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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	person_n	scripture_n	trinity_n	3,376	5	9.9610	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52605	An answer to Dr. Wallis's three letters concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.; Wallis, John, 1616-1703. Doctrine of the blessed Trinity briefly explained.; Wallis, John, 1616-1703. Second letter concerning the Holy Trinity.; Wallis, John, 1616-1703. Explication and vindication of the Athanasian creed.	1691 (1691)	Wing N1504; ESTC R7845	14,909	22

weak as to have quarrelled at him for distorting the signification of the word but we should have turn'd to Arguments to prove the thing we should only have desired him to have thrust in Iupiter Bacchus Venus c. into the Office with them and we should have been content and let him take the Idea as he pleases Nor does this very Notion fail of opening my Eyes more neither for now methinks I understand why it is we say that we have but one God in Natural Religion that is we have but one Council of Gods personal who having all power among them and always agreeing never contradict one another and consequently manage all things with the same Rule of Providence and there is no power besides sufficient to oppose them But if this be our Adversaries Idea as it must be if they make the Word God to signifie an Office and not a Person as is necessarily inferr'd from saying there are many Persons in the Godhead I say if this be our Adversaries Idea they would do well to speak it out more plainly that the World may no longer remain in darkness and that we may have the fairer occasion given us to set them in a better way if this be wrong Nor shall my Adversaries confused Notion of the word Person obstruct my reasoning in this case by his Artful falling from the proper signification of the word to call it a somewhat for if there be any regard to be had to Scripture I shall shew by and by that the Trinity are Persons as really as properly and as fully personally distinct as three Angels and if so I hope the Doctor will not therefore leave his Rule of Faith because it turns Unitarian against him But before I proceed further there seems to be two Objections that present themselves from the Doctor and 't is fit we should make our way plain says he p. 9. first Letter 't is hard to conclude an impossibility in the Nature of God right so it is but the Doctor is mistaken that is not what we pretend to we endeavour to make his first Commandment and his Unity sense and methinks a sincere Man till he is able to do that will have but little reason to value the rest and less material subsequent Revelation And methinks here our Adversaries should be ashamed to charge us as they do that we stick to Chymera Idea's of Impossibility and disregard Scripture for pray what Scripture shall we regard in competition with this Commandment written by the Finger of God and one of the only Precepts he himself immediately delivered Did our Adversaries deal ingenuously with us they would shew us where this Commandment is solemnly abrogated or explained and not by blind Implications thus tear up the very Roots of Revelation methinks I cannot but blush for them when I read their charging us thus unjustly but I hope 't is in their Ignorance and God forgive them for it The second Objection is That our Absurdity in denying the Trinity is like theirs who deny the Resurrection Page 6. Letter 1. Alas what will not mistaken Zeal alledge we neither deny the Scriptures nor the Power of God which they that deny the Resurrection must indeed we can rather believe that God can make us almost infinitely more glorious And what we deny is neither the Power of God nor the Scriptures our Case is we are afraid of Idolatry we only beg the priviledge of understanding how to keep the Commandments and surely if we are jealous that we are in any Errour about them we may have leave innocently to examine it till we either have or give satisfaction In short Dr. Wallis might as well have compar'd us to Man-eaters for if there is any thing common in our offences 't is perversness and a blindness against Conscience and in that the Man-eaters are as much guilty as the Unitarians and therefore I think he had done as well if he had compared us to them only indeed in this the Man-eaters would not serve his turn they would not cast so black a Reflection as the other does by their false and unjust Inferences Nor is this the first time that even the best of our Adversaries have shewn their uncharitableness to us nor is this the least footsteep of it that I find even in Dr. Wallis thus he seems to insinuate a general aspersion upon us That we believe not Angels 1 Letter page 16. so that the Socinians reject the Scriptures tho' not barefac'd yet on the slight inference of their impossibilities Page 5 8. Letter 1. Indeed he would seem to insinuate he has a little more Charity for some Unitarians but I would fain know whether that general Imputation be not a ground for a particular Offence for is it not to begin with Calumnies I shall not say the Doctor has no better Arguments then such Topicks of Prejudice but methinks if he has he might let those alone which are more likely to harden then convince us I cannot presume he has so mean a design as to set up our Opinions like a