Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	divine_a	person_n	personal_a	4,224	5	9.5510	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89410	An answer to George Keith's libel. Against a catechism published by Francis Makemie. : To which is added, by way of postscript. A brief narrative of a late difference among the Quakers, begun at Philadelphia.	Makemie, Francis, 1658-1708.; Keith, George, 1639?-1716.; Mather, Increase, 1639-1723.	1694 (1694)	Wing M307; ESTC W24940	61,656	129

Light of the Truth because he quarrels this that the Truth is made so easie plain to be discerned and the reason or ground given by this worthy Author why the Churches of Christ are necessitated to use such novelty of words if they may be so called is when the Truth is to be Defended against Rangle●… who deride it with Quibbles so the Old Fathers being troubled with False Doctrines were necessitated to express themselves in exquisite plainness least they should leave any crooked by ways to the wicked to whom the doubtful Constructions of words were hiding Holes of Error therefore it was that the Fathers in Confutation of Arius were necessitated in asserting the Divinity of the Son to call him HOMOUSION or Consubstantial with the Father And against Sabellius who denied all Distinction between the Father Son and Holy Ghost but what was Nominal the Defenders of Truth were necessitated to say there did subsist in the Unity of God a● Trinity of Persons which is most suitable to though● not rigidly the same with the Language of John There are Three and these Three are One Trinity Tres Vnes or Tres in Vno Trinity Having offered these Generals I come particularly to the Charge for asserting there are Three Persons in the God-head All that Keith would seem to Alledge is only that it is not Scripture Language whereby he would seem to favour the great Fundamental Principle most of his Brethren have been blasphemously barking against these Thirty or Forty Years and devoutly to say There are Three in One But it were to be wished that he and all of them would demonstrate themselves according to their usual boasting more skilful in the Scriptures then any of their Neighbours by declaring freely ingenuously what those Three are called that are but One God and what Substantive they joyn with the Adjective three which is distinguished in the Father Son and Holy Ghost and then they would have dealt plainly without all Popish Equivocation or Reservation which all that Read their Books and frequently Converse with them will find the generality of Quakers as guilty of as any subtile Jesuit at St. Omers For if this great and Fundamental Truth would be made plain to the Edification of the Church of God to which it is so highly necessary that God can neither be known believed in or called upon aright without it then some denomination must be ascribed and given differing from one another in Incommunicable Properties for they must either be three somethings or three nothings the former being rejected if three somethings they must be either three Gods three Essences three Parts of the same Essence or three Qualities or three Names or three Manners or wayes of Subsisting To assert to Three Gods were insufferable Blasphemy Though Josiah Coal is as guilty of as great Blasphemy in a Letter to George Fox which as it came from a Quaker was also Approved of by Pen himself in his Answer to Mr. John Faldo a Minister I lately saw in London which for the Readers satisfaction and abhorrence of all I shall here Insert Dear George Fox who art the Father of many Nations whose Life has reached through us thy Children even to the Isles afar off to the Begetting of many again unto a Lively Hope for which Generations to come shall call thee Blessed whose Being and Habitation is in ●he powtr of the Highest in which thou Rules Governs ●n Righteousness And thy Kingdom is Established in Peace and the Encrease thereof is without End Let Pen and as many as will dare to Justifie this consider the Language of the Righteous God H● that Justifies the Wicked and he that Condemneth th● Just even they both are Abomination to the Lord. But to return To assert Three Essences were to conceal Three Essentially Distinct which were to fall in with the former absurdity To receive or be lieve three parts of the same Essence or God head which were most inconsistent with that Oneness and absolute Simplicity in the Nature of God which cannot be conceived divisible and to call the three in one three qualities or accidents were to believe accidents in God which were absurd and to asse●… nothing else but three Names were to fall in with the long since exploded Heresy of Apollinarius and to hold Faith repugnant to the Rule of Gods Word whence he has twice Three Names and yet asserted to be but Three only so that it must be Three Distinct Manners Methods or Wayes of Subsisting and is Termed in the Schools Ens and Modus Entis And according to the unanimous Opinion of our Reforming and Reformed Divines A Person in the God-head is whole God not absolutely or simply considered but by way of some personal Properties or a manner of Being or Distinct Subsistence haveing the whole God-head in it Vsher and Calvin call a Divine Person a Subsistence in the Divine Nature which having relation to the other is distinguished from them with Incommunicable Properties So that though the Father Son and Holy Ghost be really and essentially the same in Essence or Being yet they have something differing from one another for if the Word Joh. 1.1 had been simply and absolutely God without any thing peculiar to 〈◊〉 self it had been improper and amiss to have said 〈◊〉 was not only God but with God To which D●ctrine Tertullian agrees saying there is in God a certain Disposition or Distribution which changeth nothing of the Unity of the Essence I need not heap up these manifold Testimo●ies both of old New Testament asserting Three in One and One in Three and if any quarrel the word person they shall find this plain Scripture Language Heb 1.3 speaking of Christ the Second Person in the Trinity saith He is the Brightness of his Fathers Glory and Express Image of his Person can any serious and illuminated Reader pass over this Text without owning the word Person to be Scripture Language and that the Father is a Person distinct in Person from God the Son for he is not called the Fathers Person Remark it Reader but the Express Image of his Fathers Person And if none must be called a Person but the Father as some Quakers have said then what was Christ's Person when Mediator having two Natures of God and man not mans personality for so Divine Nature would have satisfied in the Person of the Humane Nature which would imply no small Absurdities or he should be the Person of the Father which were repugnant to the formerly cited Text Our Mediator was without all Person And finally if the Father is a Person and the Son the Image of this Person why not the Holy Ghost a Person also and Three in One and One in Three The Next Charge is and that a Weighty one in P. 9 10. And that is for mentioning only Three Offices of Christ as Mediatour a Prophet Priest and King And that Really Savingly and only to those that Believe