alliperfect Being This Bowever is the sil!Vni. Being whole Nature we wound heard by our own, and make God after our Likes nefs, inftead of humbly endeavouring td be as like him as we caned: The most ad! vanced Notion, which we can form of him, as diftinct from all his Creatures, is merely negative, excepting the Idea of neceffary Existence, which may imply fomething politive. For Existence, Power, Goodneß, Wisdom; & are not his peculiar fi and incommunicable Properties: When they are ascribed to him withoutBounds, then they are Ideas: diftinctive of him, though' Ideas purely negative, is implying only sa Negation of Limits We cannot extend even our Conjectures concerning the divine Nature, beyond thofe Ideas which are det rived from Senfation and Reflection vierg with these forry Materials of Knowledge fome attempt to dethrone their Saviour and the Holy Ghoft, and to degrade them his the Rank of Creatures, vislab bus Banq - I have already proved, from Scripture!! that there are more Perfons than one in the divine Effence. 59% von on dorwe voi si -I now proceed to clear this Doctrine from1 the principal Objections against it from the Reafon of the Thing.

All

∙SEN.VIII. clear and level to their Understanding to found their Want of Faith upon.

The firft and grand Objection against the Divinity of our Saviour, and the Holy Spirit is this: That either the three Perfons must be three Subftances, which is Tritheism, or they must be three Modes, which is Sabellianifm.

It is thus, Man, weak Man, moft affured of what he is most ignorant, and moft ignorant of what he should know best, viz. himself, argues against well-fupported Truths, from loose Conjectures and vifionary Notions, dreft up in the Form of ftrict Reafoning, without the Power thereof, and then dignifies his crude and indigefted Notions with the pompous Name of Demonftration, where the only Demonstration is, that the Subject admits of

3. For in the first Place, though in finite Beings there is no Diftinction but that of Modes and Substances we cannot hence infer, that the unfearchable Nature of God may not admit of fome other real but incomprehenfible Diftinction; a Diftinction greater than that of three Modes, yet lefs than that of three Substances.

2

Though

Though an human Soul is a Spirit as well SER. VIII. as God; yet Spirit, or immaterial Being, does not point out, as Body does, one determinate Kind of Being, but every Sort of Beings, that are not corporeal *. It is a negative Idea, a mere Denial of Matter. As my Soul is of a quite different Effence from the Table on which I write, though they are both Subftance: So God tranfcends my Soul, though they are both Spirit, infinitely more, than my Soul can the Table. To argue then from our Nature to the divine to say that because the one admits of no Distinction, but that of Modes and Subftances the other may not: What is this, but to argue a pari, where there is an infinite Disparity, a boundless Difpropor

tion?

2dly, Thofe, who object that we must, either with the Sabellians, maintain the Perfons to be three Modes only; or with the Tritheists, three Subftances, must first demonftrate, that Subftance and Subftance, however close and inviolable the Union may be, must neceffarily make Subftances; or that Being and Being cannot be fo united

* See Dr. Clarke on the Omnipresence, in the firft Volame of his Pofthumous Sermons.

VOL. II.

Gg

as

SER. VIII. as to be one. For if they cannot demon

ftrate this, there will be this plain Medium between Sabellianifm and Tritheism, that the three Perfons will be more than three Modes, each being Subftance; and yet not three Subftances, because indiffoluble Union of Subftance with Subftance may constitute Unity; or whatever is effentially and neceffarily united, may be essentially and neceffarily one. Thus our Saviour's Words, I am in the Father, and the Father in me, will give the best Solution of the Difficulty.

I may obferve farther, that either Being and Being in Union does not make Beings; or there is no fuch Thing as one Being in Nature, upon their Hypothefis, who maintain, as the most able Defender of Arianism does maintain, that spiritual, as well as corporeal Beings, are extended. For each extended Being, it is well known, is nothing but Being and Being in Union; and only one, because of the Continuity of the Parts. He (that great Master of Reason) supposed the Deity to be infinitely expanded. It was likewife his Opinion, that there is no Medium between a Being and Nothing, and that Perfon is an intelligent Being. Well:

The

The Deity, according to his Scheme, must SER. VIII. consist of an Infinity of PartsEach of

thofe Parts must be either a Being, or Nothing. Each of thefe Parts must be like. wife an intelligent Being. For an intelligent Whole cannot be made up of unintelligent Parts. And if each of thefe Parts be an intelligent Being; then each muft be a Perfon;The Confequence of which is, that according to his Hypothefis, there must be as many Perfons in an infinitely ex-; panded Substance, as there are Parts. Thus this great Philofopher (for a great Philofo pher he certainly was) at the fame Time that he opposed the Catholic Scheme of three Perfons, in the fame undivided Substance; must, if consistent with himself, maintain, many more than three Persons, even an Infi nity of Perfons in the fame Subftance.

Such is the Frailty of human Nature even in great Men. They can fee the leaft Mote of a Difficulty in another's Scheme 3 they cannot behold the Beam, that is in their own.

Nor was he fingular in that Opinion Several able Philofophers, both at home and abroad, have embraced the Scheme of Extenfion. Now the fame Principle, viz. that Gg 2

Be