Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	article_n	church_n	creed_n	2,425	5	10.1630	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59831	A modest examination of the authority and reasons of the late decree of the vice-chancellor of Oxford, and some heads of colleges and halls concerning the heresy of three distinct infinite minds in the Holy and Ever-blessed Trinity / by William Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1696 (1696)	Wing S3303; ESTC R14301	29,861	49

genuinely and inseparably of the same Nature with Father and Son All this was approved of as very Orthodox And then the Synod examined those who affirmed That there was but One Substance in the Trinity What they meant by it Whether they understood it as Sabellius did to deny the Real Subsistence of the Son and Holy Spirit to make an Unsubstantial Son and an Unsubsisting Spirit This they also denied and told the Synod that they thought Hypostasis signified the same with Ousia Essence Substance Nature And therefore they owned but one Hypostasis or Substance because the Son is of the Substance of the Father and by reason of the Identity of Nature between Father and Son for they believed but One Divinity and one Divine Nature and not one Nature of the Father and another different Nature of the Son and of the Holy Spirit This Explication also was approved by the Synod and thus this matter was reconciled Those who taught Three Substances in the Trinity and those who believed but one Substance when they had given their several Explications were both owned by the Synod and owned each other for Catholick Christians and both Condemned Arius and Sabellius though the Synod thought it better to adhere strictly to the words of the Nicene Creed but soon after they distinguished between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then Three Hypostases still in the notion of Three Substances and One Nature was the Catholick Language which St. Basil gives a large account of Ep. 300. of which more elsewhere So that Athanasius and those Glorious Confessors for the Nicene Faith in the Alexandrian Synod owned Three Substances in the very same sense in which we now use those words to contain the true Catholick Faith and if they knew what the Doctrine of the Catholick Church was our Oxford Heads are out in their guess 5. The last Charge is That Three distinct Minas and Substances is especially contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England publickly received What they may mean by publickly received I can't tell there may be some Doctrines too publickly received in the Church of England which are not the Doctrines of the Church and I doubt Sabellianism is one of them But if they mean by publickly received the Doctrine of our Articles and Creeds this is the very same with the Doctrine of the Catholick Church We make profession of the Nicene Faith every Week and that asserts a Real and Substantial Trinity if Athanasius understood it The only pretence I can guess they had for this charge if they thought of any themselves must be the Form of the Athanasian Creed which will not permit us to say that in the Plural Number of all Three Divine Persons which it allows us to attribute distinctly to each distinct Person in the Singular Number we may say the Father is Almighty the Son Almighty and the Holy Ghost Almighty but must not say that there are three Almighties but one Almighty But will they hence frame an Universal Rule That nothing must be said of the Holy Trinity in the Plural Number considered as Three We will not attribute any thing to the Holy Trinity in the Plural Number which this Creed forbids we will not say there are Three Almighties Three Eternals Three Omnipotents Three Infinites Three Gods or Three Lords but this Creed does not forbid us saying There are Three Minds or Three Substances nay it teaches us to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which as you have already heard in the Language of the Nicene Age and more expresly in After Ages signified Three Substances and therefore must do so in this Creed The reason given in the Creed against this Plural Praedication is Because there is but One God and therefore such terms as immediately and directly multiply the Deity and Godhead must not be exprest Plurally and thus the Plural Praedication of any Divine Perfections in the abstract does Three Omnipotents Three Infinites Three Eternals which are Equivalent to Three Omnipotencies Three Infinities Three Eternities and they to Three Deities and Three Godheads or Three Divine Natures but though we cannot distinguish between the Person and the Divinity or Divine Nature of that Person for there is no Composition in God or in a Divine Person as there is in Creatures yet when the same Divine Nature communicated from the Father to the Son and from Father and Son to the Holy Spirit subsists distinctly tho inseparably whole and entire in Three and that which really and actually subsists is Mind and Substance with respect to these Three Subsistencies they are and must be Three Minds and Substances though with respect to the sameness and identity of the Divine Nature which is Whole and Entire and Inseparable and therefore but One in all they are but One not Three Gods This is all the sense I can make of that known distinction between Substantives and Adjectives in a Plural Praedication That we may say there are Three who Create but not Three Creators Three who are Omnipotent but not three Omnipotents c. that in these Adjective Praedications we consider the Divine Person Mind or Substance as a subject of Jahaesion and these Divine Perfections as Essential Properties or Attributes which may and must be numbred with the Subjects in which they are but Substantives have a more absolute sense and include pure nature without relation to different Subjects and therefore to use them Plurally is to multiply Nature to make more than One Infinite Eternal Incomprehensible Omnipotent Nature and consequently to multiply Gods But from this very distinction we learn that there are Three Suppositums or Subjects and then they will easily be owned to be Three Minds and Substances to which all the Perfections of the Deity belong for when these Divine Perfections are Praedicated Adjectively they must suppose a Subject to which they belong and they being such Perfections as can be only in a Mind they must suppose Three distinct Minds to which they belong Thus I have considered with all possible brevity every particular of this Charge and if these Decreeing and Heresy-making Heads will be just to me they must own that as they and the Animadverter had ordered the matter it was impossible for me to do otherwise unless I would have been trampled on by every Scribler This is a good human reason but I had a better reason for this than any thing meerly Personal They have condemned the true Catholick Faith even the Nicene Faith which is the Faith of the Church of England for Herefy and they have exposed this Faith to the Scorn and Triumph of the Socinian Hereticks who already make their boast That they have a Decree against the real Trinit arians and they only want another against the Nominal ones and then their work is done to their hands tho I think they have Decrees enow against them even all the Fathers and Councils which condemned Sabellius condemned them

