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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	flesh_n	nature_n	union_n	2,793	5	9.6156	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27499	The still-borne nativitie, or, A copy of an incarnation sermon that should have been delivered at St. Margarets-Westminster, on Saturday, December the five and twenty, 1647, in the afternoone, by N.B., but prevented by the committee for plunder'd ministers, who sent and seized the preacher, carried him from the vestry of the said church, and committed him to the fleet, for his undertaking to preach without the license of Parliament ...	Bernard, Nicholas, d. 1661.	1648 (1648)	Wing B2018; ESTC R18366	26,917	36

Being Christmas day Text. Iohn 1. 14. And the Word was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us THe Prophet Ezechiell before Christ and St. Iohn the Divine after Christ had both one and the same Vision Ezech 1. 10. Rev. 4. 8. of foure beasts or living Creatures That had the faces of a man of a Lion of an Oxe and of an Eagle Which faces Saint Gregory the great applies to Christ As that of a man for his Birth and Bowells of Compassion That of an Oxe for the Sacrifice of his Death and Plough of Doctrine That of a Lion for his open eyed sleepe that is his life in death and strength in Resurrection Rouzing himselfe from the grave as a Lion from his denne Lastly that of an Eagle for his ascention into Heaven leading Captivity captive Others apply this vision to the foure Evangelists affixing first the Face of a Man to St. Mathew because he begins his Gospel with the Generation and Nativity of Christ Secondly the Face of a Lion to St. Marke for he begins his Gospel with that prophesie of Iohn Baptist The voice of one crying or roaring in the Wildernesse Thirdly the face of an Oxe to Saint Luke Because he begins his Gospel with Zacharias Preisthood and Sacrifice Lastly the face to our present Evangelist Saint Iohn of an Eagle For he in the beginning of his Gospel acts perfectly both the parts of an Eagle which we read of Iob 39 27 and 30. First like an Eagle mounting up on high to speake of the Divinity of Christ to such an hight that the sublimest of the Heathen Philosephers stand at a Gaze admiring the mounty And this he doth from the first to the sixt verse Secondly like an Eagle immediatly stooping to the Carcase Mat. 24 28 For where the body is thither will the Eagles be gathered together Luke 17 37. And this is done in the words of this verse And the word was made flesh c. Which words taken altogether most excellently in a very few syllables expresses all the notable and most worthy-to-be-considered parts of Christ's whole History So that we want understanding the text wants nothing to be accounted a compleat Gospel Aquinas distinguisheth Christs life on earth into these foure divisions first his ingresse or coming into the World And this wee have in the former part of my text and the word was made flesh Secondly into his progresse or going on in the World Thirdly into his congresse or dealing with the World Fourthly into his Egresse or going out of the World And these three last parts may be understood in the latter part of my text and dwelt amongst us if the originall word which is no more but he Tented or Tabernacled among us be duly knowne But to go on His Ingresse or coming into the world is by some record to be threefold First in Carne in the Flesh Secondly in Spirity in the Spirit Thirdly in judicio in the last judgment The first is a coming Ad homines Iohn 1 11. Vnto men The Second is a coming In homines Rev. 3 20 Into men The Third is a comming Contrae-homines Iude 14 against men His Progresse in the World likewise appeares to be threefold First Locomotive in respect of place of abode And then the Gest's of his Progresse are 1 Bethlem 2 Egypt 3 Nazereth 4 Ierusalem Secondly Naturall by way of augmentation growing 1 For mind in wisdome 2 For body in Statute 3 For successe in favour both with God and man Luke 2 52. Thirdly official by way of undertaking 1 In circumcicion the fullfilling of the Law 2 In Baptisme the Preaching of the Gospell His congresse or dealing with the World is fourefould First with Men in his Conversation Secondly with Satan in his Temptation Thirdly with mens Sinnes in his Preaching Fourthly with mens Sicknesses and infirmities in his miracles His Egresse ongoing out of the World containes besides those memorable passages about his Passion Resurrection and Ascention al those Testamentary provisions by him made against his departure for succeeding generations Whether Commissions for his Ministers Legacies for his freinds or Seales which wee call Sacraments for Prooving and confirming of his will These are the heades of the History of the Gospel And now Beloved were it suteable to the consideration of the season or of my stay here I could without any great Travell fixing one foot of the Compass in the center of this text with the other fetch in all these points though never so vast a latitude within a just circumference