Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	divine_a	father_n	subsist_v	2,744	5	11.7766	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87711	Ophthalmos aplois or the single eye, entituled the vision of God wherein is infolded the mistery of divine presence, so to be in one place finitely in apperance, as yet in every place no lesse present, and whilst Hee is here, Hee is universally every where infinitely himselfe. Penned by that learned Dr. Cusanus, and published for the good of the saints. By Giles Randall.; De visione Dei. English.	Nicholas, of Cusa, Cardinal, 1401-1464.; Randall, Giles.	1646 (1646)	Wing K395; Thomason E1212_1; ESTC R208815	54,077	203

were it not most highly or absolutely united unto thee O good Jesus I see in thee mans nature to be most highly joyned to God the Father by the highest union even a greater then by which it is joyned to God the sonne the absolute Mediator Therefore humane filiation because thou art the son of man is in thee Jesus most highly united to the divine filiation that thou art worthily and truly called the Son of God and man for in thee nothing mediates betweene the Son of man and the Son of God In the absolute filiation which is the Son of God is complicated all filiation whereunto thy humane filiation O Jesus is superamely united therefore thy humane filiation subsists in thy divine not only complicitly but as the attracted in the attracting and the united in the uniting and the substantiated in the substantiating Therefore in thee O Jesus there is no possible separation of the Son of man from the Son of God for separability is where the union might be greater but where the union cannot be greater nothing can mediate separation therefore can have no place where nothing can mediate betweene the things united and where the united subsists not in the uniting the union is not the highest for there is a greater union where the united subsists in the uniting then where the united subsists a part for separation is the greatest remotenesse from union So I see in thee my Iesus how humane fiiation by which thou art the son of man subsists in the divine filiation by which thou art the Sonne of God as in the greatest union the united with the uniting To thee O God be glory for ever How Jesus is understood the complying of the divine and humane nature CHAP 20. VEry clearely dost thou shew unto me O never failing light that that greatest union whereby mans nature in thee Iesus is united unto the divine nature is not by any means like to an infinite union for the union by which thou O God the Father art united unto God thy son is God the holy Ghost and therefore an infinite union for it reacheth unto absolute essentiall Identitie but it is not so where the humane nature is united to the divine for the humane nature cannot passe into an essentiall union which the divine as that which is finite canot be infinitly united to that which infinite for then it would passe into the Identitie of the infinite and so it would cease to be finite when the infinite were verified of it Wherefore this union by which the humane nature is united unto the divine nature is nothing else but an attraction of the humane nature to the Divine in the highest degree so that the humane nature whilst such cannot be attracted any higher It is therefore the greatest union of his humane nature as humane to the divine because there can be no greater but it is simply the greatest not infinite as the divine union I see therefore by the benignity of thy grace in thee Iesus the son of man the son of God and in the son of God I see the Father for in thee the sunne of man I see the Son of God because thou art so the son of man that thou art also the son of God and in the finite attracted nature I see the infinite attracting nature I see in the absolute Son the absolute father for the Son as Son cannot bee seene unlesse the father be seene I see in thee Iesus a divine filiation or sonneship which is the truth of all filiation and likewise a most high human filiation which is the neerest image of absolute filiation As therefore the Image betweene which and the Patterne or samplar there cannot mediate a perfect image dost most neerely subsist in the truth of that whose Image it is so do I see thy humane nature subsisting in the divine nature Therefore I see all things in thy humane nature which I see in thy divine But I see them after an humane manner in thy humane nature which are the divine truth it selfe in the divine nature Those things which I see in thee after a humane manner O Jesus are the similitude of the divine nature but a similitude is without a meane joyned to the Patterne or samplar so that a more like can neither be nor be imagined in the humane or reasonable nature I see are sonable humane spirit most strictly united to the divine spirit which is absolute reason and so the humane understanding to the divine understanding and all things in thy understanding O Jesus for thou O Iesus as God understandest all things as God and this understanding is to bee all things Thou understandest all things as man and this understanding is to be the similitude of all things for a thing is not understood by a man but in a similitude a stone is not in the understanding of a man as its proper cause or reason but as in its species or similitude In thee therefore O Iesus the humane understanding is united to the divine as the most perfect