Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	scripture_n	see_v	write_v	2,759	5	5.2919	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30114	Man in paradise, or, A philosophical discourse vindicating the soul's prerogative in discerning the truths of Christian religion with the eye of reason	Bunworth, Richard.	1656 (1656)	Wing B5475; ESTC R176545	21,633	105

by existing in time and place did give a being thereto and by assuming a most compleat and perfect body which being both elementary vegetative sensitive c. he did contribute essence to the Elements Vegetables living Creatures c. even so by the personal union and perfect conjunction of his divine and humane nature which personal union is to be considered before the humane nature alone or those other subordinate natures comprehended in it viz. sense vegetation corporeity he hath created the Angels which are a middle nature betwixt God and Man so that the whole Creation seems to be a most perfect Scheme Image or Shadow of the Word incarnate and all the variety thereof in each particular analogically received from his fulness Although quoad nos the Word incarnate may seem to be the second Adam who may seem to us to have existed in the world before him yet quoad Deum he is the beginning of the Creation of God and the protoplast of mankind after whose image Man was made Who by the conjunction of his divine and humane nature is the Supporter and Bearer of the whole world to whom each Creature ows its being by whom as an efficient cause by whom as a final cause and by whom as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the world was made and whithout whom in each of these respects was not any thing made that was made Who in his divine nature is ubiquitary and in his humane nature was in the midst of time generally taken conversant in the midst of the then habitable world and in the very midst of time strictly taken did without doubt locally descend together with all the immateriate powers of the humane nature into the bottom centre or midst of all circumference which could not be * Si unum corpus per aliud penetraret sequoretur corpus non esse corpus sed substantiam incorpoream quantitatis expert●m quod absurdum est manifestam implicat contradictionem Quemadmodum Damascenus l. 1. Orthodoxae fidei cap. 3. ait 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 except he should have put off the material and corporeal part of his humanity not reassuming the same until his assent from the infernal pit Now such must necessarily have been the * Rationi consentaneum est eam fuisse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 corporis illius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut si omnia ossa ejus fracta fuissent statim conglutinarentur Probabile autem est tam balsamica polluisse vi humores illius corporis ut vulnera in exterioribus inflicta mortem non conciliassent sed innato corporis balsamo humoribus sc illuc deflu●ntibus sanari potuissent Methodum igitur isthanc frustrancam frangendi ossa ejus omniscia recusavit providentia Et ad vulnera quod attinet previdit ut non tantum exteriora infligerentur sed ut ipsum cor lancea perfoderetur ita ut ex ipso corde sanguis efflueret ab ejusdem capsula sc pericardio aqua dimanaret exact crasis or temperament of that most perfect and compleat body which the Word did assume that it is conjecturable that it might suffer and be deprived of its form by solution of continuity rather then from any internal principles proceeding from a depraved habit or evil constitution and being deprived of its form it is probable it should be incapable of corruption in that it is impossible it should have been produced by generation The Soul is ravished with the contemplation hereof being not able to express a tythe of what she cannot but conceive being so oppress'd and overwhelm'd with reason that she cannot possibly utter her notions herein except she had cloven tongues to multiply her expressions For the Word incarnate is that All in All both of finity and infinity wherein are all the reasons of things together with their beings concentred whereby corruption hath a possibility to put on incorruption and mortality to put on immortality For as his being in the world caused the world to be so the perfect conjunction and personal union of his divine and humane nature which can never be disjoyned giveth an eternal precarium esse to the whole humane nature or a possibility to all man-kinde to enjoy an eternal being yet must the whole world besides necessarily return unto its first nothing whose existence is but as a parenthesis in infinity in which parenthesis the two extreams viz. Creation and Annihilation must necessarily be equally distant from that point in the midst wherein the Word did exist to give an absolutely finite being thereto At the dissolution whereof it is necessary that the Word incarnate do actually exist in the world to impose a period thereto whose commencement did depend upon his actual existence therein by recollecting into himself that scattered light which is tutelary to the world which was at first from him dispersed before whom the whole world must necessarily be collected together with the angelical nature which is the next and immediate supporter thereof and must be rolled up as a Book and then being deprived of its tutelary light must pass away as a Scheme the glory whereof shall no sooner be reassumed into the Word then reflected upon the humane ashes to revive the same into an incorruptible and eternal being After this manner doth the rational Soul ascribe the Creation of the World to God as the first efficient cause thereof which one God she doth demonstrate by reason to have subsisted personally three in the very act of Creation but in a more special manner she doth ascribe the Creation to the Word which is the second Person in the Trinity whose actual existence in the world gave a being thereto In the contemplation whereof she cannot but discern with the Eye of Reason that all those mysteries which the holy Scriptures hold forth unto us are not at all repugnant to Reason As that the Word was incarnated in the fulness of time having been eternally conceived by the Holy Ghost that he took upon him the humane nature that he died by a violent death that he descended into hell with many others Having found out in the Book of Nature those mysteries which are express'd in the Scriptures she comes in the next place to observe whether those things less mysterious in the Scriptures be not also written in the Book of Nature In the holy Scriptures which are the written Word of God the Soul conceives her self chiefly concerned as a rational creature for there is no other creature in the whole world except man alone to whom the Scriptures do properly belong before whom God hath set the way of good and evil upon the onely account of rationality having breath'd into him the breath of life whereby he became a reasonable Soul although all other inferior creatures do owe continual praises to God for their being whereupon they are commanded to observe the Sabbath which is by God an appointed time of thanks to

