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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	father_n	person_n	son_n	3,185	5	5.8825	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52608	Considerations on the explications of the doctrine of the Trinity by Dr. Wallis, Dr. Sherlock, Dr. S-th, Dr. Cudworth, and Mr. Hooker as also on the account given by those that say the Trinity is an unconceivable and inexplicable mystery / written to a person of quality.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.; Wallis, John, 1616-1703.; Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1693 (1693)	Wing N1505B; ESTC R32239	45,913	35

to deny that the Fathers ever held more than one Divine Essence or Substance but I have shown before the Ground of that gross and I doubt not wilful Mistake of the Doctrine of the Fathers But Dr. Cudworth thought that he had found an Expedient how he might keep sincerely to the Fathers and yet not be guilty of Tritheism for saith he tho there are three distinct Divine Essences or Substances vulgarly called Persons yet the second and third Persons or Essences are derived from the first and they all concur to the same Actions under the same Head or Principal even the Father Therefore 2. To that the second and third Persons are derived from the Father as their Fountain and Cause therefore they may be reckned as one God with him Here begins the Controversy between the Socinians and the Doctor They grant that every distinct Person is a distinct and particular Essence or Substance but they deny that three distinct Divine Essences can be understood to be one God Unity of Original or that the second and third Persons are derived from the first will not help the Doctor no not in the least The three Divine Essences which are called Persons are one God saith this Doctor because the second and third are derived from the first Why doth he not say too that three Human Essences or Persons whereof the second and third derive themselves from the first are one Man He may as well say this and as soon perswade it as the former the Son and Grandson derive themselves from a first Human Essence or Person called the Grandfather two Brothers derive themselves from their common Father Doth this Unity of Original make them all to be but one Man If not neither can Unity of Original make the Son and Spirit one God with their Fountain and Cause even the Father It is a reasoning altogether unworthy of Dr. Cudworth the Son and Spirit are particular Substances or Essences derived from the Essence of the Father as their Principle or Cause therefore they are one God with the Father for then all Angels all Men nay and all Beasts shall be one God with the Father who is their Cause and Principle Unity of Original is so far from proving that they are one God with him that it even demonstrates the very contrary for if they are derived from the one true God they themselves cannot be that one true God no more than the Effect can be the Cause that very Cause whose Effect it is These Arguments are so clear and withal so very obvious that I wonder much that Dr. Cudworth foresaw them not but it may be he foresaw them but thought withal that even all these Consequences are better than to admit such a Monstrosity in Philosophy as three Persons having only one self-same Substance in Number All things how hard soever would go down with him but only that but that can never be agreed to by a Philosopher 3. His last Subterfuge was this the three Divine Essences called Persons are but one God because they concur to all the same Actions of Creation and Providence under one Head the Father who only is Almighty ad intra or really Almighty How many Rarities hath he boxed up in a very little compass 1. Here is one Almighty who together with two other Persons is one God I would know how two other Persons can contribute to make him a perfect God who without them is Almighty The Scale is already full if Almightiness be there we need no more Weight and least of all the Weight of two Impotents If the Son and Spirit are not Almighty ad intra or not really Almighty but only as the Father Omnipotently concurs with them they are Impotent for every Person and Thing that is not Almighty or cannot do all things is impotent to some things Dr. Cudworth being so accurate a Philosopher saw evidently that three Almighty Persons are of necessity three Gods therefore he will admit of but one Almighty Person even the Father But then he should have look'd a little further or closer and he would also have seen that when he had found one Almighty there was no need to add to him two Impotents to make him a compleat God or as he speaks to make up the Intireness of the Divinity 2. 'T is altogether as rare strange and surprizing that the Son and Spirit are one God with the Father because they are gathered under him as their Head and Principal Doth not the Doctor prevaricate doth he not say these things only to establish Unitarianism so much the more strongly For if you say first that the Father is the Head and Principal and the Son and Spirit are subjected to him and then therefore they are one God with the Father their Principal and Head this in a Man of so great Sense looks like meer Prevarication for 't is plain to all that he should have inferred the contrary namely therefore only the Father is God We shall see the Weakness of Dr. Cudworth's Reasoning so soon as ever we apply it to any other Instances The Son and Spirit are one God with the Father saith he because he is their Head and Principal therefore say I the Servants and their Master the