Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	church_n	doctrine_n	scripture_n	6,830	5	6.3395	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52608	Considerations on the explications of the doctrine of the Trinity by Dr. Wallis, Dr. Sherlock, Dr. S-th, Dr. Cudworth, and Mr. Hooker as also on the account given by those that say the Trinity is an unconceivable and inexplicable mystery / written to a person of quality.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.; Wallis, John, 1616-1703.; Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1693 (1693)	Wing N1505B; ESTC R32239	45,913	35

or Essence of God diversified by three Modes of Subsistence But above all I would not have Dr. S th please himself overmuch in this that he hath cited some Passages of the Fathers which describe the Personalities of the Father Son and Spirit by Modes Justin and Irenaeus have called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Modes of subsisting others call them Properties but by Modes Properties Characters and such like the Fathers meant quite another thing than Dr. S th and the Moderns do they meant what Dr. Sherlock and Dr. Cudworth mean By a Mode and Property they meant that discriminating Character by which the Individuals of any Specifick Nature are distinguished or differenced from all the Individuals of the same Species or Nature For Example the Individuals of the Specifick Nature of Humanity are particular Men and all these Individuals or particular Men are discriminated characterized differenced or modified each by his particular Properties Peter from John Peter and John from James by particular Properties Characters or Modes both of Body and Mind one for instance is bigger taller wiser or some other the like than the other This was what they meant when they described Personalities by Modes and when they said there were three Properties Modes or Characters in God they meant not in the least to deny that each Person is a particular Substance Essence or Nature different in Number from all other Substances Essences or Natures or to deny that each Person is a particular Being they meant only that each Individual or each Person besides the common Specifick Nature that is besides the meer Human Angelical or Divine Nature has also some particular Properties or Characters which ultimately distinguish him from all the Individuals or Persons of the same Species Specifick Nature or Kind It is not true therefore what Dr. S th pretends that by Modes of Subsistence the Antients meant no more than certain such Habitudes or Affections as Mutability Presence Absence Posture or such like they meant real discretive and characterizing Properties or Qualifications and by Person they meant a particular individual intelligent Substance or Essence and so modefied or characterized They were far from dreaming that the three Divine Persons an Almighty Son an Almighty Father and an Almighty Spirit distinct in Number from both were only one individual Substance distinguished or diversified by only three such lank and meagre Affections as Absence Posture Adherence or any other that are no more in a Spiritual Substance than those three are in Bodies to which they add no Perfection and from which they are every Moment separable But the Socinians are not concerned what becomes of the Dispute about Persons and Personalities in God whether they are adequately the same yea or no and again whether the Moderns who follow the Schools agree with the Antients in their Notion of them for I will put to Dr. S th a plain Question to which if he is disposed to give a clear and Categorical Answer it will appear to all Men that either he falls in with Dr. Sherlock or with the Unitarians that is to say he is either a Tritheist or what I doubt he will as much abhor a Socinian He saith there is one only Divine Substance Essence or Nature and thus far we agree with him but he adds this one Substance is so diversified by three Modes Affections or Habitudes or something like to them that we must say under pain of Heresy and Damnation that this one Substance is three Divine Persons a Father his Son and a Spirit distinct from both Therefore I ask have the three pretended Divine Persons each his own proper peculiar and personal Understanding Will and Energy so that there are in the Divine Substance or in God three distinct All-knowing Almighty Understandings Wills and Energies as there are three distinct Persons as Dr. Sherlock has affirmed Or have the three Persons but one only self-same Understanding Will and Energy in Number as there is but one self-same Substance in Number If he saith the former he joins Hands with Dr. Sherlock and is guilty of Tritheism no less than he for three Omniscient and Omnipotent Understandings Wills and Energies without doubt are three Gods If there be three Omnisciencies and Omnipotencies of necessity there must be three Omniscients and Omnipotents but that is Tritheism even in the Judgment of Athanasius himself who expresly denies three Almighties or three All-knowings And indeed I do not think Dr. S th will say that each Person hath his own proper and personal Understanding Will or Energy so that there are three distinct Understandings Wills and Energies in what his Party call the Godhead I see his Book is written with more Judgment and Precaution than Dr. Sherlock's or even than any that I have seen that have been written in Defence of the Trinitarian Cause But if he denies that there are three