presence of God is but a Mode of his Essence and if we have no distinct and clear Conception of the presence of God nor consequently of his Omnipresence or the way how he is present with all his Creatures where ever they are I do not see with what Cogency or Force an Argument can be Deduced from it in this business In short since things are present one with another very differently in proportion to their several Natures it will follow that things Mental must be present with others in much another way than those that are Material and Consequently that God who is pure Mind must be present with Material Beings much otherwise than these themselves are one with another Mind can no more be present the same way that Matter is than be the same thing with Matter CHAP. IV. Of Mind in Matter SECT I. Mind as concerned with Matter comes under a double consideration 1 As it actuates a most subtle and more than Etherial Matter that is diffus'd throughout the World 2ly As it actuates some particular Vechicle or Body In the first Notion of it Mind in Matter is the Idea of the Mosaical Spirit of God This Spirit according to the Scriptural Hypothesis is the Immediate cause of all things in the first Creation and ever since The Being of this Spirit Evinced both by Authority and by Argument Dr. Mores Distinction between the Spirit of Nature which he calls Principium Hylarchicum and the Spirit of God considered AFter a Consideration of Mind as it is in it self Pure and Abstract Exempt from all Intrinsecal concernment and composition with Matter I come now to consider it as concerned with Matter that is as Acting in and by means of Matter in which consideration Mind may be called second Mind as in the former it may be termed the first Mind concerned with Matter may be considered in two respects either as it has for the Vehicle which it actuates and by which it acts all that most subtle Matter that does permeate the Universe in the utmost Extent and Capacity of it or as it actuates some particular system of Matter that may be called a Body and it is a particular Vehicle Mind in the former Consideration of it as it doth actuate and act in and by a most subtle matter diffused throughout the Universe seems to me to be the Mosaical Spirit of God mentioned Gen. 1. v. 2. And the same that in the Scriptural Hypothesis which never mentions Nature as the Efficient Cause of any thing but Represents Philosophy only as a Theology that swallows up the second Causes in Contemplation of the first is the Cause of all productions the Births the Growths and all the Alterations and Changes that come to pass in the World This in that account is the Principle of Human Souls Mal 2.15 Did he not make one Yet had he the Residue of the Spirit As if he had said he wanted not Spirit he had more left to Animate more had he been pleased to make them but he made but one and the Principal too of all Corporeal Effects even of Snow of Hail of Ice of Wind c. Psal 147.15 16 17 18. He sendeth forth his Commandment upon the Earth his word runneth very swiftly He giveth Sonw like Wool he scattereth the Hoar Frost like Ashes He Casteth forth his Ice like Morsels who can stand before his Cold He sendeth out his word and melteth them he causeth his Wind to blow and the Waters Flow. To understand this Text with the more clearness we must have Recourse unto Genesis Ch. 1. v. 2 3 6 9 12 14 20 24 26. In which we find in v. 2. mention made of the Spirit of God that moved upon the Face of the Waters as the Active Principle that wrought all and in the 3. and the following verses of the Word or Commandment of God that as a Directive Principle did regulate and order all so that the Spirit acted accordingly thus v. 3. God said let there be Light and there was Light and v. 6. God said let there be a Firmament or rather an Expanse in the midst of the Waters and it was so and v. 9. God said Let the Waters under the Heaven be gathered together into one place and let the Dry Land Appear and it was so The like in the following works Now the World in the account of the Holy Scriptures has the same for its Conserving that it had for its Procreating Cause and therefore as God at first did make All by his Almighty Spirit through his Word so the Psalmist tells us that he still doth for as at first he said Let there be so still he Sendeth forth his Commandment and as all was ordered at first by the Divine Word He said let there be Light He said let there be a Firmament c. So still his WORD Runneth very swiftly The Spirit of God doth still Execute as he did at first all the Directions and Commands are given it He Produces the Snow the Hoar Frost and Ice he maketh Cold and Raiseth Winds and causes all the Alterations that are made in the Air in the Earth in a Word in all the Elements and in all above them This is the Scriptural Hypothesis the meaning of which is that God by his infinite Wisdom as well as Power both Made and Governs the World but to Return Of this Spirit that Penetrates through all the World and that doth All in it not only Moses has written but many of the Old Philosophers have also