Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	author_n	person_n	write_v	1,696	5	5.4406	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30666	A defence of the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and incarnation placed in their due light in answer to a letter, written to the clergy of both universities.	Bury, Arthur, 1624-1713.	1694 (1694)	Wing B6194; ESTC R37522	7,576	10

by the help of what I have said I desire to communicate as far I can to those that want it To the Socinians especially of whom I have so good an Opinion Errors excepted that I should look upon it as a great Blessing if I might help towards their Peace with our Church BUT there is another and greater Obstacle and I must either leave my work half undone or so represent the other Doctrine of the Incarnation that Rational and Conscientious Men may apprehend it lawful to communicate with us as well in our Liturgy as our Creed I therefore think necessary to add some Propositions concerning that Article also 1. Who-ever believeth J. C. to be his Saviour must needs think himself obliged to pay him all the honour that he can think consistent with Scripture and Reason 2. The Scripture declareth J. C. to be as much God as is possible for a Man to be This appears from many Texts particularly from the Words of St. Paul who saith that in him dwelleth all fulness of the Godhead bodily and from those of our Saviour himself who saith God gave not the spirit by measure unto him which import no less than that God gave him as much Divinity as possibly he could 3. To determine how much God Can do is more derogatory to his honour than to say he Hath done more than he really hath done For the later is only an innocent Error in matter of Fact but the other is a sawcy confinement of God's Omnipotence 4. It is not impossible or so much as difficult to apprehend that the Wisdom of God which implieth his Purity should unite it self to a Man without Self-Existence and Omnipotency and so the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be incarnate without the joint Incarnation of the Father and the H. G. 5. If we believe not Christ to be God Eternal yet if we believe him Deified in Time whether we compute that Time from his Conception in the Womb of the Blessed Virgin as some or from his exaltation to the Right Hand of God as others This will justifie our Adoration of him and since Practice is the only end of Speculation we need not doubt but our Gracious Redeemer will allow for our innocent failings in the Later when we pay him his due in the Former 6. Though we adore him under the Character of the Son of David yet we thereby intend the Person that is the Son of God and our worship is properly directed to his Divinity since That only can Hear and Grant Prayer 7. If these Propositions be true then is there no danger 〈◊〉 communicating with our Church both in Creed and Liturgy but in departing from her there is double danger of two great Sins viz. Schism and Sacriledge WHat I have thus said I hope may convince the Socinians that they may more safely Communicate with our Church than trouble her Peace and I need not speak of the other comprehensive side of the word to shew how Two Natures may make One Person Both because That Notion hath no place in the Devotions of our Church and because it is exemplified in a paper very lately published in form of a Letter directed to the Clergy of both Universities as to One Person though the Author cannot imagin they should all meet in a consult nor doth one of the Universities ever answer the Books which they dislike but by a decretum to burn them He therefore must write to them not Conjunctim but Divisim and if so must not take unkindly if any One answer the Request shall I call it or Challenge that is made to All. This I speak because I have lately learned that some men call it spitting it in their faces if a man write against their opinions And Dr S th employeth his talent of scolding at me for so doings and aggravates the crime as therefore intolerable because I never had any conversation with him wherein he hath done himself the honor to profess that he wrote against Dr Sherlock not out of love to Truth but Malice to him He is indeed so civil to my Hypothesis as not to give it one hard word and I shall this way also oppose him for I shall not meddle with his Person but against his Hypothesis shall put this case A Doctor a Prebend of W. a Canon of C. C. a Rector of I. and one or more Sine cura's it W. and a Landed man are every one a Distinct Person yet All meet in one Man suppose now it were possible for me to make All these Personalities as useless to him as so many Modes or Internal Relations would not this more justly provoke his rage than the harmless writing against his Opinion Yet this is the consequence of his Hypothesis For the notion of a mere Internal Relation depriveth every Person of his Honour by depriving the World of the Inte The Socinians cannot object to me the same heavy provocation I have conversed with some of the chief of them and that very amicably whom I believe to be excellent persons and by what I see in them I judge of the Generality of the Party This I take to be so far from a Restraint upon me that it is one of the reasons which induce me to endeavour to make them like my self and in order thereto if they be sincere as I hope I pray them to practice all their Objections upon their own Trinity of Humane Persons I shall here give them a short Specimen of it in answer to that Paragraph in the now mentioned Letter which is the first after the Introduction and containeth the Substance of the whole that is afterward objected against our Hypothesis In that Entry upon the dispute after some lines cast away upon proving the Absurdity of contending about the meaning of the word PERSON by its place in the Creed which proveth its Necessity the Author proceedeth to say that Those that pay the highest adoration to a Person have no different Ideas of God and a Divine Person To this our Tally answereth that those who honor Dr Sherlock most have an Idea of Will Sherlock different from the Ideas of Dr Dean and Defender And for a fuller and more formal answer I add that the Idea may be Adaequate and so it will comprehend the whole of him or Inadaequate and so it may be restrained to any One of his Characters So the Adaequate Idea of God comprehendeth All Divine Perfections but by an Inadaequate Idea That Perfection of God may be contemplated in any Divine Property which constitutes a Divine Person To frame another Idea of God saith the Letter it must be lower and consequently Blasphemy against God No say I it is no robbery to the Dean to speak of him as Doctor if we leave him all the dues of his Deanry Nor is it Blasphemy to consider any one of God's Properties by way of mere Abstraction while we Deny him not the Honour due to him from all the rest In a word saith the Letter if a Person be God there can be no real difference or distinction between them for no Being can be but it self it is the same with it self and distinct and different from all other Yes Dr. Sherlock may be the same Individual Man though different from himself with respect to his Different Characters so God c. By this Specimen it appears easie to go through every clause of the Letter that concerns our Hypothesis My great fear is that the Socinians Confidence of Victory will make them reject all terms of Accommodation Yet will not my labour be quite lost with Him who accepteth Sincere though Succesless Endeavours and hath said Blessed are the Peace-makers FINIS