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	will_n	1,601	5	6.4879	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A13083	True happines, or, King Dauids choice begunne in sermons, and now digested into a treatise. By Mr. William Struther, preacher at Edinburgh.	Struther, William, 1578-1633.	1633 (1633)	STC 23371; ESTC S113854	111,103	162

he will not daigne to be possessed with another chief good for he loveth God lesse who loveth any thing beside him which he loveth not for him A question here ariseth Whether there be a chief Ill as there is a chief good And some have made two eternall principles one good and one ill as the Manicheans They taught also that everie man had two souls one from the authour of good and the other from the authour of evill But I answer plainly that there is not a chief ill in that sense as there is a chief good A chief ill implies contradiction as we would say Being no-being highest-lowest perfection-annihilation For the chief good is a substance infinite in goodnesse and eternall in durance But ill is no substance but a fault in substance it hath no subsisting in it self but in another as a sicknesse that is thrust on an whole body Neither is ill infinite as goodnesse but only potentially as number because there are innumerable Ills or respectively in demerite because sin deserveth infinite punishment neither is it eternall but came after the creation for God looked on all his creatures and they were exceeding good but ill came afterward by the falling of angels and men The created eye was good but blindnesse came afterward The vice of the soul is not the nature of it but contrarie to nature wherefore no Nature nor substance nor essence are ill Men fell on that opinion of two chief principles upon three speciall grounds One that they looked not to the universall cause but to particular causes of particular effects The other because they considered apart particular contrarie actions of good and ill and reduced them not to a common cause Thirdly they were ignorant of the degrees of good and ill for when they saw in good there was good and better and so an ascending to best of all the chief good so seeing in ill there was ill and worse they thought there were degrees ascending to some chief ill But it is contrarie for the degrees of good ascend to a biding terme and the greatest degree is the best nature But the degrees of ill are descending go not to a biding terme but to annihilation the greater ill the lesse good or being and the greatest degree of ill is not highest but lowest so that if there could be a chief ill it would destroy it self Whatever maketh against it self destroyeth it self and what ever becometh lesse than it was is ill not in so farre as it is but in so farre as it becometh lesse and so tendeth to death Sinne hath a motion but it is a defective motion because it is a falling from God But good hath a perfective motion because it is an approaching to God But if we speak popularly four things come under the name of the chief ill A principle or root a fruit the punishment and a substance in whom these three do meet The root or principle of all ill is free-will in angels and men for when God had made all good and his work stood in perfect beautie Sathan brought in the first ill not of any provocation without nor corruption within but of his own free-will He would not be subject to God but would set himself in a sort of dominion In like manner he tempted man who without either necessitie in his lot or corruption in his soul upon the bait of equalitie with God of his own free-will would break the command The worst fruit is sin for Sathans sin was great because in a great angel and directly against God and his will keepeth the stamp of his first defection so that he cannot repent because he will not yea he will not so much as wish a will or power to repent and mans sins likewise are great because they flow from that same free-will which now is a slave to sin The worst punishment is damnation because the just reward of the worst fruit from the worst root and an eternall torment of soul and bodie And the worst natures in whom these do meet are evil angels and men and Sathan the worst of them all because his worst will hath greatest sin and shall finde greatest punishment In a word the worst ill in man is sin and the punishment That is a willing defection from the chief good and an unwilling labour among extreme evils Which otherwise we may call libertie from Justice and a flavery to sin Two uses rise of this question The first is a comfort that good is greater than ill for good is in God and God himself and ill is nothing but the losse of good and falling of creatures from him Therefore when our conscience checketh us for the greatnesse of our sin we should remember there is greater goodnes in God than ill in us And the sin against the holy Ghost is not called unpardonable as though Gods goodnesse could not pardon it but because the guiltie will not repent for the very nature of that sin standeth in a malitious oppugning and hating of God and his grace The second use is our warning concerning ill that albeit there be not a chief ill yet every ill is great There is some ill comparatively lesse than another as fornication is lesse than adulterie and an officious lye is lesse than a pernicious yet there is no ill properly little but the least ill is great enough to cut us off from the chief good For were a sin never so little in the sight of the world yet if we live and dye in it without repentance it shall prove a bar to hold us out of heaven and a weight to pull us down to hell SECTION II. Of the authour of happinesse From the Lord. YE have heard the first part of this doctrine concerning on● thing followeth the second concerning the authour of happinesse and this is the Lord Jehovah One thing have I sought of the Lord. This is clear both by the properties of a fountain and some instances The properties of the fountain of happines are three That it be happy it self that it impart happinesse to other without diminishing it self and that it preserve that happines it imparteth These three are proper to God alone for he is the fountain of the gardens and well of living waters With him is the fountain of life and in his light we see light And he is the father of lights from whom every good gift and donation cometh down Next though he impart happines to all yet his fulnesse is never diminished Though all the vessels of the world were set at the sea shore and filled the sea would not be known to be lesse If this be in the creature how much more in the Creatour And therefore the apostle crieth out O the deepnesse of the riches It is a deep richnesse that cannot be sounded and a rich deepnesse that can neither be lessened nor

