Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	believe_v	church_n	revelation_n	2,546	5	9.7999	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40396	Reflections on a letter writ by a nameless author to the reverend clergy of both universities and on his bold reflections on the trinity &c. / by Richard Frankland.	Frankland, Richard, 1630-1698.	1697 (1697)	Wing F2077; ESTC R31715	45,590	65

whatever of Action it may import appropriated here to the Holy Spirit yet it is but like all other Actions ad extra common to the Three as we have before fully evidenced P. 30. where he may find what is here or elsewhere by him objected in reference to these Acts fully answered But. Quest. 2. What then does this Author mean in telling of an hundred Actions which the Scripture relates of one God and denies of the other two Gods Does he charge Scripture and the divinely inspired Penman of it with Polytheism or asserting a Plurality of Gods Answ To do him Right I think this is not his Meaning but that by one God he means the true God and by the other two Gods two made Gods such as truly are not God but only have such a Name and are falsly advanced to divine Dignity by Trinitarians whom therefore he charges as Idolaters yea as bad or worse than Pagans More Stuff of like Nature he hath in his 9th Chapter which tho chiefly intended against Dr. Sherlock and his Party yet towards the Close of it as § 93 94. he does bitterly inveigh against the others as Polytheists and Idolaters having a Creed not stuffed with so many Lines as Contradictions yea and when it 's evident as he tells us that in Scripture God the Father is as much distinguished from the Son as two Men or Angels can be In his 83. § he adds these things are so frequently objected and so little Care taken to answer them be our Writers that I thought I could not do better than to represent those to you that we may if it be possible receive a full and satisfactory Answer And now I hope the Christian Reader may fully see what this Author would be at and I should not thus far have raked into the filthy Dunghil of his Blasphemies but to make a full Discovery of him and that even the weaker and more incautious Readers may now see him in his perfect Colours For such Conclusions as these are clearly deducible from his own Words and the most candid Construction that can be put on them viz. 1. That God the Son and God the Spirit when worshipped by Christians with Divine Worship become meer Idols 2. That those Christians who adore these or either of these as true God are as gross Idolaters as Pagans who worship Stocks and Stones and in some respects more vile than they 3. That all such as write in Defence of a Trinity of Persons in the Unity of divine Essence are simple Persons fond of venting absurd and silly Hypotheses and Books and Creeds stuff●d with nothing but flat Contradictions and what I pray will follow from these Conclusions but that 1. All Christians in the World for many hundred Years together were meer Idolaters yea as bad or worse than Pagan Idolaters 2. That Idolatry destroying the very Essence of a true Church Christ therefore for about a thousand Years i. e. from the Time that Arianism was exploded by the Christian World till the time that it was broached anew by Socinus had no true Church Could any Pagan or Mahometan have disgorged the Poyson of a bitter Spirit against Christ and his Members at an higher rate than this But this Man pretends to believe Divine Revelation let me then expostulate the Matter a little with him Can he cast all this Dirt on Trinitarians and not on Scripture and the sacred Writers of it yea on Christ himself Is it only Trinitarians that say Christ is God equal with the Father and doth not blessed Paul say the same Phil. 2. 6 Is it these only that say that we must honour the Son as we honour the Father and doth not Christ himself say the very same Joh. 5. 23 Do these only tell us that Christ the Son is the great Maker Preserver and Upholder of all things and doth not the great Apostle St. John in the first Chapter of his Gospel and Paul in the first Chapter to the Hebrews say the very same Is it these only that say that the Son is the mighty eternal God and doth not the great Prophet Isaiah say as much Chap. 9. Vers 6. stiling him the mighty God the everlasting Father or Father of Eternity Or is it only these who pay that same Divine Worship to the Son become our Redeemer which they pay to the Father in Conjunction with him and do not the innumerable Companies of blessed Angels and Saints yea ten thousand times ten thousand of these with every other Creature in his Kind pay the very same Let him consult Rev. 5. 11 12 13. and he 'll find they do and must all these therefore be Idolaters Oh Blasphemy And as to the blessed Spirit is it only the late Trinitarians who acknowledge his Infinity and Omniscience did not the Royal Prophet David do the same See Psal 139. 7 8 c. Is it only these that declare him to be the true God the great Searcher of Hearts and did not the great Apostle Peter in the Case of Ananias who lyed to the Holy Ghost declare as much when he told him Act. 5. 3 4. Thou hast not lyed unto Men but unto God And did not Ananias to his Cost find it so The Author might do well to consider who it is he casts his blasphemous Reproaches on were it only upon a Company of poor frail Men who possibly may err this were not so much but to cast these on sacred Scripture on the infallibly inspired Pen-men of it and on glorifyed Angels who say and do as much as Trinitarians do yea and on Jesus Christ himself and on the Holy Spirit this is dreadful Before he had gone thus far he might well have considered what our Lord saith Mat. 12. 31. All manner of Sin and Blasphemy shall be forgiven unto Men but the Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto Men or if it be not too late I wish he might yet consider it and repent He pretends § 83. that his End in writing was to receive if possible a full and satisfactory Answer from those learned Persons to whom he writes and what if such an Answer come from one sometimes Member of one of those famous Universities to whom he makes his Address Is not this as much as may suffice both for detecting and confuting his fallacious arguing and for giving ample Satisfaction if he have an Heart prepared for Reception of it However this be thus much I can sincerely profess that for so much of his Letter as relates to those Trinitarians whom he doth abusively stile Nominal and who indeed are the sound and Orthodox Trinitarians I have been so far from overlooking any thing that might seem to have any Weight or to carry any Colour of Reason with it that I have chosen rather as to some of his Objections repeated again and again in different Places under somewhat different Terms to give Answer again and again rather than suffer the incautious

