A Second Defence OF THE Propositions By which the DOCTRINE of the Holy Trinity Is so Explained according to the Ancient Fathers As to speak it not Contradictory to Natural Reason In ANSWER to A Socinian Manuscript In a LETTER to a Friend Together With a Third Defence of those Propositions in Answer to the Newly published Reflexions contained in a Pamphlet Entituled A Letter to the Reverend Clergy of Both Universities Both by the Author of those Propositions London Printed for B. Aylmer at the Three Pidgeons in Cornhil 1695 ERRATA PAge 16. Line 27. dele is P. 20. l. 23. for doth read do P. 32. l. 22. for that proceed from the Sun r. that proceeds without the Sun P. 33. l. 9. for Pooceed r. Proceed P. 37. l. 3. for Stages r. Stage l. 5. for Soul r. Souls P. 46. l. 17. for Incorporal r. Incorporeal P. 49. l. 1. for does r. do THE PREFACE THE Propositions relating to the Doctrin of the H. Trinity were but Twenty-one when the Manuscript mentioned in the Title-Page was writ against them But all the Twenty-eight which since came out are implyed in them And I acknowledge that those Written Papers occasioned my making them so many more to put the Explication more out of danger of Misconstruction There is likewise some difference in the Wording of those Twenty-one and the Title and two or three small Additions but the Sence of both is Exactly the same Those I drew up in Compliance with a Gentleman of as great Worth as Quality who requested me to give him in Writing the Sence he once heard me Affirm to be the most Ancient of this Grand Article of our Faith and in my Opinion incomparably Preferrable to the Later Hypotheses And falling into this Method of Expressing Clearing and Confirming the Fathers Notion of the Trinity by Propositions I delivered when I had finished them a fair Copy of them to that Gentleman and gave my foul one to a Friend who needed Satisfaction about this Great Point This Person some time after brought me from a Socinian Acquaintance of his an Answer to my Paper Concealing his Name from me and I sent him my Thoughts of his Performance as soon as my Occasions would permit me to Consider it which are contained in the next following Defence Only in what I now Publish I abridge a little in a few places of what I writ nor is there any other Considerable Alteration And as I Printed not more than an Hundred Copies of the Propositions till I Reply'd to the Answer to them a while since Publish'd by Another Hand So the now Coming Abroad of This Answer is Solely Occasion'd by the New Reflections But if it be thought no fair dealing with my Adversary that I do not Publish also his Papers I have this to Say I have them not to Publish but returned them at His desire who brought them to me not thinking it worth the while to take a Copy of them since I had not then a Thought of ever Printing my Reply But if I have played any Tricks in Transcribing what I Animadvert upon which is the Substance of the Whole both my Adversary and his Friend are able to let the World be Acquainted with them But I Abhor such Doings The Twenty Eight Propositions 1. THE Name of God is used in more Sences than one in Holy Scripture 2. The most Absolutely Perfect Being is God in the highest Sence 3. Self-Existence is a Perfection and seems to be the Highest of all Perfections 4. God the Father alone is in reference to His Manner of Existence an Absolutely Perfect Being because He alone is Self-existent 5. He alone consequently is absolutely Perfect in reference to those Perfections which do presuppose Self-Existence 6. Those Perfections are Absolute Independence and Being the First Original of all other Beings In which the Son and the Holy Ghost are comprehended 7. All Trinitarians do acknowledg That these Two Persons are from God the Father This is affirmed in that Creed which is called the Nicene and in that which falsly bears the Name of Athanasius tho' with this difference that the Holy Ghost is asserted in them to be from the Son as well as from the Father Wherein the Greek Church differs from the Latin 8. It is therefore a flat Contradiction to say that the Second and Third Persons are Self Existent 9. And therefore it is alike Contradictions to affirm them to be Beings Absolutely Perfect in reference to their Manner of Existence and to say that they have the Perfections of Absolute Independence and of being the First Originals of all things 10. Since the Father alone is a Being of the most Absolute Perfection He having those Perfections which the other Two Persons are uncapable of having He alone is God in the Absolute Highest Sence 11. And therefore our blessed Saviour calls Him The Onely True God Joh. 17. 3. This is Life Eternal to know Thee the onely True God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent And it is most Absurd to think That in these Words and the following Prayer He did address himself to the Three Persons of the Trinity conjunctly since throughout the Prayer He calls this Onely True God his Father and calls Himself twice His Son before these Words Not to mention the Absurdity of making our Lord to pray to Himself or of distinguishing Himself from those Three of which Himself was One. If such a Liberty as this in interpreting Scripture be allowable what Work may be made with Scripture 12. Our Lord calls the Father The Onely True God because He only is Originally and of Himself God and the First Original of all Beings whatsoever As he calls him the Onely Good saying There is none Good but God