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
A30432	A sermon preached before the King & Queen at White-Hall, on Christmas-Day, 1689 by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1690 (1690)	Wing B5890; ESTC R19736	17,332	42

my Text of God's dwelling among us in flesh is likewise called a Mystery as containing in it not any secret which was too sacred to be trusted to Lay-hands that Priests only might know but carrying in it a sublime discovery of the Divine Nature and of the Person and Conception of the Saviour of the World II. And this leads me to the second point which is to shew That if any such extraordinary discovery is made we ought not thereupon to be prejudiced against it because it contains some things of which we can form no clear and distinct Notion It seems indeed at first view a hard imposition on us to require us to believe that of which we can form no thought at all and which by consequence is nothing to us It seems also unreasonable to think that God has given us Faculties which yet we must contradict and over-rule in matters of Religion But all this how much soever it may be enlarged and how specious soever it may appear will have less force when it is considered That really our Faculties are so defective that we do not penetrate into the Essence of any one thing what soever and therefore tho'we can never be obliged to believe any thing that is contrary to our Faculties and to our simplest Conceptions yet we may be obliged to believe things in which we find Difficulties through which we cannot make our way The notions of Time Space and Motion are entangled with inextricable difficulties the continuity of Matter or the admitting of Vacuities in it are subject to no less exceptions but these are matters of a more remote speculation That which is more sensible to every one is That there are in us thinking Beings which we call Souls that are united to Beings of a quite different nature which are Bodies in so strange a manner that the acts of the Mind give the Body a great variety of motions We will we reason we remember speak or move and immediately our animal Spirits go into the Chanels into which they are directed without mistaking their Way or their Errand Now how the acts of a Mind should give or at least direct the motion of Matter is as unconceivable to us as how the motions of Matter should give a Mind Pain or Joy yet after all in fact we find it is so though we can give our selves no reasonable account how it should be so Indeed if we examin Memory alone it affords us matter enough for wonder for it is not conceivable how we should have lodged in our Brain the Figures of all words persons and things which we can call up when we please and so quick as words come into our Mouths when we speak Now what the Nature the Variety and Order of all these Figures should be is that which we can as little understand as how the Soul should read them if I may so speak and be able to do nothing without them Thus it appears that in the thing which of all others we should be like to understand best I mean our own Souls dwelling in our Bodies and acting upon them we plainly perceive that a thing may be true though at the same time all the notions that we can form of it do present to us difficulties concerning it which we cannot overcome It will then be no prejudice against Religion if it should offer some things to us that we can as little reconcile to our own notions as we can do that of our Souls lodging in our Bodies and governing them It seems indeed to be very unconceivable how the same Person should be both God and Man but it is not a whit more conceivable how the same Man should consist both of Body and Soul so united in one that the Properties of both should belong to the same man who from the characters of his Mind may be said to be just wise and good and from the characters of his Body may be said to be tall fair or sickly So that though these strictly speaking belong only to one part of a Man yet the denomination from each of them goes to the whole It cannot be denied that our Souls are united to our Bodies though we do not conceive how it should be so for we must consider that all that which is imported by this Union is that our Bodies being put and kept in such a mechanical texture and disposition our Souls act upon and govern them both in their vital and their free or rational Operations And this Government is called the Union of our Soul and Body which is no other than the Bodies being put and kept in such a Mechanical State that the motion of the Animal Spirits runs regularly through it which way soever the Acts of the Mind do determine and direct it and when the structure of the Body is so disordered that the animal Spirits do their work imperfectly then Pain and Sickness follow upon it but when they can do nothing then Death comes the Body being no longer in a disposition to be subordinate to the Mind By vertue of this Union the Mind receives likewise many Sensations from the Body All which lead us very near the forming somewhat like a notion of the Union of the Two Natures in Christ. For if a Body which is a different sort of Beings from the Soul is capable of being brought under such an immediate and constant direction from the Mind as we see it is in our selves then it is not at all absurd to think that the Soul of a man should be brought under an immediate and constant actuation from the Divine Nature which may as well denominate God and Man to be one as the Union of the Soul and Body denominates the Compound of both to be one Man and as the whole Man has the Attributes both of Soul and Body given to him so the whole in our Saviour may also have the Attributes both of God and Man given to him And this is as true an Union as is that between Soul and Body only whereas the Body gives sensations of Pain and Pleasure to the Mind by vertue of the Union between them the perfection of the Divine Nature is such that it can receive no reciprocal Returns from the Humane Nature though it does immediately and constantly act upon and conduct it I do not pretend that this does fully explain the Mystery but it brings it nearer to our Thoughts So that if it does not help us to comprehend it clearly yet it carries us so far toward it that we perceive that it is not impossible and that is all which is at present offered at There is somewhat in the Old Testament that will also contribute to give us a more distinct notion of this Mystery There was a Mass of shining Matter that hovered over the Cherubims which was wrapped about with a Cloud and it sometimes broke through it and gave Answers to the Israelites when they consulted God by the High-Priests

