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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	keep_v	peace_n	unity_n	7,015	5	8.9407	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49188	The scripture-terms of church-union, with respect to the doctrin of the trinity confirmed by the unitarian explications of the beginning of St. John's Gospel; together with the Answers of the Unitarians; to the chief objections made against them: whereby it appears, that men may be unitarians, and sincere and inquisitive, and that they ought not to be excluded out of the church-communion. With a post-script, wherein the divinity of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost, according to the generality of the terms of scripture, is shewn, not to be inconsistent with the unitarian systems. Most earnestly and humbly offered to the consideration of those, on whom 'tis most particularly incumbent to examin these matters. By A.L. Author of the Irenicum Magnum, &c.	Lortie, André, d. 1706.	1700 (1700)	Wing L3078A; ESTC R221776	144,344	120

Christ died Therefore it certainly follows both that the Scholastick Trinitarian Determinations and Impositions are contrary to God's Will and that it is an indispensible Duty to profess and establish the Gospel-Terms of Communion which are stated and pleaded for in the Irenicum Magnum and in the Apologia pro Irenico Magno Tho' some Vnitarians considering an Influence of the Divine Nature dwelling in Christ and an Influence and Act of the Divine Power implied in the Holy Spirit or Holy Inspiration and considering we are exhorted to keep as much as we can the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace should carry Christian Condescension so far as by their Presence sometime in the Religious Assemblies for Peace-Sake till these things be duely weighed to bear with the Use of some of the Scholastick Trinitarian Terms yet that is at least so nice a Point that many conscientiously may with great colour of reason absolutely scruple them and all Vnitarians are obliged to express openly their dislike of those in their opinion at least dubious Terms and rash Expressions and to appear and profess not to repeat some of them and not to assent to them in the Religious Service which Condescension indeed upon mature Consideration seems even generally to be more than is wholly warrantable particularly one would think with respect to the Litany and the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds according to what has hereupon been said so that the Afternoon-Service only can well seem tolerable to them and indeed 't is generally reckoned to be no less than Hypocritical Temporizing for any Vnitarian to carry the Condescension farther therefore even the Trinitarians themselves who are persuaded of the evident and incontestable Reasonableness and Necessity of the Gospel Terms of Communion are bound to protest against the imposing of those said Scholastick Terms deviating from the Scripture-Latitude not only as an unnecessary Burden but as a grievous and unwarrantable a pernicious and cruel Oppression perfectly contrary to the Moderation of the Gospel For has not God intended there should be one Catholick Church and Communion of Saints In a word the Scripture-Terms are the only Just and Charitable and Necessary Terms of Church Communion And they are a fit Means of Peace For so you establish no other Terms of Church-Communion but such as are agreable to the Scripture-Generality you may lay any Penalty on express Disputings in the Religious Assemblies These Terms of Church-Vnion then both are the Scripture-Terms and the only Terms of Communion that are agreable to the fundamental Grounds of the Reformation or to the incontestable Principles of Protestants and to Reason and Moderation and they are the fit and only possible Terms for all Christians that own the Scripture for their Rule to Vnite in And the Vnitarian Arguments are so considerable that it must be the highest Temerity in the World not to be willing to stick in Acts of Communion to the Safe suficient Generality included in those Terms So that to reject these Terms is not only to run the greatest Hazards to oppress the Truth and injure those who are approved of God but it is expresly to be guilty of the greatest Mischiefs of disfiguring Christianity as if it had no Means of Union hindering the growth and efficacy of the Gospel and being the Cause of endless Schisms and Divisions These Matters are set into so full and incontestable a light that to slight and resist so great Evidence cannot but be of the greatest Consequence to the Souls of them that are therein concern'd It is credible God has preserv'd the World and this Generation for the Sake of this great Light most illustriously adorning the Gospel so great a Light that against it the Gates of Hell shall never be able to prevail and it will never be possible for all the Powers of the Adversaries of so evident Truths to answer these unanswerable Arguments Now then incontestably Peace is presented upon just Terms by this Method which therefore should be most carefully considered For if the righteous be oppressed God noteth all things in his Book and Great Plagues are denounced against rejecting a great Light and injuring those that are accepted of God May We all take effectual Measures to avoid God's Judgments and to obtain his Mercy and Eternal Salvation I thought here to have finished this Post-Script but it may perhaps not be unfit to advertise that since the writing of it I have accidentally met with