Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	believe_v	faith_n	holy_a	1,533	5	5.3032	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27038	A sermon of iudgement preached at Pauls before the Honourable Lord Maior and aldermen of the city of London, Dec. 17, 1654 and now enlarged / Rich. Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1655 (1655)	Wing B1408; ESTC R13294	85,241	312

before he justifie them against the charge of being sinners in general and he will first give men Faith Repentance and new Obedience before he will Justifie them against the charge of being Impenitent Infidels or Hypocrites and consequently unpardoned and doubly guilty of damnation This twofold righteousness he will first Give men and so constitute them Just before he will Declare it and Sentence them just 2. The Reason of the Sentence particularly Described is from their Faith and ●ove to Christ expressed in their Obedience self-denyal and forsaking all for him For I was hungry and ye fed me I was thirsty and ye gave me drink I was a stranger and ye took me in Naked and ye cloa●hed me I was sick and ye visited me I was in prison and ye came to me Verily I say unto you inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my Brethren ye have done it unto me Mat. 25.35 to 41. Here is 1. The causal conjunction for 2. And the Cause or Reason it self Concerning both which Observe 1. How it is that mans Obedience and self-denyal is The Reason and Cause of his Justification 2. Why it is that God will have the Reason or Cause thus Declared in the Sentence For the first observe that It s one thing to give a Reason of the Sentence and another thing to express the Cause of the Benefit Given us by the promise and Judged to us by the Sentence Mans Obedience was no proper Cause why God did in this life Give pardon of sin to us or a Right to glory much less of his Giving Christ to dye for us And therefore as to our Constitutive Justification at our Conversion we must not say or think that God doth Justifie us For or Because of any works of our Obedience Legal or Evangelical But when God hath so Justified us when he comes to give a Reason of his Sentence in Judgement he may and will fetch that Reason partly from our Obedience or our performance of the Conditions of the New Covenant For as in this life we had a Righteousness consisting in free pardon of all sin through the blood of Christ and a Righteousness consisting in our personal performance of the Conditions of the promise which giveth that pardon and continueth it to us so at Judgement we shall accordingly be justified And as our Evangelical personal Righteousness commonly called Inherent was at first only in our Faith and Repentance and Disposition to obey but afterward in our Actual sincere Obedience in which sense we are Constitutively Justified or made Righteous here by our works in James his sense Jam. 2.24 so accordingly a double Reason will be assigned of our sentential Justification One from our pardon by Christs blood and merits which will prove our Right to Impunity and to Glory The other from our own Faith and holy Obedience which will prove our Right to that pardon through Christ and to the free Gift of a Right to glory and so this last is to be pleaded in subordination to the former For Christ is become the Author of Eternal salvation to all them that Obey him Heb. 5 9. He therefore that will be saved must have a Christ to save him as the Author and an Obedience to that Christ as the Condition of that salvation and consequently both must be declared in the Judgement The Reason why the Judge doth mention our Good works rather then our Believing may be because those holy self-denying expressions of Faith and Love to Christ do contain or certainly imply Faith in them as the life of the tree is in the fruit but faith doth contain our works of Obedience but only as their cause These works also are a part of the personal Righteousness which is to be enquired after that is we shall not be judged righteous meerly because we have Believed but also because we have added to our Faith vertue and have improved our Talents and have loved Christ to the hazard of all or his sake For it is not only or principally for the goodness of the work considered in it self or the good that is done by it to the poor but it is as these works did express our Faith and Love to Christ by doing him the most costly and hazardous service that by Faith we could see Christ in a poor beggar or a prisoner and could love Christ in These better then our worldly goods or liberties which we must part with or hazard by the works that are here mentioned 2. The Reasons why Christ will so publikely Declare the personal righteousness of men to be the Reason or Cause of his Justifying sentence it is because It is the business of that day not only to glorifie Gods meer Love and Mercy but eminently to glorifie his Remunerative Justice and not only to express his love to the Elect as such but to express his love to them as Faithful and Obedient and such as have denyed all for Christ and Loved God above all And to shew his justice to the men and faithfulness in fulfilling all his promises and also his holinss in the high estimation of the holiness of his people I shall express this in the words of a Learned Divine Dr Twiss against Mr. Cotton pag. 40. Was there no more in Gods intention when he elected some then the manifestation of the riches of his glorious grace Did not God purpose also to manifest the Glory of his Remunerative Justice Is it not undenyable that God will bestow salvation on all his Elect of ripe years by way of reward and Crown of Righteousness which God the Righteous Judge will give 2 Tim. 4. 2 Thes. 1. It is great pitty this is not considered as usually it is not Especially for the momentous Consequence thereof in my Judgement So far he So much of the Sentence of Justification which shall be passed by Christ at Judgement upon the Righteous 2. We are next to consider of the Sentence of Condemnation which shall then by Christ be passed on the unrighteous Which is delivered to us by Christ Mat. 25. in the same order as the former This Sentence containeth 1. The Condemnation it self 2. The Reason or Cause of it The Condemnation expresseth the misery which they are judged to 1. Generally in the Denomination Cursed 2. Particularly by Description of their Cursed state To be cursed is to be a People destinated and adjudged to utter unhappiness to all kind of misery without remedy 2. Their Cursed condition is described in the next words Depart from me into Everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels 1. Depart From whom from the God that made them in his Image From the Redeemer that bought them by the price of his blood and offered to save them freely for all their unworthyness and many a time intreated them to Accept his offer that their souls might live From the Holy Ghost the Sanctifier and Comforter of the faithful who strove

