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
A70688	The exceptions of Mr. Edwards in his Causes of atheism against the Reasonableness of Christianity, as deliver'd in the Scriptures, examin'd and found unreasonable, unscriptural, and injurious also it's clearly proved by many testimonies of Holy Scripture, that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only God and Father of Christians.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.	1695 (1695)	Wing N1506B; ESTC R41202	41,602	48

him a good Subject though he understands not all the grounds of his Title much less all his Power and Prerogatives that belong to him as King So he that believes upon good Grounds that Jesus is the Messiah and understands so much of this Proposition as makes him or may make him a good Subject of Christ's Kingdom though he be ignorant of many things included in that Proposition he has all the Faith necessary to Salvation as our Author has abundantly proved But Mr. Edwards says This Gentleman forgot or rather wilfully omitted a plain and obvious Passage in one of the Evangelists GO TEACH ALL NATIONS c. Mat. 28. 19. From which it is plain says he that all that are adult Members of the Christian Church must be Taught as well as Baptiz'd into the Faith of the Holy Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost and then they must believe it and consequently more is required to be believed by Christian Men than that Jesus is the Messiah He infers from this You see it is part of the Evangelical Faith and such as is necessary absolutely necessary to make one a Member of the Christian Church to believe a TRINITY in Vnity in the God-head or in plainer Terms that though God is one as to his Essence and Nature yet there are three Persons in that Divine Essence and that these three are really the one God I must confess that if Mr. Edwards's reasoning be good the Author is totally confuted three quarters of his Book at least are writ in vain and the old Systems must stand good and the Bulk of Mankind will certainly be damned or it will be a wonder if any of them be faved But give me leave to tell him I do not see what he says we do see that Text will well enough consist with our Author's Proposition For I would ask him whether the Apostles follow'd this Commission or not If they obey'd it then in Baptizing in the Name of Jesus the Messiah and exhorting those to whom they preached to be baptiz'd in the Name of the Messiah after their preaching the Messiah to them they did in effect baptize in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost otherwise they did not pursue their Commission for we never find them baptizing in those express Terms but always in the Name of Jesus the Messiah or the Lord Jesus or the Lord and the like So that Mr. Edwards must either charge the Holy Apostles with Ignorance of or Disobedience to their Lord's Command or acknowledg that they did really baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost when they did but expresly baptize in the Name of the Son or Messiah forasmuch as all that were so baptiz'd did believe in the Father of that Son of God as implied in the Son and in the Holy Ghost as the Anointing of the Son and which also was given to those that were so baptiz'd But as for his Inference viz. That it 's absolutely necessary to believe a Trinity in Vnity in the Godhead or that God is one as to his Essence and Nature yet there are three Persons in that Divine Essence and that these three Persons are really the one God This will condemn not only the Unitarians and the Bulk of Mankind but the greater part of Trinitarians the Learned as well as the Vulgar For all the real Trinitarians do not believe one Essence but three Numerical Essences Here Dr. Sherlock Dr. Cudworth the Bishop of Gl. the late Arch-bishop Mr. H w and all that hold as the Council of Nice did with that Council it self and the whole Church except some Hereticks for many Centuries are by Mr. Edwards expung'd out of the Catalogue of Christian Believers and consequently condemn'd to the horrible Portion of Infidels or Hereticks The Mystery-men or Ignoramus Trinitarians they are condemn'd too for they admit not any Explication and therefore not Mr. Edwards's There remains only Dr. South and Dr. Wallis and the Philosopher Hobbs who Mr. Edwards says is the great Master and Lawgiver of the profess'd Atheists pag. 129. and that Party which have the absolutely necessary Faith of three Persons in one Essence But if you ask these Men what they mean by three Persons Do they mean according to the common sense of Mankind and especially of the English Nation three singular intellectual Beings No by no means that is Tritheism they mean three Modes in the one God which may be resembled to three Postures in one Man or three external Relations as Creator Redeemer Sanctifier as one Man may be three Persons a Husband a Father and a Master This is that Opinion of Faith which the