a small Pamphlet a 6d Book wherein these Terms of Communion in some measure are likewise pleaded for I recommend it therefore to the Reader 's perusal It is intituled The Moderate Trinitarian c. By Daniel Allen. Printed for Mary Fabian at Mercers-Chappel in Cheap-side 1699. Therein it is Inquired Whether and Shewn That the Trinitarians and Vnitarians may communicate together so that no Practice ought to be enjoyned for Terms of Communion contrary to the Latitude of Scripture seeing it is therein that the Trinitarians and Vnitarians may Unite But not only to put my self in the company of a more known Person but more especially seeing Men commonly regard more or slight the less an Opinion which they see held by one who is generally esteemed most Eminent for Learning and all good Qualities I ought not to omit observing that the famous Bishop Taylor incontestably establishes these Terms of Church-Communion in that for the main admirable Book of his intituled The Liberty of Prophesying which indeed I have had the misfortune to be but very lately acquainted with That the Scripture-Terms of Communion which I have been pleading for are therein implied I think may sufficiently appear by these few Quotations out of it That which I have is the 4to Edition 1647. I shall sometimes abridge the words but without altering the sense If a Doctrin be not so revealed but that wise and good Men differ in their Opinions it is a clear case it is not inter Dogmata necessaria simpliciter c. The Epistle Dedicat. P. 15.16 It is observable that the restraint of Prophesying imposing upon other Mens Understanding and lording it over their Faith came in with the retinue of Antichrist that is as other Abuses and Corruptions of the Church did c. Ib. P. 18. Let not Men be hasty in calling every dislik'd Opinion by the Name of Heresy Ib. P. 29. The Lutheran Churches the Zuinglians the Calvinists the Socinians the Anabaptists the Aethiopian Churches which are all Nestorian differ from others Where then shall we six our Considence or joyn Communion To pitch upon any one is to throw the Dice if Salvation be to be had only in one of them and that every Error be damnable We have therefore no other help in the midst of these Differences but to be all United in that Common Term which is the Medium of the Communion of Saints that is the Apostles Creed an honest endeavour to find out what truths we can and a mutual permission to

probably Ireneus was an Arian or at most a Semi-Arian What Grotius says of the Occasion of St. John's writting this Gospel may be seen in his Annotations The Vnitarians consistently to their System may hold all that he there says of the Word Verse 15. John the Baptist bare witness of him saying This is he of whom I spake He that cometh after me is preferred before me for he is before me As if the Baptist had said Tho' then this Man as it is at the 30th Verse that cometh after me enters upon his Office but when I have almost done mine yet he is called to an Higher Office and Dignity than mine for he is my Superior my Lord and my Prince he is the Messiah the Saviour of the World a most Holy Man the Son of God the designed Sovereign of the Universe and I am but his Servant and Harbinger Whereas the Vulgate has translated This WAS he of whom I spake Beza shews there is no reason but that it may be rendred This IS he In like manner we need not read he WAS before me but he IS Thus it runs more naturally This is he of whom I spake or said He that cometh after me is preferred before me for he is before me Is preferred before me That is then is preferred to an Higher Office and Dignity than mine Which saying the Baptist explains tho' somewhat obscurely as are expressed all the like Mysteries on the infallible understanding of which most credibly Salvation depends not and which seem intended to try our Humility and Moderation as well as our Attention and Industry by adding For he is before me Before me Or as it is in the Original Protos mou Princeps meus My Primate the designed Head and Saviour of the Church and Lord of Men and Angels And this explains and particularizes or intimates how Christ's Office is greater than that of the Baptist's See Erasmus and Grotius upon the Place Verse 18. Which is in the Bosom of the Father Or which WAS or has been namely when immediately before his entering on his Office Christ was taken up into the Highest Heavens See John 3.13 Sometimes that Phrase to be in the bosom signifies to be most Dear See Numb 11.12 Deut. 13.6 By these remarks and hypotheses the Socinians conceive the beginning of St. John's Gospel is made plain and intelligible And they believe that by the same means by using the like care and attention all the other Texts which the Trinitarians object may also be made to appear consistent with the Unity of God with the whole Scripture and with Reason CHAP. IV. The ARIAN System THE Arians do not much dislike the foregoing Exposition excepting that they are persuaded it is short as to these Particulars in that the Socinians do not hold our Saviour's Soul to have prae-existed before its Conception and consequently do not admit it to have been an Instrument in the first Creation of the World But the Arians maintain both these Points It is true say they the Word the Son of God by excellency is a Creature tho' most intimately assisted of God which the Socinians do not deny Christ is a true Man made up of a Body and Soul only and not of an absolutely eternal Hypostasis also or infinite Person of the same numerical Essence with the Father But