Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	head_n	part_n	1,461	5	4.4830	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53736	A vindication of some passages in a discourse concerning communion with God from the exceptions of William Sherlock, rector of St. George Buttolph-Lane / by the author of the said discourse, John Owen.	Owen, John, 1616-1683.	1674 (1674)	Wing O821; ESTC R7728	91,516	238

contrary and declared those Resolutions as I had occasion Neither was it until very lately that my second Thoughts came to a compliance with the desires of some others to consider my own peculiar concernment therein And this is all which I now design for the examination of the Opinions which this Author hath veuted under the countenance of publick License whatever they may think I know to be more the concernment of other Men than mine Nor yet do I enter into the Consideration of what is written by this Author with the least respect unto my self or my own reputation which I have the satisfaction to conceive not to be prejudiced by such pittiful Attempts nor have I the least desire to preserve it in the minds of such Persons as wherein it can suffer on this occasion But the Vindication of some sacred Truths petulantly traduced by this Author seems to be cast on me in an especial manner because he hath opposed them and endeavoured to expose them to scorn as declared in my Book whence others more meet for this work might think themselves discharged from taking notice of them Setting aside this consideration I can freely give this sort of Men leave to go on with their Revilings and Scoffings until they are weary or ashamed which as far as I can discern upon Consideration of their Ability for such a Work and their Confidence therein is not like to be in haste At least they can change their course and when they are out of breath in pursuit of one sort of calumnies betake themselves unto another Witness the late malicious and yet withal ridiculous Reports that they have divulged concerning me even with respect unto Civil Affairs and their industry therein For although they were such as had not any thing of the least probability or likelihood to give them countenance yet were they so impetuously divulged and so readily entertained by many as made me think there was more than the common artifices of Calumny employed in their raising and improvement especially considering what Persons I can justly charge those Reports upon But in this course they may proceed whilst they please and think convenient I find my self no more concerned in what they Write or say of this Nature than if it were no more But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the Doctrine traduced only that I am concerned about and that as it hath been the Doctrine of the Church of England It may be it will be said for there is no security against Confidence and Imodesty backed with secular Advantages that the Doctrinal Principles asserted in this Book are agreeable with the Doctrine of the Church in former Times and therefore those opposed in it such as are condemned thereby Hereabout I shall make no long contest with them who once discover that their Minds are by any means emboldned to undertake the Defence of such shameless Untruths Nor shall I multiply Testimonies to prove the Contrary which others are more concerned to do if they intend not to betray the Religion of that Church with whose Preservation and Defence they are intrusted Only because there are Ancient Divines of this Church who I am perswaded will be allowed with the most to have known as well the Doctrine of it and as firmly to have adhered thereunto as this Author who have particularly spoken unto most of the Things which he hath opposed or rather reproached I shall transcribe the Words of one of them whereby he and those who employ him may be minded with whom they have to do in those things For as to the Writers of the Antient Church there is herein no regard had unto them He whom I shall Name is Mr. Hooker and that in his Famous Book of Ecclesiastical Policy who in the 5th Book thereof and 56 Paragraph thus discourseth We have hitherto spoken of the Person and of the presence of Christ. Participation is that mutual inward hold which Christ hath of us and we of him in such sort that each possesseth other by way of special Interest Property and Inherent Copulation And after the interposition of some things concerning the mutual in-being and Love of the Father and the Son he thus proceedeth We are by Nature the Sons of Adam When God Created Adam he Created us and as many as are descended from Adam have in themselves the Root out of which they Spring The Sons of God we neither are all nor any of Us otherwise than only by Grace and Favour The Sons of God have Gods own Natural Son as a second Adam from Heaven whose Race and Progeny they are by Spiritual and Heavenly Birth God therefore loving Eternally his Son he must needs Eternally in him have loved and preferred before all others them which are Spiritually sithence descended and sprung out of him These are in God as in their Saviour and not as in their Creator only It was the Purpose of his saving Goodness his Saving Power and his Saving Wisdom which inclined it self towards them They which thus are in God eternally by their intended admission to Life have by Vocation or Adoption God actually now in them as the Artificer is in that Work which his hand doth presently frame Life as all other Gifts and Benefits groweth originally from the Father and cometh not to Us but by the Son nor by the Son to any of Us in particular but through the Spirit For this cause the Apostle wisheth to the Church of Corinth the Grace our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost which three Saint Peter comprehendeth in one the Participation of the Divine Nature We are therefore in God through Christ Eternally according to that intent and purpose whereby we are chosen to be made his in this present World before the World it self was made We were in God through the knowledg which is had of Us and the Love which is born towards Us from Everlasting But in God we actually are no longer than only from the Time of our Actual Adoption into the Body of his true Church into the Fellowship of his Children For his Church he knoweth and loveth so that they that are in the Church are thereby known to be in him Our being in Christ by Eternal foreknowledg Saveth Us not without our actual and real Adoption into the Fellowship of his Saints in this present World For in him we actually are by our actual incorporation into that society which hath him for their head and doth make together with him one Body He and they in that respect having one Name For which cause by vertue of this Mystical conjunction we are of him and in him even as though our very flesh and bones should be made continuate with his We are in Christ because he knoweth and Loveth Us even as parts of himself No Man is actually in him but they in whom he actually is For he which hath not the Son of

