Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	ghost_n	holy_a	son_n	41,079	5	6.0417	4	true

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

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

But I am sure our Author never spake a truer Word than what he saith in his Seventeenth Proposition concerning the real Distinction of the Three Persons in Scripture And surely those whose Notions are most agreeable to the Letter and most proper Sence of Scripture when there is no apparent necessity of departing from them as I think there is the greatest Necessity of keeping thereto in this case if they happen to be in an Error their Error is on the safer side And since those of your Opinion do so zealously contend for making the H. Scriptures the sole Rule of Faith and profess that you will take nothing for a Point of Religion but what is found in the Bible wherein you do like Protestants at least if you will acknowledge that to be there which is there by evident Consequence as well as in express Words since I say you do so you of all Men should not be over dogmatical in determining a Point which the H. Scripture is silent in And then for Reason such an Unity as our Author after the Fathers asserts is not contradictory or contrary to any plain and evident Dictate thereof This I adventure to Affirm with very great Assurance And Sir your self must needs be of the same Mind if you were in good earnest as I can't think otherwise in calling the Explication a possible Scheme and owning that it is not contradictory in any of its parts to Natural Reason But Sir to speak my Mind freely I will not of all Men go to School to the School Divines to learn what Reason saith on an Argument of this Nature and therefore neither to those Modern Divines who pin their Faith upon their sleeves If I could satisfie my self to be an Implicit Believer I would a thousand times rather take the Ancient Fathers and it may be Philosophers too for the Guides of my Reason than those Gentlemen who spent their time in the Weaving of Fine Cobwebs and particularly are so superfine upon the simplicity of the Divine Essence as to render GOD Almighty at least to such a dull Understanding as mine a no less unconceivable than incomprehensible Being and to simplifie Him rather into Nothing than into Simple Vnity 3. That this Explication leaveth onely a certain Political or Oeconomical Unity is only said by you but the Twenty Second Proposition tells you the contrary of which more anon 4. This Explication doth not take away the Numerical Unity of the God-head or of God in the Absolutely highest Sence and the First Original of All things For it expresly affirms the Necessity thereof Prop. 13th 5. It maketh the other Two Persons as much one with the First and with one another as they are without the most apparent Contradiction capable of being One in so High a Sence as that we want a Word by which to express their Unity And therefore that they are much more than Specifically One as Three Humane or Angelical Persons are Were I a Schoolman it should scape me hard but I would add another distinction of Unity between Specifical and Numerical to express this Unity by which I am sure would have more of a Fundamentum in re than many of their Distinctions have This Explication speaks as great a Unity between them as is between the Sun and its Splendor and the Light of both And a greater than is between the Vine and its Branches or than is between the Fountain and the Streams which flow from it Which are Similitudes of the Ancients I say this Explication speaks the Unity of the Divine Persons greater than the Unity of each of these because tho' they are most closely and intimately United yet are not inseparable And for the same reason it speaks a greater Unity between them than is between our Souls and Bodies as appears by the Twenty Second Proposition And where is he who will pretend to know how many Degrees or Kinds of Unity are possible or actually are 6. The inseparable Unity in Will and Nature between the Three Persons which that Proposition affirmeth not to have the least shadow of a Contradiction in it and therefore is taken into this Explication doth answer all the ends for which the Unity of the Deity was ever asserted And therefore the Distinction asserted between the Three Persons hath not the least Appearance of any one of the pernicious Consequents which follow upon a Plurality of Gods and consequently there is no reason in the World tho' you say there is the greatest why it should be abhorred by the School-Divines or the most Learned among the Moderns or by any Mortal learned or unlearned For they are outwardly and in reference to the Creation perfectly One and the Same God as concurring in all the same External Actions tho' in relation to One Another there is a real Distinction between them And it seems very wonderful that this should be denyed by any one who professeth himself a Trinitarian since there is no understanding what a Contradiction means if a Being that Begets and that which is begotten thereby and a Third which proceeds from both should not be really distinct from each other 7. A Plurality of Gods hath generally been so understood as to imply more than One independent and therefore likewise Self-existent Deity as the common Arguments against a Plurality of Gods do suppose but it was never otherwise understood than so as to import separate Deities And never were there more zealous Asserters of the Unity of the Deity against the Pagans than were divers of the Ancients to whom our Author is beholden for the Substance of this Explication One of these was Lactantius to pass by several others of the Three First Centuries and I find him thus discoursing in the 29 th Chap. of his Fourth Book De Vera Sapientia Fortasse quaerat aliquis c. Some one perhaps will ask how when we say we worship One God we can assert Two viz. God the Father and God the Son c. And to this Question the Father thus Answers Quum dicimas Deum Patrem c. When we say God the Father and God the Son we don't separate and part them asunder c. they have one Mind one Spirit one Substance And in the next Words he saith in what sence they are One Sed ille quasi exuberans Fons c. But the Father is as it were the overflowing Fountain the Son as a stream flowing from him He like to the Sun This like to a Sun-beam And this is the same Description of their Unity with one another that the Explication gives And I think there needs no more to be said in Defence thereof against the odious Charge of Tritheism to any ingenuous and Free-minded Person Nor doth there need to be given any farther Answer to what remains in your Paper that designs to prove this a to be abhorred Tritheistical Explication But I must Clear it from another great Mistake in the Account you next give