Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A17307
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The seuen vials or a briefe and plaine exposition vpon the 15: and 16: chapters of the Revelation very pertinent and profitable for the Church of God in these last times. By H.B. rector of Saint Matthews Friday-street.
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Burton, Henry, 1578-1648.
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1628
(1628)
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STC 4155; ESTC S107076
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109,578
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162
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or of the creature then the cause of the creatures goodnes is not from Gods will in order of nature and causes but from the creature or I wot not what externall cause out of God And if Gods eternall will be not the prime and absolute cause of all goodnesse in the Creature certainly his eâ—ernall Prescience much lesse And so God who is Causâ— Câ—â—sarum is stript of this honour and prerogatiue and so robd of the glory of all that goodnesse which is in the Creature Thus our Author and those of his minde to auoyd a supposed and misiudged inconuenience fall into a mischiefe yea into most impious blasphemy placing and preferring the Creature before and aboue the Creator and so making the Creature God as hauing a selfe-being least by granting Gods infinitely free wise just good and absolute independent will according to the counsell whereof hee worketh all things saith the Apostle to bee the prime and originall cause of all things in the world as his reuealed will is the rule of all things they should seeme to admit that Gods will were also the cause of Sinne therefore they choose rather to make the Act of Gods will the effect then the cause of the creatures goodnesse sith this they allow to be the obiect preceding Gods will in order of nature and not the consequent effect of it But it is a fundamentall Principle vndeniable Deus ordine naturae nihil praevidit creatum antequam voluit creandum God in order of nature foresaw nothing created before hee first willed it to bee created In the Creation God first gaue vnto the Creature its Beeing and then hee saw that it was good He did not first see them to be good and after gaue them their Beeing But as Reuel 4.11 For his wils sake they are and were created So that Gods will in order of Nature and of causes is before the Creatures beeing or goodnesse his will first makes them the subiect of goodnesse before they become the obiect of his Prescience For nothing can be foreseene before it first bee conceiued to haue a beeing and a beeing of it selfe it cannot haue but from the Will of the Creator the prime efficient cause thereof It is pittie that such as should be good Diuines and would bee esteemed great Scholasticks doe not bend their studies rather to finde out vpon what strong foundation of diuine reason the ancient catholicke and generally receiued Doctrines of God are built then to seeke after I wot not what sublimated speculations and so boldly without the guidance of Scripture as the cleerest Perspectiue aspire to pry into the diuine essence so farre as to make a man more blind It faring with such as with a man who with open eyes daring and outstaring the bright shining Sunne is so blinded that he hath lost the faculty of discerning the difference of obiects and colours of things below Why doe they not rather consider of the sundry distinct Acts of Gods one and the same will As eyther the generall Act of his will dispositiue by which he disposeth and ordereth all creatures in their motions or actions good or bad to hiâ— owne glory This dispositiue Act some call the diuine Prouidence which extendeth it selfe to the least creature as the Sparrow to the least haire of our head for in him saith the Apostle we liue and moue and haue our Being or else other Acts of his will being eyther a lesser or larger latitude as the Act of his will operatiue and productiue as the principall efficient cause of the goodnesse or good actions in the Creature this will of God giuing an habituall being of goodnesse to Adam in his Creation onely leauing him to the exercise thereof according to mans owne power and will whereof he had sufficient but Adam being fallen the gracious will of God not onely rayseth him vp and puts him in a better state then before by working grace and faith in his heart but still goeth on with him working in him preworking to him and coworking with him to bring his worke of grace to perfection In the third place there is an Act of Gods will permissiue and this is properly restrained to all euill morrall actions Aquinas hath an excellent saying Deus neque vult mala fieri neque vult mala non fieri sed vult permittere mala fierâ— hoc est bonuÌ„ God neither willeth euill to be done 〈◊〉 willeth euil not to be done but willeth to permit euill to be done And this is good For saith he though euill to be done euill not to be done be contradictoriously opposite yet to will euill to be done to will euill not to be done are not contradictoriously opposed sith both is affirmatiue But the Author hath quite forgot to bee a practicke president of that to others whereof like a great Master he would prescribe the only rule and way of the attaining to the true knowledge of God For he would haue them to fetch the knowledge of God from the fountaines and not from the trenches I would himselfe had done thus and not rather raked his doctrines out of some puddle eyther of Philosophie or Schoole-diuinitie to which he would reduce and refine Saint Augustine and Saint Gregorie But pardon my digression I proceed The author vpon his former premisses in placing the goodnesse of the Creature in order of nature before Gods absolute will and consequently making the creatures goodnesse onely the preceding obiect and not the consequent effect of Gods will as the supreame and prime cause of all goodnesse in the creature flowing from thence as the streame from the fountaine inferreth many insolent conclusions I will name but some of them and but name them onely with a touch and away For example That God hath an infinite loue to all mankind without difference without exception And surely wonderfull is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or loue of mankind in God But by your leaue there is great difference betweene mankind before the fall and after Before the fall God loued man as a good creature such as he had made him but after the fall man hauing defaced Gods image and receiued the stamp of Satans image is now become of himselfe and of his owne making or marring rather a corrupt creature hatefull to God Againe is there not great difference betweene Gods loue to man considered in the first Adam in the state of innocencie and betweene Gods loue to man after the fall as considered in Christ the second Adam yet our Author puts none at all Againe he bringeth the doctrine of the Church of England as he interpreteth and that in three Collectâ— to proue the infinite loue of God to mankind in that God will haue all men indifferently and without exception to be saued Surely the Author seemes to be very hard driuen and brought to a low ebbe that is faine to fetch his water out of a poore Collect or two What
