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A62254 An antidote against poyson, or, An answer to the Brief notes upon the creed of St. Athanasius, by an anonimous author by J. Savage ... Savage, J. (John), 1645-1721. 1690 (1690) Wing S768; ESTC R19099 21,469 17

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the Father was not the Cause and the Son the Effect for all Causes produce their Effects by the Mediation of an Action whereof the Cause is the Origine and the Effects is the term wh●ch receives the action and subjects it in it self as the Philosophers teach Now the Eternal Son of God was produced by an act of the Divine Understanding which doth not operate by acts distinct from it self as Men and Angels do but all acts of the Divine Intellect and Will have a real identity with the Divine Nature and Essence of God as the Divines teach for else if God should understand by distinct acts those acts must inform the Divine Understanding which would make a change in God and so destroy his Immutability as is apparent The same with proportion is to be said of the Holy Ghost who proceeds by an act of Love from the Divine Will no less than that act of the Divine Intellect produces the Divine Word or its Hypostasis With what reason now can this Author still go on in his wilful ignorance He often saith that this Creed contains many Contradictions and as many Impossibilities as Trabsubstantiation and yet in all his Discourse he hath not alledged two Propositions with a contradictory opposition which follows out of the Doctrin of this Creed nay I confidently assert that neither he nor any of his Sect can alledge any one contradiction issuing from the same Doctrin Let the pretended contradiction be assigned and we are ready to answer it and to discover its fallacy but to blunder and vaper as this Author does that there are Two Fathers Two Sons and Three Holy Ghosts and yet prove nothing of all this is not to proceed like a Scholar much less like a Divine but is wholly loss of time How often must I inculcate this Orthodox Truth That in the ineffable Mistery of the Divine Trinity the characteristical notion of the Father is his innascibility together with his paternity and fecundity of active spiration of the Son is his filiation and fecundity of active spiration of the Holy Ghost is his passive Spiration alone These Three Persons as they mutually are correlatives to each other so they are really distinct from each other they are capable of Multiplication and constitute a number The Father hath in himself besides the relative Predicates all the absolute Predicates and Perfections that are contained in the Divine Nature and Essence all the Attributes of the Divinity The Father hath Communicated to the Son all the absolute Perfections of the Divine Nature and the notional Predicate of active Spiration To the Holy Ghost the Father and the Son have communicated all the Divinity with all the absolute Attributes and Perfections thereunto belonging So that although these three Persons are three in number yet the Divinity of them all is the self-same individual and singular Deity for the same Divine Nature that is in the Father is also in the Son and Holy Ghost Now this Author would have us to multiply the Divinity as the Persons are multiplied thereby to lead his Reader into a Labyrinth of Errors by acknowledging more Gods than one which in effect is no better than rank Paganism Must we follow the conduct of his wild Genius because he pretends to Demonstrations which in effect are meer Improbabilities or adhere to those Sacred Truths which are delivered to us by holy Writ and are backt by Divine Authority But let us proceed with him to the Incarnation of the Divine Word The Athanasian Creed from hence proceeds to the Incarnation of the Divine Word thus The right Faith is that we believe and confess that our ●ord Jesus Christ the Son of God is both God and Man To which words this Author replies That then the Lord Christ is two Persons for as he is God he is the second Person of the Trinity and as he is man a perfect man he is also a Person for a Rational Soul vitally united to a Humane Body is a Person I answer that a Rational Soul vitally united to a Humane Body is the compleat Nature of a Man compleat I say ratione naturae but to be compleat also ratione Personae you must add to this compleat Nature a subsistentia which makes up the compleat Suppositum or Hypostasis of a man ratione personae But in Christ there was no need of this Humane subsistentia for the Divine Word assumed the compleat Humane Nature not the Human Person as Nestorius said for the Humanity of Christ subsists by the Personality of the Divine Word which supplies abundantly all defects and functions which the Humane Personality would exercise were it present so that the Humane Personality would be superfluous in Christ and of no use at all To what he adds viz. Let the Athanasians then Confess that Christ was not God which is the truth Here he plainly professeth his Error and flatly denies the Divinity of Christ It is not my design to prove at large in this short Treatise the Divinity of Christ which the Divines have effectually prov'd in the matter of Incarnation I shall therefore only hint at some Particulars As the fulfilling of the Prophecies of the Old Prophets the Testimony of the Eternal Father in a Voice from Heaven This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased the often asseveration of Christ himself confirmed by many strange and prodigious Miracles and sealed by his Death the Reluctancy of Nature at his Crucifixion his Resurrection after Death which none could effect but by the mighty hand of the Omnipotent the Universal attestation of all the Apostles in Confirmation whereof they all sacrificed their Lives with other pregnant motives contained in the Sacred Word of God which are too prolix for this short Treatise all which being duly prondered and considered are able to convince not only an indifferent judgment but also the most obstinate and perversest judgment that can be if it be swayed by Reason and work them into a stedfast belief of the Divinity of Christ wherefore I shall wave in this place any further dilatation of my Discourse upon this Subject Now we proceed to examine the Hypostatical Union between the Divinity and Humanity of Christ how we can make it out that any Union can be of that Nature as to unite two Natures whereof the one is Infinite and the other Finite for the Athanasian Creed asserts that though Christ be God and Man yet he is not two but one Christ one not by Conversion of the Godhead into flesh but by taking the Manhood into God one not by confusion of substance but by Vnity of Person for as the reasonable Soul and flesh is one Man so God and Man is one Christ Against this the Deist argues that in the Personal Vnion is between Finite and Infinite which is impossible For we must either suppose that Finite and Infinite are commensurate that is equal which every one knows is false or that the Finite is
