Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n
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A61471
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A discourse of the freedom of the will by Peter Sterry ...
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Sterry, Peter, 1613-1672.
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1675
(1675)
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Wing S5477; ESTC R15154
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286,940
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282
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Creature as the Creature cometh forth from God into its single and proper state through him 3. Jesus Christ as he is the Mediator between God and the Creature as he is One with God so also is he One with the Creature that he may bring forth the Creature from God bring back and home again the Creature to God to make both one in himself I shall endeavour to make plain this part of Christ's Mediatorship the immediate coming forth of the Creature through Christ by several steps 1. Jesus Christ having descended with his Original and essential Image into an Image of Light all clear and transparent in every point of which his essential Glories shine brightly forth Next to this he comes down into a shadowy Image There all the Glories of the two former Images are altogether obscured and hidden beneath this Vail They appear only by a shadowy Figure of themselves formed upon the darkness of this third Image In this shadow of himself the Lord Jesus retaineth entirely the Unity of his Divine and eternal Person All the three Images the Lights of Glory and their shadow dwell together in the Unity of the same Person So do they mutually enfold one another So do they mutually subsist appear and act in each other according to the proper Form of each Image and state The shadow shines and is a substantial Glory in the Glory of the Images above The Images above with all their substantial Glories are shadows in this shadow As St. John saith The Word was made flesh so is God here become a shadow of himself God is the Person in this shadow This shadow subsists in the Person of God The superior Images spread forth the darkness of this Image from themselves over-spreading themselves with it They themselves with all their Glories are as a Divine Seed in it They are the seminal Virtue the seminal Reason or Form springing up through this darkness and filling it throughout with Divine Figures of themselves As the Plants Flowers and Fruits which God made to spring up out of the ground of the Garden in Eden Thus is this shadowy Image divinely-beautiful and rich all an earthly Paradise bearing the Figure of the heavenly Paradise which it hath for its proper Seed and Root hidden within it Jesus Christ in his essential Image is as the substantial and Divine Body of all Glories In his Mediatory Image as a Garment of Light with which that Body cloaths it self all composed of its own richest Beams In this third Image as a shadow cast from both these 2. Jesus Christ in this shadowy Image is the first and universal Creature a created Spirit the immediate Head and Pattern of the whole Creation in general of all Creatures in particular Men and Angels He is the first Draught or Life-Picture of the whole Creation from whence all the Creatures are taken as so many Copies of this Original The superior Images are the Life it self by which this Original and Life-Picture is drawn Thus is Jesus Christ in a third sense the Image of the invisile God and the first-born of every Creature St. Paul seemeth in that place Coloss. 1. 15. to have intended this as the principal sense For he immediately adds That all things were made by him whether visible or invisible and that he is before all things and in him all things did consist or stand together Then when in the consequence of this he had said that Christ is the Head of the Church the first-born from the dead he gives this as a reason relating to both states of Nature and Grace of the Creation and the new Creature in the Resurrection that he in all things might have the preheminence The word is there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might be the first in all things the first in Order Dignity and Power The first Creature in Nature and in the Creation the Head of Nature and the whole Creation The first new Creature in the Resurrection from the dead when Nature and the whole Creation was fallen under the power of death and the Head of the Resurrection The Jews seem to represent Jesus Christ to us in this station of the Creation as the first and universal Creature by two mysteries of theirs For they teach us That the Soul of the Messias was one of those things which were before the World was They say also That the Light of the first Day was a pure and clear Light in which the whole Creation in its whole compass with all Forms of things contained in it through its whole duration from the beginning to the end with all Revolutions and Changes universal or particular were all clearly seen at once in one View and Prospect as one entire most beautiful Divine Image or Picture They say also That at the Fall of Man this Light was withdrawn and hidden beneath the Throne of God until the days of the Messias The Arians of old acknowledged Jesus Christ in this state as a created Spirit the first and universal Creature above and before all things the Head of Angels and of the whole Creation Thus they acknowledged him to be God by representation deputation denomination and generation as being immediately begotten and brought forth from God as the first created Image of the Uncreated Glory comprehending all other created Images originally in himself They ascended right thus high if they had not rested here but by this shadowy Image had been pointed to the Mediatory Image in Life and by the beams of that guided to the essential Image in the Godhead Our natural senses teach us That there is no shadowy reflected and refracted Light where there is not first a pure Light and Sun-shine that the purest Light of the sweetest Sun-shine hath above it the Original Light the essential Light in the Body of the Sun which is indeed the Body of the Sun the Sun it self in its essential Form and Image But let us pass to our third step 3. The Lord Jesus in this shadowy Image is immediately the efficient the exemplar the final Cause of the whole Creation As Light and all the beams flow from the Sun their formal Cause as immediate Figures and Images of him So doth the whole Creation in general and each Creature in particular flow forth from him by continued emanations He is the ground out of which they rise in which they grow and flourish on which he figures and forms himself according to his various Excellencies as the proper fruit of them all into which they sink down and return with all their Life and Sweetness when they disappear Thus are all things made by him and for him that he may live and shine forth in all In him saith St. John was Light and that Light was the life of man where he speaks of the Creation of things by Jesus Christ. 4. I am now come to my last step Jesus Christ in this shadowy Image is in the whole Creation and in every
