Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	body_n	soul_n	union_n	2,456	5	9.5499	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62254	An antidote against poyson, or, An answer to the Brief notes upon the creed of St. Athanasius, by an anonimous author by J. Savage ...	Savage, J. (John), 1645-1721.	1690 (1690)	Wing S768; ESTC R19099	21,469	17

the Union is between two finite things but in the pretended Personal Vnion of God to Man and Man to God the Union is between Finite and Infinite which on the Principles of the Trinitarians is impossible For we must either suppose that Finite and Infinite are Commensurate that is equal which every one knows is false or that the Finite is united but to some part of the Infinite and is disjoyned from the rest which all Trinitarians deny and abhor You will say If they admit neither of these how do they shew the Possibility of the Incarnation or Union of God to Man They tell you God indeed is Infinite and every reasonable Soul and Body even that of Christ is Finite yet the whole God and whole Man are united because As the whole Eternity of God doth coexist to a moment of Time so the whole Immensity of God is in every Mathematical Point of Space The very Truth is they cannot otherways defend the Incarnation or Personal Vnion of an infinite God to a finite Man but withal it must be owned that then the Doctrins of the Trinity and Incarnation do infer imply and suppose all the Contradictions that Mr. Johnson has objected to the Doctrin of Transubstantiation in that little Golden Tract so deservedly esteemed by All. His whole Book and all his Demonstrations are founded on these two Suppositions that a longer time doth not all of it coexist to a shorter nor is a greater Extension constipated or contained in a less much less in a Mathematical Point Therefore all his Books and all that he hath so well said and argued in the Preface concerning the Authority and Judicature of Reason in Matters of Religion equally and effectually destroys the Ductrins of the Trinity and Transubstantiation If the Reader would have an excellent Book let him procure that But Oh! were the Press as free for the Unitarians as 't is for other Protestants how easily would they make it appear that the Follies and Contradictions so justly charged on the Transubstantiation are neither for Number Consequence nor Clearness any way comparable to those implied in the Athanasian Creed and that the Trinity hath the same and no other Foundation with the Transubstantiation so that we must of necessity admit both or neither If the Church is to interpret Scripture for us we must admit both but if Reason we can admit neither and this I think the Trinitarians will not deny But secondly In the pretended Incarnation or Union of God with Man the Union cannot be Personal as 't is between the Soul and Body it cannot I mean be such an Union as to make but one Person The Union of the Soul and Body may be properly Personal that is may constitute or make one Person because 't is not the Union of two Persons but only of one Person the Soul to a thing otherways without Life Reason Memory or Free-will The Body is but as it were the Garment of the Soul and is wholly acted by it and depending on it But in the pretended Union of God with a Man there are two distinct and very different Lives Memories Reasons and Free-Wills which utterly destroys a Personal Union for that supposes but one Life one Reason one Memory one Free-Will for if these things which constitute a Person are sound more than once there is no longer one Person but two and consequently no Personal Union in the sense of which we are speaking This is the Catholick Faith which except a Man believe faithfully he cannot be saved By believing Athanasius doth not mean bare believing but he includeth also therein Profession for He saith a little before The right Faith is that we Believe and Confess c. So that a Man cannot be saved unless he Believes and Professes as this Creed directs him First for Believing What if a Man cannot believe it Are we obliged under the Penalty of the loss of Salvation to believe it whether we can or no Doth God require of any Man an impossible Condition in order to Salvation Secondly As to professing under pain of Damnation What if it be against a Man's Conscience to profess it The Scripture saith Whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin if therefore a Man profess against his Conscience He sins and if notwithstanding this a Man must either Profess or be Damned then God requires some Me● to sin in order to their Salvation but this we are sure is false and therefore that the Menace in the Artide is vain And now I appear to all Men that have any freedom of Judgment remaining Whether this Creed is fit to be retained in any Christian much less Protestant and reformed Church Since it subverts the Foundations not only of Christianity but of all Religion that is to say Reason and Revelation there being no Principle in Reason and Scripture more evident than that God is One or that there is one Almighty only-Wise and Good Person or Father of all If we cannot be sure of this then Religion and Christianity are built upon Fancy only and have no solid Foundation This Creed may be profess'd by the Roman Political Church because it gives countenance to their Absurd Transubstantiation and Cunning Traditions added to Scripture as those Doctrins do to the gaining of Veneration and consequently Dominion and Riches to their Clergy But in a eformed Church where the Scripture is held to be a Compleat Rule of Faith and Manners and also to be Clear and Plain in all things necessary to Salvation even to the meanest Understanding that reads it or hears it with Sobriety and Attention such a Confession of Faith is I think intolerable as being utterly inconsistent with those Principles and reducing us back to the Roman Bondage Besides Nothing has been or is more scandalous to Jews and Mahometans than his Creed the chief Article of whose Religion is that there is one only God The evidence of which Principle is such in nature as well as Scripture that it has propagated Mahomatism among greater Numbers than at this day own Christianity for the sake of that one Truth so many Nations have swallowed all the Errors and Follies of the Alchoran or Book of Mahomet as on the other Hand Christianity has been rejected and detested among them on the account of the Christians Three Persons who are severally and each of them God But the Mischiefs of this Creed do not stay here it is levelled not only against the True Faith but is destructive of that Love and Charity Which is the Spirit and Life of Christianity and without which Faith is but a Life-less Body For as if it would effectually inspire all its Believers with a Spirit of Judging Damning and Uncharitableness it pronounces the Sentence of Eternal Damnation in the Beginning Middle and Conclusion upon all that do not both Believe and Profess this Faith and keep it whole and undefiled that is upon the whole Greek Church and other Churches in the East and upon

