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

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70690	Observations on the four letters of Dr. John Wallis concerning the Trinity and the Creed of Athanasius	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.	1691 (1691)	Wing N1508A; ESTC R41199	24,893	22

do think this is an harsh way of speaking yet for Peace sake they would admit this Explication The Doctor 's Explication of the Athanasian Creed consider'd IT was with great expectation that I began to read Dr. Wallis his third Letter because it bears this ambitious Front An Explication and Vindication of the Athanasian Creed I supposed He would attempt to assoil all the Difficulties and Contradictions objected to it at least those in the Brief Notes on that Creed But he meant no more by this Title but this An Explication of the Damnatory Clauses in the Athanasian Creed This was to me a wonderful Disappointment However I will be content to consider what Dr. Wallis thought worthy to offer He saith Lett. 3. pag. 4. Whosoever will be saved before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith Where saith the Doctor before all things is as much as Imprimis importing that it is mainly necessary or is a principal Requisite Was there ever a greater force put upon words 'T is before all things necessary saith the Creed that s saith the Gloss 'T is a principal Requisite I always thought there had been an immense difference between Necessary and Requisite and that abundance of Things had been mainly or principally requisite which yet were not indispensably or before all Things necessary But which of these Athanasius meant the next Clause puts out of question Which Faith saith the Creed except every one do keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly The Grammatical and obvious Sense of these words is this That Man or Woman shall perish everlastingly who doth not believe and profess this following Faith which is indeed the Catholic or Universal Faith without taking ought from it or adding ought to it No says Dr. Wallis the Greek word is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 totam or whole but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 salvam sanam sound or safe And says he farther As a Man may be said to be sound and safe notwithstanding a Wart or Wen or even a Wound or a Maim so long as the Vitals are not indangered So the Catholic Faith is sound and safe so long as there is nothing destructive of the main Substantials or Fundamentals This is a marvellous reasoning and such as the Doctor will very hardly persuade any to believe it Is a Man safe and sound when his Legs and Arms are shot off so long as the Vitals are not indangered but intire and safe God deliver me and Dr. Wallis too from such Soundness and Safeness And if the Catholic Faith is sound too as he says so long as the Substantials and Fundamentals remain it will follow that the Faith of the Church of Rome is sound For all Protestants but the Socinians grant that Church retains all the Substantials and Fundamentals yet her Faith they confess is unsound because of the erroneous Additions to the Substantials and Fundamentals The Doctor therefore shall do well to think again of this part of his Explication But whereas he would confirm these Perversions of the true intention of the damning Clauses in this Creed by criticizing on the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I must plainly tell him he is grosly out in his Criticism 'T is not says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 totam or whole but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 salvam sanam sound or safe Is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If he pleases to consult his Lexicons he will find that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred integram perfectam whole or perfect so that the sense of this Article is That Faith must be kept perfect whole or entire nothing must be added to it nothing taken from it Lett. 3. pag. 8. And the Catholic Faith is this that is this is one main Part of the Catholic Faith I confess at this rate of expounding a very tolerable Sense may be made of this Creed and of the Alchoran If before all Things necessary is only mainly requisite if whole and undefiled may be true of a Faith which is neither whole nor undefiled but sound only in Fundamentals if the Catholic Faith is only part of the Catholic Faith what Creed or Book may not be expounded to a sound Sense Lett. 3. pag. 11. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son neither Made nor Begotten but Proceeding Here is no Anathematizing of the Greek Church 'T is said indeed he doth proceed and so say they but not that he doth proceed from the Father and the Son And it is said he is of the Father and of the Son but whether by Procession from both or if so whether in the same manner is not said but warily avoided And those who are better acquainted with the Doctrine and Languages of the present Greek Churches than most of us are do assure us that the Differences between them and us are rather in some Forms of Expressions than in the Thing it self To this I answer The Doctor had as much reason to deny that in this Article the Spirit is said to proceed from the Father as from the Son For the word Proceeding is so placed both in the Greek and English as to refer to both or to neither Besides Proceeding is he knows the very Characteristic of the Spirit so that if he is of or from the Father and the Son which the Doctor will not deny is expresly affirmed in this Article it must be by proceeding from them which since the Greeks deny 't is manifest their Doctrine is here condemned What he adds of the present Greek Churches is not true 't is certain they hold that their Doctrine is condemned in this Article and therefore in return to Athanasius his Complement that they shall perish everlastingly they pleasantly answer He was drunk when he made this Creed The Athanasian Creed has this Conclusion This is the Catholic Faith which except a Man keep faithfully he cannot be saved How can Dr. Wallis elude these plain words which are not annexed to any Generals as he though untruly says of the other Damnatory Clauses but are as it were the Label and Seal affixed to the whole Creed at the end or bottom of it But what cannot a Wit and a Learned Man do at least what will he not attempt He gives us a large Interpretation of this Clause at pag. 19. of his third Letter but the summ of it is this This is the Catholic Faith i. e. this is part of that Faith which all Christians do and ought to believe Which Faith except a Man keep faithfully he cannot be saved i. e. which Faith except a Man truly believe it as to the Substantials of it though possibly he may be ignorant of many particulars thereof he cannot be saved Which is as if the Doctor had said Whereas the Athanasian Creed concludes with these formidable and seemingly plain words This before related is the Catholic Faith which except a

