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	necessary_a	voluntary_a	1,479	5	10.9108	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87658	The pretended antidoe [sic] proved poyson: or, The true principles of the Christian & Protestant religion defended, and the four counterfit defenders thereof detected and discovered the names of which are James Allen, Joshua Moodey, Samuell Willard and Cotton Mather, who call themselves ministers of the Gospel in Boston, in their pretended answer to my book, called, The Presbyterian & independent visible churches in New-England, and else-where, brought to the test, &c. And G.K. cleared not to be guilty of any calumnies against these called teachers of New-England, &c. By George Keith. With an appendix by John Delavall, by way of animadversion on some passages in a discourse of Cotton Mathers before the General Court of Massachusetts, the 28th of the third moneth, 1690.	Keith, George, 1639?-1716.; Delavall, John, d. 1693.	1690 (1690)	Wing K192A; ESTC W42984	110,748	234

he did fore-know them before they were brought forth as they lay hid in their seeds and causes which yet con'd not be without his Permission and the k●owledge of God is one of t●ings past present and to come without any variation in h●m however the reatures and their Operations va●y and as all Effects he hid in their Cau●es whether necessary and natural or free and voluntary before they come to pass so God doth know them all most perfectly for they are but hid as unto us and not unto God who seeth into the most hidden things of all his Creatures Pag. 74. Ye say My assertion is extreamly ridiculous viz. That Election and Reprobation are not contradictory But ye only say it without proof They are not contradictory because both positive and a contradiction can never be betwixt two positives but one positive the other nega●i●e or privative and Election signifieth a preference or Gods choice of some above others and yet no absolute Reprobation of any and the fore-sight and purpose of God considers them as having sinned out the day of their Visitation and as such only they are Reprobates and not before and Reprobation is not the Decree of God as Creation is not Reprobation is the casting away the Wicked out from his Mercy and Favour and this is not but for their final Impenitency and Unbelief and therefore cannot be before it and this ye might easily understand did not Prejudice blind you Pag. 76. Ye say The very notion of a sufficient E●ficacy of means used without the effect wro●ght in them with whom they are used is an unintelligible Quakerism Answ Ye say it but prove it not as your manner is and the contrary is manifest and generally acknowledged by all rational men that a Cause may be sufficiently effectual to produce an Effect and yet the effect not produced not for any defect in the Cause but some one thing or other that is wanti●g in the Subject by way of condition as when good Seed is sown in two sorts of ground in o●e it b●ingeth forth fruit but not in the other and the seed is the same in kind equally good a●d the labour of the Hu●band-man is equally the same and th● heat and influence and Rain of Heaven is the same but yet the other ground is unfruitful Pag. 78. Ye say It concerns you not to dispute whether Esau himsel● was saved or not but if an eternal Election be typified in Jacob the Reprobation must be of the same kind Answ Election was typified in Jacob but it doth not follow that an absolute Reprobation was typified in Esau if Esau was saved as ye say it concerns you not to dispute it for if the Type was saved the thing typified could not be damned for that would destroy the Analogy betwixt the Type and the thing typified And surely many of your Brethren have been highly concerned to affirm That Esau was reprobated absol●tely before he was born witness Seaborn Cottons Sermons on Rom. 9. at Hampton which many yet living heard him preach and if this doth not concern you your strength is gone The things typified in Jacob and Esau are That Esau signifieth the Nature of Man simply as such but Jacob signifieth the divine Principle and Seed in man which is worthily exalted over the nature of Man and made Lord over it and Esau's blessing is That he is subject to this divine Seed and Principle and made one with it and this divine Seed is typified by Jacob the younger Brother because the said divine Seed is commonly brought forth in men after the nature of man hath acted its part but because of its weakness and imperfection the other is preferred as Lord over it and as John said He that comes a●ter me is preferred unto me for He was before me which as it was true with respect to Christ as he came in the flesh so