Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	life_n	see_v	write_v	5,407	5	5.3704	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A76384	A bright starre, leading to, & centering in, Christ our perfection. Or a manuell, entituled by the authour thereof, the third part of the Rule of perfection Wherein such profound mysteries are revealed, such mysterious imperfections discovered, with their perfect cures prescribed, as have not been by any before published in the English tongue: faithfully translated for the common good.; Règle de perfection. English. Part 3	Benoît, de Canfield, 1562-1610.	1646 (1646)	Wing B1867AC; ESTC R223949	72,498	265

by the tempests violence Paul seems to write nothing but the Passion in Preaching to extol no other thing but the Passion in the Passion alone to seek matter of rejoycing to glory only in the Crosse and to be all-transformed into this Divine Passion yea acknowledgeth himself to know no more but Jesus Christ him crucified CHAP. XVII That God and Man is to be beheld in the Passion the God-head Manhood seen together with a single eye as one not as two ANd here the Manhood is not to be beheld alone but also the Godhead therewith wherin many faile looking either on the Manhood alone or sometimes on it and sometimes on the Godhead as on two divers objects And so it comes that some begin to falter thinking it to be in manner no other Mysterie but only in beholding the Manhood to phansie a Man tortured with cruel torments upon a Crosse and after to finde the Godhead forsaking the same object they presse up to some other whereby to behold the Godhead not beleeving they can bee rais'd to both at once the which indeed pertaines to the highest practise For to see God and Man in one simple sight is not unlike to that knowledge whereby God and Man is seene to make one and the same person This Contemplation of God Man seemes prefigured in that brazen Serpent whose alone sight cur'd the beholders of their bitings by other serpents A miracle indeed that God should give such power of healing to the looke of a Serpent Nor doubt I but he would insinuate to us thereby the admirable vertue inclosed in that coelestiall Serpent which is Jesus Christ crucified as he cals himselfe inasmuch as when wee rightly behold the Manhood crucified we instantly behold his Godhead which is God himselfe the small cure of all evill For how can we continue sensible of sorrow or crosse when we see God himselfe bearing the same Crosse Blessed are the pure in heart saith our Lord because they shall see God The which divers holy men affirm to be wholly in the next life and partly in this If therefore we see God on the Crosse we are entred on part of our Blisse in this Life and consequently cannot feel the pangs of the Crosse 'T was a thing unheard of and which with many transcended all beliefe that out of a hard rocke at the second smite of the Rod such plenty of water streamed out This Rocke is Christ Jesus But the Rocke was Christ whose Passion though it appeare so stonie that at the first sight it yeelds no more but all harsh hard and full of afflictions yet if you smite the same twice by Contemplation of the Godhead and Manhood you shall finde an overflowing Inundation of waters of Comfort a torrent of Joy a swift gushing river flowing from the face of God Ezekiel saw a Booke written without and within intimating to us thereby that Jesus Christ the Booke of Life is written within and without both sides containing the same perfections O ravishing Booke O Miracle O prodigy O new and unusuall thing transcending and passing all Reason and far surmounting the territories of Mans capacity that all the Attributes of God proper to his Divine Majesty should bee described in our mortall flesh That all the internall perfections of God should be depainted in Man and to know that person as perfect as God yea to be God himselfe O booke I say beyond admiration even to astonishment wherein the eternall omnipotency is described in externall impotency Immortality in Mortality Spirit in Body Glory in Ignominy Freedome in Bondage and God in Man A booke where without is written and displayed to the eyes of all men whatsoever the Eternall Father from everlasting either said or thought A booke shewing us the Crosse a Tribunall the Passion a Throne and Death the Triumph of Je Christ A book-wherof one saith O wondrous power of the Crosse O unspeakable glory of the Passion wherein is both the Throne of our Lord the judgment of the World and conquest of Christ crucified This is the booke wherein all contrary propositions are reconciled without distinction made all one where the outer thing is truly knowne the inner bodily spiritual weaknes strength Sorrow Joy Contempt Majesty Shame Glory Littlenesse Greatnesse Poverty Richnesse Bondage Freedome and Torments Delights But out alas for pity who beleeves all this Or who is it that with a simple heart gives credit to these things where is wisedom found or what place is left for understanding Here is Wisedome and Patience of the Saints even in seeing and practising those things which belong to the Passion And here God pr●●●d them at the waters of contrad●ction which waters of Life they ex●ract out of that Celestial flinty rocke whilst they smite it with the rod of Christian Discipline Who is wis● and he wil keepe these things It may truly bee said that 〈◊〉 booke and passion is no other but the gate of Heaven and the house of God And though in this Pas●ion he made darkenesse his Pavili●n neverthelesse as is his darke●esse so also his light Jacobs Ladder though the one ●nd toucht heaven and the other ●rth yet both made but one Lad●er even so the person of Jesus Christ which liv'd on earth by his Manhood and endured those tor●ents in his Passion was no other ●hen that selfe-same second person ●n the Trinity living ever glorious in the Heavens Moses saw God in the middest of the thorny bush signifying to us that God himselfe is found in his painefull and thorn-crowned