so bold as to vent any more books in print tending to Popery and Arminianisme and much lesse that any publicke examiners of Books durst haue approved priviledged such bookes for the Presse yet see the mischiefe of it by this meanes all bookes that are written in defence of the truth either against Arminians or the Papists can find no favour to passe the Presse but such bookes as can cunningly and slyly vnder the vaile of the Church of England reconcile Popery and Arminianisme together may only passe for currant cum privilegio Then which what can be more dishonorable to his gracious Maiestyes proclamation what more derogatory to the Gospell what more pernicious to trouble the peace of the Church state let all indifferent men iudge A few shall suffice for instance onely I omitt for the present to mention the names of the bookes or authours if happily they may check themselues and retract their errours or call in their bookes by the same authority whereby they were published least persisting in them they proue heresyes and that not of the lowest kinde and so come to fill vp the measure of this Viall In a booke printed of late there are some things much favoring Popery and tending to the nuzzling at least of silly ignorant Papists in their blind Idolatrous and faithlesse religion if not also to animate simple minded Protestants to become simple silly Papists and so to loose that garment of salvation which the only religion and â—aith of Christ truely professed and maintained only by the true Protestants can invest vs with For the purpose there are these words We our adversaries consent that there is salvation to some in the Romaine Church And who are those some It is expressed wee acknowledge an honest ignorant Papist may be saved And againe we haue not so learned Christ as to deny salvation to some ignorant silly soules whose humble peaceable obedience maks them safe among any part of men that professe the foundation Christ. Suffice it to name this here as confuted in the second Vial Not many yeares after that book and fewer afore this present comes out another booke whose chiefe autors or fautors let time try out which comming in hood-winkt vnder a kind of some monastick vaile of canonicall Devotion framed also after an old worm eaten forme published in the dawning of the Gospell in England would prettily vnderhand draw in Popery again among vs tanquam postliminio restore it to some place grace againe in this state at leastwise reconcile the two jarring sisters as the former author calls them the Church of England the Younger and that of Rome the Elder together yea to reduce the Church of England to an vnion with that of Rome as being the holy Catholicke Mother Church But this booke we haue elsewhere answered Take one instance more But the other day comes forth a third booke the Author of it I dare say of no small correspondence with the former He on the other side pleads for Arminius and that not now obvoluto capite as the former but aperta fronte ex professâ— In his Epistle Dedicatory wherein he seekes to indere his service to a great Macanas of one of our famous Academies God grant he aime not at some of the learned Chaires wherein to vent his not popular nor Pulpâ—t speculations he giues a dangerous by-blow to the opposites of Arminius and his doctrines in these words If the man which most mislikes the Arminian or Lutheran doctrine in the points most controverted through reformed Churches will but agree with me in these two That the Almighty Creatour hath a true freedome in doing good and Adams offspring a a true freedome of doing evill I shall not dissent from him in any other points controuerted vnlesse it be in this one that there needs be no other controversie at all betweene the Arminians and their opposites in point of Gods Providence and Predestination In so saying he would seeme to imply that the opposites of Arminius in the point specially of Predestination doe hold a kind of stoicall fatality and servitude in Adams offspring necessitated by divine Decree vnto all their evill actions Which insinuation how true it is let all men that haue read the workes of the Oppugners of Arminius indifferently judge whether this be not a most notorious calumny As if the Divine Decree did impose necessity vpon mens wills to prosecute evill actions because it leaveth them to their wicked wills which of their owne nature corrupted are now free only vnto evill Indeed God in justice leaving man fallen to himselfe leaveth him to the swindge of his corruptions which of themselues necessarily and yet freely runne to all excesse of riot being altogether averse and adverse to that which is simply good As the Scripture saith God saw euery imaginâ—tion of the thoughts of mans heart to be only euill continually Gen. But touch we a little vpon some passages of the booâ— The Author in the former part having soared aloft as he would seeme as they say Simon Magus did at Rome and that having his wings imped with the feathers of Philosophy to search into the nature of the Divine Essence whereabout he hath spent much in transcendentall to vse his owne terme speculations and quintessentiall extractions farre beyond all Divines that went before him eiher moderne or ancient yea beyond Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory whom he mentioneth to haue come short of that knowledge of God which himselfe hath reached vnto he cometh in the latter part to make vse and application of the former whence he would draw sundry coÌ„clusion for the maintenance of the Arminian doctrine which that he may doe you must giue him leaue to show his singular opinions different from all ancient Divines and allow him a latitude to speake ad placitum what him listeth tanquam e Cathedra from Pythagoras his Chaire But the summe is though he promiseth much and professeth to know and teach more of the Divine nature then ever yet the world knew yet in the vp shott of all his discourse he mightely confineth and limitteth Gods infinite Attributes yea and his most liberall will it selfe to a very narrow roome causing all of them to hang and turne vpon the only hinge of his prescience As he saith There is a goodnes obiectiue in the creature precedent in order of nature to the Act or exâ—pcise of Gods will And vnlesse a thing had bin good God had not willed it And When it is sayd things are good because God wills them this illatiue inferres only the cause of our knowledge not of the goodnesse which we know Thus by these and suchlik transcendentall speculations whatsoever good is in the creature must primarily proceed from some selfe-selfe-cause or without God and not from any cause primary absolute and independent in God For if the act of Gods willing of good be prevented at least in order of nature by the obiectiue goodnesse in