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nature_n body_n soul_n union_n 7,440 5 9.4929 5 true
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A39277 Clavis fidei, or, The key of faith written in Latine by John Ellis ... and propounded by him in publick lectures upon the Apostles Creed, to the students of Harts Hall in the University of Oxford ; faithfully translated into English by W.R. for the good and benefit of the ingenuous reader, as an help to build him up in his most holy faith. Ellis, John, 1599?-1665. 1668 (1668) Wing E585; ESTC R40476 36,379 109

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By right of the Fathers constitution because the Father hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church Eph. 1.22 and hath made him heir of all things Hebr. 1.2 His Dominion therefore extends not onely unto us but unto all creatures Seeing therefore Christ is the Lord of us all we ought to be humble and meek one towards another for we are fellow servants of the Lord. Masters give unto your servants that which is just and equal knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven saith S. Paul Col. 4.1 And seeing that Christ is the Lord let us adhere to him alone otherwise we shall have very many strange lords whom to serve it will be most miserable Most truly said S. Ambrose O how many lords hath he who hath not one he hath so many lords or masters as he hath sins yea holy father he hath so many mistresses as lusts and certainly thou thy self being judge lust is a most furious mistress Let us therefore serve the Lord Jesus onely And if we be noble and generous Christians let us not admit of any other government As Thomas Aquinas observeth of horses that a spirited and wel-mettled one will not admit of any other rider but his own master and is moved onely at his beck Hitherto of the titles of the Mediator he is further to be described according to the degrees both of his exinanition or humiliation and likewise of his exaltation First Christ did empty himself and became very low The word is made flesh Joh. 1.14 The Son of God is made the Son of man that the son of man might become the son of God He is now who was and what he is he was not De Trin. lib. ●0 saith S. Hilary Our Mediator is become God and man that he might conjoyn God and man together again who were separated and disjoyned And if it be said Object that the flesh of Christ could not be united to our flesh because our flesh is sinful Answ We answer It doth not follow for sinfulness is accidental to our flesh not of the substance or essence of it so that Christs flesh may be united to our flesh but not as to the sinfulness of it If it be said that no accession can be made to God we say That is true if meant of perfection but not of union If further any object Object that the humane nature cannot come or be united to God It is true unless that God assume it That it is most ignominious for God to be a creature Answ It is most ignominious for him to be changed into a creature but not to be united with it without the change of his essence But although there be in Christ two natures yet there is onely one Person Although he be God and man yet he is not two but one Christ as S. Athanasius professeth in his Creed The humane nature of Christ doth not constitute a person because it subsists not of or by it self but it is upheld or sustained in and by the Word If it be objected Object that God and man are two persons We answer Answ That it is true if they be not united If it be said that dead and always living are not the same It is true that they are not the same according to the same But Christ was so according to his divers natures If it be enquired How is the Incarnation attributed to the Son We are to know that the Incarnation is the work of the whole Trinity by inchoation and of the Son alone by termination He assumed our nature which the Father formed in him out of the substance of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost This substantial knitting or joyning although produced by all the Persons yet formally it did not knit or conjoyn the humane nature with any In 3. p. D. Thom. but with the Person of the Son as Suarez copiously and other Divines And of the two natures there was an union made hypostatically or personally not physically as the form is united to the matter nor spiritually as the elect among themselves and with God nor by help and assistance as the mariner to the ship nor relatively as a friend to a friend nor mystically as in the Sacrament the two natures were united inconfusedly unchangeably not admitting of any division inseparably Inconfusedly each nature having their properties remaining but the properties of one nature by communication of idioms is attributed in the concrete to the person denominated from either nature as that God hath purchased his Church by his bloud Acts 20.28 The Lord of glory was crucified 1 Cor. 2.8 this is spoken according to his humane nature This speech ought to be taken in the concrete not in the abstract and it follows not that because God is said to suffer therefore the Deity suffered Secondly the natures were united inconvertibly that is without the change of the Divine into the humane or of the humane into the Divine Thirdly individedly without division of natures although not without distinction they are not two but one Christ Fourthly inseparably this union remains for ever At the death of Christ his soul was separated from his body but the Divine nature remained united to both after its own manner the natural union was dissolved and not the personal Thus far concerning the Incarnation in general The parts thereof follow the conception of Christ and his nativity Conceived by the Holy Ghost Not of the essence but by the efficiency of the Holy Ghost This particle of doth not denote the matter as if that Christ was of the Holy Ghost for he was of the fathers according to the flesh Rom. 9.5 God also is immutable and the Word assumed our flesh and is not changed into it but of signifies the efficient cause because by the vertue and power of the Holy Ghost Christ was conceived His conception by the Holy Ghost speaks the miraculous forming of the flesh or body of Christ without the help of man then the sanctifying of it from original sin and the hypostatical union of it with the Word The body of Christ is thought to have been made simul semel together and at once perfect not successively as the bodies of men are in the space of fourty days otherwise Christ should not have been conceived a man but an embryo yea he was inspired with a reasonable soul Wickedly did Apollinaris say that the soul of Christ was his Divinity His soul was heavy and sad which is not competent to the Divinity at his death his soul departed from his body but his Divinity did not recede or depart He was conceived for us behold his love how can we conceive to express it He was conceived of the Holy Ghost behold his wisdom that he might be free from sin let us mourn by reason of our impure conception Let every one say with David Behold in iniquity was I conceived Psal 51.5 His pure