him for their Creation wherein he is said to have rested and is in the course of nature a pause period or full stop wherein most actions do commonly terminate according to the observation of Philo Judaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I say although all Creatures do owe continual praises to God for their Creation and do in an obscure manner perform their service therein having also certain secret Sabbatisms in all their actions yet man in a more especial and particular manner hath an Ingagement to perform an immediate service to God being the worlds high Priest to offer sacrifice not onely for himself but also for all other Creatures which are subjected under him according to that of Mr. George Herbert sometimes Oratour of the University of Cambridge Man is the Worlds High Priest he doth present The Sacrifice for all while they below Unto the Service mutter an assent Such as Springs use that fall and Winds that blow Man who is the High Priest of the World hath the Scripture as a Light to direct and guide his Soul to the high Altar the Word who is also the High Priest of man-kinde Now it is necessary that there be some proportion betwixt the Light and the Eye otherwise the Light would rather dazle and blinde the Eye then help it in its performance If the Holy Scripture were not rational and in some sort proportionable to the humane intellect it might rather induce incredulity then enlighten the understanding Thus doth the Soul discourse Then doth she attempt by reason to understand the written Word of God conceiving it a contradiction that any thing should be presented as an adequate object of the humane intellect not under the notion of rationality Herein she first observes the goodly order of the Creation according to the description of Moses to be much conformable to Reason As that the Elements should be created before mixt bodies and that out of the Elements there should be procreated all mix'd bodies in such an order and method as doth correspond the logical series in the predicament of substance that Creatures more perfect should require greater time for their production out of the Earth then Creatures more imperfect That first vegetables should be produced then living Creatures viz. those indued with sense last of all Man who is the most perfect of all living Creatures and that in the Creation of each species there should be also a gradual ascent answerable to the scale of Nature as of Animals first the Fish then the Fowl afterwards the four-footed Beasts and so of Vegetables first Grass and Herbs then Shrubs and Trees That Man should be at first made up of such matter contained in the Bowels of the Earth as is the Embryon in the Wombe viz. of red slime which is analogous to Blood the thinner parts whereof are by vertue of its innate heat resolved into Spirits whilst the grosser are converted into flesh and so all the diversity of parts made up answerable to the heterogeneity of the matter After the Heaven and the Earth were finished and all the Host thereof the Scriptures tell us That God saw every thing which he had made and behold it was very good The very same we read in the Book of Nature For Reason doth dictate unto us that all things are good not onely because every thing in the whole world beareth some proportion or similitude with God who is the original of its being but also because there is no one thing in the whole world which is not agreeable and convenient to some other thing Wherefore seeing that goodness is defined to be the congruity of one thing with another it follows that every thing in the world is good There was no written positive or Moral Law given for the space of above two thousand yeers after the Creation then afterwards the Law was given by God unto Moses and from him delivered unto the Children of Israel There was reason wherefore the Law should be so long omitted and afterwards there was reason wherefore it should be then given Why it was so long omitted may appear by the Contents thereof for he that reads the Moral Law and considers all the particulars therein may observe that the main scope thereof was to establish the Children of Israel into a Commonwealth and to preserve the same Commonwealth by defending each man 's propriety that so they might as a peculiar people comfortably serve the Lord who had delivered them out of captivity Now there are three things required to a Commonwealth first that there be a competent number of people secondly that this people be entire and free neither scattered at a distance nor intermix'd with other people and thirdly that there be propriety of possessions whereby one man may call somthing his own which is not another mans Before the Posterity of Jacob had these three Conditions it was impossible they should be capable of that whole Law which was afterward given unto them Although when they were in Egypt they did increase and became numerous yet they could have no Law unto themselves in regard they were not of themselves a free People but were strangers in the Land of Egypt and consequently Servants unto the Egyptians who had Task Masters over them as the Scriptures do inform us And afterwards whē they were delivered from the Egyptian slavery although they were in the wilderness not onely numerous but also a free People and entire to themselves yet the whole Law could in no wise belong unto them because they had no propriety of possessions To impose a Curse upon him that should remove his Neighbours Land-mark would have been non-sense to the Children of Israel before they had marked out their Lands and taken to themselves proper possessions and so to impose proportionable penalties if peradventure their Oxen should hurt or gore one another or hurt a man would have been absurd before they had any Oxen belonging unto them By this may appear the necessity wherefore the Law was so long omitted Now although the Law was written whilst the Children of Israel were yet in the Wilderness yet it could not be in force until their Common-wealth began but so soon as they had a Common-wealth they could not possibly be without a Law for the Law is the Soul thereof which doth both constitute and preserve the same whereby their confused multitude was digested into a Re-publick and their Re-publick was continued entire without division or confusion The multitude indeed might have been continued entire without so much circumstance of Law whilst it did subsist as an Army and was preserved by one common food Manna which did cost them onely the taking up yet could it not possibly have subsisted as a Common-wealth wherein there is propriety of possessions without the Law which doth by defending each mans propriety preserve the whole Common-wealth in the same state and condition wherein it was first established If we look into the Law we shall