Scarecrow and then make sport by pelting of them and yet whether he designs so or no that must be the effect of the Basis of an Opinion so expos'd I am not concern'd that he cannot think us Orthodox Christians Page 1. Letter 1. or that he can say Socinus or any other Author has dropt imprudent words tho' I must confess some of those he has quoted against him no Protestant I should think should be angry with him for Page 45. Letter 3. but I am concern'd at his general uncharitable Charges Page 48. Letter 3. that he should say That we will not believe even what God says Letter 1. Page 19. I am sure a Refiection he would very unwillingly bear if flung upon the Trinitarians in destroying the first Commandment And just such another Answer I think I may justly pass on those Passages of his where he as good as declares us Reprobates as where he tell us If any man list to be contentious c. but the humble God will teach Page 20. Letter 1. so bearing ye shall not hear c. Page 55. Letter 3. so Page 58. Letter 3. That our bottom reason against the Trinity is because it is Nonsense I should be unwilling I say to retort all this upon Dr. Wallis and yet if I should have I not as just a cause for it as ever he had yes surely I have but my Charity forces to hope the best to think the best that Truth has not yet approach'd him in full light that otherwise certainly he would have embrac'd it and that if he is in any Errour whether he or his Fellow Trinitarians I say 't is through Ignorance or Mistake Not that I write this that God doth not harden some neither but who shall judge who they are who shall say just such a Sect When we condemn just such a Principle we know not what we do and we

AN ANSWER TO Dr. Wallis's THREE LETTERS Concerning the Doctrine of the TRINITY SEeing our Adversaries the Trinitarians cannot be content modestly to acknowledge their Doctrine as a meer Mystery and to rely upon the Authority of the Church and Tradition for the same but have of late also ventur'd even to prove the same agreeable to the common Notions of Humane Reasoning it may not be amiss to shew them their Errour and to humble them a little more in their pretences for the future I must confess 'thas been but of late that any have presum'd to this confidence but as it now happens a Unitarian is the absurdest Creature in the World Dr Wallis and Dr. S together have undertaken even to demonstrate their weakness but whether their Endeavours may not be more likely to reflect on themselves than the Unitarians I dare trust to the issue of this ensuing Treatise To put the Case therefore the Unitarian having taken the Scriptures in hand and examining thereby how he ought to address his Worship streight concludes himself to be directed by the first Commandment viz. Thou shalt have none other Gods but me But the more subtle Trinitarian tho' in several places of the Old and New Testament he find that One to be intended as that we ought to acknowledge and worship but One God yet streight he has an evasion says he there may be many Persons in that One God and therefore the Commandment That we should have but Oue God shall not debar me of Deifying and Eqalling my Saviour Christ Jesus to his Father and after that to compleat a Trinity flings in the Holy Ghost also The Case then of the Unitarian is thus He dreading the guilt of Idolatry thinks this Evasion of saying That this One God can have several Persons in it but frivolous and weak especially when he considers that he never met with such Direction or Construction neither in the Old or New Testament No says the Trinitarian there is no such thing expressed but the Grounds for the Inferences of it are so clear that it needs not The Unitarian upon this jealous of a Juggle especially when this Inference is not to be rais'd till several hundred Years after Christ reflects whether such a thing can be put upon the First Commandment and whether 't is within the nature of that Precept to bear it He argues thus therefore with himself What was that Commandment made for What to prevent Polytheism Why how says he is that to be done By denying many that is several Personal Gods surely it must if it is not made to deny Personal Gods 't is made to no purpose and if therefore we can admit a Man afterwards to be a co-equal to this God this Commandment seems to be made but to little effect And I pray then may not a Unitarian upon this very well conclude a Trinity in Unity is absurd surely he may without any manner of Contempt to the Scripture What is the Divinity of Christ implied in the New Testament 't is denied in the first Commandment and I that thus regard that solemn and set Precept of the First Commandment that was delivered even by God himself may surely in such case be allow'd to submit my Reasoning entirely to the Scripture and yet deny this implied co equal Divinity of Christ. 