because He alone is Originally so and the Spring of all that Good which is in other Beings 13. The God head or God in this Highest Sence can be but One Numerically Of which the best Philosophers were satisfied by their Reason and therefore the Oneness so frequently affirmed of Him in Scripture is a Numerical Oneness 14. There seems to be neither Contradiction nor Absurdity in supposing the First Original of all things to be productive of other Beings so Perfect as to have all Perfections but that of Self-Existence and those which are necessarily therein implyed 15. Supposing any such Beings to have immediately issued forth from that infinite Fullness and Foecundity of Being which is in the Deity each of them must have a Right to the Name of God in a Sence next to that in which it is appropriated to the Father since they have all the Perfections of the Godhead but those that must of Necessity be peculiar to Him 16. It is evident from the Holy Scripture That the Son and Holy Spirit are such Beings viz. That they have all Divine Perfections but the forementioned Such as Unlimited Power Wisdom Goodness c. 17. And they are always spoken of in Scripture as Distinct
this is as much needs to be proved as that which it is brought to prove His onely Answer is like to be you must take this upon the Authority of my Lord of Canterbury For he onely goes about to Confirm it by a passage in His Sermon on 1 Tim. 2. 5. p. 13. But I not having that Sermon by me and he making no Marks to distinguish between what is his Graces and what is his own it is Enough to give him that for an Answer His second Argument whereby he Endeavours to prove the forementioned Self-Evident Proposition is That Self-Existence is indivisible and Gods Self-Existence is necessary and therefore if he should Communicate His Self-Existence to Another He Himself should remain not self-Existent which is a gross Absurdity and a manifest Contradiction O Wonderful is it so indeed I marvel who told him so it may be he takes this too on the Authority of some Great Man since he troubles not himself to make it out But there is as great a necessity of proving this also as of proving that of which it is a Proof And he makes this brave Argument to prove too That Infinite power is as incommunicable as self-Existence and Infinite Wisdom and Goodness because these are also indivisible But the Trinitarian is not so knockt down by this Unmerciful Argument to use a phrase of his own but that he may soon rise again Nay as Goodluck would have it 't is so weak a Blow that he has not felt it And 't will be found weaker than a Puff of Breath by that time I have askt him this one Question viz. Is not also the individual Nature of Every living Creature indivisible But as was before said Even the lowest Sort of them can propagate their own Nature which is the same thing with Communicating it and therefore methinks it should not be so great a Contradiction to say that He who gave Being to those Creatures can do the like Or if you please thus 'T is therefore no Contradiction to say That God the Father may be the Original of a Being which hath power to do all things possible to be done and hath unlimited Wisdom and Goodness As to the rest of this Animadversion I will not spend one Minute so vainly as to take notice of it for half an Eye must see it to be nothing better than to give it his own word mere Jargon Prop. 11. It seems Evident from the H. Scriptures That the Son and H. Spirit have all Divine Perfections but those two such as Unlimited Power Wisdom and Goodness and Unspotted Purity As to Unspotted Purity he grants that the Scriptures do plainly assert it of our Saviour but faith that that is but the Perfection of a Man or Angel not an infinite Perfection of a God I Answer that this he onely with his usual Confidence saies but tells us not how he comes by this Confidence But suppole he could demonstrate this yet the Unspotted Purity of the H. Ghost one would think to be the Purity of a God since we are so assured from Scripture that He is the Author of all that Purity and Holiness which Is or Ever shall be found in Men. And he must have a large stock of Confidence who dares say that the Purity which Excells not that of a Man or Angel is sussicient to qualify a Person to be the Sanctisier of all that are or shall be Sanctified And if the Purity of the H. Ghost be the Purity of a God I hope the Son's Purity may be acknowledg'd so to be too Surely those Socinians who believe the H. Ghost to be a Person will not make him to Excell the Son in Holiness Next he Cavils at my saying that this 11th Proposition Seems Evident to me and saith that Seems and Evident are two words very ill put together because that which doth but seem Evident is not really so and that which is Evident doth more than seem so I see Sir I must not hope to Please this Friend of yours I verily thought he was about to Praise me for my it Seems Evident For he saith upon it That Seems is a word that Speaks the Modesty of an ingenuous Enquirer after truth and on the Contrary That Evident fills the mouth of a man of Confidence as by the way I must tell him he knows by Experience Yet for all this the good Man designed to Expose me for my it Seems Evident and those two Sentences are Fleering ones and were intended for Scoffs But I pray him to Mock on after I have told him that First He knows I did not say it but Seems Evident And that Secondly 'T is utterly false that that which is Evident doth more than