Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	ghost_n	holy_a	spirit_n	3,926	5	5.5026	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60380	The judgment of the fathers concerning the doctrine of the Trinity opposed to Dr. G. Bull's Defence of the Nicene faith : Part I. The doctrine of the Catholick Church, during the first 150 years of Christianity, and the explication of the unity of God (in a Trinity of Divine Persons) by some of the following fathers, considered.	Smalbroke, Thomas.; Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.	1695 (1695)	Wing S4000; ESTC R21143	74,384	80

are propagated from him But they can never answer either why the Father should propagate from himself only two Spirits as perfect as himself or why seeing those two are as perfect as he they also should not generate their like If the two propagated Persons and Spirits cannot generate their like they are not such perfect Beings as the Father is and consequently are neither Gods nor absolutely perfect Spirits If it be said only they will not generate their like because three absolutely perfect Spirits are enough 't is not only frivolous but silly for if three perfect Spirits are more desirable by one another or more necessary to the World than one such Spirit or Mind by an unavoidable Parity of Reason seven or ten Spirits and Minds that are all-sufficient and absolutely perfect must be more desirable and more requisite to the World than Three Again It was Aristotle that observed and 't is an Observation worthy of so great a Man that the Unity of God is discernable in the Constitution and Frame of the World For such is the Uniformity and good Order of the whole and all the Parts both in their Qualities and Motions so manifestly tend to one and the same End namely the Service of Man and the Conservation of the World it self in its present State moreover these Parts continue in their first Motion and Course so stedfastly and invariably that it appears they were contrived and are regulated not by more Gods Makers or Almighty Spirits but by one only Law and Mind Last of all that there is an all-wise God we prove beyond Contradiction by that perpetual Wisdom Contrivance and good Sense which is seen in the Whole and the Parts of the World and which must be previous to the World and its Parts else how came blind unthinking Matter into such a wise Order But we have no manner of Proof not the least Intimation that there are more such Gods as undoubtedly there would be both in Nature and by Revelation if indeed there were more such These Reasons have always perswaded all Philosophers and Divines that there is but one supreme and infinite God and they proceed as directly against more infinite all-perfect and creating Spirits or Minds as against more Gods In very deed there never was any Philosopher that made any Distinction between three Gods and three infinite Minds and Spirits he would have been esteemed not in his right Senses by the Philosophers who should talk of one God and three infinite all-perfect Spirits with them one God and one all-perfect Spirit were convertible Terms and used for each other and indeed they ever will be by all that consider what they say But Dr. Bull and the Fathers whom he follows are perswaded that tho all Nature and Reason are against it yet 't is a Divine Revelation that there are three infinite intellectual Substances three all-perfect Spirits three all-sufficient Minds and that they may be said to be but one God on the Accounts before-given and which I will now examine He and his Fathers say 1. The second and third Minds are originated from the first the Son and Spirit have their Being Life and Godhead from the Father therefore they are one God with him There never was a more absurd thing said by Men. They pretend to prove the Unity or declare the Unity by what is the first Cause of Distinction Diversity and separate Existence God the Son and God the Holy Ghost are propagated from God the Father therefore they are one God with him no Friends no therefore they are separate Beings and distinct Gods from him as distinct and separate as Cause and Effect can be which is the very first of Distinctions and the Ground and Reason of all subsequent Distinction And what kind of God have these Gentlemen devised A God who is in one part of his Composition in that part which they call the Father unoriginated but in his two other Parts the Son and Spirit not only originated as to his Godhead but as to his very Being and Life To say as Dr. Bull and the Fathers do that the Son and Spirit have their Being Life and Godhead from the Father or are originated in respect of all these from the Father implies that they differ from the Father as prior and posterior former and latter for the originated Spirits or Parts of God must of necessity be posterior latter or postnate to that Spirit or part of him from which they are originated the very term Origination is a Confession of a natural Posteriority which cannot be in God To grant to our Opposers that Distinction of theirs prior in Nature and prior in Time they cannot thereby secure their Cause for if the Son and Spirit are originated as to their Substance Being Life and Godhead from the Father they are posterior in Nature to him and therefore can neither be God nor essential Parts of him Posterior in Nature or postnate is as incompatible to God as posterior in Time for it implies an Accession to him and a Change in him If there be something in God that is posterior in Nature to something else in God then the whole of God is not connate there has been a Change and Accession in him which because our Opposers dare not say neither ought they to say the other namely that there is somewhat in God that is posterior in Nature to somewhat else in him and yet to give up that they know is to give up their Cause But themselves that they may not seem stark Fools take notice that if to be originated from the Father will make the Son and Spirit to be one God with the Father the whole Creation the very vilest parts of it shall be one God with him because they are originated from him that is they give up this first Solution or Explication of the Unity and they alledg in the next Place after this manner 2. We do not affirm that bare Origination from God can make the Persons so originated to be one God with him but only when they are so originated from God as to have the same specifick Substance and Properties that he hath that is when the originated Persons have like him immortal unchangable Substances and are omniscient omnipotent and the rest that God is As who should say we make it out that three infinite Spirits are but one God by increasing their first Distinction and Diversity They were sufficiently three Gods by the Origination of the second and third from the first but we will more ascertain them to be so by the Multiplication of Substances and specifick Properties I ask what is it that constitutes or essentiates a God is it not this That we suppose a spiritual Substance that is immortal and unchangable and has the Divine Properties of Omniscience and Omnipotence If so then by supposing more such Substances with such Properties belonging to them we do not suppose one God but three In short I say

