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	spirit_n	union_n	3,047	5	9.7455	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25316	The evidence of things not seen, or, Diverse scriptural and philosophical discourses, concerning the state of good and holy men after death ... by that eminently learned divine Moses Amyraldus ; translated out of the French tongue by a Minister of the Church of England.; Discours de l'estat des fidèles après la mort. English.	Amyraut, Moïse, 1596-1664.; Minister of the Church of England.	1700 (1700)	Wing A3036; ESTC R7638	98,543	248

those of the old As to this Text of Scripture I observe that 't is understood after diverse manners whereof among others there are two worthy of Consideration for some have thought that by the Spirit of Christ is meant his Soul by his preaching the knowledge that he gave to the Souls of the ancient Believers of the propitiation that he made upon the Cross by the word which we translate Prison a kind of Watch-Tower wherein these Souls expected the Redemption hoped for according to the promises that had been given them concerning it they suppose then the Souls of the ancient Believers in condition something like those that are set in Centinel on some high place in a besieged City to discover afar off from whence and when succour will appear unto them only they put this difference that the hopes of succour in a place besieged is always mixed with doubts because of the uncertainty of all human Counsels and Events and this doubt is not without fear nor fear without unquietness nor by consequent without anxiety and perturbation whereas the Souls of the holy Persons of passed ages never having any doubt concerning the promise of God have possessed a hope altogether assured and by consequent a tranquillity very profound and a contentment without any mixture of afflictions others have thought that by the Spirit of Christ must be meant his Divine Nature by his preaching the invitation to Repentance that he caused to be made in the days of Noah And by the Spirits that are in Prison for they believe that to accommodate this Hebrew phrase to our Language 't is necessary to supply these words which are or which are now the Souls of those which would not hearken to this invitation and who by reason of their obstinacy have been put under chains of darkness in those horrible Prisons where they expect their final punishment Now to make here a small Digression and to return again after a little while to the preceding Question I say that whether of these two interpretations we do embrace it will evidently conclude that Souls are not destitute of all knowledge after death for if we fasten on the first the Souls of the faithful expect with great longing the revelation of the Redemption of Jesus Christ and if we follow the second Offenders do not use always to sleep in their holes the worm of their Conscience and the fear of what is to come will awaken them Besides if the Souls of the wicked lose all sense at their going out of the Body there will be no need of assigning to them one certain and common Prison they will be sufficiently well disposed of for the expectation of Judgment in whatsoever part of the World they shall be found But let us return to the Question in hand I think this second Interpretation much the better and most agreeable both to the intention and words of the Apostle and if I should hold my self to that I should have nothing to answer but that although the Prison and place of punishment be different sufficiently often yet they are not always so sometimes Offenders are punished in the Gaols and Prisons wherein they are kept expecting the sentence of the Judge and in the time that St. Peter wrote 't was a thing sufficiently common among the Ramans and Greeks to make use of the same place first as a Prison and then as the Theater of punishment so that this Text proves not at all that the Souls of Unbelievers are not now kept in Hell although one day they must there be tormented for their Crimes And by the same reason it will not follow that the Souls of Believers are not now assembled in the Heavens although that must be one day the place of their recompence and their glory But let us give this honour to those that have proposed this first interpretation to see if by receiving it it can be proved that the Souls of the faithful have not at present their habitation in the Heavens Although the Vision of God in which consists our supream happiness must be chiefly Communicated in the Heavens nevertheless the Court of Heaven and the Vision of God may be things distinct I say God may make himself seen out of Heaven if he pleases and if he pleases he may receive a person to Heaven who shall not see God by that Vision in which consists the top and highest part of happiness Let us put the Case that the Souls of the faithful have in other ages or are at present put in some place as in a Watch-Tower those of the faithful of times past in expectation of the Redemption of the Cross and those of the faithful of the time present in expectation of the appearance of the same Redeemer this place may very well be in the Heavens though the Vision of the glory of God be not yet Communicated to them and if we compare this Text so interpreted with that This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise there will be much more reason to believe that the place of this Sentinel is in Heaven than any where else for the Paradise whither the Soul of our Lord Ascended is in the Heaven and there by consequence are the Souls of those to whom he will give the knowledge of his satisfaction As to what concerns those other Texts wherein the Scripture sends us to the day of the blessed Resurrection for the obtaining of our Reward it seems not at all necessary to understand them in such manner as may persuade us to exclude faithful Souls from Heaven There is no term more usual to represent the glory which we expect on that very happy day than that of triumph Let us then compare the Condition of them that have formerly Triumphed at Rome with the faithful that expect the Reward of Glory they first of all fought at a distance from the City in strange Countreys some nearer and some farther off according as the emergency of things and the extent of the Empire did require after they had vanquished their Enemies they were permitted to enter into the City of Rome as private persons there to demand the charges of the Common-wealth or the honour of Triumph the Senate first appointed it and no man ever triumphed at Rome without consent of the Senate or by authority of the People After a permission of Triumph was obtained they went out of the City to return again in some short time not as private Persons without any Attendance or Ornaments but as victorious Captains and Conquerors with solemn pomp and magnificence Wherefore then after the Believer hath fought here below against the Enemies of the glory of God and his Salvation and is escaped victorious in all his Combates may he not be permitted to enter as a private person stripped of his body into the heavenly Jerusalem not to demand a Triumph for that is already determined but to expect the day on which it must be Celebrated in