the Censure which these Oxford Heads have made of these Propositions There are Three Infinite distinct Minds and Substances in the Trinity Item That the Three Persons in the Trinity are Three distinct Infinite Minds or Spirits and Three Individual Substances That is I suppose as much Individual Substances as they are Individual Persons It is evident that all this relates only to the Notion of the Trinity and to the Notion of a Divine Person and of Three Divine Persons in the Trinity and therefore the Unity of the Godhead is not concerned in this which belongs to another Question How these Three are One of which more when I examine the Heresy charged on these words 1. But the first charge is that they are false I wish they had told us what in them is false but since they have made no distinction we must suppose they mean that all these words are false Is it false then that each Person in the Ever-Blessed Trinity is by himself in his own Person a Distinct Infinite Mind Spirit or Substance Is not God the Father an Infinite Mind or Spirit Is not God the Son the substantial Word and Wisdom of the Father an Infinite Mind or Spirit Is not God the Holy Ghost that Eternal Spirit which knoweth the things of God as the Spirit of a Man knoweth the things of a man an Eternal Mind or Spirit Or is not an Infinite Mind and Spirit a Substance the most real perfect Substance that is in the world which gives Substance and Subsistence to all other things Is not the Father considered as an Infinite Mind and Spirit distinct from the Son and the Holy Ghost the Son distinct from the Father and the Holy Ghost the Holy Ghost distinct from the Father and the Son To deny any thing of all this is downright Sabellianism and destroys a real substantial Trinity which is as Essential to the Christian Faith as the Unity of the Godhead is The only Quarrel then that I can imagine against these words is this That tho the Father be a distinct Infinite Mind and the Son a distinct Infinite Mind and the Holy Ghost a distinct Infinite Mind yet according to the Catholick Form of Speech we must not say that there are Three distinct Infinite Minds but one Infinite Mind or Spirit or Substance Now I grant that in the sense of the Homoousion or Consubstantiality this is very True and Orthodox in which sense St. Jerom condemned Tres Substantias or Three Substances and St. Austin who allowed that the Father is a Spirit the Son a Spirit and the Holy Ghost a Spirit yet denied that there are Three Spirits but One Spirit but when we apply this to Persons it is gross Sabellianism to say that there are not Three Personal Minds or Spirits or Substances but only One Mind Spirit or Substance for then there can be but one Person too for one Personal Mind is but One Person Let us consider what a Mind is and how we can know whether there be but One or more distinct Minds The Substance of a Mind I know nothing of no more than I do what the naked Substance of Body or Matter is but the true Notion of a Mind is a thinking Being and therefore where ever we find the Acts of Knowledge Understanding and Will there is a Mind and where there are distinct Personal Acts of Knowledge and Will there are distinct Personal Minds Now if we believe the Scripture the Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father the Father wills and the Son by a distinct Personal act wills with the Father and what the Father wills the Father works and the Son works and sees all that the Father doth and doth the same things Thus the Fathers proved against the Sabellians the real and substantial distinction of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead from those distinct personal acts which are attributed in Scripture to Father Son and Holy Ghost which having a mutual relation to each other require distinct Persons for their Subjects and since all the instances they give as may be seen in Tertullian against Praxeas Novatian in his Book of the Trinity Athanasius against the Sabellians St. Hilary St Austin and all that have writ on this Argument are acts of a Mind as well as of a Person they must prove if they prove any thing distinct Minds as well as Persons for if one singular Solitary Mind may be the Subject of such distinct acts as necessarily suppose more than one One Person may be so too and then there is no possible way left to confute Sabellianism or to prove a real Trinity of distinct substantial Persons It is very evident that both the Sabellians and the Catholick Fathers in this Controversy understood the same thing by Person which we do by Mind or Spirit By Person the Sabellians meant such a Person as is true and perfect God and therefore the most real Substance an Infinite Mind and Spirit and for this reason they rejected Three Persons for fear of Three Gods which always was and is still the Objection against a real substantial Trinity for there is no danger that Three Names or Notions or Modes should be a Trinity of Gods Notwithstanding this the Catholick Fathers allow their Notion of a Person and prove against them such a Trinity of Persons as they rejected each of which is true and perfect God Now since Person is the Catholick word which long Ecclesiastical use has made familiar I should by no means allow of any other word in this Mystery could we retain the old Catholick Faith together with the word But when men make no more of a Person than a meer Mode and a Trinity of Modes in one singular Nature and Substance must pass for a Trinity of Divine Persons which was the Heresy of Sabellius who contended for One Singular Solitary Nature or Subsistence in God and was not much concerned by what name you called the Three so they were not Three Substantial Subsisting Persons for he never dreamt that there could be Three Real Substantial Persons in One Singular Nature I say when this Heresy is reviv'd under a new Name we are under a necessity of saying in more express words what the Fathers meant by Person if we will retain the Catholick Faith as well as the Word Would Men but give themselves a little Liberty of thinking they would see how impossible it is to find a Medium between a real Trinity and Sabellianism however disguis'd The Three Persons in the blessed Trinity are either Three Substantial Persons or they are not to deny them to be Substantial is Sabellianism whatever else we call them There must be either One singular solitary Substance in the Deity or Three distinct Personal Substances The first is the fundamental Article of the Sabellian Creed and a direct Contradiction to the Doctrine of the Trinity for One singular solitary Nature or Substance is but One Person for which reason the