'T is true indeed I cannot say that there is a contradiction in holding that there may be Three Persons in God because I have not the definition of the Word God so exact as to be assur'd it cannot admit many Persons in it but this I am sure that when God has ordered me to acknowledge him but as One and I know I cannot rationally make him more but by many Persons I vitiate the Commandment by an inconsistent absurdity to bring in new Persons after in co equality with him Methinks this Reasoning is so obvious that I wonder our great Doctors can pore it over And yet whether I wonder or not they do they think because they can tell us that a thing can be unum and tres diverso respectu that is One and Three in several respects that therefore it is consistent with the First Commandment to add several Persons to their One God tho' they are particularly prohibited it by it and yet not break it Nor does this Errour end here neither for our Adversaries are not always so lucky as to see Consequences for should a lying Revelation which is not impossible Deifie more Men then ever the Heathens did here is no Fence left Is there Three Persons in God why but Three No God you say reveal'd but Three by Christ. Yes since in a fuller Manifestation he has been pleas'd to acquaint us of a Thousand more And 't is in vain in such case to pretend that the Number would be of Offence to us for if we consider it aright there is no more Reason for one Number then another Indeed if we once destroy the Unity of the Personality of God I think it were more honourable to think the Godhead consisted in infinite Personalities then one all between One and Infinite's imperfect But yet after all this we Unitarians are more fair then to press our Adversaries with this one Argument only tho' this alone were enough too to a sincere Man but we have gone on further even to let go this Principle with them and to fight them at their own Weapons to shew them no such Trinity is reveal'd in the New Testament and granting it were not absurd and inconsistent to the first Commandment yet that it is unscriptural And herein would Dr. Wallis but examine whatever he has gloried that Dr. Sherlock has answered the History of the Unitarians 3 Letter p. 42. Dr. Sherlock has such an Answer by the Vindication of the Arrian and the Acts of Athanasius that neither Dr. Sherlock nor Dr. Wallis neither will be able to Answer whatever they may do by Suppression and Reproaches But least Dr. Wallis should think I tell him of an Answer and have none to give him my self I shall give my self that trouble as to enquire more particularly into his Reasoning and to shew him that for all he deals in Cubes all he alledges is not Demonstration The Doctors reasoning therefore as I take it is this he endeavours to illustrate the Trinity by an Example in a Cube where three sides he says make one Cube Pag. 11. Letter 1. and which Cube he says is not to be made without all three sides and yet all three make but one Cube Page 12. Letter 1. and to compleat the Parallel he tell us Page 9. Letter 2. that that broad thing is a Cube that long thing is a Cube in Answer to the Father is God and the Son is God c. Nor doth he stop here neither for Page 13. of the first Letter he tells us That that long thing begets the broad thing and the long and broad thing has that deep thing proceeding from them

plainly insinuated by the Text and the rest of the Chapter I shall trace no further into these Scripture-Proofs because I have no further occasion from the Doctor and as for any body else I dare presume to say whatever the Doctor has done in taking it for granted that the Trinity is sufficiently proved by Scripture that there are Unitarian Books even lately extant that have sufficiently evidenced the falsity of his pretences and that not by means of wresting and forcing of Scripture-words and phrases but in construing them with all the integrity and fairness imaginable And the reason I have not troubled my self to repeat those things over again is that I am asham'd to see they have so little effect upon our Adversaries for to what end is it to run out into nice Controversies when men have the face to deny the most manifest first Principles However I hope that this Reign and Tyranny of blindness will not last always I hope in time we shall meet with some men of that Courage and Sincerity as may countenance our Cause and rescue distressed Truth from her Suppressors I shall now draw towards a Conclusion and as I have hitherto taken care to avoid the Errors of my Adversary in refuting them so I now shall do him that Justice as to acknowledge he writes with a Charity like a Divine and though he is in an Error yet 't is with so much Softness Generosity and Charity that his very Enemies cannot rebuke him for want of it I cannot say whether the first Composers of the Athanasian Creed were of his mind or not and whether they intended the Damnatory Sentences with his Limitations but whether they did or no which I must confess I am very apt to question they ought to have done so and wherein they did otherwise they were to blame Indeed 't is an Enthusiastick Doctrine to damn unbaptized Infants the invincibly ignorant all before Christ Fools Madmen as our rigid Trinitarians have too often done I think Dr. Wallis has done what ought ever to be reverenced In short the Doctor in this has shewn himself so good a Man that methinks I cannot but envy his Party that he is against us But it may be questioned possibly why have I wrote against him then if I had such a Respect for him I say not in resentment to him so much for he has the Charity of an Angel but least that others relying on his strength of Reasoning should embrace his Argument without his Charity or else I could be content that the Doctor or any man should enjoy Opinions so Innocent to themselves For my