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	sin_n	will_n	1,571	5	7.0624	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66604	A discourse of the Resurrection shewing the import and certainty of it / by William Wilson.	Wilson, William, Rector of Morley.	1694 (1694)	Wing W2954; ESTC R24575	126,012	256

not Adam's sin alone but our own too are the Reason why we die and consequently that our Justification is not from Adam's Offence only but from those many that we are guilty of By one Man sin enter'd into the World and Death by sin and so Death passed upon all Men for that all have sinned v. 12. i.e. All Men die as well as Adam because all have sinned as well as he For untill the Law sin was in the World And again Death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression v. 13 14. i.e. All that lived between Adam and Moses died though they did not Transgress a positive Law as Adam did but only sinn'd against the Law of Nature But if we look a little narrowly into the Apostle's discourse the contrary will be evident For when he instanceth in a time when there was no Law that condemn'd Men to die for their own Offences his design is to prove that the Sin and Judgment that pass'd upon Adam does reach to all Men For what account else shall we give saith he of the Death of those that died before the Law of Moses was given They sinn'd 't is true but that could not be the Reason why they died because they were not under any Law that threatned them with Death if they sinned and therefore since they died it could be by vertue of no other Law but that by which Adam was Judg'd and Condemn'd He does say indeed that Death pass'd upon all Men for that all have sinned Yet Sin is not imputed where there is no Law which was the case of all that lived between Adam and Moses The summ then of the Apostle's discourse is this That Adam's Sin and the Judgment that was pass'd upon him is the Reason why all Men die but we are not to think that Men die only for Adam's Sin in such a sense as if themselves were not Sinners For though all have sinned yet all die because of Adam's Sin Obj. But if this be the meaning of the Apostle how comes it to pass that he tells us afterwards that the free gift is of many offences unto Justification Ans To which I reply That though by the undertaking of our gracious Mediatour we are justified from our own particular Offences i.e. Are put into such a state that we have no reason to fear being condemned when we come to answer for our own Actions if with sincerity we conform our Lives according to the Rules of the Gospel though we be guilty of many Errours and Mistakes Yet it is plain from what he discoursed before that it is Adam's Offence alone is the reason why we die because it is for Adam's Offence alone that we are born Mortal and are under a Sentence of Condemnation But by being justified from Adam's Sin and Condemnation we by sincerely submitting to the Law of Grace are acquitted of all those particular Sins that in our Natural state we are guilty of Because Adam's Sin being the Root and Original cause of our own particular Offences by being discharged from the Punishment that Adam's Sin brought upon Mankind we upon our embracing the Law of Grace are accepted by God to a liberty of working out our own Salvation notwithstanding our own Sins The many Offences that the Apostle here speaks of are those that in their Natural state Men are guilty of For of these alone he spoke in the foregoing Verses when for the proving it was for Adam's Transgression that we all die he instanced in those that lived between Adam and Moses who were not under the Government of any other Law but that of Nature and therefore did not die for their own particular Offences And of these he tells us the free gift is to Justification as well as of Adam's Sin because by being discharged from the Punishment of Adam's Transgression we shall not be condemned for those that no positive Law does threaten with Death But as for those Sins that in our Christian i.e. our Justified state we are guilty of we must be justified or condemned for them by the Sentence of our Mediatour according to the very Voice of the Law that he has given us to live by 2. Then Justification puts us into a possibility of living again after Death for ever For since it is the taking off from us the Curse that is come upon our Nature for the publick Transgression of our first Parents it takes away that which is the Cause why we die and which if it was not taken away would for ever hold us in a state of Death The Reason why we die is because God has doom'd us to it and that which is the Reason why we die would be a Reason too why we should never live again if God in Mercy had not pitied our Condition and absolved us from the Guilt for which we are condemned to die For as it is upon the account of God's Wrath that we die if we had for ever lain under that Wrath we must for ever have continued in a state of Death i.e. according to the Sentence God had pass'd upon us we had forfeited the Immortality of that Life that consists in the vital Union of the Soul and Body So that the import of the Sentence of Death we fell under was nothing less than an Eternal separation of the Soul and Body A Doom that adjudged the Body to Dust for ever and the Soul to live without its Body under the Dominion of that Evil Spirit that seduced us and the dreadfull Marks of the Divine displeasure for ever And as this is the meaning of that Judgment to Condemnation that is come upon all Men so the meaning of that free gift that is come upon all Men to Justification of Life is the hopes of rising again to that Immortality we lost For by Justifying us God acquits us from the Punishment he had condemn'd us to and by withdrawing that Wrath from us which sentenced us to an Eternal Dissolution of the Soul and Body he puts us into a hopefull condition of living again for ever As when he condemn'd us his Justice laid us under an obligation of satisfying his Wrath by a perpetual separation of our Souls from our Bodies So when he justifies us his Mercy re-instates us in his Favour and by discharging us from the Curse we are fallen under gives us an Assurance that Death shall not be Eternal but that there will come a time when our Bodies shall come out of their Graves and our Souls and Bodies shall happily by united again So that 3. Justification is an Act of mere Mercy and Goodness It is mere Grace and Favour that spares the Life of a Criminal when he is condemn'd to die For in such a case he can have no hopes of living unless he who has the Power of Life and Death does by reversing the Sentence save him from the Punishment Whereas a Law that allows