whereas sometime they were content to call the will a power partly passive partly active now since they are Jesuited they will have it with Pelagius a meere active power as another principle beside God which properly is a pure act Herein they usurpe upon the grace of God even as the Pope did upon principalitie for as he void of civil power in himself begged some of it from Princes and in end overthrew them So they who craved at the beginning some power to free-will make it now an usurper against grace They are ingrate to grace giving it no thanks for its work and exalt their own nature as sufficient of it self without grace to salvation They take the glory of the work to themselves and are not content with the glory that God worketh They make him only a witnesse to their work and ingage him to recompense their pride with salvation which deserveth to be condemned This of old was justly called an aversion from God when he to whom God is happinesse will be his own happinesse as he is his own God But man is better when he forgetteth himself for the love of the unchangeable God or when he altogether contemneth himself in comparison of God But if he please himself to the perverse imitation of God while he will enjoy his own power then he is so much the lesse as he desires to be great For while the will turneth from the common good to the particular it is separate from it when it will be of its own power This is pride the beginning of all sin and the beginning of mans pride is to fall from God For malitious envie joyned to Sathans pride made him to intise and perswade man to that same pride whereby he found himself damned He would be equall with God and free from his dominion This is the mother of the Frank-arbitrians pride I touch this not for any delight in controversies but to shew that their question of free-will is of no lesse moment that Whether God in Christ or we be the causes of our happinesse or whether we are saved by the good will of God or our own free-will Therefore God in wisedome made Luther to clear these two joyntly Our happinesse in the grace of Christ and our miserie in our naturall will which justly according to scripture and pure antiquitie he called it slavish-will and affirmed that the proud exalting of nature by her patrons was the cutting of the throat of grace If in a childish pride we will not be freely saved justly we are not saved at all The dissembling of our miserie is the excluding of Gods mercy Another errour about the fountain of happinesse is in the multitude They seek it by ghesse Who will let us see good All is here uncertain an unknown happines wished with a wandring desire from an unknown authour If Sathan came in their way who offered all the kingdomes of the earth to Christ they would soon agree with him And some go so far on as to covenant with him expresly for to satisfie their wicked desires of riches honour revenge pleasure c. They are the shame of men and Sathans mocking-stocks who first inflaming them with excessive desire blindeth them both with imaginary satisfaction and the price of it they value a shadow at no lesse price than the losse of soul and body eternally There be also many who seek happinesse of him though not in so expresse a bargain they care not to loose their credit honestie and conscience to come to their desire and to oppresse or deceive their neighbour to make themselves great They bargain with Satan as well as the other and there is no difference between them but that the first expresly covenanteth with him and the second serveth him without a covenant Both seek happines by the meanes of sin shall have the same punishment in hell except they repent Others again as the Mathematicians make the fountain of their happinesse neither God nor their own will but a fatall necessitie which they fetch from the stars They deny providence they are deceived and deceive others and speak many lies against God They say Not unlike to our Libertines who lay all their sins on God that mans own will committeth not murther but Mars and that mans will committeth not adulterie but Venus This is to turn men Atheists towards God and brutish towards themselves that they shall neither thank God for blessings nor blame themselves for sin and so to turn themselves from God and themselves and from religion the bond betwixt both Followeth our dutie to hold God for the only fountain of our happinesse We got it first of him in creation and cannot finde it of another though we lost it in our fall yet it ever abideth in him and is recoverable when we return We have right to it by our election it is offered to us in the promise and conferred upon us in our conversion and shall be perfected in glory Let us therefore return lest we be overturned In our creation our soul was set towards God alone and by our fall we turn back on him it is now only the right set of our soul to look to him again for happinesse This should not be by occasion only but we should adhere to him continually and dwell at this fountain Peter said Whither shall we go Thou hast the words of eternall life and it was Maries praise that as she choosed this one necessary thing so she set her self down at the feet of Christ where she might finde it The happie man is as the tree that groweth by the rivers of waters When frost hath bound up the face of the flouds birds and beasts do haunt living springs so should all that care for true happinesse dwell continually at this fountain of living waters God is not a sealed up fountain reserving his goodnesse to himself but runneth over continually He was ever happinesse it self and yet by creation would bo●h reveal and communicate that happinesse to us And though we lost it yet still he runneth over more abundantly to us in Christ and a part of this over-running is his grace making us to seek happines We have a confused notion of it by nature but he cleareth it by his word and spirit and it is the work of his speciall grace that maketh us both seek and finde it in him alone The instruction wherewith he dealeth with us to seek God floweth from the fountain it self But this is an unspeakable goodnes that rather than we receive not grace he will send his own Son in our nature and turn that our nature which he assumed to a personall union with the word in a conduit to convey grace unto us The humane nature of Christ is as a chanell between this fountain and the faithfull for the influence of grace It is sayd to the Godhead by a personall union to the