A44670:94
A calm and sober enquiry concerning the possibility of a Trinity in the Godhead…
A calm and sober enquiry concerning the possibility of a Trinity in the Godhead in a letter to a person of worth : occasioned by the lately published considerations on the explications of the doctrine of the Trinity by Dr. Wallis, Dr. Sherlock, Dr. S--th, Dr. Cudworth, &c. ...
London: printed by J. Astwood for Tho. Parkhurst, 1694
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
To you, these thoughts are not new, with whom they have been communicated and discoursed heretofore, long ago. And I believe you may so far recollect your self, as to remember the principal ground was suggested to you, upon which this Discourse now rests; [viz. necessity of Existence, and Contingency; ⟨p. 79⟩emanations absolutely independent upon any will at all; and the arbitrary productions of the Divine Will,] as the sufficient and most fundamental difference between what is uncreated and what is created; and upon this very account, as that which might give scope and room to our thoughts, to conceive the Doctrine of the Trinity, consistently with the Unity of the Godhead; and so, as that the Son, tho truly from the Father, and the Holy Ghost tho' truly from both, shall yet appear infinitely distinguished from all created Beings whatsoever.
To you, these thoughts are not new, with whom they have been communicated and discoursed heretofore, long ago. And I believe you may so far recollect your self, as to remember the principal ground was suggested to you, upon which this Discourse now rests; [viz. necessity of Existence, and Contingencie; ⟨p. 79⟩emanations absolutely independent upon any will at all; and the arbitrary productions of the Divine Will,] as the sufficient and most fundamental difference between what is uncreated and what is created; and upon this very account, as that which might give scope and room to our thoughts, to conceive the Doctrine of the Trinity, consistently with the Unity of the Godhead; and so, as that the Son, tho truly from the Father, and the Holy Ghost tho' truly from both, shall yet appear infinitely distinguished from all created Beings whatsoever.
So much you know was under consideration with us above twenty years ago; and was afterwards imparted to many more; long before there was any mention or forethought, within our notice, of such a revival of former controversies, upon this Subject, as we have lately seen.