Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	person_n	soul_n	union_n	4,231	5	9.6219	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B02484	Hebdomada magna, or The great weeke of Christs passion. Handled by way of exposition upon the fourth article of the Apostles Creed: He suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, buried. / By John Crompe, Master of Arts of C.C.C. in Cambridge, and vicar of Thornham in Kent. First preached in his parish church, and now enlarged as here followes for more publike use.	Crompe, John.	1641 (1641)	Wing C7027B; ESTC R175851	123,646	146

of the Apostle more true then in the death of Christ Virtus in infirmitate perficitur Power and strength is made perfect in weaknesse 2 Cor. 12.9 De duplici Martyrio For as Cyprian saith Ibi fracta est Satanae Tyrannis ibi devicti sunt inferi ibi triumphatum est de Diabolo ibi dejectus orcus coelum apertum c. Therein is the tyranny of Satan broken and the infernall powers overthrowne the Devill subjected the Principalities of Hell dejected and Heaven it selfe opened to all true and faithfull beleevers So that as hee goes on Quid homine mortuo contemptius quis enim vel Caesarem mortuum metuat sed Christi morte quid efficacius velum Templi scissum est terra concussa saxa discissa monumenta aperta c. Although nothing be more contemptible then a dead man no man fearing no not Caesar himselfe when he is once dead yet nothing is more efficacious and powerfull then the death of Christ whereat the vayle of the Temple was rent the earth did quake the stones did cleave and the graves did open of themselves so that many bodies of the Saints which slept arose as it is said Mat. 27.51 52. verses A reason of which powerfull effects is this that although the soule and body of Christ were separated asunder by his death à neutro tamen horum recesserit divinitas yet his divinity was separated from neither But Tam Dei virtus in Christo ex operibus quae fecit apparuit quam fragilitas hominis ex passione quam pertulit as Lactantius speakes Inst l. 4. cap. 14. The power of his God-head manifested it selfe in these his powerfull workes aswell as the frailty of his man-hood in those other things which he suffered So that Factus est homo suscipiendo quod non erat non perdendo quod erat as Saint Austin speakes Although Serm. 60. in Iohan. by being made man he tooke that which before he was not yet he did not loose nor let goe any thing of what hee was Sed manens Deus factus est homo But continued God although hee was likewise made man Accepit te non consumptus est in te as he goes on He indeed tooke thee unto himselfe O man but yet did not consume or spend waste or diminish himselfe in thee So that wee must hold and beleeve as that most Reverend Incarnat of Christ the Sonne of God learned and painfull Archbishop of Armagh well observes That there are two distinct natures in Christ God-head and manhood which are so distinct as that they doe not make one compounded nature but still remaine uncompounded and unconfounded together And yet though never so distinct in their natures they are as firmely and fully united againe in the person as can possibly be imagined and conceived seeing in him dwelleth all the fulnesse of the Godhead bodily as the Apostle affirmeth Colos 2.9 that is by such a personall and reall union as doth inseparably and everlastingly conjoyne that infinite Godhead with his finite man-hood in the unity of the selfe same individuall person So that by reason of the strictnesse of this personall union of these two natures in the person of Christ whatsoever may be verified of either of those natures the same may be truly spoken of the whole person from whethersoever of the natures it be denominated so farre Doctor Vsher Which if it be so beloved then by this time I hope you are as well satisfied in the Quis as the Quid Who it is that suffered and dyed as what he suffered viz. even Jesus Christ the Son of God which was conceived by the Holy Ghost and borne of the Virgin Mary as you have heard out of the former Articles even he also is the He which suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead buried c. the worlds Creator and mans Redeemer the Almighty God himselfe Totus Christus though not Totum Christi whole Christ though not all of Christ was the Quis which was the passive Agent and active Patient in all these things for Jesus cryed with a loud voyce and gave up the ghost Neither let it seeme strange to any man that that should be predicated and spoken of the whole person of Christ which can be verified but of one of his natures seeing without any note or thought of strangenesse at all we do the like dayly in our owne and ordinary discourses even concerning our selves and proper actions For whereas the whole person and compound of man consists of two parts and those very different in their qualities and operations as of a soule and a body whereof the one is carnall the other spirituall and each hath his proper actions and imployments accordingly by themselves as the body to eate drinke sleepe walke runne