of without any excentricity But I had rather make another and more profitable use of them whereunto the review and consideration doth directly lead me And That is to admire the Infinite goodnesse of God in all this to wretched mankind Who being in this Earth a stranger and a stragler without either freind or acquaintance in the midst of enemies dangers and mischeifes many snares no sure footing Sic erat instabilis tellus innabilis unda Sin procuring Satan bringing great woe wrath to the inhabitants of earth and of the Sea Such is the mercy of God toward so great his blessing upon Man at whose hands yet mankind had merited no such kindnesse but rather curses that whether he be to be borne or to grow or to go in or to deale or to encounter with or to dye out of the world He hath given his own son to be Duxque comesque viae et vitae a guid and companion to him of life and way And what ever other men doe thinke of it when I consider That to be Borne to Grow to Live and to Dye be things common to mee and my redeemer I cannot chuse but cry out O Lord my God since in these states thou hast so far as only nature goes fashioned us alike let these lineaments and parts in me which sinne hath drawne and overcast with the black coale of guilt be fil'd up with the colours of my Saviour That through the beauties of his holinesse as he glorified thee on earth so in my life and death I may shew forth his praises and vertues who hath called me out of darknes into his marvelous light And so without hopes of further commerce with them as to discourse in this place I dismisse the latter part of my text with it the 3. last generall branches of the Gospel History of the life of Christ betaking my selfe to the former part both of the Division and of the text which speakes of Christs Ingresse into the World And the word was made Flesh And therein of his comming in the Flesh only How Christ is called the word If we should shew it would engage us upon a discourse of that other Mistery of the Trinity unto a length prejudiciall to our present businesse or if we should shew how Flesh is put for our whole nature why It would run us at this time out of breath I proceede therefore to the substance of the words The

Incarnation of Christ Jesus And therein consider First the Vnion of the two Natures God and Man in this mystery Secondly the Conception of Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost The Nativity or Birth of Christ of the most blessed Virgin Mary In speaking to the Vnion I have foure things to go through withall first to shew the severall unions in Christ Secondly the signification of this word person Thirdlly the manner of the Union and Lastly the Reasons of the Union And of the first thus much There are in the person of Christ three unions and ale-immediate first the union of the Deity to the soul Secondly the union of the Deity to the body And Thirdly the Union of body soul together the two first werenot of nature nor of merit but wholly supernaturall And so not subject to separation by force of any natur al action or passion But the third being natural did leave a place for suffering and separation So that when Christ suffered death the Deity forsook neither soule nor body only the body was forsaken by the soule The plurality of which substances and Vnions notwithstanding Christ must be considered but as one that is in person Which word that you may understand aright know that it is derived a personando which is distinct sounding And is nothing else in Logick but what a Noune Substantive proper of the singular Number is in Grammer that is one particular compleate subsistence which Logicians call an Individuum but with this differenc That Person is a particular reasonable creature whereas a particular thing if it be unreasonable as a tree or horse c is not called a person but by the Schooles a Suppositum And in this sence Christ is said to be one Not in nature for so is no man in a strict sence for the soule and the body of men are of two different natures as well as fountaines or beginnings But in person wherein though there may be aliud et aliud one and another thing yet there cannot be alius and alius one and another person And so much for the meaning of the word person Now for the manner of this union we must know that things are united or made on many wayes As 1 Faedere by a covenant as Christ the faithfull And this may make one body but not one person 2. By transmutation as Snow and Water but this makes one substance as well as suppositum but so is not Christ 3. By aggregation as many materialls united make an house but this is violent and not voluntary as was Christ 4. By composition as body and soule make one man being united but this is natural and so is not the union of the Deity to the Humanity in Christ Lastly therefore by Assumption and this is singular proper to Christ alone For the cleare avoiding of old and dangerous heresies and errours which have risen about this Article of our Faith we conceive it not unnecessary to deale warily with those terms and words