All-knowing Almighty Understandings Wills and Energies he is a Socinian he has granted to us the Point in Controversy he grants the whole that we contend for They will allow him to say there are three Persons or three thousand Persons in the Godhead so long as he grants but one Omnipotent Energy and Will and but one All-knowing Understanding or Wisdom If this be granted to us 't is plain to every one who gives but never so little heed that the Question about three Persons is a meer Strife of Words and the Authors of the Brief History and Brief Notes are tho not in their Words yet in their Senses as Orthodox as Dr. S th and the Schools I will affirm we have no need of our Brief Histories or Brief Notes we need not make an operose Proof of our Doctrine of the Unity of God from the Holy Scriptures or from Reason the whole Controversy with the Church is ended in the Resolution of this short and plain Question Is there more than one All-knowing Almighty Understanding Will and Energy If you say there is but one such Understanding Will and Energy in one self-same Divine Substance you may talk of as many Persons Fathers Sons Spirits Modes Properties Respects Nothings as you please we will only peaceably advise you that these are meer empty Words that have nothing to answer them in the thing under Consideration When you have granted to us that there is but one Divine Substance and but one Omniscient Omnipotent Understanding and Energy what you add more of Persons Properties Thingams and call them a Trinity 't is an Addition only of Words and Names not of Realities or Persons that are properly so called These things being so and so very evident I cannot wonder that so discerning a Philosopher as Dr. Cudworth never speaks of the Trinity of the Schools maintained by Dr. S th without calling it a Nominal Trinity a Trinity of Names and Words only a disguised Sabellianism which is to say Unitarianism or Socinianism drest up in the absurd Cant of the Schools But whereas the

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE EXPLICATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY By Dr. Wallis Dr. Sherlock Dr. S th Dr. Cudworth and Mr. Hooker as also on the Account given by those that say the Trinity is an Unconceivable and Inexplicable Mystery Written to a Person of Quality Printed in the Year MDCXCIII CONSIDERATIONS on the Explication of the Doctrine of the Trinity c. SIR 't is the principal Design of both Testaments by Confession of all Parties to estabish the Worship and Belief of one only God 't was for this that all the Books of the Old Testament were written and delivered to the Jews and for this the New was bestowed on the Gentiles Of Jews and Gentiles as the Apostle observes There were none that understood none that sought after the true God They were all gone out of the way they became vain in their Imaginations and their foolish Heart was darkened Professing to be wise they became Fools and changed the Truth of God into a Lie by worshipping the Creature and doing Service to them who were not by Nature Gods This was the Condition of both Jews and Gentiles when first the Law and then the Light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the Image of God shone out upon them In the Law the Jews were charged Ye shall have no other Gods but ME and again Thou shalt know no other God but ME. In the Gospel the Gentiles are taught There is one God and there is none other but He There is no other God but one God is one Exod. 20. 3. Hosea 13. 4. Mark 12. 32. 1 Cor. 8. 5. Gal. 3. 20. These and an hundred more such like clear and express Declarations of holy Scripture have been the occasion that the Unity of God or that there is but one God is the first Article of Faith both with Jews and true Christians From the Christians and Jews it hath been learned and embraced by all the Mahometans and is now the general Belief even of the Pagan and Idolatrous Nations for tho these last own and worship many Gods yet they commonly own but one who is Supream Infinite Almighty and Pre-eternal they make the other Deities to be but the Ministers of his Providence and Will and their Mediators with Him But that there is an Almighty and All-wise Mind the Maker of Heaven and Earth and of all the Creatures and Kinds in them we discern plainly by the Order Beauty and Stability of Things and more especially by the admirable Designs in the Whole and in all the Parts of the Creation But as this Divine Beauty and Order and those numberless and most useful Designs Aims and Ends seen in the Creation do evince that there is a Thinking Designing and All-powerful Mind whom we call GOD so they no way intimate to us that there is more than one Creating and Governing Mind or GOD. They demonstrate to us beyond exception that one such Mind there is but not that there is more than one therefore we may say that we can own and worship but one such Mind or but one God because we know of no more Of one we are certain by the Order and Design of the Parts in the World of more than one we have no manner of Proof therefore we cannot own or worship or but talk or even think of more But the Revelation made to us in holy Scripture is Categorical Apodictical Express and Direct there we are told plainly and in terms There is no other God but one there is one God and there is none other but He the Lord thy God the Lord is one God is one As this Doctrine is so clearly delivered in Scripture so good Christians have been always very jealous that