Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	father_n	heaven_n	maker_n	3,071	5	10.1314	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45419	Of fundamentals in a notion referring to practise by H. Hammond.	Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660.	1654 (1654)	Wing H554; ESTC R18462	96,424	252

nobler coin and to continue to be enjoy'd to all eternity when beside the liberal harvest of satisfactions for any the most trivial losse or suffering submitted to upon Christ's command or advise the hundred fold more in this life we are secured to reap in another world everlasting unperishable felicities and when to the empty nauseous afflicting pleasures of sin for some one shortest moment attended immediately with a farre more durable shame and then followed with an immortal endlesse gnawing death that is all jawes but no stomach shall remain by way of arrear a sharp yet sullen payment to all eternity when every play or jest of sin shall engage us in that perpetual earnest and after the transitory joy is forgotten or loathed the irreversible sentence of endlesse woe is expected instantly and infallibly to come out and with it an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the store-houses of ease or mercy sealed up all drops to cool or oceans to quench our misery Then certainly upon this perswasion duly rooted not in the brain but heart an ordinary orator may suffice to superstruct an admission of the precepts of Christ and induce in a rational creature a willingnesse to be happy here by a patient bearing of a gentle desireable yoke that so he may be blessed eternally § 29. And so we have taken a cursorie view of the several Articles of the most antient and shortest Creed and therein exemplified the propriety of our definition of Fundamentals and having the Apostles judgment in their preachings to confirm us in the truth that the laying of so large a foundation was deemed necessary to their designe of planting the same fruits in all soils piety probity and purity in a nation of hypocritical Jewes and a world of Idolatrous polluted Gentiles we have already shewed how unnecessary it is to enquire whether any single sinner of either of those provinces might not possibly be reduced to Christian life without some one of these explicitely and actually considered and so have no temptation to inlarge this Chapter by any such consideration CHAP. IX Of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds together and severally of the Nicene § 1. HAving view'd the Apostles Creed and of it premised this one thing that it was a complete Catalogue of all that they being directed by the holy Ghost in their ministerie thought fit to lay the foundation of Christian obedience in every Church and consequently that there was no more in their opinion necessary in order to this end of working reformation in the world It will from this datum demonstratively follow either that there is in the two other Creeds the Nicene and Athanasian nothing materially different from that which the Apostles Creed had contained nothing really superadded to it or else that that superaddition was not in the Apostles estimation necessary to this end and consequently that if at the forming of them it were by the following Church thought necessary to be thus made or still continues to be so this must arise from some fresh emergent one or more which had been observable in the Church after the Apostles time § 2. And which of these two is the truth it will not be uneasie to define For though the omission of some words which had been retained in the Apostles Creed doe not signifie much for it is certain that they were while retained in that and are still now they are left out in following Creeds eternally and unquestionably true in the sense wherein the Apostles and their successors understood them nor indeed any more then that they were virtually contained in other words still continued as the descent to hades under that of his suffering and burial and not rising till the third day and the Communication of Saints under the Catholick Church with the Epithet of Apostolick added to it or else that they were not necessary to be repeated because already familiarly known and confessed and not question'd by those hereticks against whom the variations were designed as in the Athanasian Creed the Articles of the holy Ghost so largely set down in four branches in the Nicene Creed and the three Articles attending that of the holy Ghost in the Apostles Creed are all omitted yet those words which in the later Creeds were superadded to the former were apparently designed by the Compilers for some special use either by way of addition or interpretation to fense the Catholick orthodox Faith from the corruptions and depravations or else from the doubtings and contradictions of hereticks § 3. Thus in the Nicene Creed the two additions in the first Article the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one prefixed to God and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of all things visible and invisible were upon prudent deliberation and considering interposed the first of them on occasion of the Arians in one respect and both of them in another respect by reason of the Gnostick and Valentinian and such like following hereticks whose heathen and Poetical Theologie taken from Hesiod and Orpheus and Philistion had rendred them necessary For that those hereticks beginning with their Simon and Helena had introduced a plurality of Gods and so made the Profession of the Vnitie part of the symbolum that should discriminate the Orthodox from them and affirmed that their Aeones or Angels were begotten by Helena Simon 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first cogitation and that the world was created by them and that the God of the Jewes was but one of those Angels and a great deal of the like appears by Irenaeus l. 1. c. 22. And these two intersertions were clear explications of the Apostles old form God the Father Ruler of all Maker of heaven and earth which sufficiently contained an acknowledgment of the Vnitie for how else could he be monarch or Ruler of all and also asserted him the Creator of all the Angels who were certainly comprehended under the heaven and earth the phrase of Scripture to denote the world but yet was capable of more light by these more explicite words visible and invisible to exclude the contradictions of hereticks § 4. And though the Creed in the ancient Apostolick form were sufficient for any man to believe professe yet when the Church hath thought meet to erect that additional bulwark against hereticks the rejecting or denying the truth of those their additions may justly be deemed an interpretative siding with those antient or a desire to introduce some new heresies And though good life might have been founded without those additions if on such occasions they had never been made yet the pride or singularity or heretical designe of opposing or questioning them now they are framed being themselves unreconcileable with Christian charity and humility are destructive of the fabrick directly and interpretatively of the very foundation and is therefore justly deemed criminous and lyable to Censures in the Church of God § 5. So likewise the Oneness of our Lord Jesus Christ as before

