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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
body_n	dead_a	soul_n	spirit_n	13,984	5	5.8732	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41191	A sober enquiry into the nature, measure and principle of moral virtue, its distinction from gospel-holiness with reflections upon what occurs disserviceable to truth and religion in this matter : in three late books, viz. Ecclesiastical policy, Defence and continuation, and Reproof to The rehearsal transpos'd / by R.F.	Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.	1673 (1673)	Wing F760; ESTC R15565	149,850	362

Rationalis facultatis arguunt similiter c. that as the operations of Brutes how sagacious soever they be yet being compared with the operations of men do manifest a want of a faculty in them that we are endowed with so the sublimest actions of Natural men being compared with the operations of such as are born of God do as plainly argue the lack of a faculty in those which these have Thes. Salm Tom. 1. p. 139. 3. Their knowledg of divine truths is not transformative Their assent is accompanied with a disaffected heart to the things they assent to Under all the imbellishments of knowledg they are not attempered into the likeness of what they believe and profess Their hearts are not changed into the vital Image of truth but remain Animal and Brutish notwithstanding all the Notions their heads are fraught with They are not cast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the form and mo●ld of the doctrine they believe Their hearts and affections are not framed into the similitude and figure of it The Word is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Ingrafted Word turning the whole stock into its own nature and likeness But they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hold or imprison the truth in unrighteousness Inest homini sanct● legis scientia nec ●amen sanatur vitiosa concupiscentia Aug. lib. de gest Pelag. cap. 7. see Rom. 7.8 Fourthly Because of Weakness through the loss of the Divine Image and because of Enmity through indwelling lust we are altogether unable in our selves savingly to comply with the terms of the Gospel There is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a want of power in every one of us to those things No man can come to me except the Father draw him Joh. 6.44 To come is as much as to own Christ as the sealed and Anointed of God and to believe in him as the alone Mediatour and Surety Joh. 5.40 Joh. 6.35 37. And without the Fathers drawing i. e. without an efficacious work of God ingaging the Soul in a most sweet but powerful manner no one will be ever found in the practice and exercise of those things There is both that disproportion of faculty and that wicked aversation from the terms of the Gospel in every one which only the Divine Spirit can relieve and conquer Objective grace or the Moral Swasion of the word is not enough we need also subjective Grace and a new principle What a dead man is to vital operations that every one by Nature is to Spiritual acts The soul is not more necessary to the body for the functions of Life Sense and Reason than the Spirit of life in the New Birth is to all holy performances We not only need insinuations of Spiritual light to awaken our slumbring minds but to elevate and dispose them for the due perception of the things of God nor do we only need grace to court our perverse wills but to determine them to the choice of holiness An impotency is acknowledged by all who measure their conceptions about these things either by the declaration of the Word or the Universal experience of Mankind The Natural man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cannot know the things of the Spirit of God because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2.14 The Carnal mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wisdom of the flesh i. e. the best thoughts affections inclinations and motions of the mind of a Natural man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being as much as homo corruptus Joh. 3.6 Gen. 6.3 is Enmity against God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the abstract For it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 8.7 Fifthly How this impotency is now to be called is not of so great consequence as some men make it For on the one hand all are agreed that it consists not in a Deprivation of any Essential Power or Faculty of our Rational Being This Spanhemius as well as Amyrald Twiss as well as Truman are at an accord in And it is granted likewise on the other hand that it is not only Congenite with us and so in that sense Natural wherein we are said to be by Nature the Children of Wrath but farther that it implies both á want of concreated Rectitude and a connate pravity and aversation from God and that it is only God who can overcome our opposition and relieve our weakness and that secluding his work upon the soul we neither will nor can comply savingly with the terms of the Gospel so that whether it ought to be stiled a Moral or a Natural Impotency is for the most part but a strife about words There is a perfect harmony as to the sense and