with a respect to his inward spiritual coming in this divine Seed and birth Pag. 79. Ye say God hath no where revealed it that he hath accepted the Satisfaction of C●rist for all that dye in Infancy Answ As much for all that dye in Infancy as for some seeing the Scripture saith Christ dy●d for All and no Infants have made themselves guilty by actual Unbelief as many men come to Age have done Ye say again from Rom. 5.14 That the Sentence of Damnation hath b●en actually executed upon some Infants If ye mean the final Sentence of Damnation ye meerly begg it it could be no other Sentence at most but what passed on Adam but that was not final for the Promise came after it to him and all his Posterity And indeed that Rom. 5.14 is to be understood of Infants and especi●lly of one part of Infants and not another ye me●rly beg it without all proof Ye do very u●advisedly to ground your uncharitab●e judgment of eternal Damnation of many Infants on this place of Scripture that the sence of it is so hard to be reached that it is understood af●er several wayes some understanding it of men so and so considered others otherwise this may well be thought one of these places in Paul's writings that are hard to be understood as Peter d●clared which the ignorant and unlearned wrest to their own destruction and should I say I could declare unto you the true sense of it your Prejudice would not suffer you to believe it Ye are so presumptious to declare it to be a Slander that some of your Church-Covenant gloried that none o● their C●ildren w●ile In●ants were Reprobates as if ye were omniscient and knew all that any of your Church-Covenant say or do when they are not present with you if it were worth the while I could produce the Name of a person of your Church Covenant that s●id it in mine and others hearing and your Federal Holiness is little worth if any Infants within or under it perish and I cannot find that ye understand any thing by your federal Holiness but a meer Nothing cloathed with an outward Name or Denomination o●herwise if it have any being or reality in Infants how can they perish and go to Hell with it Pag. 81. Ye grosly wrong my words alledging That I call that Holiness mentioned 1 Cor. 7. a Capacity of Holiness Whereas my words are a more near capacity in Holiness in C●ildren of believing Parents than in the C●ildren o●Vnbelievers Whereby I imply that there are several degrees of this capacity some more near and some more remote even as the Land that is sown with good Seed that hath not taken root hath a nearer capacity to bring forth Corn than another field where no seed is sown and there may be another field that is yet in a nearer capacity to bring Corn being helped by greater advantages and conveniencies than the other and the grounds may differ also And ye seem to think it very islogical to call a capacity of Holines● Holiness Answ A bare

or beeing unless ye will say That a Creature is any part or measure o● Gods Beeing or Substance And whereas ye say Graces are substantial things and are not meer Accidents but Adjuncts And thus ye seek to hide you from the ignorant in the Thicket of some Loicgal and School Terms and Phrases but when ye say Graces are substantial things ye do not tell whether ye call them so properly or metaphorically as when ye call God Light ye say it is not properly but metaphorically And for your distinction of Adjuncts and Accidents I suppose I learned that thing ye call Logick that ye seem to glory in as well as ye and do remember what is any wise useful in it as well as ye and I never understood that either Logicians or Philosophers so called did hold that the Soul of man had any Adjuncts that was neither the real Essence and Substance of the Soul nor yet Accidents and therefore if the Grace of God in the Soul be no Accident but the Adjunct of the Soul it must be the Soul it self and this is Pelaganism and Socinianism with a Witness for Pelagius and Socinus denyed the need of any inward Grace that was not th● S●ul it self for the Attributes of every being and so of the Soul are such Adjuncts as are either essential to that being or accidental and for this I can and do appeal to all who have any ordinary taste of that called Logick or Metaphysick but I shall not insist on this School-nicity And for your Proof that Grace is a Creature or created Principle from Ephes 4.29 If you mean the virtues brought forth in the saints called the fruits of the Spirit as Faith Hope Love Temprance Righteousness c. we own them in the Scripture sence to be the new man which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness but that they are such a Created Principle as are neither the Soul it self nor Christ nor Accidents