as 't is altogether apparent how will it be possible that a Being effectively living endued with faculties so excellent and those faculties adorned with habits so comly should remain so many ages without being awakened in any manner to discover them by some Operations Is it not the property of habits to incline the faculties to action to facilitate the action to which they do incline them yea and in some manner to spur them thereunto And since that man is a being naturally active and that 't is the Soul that gives him this activity and since that which makes the Soul incline it self more to one thing than another in its actions is because its habits give him a tendency that way Why is it that the Soul cannot preserve in it self when separated the activity that it Communicated to the Body and that its proper habits should not have the power they had before to bend it in its actions that way to which they themselves are inclined But let us not fasten our selves on the teaching and institutions of nature Let us consult the Analogy of Religion Certainly all believers have Communion with Christ And this Communion on their parts consists in faith whereby they receive him and on his part in the Communication of his Spirit by which he comforts and sanctifies them Now this Communion is so strict and close that it never suffers any separation And as the death of the body in our Saviour did not hinder in him the personal union of the Divine nature with the humane so that the saying of the Ancient Church is true that what Christ once takes in that regard he never leaves so the death of our Bodies hinders not the mysterious union of our Saviour with us In such manner that those that he hath once taken for his members cannot but always remain so Therefore even after death the Communication of his Spirit of holiness and Consolation abides with us Now what is this Spirit of holiness and Consolation which doth never comfort or sanctify us Or what is this holiness and comfort if it gives us no sense of it self or us When any member of the body becomes mortified it is not reputed a member of it because 't is not esteemed a member but by reason of its Communion in the same life and with the same Soul which is the principle both of life and action If then the Soul do not partake in the Spirit of Christ who alone animates the whole mysterious body composed of himself and the faithful that he hath redeemed how can it be his member And how can it partake of him if it have no use of any of its faculties For the participation of the Spirit consists either in those actions to which it moves and excites us or in the habits which it impresses upon the faculties of our minds Now there is no action where the faculties are deeply asleep for 't is the property of sleep to arrest and intercept the action of our faculties and as to habits 't is neither reasonable nor imaginable that they should be preserved so many ages in a subject where they never discover themselves by any Operations the body may certainly in a sense retain the quality of a member of Christ in the dust of the grave although it feel no effect of the Communication of this Spirit because though it have immediately and by it self no connexion with the head it may have it at least by the mediation of the Soul which is the other part of the whole which both together they do compound For the Soul by the relation that it hath to it in that respect always considers it as a dependance or appendix of his essence in as much as without it it cannot constitute any subject and as an essence on which it self in some sort depends For as much as without it it cannot constitute a compleat man So that the Soul having an effective and immediate Communion with Christ by the participation of his Spirit the Body also retains some connexion with the head at least mediately and by virtue of the interposition of the Soul But if all connexion between Christ and the Soul comes to be broken which will certainly happen if the Spirit do not Communicate to it neither in habits nor actions the Soul will by it self cease to be a member of Christ and the body cannot be so by its intervention I conclude then touching this first point that the Soul separate from the body hath understanding and perception and by consequence that the Souls of the faithful departed hence do enjoy some degrees of felicity and glory Let us see whither it may proceed or what may be the degrees thereof as far as the word of God and the Analogy of faith will inform us What is the happiness of faithful Souls after their separation from the Body and what is the place where they are gathered together or assembled The Second Discourse BEcause the place whereinto the Souls of the faithful are assembled at the time of their separation doth contribute without doubt very much to their contentment and when we shall have decided where it is it will be much more easy to speak of the nature of happiness it self before we proceed to enquire into the degrees of the happiness of good men it seems necessary to search and examine what is the place which is appointed for their abode and residence To the end therefore that I may there begin my discourse it must be known that many have been of this opinion that the Souls of the Patriarchs and Fathers that lived under the Old Testament were not received into Heaven till the manifestation of the New and that by the ascension of Christ on high admission thither was granted to them And the principal foundation that they have for this opinion is that passage in the ninth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews where it is said Vers 8. that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest under the time of legal dispensation whilst the first Tabernacle was standing Having therefore banished Souls from the habitation of Heaven for all the time that ran by till the ascension of our Saviour and it being necessary to provide for them some certain habitation to the end they might not remain wanderers and vagabonds because they did not believe any place more proper to mark out for them than the bosom of Abraham of which our Saviour speaks in the Gospel they have made no difficulty to determine that is there they have made their abode all this long tract of time only they have found themselves much perplexed when they have been to determine precisely in what part of the World the bosom of Abraham should be For some have placed it in the near neighbourhood of Hell although our Lord put a great deep between them others have made it the Porch or Antichamber of Heaven to conclude others not knowing

