Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	acknowledge_v	faith_n	rule_n	2,324	5	7.1280	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40072	Certain propositions by which the doctrin of the H. Trinity is so explain'd, according to the ancient fathers, as to speak it not contradictory to natural reason together with a defence of them, in answer to the objections of a Socianian writer, in his newly printed Considerations on the explications of the doctrin of the Trinity : occasioned by these propositions among other discourses : in a letter to that author.; Twenty-eight propositions by which the doctrine of the Trinity is endeavoured to be explained	Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.	1694 (1694)	Wing F1696; ESTC R14585	14,588	32

But I am sure our Author never spake a truer Word than what he saith in his Seventeenth Proposition concerning the real Distinction of the Three Persons in Scripture And surely those whose Notions are most agreeable to the Letter and most proper Sence of Scripture when there is no apparent necessity of departing from them as I think there is the greatest Necessity of keeping thereto in this case if they happen to be in an Error their Error is on the safer side And since those of your Opinion do so zealously contend for making the H. Scriptures the sole Rule of Faith and profess that you will take nothing for a Point of Religion but what is found in the Bible wherein you do like Protestants at least if you will acknowledge that to be there which is there by evident Consequence as well as in express Words since I say you do so you of all Men should not be over dogmatical in determining a Point which the H. Scripture is silent in And then for Reason such an Unity as our Author after the Fathers asserts is not contradictory or contrary to any plain and evident Dictate thereof This I adventure to Affirm with very great Assurance And Sir your self must needs be of the same Mind if you were in good earnest as I can't think otherwise in calling the Explication a possible Scheme and owning that it is not contradictory in any of its parts to Natural Reason But Sir to speak my Mind freely I will not of all Men go to School to the School Divines to learn what Reason saith on an Argument of this Nature and therefore neither to those Modern Divines who pin their Faith upon their sleeves If I could satisfie my self to be an Implicit Believer I would a thousand times rather take the Ancient Fathers and it may be Philosophers too for the Guides of my Reason than those Gentlemen who spent their time in the Weaving of Fine Cobwebs and particularly are so superfine upon the simplicity of the Divine Essence as to render GOD Almighty at least to such a dull Understanding as mine a no less unconceivable than incomprehensible Being and to simplifie Him rather into Nothing than into Simple Vnity 3. That this Explication leaveth onely a certain Political or Oeconomical Unity is only said by you but the Twenty Second Proposition tells you the contrary of which more anon 4. This Explication doth not take away the Numerical Unity of the God-head or of God in the Absolutely highest Sence and the First Original of All things For it expresly affirms the Necessity thereof Prop. 13th 5. It maketh the other Two Persons as much one with the First and with one another as they are without the most apparent Contradiction capable of being One in so High a Sence as that we want a Word by which to express their Unity And therefore that they are much more than Specifically One as Three Humane or Angelical Persons are Were I a Schoolman it should scape me hard but I would add another distinction of Unity between Specifical and Numerical to express this Unity by which I am sure would have more of a Fundamentum in re than many of their Distinctions have This Explication speaks as great a Unity between them as is between the Sun and its Splendor and the Light of both And a greater than is between the Vine and its Branches or than is between the Fountain and the Streams which flow from it Which are Similitudes of the Ancients I say this Explication speaks the Unity of the Divine Persons greater than the Unity of each of these because tho' they are most closely and intimately United yet are not inseparable And for the same reason it speaks a greater Unity between them than is between our Souls and Bodies as appears by the Twenty Second Proposition And where is he who will pretend to know how many Degrees or Kinds of Unity are possible or actually are 6. The inseparable Unity in Will and Nature between the Three Persons which that Proposition affirmeth not to have the least shadow of a Contradiction in it and therefore is taken into this Explication doth answer all the ends for which the Unity of the Deity was ever asserted And therefore the Distinction asserted between the Three Persons hath not the least Appearance of any one of the pernicious Consequents which follow upon a Plurality of Gods and consequently there is no reason in the World tho' you say there is the greatest why it should be abhorred by the School-Divines or the most Learned among the Moderns or by any Mortal learned or unlearned For they are outwardly and in reference to the Creation perfectly One and the Same God as concurring in all the same External Actions tho' in relation to One Another there is a real Distinction between them And it seems very wonderful that this should be denyed by any one who professeth himself a Trinitarian since there is no understanding what a Contradiction means if a Being that Begets and that which is begotten thereby and a Third which proceeds from both should not be really distinct from each other 7. A Plurality of Gods hath generally been so understood as to imply more than One independent and therefore likewise Self-existent Deity as the common Arguments against a Plurality of Gods do suppose but it was never otherwise understood than so as to import separate Deities And never were there more zealous Asserters of the Unity of the Deity against the Pagans than were divers of the Ancients to whom our Author is beholden for the Substance of this Explication One of these was Lactantius to pass by several others of the Three First Centuries and I find him thus discoursing in the 29 th Chap. of his Fourth Book De Vera Sapientia Fortasse quaerat aliquis c. Some one perhaps will ask how when we say we worship One God we can assert Two viz. God the Father and God the Son c. And to this Question the Father thus Answers Quum dicimas Deum Patrem c. When we say God the Father and God the Son we don't separate and part them asunder c. they have one Mind one Spirit one Substance And in the next Words he saith in what sence they are One Sed ille quasi exuberans Fons c. But the Father is as it were the overflowing Fountain the Son as a stream flowing from him He like to the Sun This like to a Sun-beam And this is the same Description of their Unity with one another that the Explication gives And I think there needs no more to be said in Defence thereof against the odious Charge of Tritheism to any ingenuous and Free-minded Person Nor doth there need to be given any farther Answer to what remains in your Paper that designs to prove this a to be abhorred Tritheistical Explication But I must Clear it from another great Mistake in the Account you next give