which we borrow from the Latines in expressing our mind in this matter such as are Vnion Assumption c. As in this nice and narrow sence To Assume and to Vnite do equally belong to the same Agents But to be Vnited and to be Assumed cannot be praedicated equally by the same Subjects Concerning the former it will appeare plainely by and by For the latter the difference is thus To be united may not unproperly be attributed to God and Man in thus speaking God was united to Man and man was united to God and with this not a Caviller will find fault But to say as on the one side truely Man was assumed to and by God so on the other God was assumed to or by Man were erroneous in it selfe and dangerous in the consequents For Relation we must allow to be in God if we acknowledge a Trinity of persons but suffering we dare not impute least with it we make him also changeable Now to be Vnited here is only a terme of Relation but to be Assumed is alway a terme of Passion To assume and to be assumed are words expressing doing and suffering and in the present matter divide unto us God and man God the Agent whose part therefore is to Assume Man the Patient or sufferer whose it is therefore to be Assumed To Assume as it is a compounded word so it doth signifie a double action the first is taking the second is application taking to The first is caled principium the second is called terminus assumptionis The first belongeth to all the three persons in the Trinity As the father did take and give the humane nature to his Son as he saith Lo a body hast thou given me So the Son did take not the nature of Angels saith the same Apostle but the seed of Abraham so likewise the Holy Ghost did whose it was to sanctifie the nature assumed and by whom also we believe it was conceived take our nature in the first act It was taken not to the father nor to the Holy-Ghost but to the second person which is Iesus Christ In the thing assumed it is worth our consideration 1. Negatively to observe that when God took our nature he separated it from sinne and personality he took not our sin for that was contrary to his nature He took not any person of man at all for that was contrary to his Vnity for so there should have been Two Persons in the second person of the Trinity As therefore our nature that was assumed received fulnesse of grace from that most holy nature which assumed it So it owes its personal existence to the second person in the Trinity having none of its owne to which it was united 2. Positively learn what we meane by our nature for Nature in Scripture is sometimes put for the corruption of our nature as Ephes. 2. 3. but so Christ tooke not our nature unlesse it were by way of imputation For this is the Nature which by the Schooles is alwayes opposed to Grace Sometime in Scripture it is taken for some part of nature as for Reason only Rom 2 14 Or for sence only 2. Pet 2 12 Iude. 10. but so Christ took not our nature that is some part of our nature For that were to fal into the errour of the Appollinarians and Monothelites By Nature therefore we understand not one or some but all the partt of nature whether essentiall as soule and body or integrall as the soules faculties and the bodies Members united as also whatever flowes from the Principles of nature as Growth from Vegetation Eatting Drinking c from Sence Discourse and speech from reason not refusing the very infirmities of nature as in the Soule Sorrow Greife Anger Pity Vexation in the will the contradiction of the naturall and Physicall part though with subjection too to the moral and deliberative in the understanding Negative Ignorance And in the Body Hunger and Thirst Wearines and Weeping Sense of

greater {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The Glory or the Goodwill That which God hath reserv'd to himselfe or that which he hath imparted to man for if in this {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} wee shal consider Whose to Whome What and in what Manner this Goodnesse is expressed We must confesse it a {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Such a commendation of Gods Love Rom. 5. 8. As no Words can set forth but Christs own {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The Father had such goodwill Mat. 11 26 God so loved Ioh. 3 16. And though they raise in my weakeheart such ravishing joyes and light That I like Peter in mount Tabor MATHEW 17. 