seem so to all Persons There are many Evident Truths that to those who Shut their Eyes against the Light may not so much as seem so and there are those who being sensible of the weakness of their understandings may say of Very Evident Truths this or that seems or appears Evident to them But we shall not in haste Sir Catch your Friend at the Extreme of Modesty For whatsoever seems not agreeable with his Reason which we have found to be a Clear and Strong Reason indeed must be immediately Contrary to Natural Reason And he is onely puzled at Comprehending Gods ways not God Himself and his Glorious Attributes And he can Comprehend whatsoever he Understands And now follows Another of his Modest Sayings viz. That this Proposition we are now upon does not so much as seem Evident from Scripture And he wishes I had Cited some of the plainest Texts to my Purpose But he hath had Enough of those Cited by other Trinitarians many of which the Socinians so play the Criticks upon that should the same liberty be taken as to all other Texts which are Capable of having the same work made with them the Scriptures would be made a mere Nose of Wax But however methinks the Apostle's so Expresly applying those words of the Psalmist to the Son of God viz. Thou Lord in the Beginning hast laid the Foundations of the Earth and the Heavens are the work of Thine Hands c. doth at least seem to Speak Him infinitely Powerfull And thesame thing does seem at least to be affirmed in those words Coloss. 1. 16. c. By Him were all things Created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth c. For He is before all things and by Him all things Consist And St Peters Saying to Him Lord Thou that knowest all things knowest that I love Thee doth at least seem to Speak his believing him to be infinitely Wise and a Searcher of the very Hearts of men which is also Expresly affirmed of Him by St Paul Rom. 2. 16. and 1 Cor. 4. 5. And by our Saviour Himself too Rev. 2. 23. I am He which Searcheh the Reins and Hearts And the Apostles saying that in Christ are hid all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledg doth sure
Beings or Persons according to the Proper Signification of this Word both from the Father and from Each Other Nor are so many Men or Angels more expresly distinguished as different Persons or Substances by our Saviour or his Apostles than the Father Son and Holy Ghost still are 18. It is a very presumptuous Conceit That there can be no way but that of Creation whereby any thing can be immediately and onely from God which hath a distinct Existence of its own Or That no Beings can have Existence from Him by way of Necessary Emanation Of which we have a Clearer Idaea than of Voluntary Creation It is the Word of the Ancients both Fathers and Philosophers nor can a better be found to express what is intended by it viz. A more excellent way of existing than that of Creation 19. It is no less presumptuous to Affirm That it is a Contradiction to suppose That a Being can be from Eternity from God the Father if 't is possible it may be from Him in a more Excellent Way than that of Creation And we have an Illustration of both these Propositions by something in Nature For according to our Vulgar Philosophy Light doth exist by necessary Emanation from the Sun and therefore the Sun was not before the Light which proceeds from thence in Order of Time tho' it be in Order of Nature before it And the Distinction between these Two Priorities is much Elder than Thomas Aquinas or Peter Lombard or any School-man of them all or Christian-man either 20. And if any thing can be from another thing by way of Necessary Emanation it is so far from a Contradiction to suppose that it must only be in order of nature before it that 't is most apparently a Contradiction to suppose the contrary 21. Our 18th and 19th Propositions do speak our Explication of the H. Trinity to be as contrary to Arianism as to Socinianism since the Arians assert That there was at least a moment of time when the Son was not and that He is a Creature 22. Altho' we cannot understand how it should be no Contradiction to affirm That the Three Persons are But One Numerical Being or Substance yet hath it not the least shadow of a Contradiction to suppose That there is an unconceivably close and inseparable Union both in Will and Nature between them And such a Union may be much more easily conceived between them than can that Union which is between our Souls and Bodies since these are Substances which are of the most unlike and even Contrary Natures 23. Since we cannot conceive the First Original of All things to be more than One Numerically and that we acknowledg the now mentioned Union between the three Persons according to the Scriptures together with the intire dependence of the two latter upon the First Person The Unity of the Deity is to all intents and purposes as fully asserted by us as it is necessary or reasonable it should be 24. And no part of this Explication do we think Repugnant to any Text of Scripture but it seems much the Easiest way of Reconciling those Texts which according to the other Hypotheses are not Reconcilable but by offering manifest violence to them 25. The Socinians must needs Confess that the Honour of the Father for which they express a very Zealous Concern is as much as they can desire taken care of by this Explication Nor can the Honour of the Son and Holy Spirit be more Consulted than by ascribing to them all Perfections but what they