ride suffer hunger thirst heat cold and the like and the soule to understand conceive remember forget to be chearefull or sorrowfull angry or well pleased and such like either of which cannot truly be verified of the different part as not the bodies actions of the soule nor the soules operations of the body And yet we usually referre both and all to the whole person and that without any incongruity or unpropernesse of speech considering the firme union that is betwixt them So by reason of the hypostaticall union and communion of properties that is betwixt the two natures in Christ Divine and Humane That which is proper but to one may safely be predicated and spoken and applyed to the whole Vigilius As also if man whole man may in himselfe have two such contrary qualities as to be able to dye and not to dye To dye in his body and not to dye in his soule as our Saviour himselfe hath taught us saying Feare not those that can kill your bodyes but not your soules Then much more may Christ whole Christ dye in one nature and yet live in another And in him God be said to dye too and Man to live for ever In him I say the second Person onely of the Trinity For to speak it of any of the other two persons whether Father or Holy Ghost it is no lesse then blasphemy and that which never came so much as in the thought of any orthodoxe Christian much lesse divine although some Hereticks there have beene called Patro-passioni which have seem'd to atribute suffering to the Father Dr Clarke But a learned Clarke of our owne calls it an unlearned heresie sprung of Scriptures misconstrued Christs speech especially I and my Father are one c. and therefore I will not so farre trouble my selfe or Readers as to goe about to confute it Sed his perplexioribus disputationibus praecisis as Chitraeus speakes but leaving all such intricate and perplexed discourses as Hereticks did usually beat their braines about we will fall to use and application Fides enim dum simpliciter proponitur intellectum illustrat dum autem altissima ejus mysteria

sacrifice might be voluntary For without willing obedience to his Fathers Ordinance our atonement and the expiation of our sinnes could not bee wrought whereupon S. Austen discoursing upon those words of S. Iohn Et misit filium suum sacrificatorem pro peccatis nostris as he reads them 1 Ioh. 4.10 God loved us and sent his Sonne to bee a sacrifice for our sinnes demands this question Vbi invenit hostiam ubi invenit victimam quam puram volebat offerre where did hee finde a pure and cleane sacrifice fitting for himselfe to offer And when hee hath thus propounded gives the answer himselfe in these words Alium non inv●nit seipsum obtulit He could finde no other and therefore hee offers himselfe as if he should say hee made his humanity the sacrifice and his divinity the priest But howsoever hee were never so willing and obedient himselfe yet his countreymen and cruell friends must not loose their turne For they will have an hand in this busines though never so much to their cost aswell as hee wherefore after they have conducted him to mount Caluary the place of his execution there they speedily erect his crosse and display his bloody banner and soone after crucifie him thereon as ye may see Luke 23.33 which part of theirs as it was acted with much violence to shew their malice so it was suffered by him with more willingnesse and patience to manifest his love Answerable to that of the Apostle he humbled himselfe and became obedient unto the death yea even the death of the Crosse Phil. 28. Now this kinde of death was accounted in those dayes not onely the most shamefull and ignominious death but the most cruell and tormenting too as yee shall see anon wherefore these Iewes howsoever they had foure kinds of death for malefactors among themselves as our reverend and learned Bishop of Exet●r in his passion Sermon hath well observed one of which was ordinarily used to those that did offend of their owne Nation as the Towell the Sword Fire and Stones and each of these above other in extremity yet they rejected and refused all these whereby to take away Christs life and chose this Roman death of crucifying as accounting it the worst of all which we may suppose they did the rather because their owne Law saith cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree Deut. 21.23 so that their malice was such as it should seeme towards him as that they were desirous not onely to crosse and crucifie him whereby to rid him him out of his life but to curse him also if it were possible and in their powers in the life to come But yet as ● Ierome well noteth Hee is not therefore accursed becau●e hee hangeth but therefore he hangeth because hee is accursed bei●g made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is acursed for us as S. Paul speaketh Gal. 3.13 And therefore howsoever the Iewes made choyce of this death for him out of the depth of their malice and venimous hatred against him hoping thereby not only to destroy his body but his soule too yet hee that was able to worke good out of evill