Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	natural_a	nature_n	supernatural_a	1,381	5	10.6365	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63006	Of the sacrament of baptism, in pursuance of an explication of the catechism of the Church of England. By Gabriel Towerson, D.D. and rector of Welwynne in Hartfordshire	Towerson, Gabriel, 1635?-1697.	1687 (1687)	Wing T1971A; ESTC R220158	148,921	408

which it is affirm'd to be a Corruption So I shall therefore enquire again what that Estate was and then what relation this Corruption beareth to it As touching that estate wherein God did at first create our Nature most certain it is first for so Solomon (f) Eccl. 7.29 affirms it to be that it was an estate of uprightness that is to say such an estate as fitted Man for the obedience of all those Laws which God had obliged him to perform That as it is the most usual signification of the word we render upright and accordingly rendred by the Chaldee Paraphrast right and innocent before God so best answering the account before given concerning the depravation of humane Nature and particularly in those of the Female Sex. For Solomon speaking in the 26th verse of the deceitfulness of that Sex and of the influence that deceitfulness of theirs would have upon sinful Men Affirming afterwards because representing the event of his search as contrary to the desires of his Soul that though he could find one Man among a thousand of a better temper yet he could not find One such Woman among them all He must consequently when he comes to say that he found only that God made Man upright be thought to mean such an uprightness as was opposite to that general depravation whereof he before complain'd There being therefore no doubt to be made that God created our Nature in a state of uprightness even in such a one as fitted Man for the obedience of all those Laws which he was obliged to comply with Enquire we in the second place wherein that state of uprightness consisted but which we shall not find to be of so easie a resolution as the former Because there is some presumption of its consisting in a right disposition of our natural faculties And there is some presumption of its consisting in a supernatural Grace over-ruling and directing those natural faculties to those pious purposes for which they were chiefly design'd We have to perfuade the former of these the natural ability of the understanding to discern the invisible things of God by the things which he hath made and the natural propension of the Will to embrace that which is good and therefore also the chiefest good where that is clearly apprehended and where there is no depravation in the Will as to be fure there was not at first to draw it to lesser ones In fine we have to perswade it the power the superiour faculties of the Soul have even now over the Inferiour ones and which we may well believe in that state of Innocency to have been of sufficient force to keep them within those bounds which God and Nature had set them This I say we have to perswade that uprightness wherein our first Parents were Created to have consisted in a right disposition of their natural faculties And we are not without reason on the other hand to perswade the same uprightness of Nature to have consisted in its being over-ruled and directed by a supernatural Grace Because without such a supernatural Grace our first Parents could not have come to the knowledge of God but by the knowledge of Created Beings and the excellencies thereof and what that knowledge would have produc'd a love and affection for them Which would not only have made God to be lov'd after his Creatures who as being the first and chiefest good ought to have the precedency thereof but endangered also the diminution of our affections to him by the prepossession of them by the other To which of these two reasonings to give the preeminency is hard to say and I will not therefore be over positive in determining concerning the force of them nor therefore whether Original Righteousness were a right disposition of our natural faculties or a supernatural Grace over-ruling and directing them But as how equal soever those reasonings may be in themselves yet nothing will hinder our inclining rather to the one than the other if the Scripture which is the best judge of things of that nature seem to favour such an inclination So I must needs say that the Scripture (g) Gen. 1.28 c. 2.15 c. seems to favour those reasonings which makes Original Righteousness to be a Supernatural Grace Because not only representing Adam as imbued from the very first with the knowledge of God which yet he could not be without a revelation from him but as moreover freely conversing with God and receiving both Laws and priviledges from him For as it appears from thence that God did immediately shine upon his mind and so far forth therefore influenced him by a supernatural Grace so it is not unlikely that he who so shone upon his mind did as immediately influence his will and affections and so dispose him to a compliance with those Laws he impos'd upon him That as it was but agreeable to the immediate illumination of his underanding so becoming yet more necessary by the different inclinations of his Flesh and Spirit and which the presence of a Supernatural Grace may seem but requisite to bring to a due compliance with each other and with those Laws which God had impos'd upon them both And I shall only add that if that uprightness wherein our Nature was at first Created were no other than a Supernatural Grace as is at least highly probable from the former reasonings and the declarations of the Scripture We shall need to assign no other relation of that Corruption of Nature whereof we speak than that of a simple privation of the other For if the desires of the Flesh could so far prevail even under a supernatural Grace as to carry our first Parents to the eating of that fruit which God had so severely forbidden them The simple privation of that supernatural Grace may well suffice to give birth to all our evil inclinations and consequently pass for a sufficient account of that Corruption of our Nature whereby as I said before we become inclinable to Evil as well as averse from Good and which what evidence we have of the being of is in the next place to be enquir'd II. Now as we cannot certainly better inform our selves concerning the present state of our Nature than from him who as he was the Author of it so is intimately present to it So I will therefore begin with that account which he hath given us of it and which we shall find to bear an ample Testimony to that Corruption whereof we speak For the evidencing whereof I will shew First that it affirmeth all Men whatsoever to be under sin yea under a perpetual course of it Secondly that it affirmeth them to be so from the time they begin to be in a capacity to offend Thirdly that they are so from a principle bred in them and derived to them from their birth 1. That all Men are under sin S. Paul doth so fully declare that we shall need no other Testimony than his to evince

