Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	action_n	good_a	sin_n	1,408	5	4.8951	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51573	A sermon preached at St. Pauls by Henry Maisterson ...	Maisterson, Henry, d. 1671.	1641 (1641)	Wing M304; ESTC R10882	18,210	30

onely secundùm quid but simpliciter and absolutè mala and falleth short of that evangelicall goodnesse which is spoken of in my text And because knowledge of the commandment and things to be practiced doth necessarily presuppose knowledge of the creed and of things to be believed it being impossible he should not erre in principles of action who is ignorant of the fundamentall points of faith for example he that thinketh there is no God or no Christ or that they regard not mens actions to reward the good and punish the bad or that is ignorant of any of these three propositions he can never lay down this for a practicall conclusion That God is to be served or Christ to be obeyed For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11.6 hence it cometh to passe that a knowledge assent to the fundamentall points of faith at least generall and confused is necessarily required to integrity of conscience as being the foundation of that practicall knowledge which ought to be the rule of our actions Secondly As the second act of conscience in generall was to take notice of a mans actions so it is required in the second place to the nature of an upright conscience that out of a godly solicitude and fear to offend God it observe a mans carriage and take notice of his actions that it consider before his actions what he is about to do that it remember and bear witnesse afterward what he hath done that so they may be applyed to their rule And this is actio intellectûs imperaeta à voluntate And therefore those men that out of a naturall strength of memory or because of some extraordinary impression that some notorious sinnes have made in them remember their evil actions against their will whereas they would forget them that so they might be secure or those that out of carnall security take no notice of their actions but do things rashly hand over head afterward carelessely forget what they have done have not integrity of conscience I speak not here of that forgetfulnesse which proceedeth from a defect in memory but either from a custome of sinne as those that have got such a habit of swearing that they know not when they swear or from grosse security and want of fear of the Lord. Thirdly That it apply a mans actions to the right rule impartially And this likewise is actio intellectûs imperata à voluntate and proceedeth from that godly solicitude which I spake of before And therefore those men that apply not their actions at all to the law of God or if they do do it partially grossely favouring themselves in their sinnes as being loth to find them out or to part with them have not integritie of conscience Nay these are far from having it For Nemo periculosiùs peccat quàm qui peccata defendit None sinne more desperately then those that find out colours and excuses to cover and extenuate their sinne And this impartiall application must be before and after our actions before that sinne may be avoyded after that if we have sinned we may repent Of the former we have a notable example in Joseph who when his Mistresse tempted him to that wicked act consented not immediately unto her but out of a godly solicitude and fear to offend God applyeth the action to the law of God and upon impartiall application finding it to be unlawfull returneth her this answer How shall I do this great wickednesse and sinne against God Of the latter we have an example in the Prophet David Psalm 119.59 I thought on my wayes and turned my feet to thy testimonies And the want of this impartiall application as it is the cause of mens lying in sinne without repentance so it is the cause of their first fall into sinne Hoc nos pessimos facit quòd nemo vitam suam respicit saith Seneca For upon impartiall application necessarily followeth the fourth act of an upright conscience which is the conclusion of the former premisses to wit a true and sincere judgement of the action according to the commandment at least so farre as conscience shall be inlightned and inabled to judge or a determination that those particular actions are good which are indeed such and that those are evil which are in their nature evil And this likewise is either before or after our actions If this practicall judgement of an upright conscience be before our actions then the effect of it is cohibere à malo instigare ad bonum to spurre us on to the practice of good and to restrain us effectually from evil which efficacious power the understanding hath upon the will and affections and consequently upon the whole man virtute prioris actûs voluntatis by virtue of a former complete and peremptory resolution of the will whereby we are resolved to choose that which is good and refuse that which is evil where ever we meet with it which is that very desire in all things to live honestly which the Apostle speaketh of in my text For that desire which is the foundation of the Apostles trust is not a bare velleity but a completa voluntas which when he came to particulars put him upon action And therefore those men whose consciences put them not upon the practice of good nor restrain them effectually from evil but suffer them to live in the wilfull omission of good or commission of evil have not integritie of conscience If the action be past and bad for quality then the judgement of an upright conscience is to accuse and condemne that is to judge the sinne worthy damnation And the effect of this is grief and sorrow not onely for the punishment we have made our selves obnoxious to but for the sin it self And therefore seared consciences which never smite men for their sins and secure consciences which do it but sometimes and for grosser sinnes and on the other side wicked tormenting consciences which cause grief onely for the punishment and not for the offence such as was Cain's My sinne is greater then I can bear these kinds of consciences are not upright But if the action past be good for matter and manner then the act of conscience should be to excuse and absolve that is to pronounce it such as God is well pleased with and doth accept to salvation in Christ And the effect of this is joy and comfort such as none can expresse and such as a carnall man cannot conceive But because no action is accepted with this kind of acceptation unlesse it proceed from justifying faith For without faith it is impossible to please God to salvation Heb. 11.6 and consequently from an upright conscience which is a necessary attendant of faith For faith purifieth the heart hence it cometh to passe that a man cannot know that any act he doth is such unlesse he know his conscience to be upright