Subjects and their Prince the Children and their Parent are all one Governour because the Subjects Servants and Children are gathered under their Prince their Master and Parent as their Principal and Head Will the Doctor allow of this last Consequence if not he vainly urges or insists on the other 3. But the Son and Spirit concur with the Father to all the same Actions both of Creation and Providence and therefore may be said to be one God with him If the Doctor could prove that the Son and Spirit concur to the same Acts of Providence and Creation with the Father he would thereby prove that there are three Gods not that the concurring Persons are one God Many Carpenters for instance concur to make a Ship under one Head or Principal the Master-Builder Many Colonels and Captains concur to the marshaling of an Army under one Principal and Head their General Are therefore all these Carpenters Colonels and Captains one Master-Builder and one General That there is but one Master-Builder and but one General we grant but the Captains and Carpenters concurring with their Master-Builder and General are not one with the General and Master-Builder I do not think it necessary to make any further Reflections on such impotent Reasonings I will leave it with you Sir to judg Whether Dr. Cudworth hath given any new Strength to the Trinitarian Cause by reviving an old forsaken Explication If we will give a Name to Dr. Cudworth's Explication of the Trinity we must call it Mollis Arianismus a moderate Arianism The Arians were divided into two Parties the high or rigid Arians and the Ariani Molles or the moderate Arians The former of these being the Eunomians and AEtians strictly followed Arius they

believed that the Son was created by the Father or God but a little before the Creation of the World and that the Spirit was the Work or Creature of the Son and further that their Substances or Essences were altogether unlike from whence they were also called Heterousians But the moderate Arians were content to say that there was no conceivable Duration or Time between the Being of God or the Father and the Generation or Creation for those are with them equivalent Terms of the Son the Father made or generated the Son so early that there was no conceivable Portion of Time before the Son was no more than was absolutely necessary for giving to the Father the Priority of Existence and his Title of Father and as to their Substances they are Consubstantial by which this sort of Arians meant and the Church then meant no more that their Substances or Essences are alike or the same for Kind and Properties tho not in Number that is the Essences of these three Persons are all of them Spiritual Eternal and Infinite tho only the Father is Infinite in Power These moderate Arians were received to Communion by the moderate Trinitarians and particularly by Pope Liberius Dr. Cudworth holdeth their very Doctrine he alloweth only the Father to be Omnipotent and tho he saith that the Son and Spirit are also Eternal yet he cannot deny that there must be some Priority of the Father as the Fountain Principle and Cause before the Son and Spirit as Effects In a word the moderate Arians ascribed as much to the Son as Dr. Cudworth doth Were Dr. Cudworth alive it would not be expedient to make this Judgment of his Explication but being dead it cannot hurt him He is retired to the true Mount Moriah or Land of Vision where he no longer guesses by prudent and wary Conjectures but he knows and even sees how these things are God and Nature after which he enquired with so much Application and Freedom are now known to him and he now rests from his excellent Labours out of all danger from the Malevolence of the present evil Generation with whom 't is a Crime not to take every thing upon Trust on the meer Credit of those who have been before us As if it were the way to Truth not to enquire but to believe not to examine try and judg but to pre-suppose and take for granted every thing that has been told us by Men in Power and Place This is the Spirit that now prevails in the Church and on the contrary an ingenuous Freedom in enquiring and examining tho it be nothing else indeed but an honest and necessary Sincerity is now called Heresy and Schism and is if you 'll believe them to be punish'd with certain Damnation We have however in the mean time this Satisfaction that it is God who shall at last judg us He that hath said to us Try all things hold fast that which is good But I pass to the Trinity according to Aristotle defended by Dr. S th Of the Explication by Dr. S th I Have already done Right to Dr. S th and his Book if he takes it amiss that I observe also some Defects in it he ought to show his Patent by which he is constituted the only Animadverter on the Books of others If he hath received any Personal Wrong or Affront from Dr. Sherlock he is the more excusable that his Book hath so much more Scurrility than Argument but the Injury must have been very great to excuse him wholly He has noted some Errors either of Inadvertency and Haste or of the Pen in some Expressions and Words used by Dr. Sherlock he imputes all these as faults of meer Ignorance or Dulness to the Doctor This was somewhat barbarous nay it was more Barbarity in Point of Morality or Manners than ever Dr. Sherlock was guilty of in Grammar or Speech Dr. S th will not at least has not yet been able to perswade many that Dr. Sherlock wants the Qualifications or the degree of the Qualifications for which Dr. S th hath deserved Esteem the World thinks there is a great deal more in Dr. Sherlock to be