Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	divine_a	reason_n	revelation_n	1,589	5	9.4988	5	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

intire dependence of the two latter upon the First Person The Unity of the Deity is to all intents and purposes as fully asserted by us as it is necessary or reasonable it should be 24. And no part of this Explication do we think Repugnant to any Text of Scripture but it seems much the Easiest way of Reconciling those Texts which according to the other Hypotheses are not Reconcilable but by offering manifest violence to them 25. The Socinians must needs Confess that the Honour of the Father for which they express a very Zealous Concern is as much as they can desire taken care of by this Explication Nor can the Honour of the Son and Holy Spirit be more Consulted than by ascribing to them all Perfections but what they cannot have without the most apparent Contradiction ascribed to them 26. And we would think it impossible that any Christian should not be easily perswaded to think as honourably of his Redeemer and Sanctifier as he can while he Robs not God the Father for their Sake and offers no violence to the Sence and Meaning of Divine Revelations nor to the Reason of his Mind 27. There are many things in the notion of One God which all Hearty Theists will acknowledg necessary to be conceived of Him that are as much above the Reach and Comprehension of Humane Understandings as is any Part of this Explication of the H. Trinity Nay this may be affirmed even of the Notion of Self Existence but yet there cannot be an Atheist so silly as to Question it Since it is not more Evident that One and Two do make Three than that there could never have been any thing if there were not Something which was always and never began to be 28. Left Novelty should be Objected against this Explication and therefore such should be prejudiced against it as have a Veneration for Antiquity we add that it well agrees with the Account which several of the Nicene Fathers even Athanasius himself and others of the Ancients who treat of this Subject do in divers places of their Works give of the Trinity As is largely shewed by two very Learned Divines of our Church And had it not been for the Schoolmen to whom Christianity is little beholden as much as some Admire them we have reason to believe that the World would not have been troubled since the Fall of Arianism with such Controversies about this Great Point as it hath been and Continues to be This Explication of the B. Trinity perfectly agrees with the Nicene Creed as it stands in our Liturgy without offering the least Violence to any one Word in it Which makes our Lord Jesus Christ to be from God the Father by way of Emanation affirming Him to be God of God very God of very God and Metaphorically expressing it by Light of Light answerably to what the Author to the Hebrews saith of Him Chap. 1.3 viz. That he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Effulgency of his Glory and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Character of his Substance And so is as much Of one Substance with the Father as the Beams of the Sun are with the Body of it And since there have been of late so many Explications or Accounts Published of this most Adorable Mystery which have had little better Success than making Sport for the Socinians I thought it very Seasonable now to Revive That which I affirm with great Assurance to be the most Ancient one of all much Elder than the Council of Nice and to have much the fewest difficulties in it and to be incomparably most agreeable to H. Scripture A DEFENCE Of the Foregoing Propositions SIR THe Author of the Twenty Eight Propositions thanks you for the very Charitable Opinion you have expressed concerning him in the Entrance into your Reflexions upon them and hopes he shall always endeavour to deserve the Character of a Man so Honest as never to speak otherwise than he thinks and so true to his Understanding as always to make Reason one of his Guides in the Choyce of his Opinions He professing to believe that the Use of Reason is so far from being to be Condemned in Matters of Religion as no where else to be so well employed And that it is infinitely unworthy of Almighty God to conceive it possible for Him to Contradict his Internal by his External Revelations But so he must have done should such Writings be of His inspiring as are manifestly contradictory to the plain Dictates of Natural Reason which the Wise Man faith Is the Candle of the Lord. And Sir our Author takes no less Notice of your Candour in the Character you give in the Words following of his Explication of the Doctrin of the H. Trinity in those Propositions But after your Acknowledgment That he hath avoided a great many Contradictions which those of your Party do charge on this Doctrin as it is held by others and that his Explication is a Possible Scheme and that it is clear from any Contradictions to Natural Reason you Object that besides some insuperable Difficulties the Author hath not been able to avoid some Numerical Contradictions Now as to the insuperable Difficulties with which you charge his Explication since you acquit them from being Contradictions to Natural Reason you mean I suppose that it is fraught with several Contradictions to H. Scripture And I confess such Contradictions to be as insuperable Difficulties to us as we are Christians as those to Reason are as we are Men. If this be your Meaning the Author may well expect to have it shewn what Texts of Scripture are contradicted by this Explication but if you mean otherwise my Reply is That you are not so shallow a Thinker as not to be aware that there are also insuperable Difficulties in the Notion of One God both as His Nature is described by all Christians according to the Account given of Him in H. Scripture and as all Theists are compelled by Natural Light to conceive of Him Nay you will frankly own that there is not any one thing in the whole Universe which doth not suggest insuperable Difficulties to an Inquisitive Mind And whereas Sir you Charge our Author with not being able to avoid some Numerical Contradictions I confess I never before met with this distinction but I think I understand it by your Description of it You say that a Numerical Contradiction is an Error committed in the summing up of things But how is he guilty of such Contradictions If you mean that he hath made Contradictory Conclusions or such a Conclusion to several of his Premisses I cannot though you do excuse him from contradicting Natural Reason any more than from contradicting Himself And it appears from what follows that that is your Meaning for after you had given the Sum and Substance of the First Thirteen Propositions your Reflexion thereon is this One would think that such a Foundation being laid the Conclusion must be wholly in savour