image to the truth of the Pattern As if then I should consider the Ideall forme of an Arke in the minde of the Artificer and the species of an Arke made most perfectly and according to the Idea by the Master himselfe how then the Ideall forme is the truth of the species and united unto it as the truth unto the image in one Master So in thee O Iesus the Mr. of Masters I see the absolute Idea of all things and the similitudinarie species of the same most highly united I see thee O good Iesus within the Wall of Paradice because thy understanding is both the Truth and the Image and thou art both God and a Creature infinity and finite And it is not possible thou shouldest be seene on this side the Wall for thou art the coup●ing of the divine creating nature with the humane created nature And I see this difference betweene thy humane understanding and any other mans that no one man knoweth all things which may be knowne by man because no mans understanding is so joyned to the samplar of all things as the similitude to the truth but that it might be more neerely joyned and set more in act and therefore the understandeth not so many things but that he might understand more by his accesse unto the samplar of things from whence every thing that is an act hath actually But thy understanding doth actually understand all things that are intelligible by man because in thee humane nature is most perfect and most joyned to its samplar or Pattern for which union thy humane understanding exceeds every created undarstanding in the perfection of understanding Therefore all reasonable spirits are far beneath thee of all whom thou O Iesu art the Master and the light and thou art the perfection and fulnesse of all things and by thee as by the Mediator they came unto the absolute truth for thou art both the way

nature pas into another nature as when the Image is united to its truth for it cannot then be said to bee altered but rather to goe backe from its alterity because it is united unto its proper truth which is inalterability it selfe Nor canst thou O sweet Jesu be said to be a middle nature betweene divine and humane when as betweene them there cannot be any middle nature partaking of both for the divine nature is not partakeable being wholly absolutely most simple Nor couldst thou then O blessed Iesus be either God or man But I see thee O Lord Iesus one supposition above all understanding because thou art one Christ after the same manner that I see thy one human soule in which as in the soule of any man I see there was a corruptible sensible nature which did subsist in an incorruptible intellectuall nature Nor yet was that soule compounded of corruptible and in corruptible neither did the sensible soule coinside with the intellectuall but I see an intellectuall soule to be united to the body by a sensible power quickning the body And if the intellectuall soule should cease to Quicken and Enlighten the Body though it were not separated from the body yet would that man be dead because his life would cease notwithstanding the body were not separated from life being the understanding is the life thereof As when a man intellectually labours and seeks by the meanes of his sight to discerne one that is comming and yet being carried away with other considerations his attention ceaseth about that inquirie though his eyes be still fastened upon it his eye is not separated from the Soule though it bee separated from the discretive or discerning attention of the Soule But if that rapture should not only cease from the discretive quickning but also from the sensitive quickening that eye were dead because it were not quickened Yet for all that it were not separated from the intellective forme which is the form giving being As a dry hand is united to the forme which unites the whole body There are sound men as Saint Augustine relates which can retract or draw back the vivifying spirit and so they appeare dead and feele nothing supposing it to be so In this close the intellectuall nature would remaine united to the body which body would not be under any other forme than it was before nay it would have the same forme and remaine the same body neither would the quickening force cease to be but would remaine in union with the intellectuall nature although actually it did not extend it selfe into the body I see that man truly dead because hee wants the vivifying life for death is the want of the quickner and yet that body would not be dead separated from the life which is the Soule thereof After the same manner most mercifull Iesus I do behold absolute life which is God inseparably united to the humane understanding and by it into the body for that union is such a one that a greater cannot be and a separable union is much inferior to such a union as cannot be greater Therefore it was never true nor ever shall be that thy divine nature was separated from thy humane consequently neither from the soule nor the body which are those things without which humane nature cannot be although it bee most true that thy Soule ceased to quicken thy body and that thou didst truly suffer death and yet wast never separated from the truth of life If that Priest whom Saint Augustine mentions had whatsoever power it were to take vivification out of his body by drawing it up unto the soule as if a candle that enlighteneth a Chamber were alive and should draw up those beames by which it enlightens the