Religion and reason adjusted and accorded, or, A discourse wherein divine revelation is made appear to be a congruous and connatural way of affording proper means for making man eternally happy through the perfecting of his rational nature with an appendix of objections from divers as well as philosophers as divines and their respective answers.

Answer.

Each Person of the Blessed Trinity knows himself and the other two, by the Second Person, which is the Essential Knowledg of

God, se••••. 2. par. 4, 5▪ (for there is but one Essential Divine Knowledg.) And every one of the Three Persons loves himself and the other two, by the Third Person, who is Es∣sential Divine Love, sec. 2. par. 9. (for there is One only Essential Divine Love) so that there are no more Relatives or Persons in respect of Knowledg and Love than Two. And albeit in respect of being known and beloved, there seem to be many several Relations in God, in that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are each of them known and beloved of them∣selves, and of the other two likewise; yet that falling out by reason of the Circuminses∣sion (as the Schools term it) or mutual es∣sential Inexistence of all the three Persons; and not in respect of a primary-immediate∣opposite-Relation (which alone constitutes a Person, sec. 2. par. 3, 4, 9.) it rightly de∣notes no Pl••rality of Relations in God. For since the Divine Nature as Eternal Essential Truth, is the alone primary-immediate Object both of Divine Knowledg and Love (for Truth is the adequate Object of all intelli∣gent Beings as knowing and loving, or of the Intellect and Will; as the sole perfection of them) it is plainly consequent thereto, that the alone Primary-immediate Divine Object known and beloved is eternal essential Truth,

(the Origin and Fountain of the Divine Per∣sons; to wit, Eternal, Essential, Divine Truth begetting the Eternal, Essential, Di∣vine Knowledg of its self is God the Father; the Eternal, Essential, Divine Knowledg begotten of the Eternal, Essential, Divine Truth, is God the Son; and the Eternal, Es∣sential, Divine Love of the Eternal, Essen∣tial, Divine Truth known (or which is the same, of the Father and the Son) is God the Holy Ghost) notwithstanding that there is an innate mutual knowledg and love of all the Three Persons by Circuminssession, whilst the Father is essentially in the Son, the Divine thing known being essentially in the Divine Knower; and the Son is essential∣ly in the Father, the Divine Knower being the essential Character of the Divine Thing known, sect. 2. par. 5. And the Father and the Son are both of them essentially in the Holy Ghost; and He in Them, by reason of the essential Union of the Divine Love and the Divine Thing Beloved, sect. 2. par. 9. Whence it necessarily comes to pass, that whatsoever can be truly spoken or predica∣ted of God, is mutually in all the Three Per∣sons, and may be rightly spoken and predi∣cated of every one of them, as well as of the Divine Nature, Essence or Being; save

only what the Primary-immediate-relative∣opposition (which, as has been shewn, is but threefold) as such, puts a Bar unto.