PROPOSITION XV. 160 In page 18, their words are these : " Section 6. We donot ourselves pretend to say, how these three are distinguished from each other: That we leave to those, who are bold enough to 'speak, even upon such a point as this, without, if not against What the scriptures themselves any where have said: We only say,- that there they are distinguished." " Section 7. We farther add,- that though these three are in the scriptures distinguished from, and therefore not to be con- founded with each other; yet we have learned nothing there, either of their being compounded, or divided : Nor do we therefore undertake to shew explicitly, and in particulars, how they aré three; nor how, though three, yet they are one. ' What we assert again is only, that they are three, Some way or other; and though in some respect three, yet but one God. Section 8. " Nay, though these three are in the holy scrip- 'tures. spoken of tinder the names of Father, Son, and Holy 'Ghost; and as begetting, begotten, and proceeding : Yet still we leave it to those who are wiser, or at least more daring and bold then WO, to saythat this does, and to shew afterward how it does' relateto the divine essence.* For we have no notion of à greater or lesser in the godhead, do think, that wherever that does belong, it must equally belong : And consequently, that it is not any one of the three, that is, exclusive,of the others; but that thesethree are the one supreme God.: "Section 9. Letit be added, beforewe produce our proofs, that these three are not merely three names: And that these mines do not every where' in scripture, if 'they do any where, bear one and the saine meaning. " Section 10. We shall now only venture.to say once more, that whateverthe distinction is between these sacred Three, or wherein soever.it does consist ; as on onepart it does not destroy the unity of the divine nature, so on the other,;it is such, so real and so great, as is just and sufficient ground to support whatever is distinctly said of the one or the other ofthem in the holy scrip- tures. So as that the person of the Father is not the Son; nor * Though these authors agree entirely with Dr. Oiven, in not making the knowledge of any particular explication of the doctrine of theTrinity necessary to salvation, yet they differ in this ; that Dr. Owen in several parts of his Treatise, supposes the vulgar explication of Father, Son and Spirit as three eternal, necessary, personal differences in the very essenceof God, to be a cer- tam and unavoidable consequence of thedectrine itself: But the writer of these sections is not.certain, that these differences of Father, Son, Spirit, ,generation, :procession, Sec. do relate to She divine essence itself; and in this point I ask 'leave todiffer from that great man Doctor Owen, and join with these later wri- ters; for, in maturer years, I amnotashamed to profess my ignorance in a nib- -ject so sublime, and to abate some degrees of my younger confidence as to the modes of explaining thismystery.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=