Selected quad for the lemma: hand_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
hand_n	body_n	foot_n	part_n	5,540	5	4.6773	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67408	A seventh letter, concerning the sacred Trinity occasioned by a second letter from W.J. / by John Wallis ...	Wallis, John, 1616-1703.	1691 (1691)	Wing W604; ESTC R18000	12,865	24

Rigour as divinely revealed Truths The Anti-trinitarian System is not at all suited to my Genius Yet I would not stretch our Trinitarian Doctrine so far as to set it at a distance from Scripture as well as from Reason Secret things belong unto the Lord but those things that are Revealed belong to us and our Children Deut. 29. 29. And the Angels it may be think us as foolish and ridiculous for pursuing these Notions as we think our selves wise and learned in such pursuits I am Sir with all Sincerity Your most humble Servant W. I. To this Letter I reply as followeth To the Reverend W. J. SIR I Am obliged to you for the Kind and Respectful Character which you are pleased to afford me in Both your Letters I am not at all displeased but thank you for it with a like Moderation in Yours to what you commend in my Letters as to the Mysterious Truths concerning the Sacred Trinity And do fully close with what you say in the Conclusion That the Angels may think us as Foolish and Ridiculous for pursuing these Notions further than they are Revealed as we think our selves Wise and Learned in such pursuits Like as You or I should Laugh at a Blind man who had never seen that should undertake to Conceive in his Mind and Express to us in word a Distinct and Perfect Notion or Idea of Sight Light and Colours He may Hear the Noise or Sound of those three Words supposing him though Blind not to be Deaf also and may Believe that they signifie Somewhat But what that Somewhat is he cannot Tell having never had an Idea thereof in his Mind nor a Perception thereof by his Senses And if You or I from that Notion which our selves have of it would Explain it to him We could do it no otherwise than by the Use of such Words in a sense Analogical as do properly belong to somewhat of which he hath from Experience some Idea Sight we might say is a certain kind of Sense or Feeling in our Eyes which we have not in our Hand Feet or other parts of our Body whereby we can as it were Feel with our Eyes the Shape Figure Bigness and Proportion of a Body at a Distance as we might with our Hands if within our Reach Whereby he might Apprehend that there is some kind of Resemblance between Seeing and Feeling but what indeed it is to See he cannot comprehend Light we might tell him is a Necessary Requisite to such a Feeling with our Eyes as that for want of it which Want we call Darkness we can no more so Feel or Discover by our Eyes such Shape Figure or Bigness than we could with our Hands that suppose of a Piece of Money locked up in a Box which we could not open but by the Admission of such Requisite we are inabled so to Feel it with our Eyes as we might with our Hands if the Box were opened whereby we might come to Handle it Colour we might tell him is somewhat of such a Nature as that on a Plain Board or the like on which by our Hand we can Feel nothing but Smooth and Uniform by it may be Represented to be so Felt with our Eyes as great variety of Shapes and Figures suppose of a Horse a Bird a Ship a House or any Shape whatever as by our Hand we might if we had such Shapes formed in Wood or Stone and the different Motions of such But after all this it is not possible for this Blind man to have that Idea or Notion in his Fancy of Sight Light and Colour which we have who See And it is much more Impossible for Us who have no Notions in our Mind other than what we derive Mediately or Immediately from Sensible Impressions of Finite Corporeal Beings to have a Clear and Perfect Notion of the Nature Unity Distinctions or Attributes of an Infinite Spiritual Being or otherwise to express them than by some Imperfect Analogies or Resemblances with things we are conversant with and by words in a borrowed sense from such I do therefore fully agree with you in your Two Conclusions namely That it is Safe and Prudent to keep close to Scripture in these Mysterious Doctrines since we know nothing of them otherwise than as there Revealed And not to impose Consequences of Humane Deduction with the like Rigour as Divinely-revealed Truths For even in common affairs when things are represented onely by the Analogy or Resemblance which they bear to some other things it is seldom that the Similitude is so Absolute between them but that there is some Dissimilitude likewise Much more when the Distance is so great as between Finite Corporeal Beings and what is Infinite and Incorporeal So that we cannot always argue cogently from one to the other And therefore the words Nature Essence Vnity Distinction Father Son Person Beget Proceed and the like when applied to God in a borrowed sense from what they properly signifie as applied to Creatures must not be supposed to signifie just the same but somewhat Analogous to that of their Primary signification nor Consequences thence to be deduced with the same Rigour It would be mere Cavilling for any to argue that Because Knowledge and Strength are separable in Man Therefore what in God we call by those names are so in God and that consequently it may be Possible for the All-wise God not to be Almighty or the Almighty God not to be All-wise So if we should argue from the manner of our Locality or Duration to God's Vbiquity without Extension and his Eternity without Succession the Inferences must needs be Lame and Inconsequent With other Inferences of like nature And even without proceeding to Infinites if we suppose a Spirit or the Soul of Man to be void of Parts and Local Extension and therefore as the Phrase is tota in toto tota in qualibet parte of that Space or Matter to which it is compresent And should yet argue as you do in a like case If one single Spirit be compresent with three or more really-distinct Parts of Space or Matter we must Divide or Multiply it Either each of these extensive Parts must have a Piece of that Spirit and then you Divide it Or each must have the Whole and there being but one Whole you cannot give it to each without Multiplying it Such Inference upon such a Supposition which Supposition I am loth to think Impossible must needs be Lame Yet such are commonly the Cavils of those who study to pick Quarrels with the Doctrine of the Trinity as delivered in Scripture And in particular though amongst Men Three Persons are sometimes not always so used as to import three Men we may not thence conclude that the three Divine Persons must needs imply three Gods Or if the word Persons do not please though I think it a fit word in the case we can spare the word without prejudice to the Cause for 't is the Notion