Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
scripture_n rule_n word_n write_a 2,444 5 10.7174 5 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A58800 The Christian life. Part II wherein that fundamental principle of Christian duty, the doctrine of our Saviours mediation, is explained and proved, volume II / by John Scott ... Scott, John, 1639-1695. 1687 (1687) Wing S2053; ESTC R15914 386,391 678

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

by an Angel requiring him to send to Ioppa for St. Peter to instruct him in the Christian Religion in Acts 10.3 4 5. But since that Christ hath revealed his whole Will to his Church and transmitted it down by a standing Scripture this Ministration of the holy Angels is in a great measure ceased and to this written Word of his we are intirely referred as to the perpetual Rule of our Faith and Manners insomuch that if thenceforth even an Angel from heaven should preach any other Gospel to us than what we have there received he is pronounced accursed Gal. 1.8 Not but that sometimes and upon great Emergencies they may be still sent from heaven with new Messages to us to discover some useful secret or to inspire our minds with the notices of some future contingencies that are of great moment to us though this very rarely it being no part of their ordinary Ministry But since the Revelation of the Gospel was compleated to be sure they never reveal any new Doctrine to us they may be assisting Geniuses to our understandings to excite in them a true apprehension of what is already revealed by impressing our imaginations with clear and distinct Idea's and Representations of things that are revealed more obscurely But to suppose that they still reveal new Doctrinal truths to us is not only to deny the perfection of written Revelation but to open a wide door to all manner of Enthusiasm II. Another instance of the Ministry of Angels in the Kingdom of Christ is their guarding and defending his Subjects against outward dangers for thus the Angels are said to encamp round about those that fear God to deliver them Psal. 34.7 And though I see not sufficient reason to be fully persuaded that every faithful Subject of the Kingdom of Christ hath an appropriate Guardian Angel appointed to him yet from that Caution of our Saviour Matt. 18.10 it is evident that he imploys his Angels to attend as an invisible Lifeguard upon the persons of all good Christians for saith he Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones for I say unto you that in heaven their Angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven i. e. those blessed spirits which are appointed by God to be their Guardians upon Earth have yet their continual returns and recourse to God's glorious Presence in Heaven and having always access to him to offer up requests or complaints in their behalf it must needs be a very dangerous thing for any to presume to despise or offend them lest he thereby provoke those mighty spirits to sue out and execute some Commission of vengeance upon him From whence it is evident that the blessed Angels are greatly concerned in the vindication and protection of the faithful and that that promise Psal. 91.10 11 12. is still in force viz. There shall no evil befal thee for he shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways they shall bear thee up in their hands left thou dash thy foot against a stone And this they do sometimes by removing such evil accidents from us as in the course of necessary causes must have befaln us for there is no doubt but these powerful Spirits have a mighty influence upon necessary causes at least upon a great many of them and can retard or precipitate or vary or divert their motions as they see occasion and thereby prevent a great many accidents which must otherwise have befaln had they permitted them to proceed in their natural courses Other times again they divert the mischievous intentions of our Enemies by injecting sudden fears into them and brandishing horrid Phant●sms before their imaginations as the Angel did the flaming Sword before Balaam when they are just upon executing their Malice Sometimes again they warn us of dangers approaching either by some external sign or unaccountable impression on our fancies by which we are vehemently solicited without any visible Cause or Reason either to proceed very cautiously in the ways where our danger lies or to stop and forbear a while or steer some other course Of all which there are innumerable instances to be found in History III. Another instance of the Ministry of Angels in the Kingdom of Christ is their supporting and comforting his faithful Subjects upon difficult undertakings and under great and pressing Calamities for thus not only our Saviour himself was comforted in his last Agony by an Angel from Heaven Luk. 22.43 but St. Paul also tells us that being in imminent danger of being shipwreck'd in a storm in his voyage to Rome there stood by him in the night an Angel of God whose he was and whom he served saying fear not Paul thou must be brought before Caesar and lo God hath given thee all them that sail with thee Acts 27.23 24. So also when the Apostles by an Order from the High Priest were cast into the common Prison the Text tells us That an Angel of the Lord by night opened the Prison doors and brought them forth and said go stand and speak in the Temple to the People all the words of this life Acts 5.19 20. So also in the ancient Martyrologies of the Church we meet with sundry relations of the appearances of Angels to the suffering Martyrs and of the wonderful Comforts they administred to them to support their Faith and Patience under their Agonies and Torments And although since the Cessation of Miracles they do not Ordinarily perform this Ministry to us in visible appearances yet there is no doubt but as they are Spirits they have spiritual and invisible ways of conversing with our Spirits and of administring Comforts to us in our needs and extremities for though they can have no immediate access to our mind which is a dark Mysterious Chamber into which no other Eye can penetrate but his who is the searcher of all hearts yet that they can vehemently impress our Fancies with joyous Representations and thereby exhilarate our drooping spirits to that degree as to transport us into Raptures of bodily passion is not to be doubted there being so many sensible experiments of it in the ancient Prophets whose imaginations were sometimes so vehemently impressed with frightful Idea's by the Angels which conversed with them as that they immediately fell into an Agony and were seized with unaccountable horrors and tremblings and not only the Prophets themselves that saw the Angel were thus affected but sometimes their Companions too that saw him not of which you have an instance in Dan. 10.7 where Daniel tells us that he alone saw the vision of the Angel and that the men that were with him saw not the Vision but a great quaking fell upon them so that they fled to hide themselves which is a plain evidence of the great power which the Angels have over our bodily passions even when they are invisible to us so as to strike what note soever they please upon