part I am glad to hear such healing words as that men have abused the Damnatory Sentences as that there is no Anathema to the Greek Church or the sincere of any Perswasion let it be as he says in an extraordinary way or as he pleases in short the Principle on whatever it is grounded is Heavenly and breaths the true Method to Peace Unity and Concord whereas the contrary censures as he himself excellently observes were enough to make the Creed too formidable to be approv'd of p. 21. third Letter Therefore without examining further into this matter for I shall never discourage Charity and therefore I say let the Damnatory Sentences be annexed to the generals of the Creed or otherwise for it shall never concern me I say there is but one thing herein wherein I have reason to be concerned in at what he says and that is that he should tack his Damnatory Sentence to an explanation of the Church and not rather to the Scriptures themselves Nor do I write this that even in this case too he has not left room for the invincibly Ignorant but only that I am sorry to see him so much to countenance a meer humane Imposition in forreign and unscriptural Words as Trinity in Unity whatever they signifie plainly are And therefore hence it is that I desire to be excus'd to put a difference between he that believeth not shall be damn'd in the Scripture and he that believeth not a Trinity in Unity shall be damn'd by the Athanasian Creed for surely any Man may be justly excus'd that puts a difference between the direct Word of God and the Traditions and Interpretations of Men and if so there may be just cause to disallow the parallel and as long as we stick cordially and sincerely to the Scripture not to confine our selves to any particular Man's I may say Church's Interpretation whatever Indeed this slip or oversight in the Doctor almost makes me admire at it for when a Man has reason'd so candidly and fairly as he has done rejected the little prejudices of Quotations acknowledg'd our uncertainty in understanding the Idea's of Scripture words nay granted us that disputableness that there has been Whether the Creed itself were Athanasius ' s or not I say when a Man can be so candid generous and charitable in his Reasoning as to grant us That the word Person the hinge of the Controversie is at least to us uncertain and at best but metaphorical and that it is no guilty ignorance not to define it and that 't is the harshness of the Idea of it that confounds us p. 62. Third Letter I say when a Man has gone so much further as even to blame the Fathers for not admitting these words without adequate Idea's and defining them as he has done p. 4 First Letter I say when he has done thus methinks I wonder how he can justifie their enforcement and plead for what he himself at the same time by an oversight condemns These in short are my Sentiments of the Doctor 's Book and if the World think them fair and honest let them cherish them accordingly and in the mean time let us all be ready and willing not to let these Controversies be lost upon us but endeavour by them to recover or vindicate the Truth as she shall appear to us I must confess some Men make light and sport of this Dispute as if it were but of a Trifle or a Ceremony but when they come into another World they may know that this is a Controversie of weight that God is jealous of his Honour and that he does not love his Creatures to be set up to Rival him and tho' in his Mercy he may bear with us in such things the better to draw us if possible to him any other way yet then we shall know 't is not trifling to vilifie the God of Heaven to rob him of his Honour and to give it to his Dependants thô never so excellent The God of all Grace grant therefore that these things may so sink into Mens Minds that they may no longer persist in such Evils and that they may let us all with one accord address our selves to his Almighty Throne I say let us never cease to sollicite him with our Prayers and Tears thro' his dearest Son Christ Jesus Amen Glory be to the Father thro' the Son and by the Holy Ghost FINIS Nota These Quotations and the Texts as they relate to the Socinians I do not meddle with out leave them to his learned Adversary before the Socinian to handle them

exactly conforming it to the generation and procession of the Son and Holy Ghost And his reasoning upon this Parallel in his 3 Letter page 38. is this If such a Trinity can be form'd in gross Corporeals much more may we expect it possible in Spirituals Now I say not to suppose this simile altogether impertinent as I have shewn it is in our Case for our Debate is not whether there may not be Three Persons in God but whether many Personal Gods will not necessarily break the first Commandment I say therefore to suppose the first Commandment is not broke by many Personal Gods yet this Simile is most absurd for it is of Commensuration or Relation and not of a Body as he would insinuate 't is of a meer Chymera or Idea not a Quality and much less a Corporiety or Substance But to state his Cube therefore more to his purpose for him to wit a Cube of Marble generating hardness and both producing coldness I say in this case there were three Cubes more for him and those real ones too that is of Substance and Quality and yet in such case they would all be distinct Cubes and yet but one Cube that is a