the Father was not the Cause and the Son the Effect for all Causes produce their Effects by the Mediation of an Action whereof the Cause is the Origine and the Effects is the term wh●ch receives the action and subjects it in it self as the Philosophers teach Now the Eternal Son of God was produced by an act of the Divine Understanding which doth not operate by acts distinct from it self as Men and Angels do but all acts of the Divine Intellect and Will have a real identity with the Divine Nature and Essence of God as the Divines teach for else if God should understand by distinct acts those acts must inform the Divine Understanding which would make a change in God and so destroy his Immutability as is apparent The same with proportion is to be said of the Holy Ghost who proceeds by an act of Love from the Divine Will no less than that act of the Divine Intellect produces the Divine Word or its Hypostasis With what reason now can this Author still go on in his wilful ignorance He often saith that this Creed contains many Contradictions and as many Impossibilities as Trabsubstantiation and yet in all his Discourse he hath not alledged two Propositions with a contradictory opposition which follows out of the Doctrin of this Creed nay I confidently assert that neither he nor any of his Sect can alledge any one contradiction issuing from the same Doctrin Let the pretended contradiction be assigned and we are ready to answer it and to discover its fallacy but to blunder and vaper as this Author does that there are Two Fathers Two Sons and Three Holy Ghosts and yet prove nothing of all this is not to proceed like a Scholar much less like a Divine but is wholly loss of time How often must I inculcate this Orthodox Truth That in the ineffable Mistery of the Divine Trinity the characteristical notion of the Father is his innascibility together with his paternity and fecundity of active spiration of the Son is his filiation and fecundity of active spiration of the Holy Ghost is his passive Spiration alone These Three Persons as they mutually are correlatives to each other so they are really distinct from each other they are capable of Multiplication and constitute a number The Father hath in himself besides the relative Predicates all the absolute Predicates and Perfections that are contained in the Divine Nature and Essence all the Attributes of the Divinity The Father hath Communicated to the Son all the absolute Perfections of the Divine Nature and the notional Predicate of active Spiration To the Holy Ghost the Father and the Son have communicated all the Divinity with all the absolute Attributes and Perfections thereunto belonging So that although these three Persons are three in number yet the Divinity of them all is the self-same individual and singular Deity for the same Divine Nature that is in the Father is also in the Son and Holy Ghost Now this Author would have us to multiply the Divinity as the Persons are multiplied thereby to lead his Reader into a Labyrinth of Errors by acknowledging more Gods than one which in effect is no better than rank Paganism Must we follow the conduct of his wild Genius because he pretends to Demonstrations which in effect are meer Improbabilities or adhere to those Sacred Truths which are delivered to us by holy Writ and are backt by Divine Authority But let us proceed with him to the Incarnation of the Divine Word The Athanasian Creed from hence proceeds to the Incarnation of the Divine Word thus The right Faith is that we believe and confess that our ●ord Jesus Christ the Son of God is both God and Man To which words this Author replies That then the Lord Christ is two Persons for as he is God he is the second Person of the Trinity and as he is man a perfect man he is also a Person for a Rational Soul vitally united to a Humane Body is a Person I answer that a Rational Soul vitally united to a Humane Body is the compleat Nature of a Man compleat I say ratione naturae but to be compleat also ratione Personae you must add to this compleat Nature a subsistentia which makes up the compleat Suppositum or Hypostasis of a man ratione personae But in Christ there was no need of this Humane subsistentia for the Divine Word assumed the compleat Humane Nature not the Human Person as Nestorius said for the Humanity of Christ subsists by the Personality of the Divine Word which supplies abundantly all defects and functions which the Humane Personality would exercise were it present so that the Humane Personality would be superfluous in Christ and of no use at all To what he adds viz. Let the Athanasians then Confess that Christ was not God which is the truth Here he plainly professeth his Error and flatly denies the Divinity of Christ It is not my design to prove at large in this short Treatise the Divinity of Christ which the Divines have effectually prov'd in the matter of Incarnation I shall therefore only hint at some Particulars As the fulfilling of the Prophecies of the Old Prophets the Testimony of the Eternal Father in a Voice from Heaven This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased the often asseveration of Christ himself confirmed by many strange and prodigious Miracles and sealed by his Death the Reluctancy of Nature at his Crucifixion his Resurrection after Death which none could effect but by the mighty hand of the Omnipotent the Universal attestation of all the Apostles in Confirmation whereof they all sacrificed their Lives with other pregnant motives contained in the Sacred Word of God which are too prolix for this short Treatise all which being duly prondered and considered are able to convince not only an indifferent judgment but also the most obstinate and perversest judgment that can be if it be swayed by Reason and work them into a stedfast belief of the Divinity of Christ wherefore I shall wave in this place any further dilatation of my Discourse upon this Subject Now we proceed to examine the Hypostatical Union between the Divinity and Humanity of Christ how we can make it out that any Union can be of that Nature as to unite two Natures whereof the one is Infinite and the other Finite for the Athanasian Creed asserts that though Christ be God and Man yet he is not two but one Christ one not by Conversion of the Godhead into flesh but by taking the Manhood into God one not by confusion of substance but by Vnity of Person for as the reasonable Soul and flesh is one Man so God and Man is one Christ Against this the Deist argues that in the Personal Vnion is between Finite and Infinite which is impossible For we must either suppose that Finite and Infinite are commensurate that is equal which every one knows is false or that the Finite is