told Velleius in Cicero l. 1. de Nat. Deor. acquaints us concerning Pythagoras Quod censuit animum esse per Naturam rerum omnem intentum Commeantem that he believed a Mind diffused throughout the whole Nature of things The same Velleius also reports concerning Zeno that he in some of his Books discoursed of what he called the Reason of the Universe Rationem per omnem pertinentem Naturam In fine to omit others Plutarch mentions a Spirit that Penetrates throughout the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And what can this Spirit be that Penetrates throughout the Universe that animates it and is as a common Reason in it for I will unite the Expressions and so compleat the Idea but the Mosaical Spirit But not only Authority Sacred and Prophane evinces that there is such a Spirit an Energetical Vital Principle diffused throughout the World but Experience also shows it if the Experience that we have of such a Principle Diffused throughout one Region of it our own may be sufficient to conclude it is so in all of which Experience I shall speak hereafter when also the Nature of this Spirit and the Influence it has upon and in things will be set out more clearly and more fully I Know the Learned Dr. More hath told us of a Principium Hylarchicum which he defines an Incorporeal Substance without Sense and Animadversion that pervades the Matter of the whole Universe and exercises
to the things expressed and signified by them The former may be term'd Verbal the latter real sense or perhaps to speak more properly the former may be called the sense or meaning of the words the latter the conception the notion or the Idea of the Thing Should a Roman Catholick tell me he means by Transubstantiation that a real and substantial mutation of the Elements of Bread and Wine is made in the Holy Sacrament into the very Body and Blood of Christ but yet so that notwithstanding this mutation the Species or Accidents of Bread and Wine do still remain to affect our senses 'T is possible I may conceive the sense and meaning of the several words he uses and also apprehend what it is he would have me believe when yet at the same time I cannot apprehend that such a thing can really be since I see a plain contradiction it should it being equally impossible to make a Conception that is to frame a coherent consistent Notion or Idea of the thing he means and make all the parts of it to hang together as to make one of a circular square or of a Triangular Girole Ecquem says Cotta in Cicero l. 3. de Nat. Deorum pag. 129. tam amentem esse putas qui illud quo Vescatur deum credat esse A Distinction then there is and that a remarkable one too between the verbal and real meaning of words which to set out more fully I will show First The the Occasion and Rise of it and then Secondly The Use and Benefit of it First then this distinction Arises from the Imperfection and Inadequacy of Human Knowledge we Knowing little of things but under words and words being immediately the signs but of our Conceptions which are always short and narrow and too often indistinct and confused Now if the sentiments we have according to the Vulgar and Ordinary way of conceiving which is but general and confused do cohere and hang together when one of them is affirmed or spoken of another so that the Notions are compossible in common acceptation we call it sense though really the things themselves for which those words are understood to stand be Incompossible and repugnant each to other and therefore indeed it is Nonsense This is to be better understood in Examples Such Propositions as these that Colours even as to their Images are in the Objects in which they do appear that Odours are in the things smelled that Sapors are in the things that are tasted these and the like Assertions are not commonly understood or said to be Nonsense because Knowing in the general and confusedly what is meant by colour what by Odor and what by Sapor as likewise what is meant by the thing seen by the thing that is tasted and by the thing which is smelled nothing appears in those confused general Notions which we have to hinder us from thinking that Colours Sapors and Odours do as really Inhere in those external objects as they seem to do And yet to a Person that hath distinct real and just conceptions of the several subjects and predicates in those propositions it is evident that 't is as gross and palpable Nonsense to affirm that Colours Sapors Odours and other Accidents which are but Phaenomena and Intentional beings do really exist in the Subjects where they seem to be as to say that there are Notions and Cogitations in a Wall in a Figg or in a Rose than which there cannot be a greater Bull or absurdity The Usefulness of this distinction is greater than most will think since from the want of making or of observing it it comes to pass that so many do run into great mistakes and errours in their discourses Do skirmish one with another to no purpose and without end and often do differ from themselves as much as each from other For few there are that do fix and settle even the verbal Sense