Vnited but to some part of the Infinite and is disjoyned from the rest A very Learned Reflection For who is ignorant of Gods Eternity and Immensity or Ubiquity Which are two of the Divine Attributes All Created Durations flow successively by parts whereof none are at any time in being but only those that are present for to day yesterday is past its duration is destroyed and to morrow is not yet come its duration is not yet produced and so of all Created Durations whether this be done only by indivisible instances as Zeno Taught or by indivisible instances and divisible parts which was Aristotle's Opinion in his Treatise De continuo Successivo But God's Eternity is far different for this admits of no parts but is one indivisible duration essentially determin'd to co-exist to all Created duration and Eternity there are no parts destroyed and others to come not yet in being for by the same indivisible duration whereby the Divinity existed from Eternity he exists now and existed yesterday and shall exist to morrow and ever and yet loses no parts of its duration because it hath none Hence Boetius and with him the current of Divines gives this definition of it Aeternitas Dei est indeterminabilis vitae tota simul perfect a possessio a perfect possession of an endless life altogether tota simul not by parts as it is in all Created durations The Immensity of God Consists in this that he is essentially determin'd to all Created space whensoever or wheresoever it exists so that God by his Immensity without any parts is actually present to all Created space or place how distant soever the parts of space are from one another to which God corresponds not by several parts but by an increate definitive ubication whereby he is torus in toto totus in qualibet parte all the Deity is in all the space and all the Deity is in every part and particle of space wheresoever or whensoever existent as an Angel which is indivisible is in the place which he Occupies by a definitive ubication for the whole Angel is at the same time in all the space and the whole Angel at the same time is in every part and particle of the same space so is the Soul of Man which is likewise indivisible in a humane Body for the whole Soul is in all the Body and the whole Soul is in every part and particle of the Body so that the Soul exists in the Body by a definitive ubication whereas the Body at the same time exists in space by a circumscriptive ubication whereby its parts are collocated so as that one part of the Body corresponds to one part of the space and another part of the Body to another part of the space Now to the Objection The Humanity of Christ is constituted in place by a circumscriptive ubication where the Divinity the whole Divine Word is intimately present to him what commensuration more than this is necessary for a conjunction between the Humanity and the Divine Word For that the Divine Word is in all places else by his immensity is impertinent to this case as long as the Divine Word is in irely and intimately present to the whole Humanity where the Hypostatical Union may exercise its functions of connecting the Humanity to the Divinity for it is too gross an imagination of the Divinity that part of it should correspond to the Humanity and part not for in the Divine Nature there are no parts but all is indivisible Now for the Hypostatical Union it is subjected in the Humanity and terminated to the Divinity or Divine Word for the Essence of God is uncapable of receiving any thing distinct from it self And 't is in vain to tell me that this includes as many Contradictions as Mr. Johnson's Treatise against Transubstantiation doth Produce those Contradictions that this Mystery doth include and we shall use our endeavour to solve them The second Objection is grounded upon an Error that the Union between the Divine Word and the Humanity of Christ connects two Persons as Nestorius would have it but this error is already exploded But it is in vain to sift all the extent of Nature for a parity to the Hypostatical Union of the Divine Word to the Humanity of Christ which is transcendent above all the power of Nature where the two distinc Lives Memories Reasons and free Wills are no obstacle at all to it for these two Natures do not hinder the Operations and Functions of each other Thus I have run through all the Arguments pretended Contradictions and Impossibilities which this Author alledgeth against those Sacred Mysteries of Christianity wherein I have endeavoured to give a satisfactory solution to them all Tho' he hath insisted upon such Mysteries as are easiest to be impugned and hardest to be defended For they are such as are delivered to us by the Sacred Scripture as back'd by Divine Authority and are not within the reach of Natural Reason to demonstrate ' For it were no less than a temerarious presumption in any man that should attempt to prove any one of these Mysteries by Natural Reason Mysteries that are so sublime and elevated above the reach of Natural Reason that they are not pervious to the Wit or Capacity either of Man or Angel which if Faith did not teach Reason could not explicate so that we receive them from Holy Writ as attested by Divine Authority with great submission and veneration and are ready to vindicate them from all pretended impossibilities Contradictions and other Difficulties which the Mahometans Jews Deists Atheists or other Infidels can muster up against them And I hope in this short Treatise I have not swerved from the receiv'd and approved Doctrin of the Reformed Protestant Church of England to whose Authority and Correction I submit FINIS