Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n
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A67390
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A fourth letter concerning the sacred Trinity in reply to what is entituled An answer to Dr. Wallis's three letters / by John Wallis ...
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Wallis, John, 1616-1703.
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1691
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Wing W583; ESTC R34710
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20,498
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40
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are too mean too familiar He expected somewhat higher somewhat more distinct p. 5. I see it is as hard a matter to please my two Answerers as to serve two Masters The one complains my Simile's are not familiar enough the other that they are too familiar he expected somewhat more sublime These do not prove that a Trinity in Unity is necessary to the perfection of the Godhead p. 6. True These alone do not prove that there is a Trinity in Unity in the Godhead much less do they prove that a Trinity in Unity is necessary to the perfection of the Godhead Nor were they brought to prove it They were brought to prove There is no Inconsistence but that there may be a Trinity in the Unity of the Godhead And if they prove thus much he perhaps may have cause to be Ashamed but I see no reason why I should be Ashamed or any one for me Now that they prove thus much he hath already granted That a thing may be one and three in divers respects And that 't is no contradiction to hold that there May be Three Persons in God They have proved therefore what they were brought to prove But says he p. 5. Our Debate is not Whether there May be three Persons in God Yes our Debate is whether there May be Not whether there Be. And he knows the Question was so stated by me and so acknowledg'd by himself upon this single point whether there be any Impossibility in it And so owned by himself p. 1. not whether it be so for this I had before said was not to be argued upon the Topick of Reason alone but whether it be agreeable to the common notions of Humane Reason that it May be so And if this were the Question as he owns and this be proved as he owns also Then I have proved what I undertook to prove And have no reason to be Ashamed either of the Undertaking or of the Proof 'T is our new Answerer who doth wittingly and willingly mis-state the Question that is at cross purposes while he applies those Arguments to one point which he knows were brought to prove another which point himself grants to be proved He cannot say there is a Contradiction in it pag. 6. and then complains that they alone do not prove what they were never brought to prove Of like nature is that other point where he tells us that we do now venture to prove it to be agreeable to the common notions of humane Reason that is not Inconsistent with it And we do so But he would have it thought that it is but now of late that any have presumed to this confidence pag. 1 2. and would have us content modestly to acknowledge it a meer mystery and to rely upon the Authority of the Church and Tradition without pretending that it is agreeable to Reason Now that there is in it a Mystery we readily grant and so there is in the whole Doctrine of our Redemption God manifested in the Flesh c. 1 Tim. 3. 16. as that which without Revelation we could not have found out by meer Reason And that it is above Reason that is more than what Reason alone could have taught us But not that it is Against Reason or Inconsistent with it This is not the Doctrine of the Trinitarians nor ever was that I know of Nor is it Tradition only or the Church's Authority but the Authority of Scripture that we rely upon which is a True not a lying Revelation Nor is it as he pretends a new Doctrine not raised till several hundred years after Christ as if the Doctrine were to be dated from the time of penning the Athanasian Creed but as old at least as the New Testament and never contested that I know of till several hundred years after Christ when the Arians arose But here again my Answerers are not agreed So hard it is to please them both While one complains 't is but of late the other tells me 't is old-fashioned in his p. 9 Thus Dr. Wallis may see that his Notions concerning the Trinity are old-fashioned not of a new mode And truly I take him to be more in the right that 't is not a new quirk but old-fashioned Doctrine and I like it never the worse for being so As to what I have said of Joh. 17. 3. it is more than Forty years and well towards Fifty since I first Preached it in London on that Text as I have since done there and elsewhere more than once and I did not then take it to be New but what I had been always Taught And as to that of the three dimensions in a Cube it is Forty years or more since I first discoursed it at Oxford with Dr. Ward then Astronomy-Professor there and since Bishop of Salisbury And as to the Doctrine in general of Three Persons in One God it is no Newer than the New Testament But here again our Answerer forsakes the Question For the Question is not Whether it be a New or Old Adventure but whether it be Inconsistent with Reason that Three May be One or as he words it p. 3. that a Trinity in Unity is absurd Another piece of the same Art it is where my word of Personality is by him changed for Personation p. 5 6. For which I would not have quarrelled with him if by changing the Word he had not meant to change the Sense also For to personate a Man he tells us p. 6. is but to compose ones Actions in Likeness of him and that one cannot personate three together but one after another But my Personality he knows is more than this Personation It is not only Acting a Person but Being a Person A Man may successively Personate or Act the Person of a King and a Father without being either This or That But when the same Man IS both a King and a Father which he may be at the same time as well as successively this is more than only to Act them And if by Personation he mean no more than Acting a Person I wonder how he can tell us p. 5. That Personation is the greatest Perfection of Being and that he never could apprehend any other real Unity but Personation What No real Unity but acting a Person by imitation Sure there is The Bottom and Top and Middle of a Mountain are one Mountain Yet I do not take Mount Atlas to be a Person or to Act a person much less to become One Mountain by Personation or Acting a Person Of like nature is it where to do me a kindness he will state my Cube more to my purpose p. 5. meaning the contrary But how In a Marble Cube may be two Accidents Hardness and Coldness There may be so But what then Then he says here are Three Cubes more for me He would have it thought I suppose that I had before discoursed of Three Cubes whereas I spoke but of One Cube under three Dimensions and