of words which often have a doubleness of meaning and then are called Ambiguous and fewer that do think of the real without which yet they can never come to any certainty so that as Mr. Hobbs has ingeniously said words that are Wise Mens Counters become Fools Mony The meaning of words as well the verbal as the real is called Sense because the Perception of it ought to be as Clear and distinct and as steady and fixt as that of Sense is For words to be understood as they ought must have their meanings be as clearly and distinctly perceived by the mind as objects of Sense when they are Seen or Heard or Tasted or Smelled are by the Senses SECT II All Falsity is not Nonsense but all impossible Falsity is Repugnance in the mind to yield assent to propositions that are Nonsence Whence it arises Of Enthusiasm as it is a Kind of Nonsence What Enthusiasm is The distributions of it Examples of the several Kinds of Enthusiasm out of Dr. Fludd and in the Magick Aphorisms of the Rosy-crusians That Enthusiasts when they seem to understand one another do so by Sympathy only and not by way of Apprehension and Judgment How this may be set out in a story very Remarkable I Have spoken of Sense and Nonsense in the general but toward a further clearing of the Notions of them and especially that of the latter it must be observed that falsity and Nonsence are not Synonimous terms For all Falsity is not Nonsense that is every Proposition that is false is not also Nonsensical for many things are possible that are not Actual and therefore many propositions that are not actually true might have been or may hereafter be so and as what is true is Sense so Sense is compossibility not actuality not that only which at present is true but whatever is any wise possible to be so But though all Falsity is not Nonsense all impossible Falsity is I mean every proposition is Nonsense that is false to that degree that it is impossible absolutely impossible it should be true for no proposition is absolutely impossible to be true but that which implies contradiction and that which implies a contradiction must needs be Nonsense since the Understanding cannot frame any Notion or Idea of it and so cannot make any real sense of the words that compose it Contradiction in Terms is plain or gross Nonsense called a Bull in English or an Absurdity and where the terms in common acceptation are not Contradictory yet if the thing they are designed to express do really imply a Contradiction the propositions though Verbal Sense are really Nonsense as in the Instances above Observe again that there is in the mind a certain sensible Reluctance to give assent to Propositions that are Incongruous and really Nonsensical for whoever Attends to what does pass within himself will be Conscious of a Pain as it were of dislocation upon a serious predication of Abstracts one of another as when he says goodness is Justice or of Contraries as when he affirms love
more suspected thereby This Old Woman was a Widow and of the Poorest of the Town in outward shew and yet she had always store of Money which none could tell which way she might come by it Whilst I was thus Taking Privy Information against her it being the Time of Lent when all the Town came to Confession she among the Rest came to the Church to Confess her sins and brought me the best Present and Offering of all the Town for whereas a Riall is Common she brought me four and besides a Turkey Eggs Fish and a little Bottle of Honey She thought thereby to get with me a better Opinion than I had of her from the whole Town I Accepted of her Great Offering and heard her Confession which was of nothing but Trifles which could scarce be Judged sinful Actions I Examined her very close of what was the Common Judgment of all the Indians and especially of those who dying had declared to my self at their Death that She had Bewitched them and before their Sickness had Threatned them and in their Sickness Appeared Threatning them with Death about their beds none but they themselves seeing her to which she Replyed Weeping that she was Wronged I Asked her how she being a Poor Widow without any Sons to help her without any means of Livelyhood had so much Money as to give me more than the Richest of the Town how She came by that Fish Turkey and Honey having none of this of her own about her House to which she Replied that God Loved her and gave her all these Things and that with her Money she Bought the rest I Asked her of whom She Answered that out of the Town she had them I Persuaded her to much Repentance and to forsake the Devil and all Fellowship with him but her Words and Answers were of a Saintly and Holy Woman and she earnestly desired me to give her the Communion with the Rest that were to Receive the next day Which I told her I durst not do using Christ's Words Give not the Childrens bread unto dogs nor cast your Pearls unto Swine and it would be a great Scandal to give the Communion unto her who was suspected generally and had been Accused for a Witch This she took very ill telling me that she had many Years Received the Communion