than which they would never go And this I think most worthy of our Particular Observation concerning those great Men as to the Case before us viz. That in all their Attempts to give the World some small dim Resemblance of the Trinity they still drew their Allusions from Things that had a real Existence in Nature and were obvious to sence as unequal as they well knew them to the great subject they applied them to But never did they venture to express or describe it by impossible Suppositions and Schemes of Things that never were nor could be nor by bold Fictions and Chimera's formed wholly in their own Brain No this Province was wholly reserved for this Author the great Corrector and Chastiser of all that ever wrote before him and especially as in Duty bound of the Fathers For as to his Notion of a Man and his living Image it is manifest that he does not offer it as a bare Resemblance of the Trinity and no more but rather as a Parallel Instance or at least very near one and such as gives us a True and Proper Representation of this Mystery which I must tell him is much more than a faint Resemblance of it or a meer Allusion to it For in several places of this Book of his he cites it and refers to it as a Rule whereby to speak and conceive rightly of the Trinity and not only so but also as a medium whereby to argue concerning it particularly p. 63. l. 20. p. 70. l. 4. p. 87. l. 16 25. And to shew us yet further of what use and vertue this extraordinary Notion is he tells us That this gives us â—n Account also of the modi subsistendi viz. of the Real Subsistence of the same Individual Nature in Three after a different manner Def. p. 35. l. 15. And a more useful piece of Instruction for our better understanding of the Trinity no doubt there cannot be But then are not these modi subsistenti Modes and has not this Man several times both in his Vindication and in this his Defence utterly denied all modes in God putting them in the same Rank with Accidents and equally exploding both with Reference to the Deity Let him deny this if he can and if he cannot let the Reader take notice what a kind of Disputant this is who having first denied That there are any Modes in God is now for offering us an Account or Explication what these Modes are But this being only an Absurdity and a Contradiction is in this Author not much to be regarded But that which is infinitely more unjustifiable is his audacious obstruding the same Romance of a Man and his living Image as the best Key for the Interpretation of Scripture and that in the most important points of Religion with great Prophaneness calling this figment of his own making The plain Account of the Essential Vnity between God the Father and God the Son p. 21. l. 10. Which words are so derogatory to the Sacred and Mysterious Vnity here spoken of that I darâ— say no Church in Christendom would have endured them but this For they manifestly contain in them these Two Scandalous Propositions First That a Plain Account may be given by us of the most Mysterious Incomprehensible and Unaccountable Thing that God ever proposed to the Belief of Men as the Numerical Essential Vnity which is the Unity here spoken of between the Eternal Father and the Son confessedly is Secondly That a meer Figment a Romance and an impossible supossition of what never was nor is not can be viz. A Man and his living Image is a most proper if not absolutely the best way to give this plain Account of the said Vnity by These Propositions I say which are evidently contained in his forecited Assertion are Intolerable And I do here aver that they are these daring offers to give the World Plain Accounts clear Ideas new Representations and further Explications of the Trinity unknown to the Church heretofore which have not only driven this unhappy Man upon an Hypothesis which is downright Tritheism but have also terribly shaken the whole Belief of this Article in some Mens Minds and quite extinguish'd and cast it out of others But such effects must be expected from Heresy when it can walk about and face the World with a Licence in the Front of it But after all these high pretences does any one by this new piece of Imagery and this Man's Discourse upon it find the Trinity more explained to him than before or rather does not the whole Discourse seem wrote in the Sâ—raphick way and style of Iacob Behmen or George Fox it being nothing from first to last but a meer Iargon of Unaccountable Incoherent Obscure dark stuff and nothing so fit as a Dark Room to speak it in How it may pass the World I know not but I fancy not so currently as some imagined And therefore if I might advise the profound Author of it since he has the Gazette so much at his service he should upon Publication of the next Auction for Pictures take care to get his Living Image into the Collection And now in his Conclusion of the Account given by him of his Hypothesis he endeavours to remove a great Objection against it For both the Antapologist and the Animadverter had charged him for stating the Notion of a Trinity in Unity so as utterly to take away the Mysteriousness of it which Charge he would here ward off and he attempts to do it by taking shelter in the Ambiguity of the Term Intelligible which may be either taken at large for that which may in any degree be understood And so none doubts but God or the Divine Nature may be in some Respects Intelligible and yet for all that remain upon many other Accounts Vnconceivable Or Secondly Intelligible may be taken for that which may be fully and perfectly understood and whatsoever is so I am sure can have nothing Vnconceivable in it unless conceiving be one thing and understanding another Now I affirm that where we may form a Notion of a Thing not only True but also Plain and
relinquish the Thing which he himself had so often and expresly asserted and that as the Principal part of his Hypothesis contended for As shall be fully demonstrated when I come to debate this particular Head with him In the mean time I have laid the Premises before the Reader as the true State of the Point and as the Measure which I will deal with this Man upon and resolve to hold him to And so I address my self to the Examination of the Answers which he pretends to bring to the Animadverter's Arguments Where I cannot but first observe the Complement which he ushers them in with viz. That the Animadverter in the very Entrance runs headlong past all recovery which since it must needs bring his Head to the ground first I heartily wish him this Author's Forehead to endure it But to come to his Answers The Animadverter having in direct contradiction to this Author denied Self-Consciousness to be the formal Reason or Internal constituent Principle of Personality in Finite Persons This Author replies to him these Two Things 1. That he never said one word of the formal Reason of Personality in his whole Discourse upon the Trinity nor has at all concerned himself about it In answer to which I here tell him that though he uses not the Term it self yet if he asserts the Thing signified by the Term as he does by affirming that Self-Consciousness makes a Person to be properly what he is or in other words is that wherein his Personality or being a Person does consist This is all that the Animadverter expresses by the Term Formal Reason of Personality and that he has affirmed this concerning Self-Consciousness I refer the Reader to the Passages newly cited to this Purpose out of his Books which demonstrate the same beyond all pretence or possibility of denyal Secondly He says That it is only the Vnity of a Spirit with it self and its distinct and separate Subsistence from all other Created Spirits which consists in Self-Consciousness In answer to which I must tell him That this