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	see_v	soul_n	2,772	5	5.0753	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41378	A reasonable word to the doctors of reason being some remarks on a nameless author in his pamphlet entituled The divine unity asserted : and some observations upon a short account of the proceedings of R.S., Bishop of a dissenting congregation in London ... : also a reasonable reprimand to Mr. Considerator for his foolish boasting in his letter to H.H. ... / by N. Goldham.	Goldham, Nath. (Nathaniel)	1699 (1699)	Wing G1019; ESTC R27671	57,116	114

and Errors the Trinitarians may be guilty of yet it is certain they cannot be guilty of greater not indeed so great Boldness and Folly as our Accountant is as we have seen but now in his last Argument For I do not find that they enter into Judgment with God nor charge the most high foolishly nor with folly and I pray Sir upon second thoughts tell me which is the greatest Folly and boldness to believe what God declares of himself to be reasonable and true though we do not understand it or to give God the Lye and and tell him that what he declares of himself is false unreasonable and absurd because we do not understand it Such an Answer as this from a Servant to a Master would be Accounted Impudent boldness and we see there is nothing more common among Men whose Understandings and Reason differ greatly yet far enough are they from differing infinitely yet among Men it is no new thing for the Wise and Learned to understand and know that to be true and Reasonable which the more Ignorant are rather more ready to wonder at than they are able to give a Demonstration of Yet are these Gentlemen so confident in their own Reason that they will give the Lye to God himself if he tell them the Father the Word and Holy Ghost are One So careful are these Gentlemen that their Faith may not stand in the Power of God but in the Wisdom of Men. But whether it be right in the sight of God to believe or obey Men rather than God judge ye Acts. 4. 19. I have now done with my short Accountant the rest of his Book being meerly Historical of what did pass between him and B. R. S. and the Church of which he was a Member but I have nothing to do with that my Business being only to contend for that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints and to believe the Truth as it is in Jesus I shall therefore now take a view of our Nameless Author again and see if he can produce any sound Reason to perswade us to deny our Lord Jesus Christ For I take it for granted that it is as great a denial of him to deny him to be as he is God over all blessed for ever more as it is to deny him to be our redemer For indeed the Holy One of Isarel is the Redeemer thereof But on a Second view of our Author in his Divine Vnity asserted I do not find any other Reasons than what I have already considered and find in my Accountant save only he is somewhat larger and in his 10th page Colume 1. he would deny the Divinity of our Lord and prove it too if he didbut know how from this Argument that Man is made after God's own Image Now saith he If God be a Trinity and Man be his Image we may find an Image of that Trinity in our selves But he excludes the Body from any part of this Image which may look tolerable enough at first view because God is a Spirit and if he had stopt here he might have carried his Sophistry off pretty fair but the Wits of our day must over shoot themselves He tells you the Reason why the Body is excluded because saith he It is imperfect and there is no Imperfection with God Good Sir did you expect to find the Soul of Man a perfect Image of God when you first entred on this Argument really you might well have spared your Pains here and have given the Spirit of God the Lye once more and you should have as good Reason so to do as you have to give our Lord himself the Lye as you do in your 15th page colume 2. where you say The same worship which is due to the Father is not to be given to Christ but that which may be given to a Creature for God's sake Wherein you do in plain English give Truth it self the Lye for he hth told us that all Men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father as hath been already proved by Scripture John 5. 23. and by the Example of the Worshippers in Heaven But if you had been sincerely looking for a faint Resemblance of the Image of God in Man as a Trinity to say nothing of that Moral Likeness that God at first stampt on Man's Nature of himself which consisted in Righteousness and true Holiness which indeed was the greatest Resemblance in Man to God And yet we have reason to believe that the Angels were every whit as much like God as in this sense Man was Therefore it must be something else in the make of Man that did bear some Image of God for which cause it is said he made Man in his own Image and if you had not wilfully shut your Eyes you could not but see that the Scripture speaks of Body Soul and Spirit in Man as the Apostle Paul prays for the Thessalonians 1 Thes 5. 23. that They might be sanctified throughout in Body Soul and Spirit And if there be such a thing as Body Soul and Spirit in Man then here is some faint Resemblance in Man of a Trinity in God I say a faint Resemblance for I am not so void of Reason as to think that a finite weak Man can be a perfect Image of God Yet our Author to shew what a Talent of Wit he hath spends all his 10th page both columes and part of 11th to prove that which no Body denies or that which is forreign to the purpose But in his 11th page his Wit runs over and his Invention will run too fast for his Reason do what he can for he saith That cannot be called Generation or Origination which never began to be generated or originated and if he had stopp'd here he might have danc'd in the Dark and they that have no Eyes could never have seen him But the Gentleman's Invention hangs in the Light of his Reason He tells us the Reason is That which never began to be a doing was never done and therefore ETERNAL GENERATION must be ETERNAL NONSENCE Well argued most Learned Doctor a Man would be ready to think you were a Pensioner to Hobbs to make way for and gain Proselytes to his Leviathan For by this Argument that which never began to be cannot have a Being and then the Fool may ask us Where is your God and the Truth is the Attribute of God's Eternity is as much above and out of your Reason as the Doctrine of the Trinity and if you tell me there is a difference between a Being and an Act. I Answer that an Eternal Act is as much without a Beginning as an Eternal Being and it is equally as great a piece of Nonsence and as derogatory to the Glory of God to say God was before he acted as to say he acted before he was Really Gentlemen but only for the great Names and Titles by which you are pleased to dignifie and distinguish your selves from the common

