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	unity_n	11,351	5	10.1140	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87552	Allotrioepiskopos, the busie bishop. Or The visitor visited. By way of answer to a very feeble pamphlet lately published by Mr J.G. called Sion Colledge visited, in which answer, his cavils against the ministers of London for witnessing against his errours touching the holy Scriptures, and the power of man to good supernaturall, are answered, and the impertinency of his quotations out of the fathers, Martin Bucer, and Mr Ball are manifested. / By William Jenkyn minister of the Word of God at Christ-Church London.	Jenkyn, William, 1613-1685.	1648 (1648)	Wing J632; Thomason E434_4; ESTC R202641	59,976	70

naturall men may doe such things whereunto God hath by way of promise annexed grace because they may beleeve c. Friend Fear you not God Did not your hand shake and your heart tremble when you wrote that the Ministers set down these words for the Error Doubtles men are naturall before they are spirituall For your position that naturall men may doe such things whereunto God hath by way of promise annexed grace how should I rejoice could I hope that the reason why you conceald it in Sion Coll. visit was remorse I observed a little before that you left out the word alwaies in setting down that Error the same with this in other words cited by the subscribers in their Testimony A naturall man by his naturall principles may attain that conviction which conversion alwaies follows I adde to what there I said I suppose by your naturall man who you say doth things to which God hath annexed acceptation you mean the same man that the Apostle speaks of Rom. 8.8 The man in the flesh now that man cannot please God Opera Anglica na contra jungu● pag 8.8 Fateor non param nihi do uit dogma planè imptum a pertè Pelogia num obtru●i nostrae scholae c. sed Hominem posse ante justificatione a dum adhu● a Christo do nino est al●●us impius facere bona opera quae fint Deo ita grata ut bis operib● Deus moveatur ad co● creadum plenam ad se co●versi●en Rivet Disp pag. 155. though your naturall man doth things acceptable to God Invert not Gods and natures order first let the tree be good and then the fruit But know if you still remain obdurate that your good friend Mr Bucer hath no more patience toward you but in down right terms calls you Pelagian for saith he 't is an impious and a Pelagian opinion that a man before justification and while out of Christ should be able to doe good works so acceptable to God that by these works God should be moved to bestow conversion upon him Only I confesse the learned Rivet p. 155. of his disputations with a little more moderation calls you among the rest a pargetted Pelagian If I rightly English his words incrustantes Pelagianismum And I pray consider how little you want of meritum de congruo But you prove your position That naturall men may doe such good works c. most lamentably because 't is possible say you they may beleeve But how then say I can they doe things accep●able to God before they beleeve if you make beleeving the reason of their acceptation And who knows not but that naturall men may beleeve viz. that they are such subjects as God works upon so as to make them beleevers but prove that they are able to beleeve while they are naturall men Help him logick let fallacia a bene divisis ad malè conjuncta be well heeded how should your poor people know your fulla●ies when you know them not your self They make me an Erroneous offender Sion Col. visit p. 16. for saying that to beleeve first that God is secondly that he is a rewarder of all those who diligently seek him is all the faith which the Apostle makes absolutely necessary to bring a man to God Heb. 11 6. Answ Still you would fain have the Scripture counted hereticall with your self but the Subscribers know how to distinguish between these two the holy Scriptures and your hereticall scriblings Your self not the Subscribers make you the Erroneus offender but not for these words viz. To beleeve that God is and that he is a rewarder c. is all the faith which is necessary to bring a man to God but for your saying immediately going before which you were afraid or ashamed to repeat viz. That all the world even those that have not the letter of the Gospel have yet sufficient means granted them of beleeving these two viz. That God is and that he is a rewarder c. You affirming that they who have only the heavens the Sun Moon and Starres to preach the Gospel unto them they also have reason sufficient to judge the same judgement with them who have the letter of the Gospel for they have the Gospel say you the substance and effect of it the willingnes of God to be reconciled to the world preached unto them by the Apostles aforesaid the Sun Moon and Starres What stuffe is here Have all the world sufficient means of beleeving these two 1. That God is Heb. 11.6 2. That he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Had you understood that place of Scripture you would not have said so for the faith or belief there spoken of is evidently such a faith as whereby a man may come to God with acceptation The words are set down by the Apostle to prove that without faith no man can please God For faith he No man can acceptably come to God unlesse he beleeve that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him strongly inferring that whosoever doth beleeve that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him doth come to God in a way of pleasing him Judicious Calvin tells you thus upon the place Haec est ratio cur citra fidem null a Deo placeat quia nullus unquam accedit nisi qui credit Deum esse statue● remuneratorem esse omnibus qui eum quaerunt And a little after he saith the Apostle meaneth not that men should be perswaded that there is some or a God but he speaks this of the true God De vero Deo hoc praedicat and this reward is not to be referred to the dignity of works but to faith Haec remuneratio non ad operum dignitatem vel pretium sed ad fidem refertur Calv. in loc And Paraeus upon that place will inform you that those two heads of faith That God is and that God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him are not to be understood Philosophically but Theologically that the eternall God is Father Son and holy Ghost and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him Evangelically by faith in Christ with the benefits of the Gospel pardon adoption sanctification glory c. And can Heathens by the Sun Moon and Starres doe this can they by the light of nature beleeve a trinity of Persons in unity of Essence if they doe they are better then your godly persons Hag. pag 36 who you say are holy and walk with God and yet beleeve not that God is one in three persons Ad co●nitiene● De●per createras ex naturae lumine non aliter ducimur nisi quatenus Deus est earum principium causa non au●em earum ●ausa nisi per divinam suam cirtutem omnil us 〈◊〉 ●o●warem 〈◊〉 per creaturas cognitionem consequinon valemus nisi eam quae patri 〈◊〉

