Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	king_n	power_n	supreme_a	7,138	5	8.8346	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60978	Platonism unveil'd, or, An essay concerning the notions and opinions of Plato and some antient and modern divines his followers, in relation to the Logos, or word in particular, and the doctrine of the trinity in general : in two parts.; Platonisme déviolé. English	Souverain, Matthieu, d. ca. 1699.	1700 (1700)	Wing S4776	180,661	144

yet he distinguisheth carefully We ought then to say that this last Sense if we would distinguish it well from the other two must be the Sense of the Oeconomy That is to say that they are indeed three Angels but that the first of them bears the Name of Jehova and represents his Person It is for this reason he assures that this Sense is agreeable to the Scriptures account because it is the ordinary Stile of the Scripture to give the Name of Jehova to that Angel in whom God hath put his Name That Sense is not the literal one which owns but three Angels only as to their Nature nor the sublime Sense that finds there God himself with his sundry Relations of a Creator and King But it is an Oeconomical Sense which makes the first who is but an Angel by his Nature to be Jehova in respect to his Office because he bears the Name of Jehova and speaks by his Authority Whereas the other two Angels are not consider'd here but as two Powers of the Supreme God that is to say as Ministers of him who represents Jehova And as such they are sent to destroy Sodom this Execution being beneath the Majesty of the first We need consult only Philo himself to know what he understands by these Divine Powers and to be convinc'd that he intends no Nicety whilst he makes them to be two or three but follows the Text herein which speaks here of three Angels Elsewhere he reckons a greater Number of 'em For in two other Books of his de Opificio de Profugis he gives us clearly to understand that by the Powers wherewith God is accompanied he means only Angels seeing he makes them share the Creation of Man with the Supreme God for this reason because the Supreme God would not be the Author of what is evil in Man He therefore left to the Angels the care of making the mortal part of his Soul which is subject to Passions reserving to himself alone the superior part where Reason hath Dominion It was in this sense according to him that God spake in the Plural Let Vs make Man according to our Image You according to the Image of the Creature in making him capable of Evil but I according to the Image of the Deity in making him capable of Good And for the same reason he attributes sometimes the Creation of the World to this first Angel whom he calls the Word or the Son of God supposing always that this Work how excellent soever in it self yet was beneath the Divine Majesty and that God could not put his hand to it without injuring his Greatness Could so able a Philosopher as Philo be capable of giving a Task which he thought unworthy of God to Powers which he thought to be equal to and of the same Nature with him Now to return to the Text we examine let us say that they are three Angels in the literal Sense and that in the two other Senses it is he who is with his two Powers But we must take heed of a double meaning in the second Sense viz. that of the Allegory he who is with his two Powers denotes God himself with his sundry Operations whereas in the third Sense which is the Occonomical one the same-Terms signify only him who bears the Name of God with two other Angels that serve him as Ministers Thus you see the three Interpretations of Philo explain'd the which it seems Mr. Le Clerc understood not The first hath nothing that is Platonical but is purely an Historical Sense viz. that three Angels in a Human Shape presented themselves to Abraham The third hath nothing of Platonism neither it is a Theological Sense to wit the Sense of all the Jews and of all the Christians who understand the antient Dispensation The 2d that remains is not Platonical neither if you take it with Philo allegorically that is in an arbitrary Sense wherein the Letter of the Scripture is rais'd to Speculations and Ideas that have no Foundation or any reality in the Text. This last Interpretation of Philo would be truly Platonical if he understood by the Three he speaks of either three Hypostases or three distinct Persons whereas he understands there but one only Person under three different respects to wit God consider'd either in himself he who is or in relation to us inasmuch as he is our Creator and our King This is what Philo calls the Jehova with his two Powers One might indeed call this a Platonical Sense provided Plato be understood as he ought who under the Allegory of three Hypostases design'd to inform us of nothing else but only an All-good All-wise and All-powerful God both in the Creation and the Government of the World But then the Authority of Plato and Philo who are quoted as having spoken of three Distinctions in the Deity will