Selected quad for the lemma: fire_n
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A47186
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The true Christ owned as he is, true God and perfect man containing an answer to a late pamphlet having this title The Quakers creed concerning the man Christ Jesus &c. writ by a nameless author : which pamphlet containeth many gross lies and wilful perversions beside some other great mistakes occasioned by the author his ignorance and blindness / by George Keith.
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Keith, George, 1639?-1716.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing K219; ESTC R27494
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49,735
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113
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God and so nothing of the Holy Spirit which is one Essence with him and the end of this is plain down-right Atheisme for if God himself be not present in men nor the Holy Ghost which is one Essence with him nor Christ how can any thing that is truly Good be in us who can work it or being wrought who can preserve it if God and Christ be absent Surely nothing appeareth unto me more rampant Blasphemy nor more gross Atheism than to deny that God is really present in all Men and in all Things For how is God omni-present if he be not really present in and with all his Creatures And if God be present in all his Creatures then Christ is also present because the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in Christ. But seeing thou wilt not allow Christ to have any further reach or extent than the humane soul and body of any ordinary Man and that the Fulness of the Godhead is contained within that bounds of the ordinary stature of a mans body and that essentially is not this to limit the infinite God into a narrower place or room than the Souls of many brute beasts which have larger bodies manifold times than the greatest body of any earthly man and to confine him within the humane figure and shape of a man yea nothing is more plain which is gross Anthropomorphitisme and the blasphemous Doctrine of Lodowick Muggleton But further I enquire seeing thou affirmest That the Essence of God is only in Christ and that whole Christ is contained within the ordinary dimensions of mans Body and that Christ had neither Soul nor Body before Mary Where was the Essence of God from the beginning of the World until that time For either it was somewhere or no where to say it was no where no not in the Highest Heavens is absurd seeing God is said to dwell in the Heavens and they are called Gods Throne and Christ Taught his Disciples to Pray Our Father which art in Heaven c. But again on the other hand if thou shalt grant That the Essence of God was in Heaven then that Heaven is as personally united unto God by thy Doctrine as ever Christ Jesus and may as truly and in the same sense be called God the Son of God God-man the Creator of the World and is the Object of Divine Worship This I say is the necessary and infallible consequence of thy Doctrine because thou sayest expresly who ever hath the Essence of God in him is as personally united unto God as Jesus Christ and may as truly and in the same sense be called God c. Pamphlet Animad 18. Yet observe the Author will not have the center of the Heavenly Man hood of Christ dwell in us but allows here the Essence of the Deity to dwell in us Is not this a preferring the Manhood above the Deity Ans. By no means but it is an infallible indication That the Deity is infinitely a more excellent being than the Man-hood of Christ simply considered for it is a greater perfection to be all center and that the center be every where then only in some place As for Example if the Light of the outward Sun were all center and that the center of the Suns Light were every where in the whole Firmament that Light should be a much greater and a more glorious and excellent Light than the Light of the Sun as it is now at present is And although I say that the center of the Soul and Spirit of Christ as Man is not in us yet the true Essence of the Soul and Spirit of Christ in measure is in us for that emanation or flowing forth and ray of his Life and Light is truly efsential unto him and is not any meer quality or accident or operation as some have supposed Pamphlet Animad 19. They believe that there is a Nephesh and a Nishamah in this Heavenly Soul of the man-hood of Christ one more gross the other more refined Answ. This is a gross abuse and perversion for although I speak of a Nephesh and Nishamah in the Soul of Christ yet I did not call the one more gross the other more refined although the one doth excel the other yet none of them are either to be called or understood to be gross as having any mixture of refuse or superfluity as the word gross doth import Pamphlet But there is a secret not yet to be revealed by this Rabbi whether these two be one Soul or two Souls of different kinds or whither two faculties or parts of one and the same Soul Answ. This is another abuse for I do not state the question so as whether one Soul or two Souls but thus whither two principles really distinct or two faculties or powers of one only principle which I found no necessity to determine as neither I yet do whatever be my Judgment and Perswasion in the case Now admitting or giving that they were two principles yea although three or four or more Principles were acknowledged to be in the Soul of man as constituent thereof it is still but one Soul in the compleat and intire notion of the Soul as the Body of man is still but one body although consisting not only of many Members but also of many Principles as namely the Elements of Water Earth Air Fire and certainly he that understands the nature of any ordinary man and what man is inwardly and outwardly in Soul and Body must needs acknowledge that every ' man hath many principles in him yea the principles of the whole Creation reduced by a wonderful order into a certain Epitome or Compend and for this cause not only these called Philosophers of old but also these called the Fathers have called Man the Microcosme or little World as having all the principles of it in him namely the principles of the outward and visible World in his body and outward man and the principles of the inward and invisible Worlds in his inward man and these words Isaiah 43. 7. Every one that is called in my name and unto my Glory I have Created him I have Formed him I have Made him The learned among the Hebrews understand them in respect of the three Worlds aforesaid so that out of each of these three Worlds Man is Made or Created and yet he still but one man his Soul one Soul and his Body one Body although consisting of many principles Even as a speech or discourse is but one speech or discourse although that speech consist of many sentences and every sentence of many words every word commonly of divers syllables and every syllable of divers letters and the letters which are the first principles of speech of divers kinds and natures and for this cause and with a respect unto this some have called man Logos i. e. a Speech as being the Similitude of that more excellent and principal Logos which is Christ the essential speech or Word of God But because every
