Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	nature_n	person_n	union_n	4,088	5	9.9328	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30449	A sermon preached before the King at Whitehall, on Christmas-Day, 1696 by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1697 (1697)	Wing B5905; ESTC R21549	13,405	35

Son of God The Jews understood these two designations to be so inseparable that they had no other Controversy at first with the Apostles and the first Converts but about this Whether Jesus was the Messias or not But supposing him to be the Messias they never questioned his being the Son of God nor did they object to the Christians their giving him Divine Adoration We have the Martyrdom of St. Stephen the most punctually related of any of all the Passages that happen'd in the first beginnings of Christianity The Jews heard and saw all that past St. Stephen died calling upon the Lord Iesus to receive his spirit and praying to him not to lay that sin to the charge of his Murtherers If the Jews had not then believed that the Messiah was to be truly God and that as such he was to be invocated they must after this have reproached the Christians with Idolatry with making a Man God and with the worshipping him as such This they did not do which shews that then they owned that the Messiah was to be truly God This was yet more instructing to the Christians who could not but observe that St. Stephen ended his life in Acts of Invocation of Christ to the same effect with those in which Christ himself had called on his Heavenly Father when he gave up the Ghost Into thy hands I commit my spirit being of the same importance with that of St. Stephen's Lord Iesus receive my spirit As Father forgive them they know not what they do being the same Act in effect with this Lord lay not this to their charge If Christ was not truly God and to be worshipp'd as such it is not possible to excuse this from a very high degree of Idolatry I love not in such an Audience to dwell long on Points of Speculation Yet since this is the Capital Article of the Christian Religion and since it is one of the great Infelicities of the Age we live in that as many have been carried to question the Truth of the whole of it so not a few have with a particular Eagerness attack'd this Fundamental Point of it I hope the Day as well as the Time we are in will justify the insisting a little more upon it It is certain that if we confess that the New Testament was a Book writ by Divine Inspiration which those who deny this Doctrine profess they do acknowledge we must also confess that Divine Honours are through the whole of it ascribed to Jesus Christ From this Common sense seems to infer That either he was truly God by such a Real Union with the Eternal Word who is God as makes both Natures one Person in him the nearest resemblance to which is the Union of our Souls and Bodies out of which very different Natures arises one Man or one Person Or if this is not true it will follow That the Christian Religion one of whose main Ends was to banish Idolatry out of the world did really only change the Object of this Idolatry and draw men from worshipping the Deities of the several Nations to worship one who according to those mens Doctrine was only a Creature and yet was to be worshipp'd with the same Honour which is due to the Eternal God which were indeed a Strain in Idolatry beyond that of most Heathen Nations But to make this Matter yet plainer All the Sects among Christians that have rejected our Saviour's Divinity who yet acknowledge that Divine Honour is due to him may be reduced to these Two Either such as hold him to have been some Excellent Created Being made before the world and imployed by God in Making and Governing the world and so Dignified with Divine Honour These were the Arians of Old who under many high words seem to have meant no more but to acknowledge that he was some Created Mind such as the Jews and we all apprehend Angels to be Superior indeed in rank and order to any other of them but no Idea can be formed of a Created Mind how perfect soever but what is of the nature of Angels Now St. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews begins it with the rejecting this conceit and he pursues that in the Two First Chapters in expressions that considering the Simplicity of Stile in which the New Testament is writ are as full as can be imagined They are of the nature of Negative words which are always to be severely understood They are likewise set in the terms of opposition and so must be strictly expounded The bare repeating them will make this yet more more sensible It is said of Christ That he was the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person Being made so much better than the Angels as he hath by Inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they Whatsoever Dignity they have it is a free donation whereas Christ has his by Inheritance To which of the Angels said he at any time Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee But when he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world he saith And let all the Angels of God worship him an opposition as express as it is full These words are in the Book of Psalms but they are also in the Conclusion of the last Song of Moses according to the Septuagint Translation tho' not in the Hebrew Rejoyce O ye Heavens and let all the Angels of God Worship him This being then the Translation that was in use among the Jews when St. Paul writ it is most probable that he had regard to it there being no part of the Law that the Jews think is more full of Mystery and Prophecy than that Song The Angels being thus called on to Worship the Messias is a very strict Expression of another nature in him Superior to theirs and to which they are subject That is farther prosecuted Of Angels this is said He makes his Angels Spirits that is Winds which imports the quickness of their Motion and his Ministers a flaming fire a Figure importing their subtil force In opposition to which this follows But unto the Son he saith Thy Throne O God is for ever and ever And Thou Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the Earth and the Heavens are the works of thiue hands they shall be changed but thou art the same and thy years shall not fail The Creation of the Heavens and the Earth and Eternity being in these words plainly affirmed of the Messias which could not be said without Blasphemy if he was not truly God This is carried yet further To which of the Angels said he at any time Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool in opposition to which it is said further of Angels Are they not all ministring Spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be Heirs of Salvation This is more expresly prosecuted in the next Chapter where this is made