but a substance of another nature from all these is a novelty that I have not formerly heard of As for our Doctrine concerning Grace it is plain according to Scripture the Seed or Original Principle of Grace in the Soul is a measure of the Spirit and Life of Christ and is not Properly a Creature as commonly taken but a Pure divine Emanation and stream from Christ the Fountain and is of the same nature with the Fountain and is substantial and every Soul that is by a true and living Faith joyned to this Seed and Principle of Gods Grace is partaker of it Substantially and none else and is there by made fruitful to bring forth heavenly and divine Fruits as Love Joy Peace Me●kness Temperance Humility c. which are Divine Effects and may be said to be the New Creation or the Image of Christ formed and brought forth in us and where these effects are yea where that Seed is neither God nor Christ can be separated from the same Pag. 69. 70. Ye say Nor doth the Doctrine of Dr. Owen or Mr. Rutherford in the words of theirs which he cites at all run into the Quakers Blasphemy Ans Ye do then hold it Blasphemy for the Quakers to say that God and Christ dwell in the Saints and true Believers and therefore to avoid this Blasphemy ye will not own that God and Christ dwell in them and then surely ye preach an absent God and Christ for if Christ dwell not in Believers he is absent from them And yet ye contradict your selves herein as your manner is ye say The Person of the Holy Ghost dwells in us by his Operations And thus ye would falsly gloss upon the words of J. O. and S. R. for J. O. h●ld a peculiar Perswasion far differing from his Brethren the Presbyterians for which Cauldrey severely taxed him that whereas they held it that the holy Ghost dwelt not by himsel● or personally as they phrase it in Believers but by his Operations Graces and Gifts J. O. in his Book of Perseverence useth many reasons and words to prove That the holy Ghost himself together with his Operations and Graces he as well as they dwelt in Believers and not the Graces without him and upon this he buildeth the Doctrine of Perseverance And S. R. said He will not have the Graces of Christ without Christ. But ye plead that the Graces of Christ are in the Saints but not Christ himself and therefore if our Doctrine be blasphemous ye must allow J. O. and S. R. equally guilty but the guilt of Blasphemy is yours who would exclude Christ from the Saints and divide the Graces of Christ from Christ which is impossible and is contrary to all sound Reason as well as Scripture to divide and seperate the Operator from his Operations Pag. 70. Ye do acknowledge That ye agree with the Ranters in that Principle viz. That God doth all and hath unchangeably ordered all things good and bad are we therefore Ranters say ye Answ Let impartial men judge seeing this is the fundamental Error of the Ranters and the Root and Base of all their other Ranting Principles and Practices Pag. 72. Ye most falsly charge me as if I were restoring Maniche●sm into the World as if there were two Principles or first Causes the one of Good the other of Evil for ye are very ignorant if ye know not that the Manichism Principle was That there was an Evil first Cause or Principle essentially evil uncreated eternal independent and equal to the good But we hold no such Doctrine there is one only first cause of all things originally that is essentially good and goodness and all things were originally good and all the Evil that came afterwards into the World was not any real Creation or Production of any substance for Evil in the abstract i. e. Sin is no substance but either a privation as the sin of Omission or some depraved mode or modification or alteration in the Cr●ature that the Creature it self is the Author of and therefore Christ said The Devil was a Lyar and Murderer from the beginning and when he speaketh a Lye he speaketh of himself Pag. 73. Ye require me to tell you How God did fore-know all evil Actions that should be done in Time unless he had pre-determined them Answ The way and manner of Gods fore-knowledge surpasseth all creaturely Understanding and therefore it is too great boldness and presumption in you to imagin ye can tell it and it is yet worse to think y● can tell it by a way that contradicts the Scripture and the invvard sense of God in mens hearts as Because God pre-determines all evil Actions Thefts Murders Adulteries therefore he fore-knoweth them This is to make God equally the Author of Evil as of Good It is suffici●nt to us to believe and know that the dec●ee of God is Permissive but not Pre-determinative of evil Actions and as he knoweth evil Actions that are at prese●t brought fo●th as they now are so