Browne, Peter (d. 1735)

Things Divine and Supernatural Conceived by Analogy with Things Natural and Human

London

Printed for William Innys and Richard Manby

1733

"But what they demand is, any ideas of them as different from all the ideas and conceptions of things sensible and human, as these are from things imperceptible and divine: and accordingly they tell you that when they look inward for such ideas to annex to the terms, their mind is an empty void; and therefore they look no farther than the strictly proper and formal and literal acceptation of those words."

The substance of his first answer is, that whereas the objection supposeth every general term in an intelligible discourse, to stand for a distinct abstract general idea; he proceeds to shew, very justly indeed, how groundless and false that notion is, of men's forming any universal ideas by abstracting intirely from all the particulars of any kind of thing whatsoever. The application he makes of it is this. That men are as little capable of forming abstract ideas or conceptions even of things natural and sensible, as they are of things divine and supernatural; that they can form no such general abstract idea of number and force, any more than they can of grace: and his consequence is, that both being upon the same level with respect to our forming any abstract conception or idea of them; it is unreasonable that men should insist upon having such an idea of grace, when they cannot have a like idea of number or force. But to what purpose is all this? For the objection, as it is stated by infidels supposeth no such thing; nor doth he himself mention any sort of abstract ideas in any part of it, to give even a colour to his being so prolix in discanting upon them in his answer. No, the whole strength of their objection is resolved into this; that they can obtain no ideas, either general or particular, either in the abstract or in the concrete, either clear or obscure, distinct or indeterminate, of things divine and spiritual contained in the gospel mysteries; different from the ideas of common worldly objects: nor of grace in particular, different from that of human grace or favour; and therefore they reject it as an insignificant term, without any real and useful meaning when taken in a divine and religious sence. They do not insist upon ideas of things divine and spiritual, rendred general by abstraction from all the particulars; nor upon such as become general by one of the particulars being made to stand for an indefinite number of things of the same kind, which is the true abstraction: no nor upon an idea of divine grace abstracted from the cause operating, from the subject operated upon, and from the effects produced; as he groundlessly supposes in his answer. But what they demand is, any ideas of them as different from all the ideas and conceptions of things sensible and human, as these are from things imperceptible and divine: and accordingly they tell you that when they look inward for such ideas to annex to the terms, their mind is an empty void; and therefore they look no farther than the strictly proper and formal and literal acceptation of those words.
(pp. 164-5)

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Reading Alciphron: In Focus

Only 1 entry in the ESTC (1733).

See Peter Browne, Things Divine and Supernatural Conceived by Analogy with Things Natural and Human (London: Printed for William Innys and Richard Manby, 1733). <Link to ESTC>

Text from Berkeley, George. Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher: In Focus. ed. David Berman (London and New York: Routledge, 1993).

02/17/2004