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	humane_a	property_n	6,283	5	9.7419	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41192	A view of an ecclesiastick in his socks & buskins, or, A just reprimand given to Mr. Alsop, for his foppish, pedantick, detractive and petulant way of writing	Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.	1698 (1698)	Wing F764; ESTC R476	85,805	132

subscribe the Antinomian Creed Whereunto may be added what we met with in p. 93. ubi supra viz. That it is a Phrase of a dark and dubious meaning and as the Words seem to sound of dangerous Design and Tendency by which nothing else can honestly and truly be meant but that it is of an evil and fatal Consequence in reference to the overthrowing the Notions of the Socinians and Arminians which out of Respect to Mr. Williams if not to Himself he is very sorry for And of Affinity to the foremention'd Expressions is that which occurs p. 97. of the same Book where he tells us that it is inept and improper to convey to our Vnderstanding the Truth of Christ's having died for our Sins whereas much wiser and far more learned Men than he i. e. All the great Divines who have written with Irrefragable Strength and with exact Accuracy on the Subject of Christ's Satisfaction have judg'd it the aptest and properest Phrase which in order to that end they could fall upon And to all the foregoing rude and unmannerly Misrepresentations of it may be subjoyned that Expression p. 99. ubi supra that it is a Phrase which carrieth an odd sound and syncretizeth with the Nestorian Gibberish there having been a Crew of lewd Hereticks who affirmed that Christ took on him the Person of Sinners and these from the first Author and Founder of their Sect were called Nestorians who maintain'd that Christ was constituted of two Persons the one the Eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who did assume the other an Humane Person that was assumed Which meerly to have cited is enough to shew that the Man is Lunatick and Distracted as well as childishly foolish and grosly ignorant For without a large measure of the latter and being very much affected with the former he could never have written in this Nonsensical and Phrentick manner For to imagine that Christ's sustaining in his Sufferings the Person of the Elect or of such as either hid or should afterward believe is coincident with or of any Alliance to Nestorianism shews that after all his Pretensions to modern and antient Learning he knows not what Nestorianism is or that he hath both forfeited his Understanding and bid adieu to Conscience Seeing whatsoever the Opinion of Nestorius himself was concerning which I shall not now enquire and much less reflect upon Cyrill and others who are thought by some to have misunderstood or misrepresented him it is certain that what was condemned as Nestorianism in the General Council of Ephesus Anno 428. was that the second Person of the Trinity the Eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 took an entire Humane Person and not meerly the Humane Nature into Union with his Divine Person and that he was constituted not of two Natures whereof the Humane being taken into Union with the second Person of the Trinity without any Personal Subsistence of its own Distinct from that of the Eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 subsisted by Personality of the Son of God but that he was constituted of two Essential distinct natural Persons Now how Christ's standing in the room and stead and sustaining the Person of the Elect in his suffering for them as their Surety should come to be compared with or paralell'd unto Nestorianism and thereupon expos'd to Ridicule and rejected as Heretical I think no Man who is not depriv'd of Reason and common Sense will presume to understand Nor would any save one beyond the Relief of Hellebore have had the madness to have fancied or said it For as the Orthodox by believing and declaring that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 took a singular and individual Humane Nature of the same Species with ours i. e. A true Body and a reasonable Soul into Union with his Divine Person never meant that he took an Humane Person into that Union but that the Nature which he assumed subsisted by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Son of God so the very Nestorians who held that the second Person of the Trinity took an Individual Humane Person i. e. an Humane Nature with its proper natural and peculiar Subsistence into Union with his Divine Person were never so nonsensical and delirious as to dream and much less to say that he took the Persons of all the Elect into a natural Physical or Hypostatical Union with himself as he was the Eternal Son of God To which may be added as that which is further detective of Mr. Alsop's prodigious Ignorance or his impresidented Insincerity that the Phrase of Christ's sustaining the Person of the Elect upon the Reasons and for the Purposes already mention'd was never intended to denote a Personal Union whether Physical or Hypostatical between Him and Them but meerly a Moral and Legal Nor was it ever used to