Selected quad for the lemma: father_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
father_n	person_n	son_n	true_a	14,186	5	5.5218	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38042	Socinianism unmask'd a discourse shewing the unreasonableness of a late writer's opinion concerning the necessity of only one article of Christian faith, and of his other assertions in his late book, entituled, The reasonableness of Christianity as deliver'd in the Scriptures, and in his vindication of it : with a brief reply to another (professed) Socinian writer / by John Edwards ...	Edwards, John, 1637-1716.	1696 (1696)	Wing E214; ESTC R3296	60,720	171

be in the Infallible Writings viz. God as well as Man The Word was God John 1. 1. The Word was made Flesh v. 14. And this Word is the Only begotten of the Father in the same Verse God was manifest in the Flesh 1. Tim. 3. 16. He is called not only God in these places and in several others but he is stil'd the True God 1 John 5. 20. and the Great God Tit. 2. 13. The Lord of all Acts 10. 36. God blessed for ever Rom. 9. 5. Hence we must conclude that there is a necessity of believing the Messias to be the very God of the same Essence with the Father and the Holy Ghost for these are the two other Persons included in the Deity So that hence it will follow that it is requisite to believe the Holy Trinity i. e. that there are in the Godhead Three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost which is the Doctrin that our Saviour himself taught and he taught it that it might be believed Mat. 28. 19. where the Celebration of Baptism which is a solemn part of Divine Worship is commanded to be in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost who are One God 1 John 5. 7. These Three are One one Essence or Being as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports Those words of the Apostle are observable 1 Cor. 1. 13. Were ye baptised in the name of Paul As much as to say Baptism is in the name of God and not of a Man Therefore when it is said Go and Baptize in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost it is included that these Three are God i. e. Three Persons of one and the same Deity Thus it is manifest that the believing of Iesus's being the Messias or Anointed is not sufficient to make a Man a Christian Believer but he must further believe these Propositions or Articles viz. that the Son of God was made flesh i. e. assumed our Human Nature that Christ is True God that He with the Father and the Spirit are One God for these are not only expressed in the Gospels and Epistles out of both which we are to gather the Fundamental Articles of Faith and consequently are to be assented to by all Christians but the very Nature of the thing it self dictates that we ought to have a firm belief of these Truths for otherwise when a Man professes his belief in the Messias he is yet ignorant of the Person he pretends to believe in He doth not know whether he believes in a God or in a Man or to which of these he is beholding for the Good he looks for by the Messias's coming Now Sir you with your Reasonableness of Christianity what do you think of this Is it not reasonable that a Christian should as the Apostle speaks of himself know whom he hath believed 2 Tim. 1. 12. Nay is it not indispensably necessary that he should know whether it be a Divine or Human or Angelical Power that he is obliged to that so he may accordingly proportion his Affections and Service for what ever the late Set of Socinians hold there must be a difference made between the Homage which is paid to a Creature such as they declare Christ to be and that which is due only to the Creator I will refer the Reader to the Incomparable Bishop Pearson on the Second Article of the Creed where he shews the Necessity of our believing Christ to be the Eternal Son of God and God himself 1. For the directing and confirming of our Faith concerning the Redemption of Mankind 2. For the right informing of us about that Worship and Honour which are due to him 3. For giving us a right apprehension and consequently a due value of the Infinite Love of God the Father in sending his Only-begotten Son into the World to die for us Thus this Judicious Writer But our Nameless Author would persuade us that there is no necessity of believing any such thing Then in the next place we are to have a right conception concerning our Recovery and Restauration by this Messias who is God-Man And here those several Scriptures will furnish us with Articles As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation even so by the righteonsness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life For as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous Rom. 5. 18 19. He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself Heb. 9. 26. Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many Heb. 9. 28. Christ hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust 1 Pet. 3. 18. He gave himself a Ransom for all men 1 Tim. 2. 6. Ye are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ 1 Pet. 1. 18 19. And to it is prefix'd ye know to let us understand that this Article is to be known and assented to We are bought with a price 1 Cor. 6. 20. and 7. 23. We are reconciled unto God by the death of his Son Rom. 5. 10. By him now we have received the Atonement v. 11. By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified Heb. 10. 14. It behoved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day Luk. 24. 46. Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead Acts 17. 3. He was taken up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God Mark 16. 19. These and the like places afford us such Fundamental and Necessary Doctrins as these are that by and for the Meritorious Righteousness and Obedience of Christ the Second Adam we are accounted Righteous and Obedient in the sight of God That Christ was a Sacrifice for us and suffered in our stead That he satisfied Divine Justice by paying an Infinite Price for us That by vertue of that Payment all the Debts i. e. all the Sins of Believers are perfectly absolved That hereby the anger of the Incensed Deity is pacified and that we are entirely Reconciled to him That we have an assurance of all this by Christ's rising from the dead and ascending triumphantly into Heaven These are Principles of the Oracles of God Heb. 5. 12. These are part of the Form of sound words 2 Tim. 1. 13. which are indispensable Ingredients in the Christian Faith which you may know by this that if a man be obliged to the belief of the Messias's Coming it is undeniably requisite that he should know what the Messias came to do for him and that he should firmly yield assent to it This I think no Man of Reason will deny and then it will follow that these Articles which I have last mentioned are the Necessary and Unexceptionable object or matter of the Faith of a Christian Man And here likewise it were easie to shew that Adoption Iustification Pardon of Sins c. which are Privileges and Benefits bestowed