him that hath that guilt upon him to reform the sins that contract that guilt he which is supposed not guilty cannot be so obliged and 't is hard to imagine what possible consideration what messenger from the dead should be able to perswade him to repent till he hath deposited that premature perswasion of his being in Christ § 9. One special ground of the Fiduciaries mis-perswasion is the Doctrine of God's giving Christ for all the Elect and for none but them all others being supposed to be left by God in a state of absolute destitution and dereliction upon no other foreseen demerit but only the guilt of Adam's sin imputed to them and not removed by Christ § 10. And upon that Doctrine imbibed 1. it is not unreasonable or difficult for him that is thus perswaded that supposes his danger to flow from no real sin or guilt of his own but only that which being committed by another is imputed to him to believe that there is nothing required of him neither repentance nor good works but only a full assurance of his own being elected and rescued in Christ i. e. a believing his own wishes an aerial magical faith to work his deliverance for him § 11. 2dly What should make it necessary for him to repent and amend who either without respect to any degree of amendment is supposed to be elected to eternal blisse or without respect to sin to be irreversibly reprobated i. e. to any person thus considered either as elect or left reprobate and non-elect in the whole masse of lapst mankinde § 12. Nay I might adde what obligation can lie on any man so much as to believe whatsoever the notion of faith be even to believe he shall be saved when 't is supposed by him to be certainly decreed that he shall be saved without foresight of or respect unto this Faith of his § 13. Upon these premises it cannot be unreasonable to conclude and useful farther to take notice in the next place that these two doctrines 1. of Christ's dying for none but the Elect 2. of God's absolute irrespective decrees of Election and Reprobation are inconvenient interpositions which are most apt to obstruct and hinder the building of good life even where the Foundation thereof is received intirely and not questioned in any part thereof Of which I shall therefore farther treat in the two next Chapters § 14. Mean while as an appendix to this Chapter it will be just to take notice that some men have thought it necessary in the definition of Faith to change the Full Assurance into a milder style of Relyance which if it be not joyned with other changes in that doctrine as in that particular of the Priority of Faith before Repentance 't is certainly 1. as erroneous 2. as liable to the charge of obstructing good life as that other doctrine of Assurance hath appeared to be § 15. For the first where there is no divine Promise on which to relie as to the unreformed sinner remaining such the whole Bible affordeth none there what is reliance but presumption reliance on a broken reed a building without a foundation Whereas on the other side if any promise were producible whereon it were safe to relie what scruple could the Christian there make against entertaining the fullest assurance for that without question will be supported abundantly by such a promise § 16. For the second 't is visible He that continues unreformed and impenitent in his course of sin and is by the preacher induced to Relie on Christ for his salvation and is farther taught that this Reliance is that Faith by which he is justified and the one thing that is required of him to his salvation what necessity can be imagined to lie on that man to reform or amend any vice or to doe any thing but relie on Christ for the pardon of it for justification and salvation 'T is superfluous to pursue this any farther which so discernibly falls under the inconveniences that have been shewed to belong to Assurance and are mention'd in the former part of this Chapter too largely to be here repeated CHAP. XIV Of Christ's dying for none but the Elect. § 1. NOW for that doctrine of Christ's dying for none but the Elect i. e. according to the opinion of those which thus teach for a small remnant of the world As it is asserted without any pretense or colour of scripture-proof nay in opposition to as plain distinct affirmations as can be produced for any Article in the Creed so is it of very ill consequence to the superstructing of good life § 2. That Christ's dying for all is the expresse doctrine of the scripture is elsewhere manifested by the phrases of the greatest latitude used in this matter 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the world which is a word of the widest extent and although it be sometimes used more restrainedly yet never doth nor can in any reason be interpreted to signifie a farre smaller disproportionable part of the world Secondly All which word though it be sometimes restrained by the matter and doth not alwaies signifie every person or thing yet generally it must be extended as farre as the matter is capable of and must not be restrained without some considerable reason for doing so Thirdly Every man a form of speaking which excludes all exceptions of which some general phrases are oft capable Fourthly those that perish those that are damned those that deny Christ and purchase to themselves swift damnation which being added to the number of those which are saved by his death and acknowledged by all opposers to be so make up the whole unlimited number of all mankinde Fiftly as many as are fallen in Adam and dead through him which phrase is by all but Pelagius and his followers supposed to comprehend every son of Adam every branch of his progenie § 3. And accordingly though the Apostles Creed make no other mention of this then is contained in styling Jesus Christ our Lord i. e. the Lord by title of Redemption of us all indefinitely and particularly of every person who is appointed to make that confession of his faith i. e. every one that is admitted to baptisme yet the Nicene Creed hath inserted some words for the farther explication of that Article Who for us men and for our salvation came down which signifie all mankinde to have their interest in it § 4. Nay if it be observed in the Apostles Creed that the two first articles are corresponding and proportionable one to the other to God in the first Article Jesus Christ in the second to Father almighty in the first his only son in the second to maker of heaven and earth in the first our Lord in the second we shall have reason to inferre that as heaven and earth in the first Article signifie in the greatest latitude all and every creature in the world to have been created by that