Antients made Heresy and Sabellius the Head of it Thus it is absolutely necessary to make a Man a Christian that he be a Sabellian Heretick But perhaps Mr. Edwards may be of Mr. H w's Mind for he says These three Persons are really the one God but then no one of them singly is so but every one a Third of God If so Mr. Edwards is indeed a Unitarian for he gives us one God only but then he is no Trinitarian for he has put down the Father himself from being God singly and so the Son and Holy Ghost As to what he says of being Baptized into the Faith and Worship of none but the only true God that has been answer'd a hundred times He cannot look into any of the Unitarian Books but he will find a sufficient Answer to that Inference Were the Israelites baptiz'd into the Worship of Moses but they were baptized into Moses 1 Cor. 10. 2. Or when the Apostle Paul supposes he might have baptized in his own Name Did he mean that he should have baptized into the Worship of himself as the most high God Then Mr. Edwards minds his Reader that the Author had left out also that famous Testimony in Joh. 1. 1. In the beginning was the Word Jesus Christ and the Word was with God and the Word was God Whence saith he we are obliged to yield assent to this Article That Christ the Word is God Here Mr. Edwards must mean that this is a Fundamental Article and necessary to Salvation otherwise he says nothing against his Author who has prevented his urging any other Text not containing a Fundamental in his Answer to the Objection from the Epistles and other Scriptures For saith he pag. 299. They are Objects of Faith They are Truths whereof none that is once known to be such may be disbelieved But yet a great many of them every one does and must confess a Man may be ignorant of nay disbelieve without Danger to his Salvation As is evident in those who allowing the Authority differ in the Interpretation and Meaning of several Texts Vnless Divine Revelation can mean contrary to it self The whole Paragraph ought to be read which I have abridged And if this Text of John 1. 1. be not one of those that by reason of its difficulty and variety of Senses may

heard let us make out your Contradictions never so clearly nay you impute it to us as a heinous Crime that we make it an Argument against the belief of your Trinity that it cannot be understood without Contradiction You impute to us most injuriously that we are to admit of nothing but what is exactly adjusted to Nature's and Reason's Light pag. 68. That therefore the Trinity is a Doctrine that can't be born because it can't be understood pag. 69. and that the English Vnitarians declare they cannot believe it because Reason does not teach it pag. 72. This is a Topick the Trinitarians do always inlarge upon and urge with a great deal of Pomp in themselves and Ignominy in the Unitarians as Persons that prefer their own Reasonings before Divine Revelation how clear soever And though this Calumny has been answer'd and wip'd away and retorted upon them a hundred Times yet Mr. Edw. will still confidently charge it He cites the Letter of Resolution for proof of it and therefore has read it but passes by the Answer to this Imputation which is to be found in the very first Page of it where thus First 'T is not true that we prefer Reason before Revelation on the contrary Revelation being what GOD himself hath said either immediately or by inspired Persons 't is to be preferr'd before the clearest Demonstration of our Reason And in the Consider on Explic. on 4 Serm. and a Sermon of the Bishop of Worcester the Author says He utterly mistakes in thinking that we deny the Articles of the new Christianity or Athanasian Religion because they are Mysteries or because we do not comprehend them we have a clear and distinct Perception that they are not Mysteries but Contradictions Impossibilities and pure Non-sense But now that the Trinitarians do most expresly prefer their Reasoning Consequences and wire-drawn Deductions before Holy Scripture besides that it has been done in the Notes upon the Athanasian Creed and other Tracts I shall shew further from Mr. Edwards's Fundamental Doctrine but now recited if at least the Trinitarians will acknowledg him for their Orthodox Champion 1. It 's manifest he means by the one God not one Divine Almighty Person but three such but nothing is more evident in Holy Scripture than that God is one Person only For proof of it I have referr'd my Reader to the Scriptures from beginning to end in more than twenty thousand Texts even as often as God is spoken of or to or speaks of himself except as I have said But Mr. Edw. says expresly that his God is three distinct Divine Persons to wit the Father of the Son the Son of the Father and the H. Ghost which proceedeth from the Father and the Son 2. He says that these three distinct Divine Persons each of which is God in the most perfect Sense is the only true God or the one God or Divine Nature The