4. must needs say {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} It is good for us to be here Yet when I go about to pitch my Tabernacle Like a Pilot without the Straits or Channell I saile on the Maine On an abysse where no bottom is Vnder A height without a Culmen Nothing can describe it But St Pauls {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Rom. 11 33. It is so far above a Poore Sinners Ela so far below A mortal's Gamut That it is a Song indeed only for Angels to set a tune to And yet me thinks hitherto there wants something to make it full Harmony Musick must have three parts to make a Consort Glory to God in the highest There 's the ALTVS Good will towards men There 's the BASSVS Yet we want a TENOR That is On earth Peace This we want indeed every where In the Church In the State In the Feild In our Houses In the City In the Countrey In all places and all businesses Over our heades may for inscription be written at all our Townes ends may be hang'd out for a signe those words of St. Paul Without are fightings Within are Feares Nay I had almost forgot to tell you that this is wanting among the reasons I have brought for the incarnation though this were a maine end thereof Wherfore in the breife adddition of it I will conclude Christ came in a time when God had made warrs to cease in al Lands and indeede he chose a time fit for his businesse which was to reconcile things in Heaven and things on Earth Col. 1 20. Which reconciliation though it was perfected on the Crosse yet was it articled for and treated in the Incarnation v. 22. And Ephes. 2. 14. 15. Saint Paule saith He is our peace who hath made both one Having abolished in the flesh the enmity In which words J humbly conceive the Apostle tyes not his discourse to the abolition of that legal Sanctification of the Iewish Nation-where by they were separated from al other people to be a peculiar people to God only but intends the Main busines Christ came into the world for which is that mentioned in the forenamed Colos. 1. 20. To reconcile or make peace It is true prophetically and de facto himselfe somewhere saith he came not to send peace but a sword that is men by occasion of him and his Doctrine would together by the eares But if he had made this his busines de jure to sow contention he might have been still called the Sonne of man But hardly the Son of God if that text Math 5. 9. be true No No we have experience enough that it was a Prophecy to shew what would be but commands enough to the contrary to make it apparently no Rule to tell us what should or ought to be Well then let us see How the Incarnation is the ground of that dearly wanted blessing On Earth Peace God when he framed the earth hung the happy affaires thereof on two hooks The upper more golden was The Love of God The Lower and like it was The Love ef our Neighbour On these two {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} hang not only the Earth but that Word by which that was made The Law and Prophets Math 22. 40. Sinne comes and unhinges the world so that instead of Loves Conjunction All things fall in peices by Hate Convulsions All men being naturaly thenceforth {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Hateful or Hating Tit 3. 3. Hateful to God He repents that he hath made man Gen. 6. 6 {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Haters of God Rom 1 30 They cannot endure him either his presence or voice Gen. 3. 8. Nay either of these is death to them Iudg 13. 22 c. Hatefull to one another witnesse Gen. 3. 12. Where Adam litle lesse then grinds his teeth at his Wife and Gen. 4. 8. where Kain kills Abel Nay witnesse our sad times wherein we are fallen into manifest Gentilisme or at least so much of it as that forementioned Character speakes Tit 3. 3. To rectifie all this disorder it is contrived that our Redeemer may be God and Man Had he been Man only and not God as the Arrians and Socinians say we might have reason to have been {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Lovers of Mankind to love our Neighbour c. but I doubt we should have been {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Haters of God neverthelesse Or at least have been reconciled upon other grounds then through Christ Had he beene God and not man we might have thought our selves bound the more to love God with al our heart c but I fear we should naturally have hated one another As we now doe Serpents or I shame to speak it as we in England have done these late yeares But what ever other men take for their course this must be my rule to love all the Lines that concen●er in my Saviour And that with a Love not only Quoniam Psalm 116. 1. But also Amore tametsi not because only with David they are beneficial But with Iob whose eyes opened to his Redeemer though they wrong me sequester me imprison yea kil me Math 5 44. Indeed Sinne I may not endure Heb. 12. 4. The Devill I must resist 1. Pet 5. 9. My Saviour took the nature of neither And intended as really to put enmity betwixt me and these as God did put betwixt us and the Serpent But for God and Man I shall offer violence to my Lord Iesus if they be not united qua tales in my affections I must not hate or forsake God though he kill me I must not hate man neither though he kil me For how shal I look upon the Lord Iesus Christ who being both made peace for both Of whose fulnes I beseech the God of Heaven I may receive and Grace for grace even {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} an unhypocritical Love Rom 12 9. And let as many as be Christians be thus minded Phi: 3 15 And for them that are otherwise minded God in his due time reveale it to them And let all England say Amen FINIS