and now in her Old Age it Grieved her to be Deprived of it her tears were many yet I could not be moved with them but Resolutely denied her the Communion and so Dismissed her At Noon when I had done my work in the Church I bad my Servants go to gather up the Offerings and gave order to have the Fish Dressed for my Dinner which she had brought but no sooner was it carried into the Kitchen when the Cook looking on it found it full of Maggots and stinking so that I was forced to hurl it away with that I began to supect my Old Witch and went to look on her Honey and Pouring it out into a Dish I found it full of Worms her Eggs I could not know from others there being near a Hundred Offered that day but after as I used them we found some Rotten some with dead Chickens in them the next Morning the Turkey was found dead As for her four Rials I could not Perceive whether she had Bewitched them out of my Pocket for that I had put them with many other which that day had been given Given me yet as far as I could I called to Memory who and what had been Given me and in my Judgment and Reckoning I verily thought that I missed four Rials At Night when my Servants the Indians were gone to Bed I sat up late in my Chamber betaking my self to my Books and Study for I was the next Morning to make an Exhortation to those that Received the Communion After I had Studied a while it being between Ten and Eleven of the Clock on a sudden the Chief door in the Hall where in a Lower Room was my Chamber and the Servants and three other doors flew open and I heard one come in and for a while walk about then was Another door opened which went into a Little Room where my Saddles were Laid with this I thought it might be the Black-More Miguel Dalva who would often come late to my House to Lodge there Especially since my fear of Montenegro and I Conjectured that he was Laying up his Saddle I called unto him by his Name two or three times from within my Chamber but no Answer was made but suddenly Another door that went out to a Garden flew also open wherewith I began within to fear my joynts Trembled my Hair stood up I would have called out to the Servants and my Voice was as it were stopped with the sudden Affrightment I began to think of the Witch and put my trust in God against her and Encouraged my self and Voice calling out to the Servants and knocking with a Cane at my door within that they might hear me for I durst not open it and go out with the Noise that I made the Servants Awaked and came out to my Chamber door then I opened it and asked them if they had not heard some Body in the Hall and all the doors opened they said they were Asleep and heard nothing only one Boy said he heard all and Related unto me the same that I had heard I took my Candle then in my hand and went out with them into the Hall to view the doors and I found them all shut as the Servants said they had left them Then I Perceived that the Witch would have Affrighted me but had no power to do me any harm I made two of the Servants lie in my Chamber and went to bed in the morning early I sent for my Fiscal the Clerk of the Church and told him what had happen'd that Night he smiled upon me and told me it was the Widdow Carillo who had often played such Tricks in the Town with those that had offended her and therefore he had the night before come unto me from her desiring me to give her the Communion lest she should do me some hurt which I denied unto him as I had done to her self the Clerk bad me be of good cheer for he knew she had no power over me to do me any hurt After the Communion that day some of the Chief Indians came unto me and told me that Old Carillo had Boasted that she would play me some trick or other because I would not give her the Communion But I to rid the Town of such a Limb of Satan sent her to Guatemala with all the Evidences and Witnesses which I had found against her unto the President and Bishop who commanded her to be put in Prison where she died within two months Many more Indians there were in that Town who were said in my time to do very strange things One called John Gonzalez was reported to Change himself into
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no Accepter of Mens Persons for that he in judgement respects not as Men too often do the foreign Qualities and Accidents that do distinguish them from one another as their wit or their weakness their comeliness or their deformity their riches or their Poverty their Grandeur or their Littleness of Figure in the World But all is as one to him when he enters into Judgement for he judges uprightly according to the merits of the Cause without regard to the Person save where the Consideration of the Person is of moment as sometimes it is in the merits of the Cause But as the Person of a Man is that bundle of Qualities that do distinguish him from others so A Person is a Man with those Qualities that is a Person is a Distinguished Man and so the word comes to be taken not only for the Qualities that do distinguish but for the Man that is distinguished by those qualities in which sense the