Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	catholic_n	church_n	universal_a	1,773	5	9.0565	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60941	Animadversions upon Dr. Sherlock's book, entituled A vindication of the holy and ever-blessed Trinity, &c, together with a more necessary vindication of that sacred and prime article of the Christian faith from his new notions, and false explications of it / humbly offered to his admirers, and to himself the chief of them, by a divine of the Church of England.	South, Robert, 1634-1716.	1693 (1693)	Wing S4731; ESTC R10418	260,169	412

perfectly equivalent But there would be no end of Particulars should I quote all that might be quoted and therefore I shall conclude all these single Testimonies with that of Turretinus late Professor of Divinity at Geneva who gives us this full and Judicious Account in his common Places of the Point here before us Fides Orthodoxa haec est in Unicâ ac Simplicissimâ Dei Essentiâ Tres esse distinctas Personas quae proprietatibus Incommunicabilibus sive Modis Subsistendi ità inter se distinguuntur ut una non sit alia licèt per ineffabilem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 maneant semper existant in se invicem Turretinus part 1. Loco 3. Quaest. 28. In the last place to confirm the Testimonies of particular Persons with the joynt Suffrage and Concurrence of whole Churches in their Publick Confessions I shall mention some of them And amongst these the Augustan or Ausperg Confession gives this Account of the Trinity Ecclesiae scilicet Reformatae magno consensu docent Decretum Synodi Nicaenae credendum esse viz. Quòd sit Una Essentia Divina tamen sint Tres Personae ejusdem Essentiae c. Et utuntur Nomine Personae eâ significatione quâ usi sunt Scriptores Ecclesiastici ut significet non partem aut qualitatem sed quod propriè Subsistit Confessio Augustana in Articulo fidei 1. Next to this we have the Wirtemberg Confession declaring the same in the very beginning of it Credimus confitemur Unum solum Deum c. Et in hâc unâ Aeternâ Deitate Tres esse per se Subsistentes proprietates seu Personas Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum This Confession was made and given forth in the Year 1552. Likewise the Gallican Reformed Churches in their Confession made in the Reign of Charles the IX and in the Year 1561. declare themselves much the same way upon this Article Sancta Scriptura nos docet in illâ singulari simplice Essentiâ Divinâ Subsistere Tres Personas Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum Add to these the Belgick Confession also recognized approved and ratifyed in the Synod of Dort which in its eighth Article speaks of the Divine Persons in the Blessed Trinity thus Haec distinctio viz. Personarum non efficit ut Deus in Tres sit divisus quandoquidem Scriptura nos docet Patrem Filium Spiritum Sanctum singulos distinctam habere suis Proprietatibus Hypostasim which Words are extremely expressive and full But as touching these Confessions the Reader ought not in Reason to be dissatisfied that I produce no more of them to the present purpose out of those many which are extant since it has been still the Custom of most Churches to draw up their Confessions in Terms as general and short as they well could So that we are the less to wonder if we seldom meet with such Words in them as are Explicatory and Particular And now after all these Authorities thus alledged by me I would desire this Confident Man whom I am here disputing with to look back upon the fore-mentioned Greek and Latin Fathers Councils School-men and all those Eminent Modern Divines together with the Clergy of whole Countreys and Nations Solemnly and Unanimously declaring themselves in their Publick Avowed Confessions of Faith upon this great Article and Mystery I say I desire him to look all these in the Face and to tell them That they have hitherto abused the whole World with false Notions of the Trinity by expressing the Divine Persons and Personalities by Hypostases Subsistences and Modes of Subsistence Words as he says importing little better than Sabellianism and serving for nothing else but to obscure perplex and confound the Minds and Thoughts of Men in conceiving or discoursing of this Weighty and Sacred Point of our Christian Faith This I require him in defence of what he has so expresly peremptorily and Magisterially affirmed all along in his Book to do if his Heart and Fore-head will serve him for it In the mean time I have here delivered in all the Testimonies both Greek and Latin Ancient and Modern which I think fit to offer in behalf of the Point pleaded for Though should I have represented all that occurrs in the fore-cited Authors besides many others not mentioned to the same Purpose I should not so much have quoted as upon the Matter Transcribed them And now if any one should ask me Whether I look upon these Testimonies as sufficiently representing the Doctrine of the Catholick Church upon this Head of Divinity I Answer That barely by way of Induction they do not since an Induction ought to consist of a greater Collection of Particulars Nevertheless I avouch this Number of Testimonies to be a full and sufficient Representation of the sence of the Church herein if we consider them as joyned with and supported by these Three following Considerations As First That it is morally impossible that the Persons above quoted being of such Eminent Note in the Church both for Orthodoxy and Learning and Living most of them at such a great distance both of Time and Place rendring all Communication between them impracticable should or could presume to express themselves upon so Sacred an Article and so Tender a Point but in such Terms as were generally received used and approved of by the Church Secondly That these Terms were never yet Condemned nor the Users of them Censured by any Church or Council accounted Orthodox which in so great and so revered an Article they would infallibly have been had they been judged unfit for or unapplicable to the Things to which they were actually applyed as this bold Author with great Confidence affirms them to be Thirdly and Lastly That hardly any Church-Writer of considerable Remark and Name can be produced who ever treated of this great Subject in any other Terms than those expressed by us or particularly made use of the Terms Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness to explain it by All being wholly silent of them in all those Writings in which they do most particularly and exactly design a Discussion of these Matters These Three Considerations I say added to the fore-alledged Quotations irrefragably prove them to be a true just and sufficient Representation of the Sence and Doctrine of the Catholick Church in this Matter and that it is utterly inconsistent with the Common Reason Principles and Practice of Mankind that it should be otherwise And as for what concerns this Author whom I am disputing with I dare affirm yet further that any one or two of the Passages quoted by me are more full and clear to the purpose I quote them for than all that he has produced from the several Fathers alledged by him for his Self Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness put together and much more than his forlorn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cited out of Gr. Nyssen to prove the Son an Infinite Mind distinct from the

