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
A67085	The key of saving knovvledge, opening out of the holy Scriptures, the right way, and straight passage to eternall life, or, A dialogue wherein the chiefe principles of the Christian religion are unfolded for the enabling of Christian people, to understand the Word of God ... composed by Geo. Walker ...	Walker, George, 1581?-1651.	1641 (1641)	Wing W360; ESTC R39413	43,048	124

all his goodnesse Quest If sin comes to passe by the will and providence of God how is God excused from being the author of sin Answ. Very well For the bare willing and permitting of a thing makes not him who willingly permits it the author and cause thereof To make God the author of sin or any way guilty of it there are three things required First that God do command counsell or perswade men to commit sin Or secondly that he move incline or stir them up to it Or thirdly that when he willingly permits and suffers it and is able to hinde● it he be bound by some Law and bond of duty as men are to hinder it to the utmost of his power and in no case to will it But Gods Will hath no Law besides it selfe as he is supreme Lord of all so he may will or not will where hee pleaseth Hee is bound by no Law to restraine men from sin Hee may have mercy on whom he will and whom he will he may leave to be hardened Neither doth God command counsell or perswade any man to sin by his Word but hath given a Law to the contrary by which he forbids sin under paine of death And never did hee tempt move incline or stir up any to sinne Therefore he can neither bee the cause or author of sinne nor any way partaker in the staine and guilt of it Quest But doth not Gods Providence meddle any more with sinne but only to permit it willingly and wittingly Answ. Yes certeinly God by his providence doth hinder and limit sin that it doth not break forth in all wicked men nor prevaile to the utmost extremity He doth also order and dispose the sins of the wicked to his own glory and the good of his elect He made the fiercenesse of Pharaoh and Senacherib turne to his honor fame and praise and the trechery of Judas in betraying and the cruelty and malice of the Jewes in murthering Christ he turned to the redemption of the world and the salvation of his elect in Christ by his overruling power and goodnesse Quest You have fully justified God from being the Authour of sin Now tell me how man being made in Gods image perfectly upright and good could bee drawne to disobey his Commandement which was so just equall and easie to bee observed Answ. By the power malice and subtlety of the Devill For every creature is in it selfe mutable and may decline and bee corrupted unlesse it bee brought by Covenant into Communion with God who onely hath immortality and is of himselfe unchangeable Man though made perfect with all naturall perfection was Mutable in innocency and therefore God made a Covenant of life with him upon condition of his obedience hee gave him the Tree of life to bee a seale of this Covenant and to confirme it and to settle man so steadfastly in that naturall estate that hee could not have beene seduced by any power or subtlety of the Devill if hee had received the seale by eating of the Tree of life But the Devill prevented our first parents before they had time to eat of that Tree and subtlety by the Serpent insinuated himselfe into the woman and by her into the man before they were setled and established by the sealing of the covenant breathed into them infidelity and ambition and by his lyes brought them into an evill opinion of God and so drew them into disobedience and transgression of Gods Commandement and made both Adam and all mankind who were then in his loyns guilty before God worthy of death and subject to all the evils and curses which follow sin and disobedience For Adam the root and stock being corrupted and stained with sin all the branches which spring from him must needs bee partakers of the same corruption and of the malice enmity against God which the Devill breathed into him Thus the Devil was the first author of mans sin and fall and the Serpent was his instrument Quest If this be so why do not the Devill the author and the Serpent his instrument beare the punishment but man and his posterity suffer for it Answ The Devill and the Serpent are cursed for this sinne with an eternall curse from which there is no redemption And Adam because by infidelity pride ambition and an ill and false opinion of God which Satan suggested into his heart did willingly yeeld to the temptation and transgressed Gods Commandement and as a voluntary agent did work with the Devill in that act of disobedience therefore hee is guilty yet so as that his sin is pardonable and both he himselfe and all his Elect and Faithfull posterity are redeemed from it by Christ Quest How comes it to passe that so small a thing as that wherein Adam transgressed to wit eating of a forbidden fruit is counted so great a sin before God and brings on all man-kind so many evils and curses Answ. The smaller the thing was in which God required obedience of Adam the greater was his sin and the more blame he deserved in that having received so many gifts from God and such large dominion over all earthly creatures by the free gift of God he would not upon Gods just Command which was so easie to bee observed obey his Creator in absteining but onely from one Tree Besides hee disobeyed God out of infidelity pride ambition a false opinion of God and enmity against his Majesty For hee beleeved the Devils words who said hee should not dye and not Gods Word who had said that in the day hee did eate hee should surely dye Hee in pride and ambition sought by eating to become as God and imagined wickedly that God out of envie did forbid him to eate of purpose that hee might not become wise as himselfe So that this disobedience in so small a matter did include in it all kindes of sinnes whereby the whole Law of God is transgressed Quest You have well shewed that this act of disobedience was an heinous sin Now tell me what evils it brought upon man-kind Answ. First it stript man naked of all those perfections of Nature and all that uprightnesse and image of God in which hee was created so that his person which before for the beauty majesty and comelinesse of it was reverenced loved and served of all creatures came to be feared and abhorred of them as an enemy his nakednesse made him ashamed and his paines and sorrows made his life a burden to him Secondly mans nature and frame was so stained and corrupted by this sin that neither he nor any of his posterity can understand things aright nor will nor do any good but are altogether perverse froward prone to all wickednesse very slaves of sinne and Satan and by Nature children of wrath Thirdly it brought a curse upon the ground for mans sake so that without his hard labour and sweet it yeelds no good fruit but only thornes thistles other