to create the World his wisdom which is so admirably discovered in all the parts whereof it is composed and his power which appears not only in the greatness of the work and in the great variety of forms wherewith it is replenisht but especially in this that it was drawn from nothing and formed without the aid of any pre-existent matter And that leads him to the knowledge of the infinity and immensity of the nature of God for the World could not be created of nothing unless by an infinite power and an infinite power cannot reside in a finite or limited Essence from the infinity of his Essence he was able to ascend to his Eternity for it is impossible but that a thing that had a beginning should have a limited nature to which the cause that produced it doth necessarily determine it so that what is infinite in its Essence hath no beginning of its Existence and what hath no beginning of its Existence can have no end 't is for this reason that St. Paul in the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans saith that men may know the Eternal Power of God in his works by the Creation of the World joyning with the declaration of his Power the revelation of his Eternity from thence he was able to conduct his discoursive power a little farther and know yet some other attributes of this blessed Essence and see God a little farther Nevertheless to see him in this fort is not called properly the seeing of him as he is and the reasons of it are evident Firstly In that the perfections which God hath displayed in this work of nature might have been more magnificently discovered if God had set it as one day it must be in a Supernatural State for as I have said already the more excellent the work is the more clearly doth it give us to understand the virtues and properties of its Cause Again though God hath revealed therein some of his Perfections nevertheless he hath not revealed all of them for as to his Justice he hath given no other knowledge of it besides what may be contained in that threatning Thou shalt dye the death now there is a great deal of difference between the knowledge that these threatnings may give us of it and that which is made from experience of the thing it self for what concerns his mercy there was no declaration made of it and therefore Adam could have no understanding of it After the fall till the first coming of Christ God hath revealed among others these two attributes for death and other sorts of judgments which he hath caused to fall upon men have given testimony to his Justice and his mercy is made known in the promise of Remission of Sins so that the faithful that have known them have in some sort seen God in that respect but nevertheless diverse things hinder so that we cannot say that they did see him as he is the one is that as to what concerns his Justice though death and other judgments of God do bear evident testimonies thereof nevertheless the punishment that God made of our Sins on the person of his only Son was a far more apparent evidence and more authentick demonstrations thereof until then it appeared that God was just but it did not appear that he was inflexible and altogether inexorable in his Justice but when he delivered his welbeloved Son unto death for the punishment of our Sins he gave us to understand that his nature did so abhor Sin that 't is absolutely impossible that he should suffer it without punishing it in a very dreadful manner this is it which St. Paul teacheth Rom. 3. That God had made his Son a propitiatory through faith to the end that he might demonstrate his Justice which had not been sufficiently known during the forbearance of the times past for how ever it was God as says the same St. Paul did as it were connive during the times of the ignorance of Gentilism and permit that men should entertain thoughts of his severity less congruous than became a Nature so holy and exactly just as is his the other is that where the Justice of God is not known to the utmost the Mercy of God is not known neither for he that knows not perfectly the whole greatness of the Evil cannot sufficiently comprehend the whole excellence of the Remedy add to this that the mercy of God was then indeed known by excellent premises but it was not sufficiently known by the experience of the effects themselves for death always reigned and Believers were always exposed to afflictions which did precede death and all this bore the Characters or were Signs of that inclination that solicited God to punish Sin so that all these things did in a manner obscure the splendor of this Mercy the third is that the mean by which this mercy makes it self known to be shed abroad upon us being not yet manifest the wisdom of God that reconciled justice and mercy between themselves could not be known in this affair which is the most magnificent and most admirable of all the works that ever it did produce for all the marvels that it hath so liberally scattered in the Heavens and in the Earth approach not that of the incarnation of our Saviour by which God was made capable of suffering the pains which the Sins of men deserved man knows God just by the threatnings of his Laws and merciful by the sweetness of his Promises and the Efficacy whereby he accompanies his word render the one and the other of these two Properties sensible to the Consciences of those whose hearts he touches and besides he is not ignorant that God is sufficiently wise in reconciling them together but nevertheless what sublimity of knowledge and understanding could divine that the mean of this accord was to consist in making God become man and this same man God without mixture or confusion between the natures that constitute his Person or the Properties that do accompany them To conclude man being not only in a State of Nature but also in a State of Corruption and having not received the Spirit of Illumination then unless in some small measure he could not apprehend all the beauties of his Perfections though they had been much more clearly and illustriously revealed From the first Coming of Christ until the second the faithful are in that Condition that we cannot sufficiently express how much of encrease their knowledge hath received For the Justice of God hath appeared in the highest degree in the death of Christ his Mercy in the effect of his satisfaction his Wisdom in the conduct of the mystery of our Salvation his Power in the Resurrection of our Saviour and in the Conversion and Sanctification of our Souls so far that Saint Paul says that we have believed according to the excellent greatness of the mighty power of God himself and although we see not with our bodily eyes the Lord Jesus nevertheless