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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	humane_a	nature_n	union_n	3,114	5	9.7672	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26960	More reasons for the Christian religion and no reason against it, or, A second appendix to the Reasons of the Christian religion being I. an answer to a letter from an unknown person charging the Holy Scriptures with contradictions, II. some animadversions on a tractate De Veritate, written by ... Edward Herbert, Baron of Cherbury ... / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Reasons of the Christian religion.	1672 (1672)	Wing B1313; ESTC R4139	63,611	190

was not existent till 4000 years after having any proper casuality to change Gods mind or will The sum of the Christian Doctrine about the Interposition and Redemption by the Son for man upon his fall is but this As if God should say I will not destroy or damn sinful man remedilesly according to the strict termes of the Law of Innocency which he hath broken but will give him a remedying Covenant of Grace because I will in the fulness of Time provide better for the glorifying of my Truth and Holiness wisdome and goodness justice and mercy than the remediless destruction of mankind would do even by the Incarnation doctrine sacrifice merits c. of the eternal word So that this grand work of God is the cause of his subordinate works but not the cause of any real but only relative or denominative mutation in himself This all sound Christians are agreed in And can this offend you Secondly And for the termes of communication of Grace to man it is either First The New Covenant as a Gift of pardon and life Secondly Or the conditions which it requireth of man First The former you neither do find fault with nor can do That God should give the world a Recovering and pardoning Law Secondly The second is all that is here liable to your exception And what do you think amiss in that First Not that Repentance is one of the Conditions of further Grace for that you plead for Secondly Not that Fides in Deum misericordem Faith in Gods revealed me●cy as pardoning sin is required of man for that also you plead for But you would have his goodness and mercy to be a sufficient satisfaction to his Justice Answ First I hope you will not exclude his wisdome because you abhorre Atheism as folly Secondly And I hope you will distinguish between the prime satisfying Cause and the satisfying means These plainly differ The prime satisfying Cause is Gods wisdome contriving and determining of the fittest way to communicate his love and spirit But the prime satisfying means is Jesus Christ who was to do that which was fittest to attain the foresaid ends But that which you will accept against is that the Belief in Christs future incarnation was made then necessary to salvation Answ First See that you feign not the Christian Doctrine to say more of this than indeed it doth which I have opened to you before I told you how narrow the Apostles own faith was before Christs Resurrection We know that ●● the believing Jews knew not so much as they nor so much as the Prophets and more illuminated men And we know that the rest of the world had not so full a revelation as the Jews But we know that all that had the notice of his promise were to believe the truth thereof And those that had not the word of promise made known to them had the possession of many such mercies as that promise gave and as intimated much of the same grace which the promise did Thefore none could be bound to lessthan to believe that God of his mercy would pardon sin and save penitent Believers by such a means of securing the honour of his holiness truth and justice as his infinite wisdome should provide This much you cannot deny And that the promise of the Victorious seed though it seem too obscure to bind men to so distinct a faith as ours is was by Tradition told to Adams posterity and that they had a General belief of such an expiation for some time seemeth intimated in the early and almost universal use of sacrificing of which I shall speak more anon Hitherto then I have vindicated the Christian Doctrine of mans salvation for the first 4000 years Secondly And is there any thing since which should make it more offensive to you First As to the Person of Christ I have said enough in my Treatise the Reason of Christian Religion Verily I think it far harder to confute those that feign all the world to be animated by God as the universal Soul and to conceive how God who is most intimate to all things in whom we live and move and are should not be as neerly united to all things as Christians believe him to be to the humane nature of Christ though undoubtedly it is not so than that he should have that neer union with his humane nature Secondly And as to Christs work I have so largely shewed you the necessity the reasonableness and the harmonical congruities that I will not repeat them In a word The New Testament is the Doctrine of the eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wisdome or word of God Incarnate to communicate the Divine Spirit and love to man to be a sacrifice for sin the Conqueror of Satan Death and Sin the Head over All things to the Church the Author of Redemption the grand Administrator of the new Covenant the Reconciler and Restorer of man to God the Teacher Ruler and High Preist of the Church in order to this our Restoration and Salvation Thirdly But if it be the Time of his coming that doth offend you I have answered that and further adde First What is there in foolish man that should encourage him to dream that he better knoweth the fittest season for Gods works than God himself Secondly Man was not all the while before without the Benefits of this dedesigned and undertaken Redemption He was still under a Covenant of Grace Thirdly Consider well that God did not intend to give mankind that had so heinously sinned by preferferring the Devils word before his a present and a perfect pardon but onely to give a new Law and Covenant which should be a conditional gift of pardon to be obteined in full perfection in time and by degrees we had made our selves voluntarily the Slaves of Satan And God would not deliver us all at once We had forfeited the heavenly assistance of the holy spirit and God would not give it us all at once Mans time of healing the wounds of his own sin is the time of this life and the perfect cure will not be done till our entrance into the perfect world And as it is with Individual men so it is with the world of all mankind Grace mitateth nature and doth all by degrees darker Revelations were meeter for the Infancy of the world and clearer at noon day and riper knowledge fitter for its maturity And when Satan by Divine permission had plai'd his part and seemed to triumph over the sinful world it was time for Christ to come by Power Wisdom and Goodness meanly cloathed to cast down his Temples and Altars to subsidue his Kingdoms and to triumph over the Triumpher Fourthly But if it be the present conditions of the new Covenant since Christs Resurrection that offendeth you viz that the world is required to believe in him I have answered that and now adde First Remember what I said before that no mans condition is made worse by Christ than

