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mind_n distinct_a spirit_n substance_n 2,351 5 9.8484 5 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A67368 An answer to Dr. Sherlock's examination of the Oxford decree in a letter from a member of that university to his friend in London. Wallis, John, 1616-1703. 1696 (1696) Wing W557; ESTC R24595 6,234 20

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AN ANSWER TO Dr. SHERLOCK's EXAMINATION OF THE Oxford Decree IN A Letter from a Member of that University to his Friend in London The Second Edition Corrected and Inlarged Printed Anno Dom. 1696. AN ANSWER TO Dr. SHERLOCK's Examination c. Ian. 3. 1695 6. SIR AS to what you ask concerning Dr. Sherlock's Modest Examination of the Oxford Decree as he calls it I have seen it and find He is very Angry and under great Mistakes He is set forth in the Frontispice with his Titles at large WILLIAM SHERLOCK D. D. Dean of St. Paul 's Master of the Temple and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty And thinks much that what he says though without naming him should be Censured considering his Profession Character and Station in the Church p. 2. The Title he gives it and at which he quarels Decretum Oxoniense or the Oxford Decree is for ought I know a Title of his own Sure 't is none of theirs who made it who are therefore therein not concerned whether it be or be not Decretum Oxoniense Nor was he Named in it but onely a Sermon censured which was Preached at Oxford by another Person If Dr. Sherlock be of the same mind with that other Person that is not our fault 'T was Printed he says in Latin in these words c. True but not with that spelling For instance Prefectorum was not printed once and again with a single e instead of Praefectorum with an ae And it was hoped so great a Critick as he would be thought pag. 5. might have been able to spell true when he had a printed Copy before him He then fansies or would be thought to think that some Malicious Animadverter p. 1. 5. had Translated this Latin into English for the Benefit and Edification of his English Readers But that is one of his great Mistakes 'T was printed at Oxford both in Latin and English the same Day and by the same Authority and 't is believ'd Dr. Sherlock knows it was And the English as there printed is as much an Original as the Latin how it is Re-printed at London I know not And I doubt the Animadverter if he had done it would rather have said It was for the Benefit and Edification of Dr. Sherlock for fear he should not have understood Latin For it is at this rate they use to talk to one another If the Hawkers at London have caused it to be Re-printed with a new Title and Notes upon it to make it fell the better and put it into the Weekly Advertisements for that purpose who can help it But the Critick finds fault with the Latin as transgressing the plain Rules of Grammar in using Eorum fidei curae commissis for suae Of that let the Criticks judge If committed to their care had been meant of them Iointly I think the word suae might have been used but when to be understood of them Respectively I think eorum doth better Suae curae commissi is in plain English committed to their own care But it is here to be understood of the care of others and who those others were eorum was to signify And I would fain know by what plain Rule of Dr. Sherlock 's Grammar if he have a Grammar Eorum may not be so used But I would not advise Dr. Sherlock to venture too much at Criticism I doubt his Talent doth not lie that way In what cases we must use suae and in what eorum and in what we may indifferently use either better Criticks than Dr. Sherlock and I will not take upon them to determine The pretended false English in that Remark whose ever it be It may be Noted that the Propositions above-mentioned are Dr. Sherlock 's in his Discourse of the Trinity and the Defender's of it of that Discourse and wrote against by the Animadverter I am yet to seek I think it is true English When Dr. Sherlock tells us where the bad English lies let the Noter Answer it The Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Houses are not therein concerned Mean while I think his two Criticisms to be two Mistakes He tells us The Decree of the Oxford Convocation is indeed Decretum Oxoniense or a Decree of the University of Oxford Be it so but not that of the Heads of Colleges and Halls Very true Nor do they say it is But if that would do him a Kindness a Vote of Convocation might have been had as easily For as I do not hear that any one dissented in the Meeting of Heads so I believe there would have been as few in Convocation if it had been proposed there Some perhaps would rather have had it passed not there only but in Convocation also but if so it was to pass there first before it came to Convocation But he says p. 6. The Statutes refer such Censures not to the Meeting of Heads but to the Vice-Chancellor and six Heads Doctors of Divinity and to one or both of the Professors of Divinity The word Heads in this last Clause is another of his Mistakes For it is not requisite that the six Doctors of Divinity should all be Heads of Houses the Vice-Chancellor may as well advise with other Doctors But be it so there were at least six Heads of Houses Doctors of Divinity and one or both of the two Professors