Truth tried: or, animadversions on a treatise published by the Right Honorable Robert Lord Brook, entituled, The Nature of Truth, its vnion and vnity with the soule. Which (saith he) is one in its essence, faculties, acts; one with truth. By I. W.

CHAP. V. Whether the Soule and Truth in the Soule, be one.

THe like Answer must be given to that in the 5. Chapter, Whether the Soule (without an intervenient Faculty) may not be the Reci∣pient of Truth? For we cannot say, Datur Animae ut sit Ve∣ritas; except we agree to make the Soule and Reason one: But we may say Datur Animae ut sit Subjectum veritatis, or Subjectum Rationis, though we ••old them distinct. As may appeare at large by what I have said upon the second Chapter.

That which is further added in this Chapter, whether as a Su••sive to inforce this, or as a New Argument▪ viz. That our Soule resembles God, who is Ʋnus & simplex actus, and therefore it selfe must be simple in its Operations▪ and we must not expect first an Essence, and then a Faculty whereby it worketh, &c. may as well be urged, to prove, That our Soule and Body are the same, because Man was made after Gods Image, who is ••nus & simplex, not consisting of Parts. Or (if you instance particu∣larly in the Soule) It may as well follow, That we know not one thing (successively) After another, nor (discursively) By another; but by One entire Act like God, because the Soule bears the Image of God, and Ʋnitas (which I grant not) is formalis ratio Dei.

That which is lastly added, concerning a Resemblance of the Tri∣nity, in Truth thus understood: Is no way peculiar to this acceptati∣on of Truth; But holds as well in every degree of Being whatsoever. All Entity or Being, As it lieth involved in the Originall▪ Fountain of Being, which is Gods Essence, may represent patrem intelligentem; As it descends from above, filium intellectum; As it is received in the Creature, and maketh it to Be, spiritum dilectum.

And thus I have surveyed his Lordships reasons to prove, the Soule and Truth to be One. Understanding by Truth, or Light, the Light of Reason; which is the Originall or actus ••rimus, from whence Rationall Operations doe proceed; And therefore must needs be the first of those Nations of Truth laid down in his first Chapter.

And, that it cannot be any other acceptation of Truth, that is here meant, is very apparent; If we look upon the other acceptations of Truth; which we shall find to be no way consonant either with his Me∣thod or his Arguments. For if you consider of Truth understood, or the Idea of Truth entertained in the Mind by actuall Apprehension; This will have no Being, either in the Understanding, or elsewhere, till such

time as the Understanding it selfe frames this Conceptus: But (as ye••) we have nothing to doe with the Operations of the ••••tellect▪ (For he proceeds not to consider the Operations or Effects of the Reasonable Soule, till he come to the 10. Chapter▪) But with something ante••••∣dent them, which is the Fountain from whence these Operations doe proceed; which can be no other but Reason. Yea, himselfe affirms it in this 5. Chapter, pag. 23.) And likewise that acceptation of Truth, for the Truth either of Being, or of Cognoscibility, in the Object hath no conjunction with the Understanding, till it be actually understood: And, even Then, we cannot make it to be One with the Understanding, except we make those things to be One, which have neither coexistence of Place, nor coexistence of Time; For those things may be under∣stood, which were many thousand Yeares past, and many thousand Miles distant.