become useless to the Trinitarians CHAP. XI That all those commonly call'd Hereticks did believe a pre-existent Word and in what sense I Told you that the Vnitarians quarrel not at all with the allegorical Sense of Philo who doth not suppose three Hypostases but only three Divine Relations or God with his two Powers Ruarus in his Epistles Part 1. p. 296. owns a pre-existent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which created the World and dwelt in J. C. The Fathers saith he who liv'd before the Council of Nice held a pre-existent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but notwithstanding they believ'd not that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the Supreme God and Creator of the World but a Spirit flowing from him when he went about to create the World and which subsisted in him till then We differ not much from this Opinion for we willingly own that an extraordinary Spirit of God did inseparably unite it self to J. C. from the very moment of his Conception and was as it were incorporated with him A Spirit say I which existed in God before his Conception and even from Eternity Nay if any one will have it by any means that this Spirit by whom J.C. perform'd the Work of the New Creation is the same that created this Universe we shall not contest his Opinion He is in the right For where is that Unitarian I pray you who owns not an internal Word and an eternal Reason which always subsisted in God and which is God himself as Mr. Le Clerc expresseth it in his Paraphrase which also dwelt in J. C I shall not except even the Alogi so call'd because they rejected the Platonick Word subsisting out of God himself and having an Hypostasis distinct from that of the Father But they never denied that in the Hypostasis of the Father there was not a Reason a Word or Operation that created the World and which insinuated it self into the Flesh J. C. It was indeed said of them that they absolutely rejected the Word but it was with the same Justice and Candor as some Moderns assert that the Divine Grace is

of them being confecrated by the Power of the Word are the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ incarnate The Protestant Writers observe from this Passage as Dr. Stilling-fleet for one in the 35 p. of his first Dialogue of the Trinity and Transubstantiation compar'd That Justin really ascribes to the same Logos or Word of God the Body that was in the Womb of the Virgin and that Body which is upon the Altar and that in like manner the Holy Ghost makes the Elements to become the Body and Blood of Christ not by an Hypostatic Union but by Divine Influence and Operation But I must tell you too that the Fathers understood no more than Operation or Influence by the Word or the Spirit which they say did consecrate the Elements and change them into the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ So also they meant no more than Influence and not a Person by the Word or the Holy Ghost which formed and sanctified the Body of Jesus Christ in the Womb of the Virgin whereby he was properly the Son of God For why should an Hypostatic Union be rather infer'd from this Passage The Word was made Flesh than from This Bread is my Body Either there is an Hypostatic Union of the Bread and Flesh of Christ or there 's none at all of the Word and Flesh of Christ By the Power of the Word the Bread becomes the Body of Christ by the same Power the Man or the Son of Mary was the Son of God the Case is the same What then is to be done Why Mysteries must be had at any rate and the Machines of Platonism will bring upon the Stage as many as you please of the grossest and most absurd You must abandon your Reason 't is rashness to be inclined to hearken to Reason Let Reason submit herself to Faith and give her alone leave to speak The Papists require us to abandon our Senses but the Trin ns will have us renounce our Reason I am no Christian in the Judgment of the latter if I am not a Brute a Brute did I say if I am not a Block Error is fruitful and leads us into the grossest Absurdities and 't is the System of these Absurdities that is stiled Theology CHAP. XXII Of the True Oeconomy 'T IS certain then that the Antients were unacquainted with good Divinity and knew less of the true Oeconomy They believ'd their Platonism whereof they were mighty fond gave 'em great advantages over the Pagan Philosophers and they us'd it for Reasons of Prudence And as they were for the most part Gentiles by birth they knew not the antient Jewish Oeconomy which would have put 'em in the right way or it may be they were rather inclin'd to pursue their own Bigotries Their Oeconomy is this As in a Family the Father and the Son are but One Lord when the Son rules in the Name and by the Authority of his Father who has transfer'd the Exercise of that Right to him 't is the same thing say they in the Church which is the Family of God The Father and the Son are but One by virtue of that Oeconomy which lodges a Power in the Son's hands to dispose of the Father's Favours