meaning the alone contest is about the manner of expressing and phrasing it Philosophy is only concerned in it not Divinity Nor is the question who speaks most truly but who speaks most properly It is the dispute of Divines not of Divinity The terms might have been avoided without prejudice to truth Nor do I know any reason for the use of them but to confound mens apprehensions I heartily wish that those Learned persons who have made so great a noise about Moral and Natural power would have been so ingenuous as to have told the World that they impeached no man of error but only of solecism and that their adversaries were as sound in the matter contended about as themselves only that they had not the luck of declaring it in so apt words as this would have contributed more to the peace of the Church so hereby private Christians would have judged their concern but small in these debates But seeing for Reasons that I think not fit to enquire into this needful Advertisement hath been neglected I hope it will not prove an unacceptable service that we have here suggested it presupposing then that Agreement in the Main which hath been intimated All that lies upon our hand is to enquire who express themselves most Philosophically in this matter And though I must confess that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dion Halicarn apt words are of great import to a clear apprehension of things yet I must withal add that I am no friend to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a co●ning of new terms when old ones will serve the turn And I am so far from seeing any solid ground why in the matter and case before us we should wave the word Natural for the word Moral that I think there is a great deal of reason for the contrary 1. The most likely way of arriving at a distinctness of understanding our present inability is by considering what at first was communicated to us and for what ends and according to this method of proceed I would argue thus That impotency which consists in the want of a principle not only concreated with us but Naturally due to our undefiled Natures in order to our living acceptably to God may I think not unfitly be called a

That these commands and exhortations of washing and making us clean of getting a new heart c. are not so much suited to us as weak as they are intended to us as stubborn nor so much prescribed to us under the reduplication of our being unable as of being Rebellious Si quis per Naturae vires bonum aliquod quod ad salutem pertinet vitae aeternae cogitare aut eligere sive salutari i. e. Evangelicae praedicationi consentire posse confirmat absque illuminatione inspiratione Spiritus Sancti qui dat omnibus suavitatem in consentiendo credendo veritati haeretico fallitur spiritu non intelligen● vocem Dei in Evangelio dicentis sine me nihil potestis Concil Araus Can. 7. § 8. From what hath been delivered in the two preceding Paragraphs we may safely now infer the necessity of a superadded infused Principle in order to our living to God in the whole of practical Religion and our being accepted with him Nor is there any thing that the Scripture declares in more Emphatical terms the Holy Ghost foreseeing contradiction that would be made hereunto And by the same acts and methods that men endeavour to avoid the force of Scripture-Testimonies in this matter there is not any Article of Faith that can be secure but what ever the Holy Ghost hath delivered for the confirmation of the greatest Doctrines of the Christian Religion may with the like subtilty be perverted to another Intendment Had God designed the declaring the Doctine of an infused Subjective principle I challenge any man to shew me how it could have been more clearly and fully expressed than it is already The causes both Moral and Physical the way and manner of its production and communication the intrinsic subjective change that is thereby made and wrought in the frame temper and disposition of the Soul the capacity that we are thereupon brought into of communion with God here and enjoying him hereafter together with the effects that proceed thence in our Conversation and course of Living both towards God and Man are all held forth in the Scripture in terms most plain full and emphatical Nor are the Prayers and Thanksgivings with reference to renuing and assisting Grace which I suppose all Christians are found in the performance of reconciliable with the denyal and negation of such a Principle and so conferred Surely in our applications and addresses to God we pray not for Rational Faculties nor meerly for the enjoyment of the Gospel but we pray especially That God would Create in us a clean heart that he would renue us in the Spirit of our minds fulfil in us the work of Faith with power work in us both to will and to do all which argue a necessity of somthing more than either Essential Powers or Objective Light Therefore Austin sayes well concerning the Pelagians destruu●t orationes quas facit Ecclesia sive pro infidelibus Doctrinae Dei resistentibus ut convertantur ad Deum sive pro fidelibus ut augeatur iis fides perseverent in eâ Haeres 80. and again cur petitur quod ad nostram pertinet potestatem si De●s non adjuvat voluntatem idem de gr●t Christi lib. 1. cap. 15. and once more Quis optat quod in potestate sic habet ut ad faciendum nullo indigeat adjumento idem de peccat Merit Remis lib. 2. cap. 6. The same may be said of Praise and Thanksgiving to God with respect to Grace For if there be no insused Principles it will necessarily follow that while we pretend to bless God for quickning us when we were dead in Trespasses and Sins for making us willing through a day of power for the exceeding greatness of his power exerted towards us who believe for the sanctifying us wholly in our Soul Spirit and Body c. We do but mock and flatter him For as Austin sayes Pro●s●s non gratias Deo agimus sed nos agere fingimus si unde illi gratias agimus ipsum facere non putamus Epist. 