Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	body_n	faith_n	life_n	4,599	5	4.3959	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57064	The lightless-starre, or, Mr. John Goodwin discovered a Pelagio-Socinian and this by the examination of his preface to his book entituled Redemption redeemed : together with an answer to his letter entituled Confidence dismounted / by Richard Resbury ... ; hereunto is annexed a thesis of that reverend, pious and judicious divine, Doctor Preston ... concerning the irresistibility of converting grace.	Resbury, Richard, 1607-1674.; Preston, John, 1587-1628. De gratia convertentis irresistibilitate.	1652 (1652)	Wing R1134; ESTC R18442	131,505	254

may it come into the minde of any man right in his wits that yet notwithstanding it is true and may be proved by the Word of God Now adde Mr. Goodwins doctrine and see if it speak not the same language I verily beleeve by the Secinian not Apostolicall faith that in case any such assurance of the unchangeablenes of Gods love was to be found in or could regularly be deduced from the Scriptures it was a just ground to any intelligent and considering man to question their authority and whether they were from God or no These doctrines plainly allow not the Scripture in the Grammar and Logique of it the rule and light to guide and conclude mans reason but exalt the reason of man as judge above it whence whatsoever Article of faith they dispute about nothing is more usuall with them then this objection this or that is false because contrary to reason We have now seen their doctrines let us see their deductions which likewise must be yours your doctrine being the same Hence they proceed to deny many Articles of the faith because contrary to reason at least in their apprehensions The Racovian Catechisme the body of their Theology or Heresie rather rejects the doctrine of the three persons in one essence p. 49. the two natures in the one person of Christ pag. 55. Danies that Christ by his death satisfied for us and merited eternall life for us pag. 261. And all because these are contrary say they to right reason Smalcius against Franzius opposeth Originall sinne because if he say true it is utterly contrary to reason that an innocent person by once sinning should infect all his posterity These for a touch of your Doctrine and whither it leads CHAP. III. Goodwin COncerning the Word of God it is to be acknowledged that this is to be in speciall manner interessed in all our dijudications between Doctrine and Doctrine Opinion and Opinion in matter of Religion Resbury Why doe you not acknowledge it the perfect rule Goodwin And that this is the fire which must try every mans worke of what sort it is and must separate the vil● from the precious Resbury Doe not you sit then as a Refiner by fire of this fire it selfe by your reason so as to reject any thing that may be found in the Scripture or regularly deduced there-from Goodwin But as the Plummet and Rule doe not measure the worke of the Architect or discover whether it be true and square or otherwise of and by themselves but as they are regularly applyed hereunto either by the Workman himselfe or some other capable of making such an application however true it may be that a sufficient test or proofe of the worke cannot be made without the use of the Plummet and Rule about it In like manner though the Word of God be of soveraigne use and necessity for the measuring of Opinions and Doctrines and for the discovery of what is straight and what crooked in them yet he that desires to reap the Spirituall benefit and advantage of the usefulnesse of it in this kind must first understand the minde and sence of God in it aright and secondly Be dextrous and expert in making a due application of it being rightly understood to the Doctrines or Opinions the soundnesse or unsoundnesse whereof he desires to understand by it Resbury To what end are these waste words 1. The Scripture is the rule and reason is the eye but as the Scripture is the rule so is it the light too by which this eye must be enlightened otherwise it is too darke to apply this rule It is by the Scriptures that a right understanding is had of them and a dextrous faculty for applying them they being the meanes by the Holy Ghost appointed and sanctified for enlightening and sanctifying the reason of man The Scripture is not only a rule for tryall a● is that of the Architect but for instructing too it is such a rule as gives rules for instructing and directing in all matters of Religion and even for the use of it selfe as a rule and indeed that you may the lesse wonder hereat all Arts are such rules as give rules for understanding themselves Suppose this Geometricall question was to be debated ' whither in a right angled Triangle the square of the Hypolemise be equall to the square of the sides I thinke you will grant that we must fetch the demonstration from Geometry it selfe and the demonstration must conclude us we must not say though this proposition be demonstratively concluded in Geometry yet we will question it only indeed here is the difference A Geometricall demonstration renders the conclusion not only agreeable to Principles and former propositions in Geometry by which it is demonstrated but withall cleare to reason but the conclusion of a Divine truth by Scripture is many times obscure to reason though clearly agreeable to Principles and other Doctrines in Scripture because even those Principles and Doctrines proving it are to mans reason not for want of light in them but through the blindnesse of it obscure Yet shall reason see the legitimacy of the proofe from Principles and Doctrines in Scripture laid downe when it hath very obscure apprehensions both of the thing contained in the conclusion and the things contained in the Principles and Doctrines proving it these things faith beleeving upon the authority of the word affirming 2. You deale with the Scriptures as he that because the rule and plummet doth not verifie the judgement which he made by his eye at a guesse he will therefore by his eye question the rule and plummet themselves whilst you take liberty to question the authority of the Scriptures and whether they be from God or not upon supposall of something found in them or regularly deduced from them which relisheth not with your reason Goodwin For first it is not the letter or forme of words as separated or considered apart from the spirit notion or sence of them that is the touch-stone or rule of triall for Doctrines yea the letter and words are only servants to the sence and notion which they containe and exhibit and were principally if not only delivered by the Holy Ghost unto men for this end that by them the sence minde and Counsell of God in all the particulari●ies of them which are held forth in the Scriptures might be communicated and conveyed to the reasons and understandings of men so that in case a man had the sence and minde of God upon the same termes of certainty of knowledge without the letter on which he hath it or may have it by meanes of the letter he should be as richly as compleatly qualified hereby to discerne between Doctrines as he now can be by the opportunity and advantage of the letter Resbury Words to no purpose still 1. If the Letter and words of the Scripture be servants to the Sence and Notion and so forth as you declare then is not that sence which

