Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	humane_a	person_n	property_n	3,952	5	9.4155	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

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

the Doctrines of Faith and Precepts of of manners But that which upon this Occasion I have Reserved to be the last is the Title and Character which this Sovereign Bestower of Marks and Badges of Dignity hath Conferr'd upon Mr. How of being a Trimmer Which according to the design of those who first Coyned and Minted the Term signifies no more than an Hypocrite and a Dissembler And one who guides himself by no other Principles either in his Political or Moral Conduct save by those of Worldly safety and of Secular Interest For tho Sir William Coventry in his Ingenious Character of a Trimmer gives a nobler Representation of those that are so Denominated of whom I do believe his Account to be very just in reference to very many that have been and are so Stiled yet nothing can be more certain than that the Original Authors and Fabrickers of the Word designed to Discribe Discypher and Mark out those by it who were neither Loyal Subjects Upright Christians Just Veracious and Amicable Neighbours nor Vigorous Patrons and Partizans of Publick Laws and Liberties And as it is Evident from the manner of Mr. Alsop's applying it and the end whereunto that he intended it in the worst Sense because the being a Trimmer according to Sir William Coventry's Paraphrase of the Term would be any Man's Glory and not his Reproach and ought to be coveted and not avoided so both Mr. How and Mr. Alsop do owe that Respect and Deference to their Whig and Phanatick Friends who were the first Inventers of the Word as so acquiesce in the Signification which they Stampt upon it And according to the Value which those People design'd it should be Current at it is no more nor less than the Euqivalent of Rogue and Rascal the latter being only of Coarser Metal but the same in Exchange and on the Ballance of Traffick in the mutual Communication of Thoughts with the former Which therefore to bestow upon Mr. How must be very unmannerly rude and injurious in Mr. Alsop unless he have more Acquaintance with that Gentleman ' s Political and Moral Principles and Practices than I who do not pretend to the Honour of Conversing with him could have imagined that he was embued with But on supposition that Mr. Alsop is not altogether mistaken in his Idea of that Presbyterian Divine yet there were other ways of Penance which might have been Prescribed unto him for the having Written the Forementioned Preface than to be thus brought forth as a Knave in the View of the World in Castigation and Punishment of that Offence For if I be not very much misinformed Mr. How is no less ready to make Attonement for Crimes of this kind than he is Inclinable to Commit them And Mr. Alsop might have found other Kinds and Degrees of Ecclesiastical Discipline to have adjudged him unto than to Transmit him down to Posterity to stand Registred in the Dypticks of the Church by the Name and Character of a Trimmer which I Believe as well as Fear will give a very odd Figure of a Divine and especially of one of his Eminency But the next Personal Reflection for which I am to call Mr. Alsop to an Account is that which he hath ventured without the least Provocation given against a Learned and Holy Divine and one who is a very useful and Successful Preacher of the Gospel and as well equal both to the former and to himself in whatsoever deserves Esteem and Commendation as Superior to them in Uprightness and Integrity The Person I mean is the Reverend Mr. Daniel Burgess to whom tho I be altogether a Stranger yet I do so well know his Worth and Merit that I do hold my self in Duty and Justice obliged to do him Right Nor has it been without Surprize and Astonishment that I have found Mr. Alsop's Picquancy and Satyrism to lye chiefly against those both of his own Order and of the Rank of Dissenters As if at the same time that both all the Reputation he hath attained unto and the Plentiful if not Opulent Condition unto which he is raised is through his being accounted a Minister of the Gospel and a Nonconformist Preacher his Wrath and Malice were Particularly Levesled against those of the Ecclesiastick Tribe and Pastoral Character and especially against them of that Quality amongst the Dissenters And whereas as great and Excellent a Person as either the Nation or the Churches of any Denomination in England can boast of thought him long ago Worthy of the Title and accordingly bestowed on him of Martin Mar-Prelate he may through the Improvements which he hath made since in the Perfections which procured him that Honourable Name have his Stile now Enlarged and be called the Marphorio and Pasquin upon the whole Sacerdotal Order and the Satyrical Reviler of them of the Ministerial Function Nor would it exceed the Bounds and Rules of a reasonable Jealousie to suspect that his Buffooneries and Invectives against so many of them is not so much from any Quarrel he has with their Persons as from a Prejudice he bears against their Office and from Latent ill will to their Lord and Master whose Ambassadors they are And this Apprehension would seem the more Justifiable in that those of them whom he chiefly singleth out to Ridicule and Lampoon are such who do not only appear Adorned more Distinguishingly than others with those Accomplishments and Vertues required in Bishops and Pastors but whose Labours God doth most signally Bless in the Conversion of Sinners and in the Building up of Believers 'T is true that neither the Sacred Character which they bear nor the Renewing and Sanctifying Grace of God do so far Elevate them above the Rank of other men but that they will have some Humane Weaknesses and Imperfections cleaving unto and accompanying them which nevertheless ought not only to have some Indulgence showed them on the Foot of the Common and unavoidable Frailties of our Nature but in deference to their Office and out of Respect to him whose Servants they peculiarly are And where their Faults are not Enormous nor the Effects of Insincerity their Reputation should be held as Sacred as their Office and Character are Nor can a Clergy-man be Exposed or made Cheap without both the designing and the doing more consequential Hurt to the Souls of men who would otherwise attend upon and might receive benefit by their Ministry and the affording more Ground to the Prophane of Contempt as well as a Neglect of those Ordinances which Christ hath appointed them to be the Dispensers of than the Injury done immediately to themselves can amount unto or the Diversion and Pleasure of doing it can any ways Excuse Yea in all Cases where the Faults of Ministers are not palpably Notorious as well as Gross and where the Pastor doth not by his Buffoonry both disgrace and renounce his Character and lay aside the Parson as soon as he comes out of the Pulpit to put on