is that very Thing which the Animadverter affirms to be the formal Reason of a Thing viz. that which gives it Being Unity in it self and Distinction from all other Things I mean the Principal Original Distinction by which it is so distinguished So that the meaning of this Term being thus adjusted I shall without any further regard to this Author's Exceptions proceed to dispute the Thing it self in the Case now before us In which he reasons thus p. 37. at the end If that be one distinct separate Mind which is conscious only to it self and feels all that is in it self and nothing else and those be Two distinct separate Minds each of which is thus conscious to it self and not to each other then the Dean has gained his Point And no doubt he has if a Mind or Spirit 's feeling it self one in it self makes it to be so And its feeling it self a distinct and separate mind from all other minds gives it that distinction and separation otherwise it is a most senceless and ridiculous Inconsequence For the dispute here is Whether Self-Consciousness be the Principle and Reason of Personal Being and Vnity not whether it be the Proof of it or that whereby a Man comes to know this of himself This latter we may allow it to be but the former it can never be For as much as the Consequent may indeed infer and prove both the Being and Vnity of the Antecedent but cause or give it it neither does nor can So that when he says That the Dean has gained his Point I suppose he means his Deanry For otherwise certainly there was never a more absurd inference made by Man than to conclude that because a Spirit by an Intimate Self-Sensation as he cants feels it self to be one and not another therefore its feeling it self so is that very thing which makes it so And yet so very fond is he of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there is no drawing or driving him off from it But the Defender it seems will prove his Point against the Animadverter from his own Maxime laid down in the third Chapter of the Animadversions page 70. 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 mutually and essentially infer one Another Whereupon the Defender argues thus That since there is such a convertible Existence between Person and Self-Consciousness as the Proprium quarto modo of it So that they mutually infer one another it must follow that Self-Consciousness even according to the Animadverter's own Rule is and must be the formal Reason of Personality To which wonderful piece of Logick I have these Two Things to answer First That Self-Consciousness neither exists convertibly with nor is the Proprium quarto modo of a Person for though every Person be Self-Conscious yet every Thing that is Self-Conscious is not a Person as the second and third Arguments do sufficiently evince Secondly That though a Thing always exists convertibly with its formal Reason yet every Thing which it exists convertibly with is not therefore the formal Reason of it Which had this Man been aware of he could not have been guilty of such a Blunder as to make the Proprium quarto modo of a Thing the Formal Reason of the same For one and the same Thing may exist convertibly with several Things though there cannot be several formal Reasons of the same Thing And does this Man think that the Animadverter by affirming a mutual and convertible Existence between a Thing and the formal Reason thereof does therefore deny that Thing to exist convertibly with any Thing besides its formal Reason or that he affirms this convertible Existence to be that which makes this formal Reason no it is enough to his Purpose that it is one inseparable Qualification belonging always to the formal Reason of a Thing though it does not belong to that alone I suppose this Author may have heard of that Maxime Positâ causâ ponitur effectus and so Vice versâ which is universally true of all causes and effects relatively considered so that here is a convertible existence between them for it is this properly and not a convertibility in direct Predication which is here spoken of Now I would know whether this cause has not also its Specifick Difference and its Property and whether it may not sustain several Relations upon several Accounts And if so will this new Logician say That because this cause exists convertibly with its effect it cannot exist convertibly also with its Specifick Difference and with its Property and with its several correlates or if it does exist convertibly with all and each of these that therefore all and every one of them must be the formal Reason of it I protest I am amazed at his Ignorance and must
according as the Thing is which it belongs to For all these Three necessarily go together and essentially imply one another and consequently there must be one and the same Principle of them all And now if we would see whether or no this Author applies all this to Self-Consciousness with reference to Minds or Spirits which he constantly makes to be Persons let the Reader cast his Eye back upon some of the fore-alleged Passages particularly upon that in Vindic. p. 49. l. 12. That this Self-Consciousness makes a Spirit numerically one with it self And in Vind. p. 68. l. 6. That the Self-Consciousness of every one of the Persons viz. in the Trinity to it self makes them Three distinct Persons And again Vind. p. 74. l. 13. That the Essential Vnity of a Spirit consists in Self-Consciousness and that it is nothing else which makes a Spirit one and distinguishes it from all other Spirits Likewise in this Defence p. 7. He tells us expresly That the Nature of a Spirit consists in Sensation which with him is only another word for Self-Consciousness Nay and to go no further than the very next page to that in which he here so positively declares That he no where makes Self-Consciousness the formal Reason of Personality viz. Defence p. 43. He roundly affirms That Self-Consciousness makes a Mind or Spirit one with it self and distinguishes or separates it from all other Minds or Spirits And that such a distinct and separate Self-Conscious Mind is a Natural Person Now I would have this Man in the first place tell us whether all these Passages have not in them a causal sence but only an Illative or Probative and no more And in the next place I would have him shew me whether there be any Thing more signified by the formal Reason of Personality than what the forecited Passages fully contain in them and if he cannot prove that there is any more signified by it as there is not then let him for the future leave off shuffling and own that by what he has asserted in the said Passages he has made Self-Consciousness the formal Reason of Personality with reference to Minds or Spirits which he Universally affirms to be Persons And by this I hope the Judicious Reader will see with both Eyes what a slippery Self-Contradicting Caviller the Animadverter has to dispute with In the mean time the sum of the Animadverter's Argument against him stands thus This Author asserts every Mind or Spirit to be a Person He places this Personality in Self-Consciousness he holds this Self-Consciousness to be Essential to and Inseparable from a Mind for as much as he positively asserts the Nature of a Mind or Spirit to consist in it Defen p. 7. l. 11. whereupon it does and must follow That since our Saviour in assuming the humane Nature assumed an humane Mind Soul or Spirit he assumed an humane Person too for as much as its Personality was as Inseparable from it as its Self-Consciousness from which it necessarily resulted was Nor will it avail him to allege the Interposal of Supernatural and extraordinary Power in the present Instance since such Power though never so extraordinary and Supernatural never destroys the Essence or Essentially necessary Connexion of