commended besides his Preferments it is only wished that both these Doctors had something more of the Tenderness and Catholick Charity of Genuine Christianity tho it were accompanied with lesser Abilities or Learning Dr. Sherlock hath publish'd an Essay towards vindicating and explaining the Difficulties of the Trinity and Incarnation the Method he hath taken is wholly new and is a Mistake but it was meant well and I do not think that setting aside some Authorities or Quotations Dr. S th hath said any thing against it which Dr. Sherlock will much value The Arguments used by Dr. S th are only Metaphysical Reasonings easily advanced and as easily destroyed Dr. S th's is the true Explication that is to say as Orthodoxy is reckoned since Peter Lombard and the Lateran Council but Dr. Sherlock knew it to be Nonsense and therefore adventur'd to propose another he put forth his Hand to save the tottering and falling Ark and 't is made an inexcusable Fault But I will pass from the too Cynical Doctor to his Book and Explication 'T is not till Chap. 8. that he begins to bless us with the Catholick and Orthodox Account of his Trinity in Unity but at length at Pag. 240. out comes the Secret with this Preface to it The Doctrine of the Church and of the Schools concerning the Blessed Trinity so far as I can judg but still with the humblest Submission to the Judgment of the Church of England in the Case is this Truly I am heartily sorry to hear it that Dr. S th at these Years has no fixed Religion of his own no not concerning the Trinity it self but is ready to turn with the Wind is prepared to renounce a Doctrine and Explication which he believes to be not only true but Fundamental if the Church commands him Mr. Milbourn makes the same Complement to his good Mother the Church in his late Book against the Socinians as I have noted in my Answer to him but Mr. Milbourn is somewhat excusable because he hath not yet received any of the Rewards due as he thinks to his Industry and Learning but Dr. S th is full and even overflows with the Blessings of the holy Mother It should seem Dr. S th thinketh he hath not yet enough else he would never be so over-mannerly as to put his Faith it self afloat and that too with the humblest Submission at the Command of his Reverend Mother We may infer however from these publick Professions of the Writers that could the Socinians get Mother Church of their side all her Champions would also come over to us for 't is not it seems the Cause that they defend 't is not the Trinity or Incarnation that they value but our Mother our Mother the Church If Dr. S th makes so light of his own Explication that he

the Arian Trinity is but of Persons all of them Homogenial all of them Eternal Spiritual and Uncreated They that shall deny this to be the Doctrine of the Fathers will find themselves obliged to answer to two things which are indeed fairly and truly unanswerable The first is Why those Fathers who contend for the Homo-ousios consubstantial or of the same Substance do yet expresly reject the Tauto-ousios and Mono-ousios or of the self-same Substance and Essence in Number The Tauto-ousios and Mono-ousios or of the self-same Essence or Substance in Number is the very Doctrine of the Schools and Moderns but is denied by the Fathers as meer Sabellianism which invincibly proves that by one and the same Substance and Essence they meant not one and the self-same or one in Number but one for Kind Nature or Properties Secondly They must also satisfy the Citations of D. Petavius and S. Curcellaeus and these in the Intellectual System which do all of them severally and much more conjunctly clearly show what the Sense of the Fathers was about Homo-ousios and consubstantial It appears by this and abundance more the like that Dr. Cudworth had the same Apprehensions concerning the three Divine Persons with Dr. Sherlock they both apprehend the three Persons to be as distinct and different and as really three several Intelligent Beings and Substances as three Angels are or as Peter James and John are Dr. Sherlock saith they are however called one God because they are internally conscious to all one anothers Thoughts and Actions but I do not believe that Dr. Cudworth would have allowed so much to the Son and Spirit as to be internally conscious to all the Thoughts and Actions of the first Person he always speaketh of them as every way inferior to the Father he will not allow them to be Omnipotent in any other respect but only externally that is to say because the Father concurreth Omnipotently to all their external Actions whether of Creation or Providence Dr. Cudworth desires to distinguish his Explication from all others of the Moderns by this Mark that it alloweth not the three Persons to be in any respect but Duration Co-equal for saith he three distinct Intelligent Natures or Essences each of them Pre-eternal Self-existent and equally Omnipotent ad intra are of necessity three Gods nor can we have any other Notion of three Gods but if only the first Person be indeed internally Omnipotent and the other two subordinate in Authority and Power to him you leave then but one God only in three Divine Persons This is Dr. Cudworth's Explication Every one will readily make this Exception he thinketh either that there is one Great God and two Lesser Ones or else only the first is true God and the other two in Name only The Doctor foresaw without doubt this Objection therefore see how he hath endeavour'd to prevent it First he reports some Answers of the Fathers to this Difficulty which Answers he expresly rejecteth For some of