present state by casualties and diseases yea so far as to make the person forget his own name But though the Soul should be supposed to fall into such a forgetfulness by entring into a body as we see it is a long time before it comes to exercise its respective faculties yet is there any reason to think it should continue in it after it hath gotten above the infirmities of the other yea so far as to reason with that clearness wherewith this Author doth in many things and with great plausibility in all others For though Men may happen to be so stricken by a disease as to forget even their own names yea have undoubtedly suffered in that nature yet is there no evidence from story that I know of or indeed presumption for the supposition of it that though the parties did again recover the free use of their faculties yet they were unable to look back to their pristine state or call to mind any of the passages thereof So much more specious than strong are the reasons that Author alledgeth to shew the Soul to be in a natural incapacity to call to mind its pristin state and actions And yet if they prov'd what they intended they would hardly make it credible that it should be without all knowledge of them God who thrusts it down into its present state by reason of its former errours being likely enough to bring them to its mind though it should be otherwise ignorant of them Otherwise he should neither make it sensible of its own guilt and his choosing thus to punish it which is one supposed end of his thrusting it down nor careful to break off from it which is another And I shall only add that as we cannot therefore be in any great danger from those Objections which pretend to derive Original sin from another principle So shall we not now be much incommoded by the force of those Objections which profess more directly to impugn the derivation of it from Adam For as those Objections are principally founded upon the incompetency of Adam to involve all mankind in the guilt of his transgression so I have not only made it appear already that Adam was no way incompetent for that purpose because appointed by God as the representative of all mankind but said enough though not to answer yet to silence what is objected against it from the supposed want of our consent to his transgression Which will leave nothing more for us to do than to consider what is objected against the means we have before assign'd of the conveying of that Original Sin whereof we speak But as I have not been positive in assigning the particular means of its conveyance and must therefore be the less concern'd to answer what is objected against them So I shall oppose to all those Objections the assurance we have from the Scripture of our having it in us from our Conception and Birth yea contracting it from those fleshly and unclean persons from whom we are descended That as it is enough to shew that it is conveyed to us by the same general means by which our very nature is so making it at least probable that it passeth from them to us together with our Souls and from thence diffuseth it self unto our Bodies And how far a probability so founded ought to prevail against all the Arguments which are oppos'd to the traduction of Souls especially when the Scripture seems to favour that traduction also will be no hard matter for him to judge who shall consider on the one hand the shortness of our own reasonings and on the other what difficulties attend the Creation and Infusion as well as the traduction of Souls For as those very difficulties will oblige us to sit down after all with a probable assent in this affair so the shortness of our own reasonings to guide that assent rather by probable testimonies of Scripture than by probable arguments from Reason Because as we are more assur'd of the truth of those testimonies than we can be of the truth of any of those arguments which we ground our selves upon in this affair So we cannot so easily fail in our apprehensions concerning the other Nothing more being requir'd toward the apprehending the force of the former than the due consideration of the sense of the words wherein they are expressed whereas to the apprehending of the force of the latter we must have a clear knowledge of the nature of those things about which they are conversant which is certainly a matter of far greater difficulty and wherein therefore we may more easily mistake Only if what is said in this particular may not be thought to be satisfactory because rather a bar to what is objected against the traduction of Souls and consequently of Original Sin than any direct answer to it I shall desire those who are dissatisfi'd with it to give such an answer as they themselves demand to what is objected by the other party against the immediate Creation and infusion of them It seeming not so easie to imagine that I may not now press them with any other inconveniencies that God should create a Soul on purpose to infuse it into such incestuous conceptions as he himself cannot but be thought to abhor For my self as I can with equal ease digest the traduction of Souls with all its inconveniencies or rather acquiesce in that evidence which the Doctrine of the Scripture and the simple nature of a generation do seem to suggest So I shall hardly think it reasonable to quit it till they who assert the Creation of Souls free it from the former inconvenience and other such difficulties wherewith it is alike encumbred For till that be done the traduction of Souls will not only be of greater probability but serve more clearly to declare how that corruption which our first Parents contracted passed from them unto their Children and so on to succeding Generations PART IV. Of the things signified by Baptism on the part of God or its inward and spiritual Grace The Contents The things signified by Baptism are either more general or particular More general as that Covenant of Grace which passeth between God and Man and that body of Men which enter into Covenant with him More particular what the same God doth by vertue of that Covenant oblige himself to bestow upon the Baptized and what those Baptized ones do on their part undertake to perform These latter ones proposed to be considered and entrance made with the consideration of what God obligeth himself to bestow upon the Baptized called by the Church An inward and spiritual Grace Which inward and spiritual Grace is shewn to be of two sorts to wit such as tend more immediately to our spiritual and eternal welfare or such as only qualifie us for those Graces that do so To the former sort are reckon'd that inward and spiritual Grace which tends to free us from the guilt of sin called by the Church