Things And therefore if the Personality of a mind be implied in the very Nature of a Mind a Mind can be no more without its Personality than without its Nature which would be a direct Contradiction to the effecting whereof the Divine Power it self does not extend But on the other side when we state the Personality of an humane Nature upon the compleat Subsistence of it which is a mode not necessarily implied in it the Humane Nature of Christ might very well by the Divine Power be made to exist without it and so in a supernatural way be taken into and supported by the Personal Subsistence of the Eternal Word And all this with full accord to the strictest Principles of Reason without the least necessity of making Two Persons in our Saviour whereas according to this Author's Hypothesis it is impossible for all the Reason of Minkind to keep off an Humane Person as well as a Divine from belonging to our Saviour by his Incarnation or Assumption of the humane Nature As for his taking shelter in Boetius's Definition of a Person that will not help him neither since the utmost that can be proved against it is that Boetius was under a mistake and one Man's mistake certainly cannot make another in the right For all both Schoolmen and other Divines agree that this Definition strictly taken is defective and that instead of substantia Individua alone it should be substantia Individua completa Incommunicabilis or something Equivalent to the Two last Terms For otherwise this Definition also would infer Two Persons in Christ since there are Two Individual Substances belonging to him viz. an Humane and a Divine But after all we have great reason to believe that Boetius here uses the word Substantia for Subsistentia as several of the Ancient Fathers of great note did and particularly St. Hilary in his Books of the Trinity very often and St. Austin sometimes And then the Boetian Definition is perfect and good and no such Consequence of a double Personality in our Saviour can be drawn from thence For as much as the Son of God took our humane Nature without its proper Subsistence into the Subsistence of his own Eternal Person And so I proceed to the Animadverter's Third Argument proving Self-Consciousness not to be the formal Reason of Personality in Created Beings which is this The Soul in its separate state is conscious to its self of all its own Internal Acts or Motions c. and yet the Soul in such a state is not a Person and therefore Self-Consciousness is not the formal Reason of Personality for if it were it would constitute a Person wheresoever it was This Argument is of the same Nature with the former each of them being brought as a Particular Negative against an Universal Affirmative And how does this Defender confute it Why by the easiest way of Confutation that it is possible for Ignorance to give it viz. by saying That it is nothing to the Purpose But does he know what is and what is not an Argument and what is to confute an Assertion or Position and what is not Let him know then That to confute an Argument is properly to conclude the Contradictory Proposition of that which is held by the Respondent or Defendant and is called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by the Latines Redargutio And here I would have this hardy Ignoramus own before the World if he dares That one Negative Instance does not overthrow an Vniversal Affirmative as really and effectually as Ten Thousand But possibly one who can be of all sides may be for both sides of the Contradiction too and hold That Self-Consciousness is the formal Reason of Personality Personal
here let the Reader judge by that passage in this very Defence p. 66. l. 23. As Self-Consciousness sayâ— he makes a Person one with itself so a Natural 〈◊〉 Consciousness makes Three Persons as Naturally one as it â—s possible for Three to be one And how far it does that he 〈◊〉 us in his Vindication p. 68. viz. That the mutual Consciousness of all the Three Divine Persons makes them all but one Infinite God And this I hope is something more than only to assert That Three Persons mutually conscious to each other must be essentially one which none denies provided that by Persons he means not Three distinct Minds for the words cited expresly say That this mutual Consciousness makes all the Three Persons to be essentially one God And whatsoever makes them so is the formal Reason of their being so And therefore this Man would do well to take notice for the future That whensoever he asserts the Definition of a formal Reason or of any Thing else he does by the very same assertion assert the Definitum too whether he owns it or no. But because he is here making use of his old Subterfuge again as I think he will never have done with it by pretending That when he argues from Self-Consciousness and mutual Consciousness he means not the Act but the Principle of each whether that forlorn pretence is to be allowed of the Reader is left to judge yet further from the following Considerations As First From the Account which this Author himself gives of the Terms Self-Consciousness and mutual Consciousness in the Book wherein he first made use of them and built his whole Hypothesis upon them viz. his Vindication c. From every page of which where the said words are mentioned it may be made out as clear as the Light that he neither understands nor uses them in any other sence but as they import the respective Acts of each of them As first p. 48. l. the last but one where he tells us That the Self-Vnity of a Spirit can be nothing else but Self-Consciousness he explains the same by its being conscious to its own Thoughts Reasonings Passions which no other finite Spirit is conscious to but it self Which expressions neither do nor can signify any thing else but the Acts of Self-Consciousness And again p. 49. l. 2. This says he makes a finite Spirit numerically one that every Spirit feels its own thoughts and passions but is not conscious to the thoughts and passions of another Spirit And again p. 49. l. 7. If three-created Spirits were so united as to be conscious to each others thoughts and passions I cannot see any Reason why we might not say that three such Persons were Numerically one c. Now what can any mortal Man make of all this but Actual Consciousness And what does his Metaphor of feeling mean but something which is as much an Act of the Mind as that in the proper sence of it is of the Body So p. 50. l. 11. We know says he the Vnity of a Spirit reaches as far as its Self-Consciousness does for that is one Spirit which knows and feels it self and its own thoughts and motions c. In like manner for the Allusion he quotes out of St. Austin l. 15. ibid. Which he says represents this much better by that Consciousness which is between those distinct faculties in us of Memory Vnderstanding and Will And what is that Why the very Acts of these faculties which as he says know and feel whatsoever is in each other viz. We remember what we understand and will likewise We understand what we remember and will and lastly We will what we remember and understand All which I suppose are Acts of those respective faculties and not the faculties themselves And yet this he translates to the Trinity l. 23. ibid. If says he we can suppose three Infinite Minds and Persons thus conscious of whatsoever is in each other c. that is to say by Acts of Consciousness as the forementioned faculties know and feel what is in each other for otherwise that Particle thus is insignificant and means nothing at all And he speaks it out fully and plainly p. 52. l. 2. in these words This Intimate Vnion and Inbeing when we speak of an essential Vnion of pure and infinite Minds is a mutual Consciousness And what is that Why it follows It is says he as I may so speak