God hath not life I am the Vine and you are the Branches he which abideth in Me and I in him the same bringeth forth much Fruit but the Branch severed from the Vine withereth We are therefore adopted Sons of God to Eternal Life by Participation of the only begotten Son of God whose Life is the well-Spring and Cause of ours It is too cold an Interpretation whereby some Men expound our being in Christ to import nothing else but only that the self-same Nature which maketh Us to be Men is in him and maketh him Man as We are For what Man is there in the World which hath not so far forth Communion with Jesus Christ. It is not this can sustain the weight of such sentences as speak of the Mystery of our Coherence with Jesus Christ. The Church is in Christ as Eve was in Adam Yea by Grace we are every of Us in Christ and in his Church as by Nature we are in those our first Parents God made Eve of the Rib of Adam and his Church he formed out of the very flesh the very wound and bleeding side of the Son of Man His Body crucified and his Blood shed for the Life of the World were the true Elements of that Heavenly being which maketh Us such as himself is of whom we come For which cause the words of Adam may be fitly the Words of Christ concerning his Church Flesh of my flesh and Bone of my Bones a true Native Extract out of mine own Body So that in him even according to his Manhood we according to our Heavenly being are as Branches in that Root out of which they grow To all things he is Life and to Men Light as the Son of God to the Church both Life and Light Eternal by being made the Son of Man for Us and by being in Us a Saviour whether we respect him as God or as Man Adam is in us as an original Cause of our Nature and of that Corruption of Nature which causeth Death Christ as the Cause Original of Restauration to Life The Person of Adam is not in us but his Nature and the Corruption of his nature derived into all Men by Propagation Christ having Adam's Nature as we have but incorrupt deriveth not Nature but incorruption and that immediately from his own Person into all that belong unto him As therefore we are really partakers of the Body of Sin and Death received from Adam so except we be truly partakers of Christ and as really possessed of his Spirit all we speak of Eternal Life is but a Dream That which quickneth us is the Spirit of the Second Adam and his Flesh that wherewith he quickneth That which in him made our Nature uncorrupt was the Union of his Deity with our Nature And in that respect the Sentence of Death and Condemnation which only taketh hold upon sinful flesh could no way possibly extend unto him This caused his Voluntary Death for others to prevail with God and to have the force of an Expiatory Sacrifice The Blood of Christ as the Apostle witnesseth doth therefore take away Sin because through the Eternal Spirit he offered himself unto God without spot as that which sanctifyed our nature in Christ that which made it a Sacrifice available to take away sin is the same which quickneth it raised it out of the Grave after Death and exalted it unto Glory Seeing therefore Christ is in Us as a quickning Spirit the first degree of Communion with Christ must needs consist in the participation of his Spirit which Cyprian in that respect well termeth germanissimam Societatem the highest and truest Society that can be between Man and him which is both God and Man in One. These things Saint Cyril duly considering reproveth their Speeches which taught that only the Deity of Christ is the Vine whereupon we by Faith do depend as Branches and that neither his Flesh nor our Body are comprised in this Resemblance For doth any Man doubt but that even from the flesh of Christ our very Bodies do receive that Life which shall make them Glorious at the Latter Day and for which they are already accounted parts of his Blessed Body Our Corruptible Bodies could never live the Life they shall live were it not that here they were joyned with his Body which is incorruptible and that his is in ours as a Cause of Immortality a cause by removing through the Death and Merit of his own flesh that which hindred the Life of Ours Christ is therefore both as God and as Man that true Vine whereof we both Spiritually and Corporeally are Branches The Mixture of his Bodily S●bstance with ours is a thing which the Ancient Fathers disclaim Yet the Mixture of his Flesh with ours they speak of to signify what our very Bodies through Mystical Conjunction do receive from that Vital Efficacy which we know to be in his and from Bodily Mixtures they borrow divers similitudes rather to declare the Truth than the manner of Coherence between his sacred and the sanct●fyed Bodies of Saints Thus much no Christian Man will deny that when Chr●st sanctifyed his own flesh giving as God and taking as Man the Holy Ghost he did not this for himself only but for our sakes that the Grace of Sanctification and Life which was first received in him might pass from him to his whole Race as Malediction came from Adam unto all Mankind Howbeit because the work of his Spirit to those Effects is in us prevented by Sin and Death possessing us before it is of necessity that as well our present Sanctification unto ne●ness of Life as the future restauration of our Bodies should presuppose a participation of the Grace Efficacy Merit or Vertue of his Body and Blood without which Foundation first laid there is no Place for those other operations of the Spirit of Christ to ensue So that Christ imparteth plainly himself by degrees It pleaseth him in Mercy to account himself incompleat and maimed without us But most assured we are that we all receive of his fulness because he is in Us as a Moving and Working Cause from which many blessed Effects are really found to ensue And that in Sundry both kinds and Degrees all tending to Eternal Happiness It must be confessed that of Christ working as Creator and as Governour of the World by Providence all are Partakers not all Partakers of that Grace whereby he inhabiteth whom he Saveth Again as he dwelleth not by Grace in all so neither doth he equally work in all them in whom he dwelleth Whence is it saith Saint Augustin that some be Holier than others are but because God doth dwell in some more plentifully than in others And because the Divine substance of Christ is equally in all his Human Substance equally distinct from all it appeareth that the participation of Christ wherein there are many Degrees and Differences must needs consist in such Effects as being derived from both Natures of Christ