neither directly nor indirectly neither in express Words nor in Consequence any thing should be said or held contrary thereto They have considered that Polytheism and Atheism are much the same thing as 't is much one to acknowledg and contend for more Kings of England others besides King William and to renounce or deny him to be King of England Both the Covenants the Old as well as the New are between Us on the one part and the one true God on the other part he covenants to be our God and our exceeding great Reward we covenant to be his People and his only this Covenant is manifestly dissolved and the Premium or Promise of Eternal Life annexed to our Faithfulness to this Covenant is utterly forfeited if we take to our selves any other besides Him with whom we are in covenant and who alone is true God The Guilt of Polytheism or of affirming more than one God being so very great and the Forfeiture thereby made so unspeakable and the Unity of God being so often and so expresly delivered in holy Scripture 't is an amazing Circumstance that Polytheism is not only found among Christians but is also the more general and prevailing Belief of Christian States and Kingdoms It is true we all agree in the words There is one God and there is none other but He but when we come to explain our selves on these words the incomparable Majority of Modern Christians are found to affirm three Gods and not one only One would have thought that these words Thou shalt have no other Gods but ME the Lord thy God is one Lord thou shalt know no other God but ME there is none other God but one God is one I say one would have thought these Declarations to be so plain and so uncontestable that a Question could never have arose concerning their meaning But so it is that there are a great many Senses given of these Words which Senses are contrary to and destructive of one another The Doctrine of the Unitarians concerning God THe first of these Senses is the Unitarian For the Unitarians say there is none other God but one God is one the plain obvious and indubitable meaning of these words is this there is but One who is God or a God One God say they is to be understood in the same natural sincere and unsophisticated Sense as when we say one Sun one Earth one World When the Scriptures say they speak to us of so high an Object as God when they tell us there is one God and there is none other but He when they declare this Faith to be the very first of all God's Charges or Commandments to Men without doubt they speak without Artifice or Querk they have no double or deceitful meaning they don't lay Snares for us by intending such a meaning as is contrary to the usual the grammatical and proper Sense of the Words There is but one God say the Holy Scriptures where can be the Ambiguity of such usual and plain Words the meaning of the Terms One and God is perfectly known to all Men Why do we study Subtilties and Finenesses with which to deceive our selves into Polytheism and to destroy the Simplicity of the Faith When God says in the

pass by this Affront and Imputation which no Clergy-man ought to bear nay he even fawns upon the Oxford Doctor in his late Answer to the Stander by But a very surprizing thing hath happened Dr. Wallis writes in Defence of the Trinity and the Athanasian Creed his Explications are allowed by the University of Oxford and even applauded by great numbers of Learned Men who profess to be Trinitarians and yet after all the Socinians in their Observations on the Letters of Dr. Wallis profess that they are of his Mind they even say that in Honour of him they are content to be called Wallisians This is very odd for it follows that either the Socinians are the true Orthodox and their Opposers Tritheists or else that this good Doctor is a Socinian and knows it not Those that say without doubt the Socinians understand their own Doctrine are very picquant upon Dr. Wallis they pretend themselves very desirous to be informed what might be in the Doctor 's Mind to apologize for the Athanasian Creed and the Trinity and yet to asperse at the same time his own Patriarch Socinus and his dear and close Friends and Brethren the Unitarians especially in such an hainous manner as we see in his third and fourth Letters They say either the Man is Wood or he has written after that fashion only to give occasion to the Socinians as in effect it also happened to appear more bright by a thorow and unanswerable Vindication of themselves for so it is that wronged Innocence and Vertue are rendred more conspicuous and lovely when injurious Calumnies are wiped off They say farther that 't is not to be much regarded that so many have complemented Dr. Wallis for his Letters for what Assurance have we that the Writers of them are not secret Socinians and that they only banter the good Doctor As for the University of Oxford to whom these Sabellian and Unitarian Sermons were preached 't is very usual for the old Men that preside in that University to sleep at Sermons especially at dull ones But you are not to think say they that these Sermons or Letters were ever licensed to the Press by the University or that the Doctors there understand so little as to mistake a disguised Sabellianism or Socinianism for the Trinity of the Catholick Church The three Persons says Dr. Wallis are but three Relations Capacities or Respects of God to his Creatures he is their Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and in this Sense of the word Person