Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A53736
|
A vindication of some passages in a discourse concerning communion with God from the exceptions of William Sherlock, rector of St. George Buttolph-Lane / by the author of the said discourse, John Owen.
|
Owen, John, 1616-1683.
|
1674
(1674)
|
Wing O821; ESTC R7728
|
91,516
|
238
|
of Grace towards all men at all times under each Covenant whether he will or no. But this it is to be a happy Disputant all things succeed well with such Persons which they undertake And as to the Manner of the Operation of Grace how far Grace it self may be said to be Omnipotent and in its Operations irresistible I have fully declared there where he may oppose and refute it if he have any Mind thereunto His present Attempt against it in those words that God governs Reasonable Creatures by Principles of Reason is so weak in this Case and impertinent that it deserves no Consideration For all the Operations of Divine Grace are suited unto the Rational Constitution of our Beings neither was ever man so wild as to fancy any of them such as are inconsistent with or do offer force unto the Faculties of our Souls in their Operations Yea that which elevates aids and assists our Rational Faculties in their Operations on and towards their proper Objects which is the work of Efficacious Grace is the principal Preservative of their Power and Liberty and can be no way to their Prejudice And we do moreover acknowledge that those Proposals which are made in the Gospel unto our Reason are eminently suited to excite and prevail with it unto its proper Use and Exercise in complyance with them Hence although the Habit of Faith or Power of Believing be wrought in us by the Holy Ghost yet the Word of the Gospel is the Cause and Means of all its Acts and the whole Obedience which it produceth But if by governing Reasonable Creatures by the Principle of Reason he intends that God deals no otherwise by his Grace with the Souls of men but only by proposing Objective Arguments and Motives unto a Complyance with his Will without internal Aids and Assistances of Grace it is a gross piece of Peâ—â—gianisme destructive of the Gospel sufficiently confuted elsewhere and he may explain himself as he pleaseth His proceed is to transcribe some other Passages taken out of my Book here and there in whose repetition he inserts some impertinent Exceptions But the design of the whole is to state a Controversie as he calls it between us and them or those whom he calleth They and We whoever they be And this upon the Occasion of my mentioning the fulness of Grace Life and Righteousness that is in Christ he doth in these Words pag. 215. They say that these are the Personal Graces of Christ as Mediator which are inherent in him and must be derived from his Person we say they signifie the Perfection and Excellency of his Religion as being the most perfect and compleat Declaration of the Will of God and the most powerfull Method of the Divine Wisdom for the reforming of the World as it prescribeâ— the only Righteousness which is 〈◊〉 â—ble to God and directs us in the only way to Life and Immortality I shall not absolutely accept of the Terms of this Controversie as to the state of it on our part proposed by him and yet I shall not much vary from them We say therefore that Jesus Christ being full of all Grace Excellencies and Perfections he communicates them unto us in that Degree as is necessary for us and in proportion unto his abundant Charity and Goodness towards us And we Christians as his Body or fellow Members of his Humane Nature receive Grace and Mercy flowing from him to us This state of the Controversie on our side I suppose he will not refuse nor the terms of it but will own them to be ours though he will not it may be allow some of them to be Proper or Convenient And that he may know who his They are who are at this End of the Difference he may be pleased to take notice that these words are the whole and intire Paraphrase of D r. Hammond on Joh. 1.16 the first Testimony he â—â—â—â—rtakes to answer And when this Author hath replyed to Mr. Hooker D r. Jackson and Him and such other Pillars of the Church of England as concurre with them it will be time enough for me to consider how I shall defend my self against him Or if he will take the Controversie on our part in Terms more directly Expressive of my Mind It is the Person of Christ is the Fountain of all Grace to the Church as he well observes my Judgement to be and that from him all Grace and Mercy is derived unto us And then I do maintain that the They whom he opposeth are not onely the Church of England but the whole Catholick Church in all Ages Who the We are on the other hand who reject this Assertion and believe that all the Testimonies concerning the fulness of Grace in Christ and the Communication thereof unto us do only declare the Excellency of his Religion is not easie to be conjectured For unless it be the People of Racow I know not who are his Associates And let him but name three Divines of any Reputation in the Church of England since the Reformation who have given the least Countenance unto his Assertions Negative or Positive and I will acknowledge that he hath better Associates in his Profession than as yet I believe he hath But that Jesus Christ himself God and Man in one Person the Mediator between God and Man is not a Fountain of Grace and Mercy to his Church that there is no real internal Grace communicated by him or derived from him unto his Mystical Body that the Fulness which is in him or said to be in him of Grace and Truth of unsearchable Riches of Grace c. is nothing but the Doctrine which he taught as the most compleat and perfect Declaration of the Will of God are Opinions that cannot be divulged under pretence of Authority without the most pernicious scandal to the present Church of England And if this be the Mans Religion that this is all the Fulness we receive from Christ A perfect Revelation of the Divine Will concerning the Salvation of Mankind which contains so many excellent Promises that it may well be called Grace and prescribes such a plain and simple Religion so agreeable to the natural Notions of Good and Evil that it may well be called Truth that complying with its Doctrine or yielding Obedience unto its Precepts and believing the Promises which it gives in our own strength without any real Aid Assistance or Communication of internal saving Grace from the Person of Jesus Christ is our Righteousness before God whereon and for which we are Justified I know as well as he whence it came and perhaps better than he whither it will go The remaining Discourse of this Chapter consisteth of two parts First an Attempt to disprove any Communication of real internal Grace from the Lord Christ unto Believers for their Sanctification Secondly an Endeavour to refute the Imputation of his Righteousness unto us for our Justification In the first he contends that all the Fulness
