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	person_n	unite_v	6,435	5	9.4739	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41383	A discourse of Christianity laying open the abuses thereof in the anti-Christian lives and worship of many of its professors, especially the Romanists : and shewing the way to a holy life in the character of a true Christian / written originally in French by the famous Monsieur de Gombaud ; and now done into English by P Lorrain.	Gombauld, Jean Ogier de, d. 1666.; Lorrain, P. (Paul), d. 1719.	1693 (1693)	Wing G1023; ESTC R14522	47,226	176

were better able to believe and hope for it than comprehend it Seeing the vast distance there is between Heaven and Earth they could not think of any means to fill up their great Abyss and were not informed there were any Steps by which they might ascend to Heaven save only by Jacob's Ladder Yet Reason does for all that give its assent to things that happen beyond Reason it self and helps us apprehend that at last which at first it could not so much as in the least make us imagine Since therefore it teaches us that a Mean ought equally to partake of both Extremes and doth unite them howsoever disagreeing they may be that a Mediator ought to be capable of the Sentiments and Affections of both Parties he intends to reconcile and set a just Estimate upon the Right or Wrong of either of them Who doubts but that he that for this end is sent to us from Heaven is fully possess'd of all the Qualities requisite for him as such that he partakes of the Humane and Divine Nature in a Word that he is Man and God both together Moreover who doubts but that he is a Man conceiv'd otherwise than other Men lest his Natural Corruption and Sin should make him incapable of an intimate essential Union with the Divine Justice and Purity For if he were not Man we could have no share in him neither could his satisfaction be imputed to us If he were not God he could not communicate his Immortal Virtues Glory and Felicity to us If he were Man only he could not overcome Death nor raise himself from the Grave but sink under the Burthen and be soon reduc'd to nothing And if he were God only he could not have Died nor received from himself that Payment to which we are bound by the Law Therefore he must suffer and yet be altogether incapable of Dying he must die and yet withal be Immortal too He must descend into Hell and come up thence again He must be above all the Infernal Powers and shew that to him truly belong all the ways that lead to as well as the Issues from Death He that will deliver others from the Curse must undergo and overcome it and to the end there might be some proportion between the Offence and the Punishment there must be a Person of an infinite Worth and Excellency to make a temporal and finite torment of infinite Merit For certainly it is more with God that his Son dies for the Sins of the World then to see all Mankind perish together Now tho' there be no Law that allows the Innocent to suffer for the Guilty neither is there any that forbids it provided he offer himself willingly and be not absolutely destroy'd by the Punishment but have power as to lay down his Life so to take it up again XVII O the Wonders of the Eternal Power and Wisdom who in the Beginning was pleased to take out of Man a Woman that caused us all to Die that afterwards out of the Woman he might take a Man that will make us all alive again Thus Humane and Divine Nature in the fulness of time are by a stupendious Mystery united together and without any the least alteration in the properties of either the Son of God has joyn'd himself in Unity of Person with the Son of Man I say the Son and not the Father for we cannot have him for an Intercessor who is to be interceded with He that does send cannot be sent and because the Father does nothing by himself but all things by his Son it is reasonable that he should exert the Second Creation who was the Author of the First And who could speak better on our behalf than he who is the Word it self Who could reprint the Divine Image better in us than he that formed it there at first or intitle us better to the right of Children than he that possesses it in the highest degree But it is not enough that he should make satisfaction and that this satisfaction should be imputed to us but he must also confer that Grace upon and apply it to us and this is the Office of the Spirit which equally proceeds from the Son and the Father He it is that enlightens and purifies us that enables us to understand love and believe these Mysteries that impregnates us as he did the Blessed Virgin and makes us conceive our Saviour He is that Band of Love which unites us to the Divinity that real Unction wherewith we are all anointed and thereby made Kings Prophets and Priests In short it is he that gives himself for a Pledge and Security of the Promises of the Life to come of the Resurrection and Glory XVIII This great Mediator therefore is come such as he was foretold not like some great Conqueror a Cyrus or an Alexander but in the form of a Man full of sorrows and acquainted with griefs like one Consecrated by suffering to be a Propitiatory Victim for Mankind whose Merit is sufficient for all but appliable only to them that believe in him He is come not to shed another's Blood but his own and combate Rebellion with Obedience Strength with Weakness Pride with Humility This is that which makes him appear greater and more Divine This is that which overcomes and ravishes us into admiration and obliges us to fall down and worship him This is the sole Object of Religion which is not only the Art of saving Man but of making a God of him without any the least prejudice to the Divine Unity or the Holy Trinity For what name can be given to the Son of Man who makes but one and the same Person with the Son of God And of what Extract must we esteem them to be whom he has vouchsafed so far to honour as to call them his Brethren Now this RELIGION has been established not by any Bribings Companies or Combinations not by the Favour of Princes or the Votes of People not by the Subtilty of Philosophers or the Perswasion of Orators In a word not by a Multitude of Men as the Mahometan nor a great Number of Gods as the Pagan but only by the plain Proposal of a simple and naked Truth Which Truth has notwithstanding all manner of Opposition and Gain-saying made it self to be heard throughout the World and at its appearance has seen all Errors confounded all Sects dissipated and vanishing all False Oracles struck Dumb and all Idols and their Worshippers fall down before it CHAP. V. XIX AFter all that this RELIGION lays before us of the only Way for Man to be sav'd what can all the Religions in the World besides teach us And what can Mahomet pretend to perswade us if the Name of a Christian be so odious to him and he so little agree with Christ who does so perfectly agree with all the Prophets Is it not a wonderful thing that so many Men should be inspired in so different Places and at so different times

