Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A75693
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An argument proving, that according to the covenant of eternal life revealed in the Scriptures, man may be translated from hence into that eternal life, without passing through death altho the humane nature of Christ himself could not be thus translated till he had passed through death.
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Asgill, John, 1659-1738.
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1700
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Wing A3926; ESTC R208477
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45,123
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107
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yet when I say he did not do it voluntarily I don't mean that he did it unwillingly For as he did it with all frankness and generosity of his Will I lay down my Life of my self so he did it with the highest affection of Love to Mankind Greater Love than this hath no Man that he lay down his Life for his Friend But I mean he did not do it purely voluntarily without a necessity of doing it and a Consideration for it First then There was a Necessity upon God himself God told Adam that if he did eat he should die The Devil told Eve that they might eat and not die And these were the first words spoken to Man by God or the Devil upon the truth or falshood whereof the very Beings of them both were to depend for ever For which ever of them could maintain the Truth of his Word against the other he must have been God and the other the Devil And therefore God having turned the Lie upon the Devil he is from thence called a Liar from the beginning and the Father of it and will never be believed again for ever God could not have dispensed with his Word without complementing the Devil with his Godhead in taking the Lie upon himself and this he could not do For God cannot lie without undeifying himself and this he can't do because all his Qualities being of his Essence he can't change them That God cannot change is not a deficiency in his Nature but the perfection of his Essence which can be nothing but himself For as it is the happiness of imperfect Beings to be capable of change in order to be made better so it is the happiness of perfect Beings to be incapable of change whereby to be made worse Man can lie because he can't speak Truth there 's nothing that a Man can say but what he can unsay and falsify by the change of his mind which he can change only because he can't fix it as a Man that hath a broken Arm can turn it every way because he can fix it no way Nothing but an absolute Power can be absolute in any thing therefore Man having no absolute Power can't absolutely determine his own Will every change of which subjects him to a Lie either by falsifying his former Resolutions or his present Inclinations But God having an absolute Power to determine his own Will he could not change it after he had so determined it for what is fix'd can't be changed Wherefore God could not dispense with the Breach of his Law to pardon it Which was not for want of Mercy in God for he hath and doth daily pardon ten thousand times the Sins committed by Man against the moral Law which seem as great Offences as this Because the moral Law hath in it self a defeazance or condition annexed to it at the time of the first delivering of it Except ye repent ye shall perish By which this Law may be fulfilled without a performance of it in specie by doing another thing which is admitted to be done instead of it A defeazance is not the same thing with the thing to be defeated but something collateral to it And thus Repentance which is not a performance of the Moral Law is nevertheless accepted instead of it But in this Law delivered to Adam there was no such condition annexed to it at the first delivery The words are absolute In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die which leaves no room for Repentance Adam did repent but he found no place for it he could not find any words of the Law to which he could apply his Repentance to do him any good And when a Deed hath no defeazance or condition annexed to it at the time of the first delivery it can't be added to it afterwards And hence tho this Law delivered to Adam was at the time of the first delivery a Law of Life and Death yet the Law of Life being ended by breach of the Condition there was then nothing left but the Law of Death which became absolute without any condition And this put God upon a necessity of executing the Sentence of the Law upon Man in specie or making himself a Liar which he could not do and therefore the necessity upon him was absolute Which necessity was all the while a contradiction to his Nature which is Love to Man God is Love And this divided him against himself and laid him under a necessity of finding out an Invention to reconcile his Truth to his Love and his Love to his Truth And this Necessity upon God draw'd a Necessity upon Christ to come and execute this Invention because none could do it but himself Now there being such a Necessity for Christ's assuming the Humane Nature and dying under it there was a Covenant made between him and the Father previous to his coming in the Flesh which is called the Covenant of Eternal Life and is the History of the Scriptures altho it be not set down altogether in any one place Rich Metals and precious Stones don't lie together in heaps above ground but being so valuable when found Men think it worth their while to dig down for them in all places where they have any probability of finding them Then if the way and manner of attaining Eternal Life doth lie in so narrow a Volume as the Bible Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have Eternal Life shall we not think it worth our while to search it through for that precious Stone with a new Name which none can read but they that have it And this is a more pleasant Labour than the search for other Jewels for there we meet with nothing of pleasure or profit till we find the very thing we seek for But in making this enquiry we divert our selves with knowledg all the way we go Nor did God think any one Man or any one Age of the World worthy to have the whole of this Covenant revealed to them all at once He was 4000 Years from Adam to Christ delivering it in Types and Shadows to 62 Generations of Men who passed their Age in that time But having thus prefaced it at sundry times and in divers manners to our Fathers by the Prophets he at last spoke it to us by his Son In which these parts do appear 1. The Date 2. The Parties 3. The Contents and Consideration 4. The Sealing and Execution 5. The Witnesses 6. The Ceremony required of Man whereby to execute it on his part and take the advantage of it 1. The Date This was before the Foundation of the World I was set up from everlasting Before Abraham was I am God who created all things by Jesus Christ the Lamb slain before the Foundation of the World The priority of which Date prevents any preincumbrance that could be made of Eternal Life which is more than can be said of any Titles amongst Men. 2. The Parties It was between him