them said that the three Persons are one God by their Unity of Will and Affection Others said they are one God as all Men or all Mankind are called Homo or MAN namely because they All have the same Specifick Nature or Essence or Substance even the Rational For as all Men have the same Specifick Essence or Nature which is the Rational so the Divine Persons also agree in one Nature namely the Eternal Spiritual and Self existent But Dr. Cudworth confesseth that an Union of Will and Affection is only a Moral Union not a Physical or real Unity and as three Human Persons would be three distinct Men notwithstanding the Moral Union in Affection and Will so also the three Divine Persons will be three distinct Gods notwithstanding such an Union in Will and Affection As to the other that the three Persons are but one God by their having the same Specifick Nature or Essence or as some call it Substance namely because they are all of them Spiritual Self-existent and Coeternal he calleth it an absurd Paradox contrary to common Sense and our common Notions of things for so all Men will be but one Man because they have the same Specifick Essence or Nature namely the Rational and all Epicurus his Extramundan Gods will be but one God Then he propoundeth divers other Explications which he neither approveth nor expresly rejecteth tho 't is plain that he disliked them for the Explication on which he insisteth and which appears to be his Sense of the matter is this that follows The three Divine Persons are one God because they are not three Principles but only one the Essence of the Father being the Root and Fountain of the Son and Spirit and because the three Persons are gathered together under one Head or Chief even the Father He adds here expresly that if the Persons were Co-ordinate i. e. equal in Authority Dignity or Power they should not be one but three Gods This is at large Dr. Cudworth's Opinion the short of it is that the three Persons are as really distinct Beings Essences or Substances as Dr. Sherlock hath imagined them to be And as their Substances or Natures are not one but three so also must their Understandings and other Personal Powers and Properties The Doctors differ only in this that Dr. Sherlock maketh the Unity of the three Persons in the Godhead to consist in the Mutual-Consciousness of the Persons But Dr. Cudworth in this that the Father is both the Principle Root or Fountain or Cause and also the Head of the other two Persons They neither of them believe one Numerical but one Collective God one God not who is really one God but is one God in certain Respects as of Mutual Consciousness or of being the Cause Principle and Head of all other Beings and of the second and third Persons Dr. Cudworth contends by a great number of very Pertinent and Home Quotations that his Explication I mean that part of it which makes the three Persons to be so many distinct Essences or Substances is the Doctrine of the Principal if not of all the Fathers as well as of the Platonists and I for my own part do grant it For I am perswaded that no Man hath read the Fathers with Judgment and Application but he must discern that tho they do not express themselves in the incautelous unwary and obnoxious Terms used by Dr. Sherlock as neither doth Dr. Cudworth yet the Fathers as much believed the three Persons are distinct Minds and Spirits as Dr. Sherlock doth all the Difference as I said is only this that they and Dr. Cudworth do not use his very Terms They do not say in express words three Minds or three Spirits but the Comparisons which they use and their Definitions or Descriptions of what they mean by Persons are such that it cannot be questioned by any that they apprehended the three Persons to be three distinct Spirits Minds and Beings having each of them his own

Understanding and all other Personal Qualifications It is indeed apparent Tritheism and that was the true Reason why the Schools advanced a new Explication but because the Schools durst not find fault with the Fathers or seem to depart from their Doctrine therefore what the Father 's intended of one Specifick Essence or Nature or Substance that the Scools interpreted of one Numerical Substance Nature or Essence but of that hereafter when we examine their Doctrine in its own place Dr. Cudworth being so great a Philosopher as every one knows he was found himself very hard put to it what to say colourably and reasonably concerning the Persons of the Trinity He saw that either he must say that they are but one self-same Essence or Substance in Number or that they have distinct and several Substances or Essences To say that they are or they subsist in one self-same Substance or Essence in Number is such Jargonry in Philosophy that is to say in the Nature and Possibilities of Things that he never speaks of it without a just mark of Contempt 't is Nonsense saith he and 't is impossible and besides that 't is Sabellianism and a Trinity not of Persons but of Words and Names Well shall we say then that the three Persons are three distinct Substances is it not plain Tritheism No saith the Doctor for the Persons are not equal the Father is both the Principle or Original and the Head of the other two Persons and besides that he only is Omnipotent ad intra But then will some say indeed this Explication leaveth us but one God which is the thing we look'd after but it is by utterly abolishing the Godhead of the Son and Spirit it maketh only the Father to be really God the other two Persons are so only by a certain Dependance on him both in Origination and Acting As bad as this Consequence