Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	distinct_a	person_n	property_n	2,539	5	9.4838	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59816	A discourse concerning the knowledge of Jesus Christ and our union and communion with him &c. by William Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1674 (1674)	Wing S3288; ESTC R33886	180,039	448

account with God than ignorance unless it be to aggravate their sins and their condemnation SECT II. Of acquaintance with the Person of Christ. AFter this plain account wherein the Knowledge of Christ consists the sum of which is that to know Christ is to understand his Gospel which contains all those revelations he made of God's will it will be necessary to examine another notion of the Knowledge of Christ very distinct from this which contains a greater secret than at first one would imagine and that is an acquaintance with the Person of Christ which if we will believe some men is the only fountain of saving knowledge I shall not envy the Author the glory of this discovery and therefore shall honestly confess where I had it viz. in a Book Entitled Communion with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost each Person distinctly Written by Iohn Owen D. D. And that I may not do this Author wrong I must tell you what he means by acquaintance with Christ's Person an account of which we have in digression 2. pag. 87. of the excellency of Christ Iesus Where he tells us that Christ is not only the Wisdom of God but made wisdom to us not only by teaching us wisdom that is by the Doctrines he preached and those revelations he hath made of God's will as he is the great Prophet of the Church but also because by the knowing of him we become acquainted with the wisdom of God which is our wisdom To which purpose he applies that Text which speaks of the Doctrines and Revelations of Christ to his Person Coll. 2. 3. For in him dwell all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge So that our acquaintance with Christ's Person in this man's Divinity signifies such a knowledge of what Christ is hath done and suffered for us from whence we may learn those greater deeper and more saving Mysteries of the Gospel which Christ hath not expresly revealed to us for so he adds soon after that these properties of God his pardoning mercy c. Christ hath revealed in his Doctrine in that revelation he hath made of God and his will but the life of this knowledge lies in an acquaintance with his Person wherein the express image and beams of this glory of his Father doth shine forth that is that these things are clearly eminently and savingly only to be discovered in Iesus Christ as he explains himself So that it seems the Gospel of Christ makes a very imperfect and obscure discovery of the nature and Attributes and will of God and the methods of our recovery we may thoroughly understand whatever is revealed in the Gospel and yet not have a clear and saving knowledge of these things unless we gain a more intimate acquaintance with the Person of Christ. This indeed advances the Person of Christ very much but is no great commendation of his Gospel and prophetick office It sets up a new rule of Faith above the Gospel viz. an acquaintance with Christ's Person in whom dwell all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge But that you may better understand the whole mystery of this Acquaintance with the Person of Christ I shall first show you what additions these men make to the Gospel of Christ from an acquaintance with his Person and secondly show you what an unsafe way of arguing this is and how prejudicial to the Christian Religion First to show you what additions these men make to the Gospel of Christ from an acquaintance with his Person And I confess I am very much beholden to this Author for acknowledging whence they fetch all their Orthodoxy and Gospel Mysteries for I had almost pored my eyes out with seeking for them in the Gospel and could never find them but I learn now that indeed they are not to be found there unless we be first acquainted with the Person of Christ. This is an argument well worth considering and if this discourse should prove long as I fear it will I doubt not but the usefulness of it will be a sufficient reward both to the Writer and Reader And since I owe this discovery to Dr. Iohn Owen I shall confine my self to his method who in the place above-mentioned tells us that the sum of all true wisdom and knowledge may be reduced to these three heads First The knowledge of God his nature and properties Secondly The knowledge of our selves with reference to the will of God concerning us Thirdly Skill to walk in Communion with God In these three is summed up all true wisdom and knowledge and not any of them is to any purpose to be obtained or is manifested but only in and by the Lord Christ. Where By is fallaciously added to include the Revelations Christ hath made whereas his first undertaking was to show how impossible it is to understand these things savingly and clearly notwithstanding all those Revelations God hath made of himself and his will by Moses and the Prophets and by Christ himself without an acquaintance with his Person But to let that pass I shall begin with the knowledge of God his nature and properties and I shall not particularly examine every thing he says but principally take notice of those peculiar discoveries of the nature of God which the World was ignorant of before and of which Revelation is wholly silent but are now clearly and savingly learnt from an Acquaintance with Christ's Person The light of nature and the works of Creation and Providence and those manifold Revelations God hath made of himself to the World especially that last and most perfect Revelation by Iesus Christ our Lord assure us that God is infinite in all perfections that he is so powerful that he can do whatever he pleases so wise that he knows how to order every thing for the best so good that he desires and designs the happiness of all his Creatures according to the capacity of their natures so holy that he hath a natural love for all good men and will not fail to reward them but hates all sin and wickedness and will as certainly punish all obstinate and incorrigible Sinners but yet that he is very patient and long-suffering towards the worst of men and uses various methods of kindness and severity to reclaim them and is as ready to pardon them when they return to their duty as a kind Father is to receive an humble and penitent Prodigal These properties of God are plainly revealed in the Scripture without any further acquaintance with the Person of Christ And had Christ never appeared in the World yet we had reason to believe that God is thus wise and good and holy and merciful because not only the works of Nature and Providence but the word of God assure us that he is so the Appearance of Christ did not first discover the nature of God to us but only gave us a greater expression of God's goodness than ever we had before confirms us in the belief of what we had

