Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	good_a	life_n	see_v	9,943	5	3.4753	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60941	Animadversions upon Dr. Sherlock's book, entituled A vindication of the holy and ever-blessed Trinity, &c, together with a more necessary vindication of that sacred and prime article of the Christian faith from his new notions, and false explications of it / humbly offered to his admirers, and to himself the chief of them, by a divine of the Church of England.	South, Robert, 1634-1716.	1693 (1693)	Wing S4731; ESTC R10418	260,169	412

Reason why he pitches upon Truth Wisdom and Goodness rather than upon Eternity Omnipotence and Omnipresence For these in their proportion express the Divine Nature as much as the other but neither the one nor the other can grasp in the whole Compass of the Divine Perfections so as to be properly denominable from all and every one of them as Substance and Essence and such other Terms as barely import Being are found to 〈◊〉 I conclude therefore that in our Discourses of God Essence Substance Nature and the like are so far from being necessary to be laid aside as disposing our Minds to gross and unfit Apprehensions of the Deity that they are much fitter to express and guide our thoughts about this great Subject than Truth Wisdom or Power or all of them together as importing in them both a Priority and a greater Simplicity and larger Comprehensiveness of Notion than belong to any of them and these surely are Considerations most peculiarly suted to and worthy of the Perfections of the Divine Nature I have now done with my Third Proposition and so proceed to the Fourth and last viz That the Difficulty of our Conceiving rightly of the Deity and the Divine Persons does really proceed from other Causes than those alledged by this Author I shall assign Three As First The Spirituality of the Divine Nature For God is a Spirit Joh. 4. 14. And it is certain that we have no clear explicit and distinct Idea of a Spirit And if so must we not needs find a great difficulty in knowing it For we know Things directly by the Idea's the Species Intelligibiles or Resemblances of them imprinted upon the Intellect and these are refined and drawn off from the Species Sensibiles and sensible Resemblances of the same imprinted upon the Imagination And how can a Spirit incur directly into that Indeed not at all For we can have no knowledge of a Spirit by any direct Apprehension or Intuition of it but all that we know of such Beings is what we gather by Inference Discourse and Ratiocination And that is sufficient But 2. The Second Reason of our Short and Imperfect Notions of the Deity is The Infinity of it For this we must observe That we can perfectly know and comprehend nothing but as it is represented to us under some certain Bounds and Limitations And therefore one of the chief Instruments of our Knowledge of a Thing is the Definition of it And what does that signifie but the bringing or representing a Thing under certain Bounds and Limitations as the Geeek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 manifestly imports Upon which Account what a loss must we needs be at in understanding or knowing the Divine Nature when the very way of our knowing seems to carry in it something opposite to the thing known For the way of knowing is by Desining Limiting and Determining and the Thing known is that of which there neither are nor can be any Bounds Limits Definitions or Determinations And this I think is not only a sufficient but something more than a sufficient Reason why we stumble and fail when we would either have or give a distinct Account of the Deity 3. A Third Reason of the same especially with reference to the Trinity of Persons belonging to the Divine Nature is The utter want of all Instances and Examples of this kind For when a long and constant course of Observation has still took notice that every numerically distinct Person and every Suppositum has a numerically distinct Nature appropriate to it and Religion comes afterwards and calls upon us to apprehend the same Numerical Nature as subsisting in three Numerically distinct Persons we are extreamly at a loss how to conform our Notions to it and to conceive how that can be in three Persons which we never saw before or in any thing else to be but onely in One. For humane Nature which originally proceeds by the Observations of Sense does very hardly frame to it self any Notions or Conceptions of Things but what it has drawn from thence Nay I am of Opinion That the Mind is so far governed by what it sees and observes that I verily believe that had we never actually seen the beginning or end of any Thing the generality of Men would hardly so much as have imagined That the World had ever had any beginning at all Since with the greatest part of Mankind what appears and what does not appear determines what can and what cannot be in their Opinion And thus I have shewn Three Causes which I take to be the True Causes why we are so much to seek in our Apprehensions of and Discourses about the Divine Nature and the Three Glorious Persons belonging to it And the Reason of them all is founded upon the Essential Disparity which the Mind of Man bears to so disproportionate and so transcendent an Object So that it is a vain thing to quarrel at Words and Terms especially such as the best Reason of Mankind has pitched upon as the fittest and properest and most significant to express these great Things by And I question not but in the Issue of all wise Men will find That it is not the defect of the Terms we use but the vast Incomprehensibility of the Thing we apply them to which is the True Cause of all our Failures as to a clear and distinct Apprehension and Declaration of what relates to the Godhead From all which I conclude That the Terms Essence Substance Nature c. have had nothing yet objected against them but that they may still claim the place and continue in the use which the Learned'st Men the Christian Church hath hitherto had have allotted them in all their Discourses and Disputes about the Divine Nature and the Divine Persons which are confessedly the greatest and most Sacred Mysteries in the Christian Religion But as in my time I have observed it a practice at Court That when any one is turned out of a considerable Place there it is always first resolved and that out of merit foreseen no doubt who shall succeed him in it So all this ado in dismounting the Terms Essence Substance Nature c. from their ancient Post I perceive is only to make way for these two so highly useful and wonder-working Terms Self-Consciousness and Mutual-Consciousness And therefore let us with all due and awful Reverence as becomes us expect their August appearance and for a while suffer the Mountain to swell and heave up its Belly and look big upon us and all in good time no doubt we shall have the happiness to see and admire and take our measures of the Mouse But before I close this Chapter to shew how like a Judge upon life and Death this Man sits over all the formerly received Terms by which Men were wont to discourse of God Sentencing and Condemning them as he pleases not content to have cashiered the words Essence Substance and Nature from being used about this

