Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	act_n	sin_n	will_n	1,889	5	6.7849	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27047	Three treatises tending to awaken secure sinners by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. True Christianity.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Absolute dominion of God-redeemer.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Absolute soveraignty of Christ.	1656 (1656)	Wing B1420; Wing B1409L; Wing B1437; ESTC R11838	152,069	348

Actually unwilling If a man have so accustomed himself to murder drunkeness stealing or the like wickedness so far that he cannot leave it will you therefore forgive him or will any Judge or Jury hold him excused Or rather think him the more unfit for mercy 5. Note also that the want of a supernatural Habit no nor the presence of the contrary Habit do not Efficiently determine the will to particular acts much less take away its natural Fre●●om 6. And that till Habits attain an utter predominancy at least there is a Power remaining in the will to resist them and use means against them Though Eventually the perverse Inclination may hinder the use of it The three and twentieth Excuse I have heard from learned men that God doth determine all Actions Natural and Free as the first Efficient Physical immediate Cause or else nothing could Act. And then it was not long of me that I chose forbidden Objects but of him that irresistly moved me therto and whose Instrument I was Answ This is a trick of that wisdom which is foolishness with God and to be deceived by vain Philosophy 1. The very principle it self is most likely to be false and those that tell you this to err Much more I think may be said against it then for it 2. I am sure it is either false or reconcileable with Gods Holiness and mans liberty and culpability so that its a mad thing to deceive yeur selves with such Philosophical uncertain●ies when the Truth which you oppose by it is infallibly certain That God is not the Author of sin but man himself who is justly condemned for it is undoubtedly true and would you obscure so clear a Truth by searching into points beyond homane reach if not unsound as you conclude them The four and twentieth Excuse But at least those learned Divines among us that doubt of this do yet say that the will is necessarily and infallbly Determined by the Practical Understanding and that is as much unresistibly necessitated by Objects and therefore whatever act was done by my understanding or will was thus necessitated and I could not help it The● say Liberty is but the Acting of the faculty aggreeably to its nature And it was God as Creator that gave Adam his faculties and God by providential dtspose that presented all Objects to him by Which hi understanding and so his Will were unvoidable necessitated Answ This is of the same nature with the former uncertain if no● certainly false Were this true for ought we can see it would lay all the sin and misery of this world on God as the unresistible necessitating Cause which because we know infallibly to be false we have no reason to take such principles to be true which infer it The understanding doth not by a necessary efficiency Determine the will but morally or rather is regularly a Condition or necessary Antecedent without which it may not Determine itself Yea the Will by commanding the sense and phantasie doth much to determine the Understanding As the eye is not necessary to my going but to my going right so is not the Understandings Guidance necessary to my willing there the simple Apprehension may suffice but to my Right willing There are other wayes of Determining the Will Or if the Understanding did Determine the Will Efficiently and Necessarily it is not every act of the Understanding that must do it If it be so when it sai●h This must be done and saith it importunately yet not when it only saith This may be done or you may venture on it which is the common part which it hath in sin I am not pleased that these curious Objections fall in the way nor do I delight to put them into vulgar heads but finding many young Schollars and others that have converted with them assaulted with these Temptations I thought meet to give a touch and but a touch to take them out of their way As Mr. Fenner hath done more fully in the Preface to his Hidden Manna on this last point to which I refer you I only add this The will of man in its very Dominion doth bear Gods Image It is a self Determining Power though it byassed by Habits and needs a Guide As the Heart Vital Spirits by which it acteth are to the rest of the Body so is It to the soul The Light of Nature hath taught all the world to carry the Guilt of every crime to the will of man and there to leave it Upon this all Laws and Judgements are grounded From Ignorance and Intellectual weakness men commonly fetch Excuses for their faults but from the Will they are Aggravated If we think it strange that mans will should be the first cause so much as of a sinful mode and answer all occuring Objections it may suffice that we are certain the Holy Majesty is not the Author of sin and he is able to make all this as plain as the Sun and easily answer all these vain Excuses though we should be unable And if we be much ignorant of the frame and motions of our own souls and especially of that high self determining principle Free-Will the great spring of our actions and the curious Engine by which God doth Sapientially Govern the world it is no wonder Considering that the soul can know it self but by Reflection and God gave us a soul to use rather then to know itself and to know its qualities and operations rather then its Essence The five and twentieth Excuse No man can be saved nor avoid any sin nor believe in Christ but those whom God hath predestinated thereto I was under an irreversible Sentence before I was born and therefore I do nothing but what I was predestinated to do and if God decreed not to save me how could I help it Answ 1. Gods Judgements are more plain but his Decrees or secret purposes are mysterious And to darken certainties by having recourse to points obscure is no part of Christian Wisdom God told you your Duty in his word and on what terms vou must be Judged to Life or Death Hither should you have recourse for Direction and not to the unsearchable mysteries of his mind 2. God decreeth not to Condemn any but for sin Sin I say as the Cause of that Condemnation though not of his Decree 3. Gods Decrees are acts Immanent in himself and make no change on you and therefore do not necessitate you to sin any more then his fore-knowledge doth For both cause only a necessity of Confequence which is Logical as the Divines on both sides do Consess And therefore this no more caused you to sin then if there had been no such Decree And it s a doubt whether that Decree be not negative A willing suspending of the Divine will as to evil or at most A purpose to permit it The six and twentieth Excuse If it be no more yet doth it make my perdition unavoidable For even Gods foreknowledge doth so

