Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	body_n	nature_n	spirit_n	16,404	5	5.4081	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29097	Apostate men fit objects of divine care and compassion a sermon preach'd in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, February the 6th, 1698/9, being the second for this year of the lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. / by Samuel Bradford ...	Bradford, Samuel, 1652-1731.	1699 (1699)	Wing B4107; ESTC R19973	15,105	36

but form Ideas of their own of various kinds inventing compounding dividing either according to the nature of things or at their own pleasure They can reflect upon what is past nay recollect what they have forgot and foresee things yet to come They can stretch and extend their thoughts till they are quite lost in the oceans of Immensity and Eternity They acquaint themselves not only with the material part of the World but the immaterial also From contemplating themselves they enlarge their thoughts to other Beings of the same kind They discern the Spirits of other Men through the veil of their Bodies and find out and contemplate an unknown and innumerable number of Spiritual Natures till at last they ascend to God himself that infinite Spirit who was the Maker and is the Preserver of all And here we are arrived at the top of their knowledge Not that the Souls of Men are able to comprehend the Nature of that first and most excellent Being but they can make such discoveries of his Divine Perfections as will naturally produce in them an high Admiration a profound Reverence and an ardent Love towards the Deity and will incline and dispose them to adore and serve him to resign themselves to him and to yield a ready obedience to his Commands And what those Commands are the Soul is in some measure also capacitated to discern infering its Duty from the consideration of its own nature and the relation it stands in to God and to its fellow-creatures And which is yet an higher Perfection than meer Knowledge the Souls of Men can perceive the Will of God and consequently their own Duty from certain secret inclinations and propensions which they feel within themselves and of which they are apprehensive even in this degenerate state That natural regard to God and looking towards him upon all Emergencies that approbation of Justice and Kindness between Man and Man especially that gratitude for benefits receiv'd and unavoidable commiseration towards miserable Objects which are to be found in most Men not debauch'd in a more than common degree are plain and undeniable Instances of this kind which will not be controverted by those to whom I am offering these Considerations and for which I may be allow'd to appeal to the far greater part of Mankind And I question not but the like might be observ'd as to most other plain and considerable instances of Moral Vertue For which reason it is that the Consciences of Men do so naturally and universally either accuse or excuse them according as they contradict or comply with not barely the reasonings but the natural apprehensions and inclinations of their Minds And this indeed I take to be the Perfection of the Humane Soul as it came out of the hands of God that it had a capacity not only of knowing God and it self and of inferring its Duty by exercising its Reason but that it was also made to resemble the Divine Nature in its inclinations and propensions to all that is good which inclinations and propensions had they been cherish'd and improv'd as they might and ought to have been would have fully discover'd the dignity of Humane Nature and made Men to have appear'd what God by their make design'd them to be There is yet one Ability more with which the Humane Soul is endued not to be past over when we are considering the excellency of its Nature and that is Freedom or Liberty of choosing and a Power consequently of acting according to such choice without which its Liberty would have been given to it in vain But shall I call this a Perfection or an Imperfection As it is a Power of freely choosing that which is good and as freely pursuing that choice it must be thankfully acknowledg'd to the praise of our bountiful Creator that it is a Perfection even whereby we are made to resemble God himself who always freely chooseth and acteth according to the eternal and immutable Laws of Goodness 'T is a Talent of great worth with which Mankind is entrusted and which may be improv'd to very great advantage It gives us an Ability of offering to God a free-will Offering of voluntarily doing that which is acceptable to and rewardable by our Maker 'T is that which indeed makes us strictly speaking capable of a Reward But then as Men can at the same time choose that which is Evil and pursue the unhappy choice it must be own'd to be an Imperfection but such an one as seems necessarily to result from the condition of a Creature Absolute Perfection belongs to God only his Nature is too good ever to choose or act amiss but the condition of a Creature is to be defectible of its self so that if it be made capable of choosing aright it must at the same time also be capable of choosing wrong Liberty implies a Power to determine its choice one way or the other and there is no such absolute Perfection in a Creature as can always necessarily oblige it to determine it self the right way Experience and Use may produce strong and confirmed Habits of Virtue and the Grace of God may at any time put a Creature out of all Danger but I cannot see how 't is possible to frame an Idea of a created Agent left at Liberty but it must at the same time be fallible and mutable But this may suffice to shew the dignity of the Humane Soul with respect to its Liberty that it is made capable of choosing and acting freely by the same Rules by which God himself chooseth and acteth And had Men always acted according to the design of their Beings the excellency of their Nature would have plainly appear'd in a whole world of intelligent and reasonable Agents exercising all the Faculties before-mention'd regularly and orderly acknowledging adoring magnifying and serving their Maker admiring his wonderful Works and rendering to him with one consent the Praises due upon the account of them living in perfect Amity one with another discharging readily all the Offices of Beneficence performing and enjoying all the Benefits and Pleasures of mutual Society and deriving from Heaven all those Blessings which would have render'd their abode here perfectly easie and comfortable and if God should have thought it fit to have translated them to any superiour Regions as a reward of their Obedience here they would there also have spent a happy Eternity in the Enjoyment of their Maker themselves and one another I mention their translation to some other Regions because all those Powers of Soul which I have been discoursing of imply nothing but what is immaterial and spiritual and consequently immortal and if Men had used their Liberty aright in this state of tryal it is not to be conceiv'd that God would have permitted the corruption of the Body but rather have preserv'd for ever that Union which himself had given to the two constitutive parts of Humane Nature and have assign'd them such places of residence as might