the substance of our bodies and that all the rest we render back again into the common mass of matter by sensible or insensible evacuations though we should suppose one man to have eaten up the whole substance of anothers body yet he retains but one part of an hundred and what should hinder an omnipotent power from raising the body he hath devoured out of the ninety nine parts which he lets go again And then considering that in seven years time the whole substance of our body Changes he must if he live so long evacuate that one part which he retain'd and so the whole will be at last worn off from the matter and substance of his body Nay suppose this Devourer to feed altogether upon mans flesh as some affirm the Canibals do and that in the last seven years before his death he devours one hundred humane bodies weighing two hundred pound a piece according to this computation the utmost he can be supposed to digest of the flesh of these hundred bodies into the substance of his own amounts not to above two pound of each so that of the two hundred weight of bodily substance whereof these devoured bodies did consist there will still remain one hundred ninety eight undigested into the substance of the Devourer which we may easily conceive is sufficient matter out of which to re-produce the same bodies For we many times lose as much of our substance in a sweat and a great deal more in a consumption as these devoured bodies do in their being eaten and digested notwithstanding which our bodies continue numerically the same But as for the bodies of these Man-eaters there is no doubt but they carry with them a great deal of other substance to their graves besides that of mans flesh for the liquor which they drink with it and the bread which they eat with it and the other accidental nourishments which they receive with it goes into the substance of their bodies as well as that and these being at least one half of their nourishment must constitute at least one half of their bodies What then should hinder but that at the resurrection the other half of them which consists of mans flesh may be separated from them and restored to those humane bodies they devoured and if so then each of them shall recover its whole substance again and not want so much as one particle of all that matter whereof they were composed when they were eaten for it is but just that they should be made to refund those unnatural spoils which they barbarously ravished from the bodies of other men But then you will say How shall the body of the Cannibal that eat them be raised when according to this account it be must deprived of one half of the substance it died withal I answer that to this remaining half of his bodily substance there may without any repugnance to its being raised the same body be added out of the common mass of matter as much new bodily substance as is sufficient to redintegrate it in all its parts for the resurrection of the same body doth not necessarily imply that all the same matter shall be raised and no other and no more For if all shall be raised in the most perfect stature and proportion of humane bodies as there is no doubt but they shall then Infants and Dwarfs and such as die of Consumptions must have new matter added to that which they die withal and therefore the resurrection of the same body can imply no more than this that every body shall be raised out of the same matter so far as it will go and therefore if this remaining half of the substance of the Canibals body will not go far enough to redintegrate his whole body at the resurrection there is no doubt but God will add new substance to it which will no more hinder it from being the same numerical Body than the reparation of an house with new stones and Timber hinders it from being the same numerical house For suppose that God by a Miracle should in an instant restore a man to his full Bulk the substance of whose body is half pined away by a lingring Consumption this would not at all hinder but that still it would be the same numerical Body Why then should the Addition of new bodily substance to the remaining half of the matter of the Canibals body at the resurrection hinder it from being raised numerically the same And this I conceive is sufficient to clear the doctrine of the general Resurrection from all pretence of Repugnancy and Contradiction But suppose after all that there should be some rare and singular instances wherein it will be impossible in the nature of the thing for the same numerical Body to be raised again this would no more impeach the truth of a general resurrection of the same bodies than Enoch's and Elias's not dying do the truth of the Maxim of the Author to the Hebrews It is appointed for all men once to die If therefore in any instance it should be impossible in the nature of the thing for God to raise the same body it will be sufficient to serve the purpose of rewards and punishments for God to cloath the same soul in a new body For it is the soul that individuates the man and makes him to be the same person though he hath not the same body We have not the same matter about us when we are ten years old that we were first cloathed with when we were born and as he who shall be rewarded or punished ten years hence for a Vertue or a Crime which he acts now will be rewarded or punished in the same body though not in the same matter so he who shall be rewarded or punished at the resurrection for the good or evil which he doth in this life will be rewarded or punished in the same person though it should not be in the same body But it being more congruous to the accuracy and exactness of the divine justice that it should be in the same body as well as in the same person and it being every whit as easie to an infinite power to restore to our souls the same bodies as to cloath them in new ones for within the compass of posssibilities all things are equally within the reach of Omnipotence mens bodies shall be universally rebuilt at the Resurrection out of those old Ruins and Materials in which they did good or evil in this life and if there should happen some particular instances wherein such a numerical resurrection should be in it self impossible these will be only a few exceptions from that general rule which rather confirm than destroy it For thus from Scripture we are assured that they who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake Dan. 12.2 and that all that are in the grave shall hear Christs voice and come forth John 5.28 29. that the Sea shall give up the dead which are