then say they this Man's Soul was not only before Abraham but even was the first Created Spirit John 17.5 For so the Scripture calls him expresly the First-born of every Creature or the Beginning of the Creation of God and terms him by eminency the Image of the invisible God Col. 1.15 Revel 3.14 c. Moreover it is asserted that by him God made the Worlds Heb. 1.2 And St. John says positively that without him was not any thing made that was made John 1.3 Which expressions seem too extensive to be restrained to the New-Creation only All things then were made by him And therefore the First-born of every Creature must be so transcendently Excellent as incomparably farther to surpass originally all Men and Angels in Excellency of Nature Wisdom and Power than they surpass the meanest of the Brute Beasts In a word the Arians believe that that Holy Spirit whom the Scripture calls the First-Born and who in process of time was made the Soul of the Messiah is originally as Perfect a Being and as like unto God as Divine and Almighty Power could produce and as can possibly be imagined salving the Unity of God seeing it is said he had a Part in the Creation of the World in which God most efficaciously assisted him and it is represented as the highest Liberality to Mankind that God gave his Son to Redeem Men. The Arians then say that the First-Bern is Om●●●ousian or as like the Divine Essence beside that he is as much assisted by the Divine Nature as it is possible for a Creature to be And they believe he was produced in the Duration of Eternity and before Time that is to say before the Creation of the World And in that sense like the Semi-Arians they will not scruple to say that the First-born is Eternal so it be remembred that he was made and that he is not an uncreated Being it being impossible there should be two uncreated Beings or two Gods in the proper sense of the word But the First-born is a God next to God and as Eternal as it is possible for the Excellentest Creature to be If it be asked how the First-born could be Instrumental in the making of Angels 〈◊〉 may be answered that a Part might be assigned to him therein that we know not 〈…〉 has been held by many that the Souls of Men are produced by the Parents I● so it cannot be thought impossible but that God might have endued the most excellent created Spirit with Power to Produce other Spirits But perhaps Angels have fine Vehicles which are Part of their Being as a Human Body is Part of a Man And then the First-born might be assisting in the preparing of these Vehicles when God had Created the Substance thereof When the First-born was created then was also another eminent Spirit or other eminent Spirits according to some Modern Arians produced but inferior to him and called in Scripture the Holy Spirit Thus far the Arians hold It may be that by this or these last not only an Archangel or the Archangels 1. Tim. 5.21 but the whole Body of Angels is to be understood for they often seem to be meant when the Scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit And if so they also were instrumental in the Creation of the World as well as the First-born tho' not so eminently as he but under him Which doth not import that the Angels or the First-born produced Creatures into being out of Nothing But the Chaos being created or prepared by Almighty God then for reasons not perfectly known to us God thought good to set the First born and the Holy

the Son are but one Person But it is evident that the Father being an intelligent Being and the Son a distinst intelligent Being from the Father the Father and the Son must necessarily be two Persons For a Spirit as long as he exists cannot but have always in himself distinctly from all other Spirits what constitutes a Person and can say some things of himself distinctly from others Thus how strictly soever God and Christ be United Christ can say of himself that he is a Creature so many Ages Old God can say that he is Self existent and never had a Beginning Now here are two he 's or two l's and consequently 2 Persons for these are Personal Pronouns each of them denotes a distinct Person And the Scripture is so far from asserting God and Christ to be one Person that it constantly distinguishes Christ from God Indeed in the Scripture-stile a special Messenger and Representative may beare the Name of him whom he most especially acts for and represents And Christ may moreover be termed a God in an Inferior Sense as Kings and Princes are called Gods in Scripture He may also be called God inasmuch as a Divine Influence most intimately dwells in him But the Scripture not only no where says that Christ is literally the same God with the eternal God or is the Whole of the Father but it teaches the contrary For it all along represents Christ as a Man in whom God dwells and whom God exalts to the highest Dignity over all other Creatures And Christ himself expresly says that the Father is greater than be Which manifestly imports that tho' God dwels and acts in him yet God is distinct from him and still keeps the Supreme Authority to himself reserving to himself the Power to act in him when or so far as he pleases for he was not pleased for instance to enable him to dispose wholly of the Gifts of the Spirit till after his Ascension and he had not revealed to him when should be the Day of Judgment but kept to himself the Times and Seasons c. Thereby then it appears that Christ is but a Man acting for God and to that end assisted of God as was said tho' the Trinitarians generally will not