for the Life to come a Life that nothing can destroy but our own Folly and Negligence Do we judge him an improvident Man who takes no thought at all for to morrow but expects that Providence without his own industry and fore-cast should supply his Necessities And do we make no Reflections upon our own foolish Improvidence when while we are thoughtfull and labour for food and raiment to preserve a Life that we must part with we leave all the care of an Immortal Life to the Goodness and Mercy of our heavenly Father without any serious Considerations what we are to do to qualifie our selves for it Immortality is 't is true the Gift of God and all that at last he bestows it upon must acknowledge that it is owing to his Goodness and Mercy But he has no-where told us that he will give it to those that are unworthy of it St. Paul tells us That it is to those who seek for glory and honour and immortality that he will give Eternal life Rom. 2.7 And in this consists his Revealed Mercy that he will raise and give Life again to a Creature that his Justice takes away Life from But then it behoves us to take care that when we have it we don't lose the Benefits and Advantages of it And by neglecting those Improvements whereby we are to prepare our selves for it to put us out of a condition of living happily when we have it 'T is Holiness alone can qualifie us for a glorious Immortality and this we may be sensible of because the Mortality and Misery we now labour under are the fruits of Sin And there can be no way to make our selves Immortal and Happy but by abandoning that which at first made us Mortal and Miserable So that if we still go on to corrupt our selves by the illess of our doings though we do rise again after Death Misery will follow us and a more dreadfull Condemnation than that which in Adam we fell under will come upon us PART II. II. I Come now in the Second place to consider what Certainty we have of the Truth of this Doctrine One would think that no Doctrine should meet with a more easie Reception than this of the Resurrection And that the love of Life should so strongly incline us to the belief of it as not to suffer us to expect so full a Proof and plain an Evidence as we do for Matters that we are not so much interested in But yet as gratefull a thing as it is to live and as willing as we are to have those things to be true which are for our good we mightily boggle at the Difficulties that are in a Resurrection and will hardly allow it possible that God should raise the Dead It appears very unaccountable to us that a Body that has undergone so many Thousand changes should at the last arise the same it was And that every Atom that belongs to it should after they have been carried to the furthest part of the World perhaps meet together and make up the same Body This is an Objection with which the incredulous believe this Doctrine is sufficiently puzzled and that no Wit of Man can make it appear so much as possible that such a thing can be viz. That the same Body that dies should rise again when perhaps the Dust of which that Body was made has belong'd to a thousand Bodies But though this be a Difficulty to us does our Reason tell us that it is so too to an Almighty and All-wise God Though we can give no account where or how the Dust of every Body shall be found yet we may conceive that every Dust is some-where and that That which is to be found some-where is not impossible to be found by an All-wise God whose Eyes go through the World This alone is sufficient to prove it possible without having a recourse to any Parallel Instances in Nature And for my part I must profess that I don't understand how any thing of this Nature can so much as make it appear to be possible We have been told that the Succession of the Summer to the Winter and the springing of the Day after a dark Night and the like do bear some kind of Resemblance to a Resurrection But how does it appear that it is possible a dead Body should rise and live again because we see there is a Succession of Days and Nights and that after a cold Winter we have a warm Spring that fetches Plants and Flowers out of the Earth For these things have those certain Causes in Nature which don 't at all belong to a Resurrection This will be the Work of God's Almighty Power And that he will make use of his Power to this purpose is no way to be known but by Revelation No conclusion can be made that because God in the first Creation of all things did make the Vicissitudes of Day and Night and so frame the Motions of the great Luminaries of the World that we should have Winter and Summer and that Plants and Flowers should seem to wither and die at the Approach of Winter and to revive again when the Spring returns That therefore it is possible the Dead Bodies of Men should return to Life again For how can we possibly conclude that a Body that dies and sees Corruption may rise again because we see Flowers and Plants that do not die in Winter to put forth and flourish in Summer These things have their own Natural Causes But to know the Possibility of a Resurrection we must have a Recourse to the Will of God because this is a matter that depends upon his pleasure For if he will do it it is enough to satisfie us that the thing is possible because it is to be the Work of Omnipotency And it is no more impossible for an Almighty God to gather together the scatter'd Dust of a Dead Body and to make that a Body again which has already been one than to make a World out of Nothing Now that we have such a Revelation none that consult the Scriptures and believe them to contain the Oracles of God can make any doubt of And for the better satisfying us he has exemplified the possibility of it in the Resurrection of Christ and furnish'd us with an assured Priniciple to ground our Expectation upon by raising him for our Justification CHAP. I. The Resurrection as Revealed 1. FIrst then I shall consider what ground of Certainty we have in the Holy Scriptures that there shall be a Resurrection And as to this matter it is to be observed that the Scriptures of the Old Testament do speak very sparingly of it And although before our Saviour's coming it was no doubt the belief and expectation of good Men yet their Faith and Hope were grounded upon no express Revelation of it And the Reason was because in this consisted the Grace that in the days of the Messiah should be procured for and communicated to