Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	workman_n	workmanship_n	world_n	20	3	5.0865	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25294	The substance of Christian religion, or, A plain and easie draught of the Christian catechisme in LII lectures on chosen texts of Scripture, for each Lords-day of the year, learnedly and perspicuously illustrated with doctrines, reasons, and uses / by that reverend and worthy laborer in the Lord's vineyard, William Ames ...	Ames, William, 1576-1633.	1659 (1659)	Wing A3003; ESTC R6622	173,739	322

himself and as dark and vanishing shadows in respect of a most firm body Lastly also as the footstep of a man imprinted on the sand is in respect of the living man himself These same comparisons shew also that the world and all its parts or all things in this universe are certain tokens and way-markes ●…s it were leading us to the Creatour as the streams leads to the fountain the image in the glass shews the mans face and the shadow respects the body or brings one to find it out as the footstep of the foot doth to the man But the holy Scripture leaving these comparisons is wont to make use of a truer and fitter one when it sayes that the world so came from the Creatour as the workmanship from the workman and every building from its builder Heb. 11. 10. Now every workman doth what he doth of a determinate reason purpose and will in as much as he is a workman And in this sense it is said both in our Text and every where else i●… Scripture That God made all things by his word of his determinate purpose of minde and will Yet there is this difference between other Artists and God that all other artificers bring to perfection their works by divers motions For so soon as they have taken up a purpose with themseves to make some work first they move their own members secondly by their members they move other external instruments thirdly by these instruments they move the matter unto the form or act which they intend to imprint upon it But God perfects his work with saying and willing And this is it that the Scripture every where inculcates to us Psal. 33. 6 9 c. Reas. 1. Because there is nothing in the world that hath a necessary connexion with the divine essence and so nothing external comes from God by any necessity of his nature but from his wisdome and free-will Reas. 2. Because this is the noblest and perfectest way of working to work advisedly and with a free-will Reas. 3. In the beginning of the Creation there was nothing that could have the place either of matter or of instrument nor can we conceive in God any other power really distinct from his understanding and will This therefore is of necessity to be granted and believed that God created all things out of his own free wisdome and will alone Use 1. Is of Instruction for by this foundation we may forearm our faith against the curious queries of some men who are used to ask or wonder why the world was not created before that time in which it was indeed created or why such a part of it was not in such and such a manner The Scripture answers that God created all things by his own free choice wisdome and will so that in this work he was neither subject to any necessity neither should any other reason be enquired for beyond or above his free will Use 2. Is of Direction that from this consolation we establish our Faith about all things that he hath revealed in his Word that he will do For howbeit they may seem very improbable or impossible to our staggering reason yet seeing God doth whatsoever he wills and he made the whole world onely with saying and willing it is not to be doubted of but that he will most truly perform all such things as he hath said that he will do Doct. 3. By the same efficiency whereby God created all things he sustains also and preserves all things in being From these words in the Text and for thy pleasure or by thy will they are Heb. 1. 3. Acts 17. 28. In him we are or have our being For as in the beginning when God cherished the world of waters or the waters the spirit moved upon them and so did sustain conserve and cherish them even so also perpetually the same spirit sustains governs and cherisheth all created things Now God is said to sustain and conserve created things not onely indirectly as he removes and hinders from them causes that would corrupt or destroy them but also directly as he gives a conserving power for continuance of their existence Neither doth he this alone by means as he sustains an infant by its nurse and a building by its pillars but also immediately in as much as being most inwardly present to all things he furnisheth the means themselves with all their efficacy when at his will they concur and doth also many things himself for their conservation for the doing whereof there is found no virtue at all in any means This sustaining of all things is rightly by some called maintenance because thereby God ●…olds as it were in his hand the creature that it fall not back to that nothing from which it was at first brought by that same hand For as if one with his hand lift up something from the ground unless he hold it also after it is lifted up in his hand of its own accord it will fall again to the ground so also after that God by his omnipotent hand lifted up the creature from nothing with the same hand he upheld it also otherwise it would fall back and return to nothing again Reas. 1. Because sustentation is a sort of continued creation For creation brings it to pass that a thing first is and sustentation brings this about that the same thing yet is So that creation hath almost nothing in it beyond sustentation but onely a newness of being wherein it is terminated The same omnipotencie therefore and power of God is required unto sustentation of things which was required at first to their creation Reas. 2. Because to be or to exist agreeth so imperfectly to the creature that if it were removed or separated from the first being whence the beginning of its being was it would presently cease to be For as in the enlightening of the aire the light is so received by the aire that so soon as ever the Sun is removed from it whence this illumination dependeth the air presently ceaseth to be illuminated so is it in this busiess Reas. 3. Because God is so universally and inwardly the cause of the creature that he is not onely in place of an external efficient cause but also of an internal and doth no whit less communica●…e to things their being than matter and form which are other internal causes and essential too which being taken away the essence and being of such things is taken away it self Although therefore many effects consist or keep their being when their efficient causes are remov'd or ceas'd as a building remains after the death of its builder yet without the presence and power of God the creature can no more consist and keep its being than without its matter and form Use 1 Is of Direction that we may strive to open the eyes of our mind and may pray that by the grace of God they may be more and more opened that we may see both God in our selves and in