Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	body_n	soul_n	union_n	7,019	5	9.6724	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52602	An account of Mr. Firmin's religion, and of the present state of the Unitarian controversy	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.	1698 (1698)	Wing N1502; ESTC R4610	32,345	84

or what is the same to be distinguished by was is and shall be seeing 't is confessed on all hands that he carrieth all Perfections into every Succession of his Duration But is it not a Scandal that some Unitarians of foreign Parts have denied the Spirituality or Incorporeity of God his Omnipresence and Omniscience saying and contending for it that he is a Body with such Configuration of Parts as Men have consequently that he is in Heaven inspecting indeed and governing all things but by the ministry of the several Orders of Angels and that he doth not foresee contingent Events but only such Events as are necessarily not arbitrarily produced by their Causes Doubtless but no more a scandal to the Unitarians than to their Opposers for they are Errors which some of the Fathers even the most antient learned and pious of 'em have defended as Truths Nay it should seem they were some time the prevaling Opinions in some places namely when the Anthropomorphite Doctrine was so zealously espoused that the Hermits and Cenobites would not indure their Bishops if they but suspected 'em of Origen's Doctrine that God is a Spirit without Parts or Passions And in denying the Spirituality and Omnipresence of God they must needs be understood not to believe his certain and absolute Prescience of contingent Events About the year 400 when almost every body concerned themselves in condemning and departing as far as possible from the opinions of Origen the Anthropomorphite Doctrine and its consequences were the Standard Orthodoxy of many places and were Heresy no where Even St. John Chrysostom at Constantinople hardly defended the Fratres Longi from the Prosecutions of Theophilus Archbishop and Patriarch of Alexandria who was a profest Anthropomorphite and had expelled the Fratres Longi for adhering to Origen's Doctrine of the Spirituality and Omnipresence of God But as I said we not only dislike but utterly reject the dangerous Doctrine That God hath a Body is like to Man toge-with its consequences That he is neither Omnipresent nor Omniscient It may as well be said he is not at all nay this latter tho the Anthropornorphites see it not seems to be implied and included in the former But we condemn not the Schechina or glorious Appearance of God in Heaven which many Learned Men hold nor the spiritual Body of Christ III. I believe farther concerning God That there is no distinction of Persons or Subsistences in God And that the Son and Holy Ghost are not God The former of them being only a Man the latter no other than the Power or Operation of God That there was nothing of Merit in what Christ did or suffered and that therefore he could not make satisfaction for the Sins of the World But Mr. Edwards too much mistakes The question is not at all concerning three Persons or three Subsistences in God but whether there are three infinite Subsistences three eternal Minds and Spirits We deny the latter with the whole Catholick Church against the Tritheists We never questioned the former Persons or Subsistences but only as Persons are used or taken for Spirits Minds and Beings I shall explain this matter however more fully in my Answer to the Bishops of Worcester Sarum and Chichester annexed to this Agreement or any one may see what is our sense in the Judgment of a disinterested Person concerning the Controversy between Dr. S th and Dr. Sherlock By a Divine of the Church of England What that Author makes to be the Doctrine of the Nominals and of the Church concerning the Blessed Trinity the Divinity of our Saviour and the Satisfaction is and ever was the belief of the Unitarians as well as of the Catholick Church But we say the Lord Christ is only a Man and the Holy Spirit only the Power of God No we say our Lord Christ is God and Man He is Man in respect of his reasonable Soul and human Body God in respect of God in him Or more scholastically in respect of the Hypostatical or Personal Union of the Humanity of Christ with the Divinity By which the Catholick Church means and we mean the Divinity was not only occasionally assisting to but was and is always in Christ illuminating conducting and actuating him More than this is the Heresy of Entyches and less we never held tho we confess that careless and less accurate Expressions may have been used by both Parties of which neither ought to take advantage against the other when it appears there is no heterodox Intention That by the Spirit of God is sometimes meant in Holy Scripture the Power of God cannot be denied but concerning the Three Divine Persons we believe as the Catholick Church believes That they are relative Subsistences internal Relations of the Deity to it self Or as the Schools after St. Austin explain this Original unbegotten Wisdom or Mind reflex or begotten Wisdom called in Holy Scripture the Logos and the eternal spiration of Divine Love But do you not say There was no Merit in what Christ did or suffered and that he could riot make satisfaction for our Sins He may for our parts be Anathema that teaches or believes that Doctrine We believe that the Lord Christ by what he did and what he suffered was by the gracious acceptance of God a true and perfect Propitiation for Sinners that repent and turn to the good ways IV. In the next Article he makes us to believe a great many things as that The first Man was not created in a state of Vprightness As if it were possible that men in their right senses should think the first Man was created a Sinner That By his Fall Adam did not lose Righteousness and Holiness which are part of the Image of God As who should say that by being a Sinner he did not sin or become unlike to God That Adam's Posterity have received no hurt nor stain by his Apostacy As if you should say that neither his bad Example nor the Curse that made the Earth so much less fruitful was any hurt and that the Rebellion of an Ancestor no not against God is not any blot in his Family I shall grow quite out of conceit with these Unitarians if they say many more such weak things But in very deed I imagine Mr. Edwards had a mind to have charged 'em more home when he does we shall consider what to answer I am of opinion that in this part of the Article he was somewhat ashamed of his own Doctrine and that he feared to make himself and Party ridiculous by a clear and distinct Representation of their opinion That Mankind notwithstanding Adam's fall have by nature an ability to desire and embrace all spiritual Good and to avoid all that is sinful or vitious They are bold Britains What embrace all the Gospel-precepts by mere nature when 't is not possible so much as to know divers of them but by Revelation Divine And can they avoid too all that is vitious at all times