Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	beget_v	father_n	son_n	1,941	5	6.0880	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59810	A defence of Dr. Sherlock's notion of a Trinity in unity in answer to the animadversions upon his vindication of the doctrine of the holy and ever Blessed Trinity : with a post-script relating to the calm discourse of a Trinity in the Godhead : in a letter to a friend.	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1694 (1694)	Wing S3282; ESTC R33885	67,085	115

〈◊〉 as Gregory Nazianzen speaks Deum viventis Dei vivam imaginem as St. Hilary tells us that Christ is God the living Image of the living God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Damascen speaks That the Son is the living natural invariable Image of the invisible God having the whole Father in himself and being upon all accounts identically the same with him excepting the Principle and Cause of Being that is that He is begotten eternally of the Father but the Father is unbegotten But then though he be the Son and the begotten Image of the Father he is not his Image meerly as other Sons are the Images of their Fathers who though they partake of the same specifick Nature may be very unlike them and are not the same but as Gregory Nazianzen tells us in the place above-cited Christ is the living Image of the living Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But a more invariable Image than Seth is of Adam or any Child of his Father for the Nature of such simple and unmixt things as an Image is is not to be partly like and partly unlike as Children are to their Parents but that the whole represents the whole as the impression does the Seal and rather to be the same than to be like But St. Gregory Nyssen gives us the most exact Description of Christ's being the living Image of his Father of his Will and of his Goodness which he says is just as if a Man saw himself in a Glass for the Image in the Glass does in every thing conform it self to its Prototype the Face which looks in the Glass being the Cause of the Face which is seen there and therefore the Image in the Glass neither moves nor inclines it self of its own accord but as its Prototype moves or inclines but always moves with it Thus we say the Lord Christ the Image of the invisible God is immediately and instantly affected together with his Father Does the Father will any thing the Son also who is in the Father knows the Father's Will or rather is the Father's Will Whether this be not the Dean's mutual Consciousness which must of necessity be between a living Image and its Prototype or that whereof it is the Image and is the most natural and inseparable Union of all let any Man judge It were easie to fill the Margin with such Quotations as these as you who are conversant in the Fathers very well know but I shall only farther observe at present that the Fathers made use of this Notion of the Son 's being the living Image of God his Father both in their Disputes against the Arians and Sabellians They proved from hence against the Arians that the Son was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same Nature with his Father which is a plain and necessary Consequence and needs no proof for if the Father and the Son be the same as a Prototype and his Image there can be no Diversity of Nature between them Thus St. Hilary St. Basil St. Cyril St. Ambrose St. Athanasius Greg. Nyssen St. Austin and all the Fathers who were concerned in the Arian Controversie reason at large And thus they proved against the Sabellians That God was not One single Person distinguished only by Three Names because the Son is the living subsisting Image of the Father and the Image and the Prototype cannot be the same but must be Two no Man is his own Image nor is an Image the Image of it self This is so self-evident and so frequently occurs in the ancient Writers that I shall not detain you with particular Quotations at present This real distinction of Three in the same individual numerical Nature the Ancients expressed by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the same One individual Nature subsists thrice in Three real Subsistences not by multiplying but only by repeating it self As a Man and his living Image would be Two real Subsistences but not Two Men nor Two Humane Natures but the same Man and the same Nature subsisting twice in Two different manners not like Two Men but as the Prototype and the Image which are really and distinctly Two and yet but One Man Thus Father Son and Holy Ghost are really Three but have the same individual Nature and are the same One God and differ only in their manner of subsisting That the same Divine Nature subsists originally in the Father and subsists again in the Son as in a living Image of the Father and subsists a third time in the Holy Ghost by an eternal Procession from Father and Son in eternal living substantial Love In this Sence the Ancients understood the Word Subsistence not in the Abstract as some modern School-men do and as the Animadverter seems to do if I understand him or he understands himself but in the Concrete for that which does really and actually subsist which does éxstare and is called by them Extantia and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this is very intelligible that there are Three real Subsistences or Three that really subsist in the numerical and individual Unity of the Divine Nature But to talk of Three Subsistences in the abstract without Three that subsist or of One single Nature which has Three Subsistences when it is impossible that in Singularity there can be more than One Subsistence is too fine and metaphysical for me and I envy no Man that can understand it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Greeks is res subsistens substantiva as Petavius proves a subsisting and substantial thing And St. Ambrose abhors the thoughts that the Son should not be a Substantial Son who gives Substance to other things Non esse filium insubstantivum qui aliis dedit habere substantiam And Facundus tells us that these Words Person and Subsistence were used by the Fathers in opposition to the Sabellian Heresie and therefore must signifie Three that did really and substantially subsist as St. Hilary teaches Non unum esse subsistentem sed unam substantiam non differentem That there is not One who subsists but One Substance without any diversity that is in three different Subsistencies There could not have been more proper Words thought on to represent a Trinity in Unity than Three Subsistencies in One individual Nature which differ in nothing from each other but in their different manner of Subsistence For it is certain here are Three different kinds of Subsistence which are not to be found in any One thing in the World besides Nothing else has any more than one real Subsistence for every Being in Nature besides is singular or has but One single Subsistence Every Man and Angel is a single particular Creature subsists singly and separately by it self and is singly One but if there be a Trinity in Unity the same Divine Nature must subsist wholly entirely and substantially in Three but in a different manner to make them Three And it is as certain that the Father and