the creatour of all things having no superiour to impose a law upon him and consequently none that hath either right or power to inflict any punishment cannot be said properly to have a conscience yet we may conceive some analogy betwixt some acts of his understanding and the excusing acts of conscience properly so called For there being in him an eternall law or rule which he hath purposed from eternity in all his works of creation to observe his understanding may reflect upon the works of his hands compare them with this rule and judge them conformable thereunto Thus God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was exceeding good Gen. 1. that is very artificiall agreeable to that idea which God the most skilfull workman before the beginning had set down for himself to do all things by Nor onely doth the understanding of God reflecting upon his actions judge of that artificiall bonity which is in them but also of the morall For there being certain generall practicall notions of good and evil naturally seated in the understanding of God according to which his will the fountain of action is moved for his will is not properly to speak the rule of it self but is guided by counsel his understanding may reflect upon the morall acts of his will compare them with their rule and accordingly judge them just and good pronouncing an approving sentence upon them which hath much analogy and agreement with the excusing act of conscience properly so called Thirdly In all reasonable creatures because it is impossible that any reasonable creature should be without conscience it being a part of the understanding and if any seem to have lost it they have onely lost the use thereof as a mad man or a drunken man hath lost the use of reason and that but for a time For God will one day awake those consciences that were here asleep give mouths to those that here were dumbe so that they shall speak and never cease to speak judgement horrour confusion death For the condemning sentence of such a conscience doth but remain like letters written with the juice of Oranges to be made legible by the fire of Gods wrath Fourthly Applying their actions to some rule Here we have the proper act of conscience together with the object of it Where first we are to understand morall actions not such as are merely naturall For these latter cannot be comprehended in the object of conscience none being ever so mad as to think there was either virtue or vice in them they being the actions not of us but of nature in us and consequently conscience cannot to speak properly either excuse or accuse us for them Indeed it may tell us we have not done ill in them because they are neither good nor bad but this is not properly to excuse for to excuse properly is to judge that a man hath done well and virtuously either in a voluntary choosing of some good which he had power to have refused or in a voluntary refusing some evil which he might have chosen Secondly we are to take action not strictly for externall morall action onely but largely as it comprehendeth both words and thoughts For though mans law extend no further then the outward man Hominum leges non nisi externam honestatem requirunt nec penetrant usque ad internum cor animum ratio est quia neque corda vident legislatores nec ipsorum providentia extenditur ultra civilitatem externam yet Gods Law which is the rule of conscience is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart Heb. 4.12 And therefore the Psalmist calleth it a perfect law converting the soul Psal 19. Thirdly all omission of morall action is hither to be referred whether it be directè or indirectè volita whether it be a velle non agere or a non velle agere when we may and ought For conscience beareth witnesse of our omission as well as of our commission of our not doing as well as of our doing Fourthly their actions for the object of conscience is our own actions For conscience is a power that the soul hath to reflect upon it self and to judge it self And therefore not others actions but onely so farre as they are made ours either by imputation grounded upon nature as the sinne of Adam or else because we are some way a cause of the sinnes of others either positively by furthering them or privatively by not hindring them when we should and might And in this sense that saying of St Gregory is true Qui non corrigit resecanda committit so likewise in the same sense another prayeth Lord forgive me my other mens sinnes But otherwise the sinnes of others which we are no wayes guiltie of though they may be objects of our science and must be objects of our grief too if we see and know them yet they need not at all to trouble our conscience Fifthly Which it conceiveth to be the law of God These words I adde for a twofold reason 1. Because it is not necessarily required to the generall nature and working of conscience that the thing we make conscience of should be truly commanded it is sufficient if conscience apprehend it to be so Thus some out of an erroneous principle make conscience of worshiping reliques of adoring images of praying to Saints others again oppose those laudable ceremonies which tend to order decency and edification in the Church though God never required these things at their hands because they conceive themselves bound thereunto by a true and reall command 2. Because it is not necessary that are party commanding or giving the law should be truly and indeed God it is sufficient to the generall working of conscience that conscience conceive him so And therefore the Heathen made conscience of those commands which the Devil gave them in the Oracles because they thought that God spake by them and in them Virgil giveth us two examples of this in one place of his second book of his Aeneid Suspensi Eurypylum scitatum oracula Phoebi Mittimus ísque adytis haec tristia dicta reportat Sanguine placastis ventos virgine caesâ Cùm primùm Iliacas Danai venistis ad oras Sanguine quaerendi reditus animâque litandum Argolica vulgi quae vox ut venit ad aures Obstupuere animi gelidúsque per imacucurrit Ossa tremor cui fata parent quem poscat Apollo But it is necessary that conscience conceive both the command to be reall and the party commanding to be truly God else it cannot bind us to obey the command or to fear the commander For God onely who is creatour of conscience hath this priviledge to bind conscience And none can give this subjection to any but to such a one as he apprehendeth to be more then a creature And therefore the Heathen were wont to call those that were sent to inquire of their oracles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