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The roundness may be separa••ed from the Globe, and yet the matter of it remain still, when it is put into another Form, p. 25, 26.] Hence he discovers, that he knew his cause desperate, and did wilfully mistake his proper Task, because he saw it impossible to be performed. For first he leaves out the later end of my sentence, by
which the sense is to be governed, and the scope of it to be taken: which had he not wilfully omitted, he could not certainly have said what here he saith. My words were far from being thus, [A Globe may be destroyed, and so its roundness be taken away; or, the roundness may be separated from the Globe by the Globes ceasing to be a Globe, and its matter cast into some other form] but on the contrary, thus, [* 1.1 The roundness cannot be se••arated from the Globe which is round.] Which last words I did adde on purpose, to note the continuance of the subject of the roundness spo∣ken of, and to preserve my simplest Reader from the very possibility of that mistake, which Mr. W. out of subtilty hath here most resolutely committed. Having mentio∣ned a Globe, I needed not have added round, had it not been for such Readers as do not know or con••ider, that nothing not round can be a Globe. Nor did I imagine that Mr. W. could have been of their number, who not consi∣dering a Globe is round, or else not a Globe, (which is a loathsom contradiction) can dream that roundness may be separated from the Globe, because the Globe with the roundness may be separated from the matter in which it was, to wit the brass or the wood, which may be cast or shap't into several figures. To separate roundness from the Globe, is neither more nor less impossible, then to se∣parate roundness from roundness, which is so much more then to square the Circle, that many have ventured upon the one, (as well as M. Hobbs,) whereas none but M. Whit∣field hath ever thought of doing the other. And yet his way of attempting it is at least as admirable as his attempt: For instead of proving against my words, that the round∣ness may be separated from the Globe which is round, (so as it still may remain a Globe) he saith the Globe may be cast, as to the matter of it, into another form; and what is this but to say, the Globe is not immutable, but may cease to be a Globe, by being turned into a conical, or a cubical Figure? But Mr. W. knew that this was contrary to the subject of which I spake, and inconsistent with the case of which we are speaking: for it is not our Question, whether a sinner
can be converted and become a Saint, or whether his sin can be done away and destroyed, and his actions which were wont to be very evil, be very much altered unto the better: But whether the sin can be separated from the sinful action, so as the action shall remain when the sin is gone from it. As whether David••s sin can be parted from his adultery, or his adultery from his lying with Bathshebah, it being supposed and granted, that he is lying with Bathshebah, and that the doing so is adultery, and that adultery is a sin. This being the Case, and Mr. VV. speaking not of it, but of quite another thing, I therefore condemn him out of his own mouth, for having spoken against a truth, even whilest he saw it was unresistible. For he who sits beside the Cushion, no less the twenty yards wide, even after he took it into his hands as if he meant to sit on it, cannot be thought to sit beside it because it is not conspicuous, but because it is conspicuously so full of prickles, or any otherwise so frightful, as that he dares not adventure on it.
* 1.22. To shew Mr. W. both his danger, and his dishonour in such his dealings, let him name any one thing in any part of his doctrines wherein he will affirm an inseparabi∣lity, and I will presently enforce him to confute himself out of himself. I will prove by an argument ad hominem (which he at least will not resist) that Mr. W. may be se∣parated from Mr. W. nay, I will prove with more colour, that the difference is wide betwixt twenty and twice ten, be∣cause that is but one number, but this is two. I will prove the separability of his proper passion from his formal reason, and again of his formal reason from that essential whole to which it gives its specification. I will prove that a dis∣ease, however incurable, may be cur'd; because it is possible to kill the Patient. There is nothing so impossible, but may be proved to Mr. W. to be the contrary, if he will but take his own coin for current, which here he puts off to others without a blush. If his marvellous error hath been through ignorance, or inadvertency, (which yet I cannot conceive) he shall do well to study the nature of conjugates, and
denominatives, of adjuncts and subjects, of common and proper accidents; and if he will trie but to put his pre∣sent sense into a Syllogisme, he shall find four terms in the Premisses, or Ignoratio Elenchi in the conclusion: he shall not escape one of the two, let him go which way he will.
3. The three lines of his present Section, which shut it up, p. 26. are cabbage (not onely twice, but) twenty times boyl'd, and from the first to the last is gratis dictum.
See the Div. Philanth. def. ch. 4. p. 42.
2. His wonderful attempt to wash wet from water.