Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n
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B02800
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Dulcedo ex acerbis. Sound doctrine from the errors contained in Mr. Keith's sermons and apologies. / By a member of the Church of England. O D M T.
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1700
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Wing D2517A; ESTC R174771
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37,276
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in the Unity and the still Eternity no such thing as Father and Son and Holy Ghost known all Three being as part of the Generation of God Included within the Bounds of this Denomination to wit of the Nasciture or Generation of God the Father being not known more than the Son or Spirit without Nature or before the Generation of God or his Manifestation tho' at him this Nasciture or Generation Beings Natura quasi dicas Nascitura La naissance the Nativity of God Respectu Creaturae or God bringing forth himself to a Generation or a Manifestation to Communicate himself or his good without himself to some things besides himself So that Nature is only God himself Manifested and his Motion to Nature is his Generation And as he moved himself as by three Steps or Degrees in this his Generation he Manifesteth himself under three Appearances Forms Natures or Essences of Fire Light and Spirit or Father Son and Spirit which tho' the Trinity be from Eternity in God or Coeternal to God that is to the Unity the Generation of God being from Eternity are not known as I said before God moved himself to Nature without himself but were hid in God himself and brought to pass in himself before his outward Nature or his manifestation the Godhead in Unity as it is without Nature being but a dark Abyss And these three appearances or distinct forms and degrees of Gods manifestation are called Father and Son and Spirit Father because the Godhead or Unity is the ground the stock the Womb that brings forth out of its deep the Light its first Born or Son and only begotten Son called Son by the Hebrews on the very same account as their Language calls a Spark the Son of the burning Coal Son because he doth come forth like a Spark out of the Coal by breaking and shining forth out of the dark lump or deep 2 Cor. 4. 6. And thirdly they are called by the name of the Spirit because the same Unity doth not only shew it self or make it self manifest in the Light or by the Son but makes it self to be felt and communicates its good in the form of a Spirit or Beams flowing from the Light nothing in Nature being so fit to diffuse convey and communicate the good as the Light and its efflux the Influences whereof are the Holy Ghost in God and in the World the Spirit which makes what we call the Air by vapourising Water or turning it to vapour 17. Quaere What is a Spirit Answer It is a Substance as imperceptible as God himself to natural Men whose knowledge goeth no higher than sense and intelligece 1 Cor. 2. 14. The thing that is and exists Exod. 3. 14. for it is the same as God who is but a pure Spirit Joh. 4. 24. the substance of substances that actuates all substance and gives it form and Essence In God alone and the Soul to wit regenerated it is simple immaterial but in this World where it was at first mixt with the Water its concrete and material and hath the three dimensions that all other concretes have and is that which raiseth up the Water into vapours Out of it and of Water comes all material Substance or Matter for out of both this material World was made Gen. 1. 2. 2 Pet. 3. 5. All things saith Lucretius are come from their spiritual and their invisible State to a visibility and a palpability By its joyning to Water which it inspissates to Oyl then concocts into a Salt Earth and Body comes to be Corporification and Terrification being one and the same thing And by its separation and freedom from its vehicle whilst it is clearing it self of the Vapour that holds it for it leaves it not wholly not a spark of pure Spirit being suffered in the World for then it would inflame it fire and the destruction of things compacted by it for ejus ope totum cum toto compactum est are still made and come to pass From the Spirit all encrease and decrease or corruption of material things proceed From the Spirit as Spirit their Multiplication Multiplication being but a flux or extension of the first central Spirit infused into the deep and a propagation made a traduce of the same and from it as a fire Quateuus become fire their decrease and corruption that is the separation of that which was compacted In fine the stock of all things of God and of the Creature being Spirit and all things coming from a spiritual invisible and unknown state into materiality Ken perceptibility all things agree in substance and as God is a Spirit and Spirit is the substance and stock of the Deity the three in the Deity which we call the Trinity agree into this one thing and are but one in substance not so in Form or Essence 18. And the Truth is the Scripture speaking of Persons no where there is no reason wherefore we should set up this Notion and make of Hypostasis which is the stock and substance the things dependent of it viz. the form or the Persons tho' I am not ignorant that the Schools make of the form what I make of substance to wit The most Essential and Principal part of things But Christians who learn of Christ being anointed by him with that which teacheth all things Joh. 14. 26. 1 Joh. 2. 27. or else they were not Christians for a Christian signifyeth one that is anointed ought not to take upon tick from the Schools and the Heathen their Theosophick Notions nor such as is or may be the occasion of Errours but from Nature and Scripture and the Etymology of words if they have any as here of Hypostasis ab 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is by no Greek Author made use of to signify an individual Person And the Scriptures speak only of Three or a Trinity which bear Record in the World or make known the Deity which three things agree in one and are One and the same Thing 1 Joh. 5. 7. in the stock or the substance but divers in the Essence The Nature or the Essence of the Light being divers from that of the dark fire which is the Father of it and from that of the Spirit or beams that flow out of both as is that of the Spirit different from that of both the Light and Fire likewise 19. And that it is so to wit that these three appearances being divers in Essence are the same in the substance or one and the same Spirit and so that the Holy Ghost and Christ as the Light of God and the second Appearance of the Three in the Godhead are but One and the same Thing St. John saith there be three things in Earth bear Record of it the Spirit Water and Blood which last is but a concrete of Water and of Spirit digested and concocted in the Animal Bodies and I say that all things in the whole World witness it the World it self Man and Beast
