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
A35787	A treatise concerning the right use of the Fathers, in the decision of the controversies that are this day in religion written in French by John Daille ...; Traité de l'employ des saints Pères pour le jugement des différences qui sont aujourd'hui en la religion. English	Daillé, Jean, 1594-1670.	1675 (1675)	Wing D119; ESTC R1519	305,534	382

piece of Labour in hand if he should go about to win the Franciscan Friers over to this Belief S. Ambrose one of the most Firm Pillars of the Church in his Time is not yet free from the like Failings no more than the rest For first of all he agrees with S. Hilary in this last Point and maintains That All in General shall be proved by Fire at the Last Day and that the Just shall pass through it but that theVnbelievers shall continue in it After the end of the World saith he the Angels being sent forth to sever the Good from the Bad shall that Baptism be performed when all Iniquity shall be consumed in a Furnace of Fire that so the Just may shine like the Sun in the Kingdom of God their Father And although though a Man be such a one as Peter or as John yet nevertheless shall he be Baptized with this Fire For the Great Baptizer shall come for so I call Him as the Angel Gabriel did saying He shall be Great and shall see a multitude of People standing before the Gate of Paradise and shall brandish the fiery Sword and shall say unto those who are on his Right Hand who are not guilty of any grievous Sins Enter ye in c. He says the same in another place also where he exempteth none from this Fiery Trial save onely our Saviour Christ alone It is Necessary saith he that All that desire to return into Paradise should be proved by this Fire For it is not without some Mystery that it is written That God having driven Adam and Eve out of Paradise He is said to place at the Entrance of Paradise a Flaming Sword which turned every way All must pass through the Flames whether it be John the Evangelist whom our Saviour loved so much that He said concerning him to Peter c. Or whether it be Peter himself who had the Keys of Heaven committed unto him and who walked upon the Sea He must be able to say We have passed through the Fire c. But as for S. John this Brandishing of the Flaming Sword will soon be dispatched for him because there is no Iniquity found in him who was so beloved of the Truth c. But the other that is Peter shall be tried as Silver is and I shall be tried like Lead I shall burn till all the Lead is quite melted down and if there be no Silver at all found in me wretched Man that I am I shall be cost into the lowest Pit of Hell As for the Resurrection of the Dead his Opinion is That All shall not be raised at once but by degrees one after another by a Long yet Certain Order those who were Believers rising first according to the degrees of their Merits Whereto we are to refer that which he hath elsewhere delivered saying That Those who are raised up in the First Resurrection shall come to Grace without Judgment but as for the rest who are reserved for the Second Resurrection they shall burn with Fire till they have fulfilled the full space of time betwixt the First and the Second Resurrection or if they do not finish this time they shall continue very long in their Torments I shall leave to the Reader to take the pains in examining whether or no that Passage of his can be reconciled to any good sense where he says That before the Publication of the Law of Moses Adultery was not an unlawful thing We are to take notice in the first place saith he that Abraham living before the giving of the Law by Moses and before the Gospel in all Probability Adultery was not as yet forbidden the Crime is punished after the time of the Law made which forbiddeth it for things are not condemned before the Law but by the Law and whether those Discourses of his which you meet with in his Books De Instit Virg. ad Virg. de Virg. and in other places do not much disgrace and cast Slurs upon the Honour of Marriage I shall also leave to the Consideration of the Judicious Reader whether there be more of Solidity or of Subtilty in that Exposition which he gives us of the Promise made by God to Noah after the Flood telling him That he had set his Bow in the Clouds to be a Token of a Covenant betwixt him and the whole Earth upon which words S. Ambrose utterly and fiercely denies that by this Bow is meant the Rain-bow but will have it to be I know not what strange Allegorical Bow Far be it from us saith he that we should call This God's Bow for This Bow which is called Iris the Rain bow is seen indeed in the Day time but never appears at all in the Night And therefore he understands by this Bow the Invisible Power of God by which He keepeth all things in one certain Measure enlarging and abating it as he sees cause Neither do I know whether that Opinion of his which you have in his First Book De Spiritu Sancto is any whit more justifiable where he affirms That Baptism is avialable and Legitimate although a Man should Baptize in the Name either of the Son or of the Holy Ghost onely without mentioning the other two Persons of the Trinity Epiphanius as he was a Man of a very good honest and plain Nature and if I may have leave to speak my own Opinion a little too Credulous and withal very eager and fierce in maintaining whatsoever he thought was Right and True so hath he the more easily been induced both to deliver and to receive things for Solid which yet were not so and to stand stifly in the defending of them after he had once embraced the same It would take up both too much time and Paper if I should go about to give you a List of all those things wherein he hath failed if you please you may have an Account of a good number of them in the Notes of the Jesuite Petavius his Interpreter who makes bold to correct him many times and sometimes also very uncivilly too As first of all he accuseth him of Obscurity and of Falshood also in the Opinion he held touching the Year and Day of our Saviour's Nativity saying that some of his Expressions touching this Point are more Obscure and Dark than the Riddles of Sphinx And truly he hath reason enough to say so of what he hath delivered touching the Year of our Saviours Nativity but as for the Day of that Year whether it were the Sixth of January as Epiphanius held with the Church of Egypt or else whether it were the Twenty fifth of December which is the General Opinion at this day I think it very great rashness for any Man to affirm either the one or the other neither of these Opinions having any better Ground the one than the other He likewise in plain terms gives him the Lie upon that place