This had at first appeared to the whole Nation in the Wilderness and rested on the top of the Tabernacle and went before them in their March and was the lasting character of God's Presence among them It was the standing Miracle of their Religion which none of their Idolatrous Kings could ever disprove and it continued among them till their Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians Now this Cloud was called God's Face his Glory and the Light of his Countenance and even God himself O thou that dwellest between the Cherubims shew thy self and shine forth And yet never was there any thing more carefully managed than the diverting that People from every step that might have any tendency to Idolatry So the true account of this Cloud 's being so spoken of is That this Mass of pure and bright matter as well as the thicker Cloud that was folded about it must have been quickly dissipated according to the Laws of Motion all Flame being quickly gone if not fed by new Fewel but that God by an act of his Power kept it constantly in that fixed state and did sometimes make it break through the Cloud to declare his mind to his People that consulted him So by vertue of the constant impression that God made upon that matter he was said to be in it and by vertue of that the Cloud is said to be GOD. Now it was prophesied that the Glory of the second Temple should be greater than the Glory of the first and this Cloud in which God was present being the proper Glory of the first and it being wanting in the second a higher degree of Glory was God's not only acting upon and appearing in a Mass of dead matter but his acting upon and appearing in animated matter in a Man that had all the Principles and Ingredients of our Nature in him And thus this Mystery that God was manifest in the flesh has nothing in it that can render it any way Incredible either from the Principles of Reason or Philosophy or from the discoveries that were made concerning God in the Old Testament As for another part of this Mystery that our Saviour was born of a Virgin that carries not any thing in it which reason shews to be absurd or impossible For all matter being uniform and only different by the figure and motion into which it is put as God did upon the first creation of matter put it into what Form he pleased he can still put any part of it into what shape or motion he intends to Impress upon it so that there is no difficulty in apprehending how God could have formed the first Principles of our Saviour's Body in the Virgin And it being necessary that the Author of so holy a Religion should be perfectly pure and holy that he might be a perfect Pattern and so recommend his Doctrine with the more advantage it was suitable to this that he should have none of those frailties in his Nature and Constitution which might have exposed him to the failings into which the best Men that have their Natures vitiated with those ill Inclinations are apt to fall It is certain that with the first Principles of our Being there are derived to us the Seeds of ill Dispositions both of Body and Mind Cronical Diseases such as Gout and Stone Folly and Madness are thus derived and tho' this is in some Instances more visible and sensible than it is in others yet as every Man has some particular feebleness of which some Principles descend to those who derive their being from him so in all Men this is sensible that their Bodies and bodily Impressions grow too hard for their Minds and do always struggle and often revolt against them It was then sutable both to this Holy Religion and to the Union unto which the Divine Nature assumed the Author of it that he should be free from all that disorder and therefore the matter from which he was to take his beginning was to be so exactly rectified and purified that there should be no Principle of ill Inclination in it for we perceive that our Minds act so much the more perfectly the more pure and clear that our Bodies are We grow as our Bodies ripen to be another sort of Beings than we were when we were first born and a Distemper in our Brain may so hide or disorder all our Ideas that we may thereby become in a moment fit for nothing nor shall it be a small part of our happiness in another state that our Bodies shall be highly rectified and so our Minds must become both purer and sublimer when they shall dwell in Bodies of heavenly and exalted matter Upon all this it is plain that as there is no absurdity in believing that our Saviour's first Principles were formed by Miracle so it was highly suitable to the design on which he was sent into the World that his Body should be freed from all that disorder which follows the ordinary course of Nature III. But yet after all this it may still be said why must things of this nature be required to be believed of us why was this Doctrine of Christianity which is hard enough in practice made so much the harder by containing in it so many things which render it so difficult to be believed And why were such prejudices laid in the way both of Iews and Gentiles by making these Doctrines to be parts of our Faith which seemed to savour of their most absurd Fables as if there were in the Godhead a descent from Father to Son To all which this is to be answered that as there was no Doctrine more ancient and sacred among the Philosophers than this of Three in the Deity which is well known to all that have well examined the matter so nothing could more recommend a Religion that was to meet with great oppositions both in the nature of Man and from the Powers that were then in the World than the great Dignity of the Author of it and therefore as he was brought into the World with so much Pomp so many Prophesies going before his Birth and so many Miracles accompanying it a whole Nation being selected out of which he was to descend and a Religion being Instituted that was full of Types and Ceremonies that were to be accomplished in him so God thought fit to vest him with all possible Glory that so his Doctrine might not only have the more credit but that all Men might be the more encouraged to come into it and to continue in it by the great Assistances and the mighty Protection that they were to expect from One that was the Head of Angels and was also the brightness of the Fathers Glory and since it was necessary to draw Men to think seriously of Religion by offering them a full and free Pardon of all past sins it being in vain to press Men to come into any Religion if they are told that by their sins they are