what we call the Divine Attributes And therefore we reckon the Persons to be but Three but the Attributes to be more And we do admit amongst the Persons a certain Order or Oeconomy such as in the Scripture we find assigned to them But do not own the Distinction so great as to make them Three Gods And that also of p. 13 14. where he argues that Christ is indeed God not only a dignified Man That God in Christ was tempted suffered and died not Man only That the Merits thereof are founded on the Godhead In plain terms saith he if Christ were only a Man extraordinarily assisted by God and thereupon merited by his Sufferings and Death 't was the Man redeemed us by His Blood and not God And p. 16. the like from Rom. 9. 5. Of whom as concerning the Flesh Christ came who Is over all God Blessed for ever And asks If I ever knew an Unitarian especially an Arian deny him that Character And from Heb. 1. 8. To the Son he saith Thy Throne O God endureth for ever a Scepter of Righteousness is the Scepter of thy Kingdom c. He argues That it is not the Humanity of Christ that is here spoken of For what Is the Humanity of Christ called God Is the Humanity preferred before Angels Or did the Humanity frame the World Indeed he says they are apt to clog it with a Limitation as not acknowledging him Co-equal with the Father But under that restriction they can be as liberal of the title of God to Christ as any Trinitarian whatever Where I take what he grants And as to the Co-equality shall discourse it afterwards More of this kind I shall have occasion to mention afterward Yet do not blame him for taking this advantage of shifting the Person where he sees cause to Grant what was before Denied But our new Answerer hath yet another Art When he seems to cite what I say he takes the liberty very often to vary therein according as he thinks fit both from my Words and from my Sense And therefore I desire the Reader not to take all as Mine which seems to be cited as such but so much only as he finds to be truly cited It would be too long to mention all the places where I am so used I shall only give instance in some of them He tells us pag. 4. That I indeavour to illustrate the Trinity by an Example in a Cube or Die and so far he says true But not so in what follows where three sides he says make one Cube and which Cube he says is not to be made without all the three sides But certainly he can no where find these to be my Words I confess I am no great Gamester at that Sport but I always thought till now that a Die had six sides and not only three I have said indeed that in a Cube or Die there be three Dimensions Length Breadth and Thickness But I never called these the three sides of a Cube nor have I any where said that a Cube hath but three sides I am represented pag. 5 6 7 8. as maintaining three personal Gods But he knows very well this is not my Language but that the three Persons are One God not three Gods nor a Council of Gods as he calls it So where he would ask the Doctor p. 17. Whether these two Gods to wit the Father and the Word be one He knows my Answer must be that these two not these two Gods are one God And that I do no where call them two Gods but one and the same God according to that of Christ himself I and the Father are One. So where he talks of adding several Persons to our one God pag. 3 8. For he knows that is not my Language but these three Are God not that they are Added to God much less that Bacchus and Venus c. may be thrust into the number And p. 8. one of your Gods We have but One God 'T is He and his Arian that own two Gods p. 17. Not we Another there is which runs through most part of his whole Discourse wherein he willfully mistakes the state of the Question And then what is brought to prove one thing he mis-applies as brought to prove another And then makes a great out-cry that it doth not prove what it was never brought to prove And this he calls cross purposes He knows very well that the question was by me clearly stated not as to the whole Doctrine of the Trinity at large but as to the Possibility That whatever the Socinians pretend there is no Impossibility Non-sense or Inconsistence with Reason that three somewhats which we call Persons may be One God And this he owns to be the state of the Question p. 1. to prove the same agreeable to the common notions of humane Reason And it is done by shewing that according to the common notions of humane Reason nothing is more common than that what in one consideration are Three or Many is yet in another consideration but One. Thus in one Cube there be three Dimensions length breadth and thickness So the Understanding Will and Memory in one Soul So the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Power to Know to Will and to Doe in the same Intelligent Agent and the like 'T is therefore not Inconsistent with Reason and this Answerer doth allow it for one to be three nor is it Non-sense to say these three are one or I and the Father are One or that three somewhats may be One God The former Answerer complains of these Resemblances as impossible to be apprehended by the common people and desires some more Familiar Parallel than that of a Cube or Die that the Tankard-bearer may apprehend in his p. 8 9. Yet I believe his Tankard-bearer is not so dull of apprehension as he would have us think For if he have ever seen a Die as most of them have or shall now be shewed one he may be able to apprehend without a Metaphysick or Mathematick Lecture That in a Die there is length breadth and thickness and that it is as broad as it is long and as thick as either and yet it is not three Dies but one Die However to gratify his request I have given him some other as that the same Man may have three Dignities or three Kingdoms and sustain three Persons or three Relations without thereby becoming three Men with other like With this our new Answerer is not pleased He is Ashamed he doth Blush for me c. How much am I obliged for this his great Compassion But all this is but Banter it is not Argument and no sober Man will be more of his Opinion for this Language And much less for that of St. John's writing Non-sense of a lying Revelation of a three-headed Monster p. 3 5. and other such Indecent Language of God and the Scripture But why so displeased with these Simile's These