107. ad Vital●m Shall I add that to deny the infusion of a supernatural Vital Principle or to affirm that the Spirit of God acts only towards us in way of Moral suasion yea to grant no other inward operation but what is Resistible and may be withstood is in effect to ascribe all the difference that is betwixt one man and another to our selves contrary to the express words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 4.7 Who maketh thee to differ from another and what hast thou that thou did'st not Receive But having already treated this Chap. 2. § 15. and seeing if what we have delivered in this Chapter hold good this naturally follows and being obliged to make an End I supercede all farther prosecution of it § 9. I have now done with the theory and polemical part thought to have proceeded to a practical improvement by way of Use of what hath been said but the discourse being already drawn out and encreased beyond what I at first intended I shall therefore wave all that I had in that way designed to say However I hope that as I have finished what I mainly purposed so I have in some measure performed what I undertook namely have justified that Moral Vertue and Practical Religion are not universally coincident but that there is something else necessary in order to our living to God in all the Duties of obedience incumbent upon us besides either Moral Vertue or the instruments of it and that those who pursue the acquisition of Grace and Spiritual Holiness over and above the common Vertues of Morality do not engage their main industry and biggest endeavours in the pursuit of Dreams and Shaddows as we are told Def. Continuat p. 338. If any now upon the one hand by obtruding a notion and definition of Morality supposing and including all that we have been contending for as necessary to Christian Obedience shall thereupon affirm Morality and Holiness to be all one as I find some learned men do I shall take the liberty to say that however sound and Orthodox by vertue of such an explication they manifest themselves to be in Divinity they do not declare that skill in Philosophy which they would bear the world in hand that they are furnished with It is Institution and vulgar use of Terms that ought to fix and determine their signification and whoever he be that retaining usual Terms will yet assume a freedome of affixing what sence he pleaseth to them as he Usurps an Empire that is neither just not reasonable so he not only makes way for endless L●g●machies but leaves a president for confounding and changing the state of any question in the world and his Authority will be produced when he is dead and gone to the disservice of Truth nor will it be difficult for witty men to render the sense he now pretends to use the Terms in ridiculous and unmaintainable If any upon the

with men neither will nor can come up to and where there is no provision for their relief signifies not very much nor accords with infinite Wisdom which adapts one thing to another Of all the defenders of Universal objective Grace they spake most coherently who affirmed the Heathens to have been saved by Philosophy as well as the Jews were by the Law or we by the Gospel vid. Clem. Alexand. Strom. lib. 7. Just. Mart. Apolog. 2. Secondly such is the disproportion betwixt our intellectual faculties and the great objects of the Gospel that they can neither fathom nor bear the Majesty of the doctrines of the New Covenant though they be never so clearly revealed The Sun doth not more overpower and dazle the eye than those things of the Gospel from which all our pardon and peace flow's do overmatch our understandings The Natural man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the man of a large inte●●ect Receiveth not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non est capax is not adapted a metaphore saith Beza taken from a small vessel which cannot admit any large body into it the things of the Spirit of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in contradistinction from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We may gather cockles on the shore but we cannot dive to the bottom of these depths It is enough that we are perswaded of the infallibility of the Testimony we must not hope to comprehend the things testified Our work is not so much to look after the evidence of the things themselves as the Evidence of the Revelation of them And herein we have an instance of the Love Care and