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
A96833	The examination of Tilenus before the triers; in order to his intended settlement in the office of a publick preacher in the Common-wealth of Utopia. Whereunto are annexed the tenents of the remonstrants touching those five articles voted, stated and imposed, but not disputed, at the synod of Dort. Together with a short essay (by way of annotations) upon the fundamental theses of Mr. Thomas Parker.	Womock, Laurence, 1612-1685.	1657 (1657)	Wing W3343; Thomason E1625_1; ESTC R204120	128,806	312

ordaining finally to condemn them Tilenus Infidelis If for the sin of another man and that pardoned to him that did wilfully commit it but imputed to his posteritie who never were in a capacitie to tast the pleasure of it or consent unto it or protest against it your pretended God deals thus cruelly with them depriving them for ever of his grace which should inable them to repent and sealing them up by an irrevocable decree under an irresistible necessitie continually to sin and then to perish everlastingly for so sinning where is that infinite justice accompanied with that superabundant mercy and graciousness you affirmed to be in him I have heard that the God whom Christians do adore is so infinitely merciful that he will have all men to be saved and none to perish and not able to swear by a greater swears by himself that he will not the death of the sinner but that he may repent and live That he protesteth the sufficiencie of his own applications and be waileth their wilful obstinacie and expostulateth most earnestly What could have been done more that I have not done O that there were such a heart in you Why will ye die Indeed there is so much grace and sweetness in these expressions they would bring a poor wretch presently upon his knees to such a God Dr. Dubins These are all the very expressions of that God whom we serve into whose gracious arms and bosome we so earnestly desire to bring you Tilenus Infidelis If you could teach me how to reconcile these expressions to the doctrin of your Synod I should say something but I conclude that impossible Mr. Simulans I shall willingly undertake that work as hard as you make it and a great deal more too to gain your soul out of the state of infidelitie There is a threefold distinction used amongst our Divines that will untie the knot presently 1. Mr. Calvin in Ezck. 18. 23. hath very learnedly observed that God hath two wills one outward and revealed whereby he doth most sweetly invite sinners to his grace and most gratiously calls them to repentance seeming as though he were earnestly desirous of their salvation the other will is inward and secret which is irresistible and takes effect infallibly and by this he brings through wayes unavoidable to an estate and course of sin here and then to eternal damnation and punishment hereafter Now to applie this you must understand those places of scripture forementioned of Gods outward and revealed will which is uneffectual not of his inward and secret will which is unresistible Tilenus Infidelis A very useful distinction and tending much to the honour of your God as you have applied it I see you have not your name for nought Mr. Simulans but for my part I think Homer was much more honest then you and your God when he sayes that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Who speaks contrarie to what he means ought to be held as a common enemie and hated as the very gates of Hell But perhaps your second distinction may be more satisfactory I pray let us have that Mr. Simulans We must make use of distinctions to clear our doctrins from contradiction and if that doth not like you we have another which cannot be denied When 't is said that God would have all men to be saved the word All is to be understood non de singulis generum but de generibus singulorum not for all of every kinde but for some few only of every sort and nation Tilenus Infidelis Methinks Sir if this be the meaning of the words the Scripture might have said with far more reason that God will have all men to be damned since of every Nation and condition the number of the damned do far exceed the number of the saved according to your doctrin and reason requires that the denomination should be made according to the major part But perhaps your third distinction will help this out Mr. Simulans The will of God is either approbans tantum or else approbans et efficiens simul God we say will have all men to be converted and saved Approbativè non effectivè he approves of it and likes it well in himself that all men be converted and saved but he wills it not effectively that is he hath decreed the contrary not to give them means necessarie to the attainment of it Tilenus Infidelis This distinction I conceive no less unreasonable and absurd than the former That your God should appoint by a secret absolute and irrevocable decree that those things which he doth naturally hate and abhor should be most practised and those which he naturally loves and likes should be omitted this is so inconsistent with that infinite wisdome and goodness which you proclaim to be in him that I cannot finde my self in any measure inclin'd to acknowledge him the Governour of the world I suspect rather that you have a design to make me become a proselyte to the Manichoeans who profess two principles a wicked one as well as a good one and having acknowledged my perswasion of a good God who loveth righteousness and hateth iniquitie you tempt me to believe a wicked God also which is the Author of all evil and in perpetual hostilitie against the former It were so great an impeachment of his sinceritie that no civil person would indure to have his words so interpreted as you interpret those of your Gospel the unavoidable consequence whereof is that your God is the true Author of all the sins and wickedness of this world both past present and to come Mr. Fatalitie We say Deus est causacur peccatum existat sed non cur sit God is the cause of the existence but not of the essence if I may so speak of sin as he that drives a lame horse is the cause of his halting but not of his lameness Tilenus Infidelis This distinction will hardly help the lame dog over the stile For he that drives a horse unavoidable into that motion which necessarily causeth his first halting is certainly the cause of his lamenes and so did your God drive Adam according to your own doctrin into the first sin which made him and his posteritie halt ever since Mr. Fatalitie You must distinguish the materialitie of sin from the formalitie of it or the Act from the deformitie God we say is cause of the act or the materialitie but not of the formalitie the defect or obliquitie of it Tilenus Infidelis I replie 1. That there are sins of omissien which happen according to your doctrin by reason the offender is deprived of necessary and sufficient grace to perform the duty and these sins are not capable of that distinction and if the desicient cause in things necessary be the efficient you know to whom such sins are to be imputed 2. There are sins of commission not capable of that distinction neither as in blasphemie murder adulterie wherein the act is not to