times reflected upon the Beauty of this Universe the Order of its Parts the mutual Services they lend one another and the Eternal Laws they observe A thousand times I say have I consider'd all these Wonders and the custom of seeing them has not lessen'd my admiration of them I have taken notice that all this great World is nothing else but a Visible Word that proves a GOD so evidently that in comparison of it all our Eloquence and Rhetorick is dumb or at best so obscure and inconsistent with it self that the more it endeavours on this account the more it seems to hide what it would demonstrate I have seen that all things in Nature constantly perform their respective Functions and answer the end and perfection of their Creation MAN only excepted who has from the beginning taken part with the Devils and Enemies of GOD by offending him with so much ingratitude who had bestow'd so many Favours upon him and made him such as it was possible for him to be without being God but an Image of Him As the first conception of his Mind was a Fancy of Pride and Vain-glory so the first Production of his Body was a Cain a Murtherer of his Brother and all the Children he has brought into the World have inherited his Rashness and Rebellion and consequently his Condemnation and Punishment I have considered Men in general and perceived that some of them were of the Nature of Devils others of Beasts and many of both together that their hands were full of Blood Extortions Violence and Rapine In short that their whole Exercise was nothing else but a kind of Monopoly and Robbery II. Then was I seized with a secret horror and grief which like a shadow of Death brought a Cloud upon the fairest days of my Life Nothing could comfort me neither the consideration that God had made me a Man nor that I was one of those that bear the Name of Christians seeing they were at variance together and that Ignorance and Malice were as common amongst them as with Barbarians and Infidels Nothing was more contrary to me than those I thought like my self and I was reduced to this necessity either to make my self odious to all by an Everlasting Contradiction or to follow their Examples and thereby be in some sort an Accomplice with them in their deceit and unfaithfulness In the mean time I observe that the same accidents equally surpriz'd both Old and Young and I could not perswade my self that Rational Beings could feel any true Content in so great an Uncertainty of what must happen to them My Reason it self and all the Reflections it enabled me to make did but serve to increase my sorrow till I carefully and seriously considered the Divine Oracles of the most ancient Writings which assured me that God had reserved some to himself who bore a Mark in their Foreheads which the Angels respect and whom the Destroyer doth not approach in the Day of Vengeance That this World was nothing else but a Place of Tryal to discern the Good from the Bad and a Way by which we are to pass through Darkness to Light and from Misery to Felicity Words I should have heard with more fear than assurance seeing there were so few that could or would mind them if they themselves had not taught me that Shepheards and Fishermen do much better understand them than the Disputers of this World and Philosophers and that for the true comprehending of them there is not so much need of Logick as of Faith and Piety That they teach a Science that does not puff Men up but makes them humble and yet gives the most Humble and Lowly courage enough to profess it openly before the Proudest and Greatest Men in the World and every day to venture their own Lives in the attempt of saving of others from Death III. All these Divine Revelations being accompanied with a Spirit of Comfort have calmed my Soul and I have found my self as it were renew'd and transformed on a sudden in such a manner that though my former grief has not quite left me at least its nature is changed and has now no other cause but my Sins and Infirmities And if still I entertain any fears they are such as serve only to assure me the more and make me press with greater eagerness towards the Mark which Hope and Faith have set before me In this I rejoyce not as for some transitory Oblectation which nothing can satisfie and which at its full finds a want of many things but as for an all-sufficient and permanent Good which increaseth by Communication and which I may be very liberal of without the least diminishing of it This is that makes me now freely offer what I have received and to joyn my desires with those of such Faithful Souls as Providence has sown and mix'd with others to the end that the Voice of Truth may be heard every where and leave them without out excuse who having heard shall not believe or who being Traitors to themselves for some Worldly Considerations shall fear to know it lest thereby they should be obliged to follow it The Days are coming when those very Men will perhaps accuse us for our not having said enough to them and for our Cowardise in not reproving of them and will endeavour to charge their wilful Ignorance and hardness of Heart upon our weakness or neglect And yet we no sooner open our Mouths that way but some say they pity us or will laugh at and despise us and the most favourable usage we receive from them is to be looked upon as silly and extravagant Fellows Others grow angry with us and are ready to tear us in pieces revile us and take us for Hereticks and Evil-doers though our Crime be of such a nature as that we desire no better than to have our Judges fully informed of it and own it before all the World IV. But to whom shall we speak Idolaters will never understand us All the Prophets have denounced a Curse against them which takes away their Understanding and makes them like that they Worship Neither will we be understood by weak Minds and destitute of Judgment for such cannot apprehend any thing being more apt to be troubled than instructed and if they be Wicked they are offended to hear Words that Condemn them And these are by so much the more dangerous as they are more Witty and Learned They do nothing but use tricks and wrest both Words and Sense The clearest Propositions when they please become dark and doubtful they can prove and deny every thing alike and by a just Judgment for their not being willing to understand the Truth they are grown such miserable wretches as not to be able to understand themselves they are so given up to the study of things superfluous that they have lost the Care of those that are necessary an Humane Science which they have made the Judge of that which is