Wisdome of God that what is most incomprehensible in its own Nature is above all other things revealed in terms most plain and intelligible The obscurity of the Mysterious truths of the New Covenant is not to be reflected on the darkness of the Declaration but is to be ascribed to the Majesty of the things declared Est enim objectum ita sublime ut a mente nostra perfectè comprehendi nequeat non etiamsi careret omni labe tantae scilicet rei creatura modus capax non est The things are in themselves so sublime that were our understandings pure and unspotted they could not be grasped or comprehended Our f●●ite capacities bearing no proportion to them Amyrald Therefore as one says sicut in Logicis argumentum facit fidem sit in Theologicis fides facit argumentum as demonstration begets faith in Philosophy so faith begets assurance in Divinity Alex. A●ens The Scripture of whose Divineness we have all the evidence that is possible is the truest ground for the certainty of particular Doctrines that our understandings can rest in Jansenius therefore say's well that quemadmodum intellectus Philosophi● suscipiend● propria facultas est ita memoria Theologia Ille quippe intellecta principia penetrando Philosoph●m facit haec ea quae sibi script● a●t praedicatione tradita sunt recordando Theologum Christanum As the understanding is the proper faculty for Philosophy so is the memory for Theology for as that by penetrating into the Principles of things makes a Philosopher so this by remembring what it meets with in and hear● from the Word maketh a Divine Tom. 2. lib. pro●●m cap. 4. pag. 4. Thirdly There is not only a Physical disproportion through the finiteness of our faculties betwixt us the objects of the Gospel but there is also a contracted adventitious Moral ineptitude through the priv●tion and loss of that Rectitude which was at first concreated with us I grant that the Doctrines of the Gospel being attended with so great subjective and objective evidence of their truth neither indwelling lust nor practical immorality can prove a total bar to the assenting to them Unregenerate men may perceive the truth of Scripture-Propositions as well as of those of Humane Authors The word revealing things as clearly and being accompanied with more stronger motives of credibility than any other writings are But through want of a Vital alliance to the things they are conversant about there is a Threefold unhappiness such men labour under 1. They are Sceptical and fluctuating in the belief of Gospel-truths Every temptation can fetch them off In stead of a firm settledness of mind in the perswasion of them they are loose and Aporetical Their assents are weak and vanishing Divine truths having no cognation with the subject they are in they are easily blown away or wither whatever certainty be in the object there is little in the Mind They want the full assurance of understanding of the Mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ. No man saith the Apostle can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12.3 He cannot say and profess it from a full perswasion of heart till the Holy Ghost have taught it him See Heb. 11.1 And remember the notion we have already given of the design and meaning of those words 2 Their knowledg of Gospel-mysteries is not affective They do not savour the things they assent to Objects have quite an other aspect to an unregenerate person than they have to one that is renewed in the Spirit of his mind and the act of seeing is of a different kind How tastless are the great truths of the Gospel to unregenerate souls and how faint are the Rayes of Gospel-Light The mind being deprav'd by impure and vitious tinctures it doth not relish the things which it is even perswaded of Unless a man saith Christ be born again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he cannot see know or understand the Kingdome of Heaven the mysteries and doctrines of the Gospel Hence it is that the believing soul though otherwise simple and ignorant hath an insight into the things of God which the Learned whose hearts are not connaturalized to the Gospel have not It is one thing to know in the Light of Reason and another thing to know in the Light of the Spirit Therefore the doctrines of the new Covenant being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Spiritualiter res divinas cognoscere est eas agnoscere judicio ductu illuminatione Spiritûs sicut animaliter vel rationaliter cognoscere aliquid est ex judicio rationis cognoscere Musc. ad 1 Cor. 2. Animalis homo intelligi● quidem vocabula aliquot sententias S●iritualem autem corum sensum percipere fidem ●is habere no● potest Par. ad 1 Cor. 2 14. Spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2.14 They lye out of the Gust and true perception of a Carnal man For as to discern Rationally is to perceive it in the vertue of a Rational Principle and through the influence of Reason So to discern a thing Spiritually is to do it by a Spiritual Principle and through the illumination of the Holy Ghost It is an excellent expression of Amyralds Quod sicut operationes omnium animantium quantumvis subtilissimae nihilominus cum iis quae a mente hominis proficiscuntur collatae defectum