A01956:104
The happiness of the church, or, A description of those spiritual prerogatives wherewith Christ…The happines of the church, or, A description of those spirituall prerogatiues vvherewith Christ…
The happiness of the church, or, A description of those spiritual prerogatives wherewith Christ hath endowed her considered in some contemplations upon part of the 12. chapter of the Hebrews : together with certain other meditations and discourses upon other portions of Holy Scriptures, the titles whereof immediately precede the book : being the sum of diverse sermons preached in S. Gregory's London / by Thomas Adams ...The happines of the church, or, A description of those spirituall prerogatiues vvherewith Christ hath endowed her considered in some contemplations vpon part of the 12. chapter of the Hebrewes : together with certain other meditations and discourses vpon other portions of Holy Scriptures, the titles wherof immediately precede the booke : being the summe of diuerse sermons preached in S. Gregories London / by Thomas Adams ...
London: printed by G.P. for John Grismand, 1619London: printed by G.P. for Iohn Grismand, 1619
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. Their nature; they are not qualities and motions, but spiritual substances, really subsisting. This their actions testify, running on Gods commands; executing his hests, &c. They are not flesh and bone, yet sometimes have taken visible forms. Abraham entertaining three Angels, set meat before them, oand they did eat. Theodoret says, they did take the meat simulatis manibus, and did put it into simulatum os: they seemed to eat, not in truth. But they had palpable and tractable bodies for the time, as appears plainly, verse. 4. by washing their feet. Thomas, thinks they assumed a true body, but non fuit vera comestura, it was not a true eating. But this is an idle opinion, for there may be a true eating, though the meat be not converted into the substance of the body. So our Saviour did eat after his rising from death, yet no man thinks his meat was turned into his substance. It is safe to say with the Text, they did eat, and perform other offices of a body truly. Now this was by divine dispensation for a time, the better to accomplish their enjoined ⟨p. 37⟩duties. Yet were these bodies no part of their natures, but only as garments are to us. But whence had they these bodies? They were either immediately created of God, or conflate of some presubsistent matter. What 2became of these induments deposed? Either as they were made of nothing, so resolved into nothing: or else turned into the first matter whereof they were composed: and so was also the meat they did eat. Thus they have been called men: pThree men came to Abraham: The women that came to Christs Sepulchre, found qtwo men standing by them in shining garments. This is their nature, which in it self, saith Isidore, is mutable: for some of them rfell from that blessed estate, and left their own habitation. But now for the rest, Seruavit eos incorruptos charitas aeterna: the eternal love of God hath made them unchangeable. For Christ