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	punishment_n	sin_n	6,173	5	5.0820	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60590	Two compendious discourses the one concerning the power of God, the other about the certainty and evidence of a future state : published in opposition to the growing atheism and deism of the age.	Smith, Thomas, 1638-1710.	1699 (1699)	Wing S4254; ESTC R4066	40,478	66

reason ought to be demanded of his divine will and pleasure and of his actions ad extra as the School-phrase is For want of this consideration also others there are and the Platonists especially who under a pretense of advancing the divine goodness do really and in effect destroy it whilst they make the emanations of it physical and necessary which are most arbitrary and free and the pure results of his will The powers of moral Agents are at their own disposal to use when and how they please and by this they are discriminated from natural who act according to their utmost strength and vigour unless their activity be hindred by a miracle and from brutes birds and other animals who are devoy'd of reason and follow their innate instincts motions and appetites Where there is a principle of knowledge and liberty in the mind to guide and direct it as in men who have thereby a power over themselves and their actions it is far otherwise and it is not necessary that they do all which they can do Nor is this power therefore to be accounted idle and to no purpose because they can make use of it whensoever it shall make for their interest and advantage or whensoever their reason or even their phansie shall judge it fit and proper to reduce it into act Much more is this to be allowed to God whose other attributes are as infinite as his power Psalm cxv 3. Our God is in the heavens he hath done whatsoever he pleased Psalm cxxxv 6. Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did he in heaven and in earth in the seas and in all deep places And if his wisdom had thought fit and if he had once willed the same instead of creating one world he might have created a thousand However the object of the divine power in its fullest latitude and comprehension abstractedly considered is whatsoever is absolutely and simply possible By which terms we are to exclude b 1. Whatever is contrary to the nature and essential perfections of the Godhead Thus it is impossible for God to lye 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ebr. vi 18 to which passage as to many others in that Epistle S. Clement alludes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he is a God of infinite veracity God cannot deny himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. ii 13. God cannot but make good his word whether we will believe or no if we are resolved to be Infidels and Scepticks in the midst of so much conviction which Christianity affords concerning the truth of its mysteries and doctrine and the truth of its promises if we throw in our scruples and doubts and distrust his word we shall one day be convinced and ashamed of such irrational infidelity his word shall infallibly be effected veracity being as essential to God as necessary existence and if God cannot but be he cannot be otherwise than just and true If we believe not yet he abideth faithful he cannot deny himself And for the same reason we remove from God whatsoever savours of imperfection as being repugnant to the idea which we have of him who is a being infinitely and absolutely perfect And in strictness of speech if such things could be done he would not be omnipotent because they are arguments and demonstrations of weakness For what is a lye but a plain confession of guilt and of fear that we dare not tell and own the truth when we are demanded it Unfaithfulness is a breach of that moral honesty and integrity which humane nature and the civil laws and rules of government require between man and man God is alsufficient and therefore cannot stand in need of the assistence of his creatures whereas we want because we have not an absolute and full power and command over things and cannot dispose of them as and when we will to supply our selves Our being deceived proceeds from our ignorance but God cannot be deceived because he is omniscient and knows the secret thoughts and intentions of the heart and all things are naked and open before him there being an utter impossibility of error in the divine understanding Our sickness flows from ilness of temper natural decays of animal and vital spirits and tainted and vitiated bloud and other humors and death is the punishment of sin and the effect and consequence of a frail and brittle constitution the curious machine of the body being quite worn out by age at last falling into pieces tho' otherwise never so carefully preserved from the disorders of intemperance or the mischiefs of chance or the assaults of violence All which imperfections the very notion of a God does wholly exclude and remove 2. By this we are to exclude whatever implies a contradiction or a repugnancy in its nature as that the same thing should be and not be at the same time and in the same manner and respect and that things which have been should now be made not to have been Things might not have been before they were but when once they have been they cannot but be which onely is a necessity by way of supposition Whatever then is repugnant to the nature and essence of a thing is therefore impossible because otherwise the thing would be the same and not the same the essence would remain entire and yet be destroyed at the same time which is a clear and manifest contradiction Power therefore in the essential notion of it is no way extensible either to the doing or reconciling real and perfect contradictions because the opposite terms destroy each other and consequently there is an utter impossibility of their subsisting together and if we examine the contradiction thoroughly we shall find that there is always in one of the terms a plain and manifest denial of being Thus to imagine that the humane nature of our B. Saviour by reason of its union with the word should become in a manner immense and fill all places because the Godhead does what is it but to confound essential properties of things which are altogether irreconcileable or to assert that a body continuing one and the same should yet be multiplied into several entire wholes that the entire body of Christ should be in the least crum of a wafer and the several parts of it be distinct and retain the same figure and order and be extended at their full length as they lye unconfused as it were in an indivisible point be in heaven and upon earth at the same time be upon a thousand altars together in the most distant parts of the world without any discontinuity and be brought thither by the pronunciation of five words not to urge the ugly and horrid consequences which flow from the admittance of such a grosly absurd opinion what is it but to impose under the pretense of an infallible authority upon the faith understanding and reason of all mankind and peremptorily lay down contradictory and self-destroying notions as necessary terms and conditions of Catholick