Eighthly And we do confess our selves that the Apostles had not the infallible Spirit given them for every use or thing that they had to do but for those matters about which they had special need of it and use for it to fulfill their office The Spirit was not so necessary for them to discern those things by which the common sense and understanding of a man was sufficient to discern They could tast sweet from bitter feel heat from cold discern light from darkness without an Infallible extraordinary Spirit And so being eye and ear witnesses of what Christ did and said of his words his miracles his resurrection his ascension they might infallibly know them by ordinary means And so a good Christian may doubt whether they had the Spirit infallibly to transcribe and cite every passage in the old Testament visible to all or to relate the things which they saw done with their eyes or to report the history of several actions which were then done as what was the place and power of Herod Archelaus Pilate Falix Festut c. and such other parts of common History Ninethly And we all confess that the words are but as the Body of the Scripture and the sense as the Soul And that the words are for the sense And there is more of the Spirits assistance in the sense and soul of the Scripture than in the words and body And that there is in the phrase and method somewhat of blameless humane imperfection And that as David was not stronger then Goliah nor his weapons more excellent in themselves but God would overcome strength by the means of the more weak so an Aristotle may be more accurate in method and a Demosthenes Varro or Ci●cro in words and phrase than an Apostle And they may be left to the imperfections of their several gifts diversified by nature or education in their stile And God may hide that from the wise and prudent which he revealeth to babes And by the foollishness of Preaching may save believers and confound the wisdom of the world and by things that are not bring to nought things that are that no flesh may glory in his sight Nor do we say that no man may seek or attain more Logick Philosophy or Grammar than he findeth in the Scriptures Tenthly As Protestants receive not so many Books as Canonical as the Papists do so some Protestants have not received so many as the rest And so many possibly erre in thinking that some part of the Scripture is not the word of God and consequently may think it of more uncertain credit Eleventhly Some have thought that Matthew being at first written in Hebrew or Syriack and after translated into Greek that the Translator being unknown the credit of the Translation must be the less certain because they know not whether the translator was one that had a promise of Infallibility though doubtless they erre who so conclude Twelfthly Some think that as certainly there are a great number of various Readings which all prove that some of the Copies erre so it is uncertain to us whether all those which we have may not in some words or particles differ from others which we have not and from the autographs seeing each scribe had not a promise of Infallibility Thirteenthly If some particular Books of Scripture were not extant or never known to some men yet the rest may teach those same men all the Christian Religion to their Salvation Therefore if they may be Christians and saved without knowing of that particular Book they may possibly be so without knowing that it is Canonical or of Divine and certain truth Fourteenthly Yea more no doubt but it is possible to be saved and to be good Christians without being certain what is contained in any one Book of the Bible totally for he that cannot Read may possibly not hear the whole Book from another at least so as to understand and remember it And yet he may hear the same Doctrines out of another Book Yea more it is past doubt that a man may in some cases or circumstances be a true Christian who knoweth not that there is any Scripture which is Gods Infallible word For first so all the believers of the old world were saved before Moses wrote the Law And the Christian Churches were gathered and thousands converted to Christ many years before a word of the New Testament was written Secondly And all the thousands and millions of Christians who cannot read do know that there is such a Book which hath such words in it but on the credit of other men Thirdly And we know not but the Papists who are too great undervaluers of the Scriptures and lock it up from the Laity and over magnifie Tradition may keep thousands among them without the knowledge that there is a Book which is Gods word And yet may teach them the Christian Religion by other means after to be mentioned And it seemeth by the Epist. Jesuit Masaeus Histor Judic and other writings that in Japan Congo China and other Countries of the East they did teach them onely by Creeds Catechismes and preachings And I remember no knowledge that they gave to most of them of the Scriptures And yet the most cruel torments and martyrdoms never before heard of which the Christians in Japan endured of which see Varentus history doth put all sober readers past doubt that there were many excellent Christians And if other means may make men Christians who are never told of the holy Scriptures than those same means with the Scriptures may make them Christians who are made believe that all Scripture passages are not the infallible dictates of Gods Spirit I have given you instances enough to prove that many may be Christians and have a certain faith who are not certain of all things in the Scriptures And therefore though all these persons are herein defective or erroneous yet that Christianity may be otherwise known and proved Yea though the case of the Scriptures were as these mistaking persons think And I told you how many waies besides Scripture the summe and necessary substance of the Christianity is delivered down from the Apostles to the world Reas of Christ Rel. pag. 336 337. First in the very successive Being of Christians and Churches who are the Professors of this Doctrine Secondly In a succession of Pastors whose office was to preach it Thirdly In a succession of Baptism which is that solemnizing the Christian Covenant in which the sum of the Gospel is contained Fourthly In the three breviates or symboles of the Christian Religion the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue which all the Christian Churches still used Yea every one that was baptized at age and the Parent for the Infant did openly make profession of the Christian faith and of Religion in all the essential particulars Fifthly In the Churches use of Catechising those who were to be baptized that they might first know that Religion which they were to