out on high as one of the Fathers speakes the Divinity of Christ insert the relation of a thing that had nothing strange nothing more then of ordinary and common observation in it or is any thing more then ordinary or what is most obvious that men doe not fly in the Aire like Birds or that Fishes doe not speake on the earth like men Or is it a thing of any whit the more savoury consideration then these that men voyd of all capacity and destitute of all power to comprehend the light should n●t comprehend it but that there should be a Generation of men whom it so infinitely concerned to comprehend the light to acknowledge and owne their Messiah being now come unto them and who withall had a rich sufficiency of meanes to have done the one and the other should notwithstanding be so stupid and unlike men as not to comprehend this light nor to acknowledge or owne this their M●ssiah is a matter of high admiration and astonishment and the mention of it very commodious and proper for the subject of the discourse which the Holy G●●st had now in hand as might be shewed more at large but I feare the Reader hath more then his burthen of an Epistle Resbury 1 Here you answer certaine Objections against your new Doctrine and in the first place if I mistake not you contradict your selfe by the genius of your discourse granting that in the Call of the Ephesians there was a supernaturall worke for as much as you affirme that their state which was of darknesse was not such as naturall to fallen man whom you will have it seemes meerly in his Naturall state a Childe of Light rather then of Darknesse as Prosper upbraides the Collator so that howsoever nothing supernaturall be required for bringing men to faith and repentance generally yet here it must be admitted if so then is the word supernaturall vertually found in the Scriptures 2 Your supposall of their unregenerate state so dangerously encumbred above the unregenerate state of the generality of men that thence this difference should arise That though they were darknesse yet these are not is false and frivolous for 1 These very sins and trespasses whence you argue the speciall aggravation of their condition were the very same wherein the whole world walked according to the course of the world and in the same subjection to the Devill was the world according to the Prince of the power of the Aire the Spirit that wrought in the children of disobedience Such were all unregenerate needs must the course of the world be according to that Prince who is the Prince of the world the god of the world Nay the Apostles and first converted Iewes borne and bred in the visible Church before conversion had their conversation among them and were children of wrath together with them here was then nothing peculiar to them in their unregeneracy of force to quit the Naturall man of this charge of darknesse 2 These sins and trespasses wherein they walked were the fruits of Naturall corruption whereby all men are dead in sinne they here though dead in actuall sins yet dead by originall sinne Thus the Apostle describes this sinfull conversation to be in the lusts of the flesh and a fulfilling the wills of the flesh and of the minde all these sins of theirs were the workes of the flesh and what is the flesh but corrupt Nature found in all men to them derived from the first man Ioh. 3. 6. That which is borne of the flesh is flesh diametrically opposed to the Spirit which is the fountaine of Spirituall light and life and that which is borne of the Spirit is spirit without which Spirituall birth Nicodemus his grosse apprehensions there shew the darknesse of the Naturall man this flesh or corruption of Nature called likewise the Old man made up of many deceitfull Lusts the fountaine of this evill conversation Ephes. 4. 22. called by the same Apostle The Law of the Members contrary to the Law of the minde but of the minde renewed for otherwise walking in those abominable wayes whilst unregenerate they fulfilled the desires or will● of the minde in fulfilling the will of the flesh called The Body of death Likewise Rom. 7. through which the Naturall man is dead nay so much as remaines of it in the Spirituall man so much death there is still as the Apostles complaint testifies this the fountaine of whatsoever sins the Apostle now regenerate was pester'd with the fountaine then of all sins and only of sinne in unregeneracy The deadly strength of this corruption we see further by singular instance in David a Person so holy yet how upon advantage and surprisall did it prevaile against him to put forth those deadly fruites of Adultery and Murther which sins he derives from Naturall corruption that had seized him in the wombe Psal. 51. Further the Apostle charging corruption of Nature upon all Mankinde Iewes and Gentiles not one excepted Rom. 3. he makes up his charge of most hideous sins Their throat an open Sepulchre the poyson of Aspes under their lips their mouth full of cursing and bitternesse their feet swift to shed bloud c. because of those strong inclinations which are in all men through Originall sinne to these great transgressions and where ever sins of this or any other kind are actually committed they are the fruits of this corruption where they are not committed it is from the restraining hand of God at least upon men It was then by the corruption of Nature common to all that these Ephesians were dead in trespasses and sinnes covered over there-with as with the deadly streames of that spring of death running over them but the state of death is a state of darknesse to the utmost Adde that all unregenerate men in the state of death and darknesse through corruption are likewise in the possession and under the dominion of the Prince and of the power of darknesse by whom the remainders of Naturall light which is farre from Spirituall holy saving light are more and more darkned and the capacity of Historicall light more weakned the Doctrine then of the Naturall mans darknesse even in a state of death maintained as we saw before by the Fathers against the Pelagian● stands firme upon Scripture-foundations against which your attempts are as vaine asimpious so much for your first instance Now for the second Instance of the Iewes you say 1 Ioh. 5. it is manifest that darknesse is there charged upon all men made by him ver 3 4 5. and is not the like charge of darknesse upon all otherwhere 1 Cor. 2. 12. 14. and Iob 11. 12. vaine man would faine be wise though he be borne he is so by nature then like a wilde Asses colt The men of your Doctrine are deep in this condemnation of vaine men to no purpose then is your Discourse applying this darknesse to the Iewes only telling us of these and these things more then