signifie and express more than what he did for them in a Juridical Construction namely that thro' being their Surety he represented and became one with them in Conspectu Fori and that thro' standing in their room and stead he had the Guilt of their Sins imputed to Him and suffer'd both in their place and underwent whatsoever was Primarily intended and Essentially comprehended in the Sanction of the Law to which they thro' a Violation of the Preceptive part of it were become Obnoxious That is to use the Language and Stile of Foreign Divines least I should be thought to utter Anglicisms or to vent what slanderous Persons may call Crispianism Christum ut sponsorem foederis peccata nostra sibi a Deo imposita suscepisse atque sua fecisse ut pro nobis peccatum i.e. peccator factus sit in Dei Judicio quia peccatum factus pro nobis factus quoque sit Execratio vi Legis cui se nostro nomine subjecit nam is vice loco alterius moritur quo mortuo alter mortuus Censetur in Judicio Cloppenb de Christ. Servat Thess. 14. 15. i. e. That Christ as Surety of the Covenant having our Sins imputed to and charged upon him by God undertook to bear and answer for them as if they had been his own and that being made Sin i. e. a Sinner in the Judicial Estimate of God viz. by Imputation he thereupon became a Curse by virtue of the Sanction of the Law to which he had subjected Himself in our Name and Stead For he only dies in the place and room of another in by and thro' whose Death that other is accounted in a Legal and Juridical Sense to have died And that Christus quatenus pro nobis sponsor erat omnium Salvandorum personam sustinebat ac pro us omnem justitiam Legis implevit partim in ferendis poenis peccatorum et subeundo poenas condignas quas lex dei a nobis peccatoribus exigebat partim implendo pro us omnem justitiam legis quam lex exigebat sed quam illi implere non poterant Voet. Select par 2. p. 22. i.e. Christ as he was our Surety sustained the

the Harmony of the Divine Attributes c. So the whole Import of that Phrase as it hath been used by him and also by the most who have written with Care and Exactness on the subject of Christ's satisfaction is no more than what hath been Delivered by the Apostle Gal. 4. 4 5. namely that Christ becoming Mediator and Surety was made under the Law both as to its Preceptive Part and its Sanction that he might Redeem them that were under the Law And that as he fulfilled the Directive Part of the Law by the Innocency and Obedience of his Life he likewise underwent the Penalty of it in his Sufferings and Death Now so many Instances of a frothy and vain Mind are scarcely to be met with in any Writing nay not in it commonly called Grubstreet as this Theological Author upon a subject relating to Divinity and Articles of Christian Belief hath delivered not only in a few Sheets but almost in every one of them For the Ambition and Unity of Acting the Droll has made him forget that he was either a Gentleman a Scholar or a Divine But tho True and Innocent Wit be both Estimable in it self and is hearkned unto with Respect and Deference by all that have Genius and good Relish yet Boorish ill Natur'd and foolish Jests will recommend no man to such as are distinguish'd from the Unthinking and Debauched Herd and much less one that is a Minister of the Gospel the Grimaces and Mimicks of a Baboon would give better Divertisement than this Drolling and Impure way of Writing Those being agreeable to his species while the Latter is both a Degrading and a Disparaging of the Human kind by acting a Part which speaks a Metamorphosis of some of the Intellectual Race into those Brutal Creatures which seem to have been purposely Fram'd to give Mirth and Sport But to bestow some Reflections upon what I have rehearsed out of our Author the first thing I would observe is that the little Wit that appears in any thing he has said is perfectly Antiquated and out of Date Chaucer's obsolete English would sooner be accounted Elegant and Rhetorical among the Politest Masters of our Refin'd and Modern Language than these Puns Quibles and Drollings of an Infantill unpolish'd Age will pass and be admitted for Schemes of Maturated Adult and Pregnant Wit And to Address the World in such a Style is more Ridiculous than for a Beau to go to Court in Trunck Breeches and a Gorillo or for a Lady that valueth her self upon Fashionableness of Attire and the Genteelest mean of Dress to present her self in the Royal Presence with a Kercher or an Old Elizabeth Fardingal It is likewise mean and Boorish borrowed from the Plough and Harrow rather than from either a Palace or an Academy And would more become the Rural Clown than a Gentleman or a Theologue Witness besides what I have already repeated that Expression p. 102. where he calls all the Noise that hath been made about Mr. Williams's Book of Gospel-Truth stated a shearing of Hogs And that other Elegancy p. 94 where to fasten upon Mr. Lobb the Slaunder of having misrepresented him He phraseth it by his Extracting water out of Flint and by his being in Possession of an Engine that can find drayning works on Salisbury Plain In a word all the Perfections