cannot have without the most apparent Contradiction ascribed to them 26. And we would think it impossible that any Christian should not be easily perswaded to think as honourably of his Redeemer and Sanctifier as he can while he Robs not God the Father for their Sake and offers no Violence to the Sence and Meaning of Divine Revelations nor to the Reason of his Mind 27. There are many things in the Notion of One God which all Hearty Theists will acknowledg necessary to be conceived of Him that are as much above the Reach and Comprehension of humane Understandings as is any part of this Explication of the H. Trinity Nay this may be affirmed even of the Notion of Self-Existence but yet there cannot be an Atheist so silly as to question it Since it is not more Evident that One and Two do make Three than that there could never have been any thing if there were not Something which was always and never began to be 28. Lest Novelty should be Objected against this Explication and therefore such should be prejudiced against it as have a Veneration for Antiquity we add that it well agrees with the Account which several of the Nicene Fathers even Athanasius himself and others of the Ancients who treat of this Subject do in divers places of their Works give of the Trinity as is largely shewed by two very Learned Divines of our Church And had it not been for the School-men to whom Christianity is little beholden as much as some Admire them we have reason to believe that the World would not have been troubled since the fall of Arianism with such Controversies about this great point as it hath been and continues to be This Explication of the B. Trinity perfectly agrees with the Nicene Creed as it stands in our Liturgy without offering the least Violence to any one Word in it Which makes our Lord Jesus Christ to be from God the Father by way of Emanation affirming Him to be God of God very God of very God and Metaphorically expressing it by Light of Light answerably to what the Author to the Hebrews saith of Him Ch. 1. 3. viz. That He is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Effulgency of his Glory and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Character of his Substance And so is as much Of one Substance with the Father as the Beams of the Sun are with the Body of it And since there have been of late so many Explications or Accounts Published of this most Adorable Mystery which have had little better Success than making Sport for the Socinians I thought it very Seasonable now to Revive That which I affirm with great Assurance to be the most Ancient one of all much Elder than the Council of Nice and to have much the fewest Difficulties in it and to be incomparably most agreeable to H. Scripture The Defence c. SIR I Have perused your Friends Answer to the Paper I put into your hand and here hope to give you a satisfactory Reply to it I shall dispatch his Preface in a few Words He saith that The Trinitarians have in Vain tryed their Strength against their Adversaries And there 's no doubt of it if their Adversaries may be Judges As to his saying that The Vanquished Victors are viz. among the Trinitarians for each buys his Victory with the loss of his own Explanatory Hypothesis I confess I have that soft place in my Head
which in his great Modesty he saith our Education has given us that disables me to understand the Sence of that saying And am inclined to think that the inversion thereof would have been better Sence how true soever it would have been viz. The Victors vanquished are since it follows for each buys his Victory c. And whereas he saith That in their Unitarian Tracts they have thrown a stone of Contention among the Trinitarians and this stone has committed them among themselves To pass by the Conceitedness of this latter Phrase and the Paedantry of affecting to speak English in Latin Phrases sound they never so untowardly I may I hope without Offence tell him that neither are the Socinians at a perfect Agreement in their Notions As particularly in that Question relating to the H. Ghost viz. Whether He be a Person or no or a meer Divine Vis or Energy The Followers of Mr Biddle asserting Him to be a Person viz. an Angel Nor need I tell him what a Controversie hath been among them about the Adorability of our B. Saviour wherein they are not of a mind yet and I doubt never will be And many more disagreements in their Opinions may be instanced in if I cared to go on upon this Topick But what tho' the Trinitarians differ in some Particulars in their Explication of the Trinity so long as they agree in the main Substance I mean what if they differ in Certain Notions relating to this Doctrine wherein the H. Scriptures are Silent so long as they are agreed in what the Scriptures Expresly say of it or of any One of the Persons of which the Trinity consisteth And they All agree in giving Divine Perfections to each of them which the Scriptures most expresly do And in affirming them consequently to be each of them God which also they believe the Scriptures affirm them expresly to be And farther they agree in believing them to be one God tho' they are not all agreed in what sence they are one nor in the Notion of the Word Person as relating to them nor in their Opinion about using that Word But if any of them have such a Value for their own Explications as to be severe upon such as dissent from them in any of the less certain Parts of them I will not I cannot Apologize for this And now Sir I follow