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
A67561	An apology for the mysteries of the Gospel being a sermon preached at White-Hall, Feb. 16, 1672/3 / by Seth, Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Ward, Seth, 1617-1689.	1674 (1674)	Wing W815; ESTC R38484	24,128	100

that Local Motion was a thing impossible one of his Auditors rose up and silently and sliely walked about the School and so confuted him The most pervious most clear and comprehensible of all humane Sciences are the pure and unmixed Mathematicks yet even in Geometry and Arithmetick how many things are forceably concluded to be true which are inexplicable unimaginable incomprehensible I shall instance in a very few So few as not to need an Apology to the unlearned in those Sciences So trivial as not to admit of an Explication to the Learned That the least imaginable space should be equal to another upon the same Base of the same Altitude whose sides are protracted in infinitum or a Finite greater than an Infinite The equality of all Circular Angles of Contact The everlasting approximation and impossible concourse of Asymptots The affections of surd and irrational Quantities c. are undeniably demonstrated to be true yet all these and many more are inexplicable incomprehensible unintelligible They say they cannot explicate or imagine they cannot conceive or comprehend the Mystery of the Trinity and Unity of the Godhead and therefore they despise it as a mere fictitious imagination Do they therefore clearly understand and fully comprehend and can they express and explicate the Affections of Unity and Trinity in Numbers That there should be a Quantity in Nature one and not another which with its infinite ascending powers and descending roots are all of them equal or rather one and the same among themselves Can they explicate or imagine or comprehend any one of the infinite potential roots of the Number Three They say they cannot understand how Christ should be conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of a Virgin and therefore they deride it Can they therefore understand how they themselves have been conceived and born and nourished up And are they able to explain how and by what progress from a little water spilt upon a too luxurious ground there should spring forth such a Race of Titans such a Gigantick brood of fighters against Heaven of Scoffers at Religion Briefly they say they cannot comprehend how God and Man should be one Christ and therefore they contemn the Gospel and the Believers of it Can they therefore understand how the reasonable Soul and Flesh should be one man Either they themselves consist of two natures the one Corporeal the other Spiritual and Incorporeal or they do not If they have nothing in them Incorporeal can they understand and explain how sensless Atoms how stupid Matter and Local Motion should work themselves up to Sense and Cogitation Reflection and Discourse to Wit and Gallantry so as to make Jests and Ballads upon the Gospels If they consist not only of a Body but of a Soul a spiritual Soul also Can they explain by what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these two natures have been brought together by what bands and ligaments they are united and how the Communication betwixt them is performed In one word Can they explicate the Phenomena of Sense Imagination Memory Reason Wit and Bravery If they are able to perform these things let the world be made happy by their labours and let them receive the Paeans and Acclamations the Crowns and Garlands denyed to all that were before them But if they must be forced to confess that all these things are inexplicable unimaginable unintelligible and incomprehensible and will yet continue to despise the Mysteries of the Gospel only for that reason because they are inexplicable unintelligible incomprehensible let them not be offended at a poor despised Minister of the Gospel if he shall declare and testifie to all the World that these are not the Wits or Beaux Esprits or Forts Esprits that they are Flesh and not Spirit mere ordinary mortal Wights as others are that all their boasting is but empty noise and all they have to shew is a mere Deceptio visus that they may be Masters of some devices that are pretty skilfull in the Arts and Mysteries of Circulation and disguise but they are not such dreadfull Archimago's such mighty Conjurers as they pretend Let them therefore abandon their unreasonable Principle and be ashamed 2. But secondly as is the Principle upon which they contemn such are their Postulata the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Philosophers and Mathematicians call them that is to say the terms or demands upon which they pretend that they would cease to despise the Gospel and for want of which they do contemn it These Postulata are reducible to two Heads 1. Philosophical Demonstration Or 2. The sight of Miracles Signs and Wonders at their demand This is the pretence of the Wits of these Times if the truth of the Mysteries of the Gospel might be proved to them by Demonstration or if they might see a Sign they would believe This was the pretence at the time of the writing of my Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Jews required a Sign the Greeks i. e. the Gentiles sought after Wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and because they were disappointed of these the mystery of Christ Crucified was to the Jews a Scandal to the Greeks foolishness For brevity let us name these two 1. The Grecanick or Philosophical Postulatum 2. The Judaick or Semiotical Postulatum Now that the former of these proceeds from Ignorance and want of Learning and Understanding the later from Pride and Arrogance joyned with a blockish Stupidity That the former is disingenious the later disingenuous that both of them are irrational and absurd is evident 1. And first for the Grecanical Postulatum In the case of any Doctrine or question to refuse a proof that is Cogent and sufficient the only proof whereof a thing is capable and to hanker or seek after a Proof impossible or improper such as implies a Contradiction or such as the nature of the question will not bear This I say proceeds from Ignorance from want of Learning and Understanding and this is the case of the Grecanick or Philosophical Postulatum To give a rational or Philosophical Demonstration of the truth of the Gospel there are but three wayes imaginable in Nature By Arguments either 1. A Priori from the common Principles of Intelligence Or 2. A Posteriori from experiment and sensible observations And this latter way of arguing must be drawn either 1. From instances of things Novel and Anomalous in Nature things purposely designed for such Arguments Or else 2. It must be taken from the common and ordinary the standing and perpetnal Phenomena of Nature A Demonstration à posteriori by particular Instances of the Divine Power Wisdom and Goodness purposely designed for that end was the proof offered by Christ and his Apostles This they rejected To prove particular Mysteries Mysteries hidden from Ages and so declared and professed to be by the Promulgers by general and perpetual Phenomena of Nature is

