Selected quad for the lemma: body_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
body_n	nature_n	soul_n	unite_v	6,882	5	9.6339	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29101	The excellency of the Christian revelation, as it promiseth assistance, and compleat salvation to sinners a sermon preach'd in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, November the 6th, 1699, being the eighth, for this year, of the lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. / by Samuel Bradford ...	Bradford, Samuel, 1652-1731.	1699 (1699)	Wing B4111; ESTC R19744	15,243	31

Virtue are confirm'd in them nor indeed till our Bodies also shall be raised again and united to our Souls For although the wisest of Philosophers and the best of Christians have justly complain'd of these Bodies of Flesh as clogs to their Spirits and therefore may have desir'd and chosen to be deliver'd from them in order to have their Spirits set at liberty from their present incumbrance yet the natural abhorrence which all Men have of the separation of their two essential parts made by Death and that ardent desire of life which is implanted in humane Nature seem plainly to intimate that we cannot be compleatly happy without consisting of Soul and Body united And the Gospel consirms this Notion to us by causing us to wait for our compleat Salvation till the Resurrection of the Body Rom. 8.19 20 21 22 23. Thus St. Paul having mentioned the earnest expectation which the whole Creation hath of being deliver'd from Vanity and that bondage of Corruption to which it is at present subjected he adds And not only they but our selves also which have the first fruits of the Spirit even we our selves groan within our selves waiting for the Adoption to wit the Redemption of our Body And to the same purpose again 2 Cor. 5.4 We that are in this Tabernacle do groan being burdened not for that we would be uncloath'd but cloath'd upon that mortality might be swallow'd up of life intimating that Christians will not be compleatly happy till their Bodies shall be redeem'd from Corruption and till their Souls shall be cloath'd with such Bodies as shall be prepar'd for them at the Resurrection till which time they will not be deliver'd from all the effects of the Divine Displeasure nor clearly manifested to be the Children of God Now 't is apparent past all dispute that we can do nothing of all this for our selves and that no other Institution of Religion besides the Christian hath discover'd to us how it shall be done for us But in this instance also our Blessed Saviour hath made abundant Provision The Gospel hath assur'd us and we Christians do firmly believe as fundamental Articles of our Faith that as our Lord died to made Expiation for our Sins so he rose again from the dead and that then according to his own Declaration Matth. 28.18 All power was given unto him in Heaven and in Earth Eph. 1.20 21 22. that God having rais'd him from the dead hath set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places far above all Principality and Power and Might and Dominion and every Name that is named not only in this World but also in that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and given him to be the Head over all things to the Church as also that he will according to his Promise come again to perfect the great Work which he hath undertaken and which he hath been carrying on by all the Methods I have hitherto mention'd Now allowing all this to be true we have a plain account how we shall be deliver'd from all the remaining evil Consequences of our Fall and be made perfectly happy to the utmost of our desires and capacities For hereby we are assur'd That we have now a powerful Friend in Heaven in our own Nature Heb. 4. 15 16 One who can be touch'd with a feeling of our Infirmities having been in all points tempted like as we are and One who hath such an Interest in the Father of all that by him we may go freely to the throne of Grace obtaining Mercy and finding Grace to help in time of need who although he doth not think fit to deliver us at present from all the Calamities of this Life Rom. 8.28 yet will cause all things to work together for our good 1 Cor. 10.13 not suffering us to be tempted above that we are able but with the temptation also making a way to escape that we may be able to bear it 2 Cor. 12.9 affording us such a Measure of his Grace as shall be sufficient for us and causing his strength to be made perfect in our weakness Who although he permits us to remain liable to Death as the just Reward of our Transgression Rom. 14.9 yet being Lord both of the Dead and the Living will receive our Souls at the hour of Death and take care of them during their state of Seperation reviving them with his Insluences and filling them with the comfortable Expectation of their more compleat Happiness Finally we are assur'd that as he will obtain of the Father and confer upon his faithful Servants all that is truly good and fit for them during this state of their Tryal and preserve their Spirits which they have committed to his Custody till his second Appearance so that he will come again in Person redeem their dead Bodies and perfect their Souls reuniting them and fully instating them in the favour