ordered the matter it is made to serve a great many evil purposes and to overthrow the main Designs of Christianity And to make this appear I shall as briefly and plainly as the matter will bear represent to you those other opinions concerning our Union to Christ which are now in great vogue in the World and do very unjustly challenge to themselves the name of Gospel-Mysteries As first when we inquire what this Union betwixt Christ and Believers is they answer in general that it is a mystical Union through the Spirit and Faith This Mystical is a hard word and therefore to explain it they tell us that this mystical Union is an Union of Persons where yet Persons and Natures are distinct As there is an Union of three Persons in one Nature in the Trinity and of two Natures in one Person in Christ which is the Hypostatical Union so the mystical Union is an Union of Persons where both Persons and Natures are distinct and it is an Union of Persons but no Personal Union The Person of Christ is united to the person of the Believer and the person of the Believer is united to the Person of Christ as it must needs be where the Person of Christ is united to the person of the Believer which Union is made by Faith which receives the Person of Christ and therefore must unite to the Person of Christ I doubt that consequence is not good for men are not united to every thing they receive but yet what follows may help it out as it is in the Marriage-Union which joyns person to person This is not very clear yet and therefore as a fuller explication of it the same Author describes it thus This mystical Union is that supernatural spiritual intimous Oneness and Conjunction which is betwixt the Person of Christ and the person of Believers through the bonds of the Spirit and Faith upon which there follows mutual and reciprocal Communion with each other This Oneness and Conjunction are hard words still and therefore to explain them you must observe that Christ and Saints are united how why in respect of that Oneness and Conjunction that is between them This now is as plain as one could wish they are one by their Oneness Union is Union and Christ is Christ and Believers are Believers and Oneness is Oneness and thus Christ and Believers are united by their Oneness But what are the bonds of this Union though it had been convenient first to have understood the Union better why they are the Spirit and Faith the Spirit unites Christ to us and Faith unites us to Christ and who can deny this to be a very mystical Union But besides this mystical Union there is a Legal or Law-Union betwixt Christ and Believers as he is their surety and a moral Union the foundation of which is Love of which more in its proper place and thus the Person of Christ and the person of Believers are united mystically legally morally The design of all these distinctions is to prove the Union of Persons betwixt Christ and Believers and because I find this Author hath bewildred himself I will endeavour to help him out for it is a very plain case if Christ and believers are united their Persons must be united too for the Person of Christ is Christ himself and the Persons of believers are the believers themselves and I cannot understand how they can be united without their Persons that is without themselves but then they are united by mutual relations as the Persons of a Prince and his Subjects of a Husband and his Wife are united or by mutual affections or common Interest not by a natural adhesion of Persons but because I find it doth not satisfie these men that Christ and believers are united unless their Persons be united too it makes me suspect that there is a greater Mystery in this Union of Persons than every one apprehends and therefore Secondly Let us inquire what they mean by the Person of Christ to which believers must be united And here they have out-done all the metaphysical subtilties of Suarez and have found out a Person for Christ distinct from his Godhead and Manhood for there can be no other sense made of what Dr. Owen tells us That by the Graces of his Person he doth not mean the glorious excellencies of his Deity considered in it self abstracting from the office which for us as God and Man he undertook nor the outward appearance of his humane nature neither when he converst here on Earth nor yet as now exalted in glory But the graces of the Person of Christ as he is vested with the office of Mediation His spiritual eminency comeliness beauty as appointed and anointed by the Father unto that great work of bringing home all his Elect into his bosom Now unless the Person of Christ as Mediator be distinct from his Person as God Man all this is idle talk for what Personal Graces are there in Christ as Mediator which do not belong to him either as God or Man there are some things indeed which our Saviour did and suffer'd which he was not obliged to either as God or Man but as Mediator but surely he will not call the peculiar duties and actions of an office Personal Graces His Personal Graces fitted him for the discharge of his Mediatory office but whatever Personal Graces are in Christ belong to his Person still are seated either in his Divine or Humane Nature and he hath no Personal Graces as Mediator which he hath not either as God or Man And the Doctor himself when he accommodates the Description the Spouse gives of her Beloved to Christ tells us That he is white in the glory of his Deity and ruddy in the preciousness of his humanity because white is the complexion of glory and ruddy is very applicable to his humanity because man was called Adam from the red Earth whereof he was made which are excellent proofs but however white and ruddy belong to his divine and humane nature and that without any regard to his Mediatory office for he had been white in the glory of his Deity and ruddy with the red Earth of his humanity whether he had been consider'd as Mediator or not And in his first digression concerning the excellency of Christ Iesus to invite us to Communion with him in a Conjugal relation he tells us that Christ is exceeding excellent and desireable in his Deity and the glory thereof He is desireable and worthy our acceptation as consider'd in his Humanity in his freedom from sin and fulness of Grace c. Now though this look very like a contradiction to what he said before that by the graces of his Person he meant neither the excellencies of his divine nor humane nature yet he hath a salvo which will deliver him both from contradiction and from sense that he doth not consider these excellencies of his Deity or Humanity as