Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	action_n	body_n	soul_n	1,426	5	5.4689	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61550	The doctrine of the Trinity and transubstantiation compared as to Scripture, reason, and tradition. The first part in a new dialogue between a Protestant and a papist : wherein an answer is given to the late proofs of the antiquity of transubstantiation in the books called Consensus veterum and Nubes testium, &c.	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1688 (1688)	Wing S5589; ESTC R14246	60,900	98

the courage to defend the Doctrine of the Trinity in point of Reason but I see you are a bold Man and will venture farther than wiser Men. Pr. It may be others have not had the leisure or curiosity to examine a Mystery believed to be so much out of the reach of our Understanding or have confounded themselves and others so much with School-●erms as to leave the matter rather more obscure than it was before But I shall endeavour to make things as clear as they will bear And that which I insist upon is that the Absurdities are not to appearance so great as those of Transubstantiation And therefore I desire you to produce those which appear the most dreadful P. I shall reduce all to these two which comprehend the rest 1. How there can be three Persons and but one God. 2. How these can agree in a third and not agree among themselves For the first it seems very absurd that there should be three Persons really distinct whereof every one is God and yet there should not be three Gods for nothing is more contradictions than to make three not to be three or three to be but one Pr. I hope now you will give me leave to make an Answer to your Difficulty as distinct as possible We do not say that three Persons are but one Person or that one Nature is three Natures but that there are three Persons in one Nature If therefore one Individual Nature be communicable to three Persons there is no appearance of Absurdity in this Doctrine And on the other side it will be impossible there should be three Gods where there is one and the same Individual Nature for three Gods must have three several Divine Natures since it is the Divine Essence which makes a God. But to make this more plain Do you make any difference between Nature and Person P. Yes Pr. Wherein lies it P. Excuse me Sir for you have undertaken to explain these things Pr. I will begin with Person Which Name was originally taken among the Romans from some remarkable distinction of one from another either by some outward appearance as a Vizard or Habit or some particular Quality or Disposition And from hence it came to be applied to those inward Properties whereby one Intelligent Being is distinguished from another and from those Properties to the Person who had them Thus Person is used even by Tully himself at least twenty times in his Books of Rhetorick and the old Civil Law speaks of Personal Rights and Personal Actions So that the Criticks such as Valla and others had no cause to find fault with Boethius for applying the Notion of a Person to an intelligent Being subsisting by it self and so the Soul is no Person in Men but the Man consisting of Soul and Body having some incommunicable Properties belonging to him Therefore I cannot but wonder at the niceness of some late Men who would have the Names of Person and Hypostasis and Trinity to be laid aside since themselves confess Boëthius his definition of a Person to be true enough but they say it belongs to the Creatures and not to God for it would make three Gods. Which is to suppose without proving it that the Divine Nature can communicate it self after no other manner than a created Nature can This is now to be more strictly enquired into And it is very well observed by Boëthius de Trin. l. 1. Principium pluralitatis alteritas est That Diversity is the Reason of Plurality And therefore in the Trinity so far as they are different they are three i. e. in regard of Personal Properties and Relations but so far as they agree they are but O N E that is as to the Divine Nature It is very true that according to Arithmetick Three cannot be One nor One Three but we must distinguish between the bare Numeration and the Things numbred The repetition of three Units certainly makes three distinct Numbers but it doth not make three Persons to be three Natures And therefore as to the Things themselves we must go from the bare Numbers to consider their Nature Where-ever there is a real distinction we may multiply the Number tho the Subject be but One. As suppose we say the Soul hath three Faculties Understanding Will and Memory we may without the least absurdity say there are Three and One and those three not confounded with each other and yet there is but One Soul. P. But the Socinians object that there is a difference between three Properties and three distinct Persons because a Person is an Individual Being and so three Persons must be three Individual Beings and therefore as there is but one Divine Being there can be but one Person Pr. This is the main strength of the Cause to which I answer That altho a Person be an Individual Being yet it implies two Things in it 1. Something common with others of the same Nature as three Men have one and the same Nature tho they be three Persons 2. Something peculiar and incommunicate to any other so that John cannot be Peter nor Peter James P. But what is it which makes one not to be the other when they have the same common Nature Pr. You ask a hard Question viz. about the Principle of Individuation but if it be so hard to resolve it as to created Beings there is certainly far less Reason for us to be unsatisfied if it appear difficult to clear the Difference of Nature and Person in an infinite Being Yet all Mankind are agreed in the Thing viz. That there is a Community of the same Nature and a real Distinction of Persons among Men tho they cannot tell what that is which discriminates the Humane Nature in John from the same Humane Nature in Peter and James And it is observable that as Beings arise in Perfection above each other it is still so much harder to assign that which is called the Principle of Individuation In gross and material Beings we can discern a number of Accidents or peculiar Modes and Properties which distinguish them from each other but it is much harder to assign it in Spiritual and Intellectual Beings whose Natures and Differences lie not so open to our Understandings If so be then it appears more difficult in an infinite and incomprehensible Being what Cause have we to wonder at it But we must always make a difference between what we have reason to believe and what we have a power to conceive Altho we have all the Reason in the World to believe that there is a God i. e. a Being Infinite in all Perfections yet we must yield that his Essential Attributes are above our comprehension As for Instance 1. We must believe God to be Eternal or we cannot believe him to be God. For if he once were not it is impossible he should ever be And therefore we conclude necessary Existence to be an Essential Attribute of the Divine Nature But then how to