like to the blindness the barrenness the cold of darkness and death than the life and fruitfulness the warmth of beauty life and love which all have their Perfection and their Joys in the propagation of themselves into most distinct forms and the reflection upon themselves from these forms This is the first and so the most universal Image the first seat of all Images of things In this all the fulness the unchangeable riches of the Godhead display themselves in their first their fairest their fullest glories All forms of things are here most proper most perfect most distinct substantial and true Philosophers and Divines call the first Images of things as they rise up from the Fountain of eternity in the bosome of this universal and eternal Image Ideas The Idea in this sense is the first and distinct Image of each form of things in the Divine Mind The universal Image of which we speak is that Divine Mind or Understanding This is the proper Idea of the Godhead the universal Idea the Idea of Ideas and so that Mother of us all which is above Every Idea of each Creature is this Idea bringing forth it self according to the inestimable Treasures of the Godhead in it into innumerable distinct figures of it self in the unconfined Varieties of its own Excellencies and Beauties that so it may enjoy it self sport with it self in these with endless and ever new Pleasures of all Divine Loves Thus in every Idea of each Creature doth this universal Idea dwell at large and freely shine forth with all its fulnesses and sweetnesses in a distinct form as it self in another form The Ideas or Images being the only and eternal Truths of all things do from themselves as the true Heavens in eternity send forth as shadowy figures the Heaven of Angels these visible Heavens the Earth all the Elements with their Inhabitants and Furniture Each Idea containeth its own created figure as the proper place of it giveth it its essence and existence in it self sustaineth it and supporteth it in its own bosome by new Births or emanations from it self every moment it filleth it throughout as the Light doth the Air or rather the beams in the Air. This alone is the unchangeable Truth the true substance of each thing the golden Head above the inward spring below the Christal Vessel which holdeth and encloseth every created Being the living water of all Truth and true Being which filleth every created Vessel Place is affirmed by the Jews to be one of the Names of God Christ saith in the Gospel In my Fathers house are many Mansions This universal and eternal Image of which we speak is a Divine Person This is our Jesus the God of all Glory in the clearest the fullest effulgency or brightness of all his Glories in his own most proper and most glorious form This is the House or Palace of the Father upon the Mount of Eternity the House of Ideas or the first and eternal Images of things which are at once as so many Children of this Great King the Father of all and as so many Mansions in this House Here in this House of God as David speaketh each Bird hath its Nest hath its place to sit and sing near his holy Altar Thus God in each of these distinct and eternal Images is the distinct and eternal Place of each thing As the golden Seals were the only place of the Impression if there were nothing besides the golden Substance and the Impression so is the Idea or the Divine Image in our Lord Jesus the only place of each thing How sweet a Contemplation is this Every created Being as a Figure or an Impression which hath no ground no foundation to sustain it besides the Seal which makes it riseth flourisheth fadeth and falleth hath the whole compass of its beginning way and end in the soft and beautiful bosome of its own Divine Image or Idea in the Person of our Lord Jesus Thus all things live move and have their being in Him It is the Rule of the Philosopher That all motion is made upon something unmoveable We read in the first of the Hebrews a place cited out of the Psalms where it is thus said to Jesus Christ The Heavens and the Earth are the work of thine hands they perish but thou remainest They all wax old as a Garment as a Vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed but thou art the same thy years fail not Behold Jesus Christ as he is the eternal Image of the Godhead containing the first Images of all things eternally in Himself is the Divine and unmoveable ground upon which the Heaven the Earth with all things in them whose whole being is a perpetual motion and change perpetually move Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of God as he is the first and most perfect Image of the Divine Essence within it self and in this Image contains those Images which are the first Patterns the eternal Grounds Truths Measures of all things The same Jesus is the Power of God in respect to that seminal or propagative Power in those first Patterns by which as sacred Springs they multiply themselves by various streams receiving all along from them the continuation of their Beings in continual motions till by circling about they return to and rest in the bosome of their Fountain This is that pure and clear Sea of Ideal Lights and Lives from which all their Rivers of Being go forth and into which they return again while that still is equally full and capable of no diminution or increase This ground of the Work of God in Christ and of the Mediation of Christ seemeth to be the fundamental sense though perhaps not the only one nor that principally intended by the Apostle in those words where he saith That our Lord Jesus is the Image of the invisible God and the First-born of every Creature This last expression is divinely contrived to be both in one a collective and a distributive with equal propriety of sense you may read of all Creation of every Creature The holy Scripture in the Epistle to the Hebrews distinguisheth between the shadow and the Image the very Image the self Image of good things to come The whole Creation with the Law in its Angelical Glories as it is the Crown and Ground of this Creation according to the Doctrine of the Jewish Masters and of all the Scripture is a shadow of good things and no more Jesus Christ alone is the Image of God and so of all good things the very Image the self Image that Image which by its exactness is one self with its Original God in all those Glories in which by reason of their excess of Light He is in this Image equally glorious and perfectly visible to Himself Jacob stileth his first-born the Excellency of Dignity and the Excellency of Strength Jesus Christ being the first Image of God is also in that the first Image of the Creation in the