and to exercise all Authority 'T is thus Tertullian explains the Oeconomy in his Discourse against Praxeas He shews him that he does not destroy the Notion of a Monarchy or the Government of One over the Universe because the Father may exercise it by the Ministry of his Son or such as he shall think fit to substitute in his room as the Angels his Officers and Commissioners but chiefly because the Son does nothing but at the Will of his Father and with a Power he has receiv'd Which is evident even from this that he shall one day surrender it to his Father as the Apostle tells us and the Son himself shall be subject to him Lactantius pursues exactly the Steps of Tertullian in lib. 4. c. 29. When a Father says he has a Son whom he dearly loves giving him the Title of Lord with Authority if notwithstanding this Son continues in his Father's House under him it may be said however according to the Civil Law that 't is but one House and one Master or Lord. So this World is but one House or Family and the Father and the Son who governs it with the Father's Consent are but One God since that One is as Two and the Two as One. And 't is not to be wonder'd at seeing that the Son is in the Father because the Father loves the Son And the Father is in the Son because the Son obeys faithfully the Father's Will and does nothing but what the Father wills or commands him God therefore as Tertullian shews may communicate his Right to all intelligent Creatures and use in a way of condescension their Ministry to make himself known to his Children For as he is by his Nature incomprehensible his Supreme Majesty being far above all his Creatures he stoops as it were by this Method to their shallow Capacities 'T is thus at other times that he us'd the Ministry of Angels and at that day the Ministry of a Man whom he made his Son and Heir of his House In short this Dispensation by his Son under the New Testament differs not from that of the Angels in the old Administration only in this that the latter was temporary and provisional but that of Christ is perpetual The Angels exercis'd their Oeconomy as Ministers commission'd and delegated Jesus Christ exercises his in the capacity of a Son and Heir who continnes always in the House or Family They who know the antient Oeconomy to be such as St. Paul and St. Stephen have discover'd it to be who acquaint us that 't was Angels or an Angel which gave the Law and said I am the Lord c. I am the God of Abraham c. They I say were in no danger of believing that 't was the Incomprehensible and Invisible God who appear'd to the Jews They were assur'd that it was none other than his Angel his Word his Face or his Person by which he made himself to be seen and understood accommodating himself by this Dispensation to the Weakness of Men who could not see God and live But they who comprehended not this Oeconomy of Goodness and Condescension grosly fancied this Angel to be an uncreated One as they call'd him or the Supreme God himself As if it were not the grossest absurdity to imagine that the Supreme God had put his Name upon the Supreme God If this Angel was really Jehovah by Nature could he receive this Name from another Has he in his Manifestations occasion for another Name and another Authority besides his own The same Mistake has happen'd with regard to the true Oeconomy by Jesus Christ The Mystery and Secret of the Dispensation being not known that Man has been taken for the Supreme God or an uncreated Angel who was born of a

Constitutions I place Ignatius who in his Epistle to those of Tarsus calls those Hereticks Ministers of Satan who held these two extremes the one that J. C. is God over all the other that he was but a mere Man In his Epistle to the Philippians he explains wherein Orthodoxy truly consists viz. in believing Christ born of God by a Virgin for not only they who believed him a mere Man denied this Truth but Ignatius farther insinuates that this Truth was denied no less even by such who believed him to be God over all How says he to them do you not believe that J. C. was born of a Virgin but that he is God over all I would say him who can do all things Tell me then I pray who is he that sent him To whose Will is he subject And whose Law did he fulfil How dare you maintain that the Christ was by no means generated that the Lawgiver is unbegotten and that he who is without beginning was nail'd to a Cross This Passage is the clearest Proof The Generation of J. C. by the Power of the Holy Ghost was the true Theology concerning his Person and those who held him to be the Supreme God contested this miraculous Generation pretending that he was unbegotten For this reason Ignatius adds a little after This is not he who is God over all but the Son meaning thereby one who was begotten Daille exclaims upon the Passage aforesaid saying Ignatius distinguishes the Son from that God who is over all which is Blasphemy And he has reason to speak in the Orthodox way because the Character of a God over all is not properly of the Person but an