spi●●●i ●●●cto s●t communis quo●●● per●reaturas ad cognoscendam personarum 〈…〉 non poss●m a p●r●●●gere G●●● de Trin. None saith Gerard can be led to the knowledge of God by the creatures but only so farre forth as God is their cause Now God is their cause by a divine power common to the three persons therefore by the creatures we can onely attain to knowledge of those things which are common to the three Persons wherefore certainly by the creatures we can never attain to the knowledge of the distinction of persons Name one heathen who did most diligently search into nature that did by the inspection of the creature know there was a trinity of persons And can the heathens by the works of creation have the discoveries of a mediator and have Christ made known to them and beleeve in him I am sure you never learned this of the Apostle Dicimus fide● in Christum non semper requiri ad justificationem sed fid●● s●●pliciter ut restatur Apo stolus Heb. 〈◊〉 in quo et●●n additur 〈◊〉 ●idem 〈…〉 dam req●●● credere qu●● Deus sit quod sit rem●nera ●t illoru● qui ipsum quaerunt de fide verò in Christum nulla vel ●inima fit 〈◊〉 R●fot lib. de sat Christ● cap. to p. 17● who saith that faith comes by hearing Rom. 10. Or are you of Smalcius his judgement who faith that faith in Christ is not alwaies required to justification but faith simply and he proves it out of this very Scripture that you have here alledg'd Heb. 11.6 for the faith of heathens Sir blame me not if I be jealous of you as of one that favours socinianisme Sure I am you must either hold that heathens must attain faith in Christ by the enjoying of sun moon and starres or that the faith of the 11. of Heb. 6. which you say the heathens doe attain by the sun moon and startes is not a faith in Christ and then welfare Smalcius In your next I pray manifest your judgement herein Or of whom learned you this opinion that they who have only the sun moon and starres Impossibile est pervenire ad sidem pervenire ad aeternam vitam nisi audieris evargelium idque adminis●ratum per hominem nam de praedicatione Evangelij Paulus hic l●quitur quam dominus per Apostolos suos ado inistravit Bucer in Rom. 10. Act. Synod Artic. 2. Col. Hag. art 2. Ad Arg. 5. pag. 179. Sion Col. visi● p. 17. Ans c. to preach the Gespel unto them have sufficient means of beleeving Certainly Mr Bucer never was your Master who on Rom. 10. saith It 's impossible to attain to saith to aeternall life unlesse thou hearest the Gospel and that admi●istred by man for Paul here speaks of the preaching of the Gospel which God administred by his Apostles But whose scholler are you now Friend you are to blame to put me out of my old way for I would fain have found a schoolmaster among the Arminians for you but the truth is you have now outgon your Masters They indeed say that God calls all with a common calling by which men may be made fit to hear the Gospel in which salvation is offered c. but they never dream'd of a Gospel by Sun Moon and Starres nay when pressed at the conference at Hague to shew the universality of the preaching of the Gospel though they have many shifts and cavils yet this of your Preachers never came into their minde Let all my sayings be drawn together and the rigidest extraction made there will be found the same spirit of errour if yet it were errour in Mr John Ball Intituled A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace pag. 44. of 〈◊〉 ●●●course I cannot wonder that you who would fain father your errours upon Scripture are in this kinde industrious also to abuse holy and learned Mr Ball lay not your egges of errour in Mr Balls nest thinking that by the warmth of his reputation to have them hatched The words of Mr Ball are these No man is hindered from beleeving through the difficulty or unreasonablenes of the command or through his own simple infirmity as being willing to beleeve but not able which inability deserves pity but he doth not beleeve because he will not What is here that gives you the least countenance in your errours Mr Ball saith and that truly that unwillingnesse to beleeve hinders a man from beleeving but he doth not say that any man of himself can be willing for pag. 226. having asserted that man is unable to beleeve and in the same page that it is of grace to be inabled to beleeve he presently adds that mands not further from beleeving then desire to beleeve Mr B. grants that it's mans fault that he dissents from grace calling him but where saith he it is in mans power to consent to grace calling him and if he will not say so he cannot be of your faith who maintain that man hath ability to beleeve and may so improve his naturall abilities that conversion alwaies will follow and if man had not power to beleeve God were unjust to command it Mr Ball blames mans unwillingnesse to beleeve and you like an acute logician thence conclude mans sufficiency 'T were easie to shew as great a dissonancy between you and Mr Ball in this point as there is an harmony between you and the Remonstrants Take it in these four or five passages 1. You say Div. Auth. p. 168. That if man should be deprived of all ability to beleeve and yet God should be still moving and perswading men to beleeve this would be harder then injustice it self As for a King to cause a mans leggs to be cut off and yet command him to run a race And you say that mans inability to do any thing that God commands is a very fair and reasonable excuse for not doing it Div. Auth. p. 201. But Mr Ball saith pag. 245 246. of the Cou. of Gr. That an impossible thing to us may be and is the object of Gods command and of his desire Nay in the same place the Lord commands and desires the conversion of many obstinate impenitent persons who have the means of grace whom for their present contempt he doth blinde and harden If impossible be not the object of Gods will in this fence viz. impossible in respect of ma● he that by custome in evil hath contracted an habit that he cannot but sin should not offend and he that is carried with the most violence of minde to evil should be least evil pag. 247. he saith that God may justly withhold the graces of his spirit from those that are invited in the Ministery and pag. 248. The Lord doth earnestly again and again call upon impenitent and obstinate sinners to repent and beleeve when as yet in his just judgement he hardens their hearts that they cannot repent And whereas you call mans inability a fair excuse for not