Selected quad for the lemma: son_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
son_n	ghost_n	holy_a	trinity_n	32,243	5	10.2915	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52605	An answer to Dr. Wallis's three letters concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.; Wallis, John, 1616-1703. Doctrine of the blessed Trinity briefly explained.; Wallis, John, 1616-1703. Second letter concerning the Holy Trinity.; Wallis, John, 1616-1703. Explication and vindication of the Athanasian creed.	1691 (1691)	Wing N1504; ESTC R7845	14,909	22

exactly conforming it to the generation and procession of the Son and Holy Ghost And his reasoning upon this Parallel in his 3 Letter page 38. is this If such a Trinity can be form'd in gross Corporeals much more may we expect it possible in Spirituals Now I say not to suppose this simile altogether impertinent as I have shewn it is in our Case for our Debate is not whether there may not be Three Persons in God but whether many Personal Gods will not necessarily break the first Commandment I say therefore to suppose the first Commandment is not broke by many Personal Gods yet this Simile is most absurd for it is of Commensuration or Relation and not of a Body as he would insinuate 't is of a meer Chymera or Idea not a Quality and much less a Corporiety or Substance But to state his Cube therefore more to his purpose for him to wit a Cube of Marble generating hardness and both producing coldness I say in this case there were three Cubes more for him and those real ones too that is of Substance and Quality and yet in such case they would all be distinct Cubes and yet but one Cube that is a Cube of Hardness another of Coldness and another of Corporiety and yet all three but one Cube of Marble I say to put his Similes from Chymera's to Beings yet what parity can we make between the Unity of Substances with Qualities and the Unities of Persons together The Doctor forgets that Personation is the greatest perfection of Being and that different personation is answerably the greatest perfection of Quality I am sure I never could apprehend any other real Unity than Personation and the higher this Personation arose the more distinct I always apprehended it thus one Man one Angel and one God and if the Doctor has found a more perfect real and proper Unity than that let him discover it and not cite a meaner to prove it The Doctor should rather therefore have propos'd some Monster born with three Heads but that I conceive he would have seen to have been too gross to have impos'd upon the World not I mean that I think he sought to impose the other neither for I am perswaded of his sincerity in what he has done but I take the freedom to represent my Argument so for its more perfect Illustration Nor is my Answer to his simile of Memory Will and Understanding and of our Powers to be to do and to know much otherwise 1 Letter p. 17 18. for to my mind 't is a strange Illustration of a most perfect Union of Persons even perfecter than Personality itself to tell us of the Union of parts to the Mind Faculties to the Soul c. So for his unum verum bonum wherein indeed the Doctor is so modest as to confess that the distinction is not equal to that of the Trinity p. 18. 1. Letter so for his three Groats in a Shilling and three Nobles in twenty p. 42. 3. Letter Similes indeed that the Doctor himself seems asham'd of and methinks alledged to a strange purpose he had near as good have wrote that because a Man has two Hands and an Head therefore a Trinity in Unity is necessary to the perfection of the Godhead 'T has been a general Rule with me always where I have brought a simile to illustrate any thing that I have formed it of something adequate and that may really prove the matter I design'd if urg'd by way of Argument but these are such similes that my Adversary had as good urge that there are three Personal Gods because they have three Letters in their Name or because that three times three makes nine In short these are such similes that to repeat them is to answer them Nor are his Arguments drawn from sustineo tres personas mei Iudicis adversarii that is I personate three Men my self the Iudge and my Adversary and from a man's having three Names or Titles as William Henry Nassau King of England Scotland and France or a Noble Duke Marquess and Earl Iess ridiculous p. 40. Letter 3. I would fain ask Doctor Wallis what it is to Personate a Man surely but to compose ones Actions as near as one can in likeness or favour of him is it so then a Man may as well personate three hundred Men as three for one cannot personate three together and one may three hundred one after another In short the Doctor had as good have said there must be three Personal Gods because a Man can walk three ways for 't is the same that he represents by his personating in his Mind as walking in the Body and is not this a pretty simile then to prove that there must be three personally distinct Gods and for the Doctor to conclude upon it as he does p. 41. third Letter What shall a man bear three Persons and shall not God be able to do it Well may the Doctor as he has done quite undermine the very Idea of the word Person for if he had not he could never have forc'd himself to such absurd conclusions but when as he has done he has quite destroy'd all the distinction of the Idea of that word 't is no difficulty for him to conclude as he has done p. 10. Letter 1. That there may be three somewhats in one God diverso respectu After all therefore I say granting that the being of three personal Gods were not repugnant to the very Precept of the first and greatest Commandment Yet has the Doctor been able by simile or otherwise to make out that there may be rationally three Persons in one God Laying aside even the first Commandment yet surely he has not for these Examples and Illustrations are as Foreign from his purpose as even his Enemies can wish and therefore I hope for the future the Doctor will learn more Modesty than to set up such Trumpery to give us similes of Unions of Chimerical Relations of Measure of Faculties of Parts and Titles for the probability that the most compleat Unity in the Godhead may be in an unheard of manner and not of Persons The Doctor must needs have been more successful as well as ingenuous had he taken a plainer Method thus for instance Had he said God is as a name of Office and may receive therefore many Persons into the Idea of it and the Foundations of the Unitarians Error is this they apprehend the word to signifie the Office or Supreme Power to be confin'd to Personality in its Unity Now I say had the Doctor fairly done thus we should have known how to have attack'd him but at present having touched his Subject so warily as he has done we are put to the trouble to undermine his Reasonings to buffet at him in the dark through similes wary doubts and twenty other little blinds I say this because had the Doctor fairly told us that God signified an Office we should not have been so