Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	body_n	person_n	unite_v	3,343	5	9.7470	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30959	Three ministers communicating their collections and notions. The first year touching several texts of Scripture ... wherein the Law and Gospel ... in short, the substance of Christianity is set forth ...	Barksdale, Clement, 1609-1687.	1675 (1675)	Wing B809; ESTC R35315	78,431	223

power of that Faith to crucifie our flesh with the affections and lusts then to be drawing out of schemes and measuring out the actions and operations of God For then our work is done and all Gods promises are Yea and Amen and fall close with the performance of our duty III. 2 Cor. 10. 5. It is necessary to bring in to captivity every thought to the Obedience of Christ but it is not necessary to be under this or that discipline tho the best further then in affection and desire For in the midst of the changes and chances of this world we cannot be what we would nor be govern'd as we please The Eighteenth Meeting A. I. REv. 2. 10. All art and endeavour hath been used by many to make themselves great on earth the one half of which might have wrought out a crown for them in a better place For that may be had if we will and if we be Faithful to the death it will fall upon our heads III. 1 Cor. 2. 7. Rom. 16. 25. We speak saith S. Paul the Wisdome of God in a mystery the hidden Wisdome and the Gospel is the revelation of that mystery And if it be revealed it is no longer hidden if it be known as fa● as it is known it is not a mystery And if it were yet a hidden mystery it could not concern us because that can have no influence upon our will which yeildeth no light at all to our understanding Mysteries when they are hidden are to us as nothing I know now no mysteries in Divinity for it is agreed on all hands that whatsoever is necessary to the end is perspicuous and naked to the understanding I may say mystical Divinity is an art of teaching nothing of moving and standing still an art of filling men with empty speculations III. Job 12. 20. When power speaks every mouth must be stopped Logick hath no sinewes an argument no strength Antiquity no authority Councils may err the Fathers were but Children all Churches must yield to one and the first Age be taught by the last Speech is taken away from the crafty and understanding from the aged B. I. PSal 49. 20. We were enemies to God fallen from our first honour and made like the beasts that perish But now by Christs assimilation to us we are made like unto God we are exalted by his humiliation raised by his descent magnified by his minoration II. Heb. 11. 17. Wherefore in all things it behoveth him to be made like unto his brethren Each answereth other Christ made like unto men and again Men made like unto him so like that they are brethren Christ made like in all things which fill up the office of a Redeemer and men made like unto God in all things which may be required at the hands of those who are Redeemed There is a kind of Convertency in these terms Christ and his Brethren Christ like unto his brethren and these brethren like unto Christ Christ is ours and we are Christs 1 Cor. 3. 23. III. Psal 52. 9. Lay us in the ballance We are lighter than vanity it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men fallen below the Condition of men Lame and impotent not able to move one step in the wayes of Glory Living dead men Who will now stand up for us Who but he who is the Captain of our salvation Heb. 3. 10. C. I. ISa. 5● 8. The Captain of our salvation is the true Son of God begotten not made the brightness of the Father streaming from him as light from light his Image not according to his humane nature but according to his divine the Image and Character not of any qualities in God but of his person the true stamp of his substance begotten as brightness from the light as the character from the type as the word from the mind which yet do not fully declare him Quis enarrabit Who shall declare his generation The manner is known only to the Father who begat and to the Son who is begotten Thy Faith is thy honour a great favour it is that thou art taught to believe that he is the eternal begotten Son of God II. Joh 1. 14. The Word was made flesh As the soul and body tho two distinct natures grow into one man so did the God-head assume the man-hood without confusion of the natures or distinction of the persons They are united as the Sun and light as a graf● to a plant As in a fiery Sword there are two distinct natures the fire and the sword two distinct acts to cut and to burn and two distinct effects cutting and burning from whence ariseth one common effect to cut burning and to burn cutting This must be rasted cum grano salis and seasoned witha sober application For there is some resemblance but great disproportion III. 1 Pet. 1. 12. The Angels themselves those second lights wax dim with admiration and their holy desire is to stoop and bow down and look into this mystery All the representations the wit of man can find out cannot express it but they leave us still in our gaze and wonder whilst the manner of it is hid from our eyes Those beasts which came too near to this mountain this high mystery were strucken through with a dart and staggerd in the very at tempt The Eighteenth Meeting A. I. JOh. 5. 39. Search the Scriptures for they are they that testifie of Christ They testifie that he was God blessed for evermore That that word which was God was also made flesh That he was the Son of God and the Son of man The manner how the two dist●nct natures are united is unsearchable and unfordable and the knowledge of it if our narrow understanding could recieve it would not add one hair to our stature and growth in Grace That Christ is God and man that the two natures are united in the Person of thy Saviour and Mediator is enough for thee to know and to raise thy nature up to him II. Joh. 17. 24. Father I will that they whom thou hast given me and he gives him none but those who are like him be where I am Heaven hath received him and it will recieve none but those who are like him holy as he is Holy just as he is just humble ble as he is humble not those that name h●m not those who set his name to their fraud to their malice to their perjury to their oppression not those many Anti-Christs whose whole life is a Contradiction to him III. In the volumn of the book it is written of him and in the same volumn we shall find it written of us that we should do Gods will and have his Law in our hearts And in this as in other things our first thought should be what will become us An humble Christ and a proud Christian an Obedient Christ and a traiterous Christian Christ fasting and a Christian riding non bene conveniunt there is no decorum in it nothing but absurdity

