Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	earl_n	edward_n	england_n	11,963	5	6.1066	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67386	An eighth letter concerning the Sacred Trinity occasioned by some letters to him on that subject / by John Wallis ...	Wallis, John, 1616-1703.	1692 (1692)	Wing W577; ESTC R28904	17,133	22

more than as I explained it Which was a full Answer to the Anti-trinitarians Popular Argument from the modern gross acceptation of the Word Person in English as if three Divine Persons must needs be three Gods because three Persons amongst Men doth sometimes not always nor did it anciently so imply three Men. And when we say these three Persons are but one God 't is manifest that we use this Metaphor of Persons when applyed to God as borrowed from that sense of the Word Person wherein the same Man may sustain divers Persons or divers Persons be the same Man I have seen more than once an Address From Edward Earl of Clarendon Chancellor of the Vniversity of Oxford To Edward Earl of Clarendon Lord High Chancellor of England in a Claim of Privilege to remove a Cause from the Court of Chancery to that of the Vniversity Yet these two Chancellors were not two Men nor two Earls of Clarendon but one and the same sustaining two Persons one addressing to the other And if this do sufficiently answer that Popular Cavil 't is as much as 't was brought for If it do otherwise appear that the distinction between these Three Divine Persons be more than so but yet more God's than One that may well enough be though this Metaphor do not necessarily imply so much 'T is certain that three Persons neither according to the true import of the words nor according to the intent of those who so speak doth not imply three Gods But Three Persons which are One God or One God in Three Persons I have also a Third Letter from W. I. much to the same purpose with what he had Written in his two former And therefore I do not think it needful to insert it here nor do I see that he desires it It is he tells me to take his leave of me as not meaning to give me any farther trouble in this kind 'T is full of divers expressions of Respect Thanks and Approbation And he doth insist as in his two former he had done upon these two things Not to be too positive in these matters beyond what the Scripture tells us And Not to lay the like stress upon our Argumentations from thence as on what we find thore In both which as before I did I do fully agree with him Because in matters of pure Revelation we know no more than what is Revealed And because 't is very sure that even in Natural things Men do oft mistake in their Argumentations from Principles which they think to be True and Clear Else it could not be that divers Men from the same Principles should infer contrary Conclusions And because we find it difficult sometimes to reconcile some things which yet we cannot well deny to be true And if it be so even in Natural things much more may it be so in things of an Infinite Nature So that herein I think He and I do not disagree Yet would I not infer from hence nor doth he that we must therefore be Scepticks in All things because it is possible that in Some things we may mis-take For it is one thing to be Infallible another thing not to Err. A Man who is not Infallible may yet Argue Truly and where he doth so his Argument is Conclusive And we may accordingly rest in it and insist upon it more or less according to the degree of Evidence For things equally True are not always equally Evident nor equally Necessary to be known Where the Evidence is not clear and the matter not needful for us to know we are not to be too Positive in our Determinations but rather be content to be ignorant farther than God is pleased to reveal But where it is and the things be of Moment we must hold fast that which is true and not suffer our selves to be easily wheedled out of it Which I suppose is his Opinion as well as mine For he seems to interpose this Caution particularly as to that Hypothesis to which as before he had done he doth suggest some new Difficulties But wherein I am not concerned That God is Trin-unus he doth profess And the word Person he doth not dislike But thinks it safe not to be too Positive in determining precisely how great that Distinction of Persons is In all which I do concur with him Now as to the Word Person though I am not fond of Words where the Sense is agreed I am not willing to quit it because I do not know a better to put in the Room of it And because if we quit the word which the Church hath with good reason made use of for so many Hundred years without any just exception made to it those Anti-trinitarians who would have us quit the Word will pretend that in so doing we quit the Doctrine too That we do not by Person when applyed to the Sacred Trinity understand such a Person as when applyed to Men and that by Three Divine Persons we do not mean Three Gods hath been so often said and so fully by those who believe the Trinity that those who cavil at it cannot but know it But by Person in the Deity we mean only what bears some Analogy with what amongst Men is said of several Persons even without being so many several Men which the true sense of the word Person doth not import as hath been often shewed as do the words Beget Begotten Sending Proceeding or Going-forth and many more which all are Metaphorical Expressions taken from what amongst Men is wont to be said of Persons For of whom but Persons are such expressions used And they who use to cavil at it may as well do it when we talk of the Foot of a Stool the Arm of a Chair or the Head of a Staff And perswade us that when we so speak we do believe a Stool a Chair a Staff to have Life and Sense because a Foot an Arm a Head properly taken have so And they may as well cavil at the word Sacrament which is a Name that we have given to that of Baptism and the Lord's Supper Attributes which is a term we give to some of the Divine Perfections Creed by which we mean an Abstract of some Principal things that we Believe And a great many such other words that we find occasion to make use of Whereof yet there is no danger when it is defined and determined what by such word in such discourse we mean even though in some Other discourses such word may signifie otherwise 'T is well known that a Cone in Euclide doth not signifie just the same as in Apollonius nor a Triangle in Euclide just the same as in Theodosius and others who Write of Sphericks But when we meet with these words in Euclide we must there understand them as they are defin'd by Euclide and when in others so as they are defin'd by those others And so when we speak of Persons in the Deity we must be so understood as we there