Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	holy_a	person_n	trinity_n	2,662	5	9.6888	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30666	A defence of the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and incarnation placed in their due light in answer to a letter, written to the clergy of both universities.	Bury, Arthur, 1624-1713.	1694 (1694)	Wing B6194; ESTC R37522	7,576	10

A Defence of the Doctrines of the HOLY TRINITY and Incarnation Placed in their due Light In Answer to a Letter written to the Clergy of both Vniversities THat there is One is only True God is most Frequently and Earnestly inculcated in the H. Scripture in both Testaments yet doth the same Scripture give the title of God to Three distinct Persons and to reconcile such an Unity with such a Trinity is the present endeavour of many pens among which some have been so unhappy as to produce nothing but a more irreconcileable enmity between themselves To avoid the undecencies into which the dispute hath lately transported especially Two great Doctors I choose to follow a greater than them Both who shunning the Elenctical way hath cast his sentiments into 28 Propositions and I presume to build on upon his foundation For it is easier to stop the mouth of an Adversary than to satisfie an Inquisitive mind desirous to see the Truth not only Defended but positively Stablished I shall not recite all the 28 Propositions supposing it sufficient to reduce them to this summary viz. The name of God is used in Scripture in more sences than one Self existence is the first and highest of all Perfections and in the highest sence belongs to the Father alone The other two Persons derive their beings from the first and therefore are not beings Absolutely Perfect in reference to their manner of Existence The Only self existent may derive all other Perfections but That of self-existence upon other beings each whereof must have a right to the name of God in a sence next to That which is peculiar to the Father If such Being proceed from the original self-existent by way of Natural and Necessary Emanation they are Equal in all other Perfections and it is so far from a Contradiction to say they are Equally Eternal that it is a flat Contradiction to say the contrary This giveth the second and third Persons their due honor without robbing the Father of what is due to him as the Original of their Divinity To these Propositions of this judicious author I add 1. The Second and Third Person proceed from the first by way of Natural and Necessary Emanation and when our Church speaketh of Generation Proceeding she regards not o much Exactness of Expression as the Capacity of the Vulgar who else might take them to be Creatures 2. Spiritual Emanations are analogous to Corporeal yet not subject to all the same laws They come from their Originals as Consequents do from their Antecedents from which they so proceed as still to remain in them yet not as Parts of them E. G. Let the Antecedent be This viz. God is a being infinitely perfect From This Antecedent necessarily proceed these Consequents viz. God is infinite in Wisdom and ● God is infinite in Power Of these we may more Truely then Properly say they are begotten or proceed from the Antecedent yet are they eternally contained in it nor is the Evidence of the first Diminished but Confirmed by the confident belief of the other two nor for the same reason is the honour of the Father lessened by what is paid to either of the other 3. The same Being may have many Properties which do not make it so many several Beings but One so much the more Perfect We doubt not but God hath many Perfections whereof we cannot have the least Idea 4. All that we can know or need to believe concerning God is comprehended in Three Properties 1. Original Being is Father of All other Beings This implieth Goodness Mercy Infinity Eternity All-sufficiency Justice c. 2. A Perfect being must be a Thinking Mind the Word is the immediate Issue and exact Image of the Mind This Implieth Wisdom Veracity Omniscience c. 3. Goodness and Wisdom would be Useless without Power to execute and the H. G. is the doer of wonderful works and the mover of our Minds This is Power Providence the Sanctifier Comforter c. 5. Divine Properties are not Concretes which receive their Beings by Participation from some Universal Nature but are themselves That Universal Nature from which all Particulars receive whatever Measures they enjoy St. John to express the Infinity of Gods Love speaketh in the Abstract God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in Him and if we will speak exactly we must speak of all the rest in the same dialect 6. Concretes which receive by Participation enjoy only their Measure But the Universal Nature is Immense That which is but an Adjunct in Creatures is Essence in God and every Property is God Himself under its peculiar Idea 7. Though the Second and third Properties be not equal to the First in point of Independence in a Physical sence because they derive their being from him yet they are so in a Logical sence because the First can no more be without either of Them than either of Them can be without the First We therefore do not rob the Father when we adore either of Them because we do not Separate though we Abstract them in our Minds Yea some of the Christian Fathers have not thought it necessary to be exact even in Abstracting for they sometimes ascribe to One such acts as properly belong to Another 8. The belief of such a Trinity is safe from Both Extreams On the one side it is out of danger of Tritheism and on the other of Trifleing But Three Spirits sound so like three Gods as to affright a timorous mind and Three Modes or Internal Relations make such a Barren Speculation as cannot justly pretend to any place in our Devotion or in That Scripture which is therefore given by inspiration of God because it is profitable c. 9. If Those Three which we have stiled Properties be capable to advance their substance to the character of PERSONS we may safely communicate with our Church both in her Creeds because then they will be Three Persons and One God and in her Litany too because then the Second and Third will not be either such slight things in Themselves or so regardless of Us as to be unworthy of our adorations This therefore must needs be worth our enquiry wherein we may the better hope for satisfaction because it will not be matter of Discourse but Fact which is less subject to Doubts and Objections PLato and his followers saw so much of the invisible things of God by the things which were made as to discover that there must be One and but One Self existent being which must be Good Wise and Powerful These Three Properties they celebrated under the Common characters of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Subsistence Principles Causes c. under their Respective ●●●es of 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Being the Good c. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the VVord or Reason c. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Soul 2. This plain truth they so sublimed as to multiply Mysteries