of Divinity But is it there said He may not advise with more than six If instead of calling six Heads he call them All is there any hurt in this Especially when they are all Unanimous But he says p. 3. they were not all present Very good Before we had too many now we have too few But all were warned and if some chanced to be out of Town it is but what would have been in a Convocation Some of the Wisest Heads he says were Absent and some present Dissented That some were absent is very like But that any present did Dissent I have not heard or that any then absent did dislike the Sentence when they heard it But if the Meeting of the Heads of Houses be so Venerable an Authority he will he says undertake any day in the Year to procure a Meeting of twice as many as Wise and Learned Men to censure their Decree Very modestly spoken No doubt but he and his are Wise and Learned Men at least he thinks so But what are those Wise and Learned Men to do To censure their Decree Very good Perhaps they would some of them not many advise to put suae instead of eorum But would those Wise and Learned Men say as he doth That the three Persons in the Trinity are three distinct Infinite Minds and Spirits and three Individual Substances I doubt he would not find it so easy every day in the Year to procure a Meeting of Twice so many Wise and Learned Men to say This. I do not find that his New Doctrine doth make so many Proselites But supposing their Authority he asks How far their Authority extends
And it would be the Wisest thing he could do What are the thousand Iacobite Stories he talks of p. 1. I know not Whether now he be or be not a Jacobite Whether he have or have not been or Whether sometime he have and sometime have not is nothing to this purpose If he will still insist upon it that If a Person be a Mind a Spirit a Substance then three Persons must be Three distinct Minds Spirits and Substances p. 18. as distinct as Adam and Abel though not separate p. 20. he knows it will not be allow'd him Because Mind Spirit Substance are in their proper signification Absolute but Person in its proper signification is a Relative Term. If Dr. Sherlock were Dean of Paul s Dean of Windsor and Dean of Westminster should we thence argue That since a Dean is a Man an Animal a Substance therefore because of three Distinct Substantial Deaneries they be or he is three distinct Men three distinct Animals and three distinct Substances I think not Because Man Animal Substance are terms Absolute but Dean is Relative And the same Absolute Being may admit without being multiplied many Relative Predicates I should rather say that Dr. Sherlock would in such case sustain three Persons without being three Men three Animals or three Substances Yet this is not Sabellianism For though Dean of Paul's be a Relative Name yet it is not merely an Empty Name but doth import a Substantial Dignity as the Ground of that Relation and a Substantial Man as the Subject of That as well as of his Other Relations And this hath been told him so often that we cannot think the Dean so Dull as not to Apprehend the Distinction but so wilful as that he scorns to own it But would still have us think that Mind Spirit Person are terms Equivalent and therefore jumbles them together as such which will not be admitted Or if they be equivalent why cannot he content himself with what is generally received three Persons but must impose upon us his New Terms of Three Distinct Minds Three Distinct Spirits and Three Distinct Substances But Scorn and Flouncing will not carry it off The Consequence will hold more strongly thus If an Infinite Eternal Mind or Spirit be God Then Three Distinct Infinite Eternal Minds or Spirits are Three Gods For here the Terms are all Absolute not Relative And if to maintain obstinately That there be Three Gods that is Three Eternal Infinite Minds or Spirits be not Heresy What is It seems to me but a New Trick to play the Game into the Socinian's hand By granting to them their darling Notion that To affirm the Father Son and Holy-Ghost to be Three Persons of which each is God is the same as to affirm that they are Three Gods Which we must not allow If St. Hilary have sometime called them tres substantias he may know that substantia was at that time an ambiguous term and taken sometimes as the Latin word for Hypostasis and sometimes for Ousia For which reason the Latines were for some time shy of admitting the term Hypostasis least it should be thought to imply the same with Substantia in the same sense with Ousia And he might have understood from his own Citation p. 38. that by Substance is there meant Subsistence Tres Substantias esse dixerunt Subsistentium Personas per Substantias edocentes That is by his own Translation They said there were three Substances meaning thereby three Subsisting Persons But when as now for some Ages it is agreed for prevention of Ambiguity in the one sense to say Substance and in the other Subsistence it is not now the same to call them three substances in contradistinction to three subsistences as then it was while the word was used Ambiguously in both senses This I suppose may satisfy you so far as concerns the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Houses if it will not satisfy Dr. Sherlock let Him and the Animadverter dispute it out Yours c.