Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A40441
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A dialogue by way of question and answer concerning the deity all the responses being taken verbatim out of the Scriptures.
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Freke, William, 1662-1744.; Freke, William, 1662-1744. A brief but clear confutation of the doctrine of the trinity.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing F2163; ESTC R30389
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26,997
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16
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shall come but I will shew thee that which is noted in the Scripture of truth and there is none that holdeth with me in these things but Michael your Prince Dan. 12.1 And at that time shall Michael stand up the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a Nation even to that same time and at that time thy people shall be deliver'd every one that shall be found written in the book Q. 35. I shall trouble you but with two or three Questions more pray acquaint me whether Christ died for a Universal Redemption or not That is did he die to Reconcile us all to GOD And was his Death for others as well as Christians A. 1 John 2.1 2. My little Children these things write I unto you that ye sin not and if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world Heb. 9.12 Neither by the blood of goats and calves but by his own blood he enter'd in once into the holy place having obtain'd eternal Redemption for us 25 26 Verses nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high-priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world but now once in the end of the world hath he appear'd to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself Q. 36. Pray then acquaint me also whether the Scripture assures us of any safety in natural Religion where a Man has never been able to come to hear of Christ A. John 9.41 Jesus saith unto them if ye were blind ye would have no sin but now ye say we see therefore your sin remaineth James 4.17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doth it not to him it is sin Rom. 2.14 15. For when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law these having not the law are a law in themselves which shew the work of the law written in their hearts their conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another c. Q. 37. But do not the Scriptures threaten the wilfully ignorant A. Hos 4.6 My people are destroy'd for lack of knowledge because thou hast rejected knowledge I will also reject thee that thou shalt be no Priest to me seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy GOD I will also forget thy children FINIS A Brief but Clear CONFUTATION of the Doctrine of the TRINITY I. SUrely if God gave Man his Reason to serve him or if a Religious Enquiry be any end of our Being this Controversie deserves the greatest of our Care and the strictest Scrutiny For what shall we slightly transfer the Honour of God to his Creatures and think to go unpunished Shall we thwart the very design of our Creation and yet after all not imagine that 't is a Controversie worth examining Nay or if we believe but our own Scriptures can we slightly entertain a breach of the first and greatest Commandment as Christ calls it and be guiltless Shall God himself tell us in Jealousie That none other shall be worshipped but himself Nay shall God destroy whole Nations for Idolatry and the Holy Ghost reckon Idolatry with Whoredom and Sorcery Rev. 21.8 and yet we not tremble at the very Thoughts of such an high Treason against the Infinite Majesty of God But forsooth we must not name the word Idolat y 't is not grateful nor genteel you say in Controversie And what must I not rub my Friends Nose in a Sound or Lethargy because 't is an Affront when he is well Nay and may I not follow the Holy Ghost in this case who has commanded our denouncing Idolatry against Antichrist as a Sin that not only offends God but has corrupted our Christian as well as the Heathen Morals And what are we not all on Fire in our Zeal then on the least Apprehension of such a Guilt Or what can we bear such a Charge as this with any thing like Moderation In plain terms either Christ and the Holy Ghost are Creatures or the real supream God If Creatures 't is plain 't is as much Idolatry to worship an Angel as a Worm and how glorious soever God has made them we are mad-men to think he has set them up in rivalry with himself when he has absolutely declared that he will not impart with his Glory to another And these things therefore duly considered methinks I have little reason to trouble my self further to shew that the Design of this Paper is considerable and that 〈…〉 every Man's Duty impartially to con 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ says that he that is not for us is against us and if he judges right the Luke-warm's as bad as the Reprobate and he that buries his Talents as bad as he that abuses them II. But good God! what do I propose I endeavour to shew that the Divinity attributed to the Son and Holy Ghost is both unscriptural and Idolatrous and an Injustice to the Father But I forget that I write to Men that dare not even by Principle regard me I 'le maintain to scruple Purgatory and Transubstantiation of old was never more dreadful to the blind Papists than but to think of this Mystery is to our present Protestants Strange Infatuation that Priests should as it were thus eternize their Tyranny over us and we should never dare to look out of it Christ purposely as it were condemns him that had one Talent for burying it to shew us that not the least Abilities ought to rest idle on others And we Protestants by our very Name profess our selves such as will not hearken to a confident corrupt Church and now what at last must we degenerate and apostatize from our Profession Nay the Apostles call'd even the Bereans Noble for not taking things in trust from themselves and a Prophet of old was torn in pieces by a Lyon for hearkning to another Prophet because it was wilfully to his deceit but with us alas it begins to be a Merit again to believe as the Church believes Forsooth these things are too high for me says one Says another I 'll follow Dr. such an one he is a learned Man And what was it not said of Christ of old Have any of the Scribes and Pharisees believed on him In plain terms he that will rely on Learned Men and on prospect of Arguments not in his present reach or capacity to search or enquire has fortify'd himself against all the Powers of Truth or Conviction Nay and what says the Apostle in this case Does he not tell us That not many wise not many learned c. are accepted 1 Cor. 1.20 to shew us plainly that 't is neither the Great nor