Then come in Abstract Concrete Paternity Personality and an Infinity of other barbarous and insignificant Words only to hide clear Truth from Persons who can be shifted off with obscure and sensless Words Words which denote nothing that is really existent in Nature but only the Chimera's of the Metaphysician Show me that Trinitarian who dares dispute this Question about the Trinity in plain English by any sort of Arguments whether Arguments from Scripture from Reason or from Authority of first and pure Antiquity No no They never durst attempt this nor ever will for they know the Cause is lost if the People be permitted to understand it and the Reasons for and against it But the comfort is Those who are at all capable of judging these Gothish and Vandalic Terms are much more capable of discerning when they are detected and confuted Therefore to this Flourish of the Doctor I reply 'T is somewhat surprizing that a Mathematician should not be more considerate in giving an Instance belonging to his Profession He tells us we may say in the Concrete This long Thing is a Cube I deny it This long Thing is only a Line this long and broad Thing is only a Superficies or one side of a Cube 't is only this long broad and high Thing that is a Cube But if the Doctor meant This long Thing which is also broad and high is a Cube and were it not broad and high it were not a Cube but a Line or one side of a Cube then this is no Parallel to the matter in hand the Trinity For then this Proposition This long Thing is a Cube is but the same with this This long broad and high Thing is a Cube which will not at all help the Doctor Long broad and high of the Cube answer to Father Son and Spirit of the Godhead or God and the Cube it-self answers to God or the Godhead so far we are well But now say I thô we may say This long thing is a Cube meaning this thereby This long Thing which is also broad and high is a Cube and were it not broad and high it were not a Cube yet we cannot say the Father is God and mean thereby The Father who is also the Son and Holy Spirit is God and were He not withal the Son and Holy Spirit He were not God So we must speak to make out the Parallel but so to speak All know is Heresy for the Father is not the Son and Spirit nor are they the Father Therefore the Concrete way of speaking will no more favour the Doctor 's Parallel than the Abstract And he ought to have seen this when he was advised of it in a private Letter by W. I. without publishing to the World that even upon second Thoughts he understood not a Thing self-evident But supposing now That the Doctor 's Instances did enable us to conceive this particular Difficulty in the Doctrine of the Trinity does he not know that there are many more of which himself will not pretend that his Instances or Solutions are at all applicable to them I say this because his Letters bear this haughty Title The Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity and the Athanasian Creed Explained Do these Explications reach the tenth Part of the Contradictions charged on the Doctrines of the Incarnation and Trinity and on the Athanasian Creed What are the Dimensions of a Cube or the Parts of a Shilling or of a Pound to the chief Absurdities in those Doctrines and that Creed I will mention but some of them They tell us of a Son receiving of his Father being Life and Godhead and yet as old as his Father And these two Father and Son loving one another their Mutual Love is a Third Person and Spirit equal to themselves This Spirit though but an effect is as early as its Causes and the same with them They tell us of an Infinite Person who is whole and all united without Lessening or Contraction of himself to a Finite Man They tell us of a Perfect God and a Perfect Man who are not Two but One Person though God they say is Three Persons and every Man all know is One Person because a reasonable Soul and an humane Body are a Person They tell us one while that two Intelligent Natures are but One Person another while on the contrary Three Persons are but one Numerical Nature They tell us each Person has the whole Divine Nature and cannot be separated from it They tell us farther All the Divine Persons are inseparably in the Divine Nature from whence we have this first Corollary that each Person is the other Two Persons and then this contrary to what the Doctor holds at pag. 33. of the third Letter that when the second Person was Incarnate so also must the First and Third They tell us of a Son begotten in the most perfect Manner from all Eternity yet is still in begetting for the action of Generation in God say they never ceases because that would suppose some Change in God and ever shall be so and the like of the Spirit They tell us their Trin-Unity is but One as it is but One God and is Three as it is Three such Persons that each of them is singly and by himself a God that is 't is Three in this regard that 't is Three Gods so that at length their Trin-unity is what Dr. Wallis all along abhors as both false and impossible Three in the same regard that it is but One. For the regard is God in both Propositions in the first it is One God in the other though not in the bare Sound yet in the Signification of the words it is Three Gods To add now no more whoever does not believe all these and many the like Inconsistences and that whether he can or no shall be damned They lay the greatest stress upon this Last because without this few would mind the other And this is the reason they have so constantly and absolutely refused to part with the Damnatory Clauses in the Athanasian Creed to part with them is to give away all the other Articles Of these or any of these I think Dr. Wallis will not say that his little Congruities or rather Vmbrages are Explications or Solutions He has offer'd but at very few of them However I will consider even the little he has said At pag. 34. of the third Letter he says Let one face of a Cube suppose the Base admit a foil or dark Colour while the rest of the Cube is Transparent this may someway represent Christ's Humiliation who being equal with God yet took on him the form of a Servant But can the Doctor tell me how I may shut up the Base of an Infinite Cube which Base himself supposes is Infinite in a Nut-shell For his Creed tells me a Thing much more marvellous that an Infinite Person is whole and all united to a Finite Man and that without lessening or contraction of