Chamber into the Center of its light and its drawing up were nothing but a ceasing to inflame what marvell is it if thou Iesus being the most free and living light hast power to lay downe and to take up thy quickinnig soule and when thou wouldest take it up thou sufferedest death and when thou wouldst resume it by thine owne thou didst rise againe Now an intellectuall nature is called a humane soule when it quickens or animates a body And the soule is said to be taken away when … ane understanding ceaseth to quicken for when the understanding ceaseth from the Office of quickening and in this respect separateth it selfe from the body it is not therefore simply separated These things thou inspirest o Iesus that thou mightest shew thy selfe to most unworthy mee as far as I am capable and that I may in thee contemplate that mortall humane nature hath put on immortality that all men of the same humane nature may in thee attaine resurrection and divine life What then can bee sweeter what more pleasant then to know this that in thee O Iesu we finde all things that are in our nature which only canst do all things and givest most liberally and up bradest no man O inexpresible mercy and pity thou God which art goodnesse it selfe couldst 〈◊〉 satisfie thy infinite clemency and bounty except thou gavest us thy selfe Neither could this be don more conveniently for us that are the receivers then that thou shouldest assume our nature because we could not approach unto thine so thou camest to us and art named Iesus the Saviour blessed for evermore How Iesus is the word of life CHAP. 24. THy gift thy best and greatest guift inables me to contemplat thee my Jesus preaching the words of life and bountefully sowing the Divine seeds in the hearts of the hearers And I see them go away which receved not the things of the spirit But I see thy Disciples abiding it which began to tast the sweetnesse of that Doctrine which quickneth the soule for all whom that first and chiefest of all the Appostls Peter confest that thou Iesus hadst the word of life and wondered that they which seeke life would go from thee Paul heard from thee Iesus in a rapture the words of life and then neither sword nor famine of body separate him from thee No man could ever forake thee that had tasted the words of life who can separate a Beare from Hony after hee hath once tasted the sweetnesse of it How great is the sweetnesse of truth how most delectable a life doth it give above all bodily sweetnesse for it is absolute sweetnesse from whence floweth all that by any tast is desired What is stronger than love by which every lovely thing hath to bee loved If the knot or Bond of contracted love be sometimes so great that the feare of death cannot breake it what a knot is there of that love rasted from whence is all love I wonder not that all cruelty of paines was accounted nothing by other of thy Souldiers of Jesus to whom thou gavest thy selfe the life to be tasted aforehand O Jesus my love thou hast sowed the seed of life in the field of beleevers and watered it with the

loved Thou therefore O my God art by the bond of love united unto al things because housprea dest abroad thy love upon every Creature of thine but every rationall spirit is not united unto thee because it bestowes not its love upon thy lovelinesse but upon some other thing whereunto unto it is united and knit Thou hast espoused every reasonable soule by thy loving love but not every spouse loveth thee her husband but for the most part some other whereunto she cleaveth but how could the soule of man thy spouse O my God attaine thy end except thou wert lovely that so by loving thee that art lovely shee might reach the bond and most happie union Who therefore can deny thee to be God three in one when hee sees that thou wert neither a noble naturall nor perfect God nor his spirit had free will nor himselfe could come to the fruition of thee and his owne happinesse except thou wert three and one For because thou art the understanding that understandeth the understanding intelligible and the Bond of both therefore the understanding created may attaine in thee its intelligible God union with thee and felicity So being thou art the love lovely the created loving will may in thee its lovely God attaine union and felicity for hee that receiveth thee God the reasonable receptible light may come to such a union of thee that he may be united to thee as a Sun to his Father I see O God by thy illumination that a reasonable nature cannot attaine to a union with thee but because thou artaminable and intelligible wherefore mans nature is not possible to be united to thee a loving God for so thou art not his object but hee may bee united to thee as his lovely God because that which is lovely is the object of that which loveth So in like manner that which may be understood is the object of the understanding and wee call that the truth which is the object Wherefore thou my God because thou art the intelligible truth the created understanding may be united unto thee and so I see that mans reasonable nature may be united only to thy divine and amiable nature and that man receiving thee the receptible God passeth into that Bond which may for the strictnesse thereof bee called by the name of filiation or sonne-ship for then the Bond of filiation we know no stricter And if this Bond of union be the greatest then which a greater cannot be this must needs