an Inward Sensation of each other to know and feel each other as they know and feel themselves And yet more plainly if possible Father Son and Holy Ghost says he are one by an Internal Consciousness p. 56. l. 5. And then he explains the same in this manner If I may so speak says he because we want proper words to express it they feel each other in themselves know the same Things by feeling each others Knowledge and will and love alike by feeling what each other loves and wills just as every Man feels his own thoughts knowledge will and passions It were endless to transcribe all the Passages in his Vindic. which are to the same Purpose and the Reader may find five hundred more if he has a mind to it But because a Person so eminent for contradicting and forgetting himself may perhaps have forgot what he had said in his Vindication let us see what he says in this very Defence where he asserts the same Thing in the same words with reference to finite Spirits p. 37. at the end If that says he be one distinct separate Mind which is conscious only to it self which feels all that is in it self and nothing else and those be 〈◊〉 distinct separate Mindâ— each of which is thus conscious to it self c. And with respect to the Unity in Trinity p. 32. He expresly tells us That the Dean places the Vnity of the Three Persons in mutual Consciousness and then tells us what that is viz. That they have a conscious Sensation of each other in themselves as they have of themselves And what I ask is having a conscious Sensation but actual Consciousness And again Can they be one before they are mutually conscious and before they know themselves to be one and that even in the order of conceiving it p. 74. l. 16 17 18. And now what is all this to the Principle of Consciousness I have found it a Tedious task to transcribe so much of his stuff only to make a confident shifting Caviller see his own words while he will not own them But by what has been quoted it appears irrefragably That by Self-Consciousness and mutual Consciousness and that both with respect to Spirits finite and infinite this Author could understand nothing but the Acts of them if these Terms is conscious to be conscious sensation knowing feeling do properly import Acts. And I defy the whole World and this Author himself to make any other Rational sense of them Upon the whole matter therefore I desire the Judicious
closes his wretched trifling dodging answer to the Animadverter's Argument with Thus says he All his Arguments vanish like smoak rise in a dark Cloud but immediately disperse and are seen no more till they return as such vapours use to do in Thunder and lightning or some Threatning storm p. 87. at the end But was there ever such a Rhodomontade in words so Big with Nothing and without one grain of sense at the Bottom of them For is this the way to expose an Adversarie's Argument to contempt first to represent it as vanishing into smoak and vapour and afterwards returning in storm and thunder But it shews that his Rhetorick keeps pace with his Logick and that whether he would describe or prove a Thing it is much at the same rate In the mean time the Reader may take this for an Observation that will never fail him viz. That this Author is never so high upon the Huff and Rant as when he is lowest nay and knows himself lowest in Point of Reason And so I pass to the Vindication of the Second Argument Which is this If Vnity of Nature in the Divine Persons be the Cause Reason or Principle of mutual Consciousness in the said Persons then their mutual Consciousness is not the cause or principle of the Vnity of their Nature but the former is true and therefore the latter is so too This is the Argument and a plainer and clearer there cannot well be To which our Author answers thus That the Divine Persons may be thus essentially one by mutual Consciousness or mutual Consciousness may be essential to this Vnity though they could not be thus actually conscious to each other unless they were thus united as to have and to feel each other in themselves Def. p. 68. l. 22. Which Enigmatical obscure and confused stuff if the Reader understands it is well for I profess that I do not But so far as the Term Essential made use of here may seem to make any Thing for his Purpose I answer That mutual Consciousness is Essential to the Unity of the Divine Nature in the Three Persons not as that wherein this Unity does consist but as that which is essentially consequent upon it and inseparable from it So that there is an Homonymy in the Term Essential as either importing that Essential Principle wherein the Nature or Essence of a Thing is placed or some thing necessarily resulting from it in which latter sense alone mutual Consciousness is essential to the Unity of the Divine Nature And whereas he says That if by Vnity of Nature in the Divine Persons the Animadverter means the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he says is indeed a Necessary foundation of this mutual Consciousness but not the immediate Cause of it For that the Fathers he pretends were sensible that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could not of it self make this Essential Vnity and therefore added the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which he affirms to be that very mutual Consciousness here maintained by him to perfect it p. 68. l. 27. In which words there are several very vile Heterodoxyes For first I affirm That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 adequately perfectly and sufficiently makes the Vnity and Identity of the Divine Nature in the Divine Persons and that as I have already shewn not meerly from the force of the word it self but from the peculiar condition of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which it was applyed to which being Infinite could not possibly be otherwise than numerically one and the same and consequently that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or agreement of the Divine Persons in such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could be no other than a Numerical Vnity and Identity of Nature belonging to them upon that account And therefore I deny That the Fathers ever reckoned the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 insufficient of it self to make this Unity and challenge him to prove they did And I deny further that they ever alleged the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as an addition to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to perfect this Unity but as an Explication and Illustration of it and I add moreover That the Fathers never accounted this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either to be mutual Consciousness or to consist in it but to be the mutual Inexistence or Indwelling of the Divine Persons in each other founded upon and resulting from their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mutual Inexistence being no more mutual Consciousness than bare Existence can be said to be Knowledge and lastly I affirm that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ascribed to the Three Divine Persons to which this Author may add his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too if he pleases is not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it self but a consequent or effect of it for as much as they are not therefore in one another because they mutually know one another but they thus know one another because by the essential Identity of their Nature they mutually are and exist in one Another All which having been so fully proved in the seventh Chapter of Animadv p. 201 202 203 204 205 206. and the ninth Chapter p. 295. 