CERTAIN Propositions By which the DOCTRIN OF THE H. Trinity Is so Explain'd according to the Ancient Fathers as to speak it not Contradictory to Natural Reason TOGETHER With a Defence of Them in Answer to the Objections of a Socinian Writer in His Newly Printed Considerations on the Explications of the Doctrin of the Trinity Occasioned by these Propositions among other Discourses In a Letter to that Author LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pidgeons in Cornhil 1694. CERTAIN Propositions c. 1. THE Name of God is used in more Sences than one in Holy Scripture 2. The most Absolutely Perfect Being is God in the Highest Sence 3. Self-Existence is a Perfection and seems to be the Highest of all Perfections 4. God the Father alone is in reference to His Manner of Existence an Absolutely Perfect Being because He alone is Self-Existent 5. He alone consequently is Absolutely Perfect in reference to those Perfections which do praesuppose Self-Existence 6. Those Perfections are Absolute Independence and Being the First Original of all other Beings In which the Son and the Holy Ghost are comprehended 7. All Trinitarians do Acknowledge That these Two Persons are from God the Father This is affirmed in that Creed which is called the Nicene and in that which falsely bears the Name of Athanasius Tho' with this difference that the Holy Ghost is asserted in them to be from the Son as well as from the Father Wherein the Greek Church differs from the Latin 8. It is therefore a flat Contradiction to say that the Second and Third Persons are Self-Existent 9. And therefore it is alike Contradictious to Affirm them to be Beings Absolutely Perfect in reference to their Manner of Existence and to say that they have the Perfections of Absolute Independence and of being the First Originals of all things 10. Since the Father alone is a Being of the most Absolute Perfection He having those Perfections which the other Two Persons are uncapable of having He alone is God in the Absolutely Highest Sence 11. And therefore our Blessed Saviour calls Him The onely True God Joh. 17.3 This is Life Eternal to know Thee the onely True God and Iesus Christ whom Thou hast sent And it is most Absurd to think That in these Words and the following Prayer He did address Himself to the Three Persons of the Trinity conjunctly since throughout the Prayer He calls this Onely Truly God his Father and calls Himself twice His Son before these Words Not to mention the Absurdity of making our Lord to pray to Himself or of distinguishing Himself from those Three of which Himself was one If such a Liberty as this in interpreting Scripture be allowable what Work may be made with Scripture 12. Our Lord calls the Father The Onely True God because He only is Originally and of Himself God and the First Original of all Beings whatsoever As he calls him the Onely Good saying There is none Good but God because He alone is Originally so and the Spring of all that Good which is in other Beings 13. The God head or God in this Highest Sence can be but One Numerically Of which the best Philosophers were satisfied by their Reason and therefore the Oneness so frequently affirmed of Him in Scripture is a Numerical Oneness 14. There seems to be neither Contradiction nor Absurdity in supposing the First Original of all things to be productive of other Beings so Perfect as to have all Perfections but that of Self-Existence and those which are necessarily therein implyed 15. Supposing any such Beings to have immediately issued forth from that infinite Fullness and Foecundity of Being which is in the Deity each of them must have a Right to the Name of God in a Sence next to that in which it is appropriated to the Father since they have all the Perfections of the Godhead but those that must of Necessity be peculiar to Him 16. It is evident from the Holy Scripture That the Son and Holy Spirit are such Beings viz. That they have all Divine Perfections but the forementioned Such as Unlimited Power Wisdom Goodness c. 17. And they are always spoken of in Scripture as Distinst Beings or Persons according to the Proper Signification of this Word both from the Father and from Each Other Nor are so many Men or Angels more expresly distinguished as different Persons or Substances by our Saviour or his Apostles than the Father Son and Holy Ghost still are 18. It is a very presumptuous Conceit That there can be no way but that of Creation whereby any thing can be immediately and onely from God which hath a distinct Existence of its own Or That no Beings can have Existence from Him by way of Necessary Emanation Of which we have a Clearer Idaea than of Voluntary Creation It is the Word of the Ancients both Fathers and Philosophers nor can a better be found to express what is intended by it viz. A more excellent way of existing than that of Creation 19. It is no less presumptuous to Affirm That it is a Contradiction to suppose That a Being can be from Eternity from God the Father if 't is possible it may be from Him in a more Excellent Way than that of Creation And we have an Illustration of both these Propositions by something in Nature For according to our Vulgar Philosophy Light doth exist by necessary Emanation from the Sun and therefore the Sun was not before the Light which proceeds from thence in Order of Time tho' it be in Order of Nature before it And the Distinction between these Two Priorities is much Elder than Thomas Aquinas or Peter Lombard or any School-man of them all or Christian-man either 20. And if any thing can be from another thing by way of Necessary Emanation it is so far from a Contradiction to suppose that it must only be in order of nature before it that 't is most apparently a Contradiction to suppose the contrary 21. Our 18th and 19th Propositions do speak our Explication of the H. Trinity to be as contrary to Arianism as to Socinianism since the Arians assert that there was at least a moment of time when the Son was not and that He is a Creature 22. Altho' we cannot understand how it should be no Contradiction to affirm That the Three Persons are But One Numerical Being or Substance yet hath it not the least shadow of a Contradiction to suppose That there is an unconceivably close and inseparable Union both in Will and Nature between them And such a Union may be much more easily conceived between them than can that Union which is between our Souls and Bodies since these are Substances which are of the most unlike and even Contrary Natures 23. Since we cannot conceive the First Original of All things to be more than One Numerically and that we acknowledg the now mentioned Union between the three Persons according to the Scriptures together with the