Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	death_n	life_n	world_n	5,607	5	4.5010	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59905	A vindication of the doctrine of the holy and ever blessed Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God occasioned by the Brief notes on the Creed of St. Athanasius and the Brief history of the Unitarians or Socinians and containing an answer to both / by William Sherlock.	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1691 (1691)	Wing S3377; ESTC R25751	172,284	293

the Sacrifice of Christ's Death and the several kinds of them typical of the various Effects and Vertues of Christ's Death we learn every where in the New Testament which I believe is the true meaning of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world not meerly slain in God's Decree for what God has decreed shall be done is not therefore said to be done before it is done but this Lamb was slain in Types and Figures from the foundation of the world ever since the fall of Adam in those early Sacrifices which were offered after the Fall which were typical of the Sacrifice of Christ for God had then promised that the Seed of the Woman should break the Serpents Head and for my part I must profess I know no Principle of Natural Reason that teaches us to offer the Blood of Beasts in Sacrifice to God and therefore must think the Sacrifices of Beasts to be an Institution Now that a Human Priesthood and the Sacrifices of Beasts were not acceptable to God in themselves the Apostle to the Hebrews sufficiently proves and I would desire some of our Learned Reasoning Socinians as they think themselves honestly to tell me what account they can give of this Jewish Priesthood and Sacrifices which is becoming God why should God be propitiated by a man subject to the same sins and infirmities and very often guilty of them that other men are why innocent Beasts must die to expiate the sins of men when the Apostle tells us that it is not possible that the Blood of Bulls and Goats should take away sin And yet if there were no more in it then God's meer appointment and institution I do not see but the Jewish Priesthood and Sacrifices might have been as effectual as any other I think they are so far in the right and consistent with their own Principles that as they own Christ to be no more than a Man so they make him only a metaphorical Priest and his Death a metaphorical Sacrifice for a meer man can be no more than a metaphorical or typical Priest and Sacrifice but then the difficulty is how Christ is the Antitype to the typical Priests and Sacrifices of the Law if he be but a metaphorical Priest and Sacrifice himself for the Antitype ought to be that in truth and reality which the Type is a Figure of and though they were typical yet they were true and proper Priests and Sacrifices and made a true and proper Expiation for sin as far as they reached and therefore one would think should typifie not a metaphorical but a true Priest and Sacrifice though of a more excellent and perfect Nature This is easily accounted for if we allow the Divine Word to be Incarnate and to be our Priest and Sacrifice but without this the Jewish oeconomy is a most absurd and unaccountable Institution Thirdly Socinianism ridicules the Christian Religion that is makes it a very mean and contemptible Institution which I shall shew in a few words The Fundamental Mystery of the Christian Religion is the stupendious Love of God in giving his own Son his only begotten Son for the Redemption of Mankind This our Saviour lays great stress on God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life By this one would have thought that Christ had been the Son the only begotten Son of God before he gave him as Isaac who was a Type of Christ was Abraham's Son before he offered him at God's Command for that it is the Argument of Love when we part with what we have and what is dear to us but this is not the Case if Socinianism be true God did not give us any Son he had before but made an excellent Man whom he was pleased to call his only begotten Son though he might have made as many such only begotten Sons as he pleased and him he gave for us that is made a Man on purpose to be our Saviour God's love indeed in redeeming sinners is very great be the means what they will but his love in giving his only begotten Son for our Redemption which our Saviour fixes on as the great demonstration of God's love is not so wonderful if this giving his Son signifies no more than making a Man on purpose to be our Saviour In the next place the Apostles mightily insist on the great love of Christ in dying for us and his great humility in submitting to the Condition of Human Nature and suffering a shameful and accursed Death even the Death of the Cross. Ye know the Grace of our Lord Iesus Christ that for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich For the love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all then were all dead Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Iesus who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man be humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross. Now supposing Christ to be but a meer man who had no Being before he was born of the Virgin who knew nothing of his own coming into the World nor for what end he came whose undertaking was not his own voluntary choice but God's appointment where is the great love where is the great humility of this How did he become poor for our sakes who was never rich Yes says our Historian he could have lived in the greatest splendor dignity and plenty He that could multiply the loaves and fishes and the wine at the wedding of Cana need not have wanted any Comforts of life Right if he can prove that God would have enabled him to work Miracles to have made himself rich and great and to have ministred to Secular Pomp and Luxury if he had so minded but he being a meer Creature could work no Miracles nor to any other ends or purposes than God pleased and therefore if by God's Decree he was to live a mean life here and dye an accursed death and he was made for this purpose he neither ever was rich nor ever could be rich and therefore did not make himself poor for our sakes He could not by the Constitution of God have done otherwise than he did if he would be the Saviour of Mankind and therefore if he was not rich before he came into the World and voluntarily chose his Poverty for us I do not understand the great Grace of his becoming poor for he never was rich nor ever could be in this World Thus what is that humility our Apostle so highly commends in our Saviour for suppose his being in the form of God signifies no more than being made like