6 7 8 9. and 300 301. to allege it again is in effect but dictum dicere which though it is the constant practice or rather Trade of this Author is the scorn of the Animadverter But to go on the Animadverter having said as is here alleged That Vnity of Nature is the Cause and Principle of mutual Consciousness which being an Essential Property equally belonging to all Three Persons must issue and result from the Divine Nature and so can have no Antecedent Causal Influx upon the same Nature Our Author in answer to this tells us That mutual Consciousness belongs not immediately to Nature but to Persons p. 69. l. 20. And I dare say he tells us the best he knows But in reply to it I must tell him again That it belongs immediately to both but upon a different account viz. to Nature as the immediately producing Principle of the Act and to the Person as to the immediate proper subject of Denomination from the Act. But he adds That he for his part will not Philosophies upon Antecedent causal Influxes in the Divine Nature p. 69. l. 24. Nor does any one else in the strict proper and Philosophical sense of these Terms pretend to do so but only by accommodating them to help us with the better Method and Distinction to conceive and discourse of so high a Subject as the Divine Nature is And therefore it was not for nothing That he passed over the Nine preliminary Considerations at the beginning of the fourth Chapter of the Animadversions without so much as touching upon them For they would have corrected his Ignorance and taught him how these words are to be understood and used about the Divine Nature and Persons But his Modesty adds That it contents him to know what is Essential not Absolutely to the Vnity of the Divine
down in that Preface nor has he in the Defence of that wretched Book answered any one of them saving that at the latter end of it viz. p. 529. l. 14. of his Defence of the Discourse concerning the Knowledge of Iesus Christ he seems to knock under Board and to own that there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 due to the discoursing of Things Sacred be the Case what it will Which Apology declares that even by his own Confession he had treated of these Things in a most scandalous unbecoming manner as in truth he did and not only so but whosoever set him upon it in a most Profane and Devillish way too So that whereas he here says That he had by that answer silenced his Adversaries so that he heard from them no more Def. p. 94. l. 24. I must tell him that some silence their Adversaries because they cannot be answered by them and some because they are not thought worth the answering which was this Author's Case here For his Adversaries as inconsiderable as they were having effectually baffled and overthrown his whole Book and broken the strength and sinews of it if it had any little concerned themselves at any Insignificant Replies he did or could afterwards make though never so many but were willing to let him have the last word considering that as Rector of Billingsgate at that time he might claim it by his place But the following Instruction to his Friend is certainly very diverting Def. p. 98. at the end in these words Where the Animadverter says he charges the Dean with Absurdities and Contradictions turn to the place and read it with it 's context and tell me what you cannot answer and I will to which he should have done well to have added If I can But the whole Passage is just as if he had said Sir If you find not Absurdities and Contradictions enough in my Book to satisfy your Curiosity that way pray come to the Fountain Head and consult me and you shall be sure of a more plentiful supply But he goes on If you or any Body else says he can be perswaded by the Animadverter that the Dean understands neither English Latin or Greek Logicks Metaphysicks c. I need wish you no other punishment than when ever you write to fall into the hands of such an Adversary p. 99. l. 1. In answer to which I am bid only to tell him that touching his Qualifications as to the forementioned respects the Animadverter is perfectly of the same mind which he was of when he wrote the ninth and tenth Chapters of the Animadversions but thinks it not worth his while to use many Arguments to perswade the Reader to be of the same opinion but only refers him to two Irrefragable ones viz. his own two Eyes to convince him In the mean time it may be some diversion to him to observe how that because most Parts of Philosophy viz. Physicks Metaphysicks Mathematicks Ethicks Politicks c. are always expressed plurally therefore this Author very wisely expresses Logick so too calling it Logicks Def. p. 99. l. 3. which I dare say no Scholar ever called so before and in my poor Judgment he might have forborn to speak of Logicks in the Plural till he had better understood one But 't is evident that he knew no better and we must not expect that any one should speak better than he knows But since he is such a grand Exemplar of Pride and Disdain towards all whom he ever wrote against that he may not however lie too open to them when they turn upon him again as in all likelyhood the way being now opened to them they will I would advise him in time though I confess it is something with the latest to procure himself some good honest Systems in all the forementioned sorts of Learning adding to use his own Dialect Grammaticks withal since I would not direct him to Books too much above his reach at first And when he has once got them about him I would have him ply them hard assuring himself which all know though scarce any one is so much his Friend as to tell him so that he has a great deal more need of studying than the World has or can have of his Writing Nevertheless if Writing be so absolutely Necessary to him that his health requires it and that Nature cannot be at ease nor enjoy it self unless the Scripturient humour has sometimes vent by throwing it self off into Paper let him at least make choice of proper Subjects and forbearing all Controversial Discourses about Christ's Satisfaction God's punitive Iustice and the Trinity which he was never cut out for let him rather jog on in the old beaten Track of Church Communion and of Death and Iudgment and upon these and such like heads the Two last especially he may continue on Writing and Printing and Printing and Writing and the World never the wiser for either even till his Subject overtakes him I have now gone through his whole Defence and having done so cannot but think it very proper and equally for the Reader 's Satisfaction to lay before him a Brief Scheme or Analysis of it together with those pittiful mean ways and methods by which with much ado it has been patched up and put together that so he may see what a kind of Antagonist the Animadverter has had to deal with and that in these following Particulars As First That for the better salving of his Credit he imposes his Book upon the World under the specious but false Title of an Answer to the Animadversions whereas it is but a very small Part of that Discourse which he attempts to answer passing over the main body of it without answering examining or so much as medling with it at all Secondly That he boldly and positively denies several Things in this Book which he had as positively affirmed before For which compare what he had said of the Term Substance in his Vindication with what he says of it in this his Defense In the former he explodes it from all our Discourses of God for that as he affirms the Mind of Man cannot form any conception of Substance either without matter or without a Beginning upon which score I am sure it cannot be applicable to God Vind. p. 69. l. 1. and 70. l. 7. and yet here in this Book he allows of it in our Discourses of God as a Term not only very Good but Vseful and Necessary Def. p. 3. l. 27. which two let the Reason of all Mankind reconcile if it can Likewise for Subsistence compare what he says for the utter rejection of this Term from all discourses about the Trinity Vind. p. 138. line the last and 139. line the first with what he says in behalf of it in this Defense p. 25. l. 13. affirming that there could not be a more proper word used to express an Vnity in Trinity by But all Instances of this kind falling under the Head of
