XI. When this writer comes to the head of worship, (Observat. viii.) he repeats some stale pleas used by the party, and which have all been particularly considered and confuted in my Defences, vol. i. and iii. As to reinforcing the pleas with any new matter, or taking off the force of the answers given, he is not solicitous about it. But here a scoff and there a flout he flings at his adversary. P. 78. he cites a sentence of mine in a scoffing manner, calling it an excellent commentary upon two texts, (1 John ii. 1. Hebr. vii. 25.) which texts, he conceives, teach us to "pray to Christ, to pray in heaven "for us:" in the mean while taking no notice of what I had said to obviate so low and mean a notion of God the Son, and to cut off the pretence of creature-worship. Having gone on with repetition as far as he thought proper, he next vouchsafes to take notice that I had made some replies: and one of them he confutes, by saying, that there will be found in it a singular dexterity, p. 81. Another, by saying, "If any serious reader finds any in"struction or improvement in it, it is well," p. 84. A third, by a scrap of Latin, from the Comedian, Quid cum isto homine facias? The English of which seems to be, that he has thought every way to come at some solution, is disappointed in all, and knows not what to do more; except it be to flout and scoff, that whatever reputation he and his friends had once gained, by beginning like serious men, (in which way I was ready to go on with them,) they may at length throw up, by ending like

XII. Page the 86th, this writer comes to speak of individuality and sameness; in which I had been beforehand with him, answering all his pretences on that headd. Instead of replying, he goes on in his way. "Indivi"duality and sameness," says he, "are words, it seems, "which signify nobody knows what:" because, forsooth, I had exposed his weak pretences to show what makes it,

c Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 344. a Ibid. p. 298, &c. 219, 410, 411.

or what its principle is. He refers me to his Reply e, to convince me of the absurdity of my way of talking. I had seen, I had considered his Reply long ago, and exposed the weakness of itf: what pity is it that he is forced to leave it at last helpless, and entirely destitute of any reinforcement.

XIII. He is farther angry with me for calling upon him to explain his terms, particularly supreme and independent. As to the first of them, he says, (p. 87.) it is "a term which no man, he believes, before Dr. Water"land, misunderstood." Whether I misunderstood it or no, may be a question. I think the English of it is highest and as high or low may have respect to variety of things, to place, to dignity, to dominion, to office, to order, to nature, &c. it was but just in Dr. Waterland to call for an explanation, that so the word supreme might be admitted or rejected under proper distinctions.

Independent is likewise a word variously understood according to variety of respects. God the Son, for instance, is dependent on the Father, as being of him, and from him, and referred up to him: but he is not dependent on the Father's will, or pleasure, being necessarily existing as well as the Father. Every Person of the Trinity is independent of any thing ad extra; but none of them are entirely independent of each other, having a necessary relation to one another, that they must and cannot but exist together, never were, never could be separate, or asunder. This is sufficient to justify my calling for an explanation of independent. Which this gentleman would not have been offended at, but that it touches him in a tender part: it is breaking through his coverts, letting the world in upon him, when he has a mind to be retired, and to lie concealed under equivocal and ambiguous terms.

The term authority was another equivocal word, which I was willing to distinguish upon h. This writer being

66

extremely desirous of finding a governor for God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, says; "As if any man, since "the world began, ever did or ever could mean, by those terms, not power and dominion." It were easy to quote a multitude of writers, ancient and modern, that use the word authority, without reference to dominion; and who when they ascribe it to the Father, as his peculiar, never mean to express any the least dominion over the other two Persons by it. I content myself here with two only, both quoted in my Second Defence, namely, St. Austin and Bishop Pearson. It would be endless to instruct this gentleman in all the useful things which he wants to know. He does not know, that as early as the days of St. Austin, the very distinction which I insist upon, as to the equivocal sense of authority in this case, was taken notice of, and pleaded against one of his Arian predecessors, Maximink: so little is he acquainted with what men of letters have been doing since the world began.