is and as clear Dr. Cudworth is forced to swallow it and to sit down contented with it he thought it should seem it is better somewhat to strain the use of Words than the Natures and Possibilities of Things 'T is hard indeed that we must say one Supream and two Dependent Persons make but one God but 't is harder to say three Persons have but one Substance or Essence in Number Words are Arbitrary Signs applied to things according as Men please and therefore are capable of Alteration in their Use but the Nature of Things is absolutely unchangeable three Persons can never be one Substance Essence or individual Nature No Philosophy but that of Gotham will allow that one Intelligent Substance can be more than one Person but divers Philosophers especially the Platonists have called three Distinct Intelligent Divine Substances one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one Di●inity or God therefore nothing hinders but that so also may Christians To this purpose Dr. Cudworth in divers places of his Intellectual System But it is now time to make our Observations on this Doctor 's Explication which I shall do the more carefully because I am perswaded that all the chief Fathers were in his Sentiments that the three Divine Persons are three distinct individual Substances or Essences in Number which by the Schools and all the Moderns is granted to be Tritheism and because it is evident by his Intellectual System that this Doctor understood all the Philosophies Antient and Modern in the most perfect manner and was himself one of the ablest Philosophers we have known His Explication hath these Parts 1. That the Divine Persons are one Specifick but three distinct particular individual Substances or Essences in Number or in the Reality of Things and that otherwise there could not be three Divine Persons but only one such Person 2. That three distinct individual intelligent Divine Essences or Substances commonly called Persons are yet but one God because tho they are three in Number yet they are one in Original for the second and third Persons are derived from the Father as their Fountain and Cause 3. Tho they are three Persons yet they are but one God because they concur to all the same Actions both of Creation and Providence under one Head even the Father The Emphasis of this lies in their concurring to all the same Actions but principally in this that they concur to the same Actions under one Head which is the Father 1. That the Divine Persons are three distinct particular individual Intelligent Substances Essences or Natures and that otherways that is were there but one self-same Substance or Essence in Number they should not be three Persons but only one Person I have granted that if there are three Divine Persons those Persons are of necessity three distinct individual Essences or Substances so that as to this first Proposition the Doctor and the Socinians are perfectly agreed all that we deny is that three such Essences or Persons are or can be but one God But tho the Socinians allow that three Persons must be three distinct Substances or Essences yet all the Modern Trinitarians utterly deny it the reason is because they saw plainly that to say there are three distinct Essences or Substances is to grant in effect to the Socinians what they so much contend for namely that the Doctrine of the Trinity doth imply three Gods Three distinct Divine Persons saith Dr. Cudworth are three distinct Divine Essences or Substances it is true say the Socinians and we grant this to the Doctor no say all the Modern Trinitarians three distinct Divine Essences are not only three distinct Divine Persons but they are also three distinct Gods if once we grant that the three Divine Persons are three Essences the Socinians will extort it from us as an unavoidable Consequence that we teach three Gods The Truth is since the Lateran Council which determined in favour of P. Lombard against Abbat Joachim and the Fathers that there is but one only Divine Essence or Substance in Number I do not believe there hath been any Divine of note but Dr. Cudworth and Dr. Sherlock and some few who may have borrowed it from them who durst ever publish it in Writing that there are three distinct Divine Substances Essences or Natures or that every distinct Person is a distinct Substance They all saw that so to say is to introduce three Gods for if you say there are three distinct Intelligent Almighty All-knowing and Pre-eternal Substances Essences or Natures you have actually said there are three Gods because you can possibly give no fuller nor other Description of three Gods If one All-knowing Almighty Essence or Substance is one perfect God to whom nothing at all can be added 't is no better than fooling or effrontry to deny that three such Essences or Substances are three Gods This plain and clear Reason hath constrained the School-Divines to depart from the Explication of the Fathers and has also obliged all the Moderns to follow the Schools and forsake the Fathers Yet so as out of good Manners

