Selected quad for the lemma: word_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	holy_a	spirit_n	trinity_n	2,812	5	9.9722	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30442	A free but modest censure on the late controversial writings and debates of the Lord Bishop of Worcester and Mr. Locke, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Locke, the Hon[ora]ble Charles Boyle, Esq., and Dr. Bently together with brief remarks on Monsieur Le Clerc's Ars critica / by F.B., M.A. of Cambridg.	F. B.	1698 (1698)	Wing B59; ESTC R3091	24,181	32

thus thou shalt be mortal or be in the state of mortality of which no other reason can be given than this that he was willing to use his own words to accommodate this threatning to his own Opinion In the same Chapter he shews his good will to the Racovian Divinity when he interprets Jer. 31. 33. of the Memory only I will put my Law into their inward parts and write it in their Hearts that is saith he I will take care that the Israelites shall retain the Law in their Memories and shall not want a Monitor to put them in mind of it This is the whole emphasis of the words And to confirm this he quotes the next words as a proof of what he saith They shall teach no more every man his Neighbour c. but we find nothing of proof in them there is not the least intimation that the foregoing words are to be meant of bare remembrance But this is the slender fare which we must expect when this learned Writer pretends to make the greatest Provision and to satisfy the Readers appetite Nor can it be otherwise when a man of his Parts and Reading truckles to a Cause and submits himself to be led by false Notions and to uphold them wrests the Holy Scripture as he doth here under a cloak of Criticism Any unprejudiced man may be convinced that the forementioned words are the Covenant or Promise of Grace and Salvation by the Messiah Behold the days come saith the Lord that I will make a new Covenant ver 31. and those days are the days of the Gospel as appears from the occasion of citing and applying the foresaid Text in Heb. 8. 8. That Covenant is in a more signal manner fulfill'd under the Evangelical Dispensation the Divine Law is put into the inner parts of the Faithful and written on their Hearts that is by virtue of the Holy Spirit their Understandings are so enlightned and their Wills and Consciences so effectually wrought upon that they are enabled to observe that Law This is the privilege of the Evangelical Covenant but our Author was not to comply with this because it is repugnant to the Doctrine of those men he adheres to who explode all special Grace and Assistance of the Spirit and solve all by Moral Swasion It is no wonder then that in obeysance to those Doctors he makes writing the Law in the Heart and inner parts to be no more than bare remembring of it Thus you have his Interpretation and you have the true ground and occasion of it He proceeds to try whether he can by Quotations out of Gentile Writers prove that writing in the Mind or Heart is of the same signification with Remembrance but some of his Instances which he alledges come not up to what he quotes them for and if they did the Sacred and Pagan stile are not to be parallel'd always as he himself expresly acknowledges among his Critical Observations And as for the Citation out of Josephus Antiq. 1. 4. c. 8. The writing of the Laws on their Minds and the preserving them in their Memories seem to be two distinct things The truth is so far as I can judg this Learned Gentleman shapes his Criticism according to the Doctrines he hath imbraced and that is the ground of his mistaking here and in other places This may be perceived in his Critical Notes in this same Chapter about opening the Eyes where the design was to fetch in Acts 26. 18. To open their Eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and then from his premised Critical Glosses to insinuate that there is no Emphasis no Energy as he saith in those words So he continues that there is nothing Emphatical in the Apostles words concerning Lydia Acts 16. 14. The Lord opened her Heart Her Conversion was not by any special Power and Efficacy only as he strangely expresses it It was by divine Providence whatever machins God made use of at last that Lydia gave an attentive Ear to Paul He tells us that the wonderful change that was wrought in this Female by the preaching of the Gospel was the work of Providence by which all other things come to pass in the World And it was a Mechanical Operation for that he must mean by his Machins it was an external work void of an inward efficacious and energetical Principle This is his way of describing Lydia's Conversion to the Christian Faith only to serve his Hypothesis about Grace and Conversion This was the reason why our Critick would have us take no notice of any Emphasis in those foregoing Phrases no not in the writings of the Bible Chap. 5. He approaches nearer to his designed business he so orders his way of Criticizing that he must take notice of ambiguous words and words of different significations and then he brings in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the price of Redemption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to redeem and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 redemption and represents these as ambiguous and doubtful terms and hard to be understood when they are applied to Christ's Redemption And here he perplexes the matter and renders it difficult and obscure and unsettles and confounds the belief of the weak It is observable he undertakes afterwards to reckon up all the significations of the word Spirit in the Old and New Testament as well as in other Writers but he can't find one place where it signifies the third Person in the Trinity He acknowledges indeed that there is mention of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament but it is only as much as God in general or a Divine Power or some invisible force not any distinct Person in the Trinity It is true he saith The Christian Divines both Antient and Modern fitted or accommodated several of those places to the Holy Ghost the third Person in the Trinity and so do the Divines at this day but he is not pleased to say that either in the Old or in the New Testament the word Spirit doth occur in this sense No that was not to be expected for his method of Criticism was to be guided by his prepossessions concerning the doctrine of the Trinity or rather his denial of that Doctrin His whole Catalogue of Places in Writers that mention the word Spirit seems to be inserted into this Chapter on purpose to patronize that mistaken Notion that the Scriptures mention not the Spirit as a distinct Person in the Deity For this cause the divers senses of the word Spirit were hook'd in under this Chapter which treats of ambiguous words In the next he considers the larger and the narrower acceptions of the words Justice or Righteousness Charity Faith but all along seems to be upon design and forces his Critical Observations into some subservienty to the Principles and Practices he hath a kindness for In the 7 th Chapter he lays down this Rule viz. That proper words must not be confounded with improper ones and then tells us that the

