A letter to a friend concerning a postscript to the Defence of Dr. Sherlock's…A letter to a friend concerning a postscript to the Defense of Dr. Sherlock's…

But let the supposition proceed, and put we Being instead of Creature, which no doubt was the Defender's meaning, for Creature he must needs know it could not be that had no Maker. And what then? why he should not (says he) have been said to be compounded, though he would have had the same parts that he has now: We have here a self-confounding supposition, which having done that first, can't hurt him whom it was designed to confound, being taken in season. Grant one, and you grant a thousand. A Being made up of a soul and a body, is so imperfect an entity, as could not be of it self. Nothing is of it self which is not absolutely perfect. If he mind to disprove this, let him try his faculty when he pleases against it, and (which I sincerely believe he never intends) together with it, against all Religion. But besides, ⟨p. 30⟩he hath destroyed his own supposition himself (to put us out of that danger) by saying in plain words, p. 107. We have no Notion of an eternal and necessary Existence, but in an absolutely perfect and infinite nature. Now say I, what is so perfect, and hath whatever belongs to it necessarily, though distinguishable things belong to it, hath no parts, for what are parts, but such things as can be parted? such things as never were parted, and never can be, (as 'tis nonsense to talk of those things being parted that are united necessarily, and of themselves) are no parts, if partiri, whence they are so called, must not (and herein he cannot so fool the whole Christian World as to make it concur with him) lose its signification to serve a turn. Tho' the things be real, there partibility is not real. If any indeed will call them parts, because they may be conceived or contemplated apart, as parts merely conceptible are no prejudice to the perfection of the Divine Being, so are ⟨p. 31⟩such conceivable parts acknowledged by this Author himself in express words;¹ we cannot comprehend an infinite Being in one Thought, and therefore must as well as we can contemplate him by parts. God can as little admit to be a part of any thing, as to have any thing a part of him. And yet 'tis no prejudice to the Dignity and Perfection of his Being, to conceive of him conjunctly with other things, as when we make him a part (subject or predicate) of a Proposition.