Passion and not to be sought without the same No marvell then if Saint Paul the Doctor of the Gentiles and trumpet of truth al over the world exhausted all his wisedome from no other fount but out of the Abysse of this wisedome and knowledge as himselfe acknowledgeth saying I desire to know nothing among you but Iesus Christ crucified Which yet was so farre from vailing him from high Revelations that as himselfe witnesseth he was rapt to the third Heaven Whence it is cleerer then the Noone-day Light that in the crucified Manhood he also saw the boundlesse depth of the Godhead But the Centre of all this Difficulty consists in the right sending forth of this Simple sight whereby God and Man is seene neither omitted For in failing of either we incurre a like losse The depth of the Mysterie being founded in both one and not in each apart For first to behold God Omnipotent and then a miserable and forlorn Man which he became by his Incarnation This worketh somewhat in the soule by way of Consideration But to see both one as wee have said and to behold it with a single eye and naked aspect that strikes the soule with amazement and bereaves her of all her forces And this is that simple and perfect Contemplation which our Lord extolls with so many prayses in his Spouse in the Cantic Thy eyes ●re Doves eyes i. simple ones And againe

minde with such pleasures so neither can it ever imagine how in so vile and forlorn a Condition such a height of Mysterie should bee comprized And as such wondrous Joyes and Mysteries are grounded in a solid staidnesse upon this point that that Man is God So on the other side our Not-finding of those delights and secrets arises from our drowsie wavering in the same And herein stands all the Keeping-downe of our Mysticall buildings and all the ruine of our spirituall growth because in the Passion wee duely consider not God and Man in the same person For if there wee as verily found God as Man and knew both to make but one onely person wee should not aspire to any higher or loftier Contemplation because wee should then understand that same to be highnesse it selfe And how can any deny the Manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ to be the loftiest Contemplation of all others when in the same hee can see nothing which is not God It being a Sea vast and spacious wherein every one may set saile more or lesse according to his Vessells burthen So that all they that fall short of the depths of the Godhead may justly blame themselves for want of capacity Light but never impute the Ieast defect to this sea of the Passion boundlesse and infinite And therefore wee are to sticke to the same as to the ultimate end not as to a thing low and vile but as to God himself high and glorious For as he that cleaves to this man cleaves to God so he that embraces his Passion enjoyes the highest good And surely if in the Passion consisted not the most perfect and high Contemplation then would not that great St. Bon. have placed it in the latter as being higher then that of the Being of God and his Perfections Attributes Trinity and other Mysteries of his Godhead saying that Christ is the perfect Image of God naturally invisible and that in this Contemplation we see the Manhood so miraculously exalted so uneffably united by seeing both in one the first and the last the highest and the lowest the Circumference and the Centre A. and ● the Caused and the Cause the Creator and the Creature i. the Booke written within and without Since then this Contemplation of the Passion is higher and perfecter then all others I cannot but doubt that many are some wayes deluded who aspire to the nakednesse and sole Contemplation of the Godhead as to the more high and perfect And that many more deceived in the same manner presume thither though uncapable supposing that true abstraction which yet is no more but a sleepy demission of Nature And they rest in their Manly spirit where they should rest in the Divine That therefore this holy Passion may be considered in this exercise and drawn into practise we must alwayes behold it joyntly with the Godhead and the Godhead with it by beholding alway before our eyes God crucified For as in the first part we do and suffer That Gods Will may be done So in this this 3 d. we doe and suffer That God may be i. that he may live and raigne in us And as in our practise the Will of God is almost alway conjoyned with his Passion inasmuch as alway things adverse to nature are to bee accepted and pleasing rejected in the Active Life So in this God is almost alway conjoyned with his Crosse the same Rule of accepting and refusing being still to be followed And as in the Active Life this Divine Will Passion or Crosse and Affliction are one and the same thing So God and his Crosse are here also one And as there we behold the Wil of God and Affliction or Crosse without Multiplicity so here we are also to see God and his Crosse with one simple the same sight But to determine precisely and in particular when any one is fit for this exercise and when for each part thereof that is indeed very difficult I say not impossible because of the many interpossible events which may take away lessen or alter such fitnesse For first t is considerable whether it be long time or short since his Conversion Secondly whether the manner of his Conversion be common leaning on meere Reason or unusuall and extraordinary Thirdly whether naturally hee be of a constant minde or light sudden and unsetled Fourthly whether hot or luke-warme Fifthly whether simple or subtle Sixthly whether alone or under a Master And according to these Conditions and fitnesses hee may enter upon these exercises and passe along from one part to another No other speciall rule can be assigned Only in generall The first part offers it selfe to them that are ready to exercise the Active Life The second squares with those that are prepar'd for the Contemplative The third requires a spirit Annointed for the Life Supereminent FINIS