of God and bestowing upon them the Inheritance of Children of all which he hath given them at present his Spirit as the sure Pledge and Earnest This is that Provision which our Blessed Saviour according to the Declaration of his Gospel hath graciously made in this last instance of our Necessity after which I need add no more this being the completion of our Felicity and of our Mediator's Undertaking And thus I have finish'd what I at first proposed with respect to the intrinsick Evidence of Christianity shewing its Credibility from considering the Persons whom Christ Jesus came to save the Nature of the Salvation which he proposeth and the Method in which he hath procur'd it If in doing this I have laid down a true Scheme of our holy Profession as I am verily persuaded I have according to the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures and the general sense of the Christian Church and if through this whole Scheme there is nothing but what is highly worthy of God and extremely beneficial to his Creatures nay if according to this Representation of Christianity it not only infinitely excels all other Institutions of Religion but is such as that we are not able to frame an Idea of any Institution comparable to it as I firmly believe upon impartial consideration it will appear to be it must then be granted that This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the World to save Sinners This therefore I heartily offer to the serious thoughts of all such Men as have a just sense of God and of natural Religion upon their Minds and have accustom'd themselves to think seriously of matters of importance The external attestation which God hath given to the Gospel by Prophecies Miracles and an wonderful Success in its Propagation will tend where duly observ'd not only farther to confirm this intrinsick Evidence but also to awaken and excite the minds of those who are not us'd to serious thinking or are strongly prejudic'd against Religion in general through the violence of their corrupt inclinations But when all is done here we must fix being assur'd that as no Revelation can be from God which is not worthy of him so whatsoever is so highly worthy of God as the Christian Revelation is must be credible upon its own account May we who profess to believe the Gospel both on account of its intrinsick Evidence and the external attestation it hath had and to be sensible of the excellent Method therein propos'd for the Salvation of Sinners prove to the World the reality and the stedfastness of this our Faith by its influence upon our Spirits and our Lives Then shall we our selves yield a farther attestation to the truth of our Blessed Saviour's Religion by demonstrating its Virtue and its Excellency to the unbelieving World And may Almighty God who hath thus graciously revea'ld himself to Mankind by his Son Jesus Christ our Lord send forth his holy Spirit to accompany the preaching of this his Gospel so that it may be more universally receiv'd and more thoroughly obey'd in all the Nations of the Earth to the Glory of his Holy Name and the Salvation of Sinners Now to the One God and Father of all and to our Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of the Father with the Eternal Spirit our great Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier be ascribed as is most due all Honor Praise and Glory sorever Amen FINIS Advertisement THE Author of these Lectures having in the Second of them taken notice of an Objection which he has not been able to consider within the compass of these Eight Discourses without interrupting the Order which he had propos'd to himself designs God willing to publish a Ninth by way of Appendix to these as a reply to the said Objection

account yet still our hopes and fears are of great use to us to excite our Minds to quicken our Endeavours and to turn the Scale upon all Emergencies against the temptations of Sense And by how much the more considerable the Objects of our hope and fear are by so much the greater is the influence which they will have upon us For which reason the Gospel hath propos'd to us such Rewards and Punishments in the life to come as to those who thoroughly believe and consider them will appear infinitely to outweigh all the present Pleasures by which foolish Sinners are courted and the present difficulties by which they are apt to be discouraged For it promiseth on the one hand all that Happiness which humane Nature compleated by the union of a purified Soul with an incorruptible Body and restor'd to the favor of Almighty God is capable of and on the other hand it threatens all that Misery that Men compos'd of Soul and Body reunited but unregenerated and abandon'd by God are obnoxious to the particulars of which states are 〈◊〉 such as we cannot have a full conception of in this Life but from the general view which the Gospel hath given us both of the Quality and the Duration of this future Happiness and Misery we have all the reason in the World to infer that nothing but either downright disbelief of these things or the want of representing them duly to our Minds by frequent and serious consideration can render them ineffectual to excite our hope and fear to that degree as will serve to influence our tempers