of Wit and Eloquence which he valueth himself upon and seeketh Reputation from are rather the Wit and Language of Coblers and Tinkers than either of a Fresh-man in the Vniversity or of a Common Trades-man in the City and much less of one that would be held a Virtuoso as well as a Divine And instead of having an Affinity with what is Learned from the Muses it is such as people come to be Instructed in among Gypsies and Strollers or which would be held owing to an Education among those whom both the Heathen Theology and Poetry made Inhabitants of the Woods and which use to be Painted with Curled Horns and Cloven Feet 'T is also nasty and unclean as if learned at the Tombrall and not where Persons of Vertue or Breeding do come and Frequent Neither doth his Vnderstanding seem to be of the same Species nor his sensible Faculties Resolvable into the like Texture of Organs that the rest of Human kind are in that Trifles and Stenches which choake the Intellects and offend the Senses of every one else are in him most grateful to the latter and entertaining to the Former He would seem to have been either Born or Bred in a Hogsty in that Dung and Ordure are more Agreeable and Odoriferous to his Olfactive Power than either Musk or Essences And seeing he enquires of Mr. Lobb after and seems to want a Place I would case him of the Friendly service which in that Particular he expects from him and would recommend him as the fittest and best Qualified Candidate to be a Midnight Gold Gatherer or an Emptier of Houses of Office For if I may speak my Opinion impartially of this man's Judgment and sense he does reckon it to be more Ornamental to be Drawn in a Dung-Cart than to Ride in a Triumphant Chariot And his Flights of Wit and Flowers of Eloquence are rather Burlesque and plain Ribaldry than handsome and Innocent Raillery And when he comes forth Strutting in his Greatest Gaiety it is in the Manufacture of Prophaneness and in the Colours of smut and Debauchery and not in the Rayment and Garb of Vertue and good sense His best Turns of Thought would hardly be tolerable in a Farce but would upon no Terms be allow'd in a Comedy The best that can be said both of his Wit and skill is that they are Entirely Scaramuchio and ●arlaquin Nor was the Writing about Divine Truths or the Preaching of the Gospel ever intended to come within the Circle of his Province the whole that Nature seems to have fitted and therefore Design'd him unto being to appear in yellow and Red seeing he is Covetuous of a Livery to beget Laughter in the Mob that stands gaping about the Stage of a Mountebanck Tho in the mean time I 'le crave Liberty to tell him that whosoever he be whose work and the Top of Ambition and the height of his Faculty is to make others Laugh is to make himself Ridiculous And as the Epithet of the Bird of Athens was given him by a very Learned Person divers years ago so he doth now Appear to Deserve it not only by reason of his being more Feathers than Body but because he ought never to venture into the Light for fear of being houted at but to rest contented to live within the Curtains and under the Shades of the night In that his coming abroad in the Day is found as Ominous of Disgrace to all that own him as his Note and Tune by which he seeks to be thought melodious is by all who have an Harmonious soul and a Musical ear turn'd into an occasion of Laughter and

Critick intituled Infamia famiani stradae And if it should in the Event prove that it was not for Mr. Miltons having been an Arrian tho' that People's Theological System is in all things more Coherent in it self and in some not so detractive from our Lord Jesus Christ nor so contradictious to the Scripture in divers Particulars as that of the Socinians is why Mr. Alsop doth so esteem and admire him and gather up the most Ulcerous and Infective part of his Writings with greater Lusciousness than the Poets are said to have lick'd Homer's Spittle yet if Mr. Milton had two other Qualities that reconcile him to Mr. Alsop's Veneration and which encourage him both to borrow from and imitate him One was his having been the most Satyrical and Sarcastical Writer of this Age who never cared whether what he said of an Adversary was either true or civil provided it was but picquant and biting And who never govern'd himself towards those that had wrote against him by the Maxims and Rules either of Religion or of Moral Decency but by Principles of Haughtiness Indignation and Revenge whereof both his Defensio pro populo Anglicano against Salmasius and his Defensio pro seipso against Morus not to mention other of his Books are as well shameful as uncontroulable Evidences The other was his having been the most malicious and virulent Antimonarchical Writer in Britain and the greater Zealot for Democracy For which I suppose he has the more Incense offer'd to his Memory by Mr. Alsop and the sweeter Flowers strowed upon his Grave Which I doubt not but Mr. Alsop with the same Faecility and the like Artifices of Sophistry can reconcile both to his having taken the Oath of Allegiance to his present Majesty as Rightful Soveraign and King and to his having subscrib'd