Difficult if not altogether Impossible to be understood For they still believed the Unity of God but so discoursed of the Three that they seemed to make every one a several God Insomuch that the Best and Wisest of all heathen Princes M. Aur. Antoninus said I thank God that having such a passion for Philosophy I did not fall into the hands of any Sophist that I did not amuse my self in reading their Books or answer the vain Subtilties of their Discourses 3. This Gnostick humour of the Sophists wrought in all ages and Origen thank him plainly distinguisheth the Gospel into Sensible and Intelectual appropriating the Former to Children and the Later to Adult and Exalted understandings And another age accounting it no less honourable for the Gospel to exceed the discoveries of Reason even in Natural Theology than for Themselves to surmount the capacities of the Vulgar so disguised the Doctrine of the Trinity that as occasions varied they sometimes Professed and sometimes Denied it to be the same with That of Plato 4. The Consequents were Lamentable Religion was degraded from a reformer of Manners to a refiner of VVits and filled the Christian world with Debauches and Disputes 5. The First most Cruel and most Durable contention was That with Arius which was not ended when the Catholicks fell into a controversie between the Greeks and Latines concerning the title of the Three The Greeks would call them Subsistences This the Latines thought too much and would not allow them to be more than PERSONS And Greg. Naz. celebrateth it as one of Athanasius's best performances that he indulged to both parties the use of their own expressions 6. The Greeks therefore kept possession of their Platonick word Subsistences which being not Classical needed to be explained The most Authentick paraphrase was That of Justinian and his Council 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the Geeeks never acknowledged the Trinity to be more than Three Properties in the Godhead 7. On the other side what the Latines meant by their word PERSON St. Ang. hath given us a full account not of his Own private thoughts but of the general sence of the Christian VVorld The word PERSON he saith was taken up for want of a better that might import Tria quaedam Three Somewhats of which he could not give a clear Idea And at the foot of the account we have this memorable Summum total Aeternus Sapiens Beatus haec tria sunt Trinitas quae appellatur Deus Thus far we meet no other Trinity but of Properties in God 8. But when Religion fell under the empire of the Schoolmen the poor word PERSON was so racked as to exceed Both extreams When they will talk Mysteriously they so discourse that if I can reconcile their Trinity of Persons with the Unity of God I must be obliged to them for their nice instructions if I cannot I must reverence their more exalted apprehensions Yet when they speak to a learned reader they debase the word so low that it shall not signifie so much as a Porperty The truth hereof is perhaps all that we can learn in the writings of the two angry Doctors who with equal confidence vouch the same authority of the Schools the one for three Spirits the other for three Modes and Relations 9. All agree in This for the Definition of a Person that it is an Intellectual Substance differing from all others By the General but most Irregular interpretation of This Definition the Later half is utterly idle For if every single Substance already differ from all others by its mere Existence what means the addition of those needless words It is intolerable in Definitions to have the one half impertinent but so it must be if an Intellectual Substance and a Person be terms Aequipollent and Convertible as some contend 10. Common practice supplies this defect For it tells us that one Person differeth from all others not by his single Existence but by some proper marks peculiar to himself And since one man may wear many such Characters he may thereby sustein as many Persons Thus the great oracle of language saith of himself I who am but One man sustein Three Persons mine own that of an Accuser and that of a Judge and a very late writer of Animadversions on a Postscript c. makes his entry with such a frump as intends to Ridicule but effectually Verifies the Doctrine The Doctor saith he or Dean or Defender no matter which I name for They Three are One Are they so then what can be answered to these questions Is not the Doctor a Person Is not the Dean a Person Is not the Defender a Person If the same Man may be Three Persons Why may not the same God 11. The angry Doctor that so frequently complaineth of the Church of England for not engaging in his quarrel and in every page pleadeth the Church the Church confesseth that his Hypothesis appeared first in the eighth or ninth Century What a misery is it that we have lost so many of that Churches Doctrines The Mystery of Transubstantiation the worship of Images the fires of Purgatory c. 12. God be blessed Our Church is reformed both from the Corrupt Doctrines and Cruel Spirit of the eighth and nineth Century In our present question either she sits silent or insinuates the same sence which we have heard from St Augustin For in his First Article wherein she stablisheth the Unity of God and Trinity of Persons she nameth the Three comprehensive Attributes Goodness VVisdom and Power How this is to be understood I appeal to the Church of France which in the Sixth Art of her Confession de foy saith This Holy Scripture teacheth us that in this One and Simple Divine Essence which we have confessed there are Three Persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost The Father the First Cause Principle and Origin of all things The Son his Eternal Word and Wisdom The Holy Ghost his Vertue Power and Efficacy 13. The Holy Scripture by a Prosopopaeia proper to the Time and Place wherein it was writen representeth the divine Properties as Speaking and Acting in the manner of Compleat Intelligent Substances Concerning the Second Person this is plain Fact in the First eighth and nineth Chapters of the Proverbs of Solomon the Third is no otherwise a Person than the Second So the Consequence is indifferent to Both. The sum therefore is This that as the former Classis of Propositions prove by plain Reason that every Divine Property is God so doth matter of Fact prove that no Authority Humane or Divine obligeth us to believe more than this that the Divine Trinity of Persons is only a Trinity of Properties I envy not those Eagles that can soar higher and see more my simple Ambition pretendeth to no more than is necessary to reconcile the Word of God in Scripture with the Dictates of Reason and the peace of my Conscience with Conformity to the Church which having obtain'd