of the Unitarians For if the Father is Absolutely Perfect if the Son and Spirit are not Absolutely Perfect how shall we ever prevent this Consequence therefore onely the Father is God What is the Definition of God among all Divines and Philosophers Is it not this A Being Absolutely Perfect or a Being that hath all Perfections But if so than onely the Father having all Perfections or being Absolutely Perfect He must be the onely God to the certain Exclusion of the other Two Persons to the Exclusion of the Son and Spirit by Name because 't is affirmed here of them by Name that neither of them is absolutely Perfect or hath all Perfections But this Author will shew us in his following Propositions that for all this the Son is God and so also is the Holy Ghost That is he will pu● out the Light of the Sun And Sir as you have now Represented our Author you cannot but be sensible upon second thoughts of over great Modestly in your not having Charged him with Natural Contradictions nay and of too great Partiality towards him in Acquitting him as you have done of such Contradictions He will instruct us say you next in his Premisses that there is but One Who is God and in the Progress and Conclusion or in the summing up the whole Reckoning he will make it appear that there are Three Beings each of which is singly and by Himself God Which is the Numerical Contradiction that I Charged at first on his Hypothesis And I say Sir if you have not too incautilously represented him in these Words he is as justly to be here Charged with a Natural as with a Numerical Contradiction except you will Affirm that 't is no Natural Contradiction to say That the Number One is as many as Three or the Number Three is no more than One But Sir I must crave leave to say that you have committed a great Oversight in Representing our Author as you have now done For his First Proposition is The Name of God is used in more Sences than one in H. Scripture The Second The most Absolutely Perfect Being is God in the Highest Sence The Third Self-Existence is a Perfection c. The Fourth God the Father alone is in reference to His manner of Existence an Absolutely Perfect Being because He alone is Self-Existent And from These with the Five following Propositions he infers in the Tenth That the Father alone is God in the Absolutely Highest Sence And in the Thirteenth That the God-head or God in this Highest Sence can be but one Numerically And therefore Sir you should not have made our Author say as you do that there is but One who is God without any Restriction when you now see he saith that there is but One who is God in the Absolutely Highest Sence And that God in the Absolutely Highest Sence can be but One Numerically And whereas you say That he will make it appear that there are Three Beings each of which is singly and by Himself God you should have said He will make it appear that there are Three Beings each of which is God but not in all the Self-same Respects And therefore I cannot as yet accuse him either of any One Natural or Numerical Contradiction if this be a Proper Distinction which I will not dispute What remaineth of your Reflexions is chiefly a Charge of Tritheism against this Explication of the Trinity 1. You say I acknowledge in these Propositions the Genuine Doctrin and very Language of the Fathers who wrote shortly after the Council of Nice till the Times of the School-men And the Author is assured that this Explication for Substance is a great deal Elder than that Council But he gives you his hearty Thanks for this free Concession of yours because you have saved him the Pains of proving his Last Proposition And I will therefore requite you for him in imitating your Brevity as you say you do his But methinks you should also acknowledge that the Authors Explication hath no inconsiderable Advantage on its side in that you allow it to be of so great Antiquity If the Socinians will not acknowledge this an Advantagious Circumstance in all disputable Points they are certainly the onely Learned Men who have no Regard for Antiquity 2. You add But the School-Divines or the Divines of the Middle Ages saw and almost all the Moderns that are well versed in these Questions confess it that this Explication is an inexcusable indefensible Tritheism And quickly after you say That the School-Divines and generally speaking the most Learned of the Moderns with the greatest Reason in the World abhor making the Three Divine Persons to be Persons in the Proper Sence of that Word Which is to say they are distinct intellectual Beings and have different Substances in Number tho' not in species or kind And you affirm that the forementioned Divines do with the greatest Reason in the World abhor this Because they perceive it destroys the True and Real Unity of God it taketh away his Proper and Natural and Numerical Unity and leaveth onely a Certain Political and Oeconomical Unity which is indeed onely an imaginary Unity Hereto I Answer 1. That a Wise Man will think never the worse of any thing merely for its having an Ugly Name given it As you would account it no real Dishonour to the Socinian Hypothesis should it be called Ditheism which sounds every whit as ill as Tritheism And you cannot deny it to be Ditheism in a certain sence because it asserts Two Gods one by Nature and the other by Office and that this God by Office is to be Honoured by all Men even as they Honour the Father according to his own Declaration though but a Mere Man by Nature And this grates every whit as much upon my Understanding as any thing in this Explication can on yours And is as contradictory to Natural Reason in the Opinion of all Trinitarians as any of their Explications are in the Opinion of Socinians who cannot but acknowledge that Honouring the Son even as the Father is Honoured is giving him that Honour which is truly and properly Divine let them restrain it as much as they can 2. Whereas you say that this Explication destroyeth the True and Real Unity of God and therefore to be abhorred I must grant if it does so it can not be too much abhorred but I would know from whence we are to learn wherein consists His True and Real Unity It must either be learned from Scripture or Reason or both But as to the H. Scripture this indeed abundantly declareth the Unity of God but it no where distinguisheth of Unity nor saith of what Nature that Unity is which it ascribes to God Were you never so well satisfied that that Text in St. Iohn's Epistles is genuine These Three are One you would say it proves nothing against the Socinians because it saith not in what Sence the Father Son and Holy Ghost are One