Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	inseparable_a	mind_n	sensation_n	36	3	16.0024	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59853	The present state of the Socinian controversy, and the doctrine of the Catholick fathers concerning a trinity in unity by William Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1698 (1698)	Wing S3325; ESTC R8272	289,576	406

the better for it An Union of Substances seems to signify some kind of Contact which is hard to conceive between Body and Spirit but however an Union of Contact and an Union of Life are two very different kinds of Union and do not include or infer each other and therefore the true Answer to that Question How Soul and Body are united is not to say That their Substances are united or fastened together which gives us no notion of a Vital Union but that the Soul lives in the Body and gives life to it receives impressions srom it and governs its motions But to inquire farther is to inquire into the Reasons of Natural and Essential Unions which are as great Mysteries as Nature is We may as well ask How a Soul lives as how it animates a Body and God alone knows both So that to inquire after the Natural Nexus or Cement of this Union is nothing at all to the purpose and is not the Object of Human Knowledge Now though the Vital Union between Soul and Body and the Union of mutual Consciousness be of a very different Kind and Nature yet the Dispute about the Nexus or the Natural Union of Substances is much the same Consciousness is the Unity of a Spirit Self-consciousness is the Unity of a Person and by the same reason mutual Consciousness is a Natural Union of Three distinct Self-conscious Persons in the Unity of the same Nature And to reject this for want of a Nexus or the Natural Union of Substances is as if we should deny the Union of Soul and Body to be an Union of Life or Animation because this don't explain the Natural Nexus between Soul and Body If a Mutual Conscious Union be an Essential Union of Three distinct Persons in the same Nature as a Vital Union is the Essential Union of Soul and Body we have nothing to do in either Case with the Union of Substances which we can know nothing of and if we could should understand these Unions never the better for it For whatever Union of Substance we may suppose between Soul and Body and the Three Divine Persons in the Holy Trinity it is the Kind and Species of Union which gives us the Notion and Idea of it If you inquire what Spirit and what Matter is It would not be thought a good Answer to these Questions to say a Spirit is a Substance and Matter is a Substance without adding their Specifick Differences that a Spirit is an intelligent thinking Substance and Matter is an extended Substance nor is it a better Answer to that Question what Union there is between Soul and Body or between the Three Divine Persons in the Trinity To say That their Substances are united which gives us no distinct Notion of their Union but a Vital Union and a Mutual Conscious Union contain distinct Ideas and if these be Natural and Essential Unions though we know no more of the Union of Substances than we do what Substance is yet we know that the Soul and Body must be one Natural Person and the Three Divine Persons must be naturally and essentially One God for a Natural Union makes One according to the Nature of that Union It is visible enough what has occasioned this Mistake Men consider Mutual Consciousness between Three Compleat Absolute Independent Minds and rightly enough conclude that how conscious soever they were to each other this could not make them essentially One for every compleat Mind is One by it self and not naturally Conscious to any One but it self and by whatever Power they should be so united as to be mutually Conscious this could not make them essentially One they would be Three Mutually Conscious Minds not essentially One Mind for they are not by Nature One nor mutually Conscious and therefore may be parted again and cease to be so But then in this way of stating it the Objection equally lies against the Perichoresis the inseparable Union and In-being of Minds which can never make Three Compleat Absolute Minds essentially One But if we apply this to the Union of Living Subsisting Intelligent Relatives of the same Individual Essence to Father Son and Holy Ghost Eternal Self-originated Mind its Eternal Living Subsisting Word and Eternal Spirit this Mutual Consciousness gives us the most Intelligible Notion of the Essential and Inseparable Union and In-being of Three in One. I dare not say what other Men can do but I have tried my self and can form no Notion of an Unity in Trinity but what either necessarily includes or ultimately resolves it self into One Natural Essential Consciousness in Three The Divine Nature is indivisibly and inseparably One in Three but we must not understand this Inseparability after the manner of Bodies whose Parts may be divided and separated from each other God is not Body and has no Parts but in the Unity of the Godhead there is Eternal Original Mind an Eternal Word and Eternal Spirit which are inseparable from each other that is can never be parted What then can parting and separating signify in a Mind which has no Parts to be torn and divided from each other I can understand nothing by it but that the Mind does no longer see and know and feel its Word in it self nor the Word the Mind for this would make a perfect Separation between the Mind and its Word that Mind has no Word which does not see and feel it in it self and were it possible that a living subsisting Word should lose all Conscious Sensation of the Mind whose Word it is it would cease to be a Word and commence a perfect separate Mind it self So that as far as we can conceive it the Inseparable Union between Father and Son between Original Infinite Mind and its Eternal Word is an inseparable Conscious Life and Sensation which is such a Natural Demonstration of their Inseparable Union as no other Notion can give us for all Men feel that a Mind and its Word can never be parted a Mind can never be without its Word nor the Word subsist but in the Mind Thus what other possible Notion can we form of the Perichoresis or Mutual In-being of Father and Son as our Saviour tells us I am in the Father and the Father in me which is their Natural and Essential Unity I and my Father are one We all feel how the Word is in the Mind and the Mind in the Word the Mind knows and feels and comprehends its own Word and a perfect living subsisting Word knows and feels that whole Mind whose Word it is in it self for the Word is nothing else but the whole Mind living and subsisting in the Word which is another Hypostasis but perfectly One and the same Nature and therefore as they know themselves so they know and feel each other in themselves As the Father knoweth me saith Christ so know I the Father 10 John 15. And thus to see and know God by an Internal Sensation and to be