a part of the difference between the Mosaical and the Christian Dispensation That the former was spoken by Angels whereas this was first begun to be spoken by the Lord. For unto Angels God hath not put in subjection the world to come a Phrase importing in the Jewish Stile the Dispensation of the Messias whereas the Messias though made a little lower than the Angels was crowned with glory and honour and set over the whole Creation In the Conclusion of that Chapter there is an Expression that makes all this yet more evident For verily he took not on him the nature of Angels but he took on him the seed of Abraham which fully shews that the nature in him which he had before his Incarnation was not the nature of Angels The Second Supposition on which those who deny his Divinity do yet pretend to assert the High Dignity to which he is raised is the Sublimity of that Ministry and Dispensation that was committed to him in conclusion of which and as a reward of his patient Sufferings he was raised up and exalted to Divine Honour This Artemon of old and the Socinians of late have advanced But as by a Spirit of Prophecy St. Paul does in the next place destroy this conceit in that way which of all others was the best suited to the Notions of the Jews He sets Christ in opposition to Moses not only in a priority of rank and precedence but in a Superiority of Nature He Prefaces this with a charge to us to consider the High-Priest and Apostle of our Profession To which he adds That both Moses and he were faithful but with this distinction That this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses in as much as he who hath built the House hath more Honour than the House He adds to this That he who hath built all things is God But the opposition follows Moses was faithful in all his House as a Servant but Christ as a Son over his own House Words that are as clear as they are full To make this yet more sensible it is to be considered That the Degree of Moses's Inspiration is set by God himself above any other Prophecy in these Words If there be a Prophet among you I will make my self known to him in a vision and will speak to him in a dream My Servant Moses is not so who is faithful in all my House with him will I speak mouth to mouth or face to face as one man speaks to another even apparently and not in dark Speeches and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold Or to put this in Modern Expressions he shall see God in a true and compleat Idea Thus Moses was above all other Prophets The peculiar Excellencies of the Pe al pe face to face is well known to all who have any acquaintance with Jewish Notions Now after all this Christ is not only preferred to Moses but is put in such an opposition to him as is that of a Son to a Servant These are plain and simple Authorities that need only a little Reflection but no Commentary to make us apprehend the force and evidence that is in them God be thanked that by his good Providence and the care of all the Churches we have this Book brought down to us in its first genuine and uncorrupted State in which the Inspired Penmen delivered it to the World It was the interest of the Enemies of this Doctrine to endeavour to corrupt it They understood that and followed it for which we have an undeniable Testimony Recorded to us by a Writer who was too favourable to them to be declined as partial against them It was Eusebius who in his History cites a passage from a Writer in the beginning of the 3d Century believed to be Gaius Presbyter of Rome who tells us that Artemon's Disciples had endeavoured to corrupt the New Testament but in such a manner that as they could shew no Ancient Copies to justify their Corruptions so they did not agree among themselves and these Corruptions were as he says very strange and enormous ones So notwithstanding all the Cry that they do now raise of the Corruption of the Text we see who they were that begun it but that the Church was watchful in preserving this sacred Depositum and did early detect this Impious piece of Fraud and stopt it in its first beginnings If any shall ask How can these things be It must be Answered We cannot tell We can form no distinct apprehensions concerning them This is Wisdom indeed in a Mystery It is Wisdom because it comes from God but it is in a mystery because we cannot attain unto it Can we apprehend Eternity or God's being every where and that in one single act he sees all things past present and to come Can we form any distinct thought concerning Creation How Beings arise out of nothing in consequence to the Will of an Infinite Mind who said of all things Let them be and they were Or can we so much as apprehend how Matter thus Created shall move at the Act and Will of its Eternal Creator Can Matter know that Will to obey it Or can an Intellectual Act give Motion to insensible Matter Can we apprehend the propagation of Plants much less of Animals And as to that which of all other things we perceive the most sensibly Can we apprehend how Soul and Body dwell together How Thought and Motion how distant soever in their Natures have that Union with and Influence upon one another How a Motion of Matter can throw an inexpressible Agony into a Mind and how a Mind can command so many regular and unaccountable Motions of Matter as we perceive in Memory Imagination and Speech are difficulties that confound us These are such plain and home convictions of the defectiveness of our Faculties which can much more easily apprehend difficulties than resolve them that it can be no just Objection to any part of the Divine Revelation that it contains matters out of which great difficulties do arise and that we are not able to give our selves any account of them Our apprehensions are not only finite but very much bounded we see but a very little way and therefore we ought not to plead our want of capacity in opposition to any thing that appears to be plainly revealed to us in Scriptures When such things occur to us we ought to take the Shield of Faith maintaining our selves with this That the God of Truth who cannot Lye has revealed such things to us and when we are sure of that we are at the same time as sure that it must be true because it comes from him And by this we may beat back all the fiery Darts of the Devil all those Objections that arise out of a mixture of Pride and Weakness for our Faculties are as weak as our Arrogance and Self-conceit is high This is so important a part of the