that he would only forbear one Common Tree for it seems to be no more till it became otherwise by his eating of it Withal telling him that if he did eat of it his Life should go for it Not that God thought his Life satisfaction but it was all the Satisfaction God could have of him it was rather a Resentment of the Affront than any Satisfaction for it By which God shew'd that if Man had had more than his Life to give God would have had it of him And therefore to signify the height of this Resentment God raises Man from the Dead to demand further Satisfaction of him Death is a commitment to the Prison of the Grave till the Judgment of the great Day and then the grand Habeas Corpus will issue to the Earth and to the Sea to give up their Dead to remove the Bodies with the cause of their Commitment And as these Causes shall appear they shall either be released or else sentenced to the common Goal of Hell there to remain until Satisfaction Such was the Resentment of despised Love and yet this was a Resentment without Malice For as God maintained his Resentment under all his Love so he maintained his Love under all his Resentment For his Love being a Love of Kindness flowing from the generosity of his own Nature could not be diminished by any Art of Man And yet his Honour being concerned to maintain the Truth of his Word he could not falsify that to gratify his own Affection And thus he bore the Passion of his own Law till he had found out a Salvo for his Honour by that Son of Man who gave him Satisfaction all at once by the dignity of his Person Personal Satisfactions by the Laws of Honour are esteemed sufficient or not sufficient according to the equality or inequality between the Persons who give and take the Affront Therefore God to vindicate his Honour thus affronted was oblig'd to find out a Person for that purpose equal to himself who was affronted The invention of which is called the manifold Wisdom of God The Invention it self being the highest Expression of the deepest Love And the Execution of this Invention in the Death of Christ being the deepest Resentment of the highest Affront Which Death of Christ did nevertheless surmount all the Demands made upon him For as much as his Person was superiour in dignity to the Human Nature so much the Satisfaction by his Death surmounted the Offence of Man And thus I say this Law being fulfilled and over satisfied by Christ in his Death was and is taken away so that there was no such Law in being against him after his Resurrection He was made under the Law by his Birth but he did not arise under it having taken it away by his Death And having thus taken away the Law by his Death the Life regained by him in his Resurrection was by Conquest He met with no quarter from God nor Man God would not save him from Death tho he ask'd him and therefore he rescued himself from it He pray'd to be preserv'd from Death before it came upon him but he craved no Aid against the Power of it towards his Resurrection Destroy this Body and I will raise it in three days Die he knew he must but rise he knew he could And the reason of his Resurrection was because Death could hold him no longer For it was not possible that he should be held any longer of it And this he did not in contradiction to the Will of God For God having executed the Law upon him by his Death he did not oppose him in his Resurrection And therefore tho he could not come down from the Cross because the Will of God was then against him yet he could arise from the dead because the Will of God did not then oppose him And so God leaving him to himself he conquered Death By which according to all the Laws of Conquest the Law of Death is taken away For by the Laws of Conquest the Laws of the conquered are ipso facto taken away by the very Conquest and all Records and Writings that remain of them are of no more force than waste Paper The Law of Death as I have said remains in words and will remain for ever but it had no more force against Christ after his Resurrection than if it had never been made And from hence the Title of Christ to Eternal Life is become absolute By absolute I mean discharged from all Tenure or Condition and consequently from all Forfeiture And this is the Title of Conquerors who hold of none but themselves because they receive their Right from none but their Arms. And is in opposition to the first Title of Life delivered to Adam which was held by Tenure as being received from God and being so held it became forfeited to him of whom it was held according to the Laws of Tenure But Christ receiving his Life in his Resurrection from none but himself I lay down my Life of my self and I take it up again it is now his own without Tenure and therefore is absolute and cannot be forfeited And as his Title to Life is thus become absolute by Conquest So the duration of it is become Eternal by being annexed to the Person of the Godhead A Man may have an absolute Title and yet that Title may be but for a time Life is called Temporal or Eternal according to the Persons or Things to which it is annexed or united The Life of Vegetables and Animals is called a Temporal Life because it is annexed to things which have a Temporal Duration And thus according to our Laws whatever is annexed to the Person of a Man is adjudged to have continuance during his Life So that if Land be convey'd to a Man indefinitely without naming any time how long he shall hold it he has without more saying an Estate for Life because his Estate is annexed to his Person which is said to have continuance for his Life And hence the Life of Christ regained by the Conquest of his Resurrection being annexed to the Person of his Godhead which is eternal doth thereby become Eternal Life for the Life of God and Eternal Life are synonymous Terms And thus Christ ever since his Resurrection did and doth stand seized of an absolute and indefezible Estate of Eternal Life without any Tenure or Condition or other matter or thing to change or determine it for ever And I had reason thus to assert the Title of Christ at large Because this is the Title by and under which I am going to affirm my Argument and to claim Eternal Life for my self and all the World Had Christ thus become Man and died and rose again all voluntarily to try an Experiment he had only saved his own Life and left all the World to shift for themselves But this would have been Knight-Errantry in tempting God against which he hath sufficiently declared himself And