your Friend from his own Preface to my Papers Title which is this An Explication of the Doctrine of the Trinity in Certain Propositions which speak it to be Agreeable with Natural Reason and therefore intelligible tho' not Comprehensible by our shallow Capacities And here he is pleased to exclaim somewhat Tragically against my distinguishing between Intelligible and Comprehensible I am saith he perfectly Amazed at this his Distinction I will not say that I am Amazed at his Amazement but it seems somewhat strange to me that First He should call this my Distinction when I should think he hath heard and read it a thousand times Since there is no Distinction more common And therefore Secondly That he should be Amazed nay perfectly Amazed at it And Thirdly That he should be so for such a Reason as this that follows viz. That which makes a Doctrine unintelligible is its disagreeableness to Reason therefore if the Doctrine of the Trinity be not disagreeable to Reason neither is it unintelligible and if it be not unintelligible neither is it incomprehensible I Answer That I think the Obscure Expressing a Doctrine may also make it Unintelligible But this his Reason may be Expressed in these fewer words I am perfectly Amazed at this Mans distinction between Intelligible and Comprehensible because they ought not to be distinguished Or as he adds because they are Synonimous and signify one as much as the other But sure your Friend cannot think I should have such an Opinion of a Perfect Stranger as to be Satisfied with his bare Word for this He is Perfectly Amazed at my distinguishing betwixt Intelligible and Comprehensible I ask Why He Answers because they Ought not to be distinguished But I am so Impertinent as to ask again Why they ought not And he so Magisterial as to let me have no other Answer than I say they ought not But he needs not be told That tho' these two words are sometimes used in the same sence yet not always but have most frequently different Significations Comprehensible always implyes Intelligible but Intelligible is found Innumerable times not to imply Comprehensible And therefore Comprehensible is taken either in a Larger or a Stricter Sence And in my Distinction as he calls it 't is taken in the Stricter as for the most Part it is Even his Dictionary will tell him that Comprehendere signifies something that Intelligere doth not And according to the most Proper Acceptation of the word there is as much difference between these two as there is between Seeing a thing and looking through it or Understanding it and Compleatly Understanding it and having an Adoequate Preception of it And indeed if your Friend had Learnt Socrates his first Lesson he would acknowledg himself so short-fighted a Mortal as tho' he Understands many things not to be able to Comprehend the most Obvious ones He would acknowledg that in this State things are only to be Understood by their Properties and certain Modes and that the Naked Essence neither of a Spirit nor of a Body is known to us In short had I distinguished between Intelligible and Apprehensible your Friend might have had more Cause for Amazement Next he saith That the Incomprehensibility of God Himself implyes no more than what the Apostle Expresseth when he saith His ways are past finding out we cannot understand them that signifies as much as we cannot Comprehend them Now it is my turn to be Amazed at least this Sentence must be greatly Surprizing to more Heads than those that have like Trinitarians a soft place in them For First Who hath so hard or so large a Head as to find only the Ways of God incomprehensible to him As to be able to Comprehend Gods Nature and Glorious Attributes Second If Comprehending must needs be no more than Understanding there cannot be a Proposition less true than this That we cannot Comprehend Gods Ways for Mankind is Capable of Understanding them Or GOD Almighty would never have appealed to the Jews as He did about the Equity of His Ways And therefore when the Apostle saith His ways are past finding out his meaning must be they are not to be Comprehended by us in our sence of the word We cannot Grasp or Fathom them they are of too great a Depth for us to dive to the Bottom of them And now Sir I believe you are sufficiently Prepared to Wonder if not to be Amazed at this following Saying of your Friend viz. It were a very hard thing that a Law should be passed postnate to a Crime on purpose for the taking off one particular Offender
respect perhaps 3. Men who have the same Nature may be properly said to be Essentially one but not Essentially one Person I Answer this may be more than a Perhaps but he may perceive by my 15th Proposition now the 22. that I am far from thinking the 3. Persons in the H. Trinity to be in so low a sence one as 3. Men are But proceeds he The Nature of the Self-Existent God is above the Nature of all Beings which proceed from Him and it can not be Communicated I Answer that the individual Nature of the Father is not a Divine Nature more truly than that of the Two other Persons But how does he prove that His Nature cannot be Communicated Why saith he we have no other Notion of the word Communicate but to Impart or Give and what one Person does Impart or Give of any Essential and Singular thing that himself hath not but he hath it to whom it is given It may be some will say Thus it is among Finite Creatures but the Essence of God is not of the same Condition c. But as God said to Job Who is this that