contrary practice is a common fault and accordingly the Apostle offends he saith in this kind when he speaks thus to the Galatians Chap. 4. 8. When ye knew not God ye did service unto them who by nature are no Gods Which words are haled in here to prove that St. Paul was a confused and improper Speaker and to take occasion to discourse of that expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a God by Nature that hereby the Divinity of Christ might receive a shock If you ask him what a God by Nature is he answers One that is not a God by Institution and Opinion And yet such was our Saviour say the Socinian Masters he is a God by divine Institution Appointment and Order this is all the Divinity they allow him Chap. 8. His Criticism is again a hackney to his private Belief and Opinion and thence he brings in Grace among the Obscure words that are to be found in Theological Writers and he professes he can't make any sense of it as it is used by St. Augustin and other Divines since his time Why because it is not according to the Vnitarian Scheme of Divinity and therefore there can be no sense in the word or thing It is not then strange that he ridicules that Doctrine and exposes it to contempt and scorn making use to that purpose of a certain Jesuit's Dialogue which he very solemnly quotes And in the same place the Pious and Learned Father St. Augustin is despised and vilified as a popular Speaker and unskill'd in the Critick Art because he vouches the Doctrine of Grace The best Language Monsieur Le Clerc can give it is that it is he knows not what which tho spoken in a jeering and scoffing way is some fear the truest thing he hath said in this Chapter or any other Chap. 9. He pretends to propound some words which have no signification at all but are commonly used among the Philosophick Fry and not only among them but Divine for these he is pleas'd to say no less than they love to speak concerning those things which they understand and not Our Lay-Critick is very smart upon the Gown These Divines and these Priests as they are otherwise call'd are I perceive very offensive to some of late and no wonder when they talk Nonsense and do not understand themselves what they say as this Gentleman complains And if any man ask of them an interpretation of many of the words they use they reply presently that their Discourse is about a thing that is incomprehensible and therefore Human Reason must not pass judgment on things of this nature as it doth upon others Thus our witty Critick who as his Brethren by the Incomprehensible thing mean the Trinity and other Doctrines that have relation to it which are Names of Nothing according to this Writer nay as he displays it in great Characters they are NOTHING as if his putting any thing into Capital Letters would annihilate it Chap. 12. His interpretation of the Righteousness of God reveal'd from Faith to Faith Rom. 1. 17. is wholly of the Racovian strain Chap. 14. He disparages the Divinity of Christ by telling us that the Divinity which inhabited in him is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Evangelist in a Platonick way and that Platonick way he asserts to be far different from the mind of some Christians who hold Christ to be truly God Afterwards he hath as little ground for what he so positively affirms that all Christians at this day dissent much from the determination of the Nicene Council Chap. 15. He again falls soul upon St. Augustin that celebrated Father of the Christian Church and all those that agree with him in the Doctrine of Grace the reason of which I have assigned before Chap. 16. On the same Principle that his Friends go upon that all things are clear and plain in Christianity and that there are no Mysteries in it he upbraids the antient Christian Writers with their mystical and obscure Orations and Discourses He unhappily joins with Porphyrius the most implacable Adversary of the Christians and Christianity it self tho very Learned he saith in this very thing and uses his words against the Christian Doctors who interpreted the Holy Scriptures in the Primitive times Part 2. Chap. 5. Who would think he could have handsomely brought Synods and the Representative Church under this Chapter of Abstracts and Concretes And yet it must be done because it was to be brought in some where for the Synod of Nice's sake where there were so many Representatives of the Church at that time who asserted and vindicated the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity Chap. 8. Having in other places spoken so contemptuously of some of the greatest Points of Religion it is not to be supposed that he hath very reverent Thoughts of GOD himself and accordingly he hath this strange Passage As often as the word GOD occurs in any Writer we must know it is always the name of a Notion which according to the Wit or Wisdom of the Writer contains in it more or fewer Attributes Part 3. In several Chapters together he shews himself a true Gritick in his enquiries about the causes of those Faults which have crept into old Writers only here and there he hath a brief touch which serves to remind us of his inclination But in the 14 th Chapter which is concerning the Faults that are to be attributed to Impostors he plainly shews his Biass in these following particulars He reckons Rom. 5. 14. among the adulterated Texts Death reigned from Adam unto Moses even on those who sinned not after the similitude of Adam 's Transgression but any one that knows the Opinions of Socinus's Friends cannot but see why not is look'd upon as an Interpolation He numbers Rom. 9. 5. God blessed for ever among the vitiated places observing that the word God is not in some Copies Next he instances in 1 Tim. 3. 16. God was manifest in the Flesh and remains us that the word God is omitted in many Greek Exemplars Then he takes notice that those words in 1 John 5. 7. There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one are not to be found in the old Greek Copies but are foisted in by fraud but yet as he saith afterwards Chap. 16. They are contended for and maintain'd by Divines that have not skill in Criticks or who look for that in Books which they wish for not for what is in them Among the places that have been alter'd and corrupted by Impostors the 4th ver of the Epistle of St. Jude is reckon'd by him because the only Lord God is meant of our Saviour therefore he adheres to those who say God is a word inserted here by fraud Thus all these Allegations confirm us in that opinion which this Author is not unwilling we should have of him namely that he is a great admirer of Socinus's Doctrines