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what I am, etc. If then I must be what I am, then Consciousness must be fubfequent to Unity: But I must be what I am (viz. one or more) etc.

The Being what I am, is the Foundation of my knowing what I am; and not vice verfa. The Truth of confcious Knowledge depends upon the Truth of Things, and not the Truth of Things upon that of our Knowledge. Confcioufnefs, being a perfonal Act, does not conftitute, but pre-fuppofe, the Perfonality; from which the Perfonal Act results. I might further add, that if You are only one compound Being, (you should have faid Perfon) becaufe you are confcious, then you put off Unity and Personality, like your Cloaths, when you fall afleep; and resume it again, when you awake.

In fhort, Subftance is what it is; one or more, whether confcious or unconfcious; and Confcioufnefs, which is nothing but Knowledge, cannot alter the Nature of Things. Your Scheme bears a Refemblance to Doctor CLARKE'S: He made Neceffity, in the Order of our Ideas, the Ground of the Substance, whofe Attribute it was; and you imagine Self-Confcioufnefs to be the Ground of Self-Subfiftence, though the Self must be prior to the Consciousness.

Having fhewn your new Scheme to be unfatisfactory; I proceed in the next Place to remove the Objections against the ortho

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dox Scheme; which you call (not very confiftently with a certain Quality, which is a confeffed Part of your Character) unintelligible fargon.

I hope you will not tax me, for the future, with any Injuftice for faying, You were quitting what you did understand for what you did not (fully) understand

But what is unintelligible Jargon? Is our Notion of Perfon fuch? It is at least as intelligible as that of Subftance, which is an undetermined Something, an unknown Support of certain Modes. It is as much above your Comprehenfion to conceive how one Perfon (fuppofing only one) being infinitelyextended, confifting of an infinite Diversity of Parts, should be yet one Substance; as how the three Perfons should be one God. The Trinity is one Subftance, because undivided; not one Perfon, becaufe diftinguished into more intelligent Agents than one, etc. Each of the intelligent Agents is Being, because exifting; but not Beings, because they do not exist separately. Distinct Perfonal Properties no more difunite (though they diftinguish the Subftance; than diftinct circumfcriptive Properties, determining the Parts of Subftance to fuch or fuch a Part of Space and Distance, difunite it, or make it ceafe to be one.

You charge me with ringing Changes upon the Diftinction of divided Substance and

diftinct

diftinct Substance.

But, are distinct and divided fynonymous Terms? Or, is Indivifibility any Obftruction to Diftinction?

Confider once more, That inexhaustible Power which wields fo many maffy Bodies as the Planets in our folar System (and beyond it, if the fixed Stars are each of them attended with their respective Retinue of revolving Orbs) and that unfathomable Wisdom, which adjusts fuch Variety of Movements without any Confufion. Now where there is infinite Power and Wisdom, there must be a wife and powerful Subftance. That Subftance which regulates the Revolution of the Planets in the fixed Stars, muft be diftinct, in Place, Situation and Aim, from the particular Subftance, which bids our Planets here go their inceffant Round: And yet it is not divided; because there is one uninterrupted Chain of Being without any Chafm, Gap, or Difcontinuity. Juft as we call an Argument one, where cach Link of the Chain adheres neceffarily to the other by an unbroken Connexion of the Parts.

When therefore you fay, that Substance united to Subftance confifts of different Subftances, you run counter to your own Scheme (where each of your three diftin&t Beings will, according to this Way of arguing, be Substances infinite in Number) and to the common Sense of Mankind; which never gives

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gives the Name of Substances, but where the Parts are difbanded, or capable of disbanding and taking different Routs. Matter indeed is not Substance, but an Heap of Substances; because it confifts of un-united, independent Parts. But when the Parts are fo inviolably wedded, that there is no divorcing this from that; fuch a Being we call truly One: The Parts being effentially united. View then each Link of the Chain together.-The three Perfons are Subftance and Subftance effentially united, having each of them the diftinctive Characters of I, Thou, He, not diftinguished into more intelligent Agents

-Subftance in Union with Substance

doth not make Subftances, therefore not three Gods—Doth not prevent distinct Action Therefore the Father and the Son might act diftinctly; the one in admitting, the other in giving an Atonement— If you answer, that the Hypothesis of the Divine Extenfion may be ill-grounded; I will grant it: But it does not affect what I contend for: That Subftance and Substance in Union do not make Substances, which deftroys your Scheme. For, fince the Effence must be where the Effential Attributes are; fince the Effential Attributes, Wisdom, Power, etc. difplay themselves every-where; the whole Effence, upon the Scheme of Non-Extenfion, must act here; the whole Effence must act there; and the whole

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whole Effence every-where; whole in the whole, and whole in every Part: Which amounts to the fame Thing in the laft Refort. As long as the Proposition beforementioned stands its Ground (which will be as long as there is any found, unbiaffed Senfe to difcern that what is necessarily united must be One) the main Objections, which bear the hardest upon the Doctrine of the Trinity and Satisfaction from Arianism and Tritheifm, will fall impotently to the Ground.

It even compels You to come (nolens volens) into the fame Scheme, and presses You into the fame Service. For, what You call three distinct, infinite Beings, must be Substance united to Subftance by an unalienable Attachment, and confequently make not three distinct Subftances, nor therefore three distinct Beings.

If you will be content to reft in Generals, without inquiring into the minute Circumftances, or embracing any particular Explication of the Ubiquity; this is what I advife you to concerning the Trinity. And indeed in these high Points we are like People upon marshy Ground. We may

fkim lightly over the Surface. But if we fix our Foot; if we dwell too long upon any particular Spot; we fink irretrievably, and the more we struggle to get free, the more. we are gravelled.

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