word is used not only by the Schoolmen who after Boetius define a Person to be a rational subsistent Rationalis Naturae Individua substantia but by the Apostle when he speaks 2 Cor. 1.11 of Thanks being given by many Persons for him By what I have said and I have said the more for that the cause of late has had a fresh Rehearing we may judge of the justice of Laurentius Valla who in his Elegance l. VI. c. 34. severely or rather insolently reflects upon Boetius for asserting that a Person was not a Quality or in any other Predicament but that of Substance he shows in many instances that Person signifies Quality and thence infers that the same man may sustain a hundred Persons Quo sit says he ut Assit mihi Multiplex Persona ac Diversa sed una tantum substantia and to give an Example he fancies himself a Hector and says ad Priamum sum Personâ Filii ad Astianacta personâ Patris ad Andromacham personâ Viri ad Paridem personâ Fratris ad Sarpedonem personâ Amici ad Achillem personâ Inimici In fine making application of what he says unto the Deity he thinks that he has carried the Prize by demonstrating how God may be but one Substance and yet be Three Persons But 't is in a way in which his Hector may be a Hundred and God as many and more So that I had not believed it worth my while to mention this Opinion but that an Excellent Person of our own has given it fresh reputation by going the same way for the Learned Author of the Three Sermons concerning the Sacred Triny shews as Laurentius Valla does that the word Person was used of old to signifie the State Quality or Condition of a Man as he stands related to other Men either as a King or a Subject or as Father or a Son c. Thus he observes the Latin Phrase is Personam Imponere when a Man is put into Office or a Dignity Conferred upon him Induere personam when he takes upon him the Office Sustinere personam when one bears or Executes an Office c. In short he tells us as Laurentius Valla has that 't is nothing strange for the same man to sustain Divers Persons instancing in Tully who says sustineo unus Tres Personas Meam Adversarii Judicis I being but one do yet sustain Three Persons my own that of an Adversary and that of a Judge In fine he makes the same application of it to the Divine Trin-unity that Laurentius Valla doth for says he if Three Persons may be one man what hinders but that Three Divers Persons may be one God and that the same God as Maker of the World or God the Creator may be God the Father and as Author of our Redemption be God the Redeemer or God the Son and as working effectually in the hearts of his Elect be God the Sanctifier or God the Holy Ghost I confess if this is all that is in the Mystery it is very Conceiveable and which will be an unvaluable happiness to the Christian World there will need to be no more dispute about it but as the Received Doctrine of the Divine Trin-unity is quite another thing so must it have a very different Exposition Besides Laurentius Valla seems to suppose that the difficulty is only about the word Person But this is his mistake for the word Person as applied to the Trinity is but of a later use and of the Schoolmen rather than of the Fathers whose word is Hypostasis which is also the Apostles word So that unless it can be found that one Man can be three Hypostases or Subsistents and that for God to be a Creator a Redeemer and a Sanctifier is to be three Hypostases in the Fathers sense as well as Three Persons in Cicero's the Difficulty is not removed but only avoided In fine it is not the same thing to say that one sustains Three Persons as to say that one is Three Persons For he that only sustains a Person doth but Act the part of that Person which he is said to sustain and thus Cicero sustained Three Persons when he acted as if he had been Three several Men under different Characters To Personate a Judge is not to be one And in this sense of the word Person Seneca says Ep. 24. non hominibus tantum sed Rebus PERSONA Demenda est reddenda facies sua I say not this with any intention to enter into a Discourse of the Divine Trin-unity the doing of which would be improper in a Treatise that pretends but to Metaphysicks I have only mention'd it on occasion as an inquiry after the Idea and notion of a Suppositum and that of a Person obliged me The Doctrine of the Trinity is a point of pure Revelation not of Philosophy or Science all Discouases and explications of it not derived from the Holy Scriptures and grounded upon them but on Analogies and Resemblances in nature or on Principles of Human Discourse and meer Reason are as Foreign unto it as Earth is to Heaven It is an Article of Faith and a Fundamental one too indeed the chief of all those of which the Apostle says they are such as neither Eye saw nor Ear heard of nor entred into the heart of man to conceive before they were brought to light in the Gospel Wherefore 't is there only that we are obliged to seek it and there only in the Analogy of Faith that we can hope to discover it in its true Idea and Notion And so much for Substance as Scholastically Consider'd FINIS