just Ground to stile these Assertors of the Trinity whom he doth distinguish from such as he doth after call Real Trinitarians Here before I pass on give me leave to observe that however most orthodox Divines tell us see Polan Syntag. p. 226. That the Distinction of the divine Persons ought to be the least Distinction Therefore Counsels and Fathers generally say that it's Relation only that makes Distinction and Number in God yet however they all agree in Opposition to Sabellius that this is not meer nominal but a true Distinction which will hereafter be further evidenced Obj. And now to come to the Chapter it self where first I shall take notice of that Passage of the Author § 35. because that being answered the Solution of his other Objections will be very Facile or rather the Objections will vanish of themselves His Words are these It contradicts our clearest Ideas to suppose the same numerical Substance that is in one Person to be at the same time in another and we can as little apprehend what we mean when we say the same numerical Substance constitutes three infinite Persons as when we say the same Substance constitutes three finite Persons Is not the reason the same between an infinite Person and an infinite Substance and between a finite Person and a finite Substance Answ As to that Homonymous Phrase three infinite Persons I have shewn before in what Sense it may be allowed and and in what Sense it may not and therefore shall not here trouble my self or the Reader with it again but as to the Remainder of his Discourse I must tell him that altho it contradicts our clearest Ideas to suppose the same numerical finite Substance that is in one finite Person to be at the same time in another yet it no way contradicts our clearest Ideas that the same numerical infinite Substance that is in one Person with one Mode of Subsistence should be at the same time in another Person with a different Mode of Subsistence Neither is the reason the same between an infinite Person and infinite Substance and between a finite Person and a finite Substance And his Mistake about this is the Foundation of all his other Mistakes and Soul-ruining Errors That the Reason is not the same between infinite Substance and infinite Person as it is between finite Substance and finite Person is evident because finite Substance does propagate modal Subsistence which in rational Nature we call Personality as it 's finite and terminated yea and where it hath its Terms but infinite Substance not being so terminated but infinitely excluding all Terms and Bounds cannot therefore propagate Personality in like manner as the finite doth for that would be to make it imperfect and if it doth not propagate this after the same manner then it follows undeniably that the Reason is not the same betwixt infinite Substance and infinite Person or Personality as between finite Substance and finite Person or Personality So that this Author 's self-evident Propositions will be found to be self-evident Untruths and his Reasoning is no better when he would infer that because the same numerical finite Substance is but in one Person therefore infinite must be so too Obj. But he would perswade that if by reason of the Difference between finite and infinite there is a Difference between the Number of Persons that the Substance is in it would follow that the Difference of Number is infinite because the infinite Distance betwixt these would suppose this Answ This Reasoning of his is vain and false as the former for as Scripture is express in it that there 's Three and no greater Number of Persons in God than three viz. Father Son and Spirit so we have shewn how sanctified Reason sweetly complies with with divine Revelation in giving us clear Ideas of it how Three and no more than Three personal Properties may emane or flow from divine Essence as terminating it self by essential internal Acts upon it self Obj. But suppose the Author should here object if three relative Properties or Personalities flow from divine Essence by means of reflex acts of Essence how comes it to pass that these do not in like manner flow from angelical or humane Essence reflecting on it self after a like manner by the like Acts Answ There 's not the like Reason for it 1. Because these internal reflex Acts of Intellection and Dilection in the angelical and humane Nature are but accidental acts and most frequently intermitted and therefore cannot propagate Personalities but in the Divine Nature these are essential eternal acts and therefore may I had almost said must propagate something viz. in that Nature whence they emane and whereon they terminate 2. These reflex acts in the Creatures at least in our selves are very imperfect and cannot produce an express Image of that which reflects on the Nature as reflected on and consequently not a Person But in God these are most perfect and therefore produce that express Image which is a Person and so the Son is stiled Heb. 1. 3. The express Image of the Father's Person 3. We have shew'd before that angelical or humane Essence being finite and having Terms must therefore where-ever it terminates or where the utmost Bounds of its Extension are propagate Modal Subsistence or Personality for to terminate such Essence but the divine Essence infinitely exceeding all such Bounds and Limits cannot in this way suited only to a finite Creature propagate the same but doth it after an higher way suited to infinite immense Being And here I would demand of the Author either to shew us the way wherein infinite essence doth this seeing it's undenyable that it must be different from this of finite Beings or else give us some pregnant Reasons why it may not do it by terminating it self upon it self with the aforesaid reflex acts or else ingenuously confess that a Trinity of Persons or which is the same Father Son and Spirit in one and the same singular divine Essence is not only clearly reveal'd in the written Word but is likewise very fully consistent with true Reason and the Light of Nature as elevated and improved by divine Revelation and that he hath greatest Cause to be humbled for his bold blasphemous Oppositions to so great and clear a Truth Obj. And thus having discovered the Falsehood of his grand Conclusion § 35. I proceed to take notice of some few things more in this Chapter especially in § 33. where we find him thus reasoning If a Person be a Substance there must be three Substances because Substance is contained in the Idea of Person and consequently as many Substances as Persons all that we apprehend of a divine Substance is that he is a Subject in which all the divine Attributes exist that Person is the very same and these are only different Words to express the divine Being by whence he would infer most blasphemously § 34. That a Trinity of Persons in one Substance is