Self-Contradiction I pretend not to Arithmetick enough to number them Thirdly That when he finds himself overborn by an Argument he flyes off and quite alters the state of the Question and in the Room of that Term which he finds indefensible he presently substitutes another As instead of the Act of Self-Consciousness which he had so frequently and so expressly made use of and insisted upon he puts the principle of the said Act Def. p. 39. l. 15. Fourthly That he takes shelter in several fallacious expressions which being once stripped of their Ambiguity by distinctions duly applyed leave the Thing they would prove in the lurch and vanish into Nothing such as for instance amongst many others is his insisting upon a substantial Trinity in opposition to such a one as admits of no greater than a Modal distinction between the Divine Persons by which if he means That the said Three Persons are Three distinct Substances it is false but if he means that they are Three Substantial Persons so called from one and the same Infinite Substance common to them all and subsisting differently in each of them it is True and every one grants such a Substantial Trinity but this makes nothing at all for his Hypothesis the Argument resting wholly upon the Ambiguity of the Term Substantial Fifthly That finding some of the chief Notions which he built his whole Hypothesis upon quite baffl'd and by none of his palliating Tricks to be justified he fairly quits and gives them up and thereby whether he will or no absolutely yields the Point in debate to his Adversary See this grosly exemplified in his Notion of Mutual Consciousness which frequently comes in my way made by him at first the Reason of the Essential Vnity of the Divine Persons and afterwards allow'd by him to be no more than the Result and Consequent of the said Unity Defence p. 75. l. 20. Sixthly That when he is nonplus'd in any Proposition taken and understood according to the universally receiv'd sense of the Words of it he presently strikes off from thence to his Meaning and tells the Reader That he for his part means quite another thing by it See his Def. p. 81. l. 28. These I say are some of those Arts and Shifts with which he all-along encounters the Animadverter but Shifts by his Favour will neither pass for Arguments nor yet for Answers to them any more than Shuffling the Cards can be reckon'd Winning the Game But because his chief Engine of all and which he makes most use of is his frequent allegation of his Meaning in opposition to his plain express Assertions I think it not amiss to illustrate it by some Examples Thus for instance 1. When he says That we know the Nature of a Body Vind. p. 4. l. 25. his Meaning is that we know the Nature of Nothing in the World Vindic. p. 7. l. 19. 2. When he says That a Person and an Intelligent Substance are reciprocal Terms Vind. p. 69. l. 18. his Meaning is That a Beast or Brute which is not an Intelligent Being is and may be called a Person Vindic. p. 262. l. 18. 3. When he says That Susistence and the like Terms reckon'd up by him serve only to perplex and confound Mens Notions about the Trinity Vindic. p. 138. l the last 139. l. 1. his Shameless Meaning as we have shewn p. 25. l. 13. of his Def. is That there could not have been a more proper Word thought on to represent the Trinity by than Three Subsistences in One Individual Nature 4. When he says A Trinity in Vnity is a Venerable Mystery and that there may be a great deal more in it than we can Fathom Vind. p. 86. l. 1 2. his Meaning is That it is a plain easie and intelligible Notion as explain'd by him and such as gives a plain solution of all the Difficulties and seeming Contradictions in the Doctrine of the said Article Vind. p. 66. l. 2 3. 5. When he professes to explain the Mysterious Vnion between the Eternal Father and the Son by the Vnity of a Spirit as the best way of explaining it Def. p. 6. l. 22. his Meaning in the same Def. from p. 19. to p. 35. is That the said Mysterious Vnion is best explain'd by a Man and his Living Image though neither of them is a Spirit And I suppose that that which is not a Spirit can neither have the Vnity of a Spirit belonging to it 6. When he makes Self-Consciousness the Reason of Personality Personal Vnity and Distinction in each of the Divine Persons and Mutual Consciousness the Reason of their Essential Vnity as we have shewn he does his Meaning is That Self-Consciousness and Mutual Consciousness do only suppose result from Prove and inferr the said Distinction upon the former account and the said Vnity upon the latter That is to say When he speaks of a Cause or Antecedent he always means an Effect or Consequent And I need not quote Page and Line for this having quoted them so often before 7. When he speaks of an Infinite Mind and of Three Infinite Minds as he does very often he tells us That by Mind he means a Person Def. p. 81. l. 32. though Mind and Person are Terms quite differing from one-another both in Signification and Definition and accordingly are and ever have been so used 8. When he says That not to allow the Three Divine Persons to be Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits is Heresie and Nonsense as he affirms in words equally express and impudent he tells us his Meaning is That it is Heresie and Nonsence to assert Three Persons who are not Three distinct Intelligent Persons Def. p. 81. l. 21. which I dare say no Man alive ever asserted or any Man of Sence ever imagin'd any more than any one ever asserted Peter and Iames and Iohn to be Three Men and yet deny'd them to be Three Rational Creatures But an impudent Copy-monger will venture to say something though in defiance of Sence and in spight of Nonsence too 9. When he calls a Man a Person as he often does in his Writings his Meaning is Not that the Man but that the Soul is the Person and the Body the Vital Instrument of the Soul and that neither Soul nor Body are Parts of the Person Nor is this soveraign thing of use only in Matters of Argument and Dispute but also in Matters of a very different nature As for example 1 st When a known Writer publish'd some Queries against the Commission and Commissioners for making Alterations in our Liturgy severely reflecting upon both his Meaning was only to inform the World what Excellent Persons as he styles them they were who so zealously design'd and promoted the said Alterations See An Apology c. p. 5. l. 20. 2 dly When a certain Divine told an Irish Bishop as was hinted before in the Animadversions p. 358. l. 2. Edit 2. That he would be Crucified before he would take