bride I beseech you therefore by the plentiful effusion of the bloud of Jesus on the Cross that ye walk with God or have your conversation with God not in the darkness of unbelief or of sin but in the light of faith grace and vertue God by his nature is light void of darkness if ye would be joyned to him ye must of necessity bid adieu to darkness and your delightful sins The second part of this communion is the union of the members of the Church between themselves We being many are one body in Christ and every one members one of another saith the Doctor of the Gentiles Rom. 12.5 and from thence the holy man doth infer golden or precious precepts amongst some other these Let love be without dissimulation Communicate or distribute to the necessity of the Saints rejoyce with them that rejoyce weep with them that weep be of the same minde one towards another as if he should say I would have such a sympathy or fellow-feeling among you Christians as to be equally affected both with the good and evil things of all whether in prosperity or adversity Beloved Auditors yeeld ye obedience to these admonitions of the Apostle Be ye endued with humanity or brotherly love charity meekness bounty let it be a shame to Academians who ought to be more rational creatures then others to be given to anger brawlings envyings disobediences evil-speaking inhumanity and revenge shun these vices which become not the Students of humane learning and after the examples of the Christians of the Primitive Church Be ye of one heart and of one minde Acts 4.32 And if ye shall forgive others the injuries that are offered unto you by them ye shall also obtain remission of sins from your heavenly Father The which is treated of in the following words I beleeve the remission of sins Forgiveness of sins is the will or good pleasure of God whereby he forgiveth beleevers both the sin and the punishment due to sin for Christs merits sake Yea their most enormous sins shall be forgiven for it is repugnant to the infinite goodness of God to be overcome by any humane wickedness He doth injury to God that despaireth of his mercy rightly Saint Augustine against those words of Cain Genes 4. Mine iniquity is greater then that it may be forgiven After this manner saith he Thou lyest Cain for the goodness of God is greater then the iniquity of all men and elsewhere he hath written That greater is the mercy of God then the misery of all men Verily it is a most excellent speech of his unto God in his meditations Although O Lord I have committed that for which thou mayest condemn me yet thou hast not lost that whereby thou mayest save me It is most true for if a sinner do repent the Lord will not remember his iniquities Let the wicked forsake his way and turn again unto the Lord and the Lord will have mercy on him Isai 55.7 In God there is omnipotent mercy and merciful omnipotency such is the benignity of his omnipotency and the omnipotency of his benignity that there is nothing that he will not or cannot forgive a beleeving soul yea oftentimes beyond remission God bestows most abounding grace What cannot repentance do Who in the secular state sinned more enormously then Paul Who in the religious more out of measure then Peter Yet they by repentance did not onely attain to the ministery but also the magistery of holiness But to explain this Article more fully We must know that God is the principal efficient cause of remission He alone can forgive sins primarily or by chief authority But the Priests or Ministers of the Church are onely administring causes as they are messengers of the Divine forgiveness God onely of himself forgiveth sins because he cleanseth the soul from the inward blemish or stain and releaseth it from the debt of eternal death but he hath not granted this to the Priest to them notwithstanding he hath given the power of loosing and binding that is by shewing them they are loosed and bound 4 Sent. Dist 18. as Lombard writes Some may say Object that it is not agreeable with the justice of God to forgive sin and not to punish it This is true Answ if he punish it neither in the sinner nor in another to wit the surety But God hath punished sin in Christ Some may object again that it is an unjust thing to punish the innocent for the offender We answer It is not if the innocent party offer himself spontaneously to punishment if he can go through it and get out of it and if this tend to the glory of God and the salvation of men all which conditions do meet very well in Christ It may be further objected that this remission of God is not freely bestowed because satisfaction was required to the forgiveness of sin But we say the satisfaction required was not made by us but by another If we be urged still that he who on such condition forgiveth doth not forgive freely It may be answered It is true unless the party that requires it doth also give the satisfaction But God the Father hath given his Son that he might satisfie for us Hitherto Of the remission of sins the resurrection of the body or flesh followeth Credo resurrectionem carnis I beleeve the resurrection of the body or flesh It is a very difficult thing to understand by the sense or perception of corrupt reason how or in what manner the same body should rise again after so many transmutations and be reunited to the same soul And therefore many in the Areopagus derided Paul when they heard of the resurrection of the dead yet by the light of faith it is most clearly manifest that there shall be such a resurrection It will not be difficult to them to beleeve this who do beleeve that with God there is nothing difficult the restitution of the body or flesh is by far easier then its first constitution or forming It is of lesser concernment by much to restore that which hath been then to make that which never had any being He which could make all things out of nothing can easily raise again our bodies out of something to wit restore them out of the dust of the earth and why should we admire that that could be born again which hath had a being when as we behold that to have a being which never had any before Holy Job in the Old Testament an Evangelical man before the Gospel doubted not of this thing I know saith he that my Redeemer liveth and after that worms shall consume this body of mine yet in my flesh I shall see God whom I shall see for my self and not another Job 19.25 Thy dead men shall live saith Isaiah to the Lord together with my dead body shall they arise chap. 26. verse 19. And in the New Testament the Lord Jesus John 5.28 doth most apparently attest the