he not stand by you when you were in your cups and lustfull Pleasure Did he not tell you of the danger and offer you far better things if you would obey him and despise those baits But you would hearken to none of this You should have remembred that he stood over you and was looking on you and you should have said as Joseph Gen. 39. 9. How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God You had also Scripture neer you and Reason neer you and Conscience neer you as well as the bait was neer you And therefore this is a vain Excuse The twentieth Excuse It was God that let loose the Devil to tempt me and he was to subtile for me to deal with and therefore what wonder if I sinned and were overcome Answ 1. He did not let loose the Devil to constrain you to sin He could but entice and you might choo●e whether you would yeild The Devil could nether make you sin against your will nor yet Necessitate you to be willing 2. You were a sure friend to Christ that while that would forsake him as oft as you were tempted by the Devil Is that a friend or a servant worthy to be regarded that will disobey you or betray you as oft as he is tempted to it 2. Will you excuse your servant if he leave your work undone and follow cards or dice or the Ale-house and say I was tempted to it by one that was cuninger then I shall every Murderer or Theif escape hanging because the Devil was too cunning for him in his Temptations would you have the Jury or the Judge to take this for a good excuse 4. And why did you not hearken to God that enticed you the other way You forget what helps he afforded you to discover the wiles of Satan and to vanquish the Temptation He told you it was an enemy that tempted you and would you hearken to an enemy He told you it was a dream a shadow a painted pleasure a guilded carkass a lying promise and deceitful vanity by which you were tempted And yet would you regard it before your God He told you that it was your God your Saviour your hopes your everlasting happiness that the Tempter would beguile you of And yet would you be beguiled He told you and plainly and often told you that the Tempter would lead you to eternal fire and undo you everlastingly before you were aware and that a fatal hook was covered with that bait And yet would you swallow it 5. It is plain by all this that it was not your natural weakness of faculties that caused you to be overcome by the subtilties of the Devil as a silly child is deceived by the crafty fellow that overwits him But it was your carelesness inconsiderateness your sensual inclinations aud vicious disposition that drew you to a wilful obeying of the tempter and rejecting the wholsom advice of Christ This therefore is a frivolous Excuse of your sin The one and twentieth Excuse But I hope you will not say that all men have Free Will● And if my will were not free how could I choose but sin Answ Your will was not free from Gods Rule and Government nor was it free from its natural inclination to Good in general for either of these were more properly slavery 3. Nor was it free from the Influence of a dark understanding 4. Nor free from its own contradicted vitious Inclination 5. Nor freed from the Temptations of the flesh the world and the Devil But it was 1. Free from any natural Determination to evil or to any thing that was doubtful 2. And free from the Coaction or Violence of any 3. And free from an irresistible Determination of any exterior cause at least ordinarily So that naturally as men you have the power or faculty of determining your own wils and by your wils of Ruling your inferiour Faculties in a great measure yea of Ruling the senses and the Phantasie it self which doth so much to dispose of our Understanding And if your wils which are naturally free are yet so habitually vitious that they encline you to do evil that is not an excuse but an Aggravation of your sin But of this more under the next The two and twentieth Excuse But I have not Power of myself to do any thing that is good What can the creature do without Christ we can do nothing It is God that must give me Ability or I can have none and if he had given it me I had not been an Vnbeliever or Impenitent I can no more Believe of myself than I can ful●ill the Law of my self Answ 1. These are the vain Cavils of learned folly which God wil easily answer in a word The word Power is taken in several senses Sometime and most commonly and fitly for a faculty or a strength by which a man Can do his duty if he Will. This Physickal Power you have and the worst of sinners have while they are men on earth Were they Actually willing they might acceptably perform sincere obedience And were they Dispositively willing they might Actually Believe and will And thus the ungodly have Power to Believe Sometime the word Power is taken for Authority or Leave for legal or civil Power And thus you have all not only Power or Liberty to Believe but also a Command which makes it your Duty and a Threatning adjoyned which will condemn you if you do not Sometime the word Power is taken Ethically and less properly for a disposition Inclination Habit or Freedom from the contrary habit or disposition And in this sense its true that none but the effectually called have a Power to Believe But then observe 1. That this is but a moral less proper and not a Physical proper Impotency And therefore Austin chuseth rather ●o say that all men have power to believe but all have not a Will or Faith it self because we use to difference Power from willingness and willingness actuateth the Power which we had before And therefore our Divines choose rather to call Grace a Habit when they speak exactly then a Power and Dr. Twiss derides the Arminians for talking of a Power subjected in a Power 2. Note that this Impotency is but the same thing with you unwillingness and wilful blindness in another word 3. Note that this Impotency is long of your selves as to the Original and much more as to the not-curing and removing of it Hath God given you no means towards the cure of this disability which you have neglected 4. Note that this Impotency is nnjust excuse but an Aggravation of your sin If you were willing to be the servant of Christ and yet were not Able either because he would not accept you or because of a want of natural faculties or because of some other naural difficulty which the willingest mind could not overcome this were some Excuse But to be Habitually wilful in refusing Grace is worse then to be meerly