come to passe because if thou the lovely God canst be more beloved by a man then is that Bond come to the most perfect filiation that that filiation may be perfection complicating all possible filiation by which all sonnes do attaine their last felicity and perfection In which highest sonne filiation is as Art in the Master or the light in the Sunne but in others as Art in the Schollars or light in the Starrs How Iesus is the union of God and Man CHAP. 19. I Give unspeakeable thanks to thee my God the life and light of my soule for now I see the faith which by the Revelation of the Appostles the Catholike Church holdeth namely how thou a loving God begettest of thy selfe a lovely God and that thou the lovely begotten God att the absolute Mediator for by thee is every thing that is or can be for thou the willing or loving God in thy selfe the lovely God complicatest all things for every thing that thou O God willest or conceivest is complicated in thee the lovely God for there cannot bee any thing except thou will it to be All things therefore in thy lovely conception have their cause or reason of being neither is there any other cause of all things but because it so pleaseth thee nothing pleaseth the lover as a lover but the lovely Thou therefore a lovely God art the Son of God a loving father for in thee is all the complaisance of the Father So all being creatable is complicated in thee the lovely God Thou therefore a loving God when as of thee is a lovely God as the Sonne of the Father in as much as thou art God the loving Father of God thy lovely Son art the Father of all things that are for thy conception is thy Sonne and all things in him and thy union and thy conception is the Act and operation arising in which is the act and explication of all things as therefore of thee the loving God is generated the lovely God which Generation is conception So from thee the loving God and thy lovely conception begotten by thee proceeds thy act and thy conception which is the knot knitting and the God uniting thee and thy conception as to love unites the loving and the lovely in love and this knot is called the spirit for the spirit is as motion proceeding from the mover and the moveable consequently motion is the explication of the conception of the mover All things therefore are to be exp●icated in thee God the holy Ghost as they are conceived in thee God the sonne I see then because thou God dost so enlighten me how all things in thee God the sonne are God the Fathers as in the reason conception cause or samplar and have the sonne is the medium of all things as the reason or forme for by the mediation of reason and wisdome thou God the Father workest all things and the spirit or motion puts the conception of reason in effect as we finde by experience that the Arke in minde of the Artificer is put in effect by the mediation of the motive power which is in the hands Then I see O my God thy Son is the medium or mean of the union of all things that all things by the mediation of thy Son may rest in thee And I see blessed Iesus the son of man most Highly united to thy son and that the son of man could not be united to thee God the Father but by mediation of thy son the absolute Mediator Who is not most highly ravished that doth attentively consider these things Thou my God openest unto mee wretch such a secret that I see man cannot understand thee the Father but in thy son which is intelligible and the Mediator and that to understand thee is to be united unto thee Man may therefore be united unto thee by thy son which is the meane of the union and humane nature most highly united unto thee in what man soever in be cannot be more united to the meane then it is united for without the medium it cannot be united unto thee It is therefore most united to the meane yet it is not made the meane whereupon though it cannot be made the meane seeing it cannot be united unto thee without a meane yet it is so joyned to the absolute meane that betweene it and the sonne who is the absolute meane nothing can mediate for if any thing could mediate betweene mans nature and the absolute meane t●en

every signe and figure If it be read that there was sometimes a man found which by whatsoever signes of the eye ●aw the thought of him that asked him although hee sang some verse or meeter in his minde Much better O Iesus didst thou apprehend and understand every conception by every motion of the eye My selfe saw a deafe Woman which by the motion of her Daughters lippes which shee saw did understand what soever shee said aswell as if shee had heard her If this by long custome be thus possible in them that are deafe and dumbe and the Religious which speake to one another in signes much more perfectly didst thou O Iesu which didst actually know whatsoever was to be known as a Mr. of Masters give judgement true and in fallible of the heart and its conceptions in the least and to us invisible becks and nods or signes But to this thy humane and most perfect vision though infinite and contracted to the Organ was the absolute and infinite vision united by which vision as God thou sawest all things and every thing at once aswell absent as present aswell past as to come Thou therefore O Iesus didst by thy humane eye see visible accidents but by thy absolute divine sight the substance of things Never any man besides thee O Iesus saw the substance or quoditie of things whilest hee was