God hath not life I am the Vine and you are the Branches he which abideth in Me and I in him the same bringeth forth much Fruit but the Branch severed from the Vine withereth We are therefore adopted Sons of God to Eternal Life by Participation of the only begotten Son of God whose Life is the well-Spring and Cause of ours It is too cold an Interpretation whereby some Men expound our being in Christ to import nothing else but only that the self-same Nature which maketh Us to be Men is in him and maketh him Man as We are For what Man is there in the World which hath not so far forth Communion with Jesus Christ. It is not this can sustain the weight of such sentences as speak of the Mystery of our Coherence with Jesus Christ. The Church is in Christ as Eve was in Adam Yea by Grace we are every of Us in Christ and in his Church as by Nature we are in those our first Parents God made Eve of the Rib of Adam and his Church he formed out of the very flesh the very wound and bleeding side of the Son of Man His Body crucified and his Blood shed for the Life of the World were the true Elements of that Heavenly being which maketh Us such as himself is of whom we come For which cause the words of Adam may be fitly the Words of Christ concerning his Church Flesh of my flesh and Bone of my Bones a true Native Extract out of mine own Body So that in him even according to his Manhood we according to our Heavenly being are as Branches in that Root out of which they grow To all things he is Life and to Men Light as the Son of God to the Church both Life and Light Eternal by being made the Son of Man for Us and by being in Us a Saviour whether we respect him as God or as Man Adam is in us as an original Cause of our Nature and of that Corruption of Nature which causeth Death Christ as the Cause Original of Restauration to Life The Person of Adam is not in us but his Nature and the Corruption of his nature derived into all Men by Propagation Christ having Adam's Nature as we have but incorrupt deriveth not Nature but incorruption and that immediately from his own Person into all that belong unto him As therefore we are really partakers of the Body of Sin and Death received from Adam so except we be truly partakers of Christ and as really possessed of his Spirit all we speak of Eternal Life is but a Dream That which quickneth us is the Spirit of the Second Adam and his Flesh that wherewith he quickneth That which in him made our Nature uncorrupt was the Union of his Deity with our Nature And in that respect the Sentence of Death and Condemnation which only taketh hold upon sinful flesh could no way possibly extend unto him This caused his Voluntary Death for others to prevail with God and to have the force of an Expiatory Sacrifice The Blood of Christ as the Apostle witnesseth doth therefore take away Sin because through the Eternal Spirit he offered himself unto God without spot as that which sanctifyed our nature in Christ that which made it a Sacrifice available to take away sin is the same which quickneth it raised it out of the Grave after Death and exalted it unto Glory Seeing therefore Christ is in Us as a quickning Spirit the first degree of Communion with Christ must needs consist in the participation of his Spirit which Cyprian in that respect well termeth germanissimam Societatem the highest and truest Society that can be between Man and him which is both God and Man in One. These things Saint Cyril duly considering reproveth their Speeches which taught that only the Deity of Christ is the Vine whereupon we by Faith do depend as Branches and that neither his Flesh nor our Body are comprised in this Resemblance For doth any Man doubt but that even from the flesh of Christ our very Bodies do receive that Life which shall make them Glorious at the Latter Day and for which they are already accounted parts of his Blessed Body Our Corruptible Bodies could never live the Life they shall live were it not that here they were joyned with his Body which is incorruptible and that his is in ours as a Cause of Immortality a cause by removing through the Death and Merit of his own flesh that which hindred the Life of Ours Christ is therefore both as God and as Man that true Vine whereof we both Spiritually and Corporeally are Branches The Mixture of his Bodily Sâ—bstance with ours is a thing which the Ancient Fathers disclaim Yet the Mixture of his Flesh with ours they speak of to signify what our very Bodies through Mystical Conjunction do receive from that Vital Efficacy which we know to be in his and from Bodily Mixtures they borrow divers similitudes rather to declare the Truth than the manner of Coherence between his sacred and the sanctâ—fyed Bodies of Saints Thus much no Christian Man will deny that when Chrâ—st sanctifyed his own flesh giving as God and taking as Man the Holy Ghost he did not this for himself only but for our sakes that the Grace of Sanctification and Life which was first received in him might pass from him to his whole Race as Malediction came from Adam unto all Mankind Howbeit because the work of his Spirit to those Effects is in us prevented by Sin and Death possessing us before it is of necessity that as well our present Sanctification unto neâ—ness of Life as the future restauration of our Bodies should presuppose a participation of the Grace Efficacy Merit or Vertue of his Body and Blood without which Foundation first laid there is no Place for those other operations of the Spirit of Christ to ensue So that Christ imparteth plainly himself by degrees It pleaseth him in Mercy to account himself incompleat and maimed without us But most assured we are that we all receive of his fulness because he is in Us as a Moving and Working Cause from which many blessed Effects are really found to ensue And that in Sundry both kinds and Degrees all tending to Eternal Happiness It must be confessed that of Christ working as Creator and as Governour of the World by Providence all are Partakers not all Partakers of that Grace whereby he inhabiteth whom he Saveth Again as he dwelleth not by Grace in all so neither doth he equally work in all them in whom he dwelleth Whence is it saith Saint Augustin that some be Holier than others are but because God doth dwell in some more plentifully than in others And because the Divine substance of Christ is equally in all his Human Substance equally distinct from all it appeareth that the participation of Christ wherein there are many Degrees and Differences must needs consist in such Effects as being derived from both Natures of Christ