Bold Assertion of his at once we need go no further than to the very Point it self touching which he proposed it For whom will he ever be able to perswade that All the Fathers have written and said the very same things touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost It is evident that sometimes they will have It to Proceed from the Son also as S. Basil by name hath expressed himself in that Passage of his which is alledged by the Latins out of his Book against Eunomius which Piece yet the Greeks say is forged and as the Fathers of the Western Church have most expresly declared themselves in many places But yet I cannot possibly see how we can say That they have All been of this Opinion I shall not here meddle with those other Authorities produced by the Greeks out of the Fathers which their Adversaries put by as well as they can oftentimes most miserably wresting and stretching upon the Rack the Words and Meaning of the Fathers But that Passage of Theodoret in his Refutation of S. Cyril's Anathema's is so clear and express as that nothing can be more S. Cyril had said in his IX Anathema That the Holy Ghost proceeded Properly from the Son Theodoret answereth That it is both Impious and Blasphemous to say that the Holy Ghost hath its Subsistence from the Son or by the Son If he mean saith he that the Holy Ghost proceedeth properly from the Son as heing of the same Nature with It and as proceeding from the Father we shall willingly agree with him and shall receive his Doctrine as Sound and Pious But if he mean that the Holy Ghost hath its Subsistence from the Son or by the Son we must then reject it as Impious and Blasphemous He could not have thrown by this Proposition of S. Cyril more bluntly or in courser Terms And yet for all this so flat giving him the Lie as it were and his so insolent rejecting of an Opinion that was then received by the Church as the Latins pretend S. Cyril replies no more but this That the Holy Ghost altbough It proceed from the Father yet nevertheless is not a Stranger to the Son since He hath all things common with the Father Why did he not cry out against him as an Heretick as he many times elsewhere doth with much less reason if at least you must needs have it granted you that the Opinion of the Church at that time was That the H. Ghost proceeded from the Son Why did he not take it very ill at his hands that he should in so insolent a manner reject as Impious and Blasphemous a Proposition that was so Holy and so True Why did he not call the Whole Church in to be his Warrant for what he had said if so be it had Really been the General Belief of the Church at that time And how comes it to pass that in stead of all this he rather returns so tame an Answer as seems rather to betray his own Cause and something also to encline to the contrary Opinion of his Adversary For it is evident that neither Theoderet nor yet any of the Modern Greeks ever held That the Holy Ghost was a Stranger to or was Unconcerned in the Son seeing they all confess That these three to wit the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost are One and the same God who is Blessed for ever Whosoever shall but diligently consider these things for we cannot stand any longer upon the Examination of them he cannot in my Judgment but confess that the Church had not as yet declared it self or determined any thing touching this Point and that these Doctors spake herein each Man his own Private Opinion only and according as the Present Occasion of Disputation led him to speak where you shall have them contradicting one another in like manner as is usual in speaking of things not as yet throughly examined or expresly determined insomuch that it would grieve a Man to see how the Greeks and the Latins toil and sweat to no purpose each of them labouring to bring over the Fathers to speak to their Side and fearfully wresting their Words whensoever they seem to be but never so little ambiguous and ever and anon accusing one another of having corrupted the Ancients Writings whensoever they are found to speak expresly against them and when all is done leaving those who either read or hear them without any Prejudice very much unsatisfied whereas it had been much more easie to have honestly confessed at first that which is but too apparent that the Fathers as in this so in many other Points of Religion have not all been of one and the same Perswasion And whereas Bessarion that he may clude this Testimony of Theodoret affirms That he was cast forth of the Church for having denied that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Son and that he afterwards publickly confessed his Error at the Council of Cbalcedon where he was received into the Church again all this I say is only a Piece of Grecian Confidence which shews more clearly than all the rest how much this Man was carried away with his Passion and the violence of his Affection to the Latin Church For I beseech you in what Ancient Author had he ever read that Theodoret was I do not say Condemned or Excommunicated but so much as Reproved or Accused onely for having maintained any Erroneous Opinion touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost We have the Acts of the Council of Ephesus where he was Excommunicated We have the Letters of S. Cyril wherein he again received into the Communion of the Church John Patriarch of Antioch and all his Followers of which number Theodoret was the Chief We have the Council of Chalcedon where Theodoret after some certain Cryings out of his Adversaries against him was at length received by the whole Assembly as a Catholick Bishop and was admitted to sit amongst them In which of all these Authentick Pieces is there so much as one word spoken touching this Opinion of his concerning the Point of the Proceeding of the Holy Ghost S. Cyril himself that is to say those of his Party did not at all condemn what he said touching this Particular but he rather contented himself in excusing or if you please in defending onely his own Opinion The Business for which Theodoret was questioned in the Councils of Ephesus and of Chalcedon had nothing in the World to do with this touching the Procession of the Holy Ghost for the Question was onely there touching the Two Natures of our Saviour Christ whom Nestorius would needs divide into Two Persons John Patriarch of Antioch Theodoret and divers other Eastern Bishops favouring in some sort his Person or being indeed offended rather at the Proceeding of the Council of Ephesus against him and withal rejecting several things that were contained in the Anathemas of S. Cyril Now with what face could this Man tell us after all