to particular acts much less take away its natural Freedom 6. And that till Habits attain an utter predominancy at least there is a Power remaining in the will to resist them and use means against them Though Eventually the perverse Inclination may hinder the use of it The three and twentieth Excuse I have heard from learned men that God doth determine all Actions Natural and Free as the first efficient Physical Immediate Cause or else nothing could Act. And then it was not long of me that I choose forbidden Objects but of him that irresistibly moved me thereto and whose Instrument I was Answ. This is a trick of that wisdom which is foolishness with God and to be deceived by vain Philosophy 1. The very principle it self is most likely to be false and those that tell you this to err Much more I think may be said against it then for it 2. I am sure it is either false or reconcileable with Gods Holiness and mans liberty and culpability so that its a mad thing to deceive your selves with such Philosophical uncertainties when the Truth which you oppose by it is infallibly certain That God is not the Author of sin but man himself who is justly condemned for it is undoubtedly true and would you obscure so clear a Truth by searching into points beyond humane reach if not unsound as you conclude them The four and twentieth Excuse But at least those learned Divines among us that doubt of this do yet say that the will is necessarily and infallibly Determined by the Practical Vnderstanding and that is as much unresistibly necessitated by Objects and therefore whatever act was done by my understanding or will was thus necessitated and I could not help it They say Liberty is but the Acting of the faculty agreeably to its nature And it was God as Creator that gave Adam his faculties and God by providential dispose that presented all Objects to him by which his understanding and so his will were unavoidably necessitated Answ. This is of the same nature with the former uncertain if not certainly false Were this true for ought we can see it would lay all the sin and misery of the world on God as the unresistable necessitating Cause which because we know infallibly to be false we have no reason to take such principles to be true which infer it The understanding doth not by a necessary efficiency Determine the will but morally or rather is regularly a Condition or necessary Antecedent without which it may not Determine it self Yea the will by commanding the sense and phantasie doth much to determine the understanding As the eye is not necessary to my going but to my going right so is not the Understandings Guidance necessary to my willing there the simple Apprehension may suffice but to my Right willing There are other wayes of Determining the will Or if the Understanding did Determine the will Efficiently and Necessarily it is not every act of the understanding that must do it If it be so when it saith This must be don saith it importunatly yet not when it only saith This may be done or you may venture on it which is the common part which it hath in sin I am not pleased that these curious Objections fall in the way nor do I delight to put them into vulgar heads but finding many young Schollars and others that have conversed with them assaulted with these Temptations I thought meet to give a touch and and but a touch to take them out of their way As Mr. Fenner hath done more fully in the Preface to his Hidden Manna on this last point to which I refer you I only add this The will of man in its very Dominion doth be are Gods Image It is a self Determining Power though it be byassed by Habits and needs a Guide As the Heart and Vital Spirits by which it acteth are to the rest of the Body so is It to the soul The Light of Nature hath taught all the world to carry the Guilt of every crime to the will of man and there to leave it Upon this all Laws and Judgements are grounded From Ignorance and Intellectual weakness men commonly fetch Excuses for their faults but from the Will they are Aggravated If we think it strange that mans will should be the first cause so much as of a sinful mode and cannot answer all occuring Objections It may suffice that we are certain the Holy Majesty is not the Author of sin and he is able to make all this as plain as the Sun and easily answer all these vain Excuses though we should be unable And if we be much ignorant of the frame and motions of our own souls and especially of that high self determining principle Free-Will the great spring of our Actions and the curious Engine by which God doth Sapientially Govern the world it is no wonder Considering that the soul can know it self but by Reflexion and God gave us a soul to use rather than to know it self and to know its qualities and operations rather then its Essence The five and twentieth Excuse No man can be saved nor avoid any sin nor believe in Christ but those whom God hath predestinated thereto I was under an irreversible Sentence before I was born therefore I do nothing but what I was predestinated to do if God decreed not to save me how could I help it Answ. 1. Gods Judgements are more plain but his Decrees or secret purposes are mysterious And to darken certainties by having recourse to points obscure is no part of Christian wisdom God told you your Duty in his word and on what terms you must be Judged to Life or Death Hither should you have recourse for direction and not to the unsearchable mysteries of his mind 2. God decreeth not to Condemn any but for sin Sin I say as the Cause of that Condemnation though not of his Decree 3. Gods Decrees are acts Immanent in himself and make no change on you and therefore do not necessitate you to sin any more then his fore-knowledge doth For both cause only a necessity of Consequence which is Logical as the Divines on both sides do Confess And therefore this no more caused you to sin then if there had been no such Degree And its a doubt whether that Decree be not negative A willing suspending of the Divine will as to evil or at most A purpose to permit it The six and twentieth Excuse If it be no more yet doth it make my perdition unavoidable For even Gods foreknowledge doth so For if he foreknow it all the world cannot hinder it from coming to pass Answ. Must God either be Ignorant of what you will do or else be the cause of it If you foreknow that the Sun will rise tomorrow that doth not cause it to rise If you foreknow that one man will murder another you are not the cause of it by foreknowing it So is it