God is three Persons But then because God hath also the Capacity or Relation of a Judg and of an Oeconomus or Provider and many more we must not say that God is only three Persons he is five at the least besides I know not how many more Furthermore this new-fangled Socinian or Sabellian has introduced a Trinity of Divine Persons that were but of yesterday The Churches Trinity are all of them from all Eternity Co-eternal saith the Athanasian Creed before all Worlds saith the Nicene Creed but Dr. Wallis his three Divine Persons the first of them begins with the Creation and the second is no older than the Crucifixion of our Saviour for God was not a Creator before he created any thing nor a Redeemer till those words were spoken by our Saviour on the Cross It is finished i. e. The great Work of Redemption is accomplished The three Divine Persons believed by the Church begat one another after a wonderful manner Will Dr. Wallis being the oldest Divine of England instruct Novices that are desirous to learn how his Persons begat one another How did Creation beget Redemption and from all Eternity that is before either of them were for Creation it self is but Coeval with the World and how was Sanctification we must not say begotten for that 's Heresy when you speak of a third Person but how did it proceed from Creation and from Redemption Dr. Wallis say they will find it as hard to account for these Difficulties as to double the Cube or even to square the Circle which the most learned Mathematicians think to be impossible He is not say they to think that he is Orthodox because he hath escaped the heavy cudgelling that hath all fallen on Dr. Sherlock 't is not because his Doctrine but because his Luck hath been better than that Doctor 's In a word whereas the Church believes three real subsisting Persons Dr. Wallis hath taught a Trinity of External Denominations or Accidental Predications only Creation Redemption and Sanctification are Acts of God's free and soveraign Will he was under no necessity to create to redeem or to sanctify they are all Effects of his most voluntary and every way free Love if therefore the Mystery of the Trinity so much hitherto contested be nothing else but Almighty God considered as the Maker Redeemer and Sanctifier of his Creatures 't is a Trinity only of three Denominations or Names and of Predications purely Accidental and besides that 't is no manner of Mystery but the most intelligible and obvious thing in the Word nor was it ever denied either by Sabellians or Socinians Thus it is Sir that divers learned Persons speak concerning the Trinity maintained by Dr. Wallis I for my part will add nothing to the Observations I have formerly made on Dr. Wallis his Letters only I pray take notice here with me how well the Cadmean Brethren agree among themselves Three Divine Persons saith Dr. Wallis are the three Relations of God to his Creatures he made he redeemed he sanctifies them this is the Holy Trinity Out upon it saith Dr. Sherlock 't is Nonsense and Heresy both for the Divine Persons are three Beings three Minds three Spirits all of them living subsisting and conscious to one another No no that 's as much too much saith Dr. S th 't is neither so nor so but as I have explained it in my eighth Chapter of Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock The Explication of the Trinity by Dr. Sherlock saith Dr. S th is a treacherous and a false Defence of that Mystery he hath advanced a Notion that immediately and unavoidably infers three Gods and if he had lived in the times of the sixth General Council he would have incurred the Penalty of Deprivation Pref. p. 2 7 8. Well I hope Dr. S th hath at length told us the very true Doctrine about the Trinity Yes he hath without question laid down the very Explication of the Schools the Doctrine or Explication generally received in Universities I doubt not it would be approved by most of the Chairs of our European Universities or Schools of Learning he hath verily acquitted himself like a Man of Learning and Wit For all that Dr. Cudworth in his Intellectual System hath largely and clearly proved these two things 1. That this Trinity of the Schools is quite different from the Trinity held by the Fathers and that by them it would have been reckoned no other than Sabellianism 2. That as

Socinians by some of the most Learned Interpreters and Criticks of his own Party as indeed no Proof of the Trinity the Incarnation or the Divinity of the Son or Spirit What avails it for a Man to talk of the great number of Texts which he can alledg when the ablest Persons of his own Party do in the mean time ow● the Unsufficiency of every one of them in particular If he thinks he has cause to deny that the Socinians have this great Advantage on their side whenever he shall do it publickly I will bear the Reproach if I do not justify what I have said by Citation of particular Authors of the first Note and Rank among our Opposers 3. Our Opposers urge that there are and the Soci●●●●s themselves believe a great many Mys●●●●●s in Nature of which no Human Reason can give an Account nay Reason objects against them and professedly contradicts them as that a pure Spirit can move a Body In which it meets no Resistance that Bodies or Matter consist of indiuisible Parts and such like Well suppose the Socinians should grant these or other unaccountable Mysteries which not only are not comprehended but are contradicted by Reason What then Why then they are very