in the flesh Thou only didst truely see the soule and the spirit and whatsoever was in man For as in man the intellective power is united to the animall visive power so that man sees not only as a living Wight but also discernes and judges of a man So absolute seeing was in the Iesus united to the humane intellectuall power which is discretion or descerning in the animall sight The animall visive power in man subsists not in it selfe but in the reasonable soule as in the forme of the whole so the visible intellectuall power subsists not i● it selfe but in thee O Iesus th● absolute visive power O thy admirable sight most sweet Iesus we finde some times by experiences how with our eye wee see somebody passing by but because wee took no heed to discerne who it was we cannot tell him that asketh us the name of him that passeth by though we know him well enough and knew there was some body passed by Wee did see him therefore animally but not humanely or wee saw him as we were living wights but not as we were men because we did not apply our discretive or discerning power By which we finde that the nature of the powers although they be united in the one forme of a man yet they remaine distinct and have distinct operations So in thee O Iesus I see after a certaine like manner the humane intellectuall nature united to the divine nature and that accordingly as man thou didst many things and as God many wonderfull things above man I see O most mercifull Iesus the intellectuall nature in respect of the sencible absolute and not as the sencible is finite and tyed to the Organ as the sensible visive power is tyed to the eye but unproportionably more absolute is the divine power above the intellectuall For the humane understanding to the end it may be but unto act hath neede of phantasmata or appearances in the phantasie and they cannot be had without sences and sences subsist not without a body and therefore the power of humane understanding is contracted and small needing the aforesaid things But the divine understanding is necessity it selfe not depending nor needing any thing but all things need it without which they cannot be I do more attentively consider how there is one discursive power which by reasoning discourseth and seeketh and another which judgeth and understandeth for we see a Dog discourse and seeke his Master and discerne him and heare his calling and this discourse is in the nature of Animalitie in the degree of the specificall perfection of a Dogge and there are yet other living wights found of a more cleare discourse according to the more perfect species or kinde and this discourse in man comes neerest to the intellectuall power that it may bee the supreamnesse of sensible perfection containing under the intellectuall many and innumerable degrees of perfection as the species or kindes of living wights do make plaine unto us for there is no species or kinde which hath not the degree of perfection proper unto it selfe and moreover every one of the degrees hath its latitude within the which we see the individuals of the species pertake it diversly But the intellectuall nature in like manner under the Divine hath innumerable degrees of sensible perfection so in the divine nature are complicated all degrees of intellectuall perfection of sensible likewise and all other things So in thee my Iesus I see all perfection for being most perfect man I se in thee the understanding united to the rational or discursive power which is the supreamnesse of the sensitive power And so I see the understanding in reason as the thing placed in its place as a Candle in the Chamber which enlightens the Chamber and all the Walls and the whole building yet according to the degree of distance more or lesse I see next the divine word united to the understanding in its supreamenesse and the understanding it selfe to the place where the word is received as we finde in our selves the understanding to be the place where the word of the Mr. is received as if the light of the Sun should be joyned with the aforesaid Candle For the word of God illuminateth the understanding as the light of the Sun doth this world In thee therefore my Iesus I see the sensible life illuminated by that intellectuall light I see the intellectuall life to be a light enlightning and enlightned and I see the divine life illuminating or enlightning only For I see the fountaine of light in that intellectuall light to wit the word of God which is the truth enlighting every understanding thou therefore art only the light of all Creatures because thou art so a creature that thou art also the blessed Creator How Jesus dyed and yet the Vnion with life remained CHAP 23. IEsus the most savorie food of the minde how admirable dost thou appeare unto mee when I behold thee within the Wall of Paradice for thou art the word of God humanified and man deified and yet thou art not as it were compounded of God and man For amongst those things that compound proportion is necessary without which there can be no composition but betweene finite and infinite there is no proportion Nor art thou the confidence of the Creature and the Creator in such sort as the Coincidence makes one thing to be another for the humane nature is not the Divine nor contrary wise for the divine nature is not changable or alterable into another nature being eternity it selfe nor doth any nature whatsoever because of its union to the divine