Attribute of the Substance So that it cannot be taken from J. C. without robbing him of the Divine Nature and Substance It will be said perhaps that the Constitutions are not Clement's and that the two Epistles under the Name of Ignatius are falsly ascribed to him But this is trifling as to our Question for be it as it will my Citations are from Authors of great Antiquity and who pass for Trinitarians they are Witnesses of the Faith in that Age wherein they lived and whose Testimony consequently ought not to be suspected by us Moderns So much the rather because the same is confirmed by a Doctor of great Name and Reputation For is it not well known that Origen attacked the same Error in his 32 Tom. on St. John and in his eighth Book against Celsus Mons Huet in his Quaestiones Origen 2. is much scandalized that Origen should say Some maintained that Christ was God over all This Proposition saith Huet is true and Orthodox with respect to the Divine not the Human Nature Origen on the contrary denies our Saviour to be God over all and proves him to be inferiour to the Father by this Reason because the Father is God over all He takes away then from the Divine Nature of J. C. the Character of supreme Divinity and ascribes it to the Father But let us hear Origen himself I mean says he that there are some among the great Number of Believers who widely differing from the Opinion of others rashly maintain that our Saviour is God over all for our parts we have no regard for that Opinion believing these Words of our Saviour himself viz. The Father why sent me is greater than I. 'T is trifling to answer here that Origen meant some Hereticks who held that J. C. was the Father This takes not off from the Force of the Argument for Origen maintains that the Son is not the Father for this reason because he is not as the Father God over all and because Christ himself confesses that the Father is greater than himself supposing that it was the Father alone who had this supreme Prerogative To conclude Dr. Bull in his Judicium Eccles Cath. and his Defender in his Fathers vindicated citing the famous Passage of Justin when that Father consents to a Toleration of the Josephites who believed Jesus to be the Son of Joseph yet nevertheless believed him to be Christ These Authors I say insist much upon the opposition which Justin Martyr makes between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the small number of Josephites and the many who oppos'd ' em Now we have our Turn to boast in this Passage of Origen and may take the same Advantage they who believed J. C. to be God over all were but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or some Persons and by consequence they were the Hereticks because the few are always such But for those who opposed this Error they beyond contradictions were the Orthodox because they were the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Multitude CHAP IV. General Remarks upon the forecited Authorities of the Fathers IT remains that I make two Remarks upon these Passages in general one is that since 't was Heresy in these first times of Christianity to affirm that J. C. is the supreme God it follows that Orthodoxy was either the Opinion of Arius which will not be granted or that of the Socinians which ought to be admitted since 't is taken from the Scriptures by the Confession of the Trinitarians The other Remark is since such Fathers condemn this Expression as heretical viz. that the Lord Jesus is God over all without taking any notice of the Objection now drawn from that Passage in Rom. 9.5 which one wou'd think was very natural for them to have solv'd it follows that in their time either they gave those Words another sense or that they read it otherwise than we do at this day Supposing then as I am about to demonstrate that to ascribe to J. C. the Prerogative of the Father viz. of being God over all was Heresy in the first Ages of the Church One sees clearly in what sense a Remark of Sulpitius Severus may be true which was this that almost all Christians in Palestine in the time of Adrian believed Jesus Christ to be a God Not the supreme God as Sulpitius pretends nor a God begotten a little before the Creation as Eusebius would have us believe by perverting some Passages of the Antients and by making them to serve his own Prejudices Not I say once more the supreme God this would have been a damnable Error What then Why a God because he was received or owned not only as a Just Man and a Prophet but as the Christ of God whom he made Lord giving him a Name above every Name the Name of God Note here the manner of Christ's Deification In short one cannot believe without Heresy according to these Primitive Doctors that he was a mere Man having no more Authority than other Holy Persons One cannot therefore better state the Orthodoxy of those venerable Doctors than in avoiding these two Extremes And we find it to be so in the most famous and most antient Monument of the Christian Church I mean the Apostles Creed which says I believe in