and turne their mischiefe and malice owards him to his owne glory and the benefit of his Church and chosen had other reasons in the secret of his owne counsell which they little dream't of why hee would undergoe it and take it upon him As first that the curse might be imputed unto him which was due to us and so we by his curse might be redeemed from the curse of the Law as the former Apostle saith wee are in the former place And therefore sayth Aretius Ideo cruce passus est Christus ut omnis maledictio etiam à forma supplicii in illo concurreret Therefore did Christ suffer on the Crosse that by the forme and manner of his suffering every curse might concurre and be found in him which was due to us yea hee himselfe bare our sinnes in his body on the Tree that wee might bee delivered from sin and be healed by his stripes as S. Peter sayth 1 Pet. 2.24 Secondly as S. Chrysostome and Theophilact assigne it ut ipsius aeris naturam mundaret terram sanctificaret sanguinis suae distillatione that he might cleanse and perfume the ayre with his holy and Heavenly breath and sanctifie and hallow the Earth with the streames of his sacred blood distilling and descending down from his blessed body Medicina enim quae removet maledictionem terrae est sanguis Christi For the onely Medicine that is able to remoove the curse of the earth is the blood of Christ Thirdly as Anselmus saith That hanging in the ayre on the Crosse the foote whereof was fastned in the Earth and the top looking towards Heaven hee might shew himselfe to be the true Mediator betwixt God and man by reconciling Heaven and Earth together and reducing our humane nature to the society of Angells and so making a perfect peace and union betwixt the things above and the things below By such strange and contrary meanes doth God shew his power and providence in working our salvation and redemption giving us life even by his owne death and that the most accursed death too even the death of the Crosse Optimum faciens instrumentum vitae quod erat mortis pessimum genus as one saith making that the best instrument of life which was the worst kinde of death worst indeed as we shall easily perceive if wee will vouchsafe to looke another while into the manner of it together with the counsell and cruelty of the Iewes in inflicting it as wee have already done into the mercy and goodnesse of Christ in suffering it For besides the infamy and ignominy of it as you have heard already it was a terrible and bitter death too where hee felt the uttermost of those paines which incensed and inraged malice was able to inflict and mans nature able to indure For the better and more cleare expression whereof it is observed by some that Christs Passion on the Crosse had in it all the foure dimensions as length breadth height depth Lenght first in regard that the Crosse was a lingring slow death Vbi diù vivebatur mors ipsa protendebatur ne dolor citius finiretur which gave no quick dispatch unto the patient but protracted and prolonged his life keeping him a great while together upon the Racke under the sharpe sense aswell of our sinnes as his owne paines Now it is truly sayd that Acerbissima est mors quae trahit poenam it is the bitterest kinde of death wherein the paines thereof are long continued and delayed and not presently or suddenly finished and dispatched For to have death prolonged when a man is under the stroke of death is to die many deaths at once Now it was full three houres betwixt Christs affixion to the Crosse and his expiration on the Crosse For hee continued there from the sixth houre untill the ninth as the

this present tract that He was the second Person of the sacred Trinity that tooke our nature upon him and in it suffered all these things under Pontius Pilate for our sakes why here may arise the greatest difficulty and doubt of all the rest whether He could also dye Whether He that is God of God yea very God of very God of the same substance with the Father and therefore equall to him as touching his god-head by whom also were all things made that were made and so is Lord likewise both of life and death whether this so great so good a person could be subject unto death himselfe because our Creed tels us not onely that He suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified but that he dyed too which to our naturall reason and humane capacities seemes I must confesse to have two absurdities if not impossibilities in it at the least The one that Christ should dye being without sinne seeing death is the wages onely of sinne as you have heard already out of the Apostle Rom. 6.23 The other that he could being the Sonne of God For the salving and solving of which latter doubt the former being sufficiently cleared before we must know that God in the person of Christ might dye though the God-head could not For being a mixt person consisting of two natures as of God-head and Manhood in one and the same subject the one passible and mortall and the other impassible and immortall that which was humane and passible might suffer and dye Citra ullam