allow him to be truly a Man but only a Human Nature which is but an imaginary Shadow of a Man When they call him God-Man they mean only a Divine Person united with their General Conception of a Human Nature that has no real Subsistence which is not truly a Man For as the Bishop of Gloucester excellently well observes p. 63d of his Reflections upon the late Examination of the Discourse of the Descent of the Man Christ Jesus from Heaven to say that the Man Jesus has no Subsistence of his own is to say that he has no other Subsistence than an Accident has in union with the Substance to which it belongs and this makes him inferior to any Man God ever made Nay this actually unmans him Therefore the Bishop rightly calls this monstrous Doctrine Scholastick Gibberish Whereas the Scripture not only never calls Christ a God Man but in a great many places calls him a Man John 8.40 John 1.30 Acts 13.38 1 Tim. 2.5 c. and expresly says that as to his Person and Human Circumstances he was in all things like unto us Sin excepted Hebr. 2.17 Hebr. 4.15 1 Cor. 15.21 Now if he be a Man he has a Subsistence of his own for so has a Man and if he has a Subsistence of his own he cannot be supposed to be united to the Godhead and to be a God but as the Vnitarians hold he is Namely inasmuch as God constantly guides him and acts in and by him in the High Station in which He has placed him which after all the Trinitarians as we have seen own is all they mean by the Incarnation or Personal Union and so it is most incontestably evident that notwithstanding the Difference that the Trinitarians make between Them and the Vnitarians they can give no reason for their pretence that according to the Vnitarian System the Lord Jesus is Vncapacitated for the Work of Redemption And if he were So according to the Vnitarian from what has been said it manifestly appears he should as much be So according to the Trinitarian Scheme For both found his Capacity upon the In-dwelling or Assisting Godhead in him To this the Trinitarians reply that except the Godhead and the Man Jesus Christ were supposed to make but one Person Christ could not be said as be is to do those things which none but the Divine Power doth Therefore it must be infer'd that this one Person Christ is God-Man and implies a Divine and a Human Nature Personally-united together For the Scripture attributes the Miracles of our Saviour to his own inherent Power and his Revelations and Prophesies to his own Personal Knowledg For it is said that he knew what was in Man that he rebuked the Wind and the Sea that he will raise the Dead at the last Day c. To this Plea the Vnitarians answer that by the same reasoning when our Saviour promised his Disciples John 14.12 that They should Do greater Works than those he had done the Trinitarians cannot avoid concluding that they should do those Miracles by their own Power and that they should then be considered as indeed Personally-united with the Godhead But cannot the Trinitarians consider that Men may be said to do those things which are effected by the Means and Helps which they make use and can dispose of Is not a General said to take a City which his Army storms at his Orders Is not a Physician said to do a Cure that is effected with God's Blessing by the Remedy he has prescrib'd In like manner may not Men be said to do those things which are wrought by the Power which God has invested them with or granted them the disposal of To come then to the objected Particulars Christ works Miracles raises the Dead forgives Sins and doth whatsoever the Father does by desiring God to do these things at his request which the Father alloweth him to ask and to expect of him Therefore all things whatsoever that he sees or knows the Father doth or can do and that are requisite to the fulfilling the Work of Salvation Christ begs the Father to do them and the Father doing them at this his most beloved Son's Intercession Christ is censed or reckoned to do them The way that all Intelligent Beings Do those Things that God has put in their Power is by Willing them and Vsing the Means which God or Reason has shewn they may be effected by For instance For a Man to move his Hands or Feet his Soul needs but to will it to nourish his Body he must take the things and apply them as God has appointed to that end Now it seems all the Means which God has appointed for Christ to do whatsoever the Father doth

others that disagree from our opinions I am sure this will secure us but I know not any thing else that will Ib. P. 33. If Men must be permitted in their Opinions and Christians must not persecute Christians there is as much reason to reprove all those oblique Arts ungentle and unchristian and destructive of Learning and Ingenuity as Burning or Suppressing the Books and Writings of those of different Sentiments forcing them to recant c. It is a strange Industry us'd by our Fore-Fathers Of all those Heresies which gave them battle we have absolutely no Record or Monument but what themselves who were their Adversaries have transmitted to us c. Ib. P. 34. Of the same consideration is Mending of Authors not to their own mind but to ours Ib. P. 35. I am not sure that such an Opinion is Heresy neither would other Men be so sure as they think for if they did consider it aright and observe the infinite deceptions and causes of deceptions in wise Men and in all doubtful Questions and did nor mistake Confidence for Certainty Ib. P. 39. It is of geatest consequence to believe right in the Question of the Validity or Invalidity of a