antecedent causal influxes on the Divine Nature to constitute the Being or the Unity of it He pretends to no such Knowledge of Created Nature much less of an eternal self-originated simple uncompounded Nature It contents him to know what is essential not absolutely to the Unity of the Divine Nature but to the Unity in Trinity and if Mutual-consciousness be essential to this Unity that the Three Divine Persons are thus united and cannot be One without it he will contend no farther with any Man about it And it is certain This is essential to his Notion of an identical and numerical Unity of Nature in the Divine Persons when the same individual Nature is repeated in its living Image for it is essential to the Notion of a living Image not only perfectly to represent the Nature but to feel all the Motions of the Prototype to live and move and act with it as the Face in the Glass answers all the Features and Motions of the Face it represents But the Animadverter mistakes the whole Matter as is evident from what follows The Divine Nature or Essence being one and the same in all the Three Persons there is upon this account one and the same Knowledge in them also and they are not One in Nature by Vertue of their Mutual-Consciousness but are therefore mutually-conscious because the perfect Unity and Identity of their Nature makes them so If by one and the same Knowledge he means knowing the same things this I grant is owing to the Sameness of Nature but is not Mutual-consciousness for Three Persons who have the same Nature may know the same things without feeling each others Thoughts and Knowledge in themselves If by one and the same Knowledge he means That the Knowledge of the Divine Nature in Three Persons is but One individual Act as the Knowledge of One single Person is this destroys the distinction of Persons which cannot be distinct without distinct personal Acts as Knowledge is and destroys Mutual-consciousness for there is no place for Mutual-consciousness or Mutual-Knowledge where there is but One single Act of Knowledge If by one and the same Knowledge he means what Gregory Nyssen calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One motion and disposition of the good will which passes through the whole Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any distance of time or propagating the Motion from one to t'other but is distinctly in them all by one Sensation like One Thought in One numerical Mind this is that very Mutual-consciousness the Dean means and is essential not to the Unity of the Divine Nature absolutely considered but as repeated in its Image Three such distinct Subsistences of the same individual Nature are by Mutual-consciousness essentially One and thus he may take his Risibility again for he is undone if he parts with it 3. Arg. To affirm Mutual-consciousness to be the cause of the Union of the Three Divine Persons in the same Nature is to confound the Union and Communion of the said Persons together To affirm That the Three Divine Persons are essentially One by Mutual-consciousness is not to affirm that Mutual-consciousness is the Cause of the Union but that Persons thus united whatever makes this Union are essentially One The Union of the Father and Son in the same Nature is by eternal Generation or the Father's begetting a Son in his own Likeness not without but within himself and the Union of the Holy Ghost with Father and Son is by his eternal Procession from Father and Son without Separation or going out of either but this In-being of these Divine Persons in each other is their Mutual-consciousness for they are in one another as Minds not as Bodies and we know no other natural Union or In being of Minds but this natural intimate Consciousness to each other But his Argument consists in confounding the Union and Communion of these Divine Persons for it seems their Communion consists in this Mutual-consciousness and if their Union consists in it too then their Union and Communion is the same And what if it be Can he tell of any Communion between Persons essentially One excepting such personal Acts as are peculiarly ascribed to each in the Oeconomy of our Salvation which are not the Communion of Mutual-consciousness distinct from their essential Unity In separate Persons who have no natural Union Unity and Communion are Two things for where there is no natural Union Communion can only signifie a Moral or Political Union but all Communion is Union and where the Union is natural Union and Communion must be the same For Persons which are essentially One which is the most perfect Union can admit of no lower Degrees of Union which are only Imitations of Nature to supply the want of natural Unity So that the Animadverter has unawares proved the essential Union of the Divine Persons to consist in Mutual-consciousness for if their Communion consists in it as he grants then their Union must But he has made a very false Representation both of Mutual-consciousness and of the Communion of the Divine Persons with each other For to prove Mutual-consciousness to be Communion he says That all Acts of several Persons upon one another as all that are Mutual must be are properly Acts of Communion by which the said Persons have an Intercourse amongst themselves as acting interchangeably one upon the other which may be true of separate Persons and of all other Mutual Acts excepting Mutual-consciousness But Persons though distinct yet not separate but essentially One by Mutual-consciousness do not act upon each other which must signifie an external Impression which one Person makes upon the other and that supposes them to be separate Persons but see and know and feel each other in themselves as every single individual Mind feels its own Thoughts and Passions Had the Dean made such a Separation between the Divine Persons as this loose Description of Communion infers what tragical Exclamations should we have heard But this severe Censurer of other Men ought to have been more cautious than to have said That all Acts of several Persons upon one another are Acts of Communion which makes Boys in a State of Communion with each other at Boxing and a match at Scolding another State of Communion that had the Dean but been pleased to have returned Mutual Acts he and the Animadverter might long before this have been in very strict Communion with each other After all this huffing and swaggering this notable Dispute issues in a meer Metaphysical Subtlety about the natural Order of our Conceptions of things The Animadverter grants all that the Dean says and all that he has need to say in order to form a Notion of a Trinity in Unity In the Dispute about Self-consciousness he no where denies but in all his Arguments supposes that every individual Person has a Self-consciousness of its own and that every such Self-conscious Person is thereby one with it self and distinguish'd