Proposition which he advances as necessary to Salvation and more easy to be understood than that Jesus is the Messiah is That the Father Son and Holy Ghost are one God or Divine Nature Whereby it 's manifest that by ONE GOD he means not one Person but one Divine Nature and by one Divine Nature he means such a Divine Nature as is communicable to three distinct Persons see pag. 79. So that his three Persons which are one God are so one God as they communicate in one Divine Nature in like manner as Peter James and John are one Man because they communicate in one Human Nature as do also all the Men in the World Now I shall cite some Texts of H. Scripture which do expresly declare that God is ONE and that cannot otherwise be understood than that he is one Person or singular intellectual Nature Essence or Substance Here let me premise first How Equivocally Mr. Edw. and the Trinitarians express themselves in this great and necessary Point on which depends our Eternal Salvation and whereby the Bulk of Mankind for I think that 's a far more decent Phrase than Mr. Edw's Rabble or Captain Tom and his Myrmadons or the venerable Mob cannot escape being deluded He and they confess also that there is but one God though three Persons in that one God but by one God they do not mean as I have shewed from Mr. Edw. one singular intellectual Nature Essence or Substance compleat for that is a Person and if they did the Contradiction would presently appear to every Capacity to wit that three Divine Persons are one Divine Person but they as Mr. Edw. say The Father Son and Holy Ghost or the three Divine Persons are one God or Divine Nature Essence or Substance Hereby they conceal from their poor honest Reader thirsting after Truth that God is one intellectual Perfect Nature Essence or Substance and make him believe by that concealment that though there are three Divine intellectual perfect Natures yet there is but one Divine Nature or God I am also willing to premise that the Grecism of a solitary Adjective Masculine or Article without a Substantive where the Discourse is of intellectual Beings doth frequently if not always connote PERSON and our English Translators have in many Texts render'd it Person as the clear Sense of the Greek Text not as a word supplied in another Character to explain the Text but in the same Character as a verbal Translation Instances of this rendring are these among many others Mat. 27. 24. Of this just Person Luke 15. 7. Ninety nine just Persons Acts 17. 17. The devout Persons Eph. 5. 5. unclean Person 2 Pet. 3. 11. What manner of Persons In these places there is nothing in the Greek to answer the word Person but what is implied in the Adjective To come now to the Texts that assert the Vnity or Oneness of God against Mr. Edw's Trinity or Threeness or that God is one intellectual Nature or one Person against Mr. Edws's one Divine Nature or three Persons see Jam. 2. 19. according to the Greek Thou believest that God is ONE thou dost well Gal. 3. 20. But God is ONE Mark 12. 29. The Lord our God the Lord is ONE saith our Saviour out of the Law to the Scribe that asked him which is the first Commandment of all And Jesus answer'd him the first of all the Commandments is Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart c. And in the 32d ver The Scribe said unto him Well Master thou hast said the Truth for God is ONE and there is none other but he And ver 34. Jesus saw that he answer'd discreetly Our Bibles refer us to Deut. 6. 4 5. whence our Lord takes this his Answer and where we find the same Words which by Ainsworth are also render'd The Lord our God the Lord is one Now in these Scriptures the Numeral Adjective Masculine being without a Substantive and Singular it forces us to understand in

every place Person So that we nothing doubt but the Translators would have render'd every where God is ONE PERSON if they had not been prepossessed with the Opinion of God's being three Persons the like to which they have done in many other Places But in that Answer of the Holy Jesus to him that called him Good Master Mat. 19. 17. it 's not possible to avoid it 1. That God is a Person 2. That he is but one Person and 3. That he is GOOD in an eminent Sense above all other Persons whatsoever For thus he says Why callest thou me GOOD None or no Person is good but one Person the God How strangely perverse would it be to understand this Text in the Trinitarian sense viz. None or no Person is good but one the Father Son and Holy Ghost or thus None or no Person is good but one i. e. the Divine Nature Again 2. Consider we these Texts and see what sense we can make of them if God be not one Person only Mal. 2. 10. Hath not ONE GOD created us must we say with Mr. Edw. Hath not ONE Father Son and Holy Ghost or one Divine Nature that is not a Person created us Rom. 3. 30. There is one God who justifies c. Trin. There is one Father Son and H. Ghost that justifies Zech. 14. 