Body at 20 we see manifestly is not the same as it is at 30 and yet we say that 't is properly enough the same to most purposes And why then also might not the whole Doctrine be true by the same reason according to John the 6th c But what Is there any such Apology as this in nature for the Contradictions of the Trinity But good God then that in the mean while we should thus embrace even the worst of Popish Errours and out-do even the Deliriums of the Heathens But what while we do thus can we think that God will either prosper us or our Popish Reformation What Can we be so presumptuous as to continue in the very sink of Errours and that to the highest Dishonour of God and yet expect his Favour and Protection VI. Nor is this Doctrine one jot less absurd when examined more particularly than when thus in the gross And thus First with relation to the Son Bless me What a number of Absurdities quite drown his absolute and coequal Divinity with the Father What God himself must die to satisfie his own Justice to himself and that only because we have offended him Bless me What a notion we have of God's Justice and so that the Infinite and Immortal God could become incarnate grow in Wisdom and suffer nay and cry out unto himself upon the Cross My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Yes yes Infinity could become a Babe Wisdom it Child and God impotent Nay surely Elijah was a vile and wretched Blasphemer to mock the Baalites as he did when he said their God was either walking talking or gone a Journey What Can we suppose that that great Prophet who was afterwards translated did not know that God himself was afterwards to become incarnate But what Did only the Man die Was only the Man tempted Christ then was but inhabited by the Godhead and when the Man was in his Streights God left him to comfort himself but where is the room for the Merits and Sufferings of the Godhead then So you say Christ liv'd and suffer'd as our Example Alas What Affinity for God to be a Pattern for Man What Is there any Parity in their Natures But no 't was not the Godhead that was tempted or suffered some say But why then is the Merits of it charged unjustly upon the Godhead when it belongs to the Man only So also sometimes by a kind of Ventriloquy they make Christ as God to be able to tell us all things but by and by again as as Man they attribute Ignorance to him So sometimes again they make him omnipotent and yet by and by again Hocus Focus we must have an Angel to comfort him against his Sufferings Good God! shall we never be delivered from these Labyrinths So also they tell us that Christ for his Sufferings is made our Mediator But what Is that an Honour for a coequal God 1 Cor. 15.28 And so that all Power in Heaven and Earth was given him on his Death But what Could he then be a coequal God before Or what Was such Power given to his Manhood only Nay and do not the Scriptures also assure us that the Son as God yet even as such has the Father as his God Heb. 1. and that even the Revelations he gave St. John he had from the Father Rev. 11. But alas our Trinitarians forsooth will not own that we honour Christ at all unless we hairbrainly equal him with them to the Father VII But now as for the pretended Deity of the Holy Ghost there there can be no such Shuffle and Apology as the Incarnation occasions for the Son and yet think you that our Trinitarians for all that cannot wire-draw the manifest Inferiority of that Holy Being also quite up to a Coequality with the Father Thus he that is not once called God in Scripture nor once order'd to be worship'd is it likely that he should be our one and only adorable Supream God And is not this true of the Holy Ghost And yet for all this do they not equal him to the Father So also he that has an Understanding distinct from God can he be God himself 1 Cor. 2.10 Or a Will distinct can he be God Rom. 8.26 27. And what then Would not these Reasonings make a man protest with the Holy Ghost that surely these men have Eyes and see not and Ears and hear not But to proceed the Holy Ghost prays to another how can he then be God Rev. 22.17 Matth. 10.20 Rom. 8.15.26 So he that men have not known much less believed and yet have been Disciples can he be God And are we not told this of the Holy Ghost in the Acts of the Apostles So also he that is sent by God and is his Gift John 16.7 Acts 12.17 1 Pet. 1.12 can he be that God giving and sending also Surely I may say that these bundles of Incongruities have so quite confounded our Trinitarians that they know not how to reason at all in the matter or their Enemy has a most peculiar Charm over them to with hold them from Truth against all the powers of Reasoning So he that receives from another or changes place cannot be God And does not this appear of the Holy Ghost by John 16 14 And his descending on Christ like a Dove and so also he that speaks not of himself can he be God And does not the Holy Ghost appear to receive what he shall speak by the whole course of Scriptures John 16.13 But good God then that Men can seign such Epicles in Theology on any pretence as that the all-wise and immutable God should be taught and truckle thus VIII Nor are these few only a small number of Consequences drawn from Reasoning Alas this Doctrine is as unscriptural as absurd The expressest Text of the Father is the first Commandment of the Son Heb. cap. 1. and of the Holy Ghost John 16.12 c. But surely those are all as contrary and remote from a coequal and independent Trinity in Unity as Light from Darkness Or if Men were otherwise minded to controvert this Doctrine by the whole Scriptures I say let them but do it fairly and have at them By wresting little single Scraps indeed the Trinitarians seem as if they had something to plead for themselves but when I have gather'd but all the Texts of a Subject together methinks nothing possibly can look more unscriptural Nay and 't is pleasant to observe how the Trinitarians even confound one another about this matter Forsooth for all this Creed is such an infallible Thunderer yet Dr. W. dares be so bold as to clip the Wings of its Damnatory Sentences and Dr. S. with the Greek Church to deny the Filioque I thought that this rare Contexture was all of a piece But I find for their turns even our very Adversaries can shew I am mistaken To be short the three grand Foundations of this Doctrine are the Eternal Generation the Procession