takes no notice of what falls from his own pen and therefore within a page or two he confutes himself and gives himself the Lye The plain truth is he Socinianizes here but will not own it which makes him run into these Contradictions He follows the steps of his Good Patron Crellius one of the stiffest Racovians that we have who throws aside several Articles of faith because they are Dark and Difficult and not adapted to the Capacity of the Vulgar This very thing he alledges to set off his Arguments against the Holy Trinity viz. that the doctrine which he maintains is according to the understanding of the Vulgar The Common people he saith among the Iews the Fishermen did not apprehend the doctrine of Three Persons in the Deity neither do the Vulgar Christians at this day form any such notion therefore away with the doctrine of the Trinity And this is the guise and practice of our Socinians at this day it is known that they are wont to propound this Sacred Point to the very School-boys very great Judges indeed and to demand their Resolution of it and they pretend that they give it in the Negative All the appeal now is to Vulgar Capacities to the judgment of the Multitude If these please to allow of any more Articles of Belief than One then our Author will consent to it that we shall have them but he acquaints us that they are for no more but One and therefore we must be content with That This is his New Divinity And a Socinian Brother who undertakes the defence of his Notions seconds him in this telling us that the Articles of faith which are generally propounded by Divines are difficult obscur unintelligible abstruse but the One Article of Mr. Lock is not so but is exactly calculated for the Vulgar Meridian and therefore is the only Authentick and Necessary Point in the Christian Theology I think the Reader will bear me witness that I have refuted this wild Conceit by giving a distinct account of the Evangelical Doctrines and Articles before mentioned and at the same time shewing how Intelligible and Plain they are and by letting him see the Absolute Necessity of their being assented to and embraced by every Christian. No true Lover of God and Truth need doubt of any of them for there is no Ambiguity and Doubtfulness in them They shine with their own light and to an unprejudiced eye are plain evident and illustrious And they would always continue so if some Ill-minded men did not perplex and entangle them on purpose to render them contemptible yea to exclude them wholly from being the matter of our belief And as to the doctrine of the Trinity which is the Main Verity which these men set themselves against there is not any Difficulty much less any Absurdity or Contradiction as they are wont to cry out in that Article of our Christian Belief Indeed there is a Difficulty in this and several Other Truths of the Gospel as to the Exact Manner of the things themselves which we shall never be able to comprehend at least not on this side of Heaven but there is no Difficulty as to the Reality and Certainty of them because we know they are Revealed to us by God in the Holy Scriptures Nay as to the thing it self thus far we can apprehend that it is not impossible or absurd that the Three Distinct Persons in the Deity should be One God for there may be a Plurality of Persons in the same Infinite Essence Every Person doth not require a Single Particular Essence or if they will call the Three Numerical Subsistencies by the name of Essences yet they are united in One General Substance or Essence which is common to them all And when they say it is a Contradiction that One should be Three which is as much as to say One is not One this is soon taken off by replying and that most truly that One and not One in the same respect is a Contradiction but One and not One in different respects is no Contradiction Any smatterer in Logick know this And this is the case here for tho the Three Personalities be distinguish'd and that really yet they agree in One Common Essence and so the Divinity is both One and Three in different respects on different considerations And this is that which is abundantly testified in Scripture in the Gospels as well as the Epistles let our Author remember th●t there we learn that the Divine Essence or Nature is branch'd out into Three Distinct Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost and that these three are One. Then as to the Proposition which this New Modeller of Christianity commends to the World as the only Necessary Matter of Faith although he pretends it is more Intelligible than any of those that I have named yet any Judicious Man cannot but see the contrary for this must be explain'd as well as those before his Vulgar Capacities can apprehend it Here first the name Iesus which is of Hebrew Extraction though since Greciz'd must be expounded and so must the Word Messias as I said before And when this is done they must be told even according to the confession of a late Socinian Writer whom afterwards I must discourse with a little the manner of his being the Messiah such as being conceived by the Holy Ghost and Power of the most High his being anointed with the Holy Ghost his being raised from the dead and exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour And then they must be told for what End and Purpose this was or else they can have no true belief of the Messias under which several Weighty Truths are comprehended And if he doth not agree to this viz. that the Words must be thus Opened and Explained and fully understood so that Christian Souls may have the true sense of them then he doth as good as say that the bare pronouncing of these Words Iesus is the Messias is enough to make a Christian. And we shall be apt to think that he intends this for a Charm or Spell and that the very Syllables will suffice to make one a True Believer especially if he be one of the Vulgar and Illiterate But it may be he hath something else to say to an Other Rank of Men Perhaps he holds that there is one Christianity for the bulk of mankind and another for the Finer and Better Sort of People And then it is likely he will tell us of two Heavens one very Spacious to hold the Multitude and the other of a Lesser Compass to receive the rest These are the Absurdities which I confess I delight not in exposing or so much as mentioning that this New Notion may produce Whence it appears that all his jargon and chatter about his One Article are vain and insignificant and are serviceable only to gull the Unwary Reader and which is worse to debauch Christianity it self CHAP. III. The late