and Spirit and to perfect holiness in the fear of God Again he that believes and considers the Corruption and Impotence of his natural Condition and the design of Christs coming into the world what he hath already done and what he is still in doing for him How that himself and every man is by nature a childe of wrath that Sin reigns in his mortal body that he lies under a bondage from which he cannot redeem a Guilt from which he cannot acquit himself That no flesh is justified in the sight of God Whosoever I say doth believe this concerning himself and on the other side concerning Christ that to this end was he born and for this cause came he into the world that he might save sinners That the world through him might be saved That to this end and this end only he descended from Heaven This was the end of his Conversation upon Earth his Life and Doctrine his Preaching and Example This was the end of his Crucifixion Resurrection Ascension and Session at the Right hand of God That by the sufferings of his Life and the inestimable value of his Blood the world might be Iustified and Redeemed from the Guilt of their sins rescued from the miseries of the world to come And that by the operation of his Doctrine and Example and the power of his Intercession the world might be sanctified Delivered from the Dominion of sin purified and prepared to be admitted to the Vision of the most holy God Fruition of the Life to come I say that the man that firmly and stedfastly and actually believes these things will not nay indeed that he cannot neglect so great Salvation That he will not trample upon the blood of the everlasting Covenant or despise the Spirit of Grace or crucifie afresh the Lord of Glory and put him to an open shame But that for his continual cleansing from his past transgressions he will daily resort to the fountain which Christ hath opened for sin and for uncleanness offering and presenting his head and his heart his minde and his affections to the blood of sprinkling And that for the obtaining of preventing and following Grace to preserve him from lapsing for the time to come He will throw himself daily at the feet of that High-Priest which is sensible of his Infirmities and which sits at Gods Right hand making Intercession for him and with sighs and unutterable groans he will implore the Assistance of that Spirit which helpeth our infirmities And that continuing and persevering in this Course by the Grace of God which never faileth them that seek him he will certainly conform himself to the Commands of Christ and compose himself to his Example till at length he be transformed to his Image He will add to his Faith Vertue and to Vertue Knowledge and so onwards He will goe on from strength to strength untill he appear before God in Glory I say that such a man by denying ungodliness and worldly Lusts and living Soberly and Righteously and Godly in this present world will work out his Salvation with fear and trembling and in the end of his dayes will certainly and infallibly attain to the end of his hopes namely the Salvation of his Soul So that the Gospel is indeed the Grace of God which bringeth Salvation to all men It is the power of God to Salvation to every one that believeth TO come therefore to a Conclusion Judge now in your selves Brethren and judge Righteous Judgement Is this a Gospel which is to be despised A Dispensation whereof a Minister or a Christian ought to be ashamed Are the Mysteries of this Gospel to be derided and drolled upon To be travestied or turned into Burlesque or Macaronique Is this to be a Brave and a Gallant person A Spark and a Wit Or is it indeed to have never a spark of Wit or Gallantry Men Brethren and Fathers If the time and your patience and my strength would bear it I would take unto me boldness and freely speak unto you concerning the Gospel of our Saviour I would Reprove Rebuke Exhort I would severally and distinctly address my self to every sort and every Degree of those that hear me Ecclesiastical and Civil Young and Old Wise and Unwise Noble and Ignoble I would speak unto you young men of the Clergy that you would not be offended at the Mysteries of the Gospel or think it a matter of Wit or of Learning either to despise or to go about to mend them That you will neither be Drolled nor Disputed Cajoled nor faced out of your Religion or suffer the Mauvais hont the evil shame to be put upon you That you will not believe that it hath been only dull formality a want of the smartness of your Wit or depth of your Learning which hath retained your Fathers and Predecessors in the belief and the Profession of the plain and simple Articles of the Catholick Faith Be not deceived Brethren Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona Be not seduced by those who pretending to remove the Scandal of the Cross of Christ which thing St. Paul counted an absurdity in Christianity would rob you of a most divine and excellent Religion and substitute in its place a rotten and depraved Philosophy Those I mean who never have been able with all their Wit Reason and Learning to explicate or comprehend the Mysteries or Mechanies of a Mite or of a Flea of a Plant or Stone or any one of the innumerable things which are before them and yet they take upon them to controul the plain literal designed and reiterated Declarations of Christ and his Apostles concerning the Mysteries of the Godhead Those who Grammaticizing pedantically and Criticizing spuriously upon a few Greek Particles or words would cozen the World of the benefit of the blood of Christ and Christ himself of his Divinity and put him off with a fantastical and Poetical Apotheosis I would speak unto you Fathers because ye have known the Father and the Son ye understand the effect and consequence of the Mysteries of the Gospel to the Salvation of men that ye will continue to strive earnestly to retain that faith which is thought by some to be upon the wing that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints I would speak unto you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wise men or Philosophers Paul speaking to the men at Athens puts them in minde of a saying of a Poet of their own I would call to your Remembrance a Saying of a Philosopher of our own a Philosopher of great renown which is to this effect That a profound consideration of the reason and comprehension of the circumstances of things a deep dose of Philosophy will make a man Religious And that the contempt of Religion is an infallible argument of one that is a smatterer only and half-witted I would speak unto ye Nobles that ye would be Noble as the Beraeans were That ye will search examine