the whole Oeconomy of the Christian Religion And it is that Wonderful Assertion concerning the Goodness of God in Page 44. of his Knowledge of Christ viz. That it is not possible to understand what Goodness is without Pardoning Grace Now certain it is that Natural Reason by its own light is able from the Common Works of God's Providence to collect the Knowledge of God's Goodness as St. Paul expresly told those Heathens of Lycaonia Acts 14. 17. and therefore if the Knowledge of God's Goodness necessarily implies in it the Knowledge of Pardoning Grace it will follow That the Heathens by understanding one from the Works of Providence must needs understand and know the other also and consequently that the Knowledge of Pardoning Grace is not owing to Revelation nor the Gospel necessary to make a Discovery of it to Mankind A Blessed Principle and Foundation no doubt to establish the New-designed Scheme of a Natural Religion upon For it is not unknown what Projects were on foot amongst some when this Book was Wrote though the Author had the ill luck to be left in the Lurch and not seconded in the Attempt But in opposition to this Paganish Assertion I do here affirm That if God may be Good and that both as to the Essential Attribute of his Goodness and as to the actual Exercise of the same without the Pardon of Sin then it is not impossible to understand the Goodness of God without Pardoning Grace The Consequence is evident For whatsoever any Thing is it is capable of being understood to be And as for the Antecedent that is manifest from these Considerations First That God was Good and exerted Acts of Goodness before there was any Sin in the World and therefore might be and undoubtedly was understood both as Good and as exercising his Goodness by the Angels before the Fall of any of them and for that reason before Pardon of Sin could come into Consideration In the next Place God had been Good and had exercised his Goodness had Men and Angels been Created Impeccable and I am sure it is no Contradiction to hold That they might have been Originally made such as all Glorified Spirits now actually are And Lastly God is and may be understood to be Good even in respect of those whose Sins shall never be pardoned And therefore that Assertion of this Author That it is not possible to understand what Goodness is without Pardoning Grace is apparently false and absurd as drawing after it One of these Two Consequences First That either we cannot understand the Creation and Support of Angels and of this visible World and particularly of Mankind to have been Acts and Instances of the Divine Goodness which yet no doubt were very great ones Or Secondly That we cannot understand them as such but by understanding them also to imply in them Pardoning Grace And if so then supposing the Creation of Man and his Sin after his Creation and the Goodness of God remaining still entire notwithstanding Man's Sin as it certainly did it will follow that Pardoning Grace having according to the forementioned Principle a necessary Connexion with or result from the said Goodness must have fallen in of course and by necessary consequence from thence And then Where could be the Freedom of this Grace Nay Where could be this Grace it self For the very Nature of Grace consists in this that it be an Act perfectly Free so free that God might have chosen after Man had sinned whether he would ever have offered him any Conditions of Pardon or no And if he had not Men might notwithstanding that have abundantly known and understood the Goodness of God by several other Acts and Instances in which it had sufficiently declared it self So that the foregoing Assertion is nothing but a gross Paradox and a Scurvy Blow at all Revealed Religion besides if the Knowledge of Pardoning Grace could or may be had without it And now after this Absurdity presented to the Reader 's Examination I shall point out to him some of the Blasphemies also that occurr in the same Book Such as are these that follow The Justice of God says he having glutted it self with Revenge on Sin in the Death of Christ henceforward we may be sure he will be very kind as a Revengeful Man is when his Passion is over Knowledge of Christ P. 46. Again the Sum of the Matter is That God is all Love and Patience when he has taken his fill of Revenge as others use to say That the Devil himself is very good when he is pleased Pag. 47. Again The Death of Christ says he discovers the Naturalness of Justice to God that is That he is so Just that he has not one Dram of Goodness in him till his Rage and Vengeance be satisfied which I confess is a glorious kind of Justice And presently after Now the Justice and Vengeance of God having their Actings assigned them to the full being glutted and satiated with the Blood of Christ God may pardon as many and great Sins as he pleases P. 59. And sutable to this he likewise calls the Method of God 's saving Sinners upon a Previous Satisfaction made to his Iustice as necessary for the Remission of Sin God's Trucking and Bartering with Sin and the Devil for his Glory P. 52. Concerning which and the like Expressions uttered by this Great-Good Man as a certain poor Wretch calls him I cannot but out of a due Zeal and concern for that Eternal Truth by which I hope to be Saved declare That the Tongue that should Speak such things deserves to Speak no more and the Hand that should Write them to Write no more And great pity it is that at this time and in this case also his Ascendant had not tyed up his Hands from Writing For see how one of the Leading Dissenters Insults over our Church upon occasion of these Horrid Passages Is this says he Language becoming a Son of the Church of England Ought it not more justly to have been expected from a Iew or a Mahometan From Servetus or Socinus from whom also it was borrowed than from a Son of the Church in a Book published by Licence and Authority And thus he goes on equally Chastising his Arrogance and Exposing his Ignorance the poor Church 's Reputation all the while paying the Scores of both But now if either He himself or any for him shall plead That it was not fairly done to charge him with those Blasphemies which he may and perhaps does pretend to have been uttered by Him in the Person of his Adversary and as the genuine Consequences of the Doctrine maintained by him To this I Answer First That he who pretends to speak in the Person of another ought according to all Justice and Decorum to speak only such Things as that other whom he personates uses to speak and consonant to his known Avowed Sence But did his Adversary Dr. Owen ever speak so Or use the Expressions here