to God as our Historian will have it by a communication of power over Diseases Devils the Grave the Winds the Seas c. which dwindles the form of God into just nothing for according to them he had no inherent Power to do this but God did it at his word as he did for other Prophets and therefore this is no form no likeness of God at all for he did not work Miracles as God does by an inherent Power but God wrought Miracles for him yet suppose this how is it an Argument of his humility that he committed not robbery by equalling himself to God as he renders the words which our Translators render and which the ancient Fathers expound to the same sense he thought it not robbery to be equal to God that is says he did not rob God of his honour by arrogating to himself to be God or equal to God though if this were robbery both Christ and his Apostles were guilty of it for Christ declared I and my Father are One which the Jews understood and they did not mistake him in it was to make himself God and the Apostles do this frequently in express terms as I have already shown but to allow his Interpretation I only ask whether Christ if he would could have committed this Robbery whether upon their supposition of his being a meer Man if he had arrogated to himself to be God God would have permitted this and suffered him to have wrought Miracles to cheat the world into this belief if he could not it is ridiculous to talk of his humility in not doing it and I am sure it is ridiculous upon their Hypothesis to say that he could But he took upon him the form of a Servant i. e. became like a Servant possessing nothing of his own and suffering injuries and reproaches c. But how did he take this form upon him which must signifie his own free and voluntary choice when he did not take it but was made so This was the Condition which he did not choose but was made for and what humility was this for a meer Man to be a Minister and Servant of God and so great a Minister as to be in the form of God as he says to be glorious for Miracles and admired as the great power of God especially when he was to be exalted into Heaven for it and advanced above all Principalites and Powers This is such Humility as would have been Pride and Ambition in the most glorious Angel But he was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man humbled himself c. that is says this Historian being made like other men in the common similitude of man and I pray how should a man be made but like a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death i. e. notwithstanding that he could have delivered himself from them yet was he obedient even to evil Magistrates and without resistance under-went that death which their wickedness and malice prepared for him or rather which God had decred for him which his hand and counsel determined before to be done and therefore which he could not which he ought not to avoid The plain Case is this All the Circumstances of our Saviour's Birth and Life and Death were so punctually foretold by the Prophets and so peremtorily decreed by God that after he was come into the world there was no place for his choice and election he could not shew either his love or his humility in choosing Poverty or Death and therefore if it were matter of his free choice and a demonstration of his great Humility and Love as the Apostles says it was he chose it before he came into the world He was in the form of God equal to God rich before and chose to become Man a Minister a Servant and to submit to a mean Life and an infamous Death for our sakes and this indeed was a mighty Love and stupendious Humility in the Son of God This we can all understand it is a venerable Mystery and a powerful Argument of our Religion but Socinianism makes Nonsense of it The Faith and Worship of Christ is the distinguishing Character of the Christian Religion and if Christ be no more than a Man as the Socinians teach it is a direct Contradiction both to Natural and to the Mosaical Religion which condemn the worship of any Creature and all Religious Trust and Affiance in them It is a Religion without a Priest and without a Sacrifice or which is much the same retains the Name of a Priest and a Sacrifice without any proper Atonement or Expiation which is a very unfit Religion for sinners But that which is most to my present purpose is that it makes a God of a meer Creature and makes a Mediator and King without any inherent Power to save Sinners to protect his Church to govern or to judge the World which is a meer Pageant and Shadow of a King To make a Mediator or Mediatory King who shall be a fit Object of Religious Hope and Trust and Worship as I have already explained it at large he must have a Personal Knowledge of all our particular Wants and an Inherent Power to help us and though his Humane Nature is confined to Heaven his Knowledge and Power must extend to all the world as he himself tells us after his Resurrection All Power is given unto me both in Heaven and in Earth particularly he must have Power to protect his Church on Earth from all her Enemies to restrain and govern the malice of Men and Devils to forgive sins to give the fresh Supplies of Grace to raise the Dead to judge the World to condemn bad men to Hell and to bestow Heaven upon his sincere Disciples Let us then consider what account our Socinian Historian gives of this matter and what a kind of Mediator and King he makes of Christ. Sometimes to abuse the World he tells us the Socinians generally not only grant but earnestly contend that Christ is to be worshipped and prayed to because God hath they say by his inhabiting Word or Power given to the Lord Christ a faculty of knowing all things and an ability to relieve all our wants Now if they mean honestly that Christ has an inherent Personal Knowledge and Power whereby he knows and can do all things this is to ascribe true Divine Perfections to him for such are infinite Knowledge and infinite Power and that is to make him a true and real God and I think there is not greater Nonsense in the World than a Made-God than a Creature-God as I showed before But it is plain our Historian is none of these Socinians for all his Expositions lean another way and in the same place he disputes earnestly against praying to Christ and says that those Gentlemen he must mean the Socinian Gentlemen who are for praying to Christ especially the Polonian Zealots say that Christ's Mediation