external Attestation to what directly contradicts the Faculties he hath given us by Nature nay not to any thing but what if thorowly and impartially consider'd will in the main appear in its own nature reasonable and credible I shall therefore begin with the intrinsick Evidence of the Assertion in our Text shewing from the Nature and Reason of what is here affirm'd that it is a credible Saying every way worthy of God and very fit to be most readily entertain'd by us that Christ Jesus came into the World to save Sinners In doing this the Text will lead me into a proper Method by offering to our Consideration these three general heads viz. Who the Persons are whom Christ Jesus came to save What kind of Salvation he proposeth to them In what way and manner he hath by his coming into the World wrought out this Salvation for them The last of these will take up a considerable part of my following Lectures wherein I shall indeavour to shew the admirable contrivance and suitableness of this Method of our Salvation But as a foundation to this I think it necessary to discourse first of the other two and that as briefly and plainly as I can I begin with the first viz. to consider who the Persons are whom Christ Jesus came to save The Apostle calls them Sinners that is in other words They are Men Creatures compos'd of reasonable Souls and Bodies of Flesh who were formed after the Image of God and were innocent and upright as they came out of his hands but had apostatized from their Maker violating their Allegiance to him and thereby disordering their Natures and exposing themselves to the just displeasure of God with the miserable effects and consequences thereof Now I think it may very much conduce to our present Design to shew that these Creatures were really fit Objects of that exceeding great Concern and Tenderness express'd towards them by their Maker through his Son Jesus Christ that considering their original Constitution together with the manner and the effect of their falling from it it was highly becoming the good God thus to appear in their behalf It must be acknowledg'd and why should we be shy of owning it Nay we Christians justly glory in it that the Method of our Salvation by the Gospel is the most surprizing thing that falls within the compass of humane thought 'T is what before its Revelation Eye had not seen 1 Cor. 2.9 nor Ear heard neither had it enter'd into the Heart of Man 'T is what the Prophets before our Lord's Incarnation inquir'd and search'd diligently into 1 Pet. 1.12 'T is what since the Incarnation the Angels themselves with great curiosity and admiration desire earnestly to pry into 1 Cor. 2.14 'T is what the meer natural Man doth not receive and is not at all dispos'd to know nay what he is apt to account foolishness 'T is what even to the Saints or real Christians hath its breadth and length and depth and height expressing and testifying a Love which passeth knowledge We may as oft as we think of it Eph. 3.18 19. in a just sense of our infinite distance from God well cry out with the Psalmist Lord what is Man Psal 8.4 that thou art mindful of him and the son of Man that thou thus visitest him The truth is there is nothing which at first view renders Christianity so incredible as the boundless and unconceivable Condescension and Love of God exprest thereby But if on the other hand we take into Consideration that the Goodness of God is infinite like his other Attributes if we remember that his thoughts are not our thoughts nor our ways his ways Isa 55.8 9. but that as the Heavens are higher than the Earth so are his ways higher than our ways and his thoughts than our thoughts if we call to mind what he himself hath told us in his Word and what our own Reason readily subscribes to Psal 103.13 14. that like as a Father pityeth his Children so the Lord pityeth us his Creatures that he knoweth our frame he remembereth that we are dust if we take in all that is proper to be thought of upon this Argument both concerning God and Man we shall then be forc'd to acknowledge that Sinners were a proper Object of the Divine Care and Compassion in this extraordinary manner Let us therefore take a distinct view of the Persons to be saved by Jesus Christ both as they are Men and as they are Sinners As they are Men. 'T is an unworthy thought of God to suspect that he should disregard any thing which he thought fit to make The giving Being to Creatures was without all doubt the effect of his meer Bounty because he is Good and taketh pleasure in doing Good and the very same motive which induced him to make any Creature must in all Reason be suppos'd to prevail with him to take care of it according to the Nature he hath given it Now of all the Creatures in this lower World there are none that pretend to vye with Man for excellency and dignity of Nature nay if we consider Humane Nature thorowly we shall find it endued with such Faculties as that we cannot conceive there are any Creatures more excellent in kind though in degree there may in the Regions above Men have Bodies indeed form'd out of the Dust of the Earth like the other Animals that dwell upon Earth though in Shape and Portraiture more noble much than any of them Psal 8.5 but with respect to their Souls they are made a little lower than the Angels being created in the Image Gen. 1.26 and after the likeness of God as Moses expresseth it And of this we may be satisfied besides the Testimony of Moses and the Psalmist by viewing our selves and observing the present Ruins of a once more stately Fabrick The Resemblance of our Maker appears evidently in our Natural Faculties and much more in our Moral Our Souls are invisible indeed but evidently manifest their Being by their various Operations They inhabit these Bodies in such manner as to influence and govern every part of them They do at pleasure move each Joint and Limb nay the whole Body at once without difficulty in a moment and by the power of a single thought They not only manage the Tabernacles they dwell in but by their means also have communication with a world of Beings without them By the mediation of the Senses they take in continual Notices from all the material Objects within a certain Sphere They see and hear and feel whatsoever makes a near approach to them nay they reach to things at a vast distance from them They do not confine their Observations to the Earth and Air but view at once the vast circumference of the Heavens and pry into the Bodies that are plac'd in those distant Regions They not only receive and take in Notices by the mediation of the Senses