A89737:156
The orthodox evangelist. Or A treatise wherein many great evangelical truths (not a few…
The orthodox evangelist. Or A treatise wherein many great evangelical truths (not a few whereof are much opposed and eclipsed in this perilous hour of the passion of the Gospel) are briefly discussed, cleared, and confirmed: as a further help, for the begetting, and establishing of the faith which is in Jesus. As also the state of the blessed, where; of the condition of their souls from the instant of their dissolution: and of their persons after their resurrection. By John Norton, teacher of the church at Ipswich in New England.The orthodox evangelist. Or A treatise wherein many great evangelical truths (not a few whereof are much opposed and eclipsed in this perillous hour of the passion of the Gospel) are briefly discussed, cleared, and confirmed: as a further help, for the begeting, and establishing of the faith which is in Jesus. As also the state of the blessed, where; of the condition of their souls from the instant of their dissolution: and of their persons after their resurrection. By John Norton, teacher of the church at Ipswich in New England.
London: printed by John Macock for Henry Cripps, 1654
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
These Individuating Subsistences, are by Divines generally called Persons, not only from just consequence deduced from other Scriptures; but expressly, according to our last and best Translation of the Text fore-quoted, Heb. 1.3. by a similitude taken from a Created Person: the Reason whereof will ⟨p. 23⟩appear by considering the nature thereof,1 as we have it described diversly. By some, that it is an individual Substance of a reasonable Nature. By others, that it is an incommunicable Existence of an intellectual Nature. By later Writers, that it is an individual, or singular Being, subsisting, living, understanding, incommunicable; not sustained of another, not a part of another. The Sum is, that the term Person, signifying that which is most perfect in the whole reasonable Nature, whether Angels, or men; it is aptly used to express the Subsistences of the Divine Nature, which is of absolute perfection: which aptness of a created, to express an increated person, notwithstanding: Observe yet these differences between them: Every created person hath a distinct essence from another. Two created persons, whether Angels, or men; have two distinct, particular, and individual Essences, or Natures, though they have the same general Essence: But all the increated persons have the same Essence, John 10.30. One created person hath not his in-being in another, but one increated person is in another, John 14.10. One created person proceeds from another in time: but amongst the increated persons, though there be an Eternal Order of their Original one from another, yet there is no priority of Time, Duration, or Nature; the one being God, the other a creature: we must always remember that in applying the term Person by way of similitude unto God, we remove from him all imperfection.
These Individuating Subsistences, are by Divines generally called Persons, not only from just consequence deduced from other Scriptures; but expresly, according to our last and best Translation of the Text fore-quoted,