Subject he has as great or greater a Quarrel at the word Infinite as applyed to God and I shall here give his Exceptions against it in his own words being such as I believe few would dare to utter but himself and approaching so near or rather quite coming up to Blasphemy that it may be truly said That he has not spoke more blasphemously of God's Vindictive Iustice in his Book of the Knowledge of Christ than he has spoken of God's Infinity in this For in the 77 78 79 Pages he expresses his Thoughts of it thus The truth is says he this very word Infinite confounds our Notions of God and makes the most perfect and excellent Being the most perfectly unknown to us For Infinite is only a Negative Term and signifies that which has no end no bounds no measure and therefore no positive and determined Nature and therefore is Nothing mark that and withal That an Infinite Being had not Use and Custom reconciled us to that expression would be thought Nonsence and Contradiction Which I am so far from granting him that I affirm if there had never been any thing in the World besides God alone it had yet been most True and Rational But he goes on For says he every Real Being has a certain and determined Nature and therefore is not Infinite in this sense which is so far from being a Perfection that it signifies Nothing Real Thus he discourses And yet this word Infinite has been universally received and applyed to the Divine Nature by Learned Men in all Places and Ages and I desire this Man to tell me How if this word Infinite were so liable to be thought Nonsence and Contradiction this could possibly come to pass For what he speaks of Use and Custom reconciling us to this Expression is Impertinent and begs the Thing in dispute For still I would know of him how a word so utterly unfit to express the Thing it was applyed to could ever pass into Use and Custom so as to be took up approved and made use of by all Mankind Let him prevail with the whole World to speak Nonsence and to use words that signifie nothing if he can But this Man before he played the Aristarchus at this rate should have done well to have considered That every Term is not Negative which has a Negative Particle in the Composition of it Of which innumerable Instances may be given And if he does not know this for all his flirting at his Socinian Adversary as if he knew neither Greek nor Latin P. 95. it is a scurvy sign that he is not so over-stocked with either of them as to have any to spare And therefore whereas he goes on in Page 78. and pretends there to explain this word Infinite he might have kept his Explication to himself For no body ever used it otherwise but so as to signifie a Positive Perfection by it but yet withal connoting an Illimitation belonging to it It signifies I say a Thing Real Absolute and Positive but still with a Connotation of something which is to be removed from it and denied of it such as are all bounds and limits in respect of that Substantial All-comprehending Perfection of the Divine Nature In a word the Thing principally signified by this Term is Positive the Thing Consignified or Connoted which is but Secondary and Consequential is a Negation And this sufficiently overturns all his odd Descants upon it But if after all our Minds cannot fully master this Notion Persons as thinking as he can be know and acknowledge that it is not the word Infinite but the Thing Infinite that renders them so short and defective in this matter But it is pleasant to see him take his Turns backwards and forwards in speaking of this Thing There is says he Page 78. a measure of the most Absolute and in this sense Infinite Perfections and if such a measure there be then I hope there is as much Nonsence and Contradiction in the word Immense as in the word Infinite and withal if there is even in the most Absolute and Infinite Perfections a no plus ultrà and an ultimum quod sic as the School-men who were never bred at St. Mary Overies are apt to speak then I confess That an Infinite with all these Qualifications about it must needs according to his beloved Dialect be Nonsence and Contradiction and that of the highest Rank And again P. 79. We know not says he how far Infinite Wisdom and Power and Goodness reaches and thus much is very true but then says he again we certainly know that they have their Bounds and that the Divine Nature is the utmost Bounds of them By which words if he means That they have their fixed determinate Notions whereby they are formally distinguished among themselves as well as from other Things it is right For the Notion of Infinite Wisdom is so bounded that it cannot be said to be Infinite Power or Infinite Power to be Infinite Goodness or the like but still the Thing couched under all these is Infinite and neither has nor can have any Bounds set to its Being And if he should here reply That then the Notion of Infinite Wisdom Power and the like are false Notions as not answering the Things they are applyed to I answer That they are indeed imperfect and inadequate as not fully answering the Thing it self but they cannot be said to be false for all that But on the contrary if he will needs have the Thing hereby signified to have any Real Bounds or Limits of its Being then it will and must follow That in the forecited words he has with Accurate and Profound Speculation presented to us An Infinite with Bounds and the Divine Nature which has no Bounds made the Bounds of it These are the very words he uses and withal delivered by him with such a Magisterial Air and Contempt of the whole World besides who have hitherto approved and made use of these Expressions and that in a Sense and signification not to be born down by every self Opiniator after so long and universal a Prescription that so much Confidence cannot be sufficiently wondred at nor too severely rebuked And therefore to review a little the foregoing particulars and thereby to take some estimate of the Man Where shall we find such another Instance of a private Presbyter who in the Communion or rather in the very Bosom of so pure and Orthodox a Church as this our Church of England ever before durst in so great an Article of the Christian Faith draw his Pen against all the Writers of the Church Ancient and Modern Fathers and School-men and with one dash of it explode and strike off all those received Terms by which they constantly explained this Mystery as not only useless but mischievous in all Discourses about it Whereas not to anticipate what I intend more particularly and fully upon this Head in my Eighth Chapter I shall only affirm thus