Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	adam_n	death_n	sin_n	5,480	5	6.3830	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37244	A work for none but angels & men that is to be able to look into and to know ourselves, or a book shewing what the soule is, subsisting and having its operations without the body ... : of the imagination or common sense, the phantasie, sensative memory, passions, motion of life, the local motion, intellectual power of the soul ... Thomas Jenner has lineas composuit.	Davies, John, Sir, 1569-1626.; Jenner, Thomas, fl. 1631-1656.	1658 (1658)	Wing D410; ESTC R27853	22,709	36

the foundations of the Earth and formeth the Spirit of man within him he makes the body of Earth and in it a beam of heavenly fire now in the wombe before the birth inspires in all men their soules and without a mother sends dayly millions into the world which neither from eternity nor at once in one time lay them up in the Sunne or Moone nor in some secret cloyster where they sleepe till they be awaked neither did he make at first a certain number infusing part in beasts and part in men and being unwilling to take further pain would make no more so that the widdow soul should be married to the next body that should be born and so by often changing mens souls should pass from beasts to men these are fond thoughts since there are far more born then dye then thousand soules should be abortive or others deaths should supply their soules but as nature Gods handmaid doth create bodies in time distinct and in due order so God gives soules the like successive date which himselfe formes in new bodies which himselfe makes of no materiall thing for unto Angels he hath given no power either to forme the shape or bring the stuffe from Air or Fire nor in this doth he use natures service for although she can bring bodyes from bodyes yet she could never traduce soules from soules as light springs from light and fire from fire as some learned fathers that were great lights of old did hold for say they how can we say that God made the soule and yet not make him the Author of her sinne for in her lies the corruption for Adams body did not sin but his soule and so brought the body to corruption So we would fain make him the Author of the wine if we knew whom to blame for her dreggs none were yet so grosse as to contend for this that soules may be traduced from bodyes between whose natures there is no proportion but many subtle wits have justified that soules may spiritually spring from soules which if the nature of the soul be tryed would even in nature prove as grosse for all things that are made are either of naught or of something that is already made of naught no Creature ever formed ought for that is proper for the Almighty if then the soule make another soule she must take it of some former stuffe or matter but there is no matter found in the soule then if her heavenly forme doe not agree with any matter in the World then must she needs be created of nothing and that is only proper to God alone again if soules doe beget soules 't is either by themselves or the bodies power if by themselves what hinders them but that they may engender soules every hour if by the body how can understanding and will joyne with the body in this act only since when they doe their other works they doe abstract them themselves from the body moreover if soules were begotten of soules they should move and change into each other but motion and changes brings at last corruption and then how should it be immortall If lastly soules did use generation then they should spread incorruptible seed and then what becomes of that which they doe loose when the acts of generation doe not speed but if the soule could cast spirituall seed yet she would not because she never dies mortall things desire to breed their like that so they might immortalize their kinde therefore the Angels who are call'd the sons of God neither marry nor are given in marriage their spirits and ours are of one substance and have one father the Lord of Heaven Who would at first that in each other thing earth and water living souls should breed but mans soul which he would make their king should immediately be produced from himselfe and doubtless when he took the Woman from the side of the man he alone inspierd the soul for t is not said he did devide mans soul but took flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone and lastly God being made man for mans sake and like him in all save only in sin tooke his body from the wombe of the Virgin but all agree God formed his soule within him then is the soule from God so say the Pagans which saw by natures light her heavenly kinde naming her kin to God and Gods bright ray a Citizen of Heaven confind to the earth This cloud may be further cleerd by heavenly light for questionlesse God made her and made her good and ingrafted her in the body there to grow which though it be corrupted flesh and blood yet can it not bring corruption to the soule yet this soule at first made good by God and not corrupted by the evill of the body yet in the womb is accurst and sinfull ere she can judge by wit or chuse by will yet God is not the Author of her sinne though of her being and if we dare judge him in this he can condemn us and yet be cleere himselfe first God from eternity decreed what hath been is or shall be done and that every man in his turne should run his race of life and did purpose to make all soules that ever have been or shall be and that they should take there being in humane bodies or not to be at all was it then fit that such a weake event weaknesse it selfe the sin and fall of man should prevent his execution and councells fixed and decreed before the world began and that one penall law broke by Adam should make God breake his own eternall law and revoke the setled order of the world and change all formes of things which he foresaw could Eves weake hand extended to the Tree rent a sunder that Adamantive chain whose golden linkes of causes and effectes remain fixt to Gods own chare O could we see how cause doth spring from cause how they are mutually linckt and foulded and that on disagreeing stringe doth rather make then marr the harmony and at once view how death is brought by sin and how a better life doth arise by death how in one his justice is seen and his mercy in the other we would praise this his decree a wise and right but we measure time by first and last and see the sight of things successively when the Lord sees all at once and at an instant he sees all things in himselfe as in a glasse for from him and by him and through him are all things His sight is not discorsive by degrees but he seeing the whole seeth every single heart He looks on Adam as a roote or spring and on all his heires as Branches and streames and sees all men as one man though they dwell in sundry Nations and Cit●es and as root and branch makes but one Tree and the spring and streame make but one River so that if one be corrupted the other is corrupted also So when the

