Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	essence_n	father_n	holy_a	5,479	5	5.9009	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62586	A seasonable vindication of the B. Trinity being an answer to this question, why do you believe the doctrine of the Trinity? : collected from the works of the most Reverend, Dr. John Tillotson, late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and the right Reverend Dr. Edward Stillingfleet, now Lord Bishop of Worcester.	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.; Assheton, William, 1641-1711.	1697 (1697)	Wing T1221; ESTC R10019	21,341	116

no means follow that if a man do once admit any thing concerning God which he cannot comprehend he hath no reason afterwards to Believe what he himself Sees This is a most unreasonable and destructive way of arguing because it strikes at the Foundation of all Certainty and sets every Man at Liberty to deny the most plain and evident Truths of Christianity if he may not be humoured in having the absurdest things in the World admitted for true The next step will be to persuade us that we may as well deny the Being of God because his Nature is incomprehensible by our Reason as deny Transubstantiation because it evidently contradicts our Senses Id. Ib. p. 32. Q. As Transubstantiation evidently contradicts our Senses So these Unitarians pretend that the Trinity as evidently contradicts our Reason And then say they are not these Two Doctrines loaded with the like Absurdities and Contradictions A. So far from this that the Doctrine of the Trinity as it is delivered in the Scriptures and hath already been explained hath no Absurdity or Contradiction either involved in it or necessarily consequent upon it But the Doctrine of Transubstantiation is big with all imaginable Absurdity and Contradiction As the Unitarians themselves do acknowledge And therefore I am not now concerned to prove it Q. However you are concerned to defend the Trinity The Contradictions and Absurdities of which as these Unitarians pretend are as great as those of Transubstantiation A. I cannot help their Pretences But if their Prejudices will allow them to examine my Reasons I shall yet further endeavour their Conviction And that I may do it the more effectually I shall desire You as their Advocate and in their Name to produce those Absurdities which appear the most dreadful Q. I shall reduce all to these Two which comprehend the rest 1. How there can be Three Persons and but One God 2. How these can agree in a Third and not agree among themselves For the First it seems very absurd that there should be Three Persons really distinct whereof every one is God and yet there should not be Three Gods For nothing is more Contradictious than to make Three not to be Three or Three to be but One. A. I hope now you will give me leave to make an Answer to your Difficulty as distinct as possible It is very true that according to Arithmetick Three cannot be One nor One Three But we must distinguish between the bare Numeration and the Things numbred The repetition of three Units certainly makes three distinct Numbers but it doth not make Three Persons to be Three Natures And therefore as to the Things themselves we must go from the bare Numbers to consider their Nature We do not say that Three Persons are but One Person or that One Nature is Three Natures but that there are Three Persons in One Nature If therefore One Individual Nature be communicable to Three Persons there is no appearance of Absurdity in this Doctrine And on the other side it will be impossible there should be three Gods where there is one and the same Individual Nature For Three Gods must have Three several Divine Natures since it is the Divine Essence which makes a God V. Two Dial. Part. II. p. 24. But of this there hath been given so full an Account in this Collection that those who shall seriously and attentively consider it will I hope through God's Blessing receive Satisfaction Q. But yet you have not Answer'd the other great Difficulty in Point of Reason viz. That those Things which agree or disagree in a Third must agree or disagree One with the Other And therefore if the Father be God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God then the Father must be Son and Holy Ghost and the Son and Holy Ghost must be the Father If not then they are really the same and really distinct the same as to Essence distinct as to Persons and so they are the same and not the same which is a Contradiction A. Now I think you have drawn out the most refined Spirits of Socinianism to make the Doctrine of the Trinity and Transubstantiation parallel because you say it implies a Contradiction Which is the nearest Parallel you have yet offered at But this terrible Argument is grounded on this mistaken Supposition viz. That the Divine Essence is no more capable of communicating it self to Three distinct Persons than any Created Being is The Reason of that Axiom being That Created Things by reason of their finite Nature cannot diffuse or communicate themselves to more than one and therefore those which agree in a Third must agree together But supposing it possible that the same finite Nature could extend it self to several Individuals it would be presently answered The Axiom did hold only where they did adequately and reciprocally agree and not where they did agree only in Essence but differ'd in the manner of Subsistence For where a different manner of Subsistence is supposed possible in the same Individual Nature the Agreement in that cannot take away that Difference which is consistent with it which we attribute to the unlimitedness and perfection of the Divine Nature Q. But you can bring no other Instance but the thing in Question and therefore this is a Petitio Principii or taking that for granted which is in Dispute A. I do not think it to be so where the Reason is assigned from the peculiar Properties of the Divine Nature to which there can be no Parallel And I think it very unreasonable in the Socinians to send us to Created Beings for the Rules and Measures of our Judgment concerning a Being acknowledg'd to be Infinite Q. Are not the Divine Persons Infinite as well as the Divine Nature And therefore as Created Persons do take in the whole Nature so Infinite Persons will do the Infinite Nature A. No question but the Persons are Infinite in regard of the Nature which is so but if an Infinite Nature be communicable to more Persons than One every such Person cannot appropriate the whole Nature to it self Q. If the Difference be on the account of Infinity then there must be an infinite number of Persons in the Divine Essence A. I answer that infiniteness of Number is no Perfection and as to the Number of Persons we follow not our own Conjectures nor the Authority of the Church but Divine Revelation which hath assured us that there is but One God and yet there are Three that are One. Which depends not merely on the Place of St. John but the Form of Baptism is remarkable to this purpose which joyns together the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost without any other distinction besides that of Order and Relation And it is against the Fundamental Design of Christianity to joyn any Created Beings together with God in so solemn an Act of Religion And St. Paul joyns them together in his Benediction The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love