Minerals and Vegetables All things being more or less Secundum modum suum after the Image of God God being every where semper sibi similis and manifesting himself in all things such as he is in Trinity like himself 20. First in the whole World it self where God is made manifest by Fire Light and Spirit We see first an influence from the Sun and from the Stars into sublunary things and a refluence from them back again into the Sun and the Stars to supply them and feed their Fire and Flame Any Man that hath but sense and warms himself in the Sun and will hold his hand over a burning stick or Candle may feel this Flux and Reflux This influence in the Sun in the Air and in the Flame of the stick is a Spirit moving always from the Sun into the Air and all things and from them to any Flame and chiefly towards the Sun which is the great Sea of Flames and as having need of more supply attracts most of it There in the Orbe of the Sun or in the space of the Flame where it meets and concentreth it forms the Fire and Light and flowing out of that space into the Air whence it came in the form of Beams and Smoak which makes the spots of the Sun it returns to a Spirit and by this Circulation makes the Gold Chain of Homer that tyeth the Earth to Heaven and keeps the Earth from falling to pieces as Poets say Now this spirit is the same in the Air or in the Deep in the Flame or in the Sun as out of the Sun and Flame whilst it flows towards the flame as whilst it is in the flame and when it comes out of it only varying it self into the several forms of fire light and spirit and putting on divers shapes But these things being too high or however too crabbed for common Capacities and for those Vertuosi Prov. 24. 7. who feed upon foolishness Chap. 15. 14. I will bring them in here by way of Annotation * We may learn from the Scriptures if we cannot see Nature that there was a dark Abyss and in the Center of it the Spirit of God working and moving it self upwards towards the Circumference Gen. 1. 2. and not upon the Surface as the Modern translate it For God produced the World and all things out of Himself and therefore is the Center of all things from which all things flow to the Circumference Now when this Spirit had thus moved it self for a while or the space of the first Night which we suppose of 12 Hours for the World was created about the first Equinoxe and had met and gathered in sufficient quantity to supply the space of it about the bounds and Limits which God hath set to this World stopping there it concentred and by this Concentration which was the Word fiat Lux for God's Word is His Power Act and Will as I said it broke out into a Light or shined out of Darkness 2 Cor. 4. 6. as the Lightning doth yet now out of the thick and dark Clouds and became the Light it self But before it concentred whilst it was yet in Motion or moving it was Fire The Fire being nothing but the Spirit in Motion and moving towards its end which is the same as the End of Nature to wit The Light or the Manifestation The Light being saith St. Paul Eph. 5. 13. the only Thing manifest that is to say the same thing as God's Manifestation St. Paul ' s Words are All that is manifest is Light and not all that which makes manifest as they do misconstrue it the only diffusive Thing and fit to communicate or to manifest the Good And we never see any Heat or Fire produced but by Motion of Spirits as by filing in Iron rubbing in Wood viz. two Sticks of Wood together fermentation in Liquors in moist Herbs and in wet Hay From Fire when it attains the Light and the liberty after flying confertim and meeting and gathering together into some space it turns to a Blaze or Flame when it hath dissipated the Darkness or dark Vehicle of Smoak which it raiseth with and brought both Extreams that is both it self and the Water to a Harmonious Temper For it is the Harmony and Anatical mixture of the two great Contraries to wit Fire and Water that by the Concentration of one and Dissipation of the other form the Light Amicitia contrariorum dissimilium commixtio Lumen constituunt illustratum ab actu Dei That is by his Word which concentred in a point the Spirit that ascended That the Light is produced by Concentration appears from small Eyes which see better than full and prominent ones And from the burning Glasses that make it by concentring again the diffused Beams and reflecting them upon some Combustible Matter whose Moisture is not so much bound up as is that in Metals and so lays more exposed to the Action of those Beams than that in the burning Glass And by the just Proportion of Fire and of Water appears from that no Fire can burn or produce a Flame when no Air which is full of moist Vapours can come to it or where the Moisture abounds and the Spirit is not able to dissipate the Vapour and to dry up the Moisture This same Spirit I say having obtained its end the Light and the Liberty from the Bounds of the Vapour which it had elevated and continuing its Course or Motion out of the space where the Flame or the Light shines turns again to a Spirit flows out in the Form of Beams which any Body may feel and by expanding again in ampliorem Autam then the space the Flame was in becomes again invisible but as conveying with it the Impression of the Light of a more beneficent and vivifying Nature than at first when it reflowed and moved towards the Sun And those Beams are but the same in Substance as the Light is or as it was in the light and when it moved to it being the same in Substance not in Form and Consistence in the Light as out of it the Substance being not new nor changed from what it was centrally or in it self but putting on divers Shapes or the three Faces of three several Phoenomenons or appearing in the Form of Fire Light and Spirit all three different from that of the Spirit in the deep consider'd as not moving or as yet in the Center of the Deep or as in God in the still Eternity before he moved himself and distinct from each other The Light as I have said being of a gentle meek comforting and refreshing and vivifying Nature whereas that of the Spirit whilst it moves towards the light and is deprived of it is to be a dark Fire consuming and causing Wo cold and sharp austere and fierce like that of a corroding bitter Frost in a dark Night of Lapis infernalis the Gangrene Aqua fortis and of Ignis Gehennae that gnaws corrodes