Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	ghost_n	holy_a	trinity_n	3,214	5	9.7060	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28288	The love of God manifested in giving our Saviour for the redemption of mankind a sermon preach'd before the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen on Nov. the 29th, 1696, being the first Sunday in Advent / by L. Blackburne ...	Blackburne, Lancelot, 1658-1743.	1697 (1697)	Wing B3067; ESTC R11620	10,822	27

vain do we search for any thing in God's Nature or our own for any Laws or Principles of Nature or Reason that might oblige him to it on his part or incline him on ours There was not any tye upon him to this Gift in respect of his own Nature from any Natural from any Moral or Political Necessity For of all the Operations of the Blessed Trinity the Eternal Generation of the Son and the Eternal Procession of the Holy Ghost alone have in 'em any proper and natural necessity All other extraneous things are the Works of God's Free Pleasure which he orders according to the Counsel of his Will that is so as it was free for him from all Eternity not so to order 'em as he does There can be no natural necessity in God to produce or order any thing without him for then that Production and that Order must necessarily have been from all Eternity must have been as Eternal as himself There is a Moral Necessity indeed in God according to which his External Actions though free in themselves are determin'd as to their Qualities by the standing and unchangeable Rule of his Infinite Perfections But he was not a Debtor to Man on account of any of these to find a ransom for his Sins who had made himself a contradiction to all those Perfections and the natural Object of God's hatred and wrath His Power and Goodness he had shewn in Creating him it was now time to vindicate his Justice and Truth in awarding his Punishment and verifying his Sentence He had possess'd him with Integrity and left him free in his Choice had set Life or Death before him Happiness or Misery equally proportionable and when the fatal Transgression had determin'd our Lot God had been Eternally and Infinitely Good as well as Just though he had pass'd us by in our Sins unregarded and unassisted and left us to the deserv'd Issues of his Everlasting Indignation For his Justice can no more destroy his Goodness than his Goodness can defeat or disarm his Justice What the Case may be as to a Political Necessity seems at first sight indeed of a something different consideration and vain presumptuous Man naturally affecting independency in all things will be apt to flatter himself with Arguments drawn from the Nature of Government that this Gift of God is not so free as we pretend and that he being the supreme Magistrate and Governour of the World was bound for that reason not to give up the whole body of his Subjects to the severity of His Laws which demanded their final and universal Destruction But that by the very Nature of his Office he was oblig'd to find some way of preserving them with whom that Relation of Government might still subsist and continue For the End of all Laws and Government being the Preservation of the Society to be govern'd by 'em though the safety of that may well be provided for in the Destruction of such Private Men as by their crimes intrench upon it Yet in the Case of an univeral Defection of all his subjects when the Lives of the Whole are forfeited to the Laws it wou'd be contrary to the End of those Laws for a Prince to take the forfeiture and the reason and interest of Government as well as his own Good Nature wou'd force him to a Pardon But the vanity of this imagination in Relation to God's Government will manifestly appear if we consider the very great difference there is between Divine and Humane Laws and the vast disproportion between the Nature of the Sovereignty of God and that of the Mightiest Princes upon Earth The Laws of Men 't is true are made for the benefit of Society and 't is but just therefore that they shou'd give way to the good of it whenever they happen to come in competition But the Laws of God were not made for the sake of Men on the contrary the whole Society of Men was made for those Laws The Glory of God was the End for which Man was made and that Glory consists in the observation of his Laws which are founded on the essential and immutable Perfections of his Nature and which justly and necessarily call for the Ruin of a Society that has broke 'em when it was made on purpose for their observation Besides there is a vast disproportion between the Sovereignty of God and that of Earthly Princes and Magistrates A King cannot destroy the whole Body of his Subjects however Criminal but at the same time he must extinguish his own Sovereignty and Dominion and be himself by that means reduc'd to a private Capacity But the Sovereignty of God depends not upon Men that it shou'd be extinguish'd even with the whole race of 'em Thousands of Angels wou'd still stand before him and ten thousand times ten thousand minister unto him The Heavens wou'd still declare the Glory of God and the Firmament shew his handy-work Or if he shou'd destroy the whole Creation it were still in his Power to make a new one and re-establish that External Glory and Sovereignty which is neither any way necessary to his Being nor does add in the least to the internal and essential splendour and Majesty of a God that is infinitely happy and self-sufficient It is plain therefore that a God of infinite Holiness and Justice though it was free for him to make or not make such a Creature as Man capable of choosing Good or Evil yet as he was pleas'd to make him such cou'd not in consequence of those Attributes but establish an inviolable Relation between that Good or Evil and rewards or punishments and that not any Natural Powers not any Moral Perfections or Political Capacity of his own cou'd lay any necessity upon him not to accomplish that establishment in the Destruction of the Miserable Offenders But it was his good pleasure to provide a Ransom for us and if it appear farther That there was nothing in Man which cou'd deserve it from him there will every circumstance be found to concur which is necessary to make a Gift intirely and absolutely Free And what was there in Man that cou'd deserve any thing from his Maker If we were righteous what give we to him or what receiveth he at our hands Can a Man be profitable unto God as his righteousness may profit the Son of Man There is too great a distance between God and his Creatures too great a dependance and debt on the one side to allow of any capacity of deserving from the other The very best use Man makes of the Gifts of God cannot discharge the Debts with which those very Gifts have loaded him How then can he possibly bring any thing to the account of Merit who is at best so far short of a just Payment But alas This Argument turns upon a supposition by much too favourable For he was so far from deserving any Good from God that his Merit was Hell and his Desert Damnation He