Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	church_n	doctrine_n	tradition_n	2,974	5	9.2119	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67390	A fourth letter concerning the sacred Trinity in reply to what is entituled An answer to Dr. Wallis's three letters / by John Wallis ...	Wallis, John, 1616-1703.	1691 (1691)	Wing W583; ESTC R34710	20,498	40

are too mean too familiar He expected somewhat higher somewhat more distinct p. 5. I see it is as hard a matter to please my two Answerers as to serve two Masters The one complains my Simile's are not familiar enough the other that they are too familiar he expected somewhat more sublime These do not prove that a Trinity in Unity is necessary to the perfection of the Godhead p. 6. True These alone do not prove that there is a Trinity in Unity in the Godhead much less do they prove that a Trinity in Unity is necessary to the perfection of the Godhead Nor were they brought to prove it They were brought to prove There is no Inconsistence but that there may be a Trinity in the Unity of the Godhead And if they prove thus much he perhaps may have cause to be Ashamed but I see no reason why I should be Ashamed or any one for me Now that they prove thus much he hath already granted That a thing may be one and three in divers respects And that 't is no contradiction to hold that there May be Three Persons in God They have proved therefore what they were brought to prove But says he p. 5. Our Debate is not Whether there May be three Persons in God Yes our Debate is whether there May be Not whether there Be. And he knows the Question was so stated by me and so acknowledg'd by himself upon this single point whether there be any Impossibility in it And so owned by himself p. 1. not whether it be so for this I had before said was not to be argued upon the Topick of Reason alone but whether it be agreeable to the common notions of Humane Reason that it May be so And if this were the Question as he owns and this be proved as he owns also Then I have proved what I undertook to prove And have no reason to be Ashamed either of the Undertaking or of the Proof 'T is our new Answerer who doth wittingly and willingly mis-state the Question that is at cross purposes while he applies those Arguments to one point which he knows were brought to prove another which point himself grants to be proved He cannot say there is a Contradiction in it pag. 6. and then complains that they alone do not prove what they were never brought to prove Of like nature is that other point where he tells us that we do now venture to prove it to be agreeable to the common notions of humane Reason that is not Inconsistent with it And we do so But he would have it thought that it is but now of late that any have presumed to this confidence pag. 1 2. and would have us content modestly to acknowledge it a meer mystery and to rely upon the Authority of the Church and Tradition without pretending that it is agreeable to Reason Now that there is in it a Mystery we readily grant and so there is in the whole Doctrine of our Redemption God manifested in the Flesh c. 1 Tim. 3. 16. as that which without Revelation we could not have found out by meer Reason And that it is above Reason that is more than what Reason alone could have taught us But not that it is Against Reason or Inconsistent with it This is not the Doctrine of the Trinitarians nor ever was that I know of Nor is it Tradition only or the Church's Authority but the Authority of Scripture that we rely upon which is a True not a lying Revelation Nor is it as he pretends a new Doctrine not raised till several hundred years after Christ as if the Doctrine were to be dated from the time of penning the Athanasian Creed but as old at least as the New Testament and never contested that I know of till several hundred years after Christ when the Arians arose But here again my Answerers are not agreed So hard it is to please them both While one complains 't is but of late the other tells me 't is old-fashioned in his p. 9 Thus Dr. Wallis may see that his Notions concerning the Trinity are old-fashioned not of a new mode And truly I take him to be more in the right that 't is not a new quirk but old-fashioned Doctrine and I like it never the worse for being so As to what I have said of Joh. 17. 3. it is more than Forty years and well towards Fifty since I first Preached it in London on that Text as I have since done there and elsewhere more than once and I did not then take it to be New but what I had been always Taught And as to that of the three dimensions in a Cube it is Forty years or more since I first discoursed it at Oxford with Dr. Ward then Astronomy-Professor there and since Bishop of Salisbury And as to the Doctrine in general of Three Persons in One God it is no Newer than the New Testament But here again our Answerer forsakes the Question For the Question is not Whether it be a New or Old Adventure but whether it be Inconsistent with Reason that Three May be One or as he words it p. 3. that a Trinity in Unity is absurd Another piece of the same Art it is where my word of Personality is by him changed for Personation p. 5 6. For which I would not have quarrelled with him if by changing the Word he had not meant to change the Sense also For to personate a Man he tells us p. 6. is but to compose ones Actions in Likeness of him and that one cannot personate three together but one after another But my Personality he knows is more than this Personation It is not only Acting a Person but Being a Person A Man may successively Personate or Act the Person of a King and a Father without being either This or That But when the same Man IS both a King and a Father which he may be at the same time as well as successively this is more than only to Act them And if by Personation he mean no more than Acting a Person I wonder how he can tell us p. 5. That Personation is the greatest Perfection of Being and that he never could apprehend any other real Unity but Personation What No real Unity but acting a Person by imitation Sure there is The Bottom and Top and Middle of a Mountain are one Mountain Yet I do not take Mount Atlas to be a Person or to Act a person much less to become One Mountain by Personation or Acting a Person Of like nature is it where to do me a kindness he will state my Cube more to my purpose p. 5. meaning the contrary But how In a Marble Cube may be two Accidents Hardness and Coldness There may be so But what then Then he says here are Three Cubes more for me He would have it thought I suppose that I had before discoursed of Three Cubes whereas I spoke but of One Cube under three Dimensions and