of the Godhead but not the Incarnation of the Son of God But this is not the Doctrine of Scripture merely to say That God suffers himself to be worshipped in the Man Christ Iesus as if God and the Man Christ Iesus were not One Person but that he commands us to worship that Person who is called Christ Jesus not as a Man in whom the Power of God dwells and is present as in the Heavens or in the Jewish Temple or in the Prophets and Holy Men who were never for this reason thought the Objects of Worship but as his own Eternal Son Incarnate That all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father which does not only signify to honour the Father in the Son but to pay Divine Honours to the Person of the Son which makes them distinct Objects of Worship and therefore True and Proper Persons not Personal Characters which may be distinct Reasons of Worship but are not distinct Objects But we shall better understand this by the account he gives of the Union of God and Man In what manner Soul and Body or God and Man are united is not the question for we know nothing how this Physical Union is made but the question is concerning the Nature and Kind of this Union Whether as the Soul and Body are united in One Person so as to be One Man so God and Man are united in One Person That as the reasonable Soul and Flesh is One Man so God and Man is One Christ. Whether the Divine and Human Natures are united in One Person or God be united to Man only as an assisting Principle by a perpetual and constant Influx of Divine Powers and Virtues These two are vastly different The first indeed always includes the second in the most perfect manner but the second does not always infer the first A Personal Union is always a Union of Life Influence and Power as he describes the Vnion of Soul and Body That there is some Intelligent Power that makes use of the Organs of my Body and acts in conjunction with the motions there produced This is all true and necessarily consequent upon a Personal Union but a very lame account of the Vital Union of Soul and Body for thus Angels may use the Bodies they assume without a Personal Union But a conscious Life Sensation and Government which makes One self is a great deal more than to act in conjunction with the Motions of the Body The Union of Influence and Power may be without Personal Union and therefore does not always make One Person It is the first we enquire after it is the first the Scripture teaches That the Word was made Flesh That God sent forth his Son made of a woman This is the Catholick Faith of the Incarnation but this the Considerer takes no notice of but all he says relates only to the Union of Influence and Power And I may says he as well consider God united to Man when he so acts by the Ministry and Operation of Man that the Actions of God seem conveyed to us the same way as the actions of one man are to another But does this make God True and Perfect Man This falls short of the conjunct Operations of Soul and Body which are much more close and intimate than the actions of one man are to another however to be sure the actions of one man upon another do not make Two such Men One Person nor therefore can the like Influence of God on Man make God and Man One Person But he proceeds Had those who upon some occasions spake by the Extraordinary Assistance of a Divine Power been constantly so directed and assisted how could they have distinguished the Motions of their Souls from the Impressions of God Just as they did when they were sometimes thus assisted for External Impressions are always distinguishable from Internal Motions But suppose they could not distinguish them does this prove that God is Incarnate in such men or would it be a reason to worship such men as God He adds And why then should we not think such an extraordinary Power as this as much united to such men as that common ordinary Power we call the Soul is to those Bodies in which it acts and exerts it self The Answer is plain because it would be an External not an Internal Principle of Life and Motion and Sensation how constant soever its Influences were He calls it an Extraordinary Power which shews that it is not a Natural Principle of Action it is an Extraordinary Power united to a Man and therefore the Man is the Person this Extraordinary Power only an external assisting Principle of the same kind with that in Prophets though more constant and regular in its actings But here is nothing of Incarnation in all this Is this Extraordinary Power a Divine Subsisting Person in the true and proper Notion of a Person Is it the Son of God that Eternal Word which was in the beginning was with God and was God Is this Extraordinary Power so united to Human Nature as to become Man Is it the Person of Christ Jesus who was conceived in the Womb of the Virgin lived in the World as a Man suffered and died and rose again from the dead and now sits at the Right Hand of God in the highest Heavens Not one word of all this which is the true Mystery and the only Use of this Doctrine of the Incarnation whereon all our Hopes of Salvation by Christ depend This Extraordinary Power is not a Person but such a constant regular Inspiration as he says some are of opinion the Soul of man is But whether that be so or not as he thinks m●st probably it is not which yet argues some kind of Inclination to it yet it seems to him plain from Scripture that such a Power as we ascribe to God he will not say such a Power as is God or a True Divine Person did as constantly and regularly act in and through Christ as the Human Soul is perceived to do in any other man That such a Power did constantly appear and act in Christ is true but whether by Nature or by a constant and regular Inspiration is the Question Our Saviour proves his Divine Nature from his Works our Considerer thinks it proves no more than a constant and regular Inspiration The first is necessary to the Catholick Faith of the Incarnation That the Word was made Flesh the second proves him only to be an extraordinary and perpetual Prophet The first makes him True God-Man the second makes him only a Divine Man And this is all he can mean by this Power regularly and constantly acting in and through Christ For if Christ be God-Man he is this Divine Power in his own Person it is his Divine Nature not an external adventitious Principle how regularly and constantly soever it acts it is not merely an uninterrupted Presence and Concurrence of the Deity with the Man Christ Jesus