the Association as he can bring his Antisozzo to harmonize and to be in Alliance and Confederacy with his Faithful Rebuke and his Vindication of it All that I will further add in reference to Mr. Alsop's transferring a Passage out of Milton and that both wonderfully mistaken misapplied and blasphemously improv'd by him and in which Mr. Milton also grosly erred upon a Subject where tho Raillery was not decent yet it was not Impious into a Theological Discourse about an Important Article of Faith and his perverting it there to the height of Prophaneness is that the man will be beholding to any Authors whatsoever and readily borrow from them yea be thankful to the Chaplain of the Copper-mines in Sweden for his Aid and Assistance with whom having brought him into an Ecclesiastical Office I do reckon he purposeth to cultivate a Friendship and Correspondence in order to his being enabled to be Irreligiously Witty Nor are his many Puns Quibbles Jests Drolleries and Sarcasms wherewith his late Books are plentifully enrich'd any thing else save the most Immorall and Libertine Scraps of the worst Plays and the greatliest offensive Recrements of the Mountebank's Stage which he hath borrow'd and transplanted thence and grafted into his Theological Writings and his Divinity Lectures to make himself esteem'd a Jocular Divertive and Witty Author whereas in reality they do only serve to proclaim him a pittiful Jack-Pudding and an Insolent Buffoon who hath neither Grace nor good manners Having dispatch'd all that I intended upon the Head of Mr. Alsop's Insincerity in what he writes both of Persons and Things and having interwoven some Reflections upon that way manner and method of Writing as I found them agreeable and pertinent to the several and respectful Instances I have alledged in Justification of that Charge all that now remains in reference to this Branch of my Letter addressed unto you Reverend Pastors and Brethren of the Congregational Perswasion is by a very few general Reflections which I promised as Muzzel to this Molossus to lay open the Hurt and Mischief as well as the moral Criminalness of it In the First Place then It is a high Affront to the Almighty God who being Himself Essentially Veracious Imprinted it Originally as a Dictamen Natural upon our Intilectual Faculties that we should not dissemble Misrepresent falsly nor directly Lye For as it is Contradictious to all the Attributes of God that he should depart from Truth and Veracity in what he says either in Revealing Doctrines to be Implicitly believed giving forth Promises to be firmly Relied upon Denouncing Threatnings to be greatly Dreaded or Recording Matters of Fact to be carefully Observed So it is both our Indispensable Duty to Conform unto and Imitate Him and will be the highest Improvement and Perfection of our Reasonable Nature to become as nearly Assimulated unto him in the Properties of Truth and Sincerity as our Creature and Finite State will admit For tho there be several things the Injunction whereof dependeth Entirely upon the Soveraign and Arbitrarious Will of God and Abstracting from which the Performance of them would be no part of Duty nor the Omitting of them any Trasgression yet his requiring us to be Veracious and Sincere in whatsoever we Profess in reference to Him and what he has Authentically Declared or speak unto or concerning Men hath its Foundation in the Atributes of the Divine Being Anticedently unto and Regulative of the Placita of His Will And as every Man therefore upon the Principles of his being made in the Image of God and under His Law ought to be exactly Veracious and not to Represent Persons and Things otherwise than he knows them to be so there are Particular Reasons for which the departure of a Minister of the Gospel from being Morally upright Sincere and True comes to be attended with an Aggravated and Inhansed Guilt Because being a Selected and Peculiar Officer both of Gods Rectoral Kingdom over men in General and of His Dispensations of Grace for the recovering a lapsed Race to their Duty and the Re-envesting them in a Forfeited Happiness he is upon both Accounts Distinctly bound not to do or say any thing that may be Inconsistent with or unbecoming the Character of an Ambassadour of the Great and True God the High and Universal Soveraign and our Gracious and Merciful Father For whereas Tricks Deceits Misrepresentations and Imposings upon the Easy and Credulous part of Mankind are Observed to have been very usual and Customary Qualities in the Priests of the Heathen Deities yet it is a thing that can be plainly Accounted for in that being the Officers and Ministers of the Father of Lies and who through speaking under his Authority and in Imitation of his Example did but in Conformity both to their Masters Copy and his Commission As he in Terence Justified his Laciviousness from his Acting after the Patern set him by Jupiter But that One who Pretends to be Authorised to Declare the Rectoral Will of the Supream and Soveraign Being Proclaim the Indemnifying Grace of a Compassionate and Indulgent Father and Convey to the Knowledge of Men the Truths Revealed by Him that is