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	unity_n	3,413	5	9.5095	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B12480	Six sermons upon severall occasions preached before the King, and elsewhere: by that late learned & reverend divine John Donne, Doctour in divinitie, and Dean of S. Pauls, London.	Donne, John, 1572-1631.	1634 (1634)	STC 7056; ESTC S109990	89,403	184

frustum de illo corpore I took thee O God sayes that Father to be a globe of fire and my soul to be a spark of that fire thee to be a bodie of light and my soul to be a beam of that light But S. Augustine doth not onely retract that in himself but dispute against it in the Manichees But this image is in our soul as the soul is the wax and this image the seal The comparison is S. Cyrils and he addes well that no seal but that which printed the wax at first can fit that wax and fill that impression after no image but the image of God can fit our soul every other seal is too narrow too shallow for it The magistrate is sealed with the Lion the Wolf will not fit that seal the magistrate hath a power in his hand but not oppression Princes are sealed with the Crown the Mitre will not fit that seal Powerfully and graciously they protect the Church and are supream heads of the Church but they minister not the Sacraments of the Church they give preferments but they give not the capacitie of preferments they give order who shall have but they have not Orders by which they are enabled to have that they have Men of inferiour and laborious callings in the world are sealed with the Crosse a Rose or a bunch of Grapes will not answer that seal ease and plentie in age must not be looked for without crosses and labour and industrie in youth All men Prince and people Clergie and Magistrate are sealed with the image of God with a conformitie to him and worldly seals will not answer that nor fill up that seal We should wonder to see a mother in the midst of many sweet children passing her time in making babies and puppets for her own delight We should wonder to see a man whose chambers and galleries were full of curious master-pieces thrust in a village-fayre to look upon sixpenie pictures three-farthing prints We have all the image of God at home and we all make babies fancies of honour in our ambitions The master-piece is our own in our own bosome and we thrust in countrey-fayres that is we endure the distempers of any unseasonable weather in night-journeys and watchings we endure the oppositions and scorns and triumphs of a rivall and competitour that seeks with us and shares with us We endure the guiltinesse and reproach of having deceived the trust which a confident friend reposes in us and solicite his wife or daughter We endure the decay of fortune of bodie of soul of honour to possesse lovers pictures pictures that are not originals not made by that hand of God Nature but artificiall beauties and for that bodie we give a soul and for that drug which might have been bought where they bought it for a shilling we give an estate The image of God is more worth then all substances and we give it for colours for dreams for shadows But the better to prevent the losse let us consider the having of this image in what respect in what operation this image is in our soul for whether this image be in those faculties which we have in Nature or in those qualifications which we have in Grace or in those super-illustrations which the blessed shall have in Glorie hath exercised the contemplation of many Properly this image is in nature in the naturall reason and other faculties of the immortall soul of man for thereupon doth S. Bernard say Imago Dei uri potest in gehenna non exuri till the soul be burnt to ashes to nothing which cannot be done no not in hell the image of God cannot be burnt out of the soul for it is radically primarily in the very soul it self and whether that soul be infused into the elect or reprobate that image is in that soul as farre as he hath a soul by nature he hath the image of God by nature in it But then the seal is deeper cut or harder pressed or better preserved in some then in others and in some other considerations then meerly naturall therefore we may consider man who was made here to the image of God and of God in three persons to have been made so in Gods intendment three wayes Man had this image in Nature and doth deface it he hath it also in Grace here and so doth refresh it and he shall have it in Glorie hereafter and that shall fix it establish it And in every of these three in this Trinitie in man Nature Grace and Glorie man hath not onely the image of God but the image of all the persons of the Trinitie in every of his three capacities He hath the image of the Father the image of the Sonne the image of the holy Ghost in nature and all these also in grace and all these in glorie too How all these are in all I cannot hope to handle particularly not though I were upon the first grain of our sand upon the first dram of your patience upon the first flash of my strength But a cleare repeating of these many branches that these things are thus that all the persons of the heavenly Trinitie are in their image in every branch of this humane Trinitie in man may at least must suffice In nature then man that is the soul of man hath this image of God of God considered in his unitie entirely altogether in this that this soul is made of nothing proceeds of nothing All other creatures are made of that preexistent matter which God had made before so were our bodies too but our souls of nothing now not to be made at all is to be God himself onely God himself was never made But to be made of nothing to have no other parent but God no other element but the breath of God no other instrument but the purpose of God this is to be the image of God for this is nearest to God himself who was never made at all to be made of nothing And then man considered in nature is otherwise the nearest representation of God too for the steps which we consider are foure First Esse Being for some things have onely a being and no life as stones Secondly Vivere Living for some things have life and no sense as plants and then thirdly Sentire Sense for some things have sense and no understanding which understanding and reason man hath with his being and life and sense and so is in a nearer station to God then any creature and a livelier image of him who is the root of being then all they because man onely hath all the declarations of beings Nay if we consider Gods eternitie the soul of man hath such an image of that as that though man had a beginning which the originall the eternall God himself had not yet man shall no more have an end then the originall the eternall God himself shall have And this image of eternitie this post-meridian this after-noon eternitie that