Cube of Hardness another of Coldness and another of Corporiety and yet all three but one Cube of Marble I say to put his Similes from Chymera's to Beings yet what parity can we make between the Unity of Substances with Qualities and the Unities of Persons together The Doctor forgets that Personation is the greatest perfection of Being and that different personation is answerably the greatest perfection of Quality I am sure I never could apprehend any other real Unity than Personation and the higher this Personation arose the more distinct I always apprehended it thus one Man one Angel and one God and if the Doctor has found a more perfect real and proper Unity than that let him discover it and not cite a meaner to prove it The Doctor should rather therefore have propos'd some Monster born with three Heads but that I conceive he would have seen to have been too gross to have impos'd upon the World not I mean that I think he sought to impose the other neither for I am perswaded of his sincerity in what he has done but I take the freedom to represent my Argument so for its more perfect Illustration Nor is my Answer to his simile of Memory Will and Understanding and of our Powers to be to do and to know much otherwise 1 Letter p. 17 18. for to my mind 't is a strange Illustration of a most perfect Union of Persons even perfecter than Personality itself to tell us of the Union of parts to the Mind Faculties to the Soul c. So for his unum verum bonum wherein indeed the Doctor is so modest as to confess that the distinction is not equal to that of the Trinity p. 18. 1. Letter so for his three Groats in a Shilling and three Nobles in twenty p. 42. 3. Letter Similes indeed that the Doctor himself seems asham'd of and methinks alledged to a strange purpose he had near as good have wrote that because a Man has two Hands and an Head therefore a Trinity in Unity is necessary to the perfection of the Godhead 'T has been a general Rule with me always where I have brought a simile to illustrate any thing that I have formed it of something adequate and that may really prove the matter I design'd if urg'd by way of Argument but these are such similes that my Adversary had as good urge that there are three Personal Gods because they have three Letters in their Name or because that three times three makes nine In short these are such similes that to repeat them is to answer them Nor are his Arguments drawn from sustineo tres personas mei Iudicis adversarii that is I personate three Men my self the Iudge and my Adversary and from a man's having three Names or Titles as William Henry Nassau King of England Scotland and France or a Noble Duke Marquess and Earl Iess ridiculous p. 40. Letter 3. I would fain ask Doctor Wallis what it is to Personate a Man surely but to compose ones Actions as near as one can in likeness or favour of him is it so then a Man may as well personate three hundred Men as three for one cannot personate three together and one may three hundred one after another In short the Doctor had as good have said there must be three Personal Gods because a Man can walk three ways for 't is the same that he represents by his personating in his Mind as walking in the Body and is not this a pretty simile then to prove that there must be three personally distinct Gods and for the Doctor to conclude upon it as he does p. 41. third Letter What shall a man bear three Persons and shall not God be able to do it Well may the Doctor as he has done quite undermine the very Idea of the word Person for if he had not he could never have forc'd himself to such absurd conclusions but when as he has done he has quite destroy'd all the distinction of the Idea of that word 't is no difficulty for him to conclude as he has done p. 10. Letter 1. That there may be three somewhats in one God diverso respectu After all therefore I say granting that the being of three personal Gods were not repugnant to the very Precept of the first and greatest Commandment Yet has the Doctor been able by simile or otherwise to make out that there may be rationally three Persons in one God Laying aside even the first Commandment yet surely he has not for these Examples and Illustrations are as Foreign from his purpose as even his Enemies can wish and therefore I hope for the future the Doctor will learn more Modesty than to set up such Trumpery to give us similes of Unions of Chimerical Relations of Measure of Faculties of Parts and Titles for the probability that the most compleat Unity in the Godhead may be in an unheard of manner and not of Persons The Doctor must needs have been more successful as well as ingenuous had he taken a plainer Method thus for instance Had he said God is as a name of Office and may receive therefore many Persons into the Idea of it and the Foundations of the Unitarians Error is this they apprehend the word to signifie the Office or Supreme Power to be confin'd to Personality in its Unity Now I say had the Doctor fairly done thus we should have known how to have attack'd him but at present having touched his Subject so warily as he has done we are put to the trouble to undermine his Reasonings to buffet at him in the dark through similes wary doubts and twenty other little blinds I say this because had the Doctor fairly told us that God signified an Office we should not have been so