well enough if they could but have an artifice to get their sins pardoned that they might be freed from the punishment that is due to them and might be admitted into a sensuall heaven though they live to all eternity under the power of sin and wickednesse and never have the lest tast of the true heavenly Manna nor any knowledge of the name written on the white stone which no man knowes but he that hath it and therefore it will serve these mens turnes well enough if they may be freed from the punishment of sin while they love sin with all their hearts The true hearted christian is really departed out of wicked Sodom out of this noysome state of sin he is not so much solicitus about his state as about his life that he may still continue that heavenly life that is begun in him he is not so anxious about his justification in a proposterous method as about the sanctification of his heart and affection that is the best way to be assured of his justification he feeles the divine life in him and that he knowes can never sink him to hell he drinkes of the true springs of everlasting life and knowes he shall never see death he is not so much perplext about his future salvation because he findes he is already saved because it selfe hath taken him upon its wings and carries him away swiftly far from the region of death and Hell I beseech you let us not deceive our selves without such an inward frame of spirit as this is that is really crucifyed to the world and planted into Christ sucking life and influence from him God himselfe with what he can do without us would never make us happy Besides the destroying of this corrupt naturall and fleshly life we must also have a new and spirituall life begotten in us For as Christ and the divine nature did assume the humane nature to it selfe so likewise in every christian the divine life or the life of God must as it were assume the humane and created life of man and totally act it and inforce it this is the essence of the new creature this is the life and soul of christianity the marrow and quintessence of all religion to have a life wrapped up in man that is the very life of God himselfe and whosoever doth not pertake of this life whatsoever opinion he entertains in religion whatever outward forms of discipline he contends for whatever sects he belongs to he is either carnall or devilish For nothing of mans is pleasing unto God but that that God workes in man and by man and whatsoever workes with God according to that that is in God this is in a manner one spirit with God himselfe and whatsoever it doth it doth it in Forma Dei that is God using this mans soule and life and abilities doth act it in him But whatsoever perticular created life lives otherwise then the eternall life of God lives this sets up it selfe against God and this is the life of corrupt nature and the life of the Devill this is sin and nothing else to live otherwise then the eternal life of God lives and this was that that Christ came into the world to destroy and how doth he doe this surely no otherwise then by bringing Gods own life into the humanity Again for he himselfe was nothing else but a Tabernacle of God pitched amongst men nothing but a humane nature acted and disposed and guided by the life of God so that whatsoever Christ lives God lives in him now this must not only be done by Christ without us but the same also must be done within us One grosse mistake among men that yet pretend much to Religion that is very prejudiciall to the advancement of this spirituall righteousnesse that the Gospel requires of us and that is a conseite that men have whereby they think that salvation is a meer outward work and therefore may be wholly effected by outward means whereas it is nothing else for the substance of it but the inward transforming of our selves into the likenesse of God the reall translating of us out of the life of nature into the divine life or life of God or the begetting of a new and heavenly life in the soule of man that is the very same that doth every way agree with the life of God himselfe I say it with reverence God himselfe cannot make us happy by any thing without us but only by forming his own nature and likenesse in us they are carnall and earthly minded men and no way suitable to the state of glory and happinesse that fancy the happinesse of heaven to consist only in things without them and look upon it only as an outward place and not as an inward state and disposition of the soule I say therefore that salvation it is an inward thing and consists chiefly in being saved from our sins and being delivered from our own life and being translated out of the Kingdome of darknesse into the Kingdome of light and righteousnesse and it is not a Heaven without us though never so glorious and glistering a place nay it is not God without us that can make us truly and really happy but it is God inwardly setting himselfe in our soules and so dwelling in us that our sins may be so ruled and guided by the life of God as the members of our bodies are acted by our soules and when this is once done we shall at once live both the life of God and injoy the joy peace and happinesse of God himselfe which will all at once flow in upon us I would not be mistaken I doe not here deny but that there be some other inferiour circumstances belonging to the state of happinesse as the changing of these vild bodies of ours and instead of this earthly tabernacle that weighs down the minde as Solomon speakes when as our soules were as it were now buried in a heepe of flesh they shall receive an other more divine Tabernacle that Paul calls a spirituall body a more fit companion for our soules and many other such things answerable hereunto I say these things I doe not deny but yet all these things are of an inferiour nature and all depend upon the former the inward frame and disposition of the soule in which the substance of heaven and hell consist Now this being well consider'd and understood it is very plain that to thinke we can be saved without inward righteousnesse meerly by something done without us without the inward and reall change of our soules is all one as to thinke we can be saved without salvation or we can be made happy without the possession of happinesse though we must still remember the only procuring cause of our salvation is the death sufferings and satisfaction of Christ who was made a propitiation for our sins this is therefore the reason for which this inward righteousnesse before spoken of is to be urged in the Gospel not