continuall succession of Prophets till the Messias should come And now that he is come and gone still God pursues the same way How should they beleeve except they heare And therefore God evermore supplies his Church with visible and sensible means and knowing that the naturall inclination of man who when he cannot have or cannot comprehend the originall and prototype desires to satisfie and refresh himself with a picture and representation so though God hath forbidden us that slipperie frivolous and dangerous use of graven images yet he hath afforded us his Sonne who is the image of the invisible God and so more proportionall to us more apprehensible by us and so this committing is no more but that God in another form then that of God hath manifested his power of judging And this committing this manifesting is In Filio In his Sonne But in our entrance into the handling of this we ask onely this question Cui Filio To which Sonne of God is this commission given not that God hath more sonnes then one but because that one Sonne is his Sonne by a twofold filiation by an internall and expressible generation and by a temporarie and miraculous incarnation in which of these rights is this commission derived upon him doth he judge as he is the Sonne of God or as he is the sonne of man I am not ordinarily bold in determining points especially if they were fundamentall wherein I finde the Fathers among themselves and the School in it self and reverend Divines of the Reformation amongst themselves to differ But yet neither am I willing to raise doubts and leave the auditorie unsatisfied and unsettled We are not upon a lecture but upon a sermon and therefore we will not multiply varietie of opinions Summe up the Fathers upon one side in S. Ambrose mouth and they will say with him Deditutique generando non largiendo God gave his Sonne this commission then and when was that then then when he begat him and then he must have it by his eternall generation as the Sonne of God Summe up the Fathers now on the other side in S. Augustines mouth and there they will say with him that it is so cleare and so certain that whatsoever is said in the Scripture to be committed or given to Christ belongs to Christ as the sonne of man and not as the Sonne of God as that the other opinion cannot be maintained and at this distance we shall never bring them to meet but take in this rule Judicium convenit ei ut homo causa ut Deus God hath given this commission to Christ as man but Christ had not been capable of this commission if he had not been God too and so it is easily to be reconciled If we shall hold simply to the letter of the text Pater dedit then it will seem to be committed unto him in his eternall generation because that was a work of the Father onely and in that generation the holy Ghost had no part but since in this judgement which is now committed to him the holy Ghost hath a part for as we said before the judgement is an act of the whole Trinitie and that is as he is man for Tota Trinitas univit August humanitatem the hypostaticall union of God and man in the person of Christ was a work of the whole Trinitie Taking it then so settled that the capacitie of this judgement and if we may say so the future title to it was given to him as God by his essence in his eternall generation by which Non vitae particeps sed vita naturaliter est We cannot say that Christ hath life but that he is Life and the Life for whatsover the Father is He is excepting onely the name and relation of Father the capacitie the abilitie is in him eternally before any imaginable any possible consideration of time But the power of the actuall execution of this judgement which is given and is committed is in him as man because as the same father sayes Ad hominem dicitur Quid habes quod non accepisti when S. Paul sayes What hast thou that thou hast not received he asks that question of man that which is received is received as man For Bellarmine in a place where he disposes himself to quarrell at some form of words of Calvins though he confesse the matter to be true and as he calls it there Catholick sayes Essentiam genitam negamus We confesse that Christ hath not his essence from his Father by generation The relation and filiation he hath from his Father he hath the name of Sonne but he hath not the execution of this judgement by that relation by that filiation still as he is the Sonne of God he hath that capacitie as the sonne of man he hath the execution And therefore Prosper that follows S. Augustine limits it perchance too narrowly to the flesh to the humanitie Ipsa non ipse erit Judex quae sub judice stetit ipsa judicabit quae judicata est where he places not this judgement upon the mixt person which is the safest way of God and man but upon man alone God hath appointed a day in which Act. 17. 31. he will judge the world in righteousnesse but by whom By that man whom he hath ordained God will judge still but still in Christ and therefore sayes S. Augustine upon those words Arise O God Psal 82. 8. and judge the earth Cui Deo dicitur Surge nisi ei qui dormivit What God doth David call upon to arise but that God who lay down to sleep in the grave as though he should say sayes S. Augustine Dormivisti judicatus à terra surge judica terram so that to collect all though judgement be such a character of God as God cannot divest yet the Father hath committed such a judgement to the Sonne as none but he can execute And what is that Omne judicium All judgement that is Omne imperium omnem potestatem It is presented in the name of judgement but it involves all It is literally and particularly judgement in S. John The Father hath given him authoritie to John 5. 27. execute judgement it is extended into power in S. Matthew All power is given to me in heaven and Matt. 28. 18 in earth and it is enlarged as farre further as can be expressed in another place of S. Matthew All Matt. 11. 27 things are delivered me of my Father Now all this our Saviour Christ Jesus exercises either Per carnem or at the least In carne whatsoever the Father does the Sonne does also In carne because now there is an inseparable union between God and humane nature the Father creates new souls every day in the inanimation of children and the Sonne creates them with him The Father concurres with all second causes as the first moving cause of all in naturall things And all this the Sonne doth too but this is