A collection of miscellanies consisting of poems, essays, discourses, and letters occasionally written / by John Norris ...
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Title
A collection of miscellanies consisting of poems, essays, discourses, and letters occasionally written / by John Norris ...
Author
Norris, John, 1657-1711.
Publication
Oxford :: Printed at the Theater for John Crosley ...,
1687.
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"A collection of miscellanies consisting of poems, essays, discourses, and letters occasionally written / by John Norris ..." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A52417.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 30, 2024.
Pages
descriptionPage 202
SECT. VI. That there is therefore an Eternal Mind or understanding, Omniscient, Immutable and endow'd with all possible Perfection, the same which we call God.
1. THis evidently follows from the Conclu∣sion of the foregoing Section, for if the simple Essences of things have a real and eternal existence in some understanding, what consequence can be more plain than that there is a Mind or understanding eternally existing? An Essence can no more eternally exist in a Tem∣porary understanding, than a Body can be in∣finitely extended in a finite space. The mind therefore wherein it does exist must be eternal; there is therefore in the first place an Eternal Mind.
2. 'Twill follow also in the next place that this Mind is Omniscient as well as Eternal. For that Mind which is eternally fraught with the simple Essences of things, must needs contain al∣so in it self all the several Habitudes and Re∣spects of them, these necessarily arising from the other by way of Natural result. For as be∣fore, the Argument was good from the Habi∣tudes of things to their simple Essences, so is it as good backwards from the simple Essences of things to their Habitudes. But these are the same with Truths. That Mind therefore which
descriptionPage 203
has all these has all Truths, which is the same as to be Omniscient.
3. 'Twill follow hence also in the next place, that this Mind is Immutable as well as Omnisci∣ent and Eternal. For if that Mind which has existing in it self from all eternity, all the sim∣ple Essences of things and consequently all their possible Scheses or Habitudes should ever change, there would arise a new Schesis in this Mind that was not before, which is contrary to the supposition. 'Tis impossible therefore that this Mind should ever undergo any muta∣tion, especially if these eternal Ideas and Ha∣bitudes be one and the same with this Mind, as I have already hinted and elsewhereproved.
4. Lastly 'twill follow that this Mind is not only Eternal, Immutable and Omniscient, but that in a word 'tis endow'd with all possible per∣fection. For to have, and it self to be all the Essences and Habitudes of things is to have and to be all that can possibly be, to be the rule and measure of all perfection, to be supreme in the Scale of Being, and to be the Root, and Spring of all Entity, which is the same as to be God. This Mind therefore so accomplish'd is no other than God, and consequently there is a God, which was the thing I undertook to demonstrate.