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men in the several Ages they lived in Nor were there any whom the Primitive Church still kept so watchful an Eye and so severe an hand over as these Novellists and had this Author lived not only under the Discipline of the Church of those Ages but even of that excellent Copy of it the Church amongst our selves before the great Rebellion which gave it such an Incurable Wound he would have found to his Cost what it had been to play the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man upon the Trinity for whatsoever else it might have done for him it would have been sure to have stopp'd him in his way to St. Paul's But this is not all his Civility to the Animadverter for he allows him not only able to Transcribe but to make a shift to read too for this Author has convinced me that 't is not impossible for one to Transcribe what he cannot Read In requital of which Complement I do here tell this Man that if he could and should pay to the Crown a penny for every Greek word which he can neither Read nor Spell nor make any Thing of I dare undertake that it might save the Nation a Tax for one year at least In fine as much a Transcriber as his foul mouth would make the Animadverter let him but prove that he ever transcribed any thing out of His Writings and I will give him leave to prosecute him not only for a Thief but for the very worst the basest and meanest of Thieves viz. A Robber of the Spittle But I assure him that for what concerns his own Writings he is safe for as to them let any Man but first Read and I dare undertake he will never be tempted to transcribe Secondly The next passage I shall take notice of is that in p. 38. at the end and 39. at the beginning where with the grossest Ignorance pretending to prove Risibility the formal Reason of Humanity from an Assertion of the Animadverter which he understood not This says he makes well for the Animadverter to prove him to be a Man though he is seldom in so good an Humor as to laugh without grinning which belongs to another Species Thus the Courtier of Gravel-lane By which words it is evident that the poor man is here offering at Wit but cannot reach it But as for the Risibility he is so much concerned against do not all the Schools of Philosophy make Risibility the Property of a man and withal deny the Form or Nature of any Thing to consist in the Property of it as well as the Animadverter But let him set his heart at rest for whatsoever Risibility may be in others yet so far as it concerns himself the Animadverter will hardly allow it for an Argument of Rationality as it is in him but as it is imployed upon him But to cut off the Unfortunate Animadverter from all Hopes of ever proving his Rationality by his Risibility with one terrible blow he strikes him down into the grinning Species the meaning of which word is very well known and a word it is as fit for this Man 's Billingsgate mouth as his mouth is peculiarly fitted for that Though by his Favour he shall never make the Animadverter so far of the grinning Species as either to find him amongst the sneaking Spaniels or the Hybrid Mongrils but rather of that genuine English kind which having once fastned as the Animadverter has upon this Man will not be made to quit their Hold. But if he were desirous to learn that Canine Art of fetching and carrying especially between Paul's and Lambeth he knows where to find one very well able to instruct him In the mean time I humbly present the World with this Specimen of Mr. Dean's refined Breeding Civility and Discretion that he has no other Answer to give his Adversary but by calling him Grinning Dog Which yet I confess is very agreeable to the Rage I hear the Animadversions have put him into which is such that in most Companies he speaks of nothing but Daggers Gibbets and Furnaces the very mention either of the Animadverter or Animadversions transporting him into such Fits and Agonies as render him extremely troublesom both to himself and to all who are so unhappy as to be with him and much ado has he in one of those Fits to forbear cursing Both of them by his Gods But Thirdly I pass on to present the Reader with another of his Flowers gather'd out of p. 90. l. 25. of this Defence where he closes a Paragraph with these Magisterial Words pronounc'd one would think out of the Chair of Aristarchus himself or some such eminent Grammarian It is says he a tedious thing to dispute with Men who must be taught to construe the Fathers and understand Common Sence But will this Abcedarian venture to reproach any one for that who but a few Pages before this construes that Expression of the Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Mutual Consciousness p. 71. l. 6 And that in those remarkably positive words This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says he is that very Mutual Consciousness which the Dean holds that is to say With the grossest Ignorance he construes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies an Act of the Will by Mutual Consciousness which is an Act of Knowledge or as he whimsically calls it of Sensation And therefore let me tell this Anti-nicene Quadrigesimal Chrysom Paraphrases-man That the Animadverter can construe the Fathers and understand them too at much another rate than this comes to provided that he reads them in their own Works but he confesses that when he reads them quoted by him in his Writings he cannot construe them for Solecisms In the mean time I for my part am so far from thinking this Author fit to set up for a Construer of the Fathers and much less for a Teacher of others to construe them that I shrewdly suspect that it has been for want of a Construing-Book that he is no better acquainted with his Grammar Fourthly The next thing which I think fit to take notice of is his frequent reproaching the Animadverter with the Character of a Wit though joyn'd with such ill-favour'd Epithets as his Witless Malice has thought fit to degrade it with as p. 9. l. 19. That he is a Spightful Wit and p. 66. i. 21. a Wrangling Wit and p. 1. l. 6. a Satyrical Wit and the witty subtile good-natur'd Animadverter p. 38. l. 26. c. Though after all I think there is but very little Wit shewn in making such Charges However if Wit be a Reproach be it of what sort it will the Animadverter is too just to return this Reproach upon the Defender and withal understands himself and what becomes him too well either to assume to himself or so much as to admit the Character of a Wit as at all due to him especially since he knows that Common Sence a thing much
with the Socinians and that therefore the Socinians would not concern themselves with him p. 12. Col. 2. towards the end and at last closed up by him with this affirmation also That he had given the Animadverter on disrespectful Language at all p. 25. Col. 2. l. 36. and consequently that he ought not to take the foregoing Reproaches ill but to embrace and accept them all as pure perfect Socinian Courtship and Civility Though in the Judgment of all that I can meet with these things clash so irreconcileably both with themselves and some other Passages in the same tract and carry in them so much of Sherlocism and Self-Contradiction that they evidently shew how hard if not impossible it is for any one to write for Dr. Sherlock without writing like him too In fine I believe the whole World can hardly shew another Instance of such Bitter Virulent Reproachful Language given and that even by the Confession of him who gave it without the least Provocation Nevertheless I have thought fit to treat this Considerer in a very different way from that in which I treated Dr. Sherlock and much more from that in which He himself has to the Amazement of all sober Persons treated the Animadverter not but that I am sufficiently sensible of every one of his Reproaches But since they are only Personal and designed against the Animadverter alone and wrote as I am well satisfied by Order too he may easily Command me as he 〈◊〉 done to slight and overlook them But Dr. Sherlock is to be looked upon as a common or rather an Universal Adversary and deserves to be treated as such and that in a due Vindication of all those worthy suffering Reputations those of the Fathers themselves reckoned for the chief which he has so rudely and illiterately and in a word so like himself made an invasion upon And so having represented the Invectives of this Socinian Writer against the Animadverter without returning them upon himself howsoever I have turned