divinitatis injuriam ac detrimentum without any detriment or injury to the other Ser. 64. in Evang. Ioh. So that as Saint Austin saith Mortuus est filius dei sed secundum carnem mortuus non secundum verbum quod caro factum est The Sonne of God is indeed dead but it is onely in his flesh which he tooke from us not as he is the word of God which tooke our flesh and thereby dwelleth in us but in that he dyed De nostro mortuus est it is onely in what he had from us as in that we live de ipsius vivimus it is alone by that life which we receive from him Nec potuit mori de suo nec vivere de nostro So that as he could not dye in his owne nature so he could not but dye in ours unlesse he would still have been obnoxious and lyable to the accusation of the Devill and all other adversaries of not taking really and truly our humane dying nature upon him And therefore as in the birth of Christ humility was assumed by Majesty weaknesse and infirmity by power and mortality by eternity that so a perfect mediatour might be found to reconcile God and his sinneful creatures together so for the finall finishing of the sayd reconciliation and atonement and for the paying of our nature his due by death the inviolable and impassible nature of God is likewise united to our nature that is passible that so the said Mediatour may become able to performe all things requisite for our redemption by suffering and dying in our nature although otherwise he could neither suffer nor dye in his owne And not onely able to doe it but truely active also in the doing of it Compend Theol. p. ● c. 42. For passibilitas ad satisfaciendum vel merendum non sufficit sine passione in Actu as Aquinas speakes Passibility or a power to suffer is not sufficient to merit at Gods hands or make satisfaction for our sinnes without actuall suffering indeed No man being reckoned or accounted either good or evill by his ability alone to doe such and such things but onely because he hath or doth actuate and performe them Nec laus aut vituperium debentur potentiae sed actui as he goes on so that praise or dispraise is not properly due to powers but only to Acts. In regard whereof Christ tooke unto himselfe Non solum passibilitatem nostram ut nos salvaret not onely our passibility and power to suffer or dye but that he might perfect and accomplish our redemption to the full and stop the mouth of all accusers whatsoever whether wicked men or evill Angels he did truly and indeed both suffer and dye undergoing all things for us which by reason of our forefathers fall we should have undergone our selves the chiefe whereof is death ad quam omnes aliae passiones humanae ordinantur sicut ad ultimum unto which all other humane passions doe tend and are directed as to their last end Thus far Aquinas And thus you see beloved how Christ the Sonne of God consisting of two distinct natures aswell divine as humane should and could might and did suffer and dye Salva tamen proprietate utriusque naturae The property and propriety of each nature notwithstanding being stil preserved and reserved to it selfe intire As for instance by the vertue and power of his divine nature he caused the souldiers and band of men which came to apprehend and take him to goe backwards and fall to the ground whereas in the weakenes of his humane nature he was afterwards apprehended bound imprisoned carryed before severall Judges scourged spit upon derided buffered and at last condemned as guilty Againe by the vertue and power of his divine nature he converted day into night at the time of his passion and caused all the elements to tremble and shake for dread and yet in the weaknesse of his humane nature his hands were fastened with nayles unto the wood of the Crosse and his whole body stretched out upon it By the vertue and power of his divine nature he opened againe the gates of Paradise to the good theefe And in the weaknesse and imbecillity of his humane nature in the greatest depth and hurle of all his troubles he cryes out unto his Father My God my God why hast thou forsaken me By the vertue and in the power of his divine nature he offered up prayers and supplications with strong cryings and teares unto him that was able to save him from death and was also heard in that which he feared as the Apostle speakes Heb. 5.7 whereas in the infirmity and weaknesse of his humane nature hee yeelded up his spirit with commendations of it into his Fathers hands and gave up the ghost In all which passages of his Passion then yee see his divinity was never totally eclipst but still sends forth some beames of his might and majesty even in the midst of his greatest weaknesse and infirmity and all to let us see and know that though his manhood suffer and dye yet is his God-head still perfect and intire And therefore though wee heare much and often of the death of Christ the Sonne of God yet let us not be offended nor troubled at it considering the admirable efficacie of it In being as full of horrour and terrour to the wicked so of comfort and consolation to the godly So that in nothing is that saying