a wicked Christian I desire therefore in the next place that you would make proofe of your discipline upon Tilenus Carnalis Mr. Fatalitie Herein methinks I should make no great difficultie to prevail if the power of reason can but fasten upon your understanding or the tie of religion upon your conscience or the sense of gratitude upon your heart and affections Do but reflect upon those obligations which Almighty God hath laid upon you in your Creation and Redemption He hath a fair title to your best obedience by right of dominion in regard of that excellent nature and being he freely conserr'd upon you but a stronger title if stronger may be by the right of a deer purchase made by no lower price than his own blood These obligations as common equitie hath drawn them up so with respect to the benefit that would accrew to you hereby your own ingenuitie hath drawn you on to subscribe and seal them You have been solemnly devoted unto God and listed a sworn souldier under the Banner of your Redeemer Are you under his pay and fight against his interest Do you wear his livery and eat his provisions and expect his reward and yet spend your time and strength and talents in the service of his mortal enemie How execrable is the sacriledge of this ingratitude and rebellion Remember it will not be long ere the justice of God send 's the trumpet of the Law which will be so much the shriller if it be sounded by the hollow lungs of death to give your now-secure Conscience a hot alarum and when you are once awakened with the terrour of those dreadful threatnings you will be amazed at the horrour of that apprehension when you shall behold all those shoals and swarms of sin you are guiltie of muster'd up in their several ranks and files to charge and fight against you for the momentarie and trifling pleasures whereof you have so improvidently forfeited all the comforts of a good Conscience and refreshments of the Holy Ghost with your portion in Heaven and your interest in Gods favour in exchange whereof like a foolish Merchant you have procured nothing but the coals of eternal vengeance and the flames of Hell which the crowds of your condensed sins have thrust wide open ready to swallow up and devour you unless you presently prevent it by an unfeigned repentance and universal reformation Tilenus Carnalis Sir I beseech you suffer not your zeal of a holy life to transport you beyond the rule of sacred truth lest while you pretend to honour God on earth you cast reproach upon his Eternal designs in Heaven I am jealous Tilenus Infidelis hath so disturbed your passions that you know not where you are for you have quite forgotten your Synod and your principles and I think your own name too and seem to have lost your Creed in your Commandements Recollect your senses and recal your wandring phantasie and awaken your judgement to consult the Oracle of your belief your Synod and speak accordingly for whatsoever is not of faith will be sin in you And is it not one of the Articles of that Creed which you profess that all the good or evil whatsoever that happens in the world doth come to pass by the only immutable and ineluctable decree of God and his most effectual ordinance That the first cause doth so powerfully guide and impel all second causes and the will of man amongst the rest that they cannot possibly either act or suffer sooner then they do nor in any other manner I am sorry I am no more master of my self and mine own actions that I am so divested of my libertie and carry a nature about me so debauched that I cannot chuse but suffer my self to be carried captive under the power of those sins that reign in-me but my comfort is I am assured by the judgment of such sound Divines as your self that the secret will of God which procur'd Judas's treason no less then Pauls Conversion hath so decreed it And you know it is not in my power to procure a writ of Electment to cast out that sin which came in and keeps possession by the uncontroulable order of the divine predestination I cannot get grace when God will not give it me nor keep it when he is pleased to take it away from me I have no Lure to throw out that the Dove of Heaven will vouchsafe to stoop unto the Spirit blows where he pleases inspires whom he pleases and retires when he pleases returns where he pleases And so if it comes with an intent to amend me it will be as impossible then to put him back as it is now to draw him on It were an intollerable presumption in me to make my self so much a taskmaster over the Holy Spirit as to prescribe him the time and hour when he shall effect that work for me whereunto I am able to contribute no more than to mine own birth or resurrection * Atque hec est illa tantopere in Scripturis predicata regeneratio nov a Creatio suscitatio mortuis vivificatio quam Deus SINENOBIS in nobis operatur Can. 12. art 3. 40. Synodi Dordracene I can affirm with confidence I never was so much an Atheist as to entertain the least distrustful thought of the divine power When he hath been four dayes dead and lies stinking in his grave Lazarus may be raised and the more putri'd I am in my corruptions the triumphs of the divine grace will be so much the more glorious in my restitution but it may be the last hour of the Day with mee before the Day-spring doth thus visit me In the mean while to shew my detestation of that arrogant doctrin of the Arminians I will not strive to do the least endeavour towards pietie lest by attributing some libertie to my self I should eclipse the glory of Gods grace which I acknowledge as well most free in her approaches as unresistible in her working I confess for the present my sins have brought such a damp upon my grieved spirit that he doth not afford m so much grace as to crie Abba Father Nevertheless I can call to minde I have sometimes heretofore had such heavenly motions and gratious inspirations in my heart as could be breathed from no other than the spirit of the Almighty hereby there hath been begotten in me a faith in Christ's merits not only true which can never be lost but so firm also that I am even now perswaded nothing shall be able to separate me from the love of God towards me in Christ Jesus This faith is rooted in a rock which all the powers of darkness are not able to root up though to your present apprehension for want of the fruits and blossomes of pietie and devotion it be as trees and herbs in winter which seem drie dead and withered but are not so Besides being one of God's Elect as every one is bound to believe according