and our lives For the farther promoting of which ends the Gospel hath fully and clearly asserted the Reality and Certainty of these future Recompences not speaking of them as of what may possibly be or what is only probable but as of what we may as surely depend upon as upon any other Truths which it hath reveal'd to us leaving no room for any profess'd Christian to doubt or hesitate concerning them And herein it must be granted that the Method taken by the Christian Institution for exciting our hope and fear and by consequence for moving us effectually to comply with its Precepts altogether surpasses what has been done by any other institution of Religion It would be ridiculous to compare the dreams of Pagan Poets or the Mahometan Fables concerning the Rewards and Punishments of the life to come with the Promises and Threatnings of the Gospel As to the Mosaical Institution which we Christians acknowledge to have been Divine it look'd no farther in its Promises and Threatnings at least not in plain and express terms than to the good and evil things of the present life Not but that wise and good Men amongst the Jews looking beyond the Letter of their Law did see tho' obscurely into the other World The notion of the Soul's Immortality was indeed from Nature and Reason generally embrac'd by the considering part of Mankind but yet the wisest and best Philosophers express'd themselves very dubiously with respect to a future State of which sufficient Evidence might be produc'd both from Socrates amongst the Greeks and Tully amongst the Romans who seem to have gone as far as any others in the Expectation and Hope of Immortality but yet could not say enough powerfully to excite the hopes of good Men or the fears of the Wicked to such a degree as might suffice to balance the Temptations of the present Life at least with the vulgar and unthinking part of Men which is by far the greater number Whereas the Gospel speaks so plainly and so positively of these matters as may be sufficient to influence all sorts of Men by whom it is believed To conclude this Particular The belief of the Recompences of the Life to come as reveal'd by the Gospel is that which has made so wide a difference between the Christian and the Pagan World What the State of the Heathen was before the publishing of Christianity I have observ'd in a former Lecture Lect. ij p. 23. Men were almost universally and totally fallen from the Divine and sunk into the Animal Life estranged from God and enslav'd by the Devil and their own Lusts But when the Gospel was Published it awaken'd their Minds causing them to look forward towards another Life and to consider the consequences of their present behaviour There are indeed in this degenerate State of the Christian Church abundance of Men professing themselves Christians who are yet as unreform'd as the worst of Infidels But then 't is because they do not heartily believe or at least do not at all consider the Principles of Christianity But as this is certain that where Christianity is Profess'd there are far greater numbers of all Ranks of Men who are persuaded to the practice of Piety and Virtue than there are in other parts of the World so 't is as evident that this is in great measure owing to the Principles which I am now speaking of 'T is the belief of a future Life which keeps bad Men in the Christian World from being much worse than they are 'T is that which first awakened and excited most of those who are reclaimed from an evil Course And 't is that which those who are become Christians in good earnest hearty lovers of Piety and Virtue are forc'd often to have recourse to seriously representing to their own Minds those future Recompenses which the Gospel assures them of in order to the strengthening their good Resolutions and the fortifying themselves against the many Temptations they meet with in this evil World By all which we may perceive the great Usefulness and even Necessity of these Motives which the Gospel hath offer'd to our Consideration But this is not all for II. Our Blessed Saviour hath made farther Provision against the Indisposition and Inability of Men by promising the assistance of the Divine Spirit for the enabling us to do what of our selves we cannot Every created and finite Spirit must be supposed necessarily and constantly to depend upon that Spirit which is uncreated and infinite ever standing in need of Influences from him A state of Innocency and Integrity cannot exempt a Creature from such dependance This Lect. ij p. 27 28. as I have formerly observ'd results from the Nature and Condition of a Creature to be of it self mutable and fallible insomuch that it can by no other means preserve its Integrity than by adhering to its Maker and deriving Influences from him Much more then upon the degeneracy of such a Creature some special influence from God must be necessary in order to its Recovery It was as I have taken Notice Ibid. from neglecting to adhere to God and depend upon him that our first Parents apostatiz'd whereby they and their Off-spring became not mutable and fallible that they were before but as Experience too plainly proves very much disorder'd and weaken'd in all their Faculties having contracted an Indisposition to that which is