incontestably it is that the Fathers believed the three Divine Persons to be so many distinct spiritual Substances in Number it will be controverted by no Body that they are also in the Judgment of the Fathers distinct Minds and Spirits Secondly But as I said the before-mentioned Explications of the Unity of God or how the three Divine Persons are yet but one God are another and an invincible Declaration that they held the said Persons are three Minds Spirits and Substances If the Fathers had held that the three Persons are but one only numerical Substance one infinite Spirit one omniscient Mind and Energy and that they are called Persons only because the one numerical Substance subsists in three Modes that is after three several manners I say if this had been the Opinion of the Fathers the Question would not have been how the three Persons can be but one God but how they can be called Hypostases or Persons As at this day no Man is so foolish as to charge the Nominal Trinitarians with Tritheism or holding three Gods but only with Gotham Philosophy and Divinity in calling Modes or a Substance subsisting after three manners Persons when it is so obvious that Modes are not Persons but certain Affections and accidental Denominations belonging to Persons The Fathers would never have troubled themselves nor would any ever have objected it to them or demanded it of them how they could say there is but one God if the three Persons by them so called were but one numerical Substance subsisting three manner of ways or in three relative Modes all the Question as I said would have been what they meant by this Gibberish subsisting in three Modes or three manner of ways What Occasion was there for the Fathers to tell us the three Divine Persons may be called one God because the Son and Spirit are originated from the Father are like to him in all Divine Properties and subsist in him what need I say was there of these Excuses or how are they possibly applicable to the three Divine Persons if the Persons were not taken to be so many Spirits Minds and Substances but only a threefold manner of Subsistence of the same numerical Substance Mind and Spirit I omit for the present a great deal that might be farther said on this Subject because when the Nominal Trinitarians have called till they are hoarse weary and asham'd to Universities and Bishops to espouse their Cause and to censure the real Trinitarians after all the very Names by which the three Divine Persons are called a Father his Son an Holy Spirit distinct from both do so manifestly imply those Persons to be distinct Beings Substances Minds and Spirits and not Modes or Relations only of the self same numerical Being and Spirit that it will always be carried against them by the Majority of considering Divines All their Appeals notwithstanding it will not be long e're they are told by their Superiors in the Church that 't is expedient for them to be quiet left themselves be censured as Sabellians or as we now speak Unitarians To sum up all I say the Fathers beld that the three Divine Persons are three distinct spiritual intellectual Substances three Minds three Spirits this appears say I farther by their Explications of the word Consubstantial by their Answers to this Question how three such Persons can be but one God and by the Terms which they use concerning the three Persons a Father his Son a Spirit distinct from both These things being I suppose sufficiently establish'd we may rely on it that Dr. Bull will not deny that I have truly reported what the Fathers the Post-nicene Fathers say I but Dr. Bull says all the Fathers held both concerning the three Divine Persons and how we must understand them to be but one God Therefore now I will examine his whole Hypothesis it hath these Parts 1. There are three Divine Hypostases or intellectual Substances three ommscient almighty Minds and Spirits each of these has all Divine Perfections and is singly and by himself a most compleat and perfect God 2. Yet doth not this contradict that most great and indisputable Truth visible in the Works of Creation and ascertained by Revelation of holy Scripture that there is but one God because of the three Divine Hypostases and Spirits before described the second and third are originated from the first have the same Nature and Properties that he has and are propagated from him by an internal Production so that they are always inseparably in him and he in them by a mutual Pervasion Immeation or Penetration There is no necessity that I should concern my self against the first of these Propositions for if I disprove the second the first will fall of it self if three Hypostases or Spirits cannot be one God this sort of Trinitarians must either give up their three distinct Substances their three Minds and Spirits or openly profess that they believe three Gods Notwithstanding it will not be amiss or besides our Purpose if we show these Gentlemen that whatever Arguments militate against a Plurality of Gods prove also no less effectually and directly that there can be but one Divine intellectual Substance but one infinite Spirit and Mind How do Philosophers and Divines establish the Unity of God or that there neither is nor can be more than one God They say all Plurality of Beings of the same kind and sort is from the Imbecillity Weakness and Unsufficiency in some respect or other of those Beings for if a Being be absolutely perfect infinite in all Perfections all-sufficient for it self and for the Beings to which it relates there is no need that it should be multiplied or be more than one We see say they that all Nature has nothing that is superfluous nothing in vain where-ever one of the sort is sufficient as one Sun and such like the Individuals of that kind never proceed beyond Unity But the Divine Nature as the most excellent of all will much more exclude all Multiplicity more Infinites more All sufficients would be such an impertinent Repetition so altogether vain and to no purpose that we cannot think of it without immediately rejecting it This is the first Argument used by Philosophers to prove the Unity of God no Body will contest it that it equally proves but one infinite Spirit one all-sufficient Mind one absolutely perfect Being They say again it implies a Contradiction that there should be more than one all-sufficient God Mind or Spirit because such a Supposition pretends to make an infinite Addition of the same kind to what is already infinite and to increase All-sufficiency And if there are more Gods or more Minds and Spirits infinite in their Perfections either they are all of them unoriginated or one only is unoriginated and the rest are derived from him by Generation or Creation The Trinitarians with whom we have now to do answer that only one the Father is unoriginated the other Persons