Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	author_n	sin_n	will_n	1,685	5	6.8791	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63754	Deus justificatus. Two discourses of original sin contained in two letters to persons of honour, wherein the question is rightly stated, several objections answered, and the truth further cleared and proved by many arguments newly added or explain'd. By Jer. Taylor D.D.	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.; Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667. Deus justificatus, or, A vindication of the glory of the divine attributes in the question of original sin.; Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667. Answer to a letter written by the R.R. the Ld Bp of Rochester.	1656 (1656)	Wing T311A; ESTC R220790	75,112	280

he calls himself our friend while at home he hates us and destroyes us Now I shall first speak to the thing in general and its designes then I shall make some observations upon the particulars 1. This device of our Presbyterians and of the Synod of Dort is but an artifice to save their proposition harmless to stop the out-cries of Scripture and reason and of all the World against them But this way of stating the article of reprobation is as horrid in effect as the other For 1. Is it by a natural consequent that we are guilty of Adams sin or is it by the decree of God Naturally it cannot be for then the sins of all our forefathers who are to their posterity the same that Adam was to his must be ours and not onely Adams first sin but his others are ours upon the same account But if it be by the Decree of God by his choice and constitution that it should be so as Mr. Calvin and Dr. Twisse that I may name no more for that side do expresly teach it followes that God is the Author of our Sin So that I may use Mr. Calvins words How is it that so many Nations with their Children should be involved in the fall without remedy but because God would have it so and if that be the matter then to God as to the cause must that sin and that damnation be accounted And let it then be considered whether this be not as bad as the worst For the Supralapsarians say God did decree that the greatest part of mankind should perish only because he would The Sublapsarians say That God made it by his decree necessary that all wee who were born of Adam should be born guilty of Originall Sin and he it was who decreed to damne whom he pleased for that sin in which he decreed they should be born and both these he did for no other consideration but because he would Is it not therefore evident that he absolutely decreed Damnation to these Persons For he that decrees the end and he that decrees the onely necessary and effective meanes to the end and decrees that it shall be the end of that means does decree absolutely alike though by several dispensations And then all the evill consequents which I reckoned before to be the monstrous productions of the first way are all Daughters of the other and if Solomon were here he could not tell which were the truer Mother Now that the case is equall between them some of their own chiefest do confess so Dr. Twisse If God may ordain Men to Hell for Adam's sin which is derived unto them by Gods onely constitution he may as well do it absolutely without any such constitution The same also is affirmed by Maccovius and by Mr. Calvin and the reason is plain for he that does a thing for a reason which himself makes may as well do it without a reason Or he may make his owne Will to be the reason because the thing and the motive of the thing come in both cases equally from the same principle and from that alone Now Madam be pleased to say whether I had not reason and necessity for what I have taught You are a happy Mother of an Honorable Posterity your Children and Nephews are Deare to you as your right eye and yet you cannot love them so well as God loves them and it is possible that a Mother should forget her Children yet God even then will not cannot but if our Father and Mother forsake us God taketh us up Now Madam consider could you have found in your heart when the Nurses and Midwives had bound up the heads of any of your Children when you had born them with pain and joy upon your knees could you have been tempted to give command that murderers should be brought to slay them alive to put them to exquisite tortures and then in the middest of their saddest groans throw any one of them into the flames of a fierce fire for no other reason but because he was born at Latimers or upon a Friday or when the Moon wasin her prime or for what other reason you had made and they could never avoid could you have been delighted in their horrid shrieks and out-cries and taking pleasure in their unavoidable and their intollerable calamity could you have smiled if the hangman had snatched your Eldest Son from his Nurses breasts and dashed his brains out against the pavement and would you not have wondred that any Father or Mother could espie the innocence and prety smiles of your sweet babes and yet tear their limbs in pieces or devise devilish artifices to make them roar with intollerable convulsions could you desire to be thought good and yet have delighted in such cruelty I know I may answer for you you would first have dyed your self And yet say again God loves mankind better then we can love one another and he is essentially just and he is infinitely mercifull and he is all goodness and therefore though we might possibly do evil things yet he cannot and yet this doctrine of the Presbyterian reprobation saies he both can and does things the very apprehension of which hath caused many in despair to drown or hang themselves Now if the Doctrine of absolute Reprobation be so horrid so intolerable a proposition so unjust and blasphemous to God so injurious and cruell to men and that there is no colour or pretence to justifie it but by pretending our guilt of Adams sin and damnation to be the punishment then because from truth nothing but truth can issue that must needs be a lie from which such horrid consequences do proceed For the case in short is this If it be just for God to damne any one of Adam's Posterity for Adam's sin then it is just in him to damne all for all his Children are equally guilty and then if he spares any it is Mercy and the rest who perish have no cause to complain But if all these fearful consequences which Reason and Religion so much abhorr do so certainly follow from such doctrines of Reprobation and these doctrines wholly rely upon this pretence it follows that the pretence is infinitely false and intollerable and that it cannot be just for God to damne us for being in a state of calamity to which state we entred no way but by his constitution and decree You see Madam I had reason to reprove that doctrine which said It was just in God to damne us for the sinne of Adam Though this be the maine error yet there are some other collaterall things which I can by no means approve such is that 1. That by the Sin of Adam our Parents became wholly defiled in all the faculties and Powers of their souls and bodies And 2. That by this we also are disabled and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evill And 3. That from hence proceed all actuall transgressions