darkneth Councell by words without knowledge It may be replyed to this Man Who is he that multiplyeth words without knowledge For it is not thus as he positively asserts Even among Creatures For there is not a Creature that Generates another of the same kind but may be properly said to Communicate its own Nature and yet notwithstanding it foregoes not its own individual Nature nor any part thereof What a Boldness then is it to Affirm that the Infinite Creator Cannot do the like He that Planted the Ear shall He not hear And He that formed the Eye shall not he see He that hath gi-given a Generative Power to the Meanest of Creatures or Creatures that have the lowest degree of Life shall not He have the Same Power Himself I mean A Power of doing that which may be called Generating His own Essential Likeness in an inconceivably Infinitely more Excellent manner I wish Sir your Friend would well lay to heart that Old Maxim Temerè Affirmare vel Negare de Deo Periculosum est Which I will English to you who I doubt are no great Latinist 'T is a dangerous thing to affirm or deny any thing rashly of God As to the little that remains upon this Proposition it consists of a Repetition of what I have Answered and of what he repeats upon the next Proposition which I will Answer And indeed Sir your Friend is Excellently good next to Dareing Assertions at Repetitions and saying things that are nothing or very little to the purpose But you will find Every thing to have more or less spoken to it that is but one remove from what is nothing but mere Words And now to what he Animadverts on the 10th Proposition Prop. 10. There seems to be no Contradiction nor the least Absurdity in asserting that God is able to Communicate Every one of His Perfections Except those of Self-Existence and Being the First Original of all things By the way my meaning in these words appears plainly by other following Propositions to be this That there is no Contradiction or Absurdity in asserting That such Beings may have their Original from God the Father as have all Perfections but those two and which indeed as I have said do amount to but one Now what faith your Friend to this He tells us in the first place That for the same reason that these two are Incommunicable all the Other Divine Perfections are likewise so And whereas he assigns two Reasons why God cannot Communicate these two he saith for the same Reasons he cannot Communicate any of His other Perfections But how Egregiously Absurd is it to go about to give Reasons why God cannot Communicate His Self-Existence and His being the First Original of all things Since that He cannot Communicate these is a First and Self-Evident Principle And therefore is Uncapable as all such Principles are of being demonstrated as Every Body knows that understands What a First and Self-Evident Principle is which Every one must understand that can understand any thing Whatsoever is Capable of being proved must be less clear than is the Argument by which it is proved and whatsoever Proposition is so cannot possibly be a First or self-Evident Principle as no man in his Wits does need to be informed And therefore no such one will go about to prove this Proposition The same thing can be and not be in the same Moment And the foresaid Proposition is Every whit as self-Evident as this and the denial thereof as Manifest a Contradiction There cannot be a greater or clearer Contradiction than to say That God can Communicate Self-Existence it being to say in other words That God can be the cause of that which hath no cause Nor than to say That God can make a First Original of All things since this is to say that He can make a thing to be before Himself and to be the Original of Himself For what is not so cannot be the First Original of All things And therefore whereas his First Reason why God cannot Communicate these Perfections is Because it is a Contradiction so to do he might as well have said 'T is a Contradiction to say that God can do a Contradiction That He can Communicate them is Contradictio in Terminis and therefore 't is absurd to give it as a Reason why He cannot do it that 't is a Contradiction For you may as well ask why God cannot do a Contradiction And if a Reason can be given for this you may ask a Reason for that Reason and so in infinitum But if it were onely Contradictio in Adjecto I acknowledg that because such Contradictions are not manifest at first hearing at least to Every Body 't is proper to give Reasons to shew that there are Contradictions implyed in such Propositions But if any man should ask me a Reason why Two and two do not make Twenty I would bid him Go look instead of telling him that it is a Contradiction that they should since I had as good tell him he has a Nose in his Face and better too But that God can make a Self-Existent Thing or a First Original of All things are Every jot as Evident Contradictions as that Two and two do make Twenty But Sir your Friend saith that 'T is Equally Absurd and Contradictions to suppose more than one infinitely powerful wise and Good Being If he means by Equally Absurd and Contradictions as Evidently so sure he is the onely Man that will say so nor can he think so say he what he will But how does he prove this This is the argument by which he does it viz. infinite Power infnite Wisdom and infinite Goodness go together and may all of them as well as either of them be in all Beings whatsoever as well as in more Beings than one But what if I say That