them upon him for whose sake they were written I leave it to the Reader and all Mankind to judge from the forementioned Passages what a share the Animadverter has in the Socinians Friendship and how much he is the object of their Admiration But the Animadverter has been attacked by Enemies from more Quartels than one and amongst the rest by that Diminutive Oberon in Divinity the little Oxford-Excommunicate A Person little indeed in every thing but Spight and Heresie He in his poor Still-born Pamphlet published against the Animadversions endeavours to set off his small Ware with the specious Title forsooth of the Trinity placed in its due light Though I must tell him That his Naked Gospel has much the Advantage of this Piece as having been placed by the Execution done upon it at Oxford not only in its due light but in its due heat too But has not this Man think we found out a very odd way of explaining this high Mystery to us viz. by first setting his College all in a Flame and then pretending to show us the Trinity by the Light of it But how in the name of all the Fairies amongst whom he is no small Prince comes he to be so fierce and furious against the Animadverter For the Animadverter never deposed against him nor does he know that he ever disobliged this pettit Doctor either by word or deed Nevertheless since there are some Tempers that can be spightful purely for Spight 's sake This Man was resolved to vent his Spleen though I believe it would put him hand to it to give a good Reason why whether we respect the Person whom he wrote against or whom he wrote for Accordingly several sourvy Passages of no small Rancor occur in his Discourse which I assure him might easily be returned upon him and that with shrewd Advantage But that I scorn to foul my Paper 〈◊〉 indeed my very Ink upon one of such a Character by quitting Scores with him in his own way Nor shall I step so low as to engage against a Book wrote in an entire Ignorance of the Subject which it was wrote upon or think that worth answering which hardly any Man of fence thinks worth Reading as his Bookseller by woful Experience finds However in Case the Learned and Judicious shall at any time judge it needful to have so slight a piece replied to which I could never yet find the way is so far already prepared for it That the Author is more than sufficiently known how little soever he is taken notice of we have his mark and his measure there being scarce any one but sâ—eâ— and sâ—es through him too For since the World has been acquainted with his Naked Gospel thanks be to his good Stars for it he may be distinguished by the stroke of his hand as well as by the mole on his foot There are others also who have discharged their Potgâ—ns at the Animadverter but he does not think it worth his while to fight with every one who can shooâ— Paper And thus having at length brought the work intended by me to a Conclusion after the Churche's and the Reader 's Pardon begged for all failures that shall appear in it I cannot but own and declare that many wise and good Men and hearty Lovers of our Church to my Knowledge are of Opinion That this Important and Fundamental Point has been sufficiently argued and the truth effectually proved against this Innovator whom I have been hitherto dealing with already and that the properest way of proceeding against him for the future is not by Argameâ—â— but Authority And that his Bishop would admonish him of his Heresy once and again and if he persists in it resolutely Excommunicate him and that all sober Christians who make Conscience of their Duty and their Holy Christâ—â—n Profession would thereupon shun and abandon and refuse all converse with him according to the Rule of Scripture and the practice of the Primitive Church towards Persons obstinately persisting in any Heresy and Excommunicated thereupon In the mean time let him and his Partisanâ— put the best Face they can upon the matter yet I know no true Sons of the Church of England who account of him otherwise in his present station and condition than as of a Flag of Defiance to our old established Religion Nor could I ever imagine from the very first what his design could be in writing that wretched Book and of others in approving it but to confound and embroil that great Article of our Faith in order to the laying in quite aside And most certainly it cannot be for nothing that even the Socinians themselves as great an opposition as they profess to Tritheism are yet so very fond of and zealous for this Tritheist that as it has been shewn they could almost tear the Animadverter in pieces for having wrote against him He tells us at the latter end of the Preface to his former Book called his Vindication
c. That his New Hypothesis of the Trinity cost him many thoughts and that it must cost others many too if they will understand it And I must confess that it has cost me several Thoughts also But since it is certain that a Man may throw away his Thoughts as well as his money upon that which will never quit Costs I must profess likewise that I grudge every Thought which I have spent upon it For to hear ones Brains upon such a dull senceless Hypothesis having nothing to recommend it but it's Novelty is but just as if a Man should beat his head against a Post which being a dry wooden hard Thing and upon that account a lively though not living Image of this Man's work may break one's head indeed but can never improve it And therefore did not my duty to and concern for our Excellent and now suffering Church oblige me to serve her even in the lowest if lawful Offices I would never trouble my thoughts with his Heretical stuff more especially since I can truly say of this New Hypothesis what a certain Divine of a very voluble Conscience and known to this Man as well as he knows Himself said of the New Oath before he took it The more I think on 't the worse I like it FINIS Advertisement ANimadversions upon Dr. Sherlock's Book Entituled A Vindication of the Doctrine 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 Additions The Objection about the derivation of a Mystery prov'd only a Blunder of the Objector See the Preface to the Animadvers p. 7. See a Pamphlet Entitled The Trinity set in its true Light p. 5. lin 28. Non accipienda est processio secundùm quod est in Corporalibus vel per motum localem vel per actionem aliquam causae in exteriorem effectum ut calor à calefaciente in calefactum Sed secundùm Emanationem intelligibilem uâ—poâ—e Verbi intelligibilis à Dicente quod manet in ipso sic fides Catholica processionem ponit in divinis Aquinas 1â— P. Q. 27. Art 1. in C. Answer to the Antapology p. 19. l. 6. Argum. 1. Arg. 2. Arg. 3. Arg. 1. Arg. 2. Arg. 3. Arg. 4. Arg. â— Arg. 2. Arg. 3. Arg. 4. The state of the Question concerning Self-consciousness and mutual Consciousness with reference to the Divine Persons changed and falsified by the Defender from what it is as deliver'd by Dr. Skerlock in his Vindication c. The true state of the Question concerning Self-consciousness and mutual Consciousness with reference to the Divine Persons taken from Dr. Sherlock's own words in his Vindication c. Arg. 2. Arg. 3. Arg. 4. The wonderful Vertues of a skillfully managed meaning * Dr. W. * See the meaning of these extraordinary words in Chap. 10 of the Animadversions A Specimen of the Friendship of the Socinians to the Animadverter objected to him by this Defender together with some remarks upon a Socinian Tract Entituled Considerations on the Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity c. So far as they concern the Animadverter See the Animadv p. 329 330. ☞ See Serm. on Ps. 39.9 p. 17. l. 11. ☞ A Remark or Two upon the Little Oxford-Excommunicate who also has had a Fling at the Animadverter The Conclusion