had contradicted himself and his Argument would have been meer Nonsence and would have run thus a Man humbled himself and took on him the form and fashion of a Man Besides it is a Contradiction in the Nature of the thing it self and is no better Sence than to say a Man made himself a Man It may seem strange that Men should be so blind but how can it be otherwise when they will needs war against him who is the Light and Life of Men. I always thought that my Author was endu'd with a considerable stock of Learning only it look'd like a Jewel set in Lead for want of sound Reason and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ to manage it until I met with his reconciling Faculty in his aforesaid 18th page and that brought to my Mind what the Apostle Peter saith 2 Pet. 3. 15 16. where speaking of some of Paul's Epistles of which this to the Philippians and that to the Hebrews are some He saith There are some things hard to be understood which the unlearned and unstable wrest as they do also other Scriptures to their own Destruction And when I read these things I cannot for my Life forbear thinking on my Nameless Author For besides the flat Contradiction he gives the Holy Ghost it is directly contrary to the Scope of the Apostle which was to move them to Humility and Condescension one to another from Christ's Example But if he were a Man only to say nothing of the Nonsence that there is in saying a Man humbled himself to become a Man the Man Jesus considered as a Man only was highly honoured in his being conceived and brought forth of a Virgin in such a Miracnlous Manner So that consider the Text which way you will either with respect to the Words themselves or with respect to the Context we are bound to believe the Truth as it is revealed that He thought it no Robbery to be equal with God There is nothing more material in my Author which I have not taken Notice of and shewed how unreasonable it is especially where he pretends Scripture for his cunningly devised Fables And the Truth is those Gentlemen would make much surer Work in their Babel Building if they could but race out the Scriptures from among us than ever they will be able to do by wresting them one by one to speak according to their foolish Reason And indeed the Considerator in his Answer to his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury bids fair for it for though he had tryed in vain by false and absurd Glosses to make the first Chapter of John and many other Texts mentioned by his Lordship to speak according to his own and his Master Socinus his foolish Reason or rather corrupt Mind Yet he flies at first to his best shift though for Subtilty sake somewhat indirectly to except against the Gospel of St. John the three Epistles and the Revelations and would impose upon us that they were counterfeited by one Cerinthus in John's Name And therein he hath not only secur'd his own Cause but greatly oblig'd the Papists a piece of Wickedness they never had the Impudence to attempt though they kept them lock'd up in an Unknown Tongue Yes but the Considerator tells us that the Revelations of St. John were denied and writ against by some of the Papists as being no part of Divine Writ Well be it so every Body knows for what Cause we have it recorded in Acts 6. 10. because they were not able to resist the Holy Ghost that speaks therein and at the same time others of them are striving with all the might they have to ward off the Blow that the Spirit gives to that Interest in wresting it to any sence that may secure their Popish and Foppish Cause In like manner doth the Considerator not only with the Revelations but with the Gospel of St. John and his three Epistles and scarce any Text that is urg'd against them but they say either it is not right translated or it is no Scripture or else they manifestly wrest it from the plain Sence and Meaning of the Holy Ghost There in one Instance among many we have in the Gospel of John Chap. 8. v. 58. where our Lord saith Before Abraham was I am Considerator pag. 57. colume 1. that is saith he In the Decree and Counsel of God Why good Mr. Considerator what a great Secret have you found out now are not all God's Works known to him from Eternity were not you and I and all the Men that shall be in the World to the end thereof in the Counsel and Decree of God from Eternity Surely God is not like Man to determine and purpose one thing yesterday and another to day But pray Sir be pleased to take a View of your own Learned Countenance in your 6th page colume 1st and 2d There you give several Arguments to prove a thing cannot be possess'd before it is in being and in particular you instance the Day of Judgment which is not yet come and therefore not possess'd I hope you will not say it is not or that it was not in the Decree of God when and before he made the World Therefore your Saying after Grotius that a Man descending from Abraham could not be any otherwise before Abraham than in Divine Purpose and Decree is very true and turns the Argument against you Besides Abraham was in the Decree of God as soon as any Man Therefore you must own that our Lord did exist before he was born of the Virgin or that he spoke Nonsence for they themselves knew that the Decrees of God were Eternal and our Lord had not given them an Answer to their Question which was whether he had seen Abraham he being not fifty years old Besides our Lord had told a plain direct Lye if he had said he was in the Decree of God before Abraham For Abraham was in God's Decree as soon as Adam and therefore no Man descending from Abraham could be in God's Decree before him But the Considerator goes a little further and saith our Lord did exist in the Promise of God before Abraham which is very true also for he was promised the same day of the Fall but neither will this do the Business nor discharge our Considerator from charging our Lord with Folly or Nonsence or both For it was promised presently after the Flood long before Abraham that God should perswade Japhet to dwell in the Tents of Shem and yet the Gentiles the Seed of Japhet did not receive the Gospel till since our Lord 's coming in the Flesh So likewise was it prophesied of Josiah an hundred years before he was born could he therefore say before I was born I am Nay is not Mr. Considerator himself and the rest of his Learned Brethren prophesied of by Name in 2 Pet. 2. 1. where the Holy Ghost tells us there shall be false Teachers among Christians who privily shall bring in damnable Heresies denying