words of their masters by rote, without having any ideas of the things, which the words signify. Lastly, he calls God an _essence_. If he mean by _essence_ the same with _ens_, τὸ ὄν, I approve it. Otherwise, what is _essence_? There is no such word in the Old Testament. The Hebrew language, which has no word answerable to the copulative _est_, will not bear it. The New Testament hath οὐσία, but never for _essence_, nor for _substance_, but only for riches. I come now to his argument in mood and figure, which is this, _the Divine substance is indivisible_. That is the _major_. _Eternity is the Divine substance._ That is the _minor_. _Ergo_, the Divine substance is indivisible. The major, he says, is evident, because God is _actus simplicissimus_. The minor is confessed, he thinks, by all men, because whatsoever is attributed to God, is God. To this I answered, that the major was so far from being evident, that _actus simplicissimus_ signifieth nothing, and that the minor was understood by no man. First, what is _actus_ in the _major_? Does any man understand _actus_ for a substance, that is, for a thing subsisting by itself? Is not _actus_, in English, either an _act_ or an _action_, or nothing? Or is any of these _substance_? If it be evident, why did he not explain _actus_ by a definition? And as to the minor, though all men in the world understand that the _Eternal_ is God, yet no man can understand that the _eternity_ is God. Perhaps he and the Schoolmen mean by _actus_, the same that they do by _essentia_. What is the _essence_ of a _man_, but his _humanity_; or of God, but his _Deity_; of _great_, but _greatness_; and so of all other denominating attributes? And the words, God and Deity, are of different signification. John Damascene, a father of the church, expounding the Nicene creed, denies plainly that the Deity was incarnate; but all true Christians hold that God was incarnate. Therefore God and the Deity signify divers things; and therefore _eternal_ and _eternity_ are not the same, no more than a wise man and his wisdom are the same; nor God and his justice the same thing: and universally it is false, that the attribute in the abstract is the same with the substance, to which it is attributed. Also it is universally true of God, that the attribute in the concrete, and the substance to which it is attributed, is not the same thing.