done by Christians in his time to go into the prisons to kiss and embrace the Martyrs chains to harbour and provide for indigent brethren and to bring water to wash the Saints feet No office so low which they were not content to stoop to III. Matth. 16. 24. Let him deny himself Nazianzen tells us Orat. 1. that of those excellencies and endowments which God had given him health wealth esteem and eloquenc● he reaped this onely benefit that he had something which he could contemn and by wh●ch he could shew that he infinitely valued Christ before them C. I. 2 THes 2. 2 3. This did mightily contribute to the weaning of the first Christians from the World and did strongly animate them to a quick and speedy diligence about the affairs of the other life namely an opinion they generally had of the day of Judgement being near at hand An opinion started early as appears by that Caution which St. Paul gives the Thessalonians about it II. 1 Pet. 3. 3. The Apostles require of women not the outward adorning of gold and fine apparel but shamfac'tness and so briety the hidden ornament of the heart That tho they were rich yet they were to consult the honour and modesty of their profession and might not go to the utmost bounds of what was lawful some things being lawful which were not expedient especially when by their wanton and lascivious dress they might be a means to kindle in the breasts of others the flames of an unchast and unlawful passion and so prove the occasion of their ruin III. Rom. 13. ult The Law of Christ commands us to fast often to keep under the body and to make no provision for the flesh If nature regularly governed be content with little Religion will teach us to be content with less The six and Thirtieth Meeting A I. JAm 2. 21. Ahraham is said to have been justified hy Faith when he offered his Son Isaac upon the Altar tho he did not actually sacrifice him because he endeavoured to do so God graciously accepting the will for the deed accepted also of the blood of a Lamb instead of Isaac's II. 1 Tim. 3. 16. The Gospel is stil'd The mystery of Godliness and S Paul else where calls what it teaches The truth which is according to godliness Tit. 1. 2. i. e. a doctrine fram'd and fitted to promote the interest of Piety and Virtue in the World This Character belongs to the more retired truths discoverd by speculation as well as to those more obvious ones that are familiarly taught in Catechisms III. Ex. 15. 25. The inward gratulations of Conscience for having done our duties is able to guild the bitterest pills and like the wood that grew by the Waters of Marah to correct and sweeten that liquor which before was the most distasteful B. I. MAth 5. 29. Though to deny some lusts be in our Saviours esteem no less uneasie than for a man to pluck out his right eye or cut off his right hand yet even Maids have with satisfaction chosen not only to deny themselves the greatest pleasures of the sense but to sacrifice the seat of them the body itself to preserve the satisfaction of being chaste II. 1 Pet. 112. The Gospel mysteries are of so noble and excellent a nature The Angels themelves desire to look into them And it was the earnest desire of a great King and no less a Prophet that his eyes might behold the wondrous things of God's Law Psal 119 18. III. Matth. 11. 15. 'T is not onely those Truths that make Articles of the Creed but divers other doctrines of the Gospel that Christ himself judged worthy to be concluded with this epiphonema He that hath ears to hear let him hear On which the excel●ent Grotius makes this just paraphrase Intellectus nobis à Deo potissimum datus est ut eum intendamus documentis ad pietatem tendentibus C. I. HEb 5. 9. The Creed proposes the credenda not the agenda of Religion whereas the Scriptures were designed not only to teach us what Truths we are to believe but by what rules we are to live the obedience to the Laws of Christianity being as necessary to Salvation as the belief of its mysteries II. Col. 3. 16. Whether or no those words of our Saviour to the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be to be rendred in the imperative or indicative mood S. Paul would have the word of Christ to dwell richly in us thereby teaching us that besides the things which are absolutely necessary there are several Truths that are highly useful to make us more clearly understand and more rationally and firmly believe and more steadily practise the points that are necessary III. 1 Tim. 2. 4. Through the great goodness of God who is willing to have all men saved and come to the knowledge of the truth necessary to salvation there are much fewer Articles absolutely necessary to be by all men distinctly believed then may be met with in divers long Confessions of Faith some of which have I fear less promoted Knowledge than impaired Charity The seven and Thirtieth Meeting A. I. 1 COr 13. 9. Now we know in part c. Doubtless tho Heaven abound with inexpressible Joys yet it will be none of the least that shall make up the Happiness even of that place that the knowledg of divine things that was here so zealously pursued shall there be compleatly attain'd II. Matth. 5. 8. The contentment afforded by the assiduous discovery of God and divine mysteries has so much of affinity with the pleasures that shall make up mens Blessedness in heaven it self that they seem rather to differ in degree than in kind For our Saviour to express the coelestial joys reserved for those who for their sake denyed themselves sensual pleasures makes them to consist in the Vision of God Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God III. Matth. 23. No less than eight woes are denounced against the Scribes and Pharisees by our Saviour himself who is not very forward to destroy he came upon a far other business and all those woes for their folly and blindness In the denouncing of every woe but one he stiles them hypocrites And an hypocrite is the veriest fool in the world for he thinks to cozin and put a cheat upon God whom yet himself confesses to be omniscient knowing all things In that single woe he calls them blind guides elsewhere fools and blind This was our Saviours judgment of them and you may rest upon it B. I. MAtth. 12. 36. Our blessed Saviour told us that we must a●count for every idle word not meaning that every word which is not design'd to edification or is less prudent shall be reckoned for a sin but that the time which we spend in our idle talking unprofitable discoursings that time which might and ought to have been employ'd to spiritual useful purposes that is to be accounted for II. Ezek. 16. 49.