9. Hebr. In that Day the Lord shall be ONE and his Name ONE How should the Lord be one and his Name one if the Lord be three distinct Persons and his Name Father Son and Holy Ghost Isa 37. 16. O Lord of Hosts God of Israel thou dwellest between the Cherubims thou art the God even thou alone of all the Kingdoms of the Earth thou hast made Heaven and Earth Psal 86. 10. Thou art great and dost wondrous Works thou art God alone 2 King 19. 19. That all the Kingdoms of the Earth may know that thou art the Lord God even thou only Isa 44. 24. c. I am the Lord that maketh all things that stretcheth forth the Heavens alone that spreadeth abroad the Earth by my self Nehem. 9. 6 c. Thou even thou art Lord alone thou hast made Heaven the Host of Heaven worshippeth thee Isa 37. 20. That all the Kingdoms of the Earth may know that thou art the Lord even thou only 2 King 19. 15. Jude 4. denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Tim. 2. 5. There is one God and one Mediator between God and Men the Man Christ Jesus Ephes 4. 6. One God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all Isa 46. 9. For I am God and there is none else I am God and there is none like me 1 King 8. 23. Lord God of Israel there is no God like thee in Heaven above or in Earth beneath Ver. 60. That all the People of the Earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is none else Isa 44. 6. I am the First and I am the Last and besides me there is no God Ver. 8. Is there a God besides me yea there is no God I know not any Isa 45. 5. I am the Lord there is none else there is no God besides me Verse 6. There is none besides me I am the Lord and there is none else Ver. 14. Saying surely God is in thee and there is none else there is no God Ver. 21. Have not I the Lord and there is no God else beside me a just God and a Saviour there is none beside me Ver. 22. Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the Earth for I am God and there is none else Deut. 4. 35. Unto thee it was shewed that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God and there is none else beside him 1 Chron. 17. 20. O Lord there is none like thee neither is there any God besides thee Exod. 34. 14. For thou shalt worship no other God for the Lord whose Name is Jealous is a jealous God Deut. 32. 39. See now that I even I am he and there is no God with me 2 King 5. 15. Behold now I know that there is no God in all the Earth but in Israel 2 Sam. 22. 32. For who is God save the Lord See the same words in Psal 18. 31. 1 Cor. 8. 4. There is none other God but one I conclude with the first and chiefest of the Ten Commandments given from Mount Sinai Exod. 20. 3. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me I the Lord thy God am a jealous God and that of the Lord Jesus when himself was tempted Matth. 4. 10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve The meaning plainly is I am a Jew and subject to the Law of the Jews I am commanded therein to worship the Lord my God and to serve him only These Scriptures do so clearly prove that God is a Person or a perfect intellectual Nature or Substance and that he is only one such that to deny either of these Propositions is to me to deny the Truth of Holy Scripture not only in some obscure and doubtful Text but in the Current of it and in the chief Fundamental of all Religion And Mr. Edw. in asserting there are three such Persons in one Divine Nature renders in effect the whole Bible void and useless for the proof of any Proposition whatsoever it be If this that God is an absolutely perfect Being and therefore a Person for Persons are the most perfect of Beings or Substances and but one such cannot be plainly and undeniably prov'd from Scripture it 's utterly in vain to attempt to prove any thing For it 's manifest that to assert THIS is the chief Aim and Design of all the Holy Writers and that they are most zealous and vehement in it And herein lies the Controversy between the Trinitarians and the Unitarians we assert with the greatest plainness and fulness and clearness of Holy Scripture as ever any thing was or can be exprest that God is ONE in the most perfect sense of Oneness which is by all Men that understand the Word in a personal Sense But the Trinitarians do on the contrary contend that God is not One but Three in that personal Sense and One in a less perfect Sense which is not Personal but common to many Which is a Sense that dethrones God and makes him either a Third of the one God or one of the Three that created and governs the World and is to be ador'd by Men and Angels For they cannot deny but that in worshipping the Father our God we worship one God But they rage against us because we do not worship besides him and distinct from him the Son as perfectly God as he as different from him as a real Son is from a real Father and another Person as really God as either the Father or the Son and as really different from the Father and Son as he that is sent is