naturally chast and some are abstemious and many are just and friendly and noble and charitable and therefore all actual sins do not proceed from this sin of Adam for if the sin of Adam left us in liberty to sin and that this liberty was before Adams fall then it is not long of Adams fall that we sin by his fall it should rather be that we cannot choose but do this or that and then it is no sin But to say that our actuall sins should any more proceed from Adams fall then Adams fal should proceed from it self is not to be imagined for what made Adam sin when he fell If a fatal decree made him sin then he was nothing to blame Fati ista culpa est Nemo fit fato nocens No guilt upon mankinde can lie For what 's the fault of destiny And Adam might with just reason lay the blame from himself and say as Agamemnon did in Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was not I that sinned but it was fate or a sury it was God and not I it was not my act but the effect of the Divine decree and then the same decree may make us sin and not the sin of Adam be the cause of it But if a liberty of will made Adam sin then this liberty to sin being still left us this liberty and and not Adams sin is the cause of all our actual Concerning the other clause in the Presbyterian article that our natural corruption in the regenerate still remaines and is still a sin and properly a sin I have I confesse heartily opposed it and shall besides my arguments confute it with my blood if God shall call me for it is so great a reproach to the spirit and power of Christ and to the effects of Baptisme to Scripture and to right reason that all good people are bound in Conscience to be zealous against it For when Christ came to reconcile us to his Father he came to take away our sins not onely to pardon them but to destroy them and if the regenerate in whom the spirit of Christ rules and in whom all their habitual sins are dead are still under the servitude and in the stock 's of Original sin then it follows not onely that our guilt of Adams sin is greater then our own actual the sin that we never consented to is of a deeper grain then that which we have chosen and delighted in and God was more angry with Cain that he was born of Adam then that he kill'd his Brother and Judas by descent from the first Adam contracted that sin which he could never be quit of but he might have been quit of his betraying the second Adam if he would not have despaired I say not onely these horrid consequences do follow but this also will follow that Adams sin hath done some mischief that the grace of Christ can never cure and generation staines so much that regeneration cannot wash it clean Besides all this if the natural corruption remaines in the regenerate and be properly a sin then either Gods hates the regenerate or loves the sinner and when he dies he must enter into Heaven with that sin which he cannot lay down but in the grave as the vilest sinner layes down every sin and then an unclean thing can go to Heaven or else no man can and lastly to say that this natural corruption though it be pardoned and mortified yet still remaines and is stil a sin is perfect non-sence for if it be mortified it is not it hath no being if it is pardoned it was indeed but now is no sin for till a man can be guilty of sin without obligation to punishment a sin cannot be a sin that is pardoned that is if the obligation to punishment or the guilt be taken away a man is not guilty Thus far Madam I hope you will think I had reason One thing more I did and do reprove in their Westminster articles and that is that Original sin meaning our sin derived from Adam is contrary to the law of God and doth in its own nature bring guilt upon the sinner binding him over to Gods wrath c. that is that the sin of Adam imputed to us is properly formally and inhaerently a sin If it were properly a sin in us our sin it might indeed be damnable for every transgression of the Divine Commandment is so but because I have proved it cannot bring eternal damnation I can as well argue thus this sin cannot justly bring us to damnation therefore it is not properly a sin as to say this is properly a sin therefore it can bring us to damnation Either of them both follow well but because they cannot prove it to be a sin properly or any other wayes but by a limited imputation to certain purposes they cannot say it infers damnation But because I have proved it cannot infer damnation I can safely conclude it is not formally properly and inherently a sin in us Nec placet ô superi vobis cum vertere cuncta Propositum nostris erroribus addere crimen Nor did it please our God when that our state Was chang'd to adde a crime unto our fate I have now Madam though much to your trouble quitted my self of my Presbyterian opponents so far as I can judge fitting for the present but my friends also take some exceptions and there are some objections made and blows given me as it happened to our Blessed Saviour in domo illorum qui diligebant me in the house of my Mother and in the societies of some of my Dearest Brethren For the case is this They joyn with me in all this that I have said viz. That Original sin is ours onely by imputation that it leaves us still in our natural liberty and though it hath devested us of our supernaturals yet that our nature is almost the same and by the grace of Jesus as capable of Heaven as it could ever be by derivation of Original rightousnesse from Adam In the conduct and in the description of this Question being usually esteemed to be onely Scholastical I confesse they as all men else do usually differ for it was long ago observ'd that there are 16. several famous opinions in this one Question of Original sin But my Brethren are willlng to confesse that for Adams sin alone no man did or shall ever perish And that it is rather to be called a stain then a sin If they were all of one minde and one voice in this article though but thus far I would not move a stone to disturb it but some draw one way and some another and they that are aptest to understand the whole secret do put fetters and bars upon their own understanding by an importune regard to the great names of some dead men who are called masters upon earth and whose authority is as apt to mislead us into some propositions as their learning is usefull to guide