Doctor some pains in explaining. To return to our instance of the two substrata. I suppose the Doctor, or yourself, will be content to allow, that this is substance, and that substance; and yet not substances, but one substance. In like manner also, this is being, and that being; and yet not two beings, but one being: this eternal, and that eternal; and yet 'not two eternals, but one eternal. I might go on almost the length of an Athanasian Creed. This must be your manner of speaking, if you come to particulars; and that because the substrata are supposed to have no separate existence independent on each other, but to be united by some common ligaments, which perhaps you will call personal attributes. And why then should you be severe upon us, for using the like language, and upon better reasons? We believe the three Persons to have no separate existence independent on each other; we suppose them more united in some respects, than the substrata are supposed in your Scheme, because equally present every where: we admit some common ties or bands of union, which we call essential attributes and perfections. Either therefore allow us our way of speaking, which we think decent and proper; suitable to the idea we have, and to the circumstances of the case; founded in the very nature and reason of things: or else find out a better for your own, that we may, at length, learn from you how we ought to speak in this matter. You will say, it may be, that the instance I have chosen is not exactly parallel in every circumstance. No; God forbid it should. But it agrees so far as is sufficient for my purpose. There is this manifest difference, that you suppose the several substrata so many parts of God; though every one of them infinitely wise, infinitely good, infinitely powerful, infinitely every thing, but extended. We, more consistently, suppose three Persons equal, in all respects; none of them singly part of God; but every one perfect God. A second difference is, that you suppose all the finite parts, making one infinite, to be one being, one God, and one Person; by continuity, I presume, and a personal union of the parts. We suppose three Persons to be one God, by their inseparability and the essential union of the Persons which, I humbly conceive, we are as able to explain, as you are to explain the other; and, I hope, more able to prove it. A third difference permit me to mention, that you suffer your imaginations to wander, where you can find no footing; we are content to understand only, and that imperfectly, without imagining at all. In fine, you have philosophized so far in these high and deep matters, that you really want all the same favourable allowances, which we are thought to do. Others may object several things to us, which would bear equally hard upon us both. The simplicity of the divine nature, for instance, is one of the strongest and most popular objections: but the learned Doctor has broke through it; and has contrived a solution, a very good one, both for himself and use. I have often thought no hands so proper to be employed against the doctrine of the blessed Trinity, as those which are good only at pulling down, and not at building up. If once you come to settling and determining points of a mysterious nature, there will be as fair a plea for this also: and I doubt not, but the same thread of reasoning, which first brought you to question it, will, when carefully pursued, and as soon as you perceive the like difficulties almost in every thing, bring you to make less scruple of it. But lest others should imagine, from what hath been said, that they may have some advantage over us, let me add these few considerations farther. 1. That what hath been urged is not purely arguing ad hominem; but it is appealing to what good sense and impartial reason dictates equally to you or us, on such or such suppositions. 2. That if we come to reason minutely on any other • Answer to the Sixth Letter, p. 39, 40. matter, alike incomprehensible as this of the holy Trinity, we may soon lose ourselves in inextricable mazes. 3. That if they please to take any other hypothesis of the omnipresence, they may meet with difficulties there. also, perhaps not inferior to the former. 4. That if they choose to rest in generals, without any hypothesis at all, and without descending to the modus and minutiae of it: this is the very thing which we desire and contend for, in regard to the blessed Trinity, (which ought certainly to be equally dealt with,) and then we may soon come to a good agreement. By pursuing this point, I had almost neglected the learned Doctor's third aphorism; "That nothing indi"vidual can be communicated." Here is as great a fallacy and ambiguity in the word individual, as before in the word being. I shall make this plain to you. That particular substance, which is supposed to pervade, and to be commensurate to the sun, is an individual being, in some sense; unless there be a medium between a being and not a being, which the learned Doctor admits not: the whole substance likewise is one individual being, and Person too, upon the Doctor's hypothesis: and we say farther, that three Persons may be one individual being; having, we think, a very good meaning in it. So here are plainly three senses of the word individual; and till you can fix a certain principle of individuation, (a thing much wanted, and by which you might oblige the learned world,) any one of these senses appears as just and reasonable as another. Now the Doctor's maxim, rightly understood, may be true, in all these senses. For, in respect of the first, what is peculiar and proper to one part, is not communicated or common to other parts: in respect of the second, what is proper to one Person, is not common to other persons: and so, in respect of the third, what is proper to one essence or substance, is not common to other essences or substances. All this is very true: but to what purpose is it, or whom does the learned Doctor contradict? This is only telling us, that so far, or in such respect, as any thing is supposed individual or incommunicable, it is supposed individual or incommunicable; which nobody doubts of. But whether this or that be communicable, or how far, or in what manner (which is all the difficulty) remains a question as much as ever; and the Doctor's maxim will not help us at all in it. It may be the safest way, first to try the strength and the use of it upon the Doctor's own hypothesis. Let it be asked, whether the wisdom, &c. residing in that part which pervades the sun, (for it seems that it must be intelligent, and infinitely so; unless one infinite intelligent be made up of unintelligents, or finite intelligents;) I say, let it be asked, whether that be the very individual wisdom which resides in another part, at any given distance. I presume, to this question you must answer, yes: and then we are to observe, that here is but one individual infinite wisdom, which is entirely in the whole, and entirely in every part ; proper, in some sense, to each single part, (since it can have only such attributes as inhere in it,) and yet common to all; diffused through extended substance, yet not coextended; nor multiplied, because but one. If you admit thus far, as I think you must, we shall have nothing to apprehend, in point of reason, (which nevertheless is what you chiefly trust to,) against the doctrine of the Trinity. The communication of essential attributes, which we speak of, is at least as intelligible as what I have been mentioning; and every whit as consistent with the Doctor's maxim, that nothing which is individual can be communicated. Only you have your sense of individual, and we have ours; and you can account no better for so many and infinitely distant parts making one Person, than we for three Persons making one substance, or one God. Let us therefore be content to stop where it becomes us; and frankly confess our ignorance of these things: for by pretending farther, we shall not discover less ignorance than before, but much greater vanity. I would not have presumed to discourse thus freely of the tremendous substance of the eternal God, (infinitely surpassing human comprehension,) were it not, in a manner, necessary, in order to expose the folly and the presumption of doing it. If the doctrine of the blessed Trinity is to stand or fall by this kind of reasoning, it was very proper to make some trial of it first, where it might be done more safely, to see how it would answer. You, I presume, cannot complain of me, for treating you in your own way, and turning upon you your own artillery. But to proceed. You are positive in it, "that the Son of God hath not the indi"vidual attributes of God the Father; for then," say you," he must be the Father." On the contrary, I affirm, that he hath the individual attributes of God the Father, as much as he has the individual essence: for otherwise he must be a creature only and therefore the question between you and me in plain terms is, whether the Son be God, or a creature? QUERY X. Whether if they (the attributes belonging to the Son) be not individually the same, they can be any thing more than faint resemblances of them, differing from them as finite from infinite; and then in what sense, or with what truth, can the Doctor pretend, that "a all divine powers, "except absolute supremacy and independency," are communicated to the Son? And whether every being, besides the one supreme Being, must not necessarily be a creature, and finite; and whether "all divine powers" can be communicated to a creature, infinite perfection to a finite being. I HAVE put under one Query what before made two, because the substance of them is nearly the same, and contains but one argument. I have two things upon my hands at once; first to clear and fix your sense, which is industriously disguised; and next to confute it. The present Query relates chiefly to the former, to draw you |