for the perusal of this most learned and judicious Letter which I return you and I congratulate the worthy Author whom the Divine Wisdom has made an Instrument for the vindicating of his glorious and incommunicable Attribute of Unity which he has in several Tracts even demonstrated not only by clear and express Scriptures and obvious Reason but also now at length from the Confessions of the Trinitarians themselves the Infringers of it For whilst each one condemns the several Explications of the rest as either inconsistent with the Unity or the Trinity they do all in their turns bear Witness to the Unitarians that their Opposition to the Trinitarian Doctrine is well-grounded and reasonable and consequently their Doctrine of the Unity the Truth of God For if each one of their Explications does either introduce the Worship of three Gods or the Heresy of Sabellianism as they call it the turning the Son and Holy Ghost into Names and Operations without any real Distinction of Persons or Things answering those distinct Names as it plainly appears they do then it undeniably follows there is no such Trinity as they imagine but a Numerical Unity of Person and Essence in God as the Unitarians hold and as some Trinitarians contend in their Opposition one to another It remains then that the Trinitarian Worshippers especially the common People do seriously and in the Fear of the one most High God consider what Notions Conceptions or Idea's they have of an Infinite and Almighty Holy Ghost distinct from the Almighty Father and Producer of them For they cannot possibly escape the Condemnation of one of the highest Crimes even the Worship of three Infinite Real Gods or two Imaginary Ones or two Names without Notions that is they know not what as this Author expresses it Condemnation I say not only by the Unitarians who worship the Father only as God in the highest and strictest Sense of that Term but also by all the Trinitarians that hold not the same Opinion or have not the same Notion I know the Times of Ignorance God winketh at as well now as before the preaching of the Gospel but after he has made his Unity manifest and vindicated it from the Scholastick Subtilties and absurd Distinctions that have been invented to hide the Truth he then commands all Men to whom this Evidence comes to repent Inconsideration or Negligence will not now excuse Men must not say or think as they commonly do this Point is too high for me to determine for they have already determined it whilst they profess to believe in and to worship three equal ones a Father a Son and a Spirit Neither can they alledg the Universality of the Trinitarian Faith For besides as this Author observes the worshipping of many Gods was formerly and is now far more universal we see that this Opinion and Worship which soever it be is condemned by at least four to one of those that go under that common Name of Trinitarians The rise of these divers and contrary Explications has been this as is observed by the Author in that which now obtains that Learned Men looking narrowly into former Explications have found them inconsistent with the Oneness of God and therefore have devised somewhat either more obscure that would hide the Contradiction or somewhat more consistent with the Unity tho it destroyed the Trinity or more consistent with the Trinity tho it destroys the Unity as Dr. Sherlock has done And perhaps others like him may devise other Hypotheses taking it for granted from the Prejudices of early Education and customary thinking that the Trinity is a Fundamental of Christianity But we see here they labour in vain to reconcile manifest Contradictions and in believing the Son and Holy Spirit to be equally God with the Father they offend against express Scriptures and clear Reason upon the account of their own Reasonings upon obscure Texts and therein transgress the plain Principles both of Natural Light and Revelation which require 1. That nothing be held for Truth contrary to evident and Fundamental Truth And 2. That obscure Passages are to be interpreted by clear Passages and the Current of Scripture and not otherwise The Jews walking contrary to these Principles was the cause of rejecting Christ and Christianity and it is indeed the ground of all Error whatever In vain do Men press a great many Texts that have even in the Opinion of Learned Trinitarians another meaning to prove that the Son and Holy Ghost are God till they can reconcile that Inference to plain Scripture and evident Reason In vain does the Author of The Snare broken who could not overcome the Prejudices of his Education and Converse perswade Men to lay aside their Philosophy and wholly to betake themselves to a Scriptural Consideration of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which I understand they must take the words of Scripture without understanding them or reconciling them to other Scriptures or even the Current of Scripture or common Reason Do they think that Scripture is to be interpreted contrary to it self Or that Divine Wisdom has made the Belief of Contradictions necessary to Salvation It seems strange that Christians should be very zealous in the Punctilio's of the Worship of God Ceremonies of Posture Gesture or Apparel Forms of Addresses to God the wording of Faith to an Iota and yet go on in the Worship of one God the Father and of two distinct from him God as perfectly as he and in which their Worship terminates equally with him They can love God the Father with all their Hearts and Strengths and two Persons distinct from him with the same All they can give all to one and all to another and all to a third and never question the Possibility of it as if there were a Trinity in Unity in every Man that his own Heart were three Hearts to be bestowed all and entirely upon each of three Objects and yet be but one Heart still But whither am I carried This Author needs none of my Notes or Illustrations and indeed both he and all others that have labour'd in this Controversy may surcease their Pains henceforth and leave what they have already said to the Judgment and Conscience of all considerate and sincere Men. I am Sir yours c.