Natural body c. Answ. This is another manifest perversion for it is plain by J. C. his words here cited by thee that J. C. doth not speak of the body of Christ but of the body of an ordinary man which goeth to dust and corruption whereas the body of Christ did not corrupt for it being conceived by the Holy Ghost and having a Heavenly Original it was more excellent then the body of any other man and therefore seeing it did not corrupt it was raised again according to the words of Christ concerning it Destroy this Temple and after three days I will raise it up and the same after fourty days Ascended into Heaven Pamphlet Animad 15. Yet according unto Keith the Philosopher though it be the same in substance it is no more a body of Flesh and Blood Answ. How or in what respect he calleth me the Philosopher as whether by way of Derision or not I am not careful to determine or inquisitive to understand for I affect no such Title unlesse it be understood according to the Etimology of the word to signifie a lover of Wisdome namely the true Wisdome and not that falsely so called and in this sense every true Christian is a Philosopher which is to say a lover of Wisdome but that Philosophy and vain deceit which the Apostle bids the Colossians beware of that is after the Tradition of men after the rudiments of this world and not after Christ wherein I have been formerly educated and exercised before I knew the truth as it is in Jesus I have renounced and do here openly declare my Renounciation thereof and count it all but loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus in whom are hid all the Treasures of Wisdome and Knowledge and what I have declared or given forth in any publick Testimony concerning the truth I have not received from the Worlds Philosophy or Wisdom but from the openings of the spirit of truth as they livingly fprung up in my heart and inward parts and unto the same and to nothing else I can and do recommend my Testimony to be judged in all who have the same living spring of truth as it is in the life and light of Jesus opened in them and unto the greater measure of the spirit of truth in any others I freely can and do submit any publick Testimony which I have given forth for the spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets what the spirit of truth opens in one can never be condemned by the same spirit in another Pamphlet Animad 15. The first Heavenly body of the man-hood of Christ which Keith saith he had from the beginning he allows to have Flesh and Blood and calls it so and it hath so now in Heaven surely according unto him yet the body born of the Virgin is changed so Etheriall that you must call it no more Flesh and Blood Answ. I have said nothing concerning the Flesh and Blood of Christ either before or after his outward coming in the Flesh but according unto plain Scripture nor have I medled to give any other names unto the body of Christ but what the Scripture giveth for Christ said the bread from heaven is his Flesh and of this Bread or Flesh all true believers did feed and thereby had life in them even from the beginning of the world and seeing Christ himself gave these names of Flesh and Blood to that inward Heavenly Spiritual and invisible substance which refreshes the soul and inward man of every one that believeth Who dare call these names into question or find fault with them although I do freely acknowledge they are Metaphorical and figurative as when Christ called himself the vine and those that believed in him the branches and I ask was not Christ the vine even from the beginning into which all true believers were grafted and did they not eat the Grapes of this Heavenly Vine-Tree and drink the Liquor or Juice or Wine thereof and what was that but his Flesh Blood even as the Grapes of the Vine may be called it's Flesh and its Wine or Liquor its Blood and as it is so called in Scripture the Blood of the Grape But when I say the body of Christ which was born of the Virgin and was crucified and rose and ascended did not remain a body of Flesh and Blood I am warranted by the Apostle who said Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God and the body at the last resurrection is raised spiritual conform unto the glorious body of Christ and therefore it is not Flesh and Blood in the Vulgar or common sense but if any call it so Metaphorically and spiritually I shall not contend Pamphlet Animad 15. If the body of Christ be turned into air and yet remain the same in substance we ask what it is that identifies and makes it the same in substance that it was when Flesh and Blood Ans. Here is another gross abuse and perversion of my words that he affirmeth I say the body of Christ is turned into Air. This is a gross lye and perversion I call it not Air but a body Etherial and Heavenly and it is a more excellent body than the purest Air beyond all comparison and as to his question what is that which Identifies and makes it the same in substance this is very easily answered the substance of the body it self remaining the same under these different modes or manners of being as when the Soul of a man is the same for substance when converted from Earthly Carnal and Natural to Heavenly and Spiritual Pamphlet Animad 16. As to the comparison that the Author uses as nothing of the Body of the Sun is here on Earth but in Heaven only its light and heat which are qualities in the Air So now that light within that these Quakers have made so much stirr about is nothing else but an accident and quality from the man-hood of Christ in Heaven adhering in our Souls as light and heat adheres in the Air. Ans. Here he passeth by the other examples given by me here and elsewhere and only noticeth that of the Light which having its center in the Sun emanates in most abundant Streams into all the World which emanating light that flows from the body of the Sun he denieth to be any part of the Suns body affirming it onely to be an accident or quality But what reason or prooff giveth he for his assertion Surely none at all But if he thinketh to defend himself by the authority of some called Philosophers who say the same with him I can tell him of other Philosophers so called more famous who speak indeed more according to the truth that deny it and affirm that the Light of the Sun that emanates unto us is a real substance and hath of the real body of the Sun in it which is the real Substance of Fire as it can be proved by the said