inconsiderate to deny as they do the Trinity and Incarnation on this account that 't is contrary to Reason or implies Contradictions and Absurdities But our Opposers should have thought better of this Objection before they laid so great a Weight on it even the Weight of their whole Cause For tho we should grant that we believe some Mysteries of Nature or Art against which Reason objects and many ways contradicts them yet is this no Plea for the Trinity or the Incarnation For if we believe Natural or Artificial Mysteries 't is because we plainly see that so the thing is we see or we feel or have some other undeniable Proof of the thing some such Proof as no rational Man will or can resist Doth any Man believe Misteries or wonderful Tales contrary to his Reason and the Reason of all other Men without a most manifest and uncontestable Proof of them without some such Proof or Proofs as undeniably evince the thing so to be But will our Opposers pretend they have any such Proofs for the Incarnation or Trinity such manifest such evident such uncontestable Proofs that no sober Man or no reasonable Man can except against them or refuse to admit of them I do not think they will pretend to it if it be but for this only Reason because the Socinians are confest to be a Rational and Learned Party Are those Evidence or Proofs uncontestable which are rejected not without some Scorn by some of the learnedest and most unsuspected of their own Party Are they uncontestable that not only may be interpreted to another Sense but also are either otherways read in the best Copies of the Hebrew and Greek or may be otherways translated from those Languages and all this by confession of the more ingenious of our Opposers themselves Briefly we say Mysteries there are and it may be such Mysteries as are even contradicted by Reason that is are in some respects Contradictions to our present short-sighted and frail Reason but when we believe there are some such Mysteries it is because they appear to our Senses or are proved to us by some such either Reason or Authority as no reasonable Man much less any Number of such Men does or can deny to be uncontestable And otherways all the unwarrantable Nonsense in the World may be imposed on us under the Pretence and Cloak of Mystery But now the Doctrine of the Trinity hath not only no uncontestable Proofs but the Pretences for it are so feeble that none of them can be named but is not only rejected but despised by some of the learnedest of our Opposers themselves They would perswade us to acknowledg a Mistery full of Contradictions to the clearest Reason and to indisputable Texts of Holy Scripture and supported in the mean time only by some Texts that may be interpreted to a Rational Sense that is to a Sense that hath nothing contrary either to Reason or to the unquestionable Parts or Texts of the Holy Scripture For Peace sake we would do so if it were some light matter that they urged on us but when the Question is about one or more Gods one or more Divine Persons we judg it adviseable not to be too facile in admitting such dangerous Mysteries Mysteries that would destroy the Allegiance and Homage that we all owe to the one true God I have done Sir with the Explications of our Opposers You see what they are Dr. S th's Explication is only an absurd Socinianism or Unitarianism disguised in a Metaphysical and Logical Cant. Dr. Wallis his Explication is an ingenious Sabellianism and in very deed differs from Unitarianism no more than Dr. S th's that is to say only in the wording Dr. Sherlock's is such a flat Tritheism that all the Learned of his own Party confess it to be so and Dr. S th hath written a very accurate Book to prove it so Dr. Cudworth's is a moderate Arianism the Ariani molles ascribed as much to the Son as this Doctor doth and he denies as much to the Son as they did even an Equality of Power and Authority with the Father Mr. Hooker's is a Trinity not of Persons but of Contradictions and he hath advanced such a Son as of necessity destroys his Father What the Mystical Divines teach cannot be called an Explication they deny all Explications we must say therefore 't is Samaritanism for what our Saviour says of the Samaritans by way of Reproof and Blame that these Gentlemen profess concerning themselves that they worship they know not what These Sir are the Doctrines that we oppose I shall leave it with you whether it be without cause Before I conclude I beg your Leave to say two words to Mr. Basset who hath answer'd or thinks he has answered to the Brief History of the Unitarians and to Dr. Fulwood and Dr. Edwards Men of Dignity in the Church but who have not thought it below them to use the very vilest Language and the basest and most ungrounded Scandals that their Malice to our Persons and their Ignorance of the Points in question between us and the Church could suggest to them These two Doctors tell their Readers that the Unitarians deny the Omniscience of God or that he fore-knoweth contingent Events that they deny his Omnipresence making him to be present in all Places only by his Knowledg and his Power that they ascribe the same degree of Power and Knowledg and pay the self-same Worship to the Lord Christ whom they affirm to be a meer Man which they ascribe or pay to Almighty God and hereby say these Doctors they are guilty of an Idolatry that is equally evident and abominable They pretend to prove this Charge out of the Writings of Socinus Smalcius and some others