Upon this occasion he drops a maxim, as he takes it to be, that "nothing can be the same in kind and in number "too." The Author of the Remarks is full of the same thing. I have already hinted, how contradictory this pretended maxim is to Dr. Clarke's known and avowed principles in another cause. To answer now more directly, and to cut off their main argument at once; I observe, that though in finite things, especially things corporeal, those that are one substance in kind are more than one substance in number; yet the reason is not, because they are one in kind, but because they are really separate, or separable from each other: and so it happens, that while they are one substance in kind, they are not one in number. But where the substance is neither sepa

i Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 169, 312. See other testimonies in Petavius, de Trin. lib. v. c. 5. sect. 11, 12, 13. lib. ii. c. 2. sect. 9. and in Bull. D. F. sect. iv. c. 1. p. 254.

* Augustin. cont. Maxim. lib. iii. c. 5, 14.

1 Remarks, p. 25.

rate nor separable, (as in the divine Persons,) there unity of kind and number are consistent, and meet in one: and thus the unity is both specific and individual, without any the least repugnancy, or appearance of it m.

XIV. Page the 93d, we meet with several little efforts to say something, but with a very ill spirit, and showing more of the author's spleen than his abilities. He scoff's at the advice given him, not to pretend to be wise in the deep things of God. He is positive that an infinitely active Being can, if he pleases, entirely cease to act; that God's loving himself, however it may be the prime mover in all the divine acts, is no act at all; and that God never naturally or necessarily exerts any power; for this wise reason, because in such a case he can have no power to exert that is, because the will is the original (with this writer) of all exerting of power, which was the point in question. He has left several very material things I urged upon this head, perfectly untouched : but seems to be affronted that any man should question whatever he has been pleased to affirm, or should not take his dictates for demonstrations.

XV. There is a place which I have passed over in p. 62. but deserves to be mentioned under this chapter. I happened to find fault with Dr. Clarke, for pretending to prove the existence of a first Cause, a prioric: which has no sense without supposing a cause prior to the first, which is flat contradiction. This plain reasoning is called turning the pretended proof into ridicule; though, in my notion, reasoning is one thing, and ridiculing another. However, the gentleman being grievously offended, resolves to revenge himself in a note. Repeating some words of mine, out of the place I have referred to in my Second Defence, vol. iii. he enters a remark: "These "words show that Dr. Waterland does not understand “what the meaning of a proof a priori is." I should be glad to receive information on this head from our great m See my Second Defence, vol. iii. p. 300, 364.

dictator in science: and if he understands the thing so well, the reader might have expected some explication of it at his hands, that it might be seen where Dr. Waterland's mistake lay. Till this be done, I will presume to think, that what I said was perfectly right; and that neither Dr. Clarke nor his friends can return any reply, more than abuses to it. Dr. Cudworth was one that had travelled in the argument as far as any man, and had as good an inclination to prove the existence a priori, as Dr. Clarke could have. But he was a wise man, and saw clearly how that matter stood. Let us hear what he says, after many years' thought and meditation. Speaking of what he had done in his last chapter, he has these words: "We therein also demonstrate the absolute im"possibility of all atheism, and the actual existence of a "God: we say demonstrate; not a priori, which is impos"sible, and contradictious, but by necessary inference "from principles altogether undeniable P." I do not want Dr. Cudworth's, or any man's authority for a maxim of common sense, and as plain as that two and two are four: but the plainer it is, so much the greater wonder that men of parts and abilities could not see it, or are yet ignorant of it.

The most knowing men hitherto have been contented with the proofs a posteriori, as being sufficient, and the only ones that are so. And they have rightly judged, that to pretend more is betraying great ignorance of things, and is exposing the clearest and best cause in the world to the insults of atheism and infidelity. These gentlemen endeavour to blind this matter by substituting ground and reason in the room of cause. Let them say plainly what they mean by this cause, ground, or reason, or whatever else they please to call it. They will at length find the words either to have no sense, or to contain that absurd sense of a cause prior to the first. Is this ground, reason, &c. the substance itself? The conse

P Cudworth's Intellect. Syst. Preface.