Death-Bed Repentance and the consequences of the Doctrin of Predetermination are of deepest and most material consideration and yet these greatest Concernments where a Laberty of Prophesying in these Questions has been permitted have made no distinct Communion no Sects of Christians The Liberty of Prophesying P. 3. Salvation is in special and by name annexed to the belief of those Articles only which have in them the indearments of our services or the support of our confidence or the satisfaction of our hopes Ib. P. 8. The Apostles or their Contemporaries and Disciples compos'd a Creed to be a Rule of Faith to all Christians which Creed unless it contain'd all the intire object of Faith and the foundation of Religion it cannot be imagin'd to what purpose it should serve and it was so esteemed by the whole Church of God c. Ib. P. 9. But if this was sufficient to bring Men to Heaven then why not now If the Apostles admitted all to their Communion that believed this Creed why shall we exclude any that preserve the same intire Ib. P. 11. Neither are we oblig'd to make these Articles more particular and minute than the Creed For altho' whatsoever is certainly deduced from any of these Articles made already so explicite is as certainly true and as much to be believed as the Article it self yet because it is not certain that our deductions from them are certain what one calls evident is so obscure to another that he believes it false it is the best and only safe course to rest in that explication the Apostles have made Ib. P. 12. But if we go farther besides the easiness of being deceived we relying upon our own discourses which tho' they may be true and then bind us to follow them but yet no more than when they only seem truest yet they cannot make the thing certain to another much less necessary in it self And since God would not bind us upon pain of Sin and Punishment to make deductions our selves much less would he bind us to follow another Man's Logick as an Article of our Faith Ib. P. 13. For it is a demonstration that nothing can be necessary to be believed under pain of Damnation but such Propositions of which it is certain that God has spoken and taught them to us and of which it is certain that this is their sense and purpose For if the sense be uncertain we can no more be obliged to believe it in a certain sense than we are to believe it at all if it were not certain that God delivered it c. Ibid. Here to these words I would only add that this Generality may suffice at least for Terms of Church-Vnion and that Men are answerable to God Whether or no they do what lies in their power to understand every Article as well as they can Howbeit certainly fallible Men are not Magisterially to prescribe in most intricate Matters or make then their Deductions a Rule to other Christians Perhaps the Apostles themselves knew not all Mysteries or understood not perfectly all the obscure Expressions which they had written when they were inspired as the Prophets did not always fully conceive the whole Meaning of all their Prophesies and Writings How should this Consideration then humble Us and keep Us from a decisive magisterial and imposing Spirit And this also I affirm altho' the Church of any one denomination or represented in a Council shall make the Deduction or Declaration Ib. P. 14. Particular Churches are bound to allow Communion to all those that profess the same Faith upon which the Apostles did give Communion P. 262. To refuse our Charity to those who have the same Faith because they have not all our Opinions which we over-value is Impious and Schismatical c. Ib. The Arians and Meletiant joined against the Catholicks The Catholicks and Novatians joyned against the Arians Now if Men would do that for Charity which they do for Interest it were handsomer and more ingenuous P. 263. Men would do well to consider whether or no such proceedings do not derive the guilt of Schism upon them who least think it and whether of the two is the Schismatick he that makes unnecessary and inconvenient Impositions or he that disobeys them because he cannot without doing violence to his Conscience submit to them P. 265. He that is most displeased at another Man's Error may be as much deceived in his Understanding P. 266. The word Heresy is used in Scripture indifferently c. P. 18. The further the Succession went from the Apostles the more forward Men were in numbring Heresies and that upon slighter and more uncertain grounds P. 32. I am willing to believe their sense of the word Heresy was more gentle than it is now P. 39. They whose Age and Spirits were far distant from the Apostles had also other judgments concerning Faith and Heresy than the Apostles had Ibid. In all the Animadversions against Errors by the Apostles no pious Person was condemn'd no Man that did invincibly err or bona mente but somthing that was amiss in genere morum was that which the Apostles did redargue P. 22. If a Man mingles not a Vice with his Opinion tho' he be deceiv'd in his Doctrin his Error is his Misery not his Crime it makes him an Argument of weakness and an object of pity but not a Person sealed up to ruin and reprobation P. 24. The Epistle of Constantine to Alexander and Arius tells the truth and chides them both The Emperor calls their Different a vain piece of a Question and a fruitless Contention For tho' says he the Matter be grave yet because neither necessary nor explicable the Contention is trifling Christians should not fall at variance upon such Disputes considering our Understandings