Selected quad for the lemma: word_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	father_n	person_n	trinity_n	5,937	5	9.9723	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62587	A sermon concerning the unity of the divine nature and the B. Trinity by John, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1693 (1693)	Wing T1222; ESTC R6941	17,786	42

reasonably presume that they who talk of them did themselves never thoroughly understand and least of all is it necessary to believe them The modesty of Christians is contented in Divine Mysteries to know what God hath thought fit to reveal concerning them and hath no curiosity to be wise above that which is written It is enough to believe what God says concerning these matters and if any man will venture to say more every other man surely is at his liberty to believe as he sees reason II. I desire it may in the next place be considered that the Doctrine of the Trinity even as it is asserted in Scripture is acknowledged by us to be still a great Mystery and so imperfectly revealed as to be in a great measure incomprehensible by Human Reason And therefore though some learned and judicious Men may have very commendably attempted a more particular explication of this great Mystery by the strength of Reason yet I dare not pretend to that knowing both the difficulty and danger of such an Attempt and mine own insufficiency for it All that I ever designed upon this Argument was to make out the credibility of the thing from the Authority of the H. Scriptures without descending to a more particular explication of it than the Scripture hath given us lest by endeavouring to lay the Difficulties which are already started about it new ones should be raised and such as may perhaps be much harder to be removed than those which we have now to grapple withal And this I hope I have in some measure done in one of the former Discourses Nor indeed do I see that it is any ways necessary to do more it being sufficient that God hath declared what he thought fit in this matter and that we do firmly believe what he says concerning it to be true though we do not perfectly comprehend the meaning of all that he hath said about it For in this and the like Cases I take an implicite Faith to be very commendable that is to believe whatever we are sufficiently assured God hath revealed though we do not fully understand his meaning in such a Revelation And thus every man who believes the H. Scriptures to be a truly Divine Revelation does implicitely believe a great part of the Prophetical Books of Scripture and several obscure expressions in those Books though he do not particularly understand the meaning of all the Predictions and expressions contained in them In like manner there are certainly a great many very good Christians who do not believe and comprehend the Mysteries of Faith nicely enough to approve themselves to a Scholastical and Magisterial Judge of Controversies who yet if they do heartily embrace the Doctrines which are clearly revealed in Scripture and live up to the plain Precepts of the Christian Religion will I doubt not be very well approved by the Great and Just and by the infallibly Infallible Judge of the World III. Let it be further considered That though neither the word Trinity nor perhaps Person in the sense in which it is used by Divines when they treat of this Mystery be any where to be met with in Scripture yet it cannot be denied but that Three are there spoken of by the Names of Father Son and H. Ghost in whose Name every Christian is baptized and to each of whom the highest Titles and Properties of God are in Scripture attributed And these Three are spoken of with as much distinction from one another as we use to speak of three several Persons So that though the word Trinity be not found in Scripture yet these Three are there expresly and frequently mentioned and Trinity is nothing but three of any thing And so likewise though the word Person be not there expresly applied to Father Son and H. Ghost yet it will be very hard to find a more convenient word whereby to express the distinction of these Three For which reason I could never yet see any just cause to quarrel at this term For since the H. Spirit of God in Scripture hath thought fit in speaking of these Three to distinguish them from one another as we use in common speech to distinguish three several Persons I cannot see any reason why in the explication of this Mystery which purely depends upon Divine Revelation we should not speak of it in the same manner as the Scripture doth And though the word Person is now become a Term of Art I see no cause why we should decline it so long as we mean by it neither more nor less than what the Scripture says in other words IV. It deserves further to be considered That there hath been a very ancient Tradition concerning three real Differences or Distinctions in the Divine Nature and these as I said before very nearly resembling the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity Whence this Tradition had its original is not easie upon good and certain grounds to say but certain it is that the Jews anciently had this Notion And that they did distinguish the Word of God and the H. Spirit of God from Him who was absolutely called God and whom they looked upon as the First Principle of all things as is plain from Philo Judaeus and Moses Nachmanides and others cited by the Learned Grotius in his incomparable Book of the Truth of the Christian Religion And among the Heathen Plato who probably enough might have this Notion from the Jews did make three Distinctions in the Deity by the Names of essential Goodness and Mind and Spirit So that whatever Objections this matter may be liable to it is not so peculiar a Doctrine of the Christian Religion as many have imagined though it is revealed by it with much more clearness and certainty And consequently neither the Jews nor Plato have any reason to object it to us Christians especially since they pretend no other ground for it but either their own Reason or an ancient Tradition from their Fathers whereas we Christians do appeal to express Divine Revelation for what we believe in this matter and do believe it singly upon that account V. It is besides very considerable That the Scriptures do deliver this Doctrine of the Trinity without any manner of doubt or question concerning the Unity of the Divine Nature And not only so but do most stedfastly and constantly assert that there is but One God And in those very Texts in which these three Differences are mentioned the Unity of the Divine Nature is expresly asserted and where St. John makes mention of the Father the Word and the Spirit the Unity of these Three is likewise affirmed There are Three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and these Three are One. VI. It is yet further considerable That from this Mystery as delivered in Scripture a Plurality of Gods cannot be inferred without making the Scripture grosly to contradict it self which I charitably suppose the Socinians would be as loth