Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	live_v	soul_n	1,528	5	5.4031	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42287	An apology for M. Antonia Bourignon in four parts ... : to which are added two letters from different hands, containing remarks on the preface to The snake in the grass and Bourignianism detected : as also some of her own letters, whereby her true Christian spirit and sentiments are farther justified and vindicated, particularly as to the doctrine of the merits and satisfaction of Jesus Christ.	Garden, George, 1649-1733.; Bourignon, Antoinette, 1616-1680.; De Heyde, Dr.	1699 (1699)	Wing G218; ESTC R18554	402,086	456

they will become no less for this Saying and if there are none at least some will be awakened out of their Security and endeavour to become so If A. B. had said that God by an unchangeable Decree from all Eternity had predestinated the greatest part of the World to Damnation it might then indeed be said that she is void of Charity to God and Man But when she declares that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to Repentance and yet that all Men were living in a Contradiction to the Life and Spirit of Jesus Christ she could not do them a more charitable Office than to warn them of their Danger Will they say the Psalmist was uncharitable and damn'd all the World because he tells us the Lord look'd down from Heaven upon the Children of Men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God they are all gone aside they are altogether become filthy there is none that doeth Good no not one Every Man ought to weigh the Truth or Falshood of this Saying as to himself and see if he can make this particular Exception to the general Saying There is no True Christians upon Earth let him set at the Foot of it Except I my self And if his Conscience dare not write down this Exception he has reason to thank the Charity that put him to the Trial without regard whether it be true or false as to others which will avail him nothing so long as it holds as to himself And as to the other part of the Prejudice that God will make her and her Writings the Mean of the Renovation of the Gospel Spirit She says It is God who enlightens Understandings who warms Wills with his Love who produces Charity in Souls in short who is the only Giver of all Good without any Creatures being able to cause to be born in the Soul of another the Spirit of Regeneration which is to live again to God and to die to ones self This is a Masterpiece of the Works of God much more rare and precious than the Body of Man and nevertheless he will not do it but by the means of Creatures who shall be subject to him and will hear his Voice who will make others Partakers of the Light which God communicates to them that by it they may be enlightned and know their Errors and the Way to become True Believers The Understanding the Speech and the Hand of such spiritual Mothers is the Matter with which God will beget his True Children making them comprehend his Truths by the Words Writings and Actions of those who shall receive the Word of God immediately who are few in number because Men are now so diverted in the Affairs and Business of this World that they cannot hear the Voice of God tho' he speak continually to their Heart And to supply their Weakness and the Wandrings of their Spirit his great Goodness causes to speak and write by sensible and visible Objects the things which may render all those True Believers who truly desire to become so And that her Writings are of this Nature full of Divine and Saving Truths Simple and Solid Milk for Babes and Meat for strong Men suted for all Capacities and all Ages they manifest themselves as the Light does to those who are not Blind And as to their reproaching her that being a Woman yet she would presume to instruct the World when St. Paul would not suffer a Woman to speak in the Church and therefore calling her in Contempt and Old Wife she said That for her being a Woman she could not hinder it since no Body forms themselves they must ask God if they would know why he created her a Woman and not a Man that she her self had been displeas'd at it but since God made her know it was his Pleasure she was content for she lov'd rather to be a little Atom in the Will of God than a whole World in her own Will And when she began to teach by her Writings it was by an express Command of God which she long resisted for which she begs Pardon for she could not resolve on this because she was a Woman who has never so much Authority in matter of Doctrine as a Man But she came over all humane Respects and expos'd her self to all their Mockeries She says If the Truths of God must be rejected because they are dictated by a Woman all the Great and Learned that ever were in the World ought also to be rejected seeing all are equally come of a Woman Why should they then despise their Origin since God does not despise it but makes use of them to operate his greatest Marvels and always Figures the Church his Spouse by a Woman Women are as capable of receiving the Graces of God as Men there being no difference between their Souls and the bodily difference respecting Nature only in which even Woman ought to be more regarded than Men seeing when God would needs become Man he would have a Woman for his Mother but not a Man for his Father and he has done his greatest Wonders by the means of Women What Triumphant Victory did Judith obtain against Holofernes and Esther in the Deliverance of God's People And whereas it is said it is not permitted Women to teach the Apostle she says ordains the aged Women to teach the younger and to instruct their Children and Family in the fear of God and both in the Old and New Testament we read of many Women-Prophetesses foretelling things to come And the Apostle says it is an honour to a Woman to prophesie with her Head covered She says they ought to let God spe●k by a Woman if it be his Pleasure since he spoke in former Times to a Prophet by a Beast that he bestows his Graces and Wisdom on whom he pleases and Man ought not to ask him why he does so That before God it is not Man or Woman that signifies any thing but the Spirit of Righteousness and Truth That they ought not to regard whether she be Man or Woman but whether what she says be Just and True That she writes by an express Command of God doing this as secretly as she can shut up in her Chamber That Men are now less dispos'd to receive his Divine Light than Women since their Hearts are blown up with Pride to apply all Glory and Authority to themselves instead of referring it to God and cannot endure that a simple Woman as she should speak of Divine Things least their Learning should be less esteem'd So those Great Philosophers will not let God do his Marvels by the means of a Virgin but will oblige him to operate by Great Divines not remembring that he has said * He has chosen the weak things of the World to confound the things that are mighty and the foolish things of the World to confound the wise and base things of the World and

damn'd For this is but a Testimony of the Faith which the faithful Christian has in his Soul which he declares to all Men by the means of the Water of outward Baptism but if this living Faith is not in the Man's Soul this outward Baptism will serve him for nothing This is the Reason why Anabaptists will not baptize Children but they themselves seem to have no more Faith when they are grown up than when they were Children for the Scripture says He who believes in Jesus Christ does the Works that he did which they do not which shews they do not believe in him tho' they are not baptiz'd till they come to the use of Reason So the Soul of Man cannot receive Salvation by the means of outward Baptism when he has not in him living Faith or his Parents for him if he be in Childhood The Catholicks then have no ground to believe that all Children who are baptized shall be saved and that they who die without Baptism shall be damn'd since this depends upon the Free-will of their Parents who offering willingly their Children to God to become true Christians they are accepted of God by the Will of their Parents and will assuredly be saved if they die before the use of Reason And if others by their Parents are offered to the Devil and to Sin and die in their Nonage they will be damned by the Evil will of their Parents even tho' outwardly they receive the Baptism of Water which without Faith is null and Faith without Baptism in diverse cases does save We see with what strength of Reason she declares this Sentiment and tho' there were nothing else but the Consideration of our case in Adam it serves to confirm it for there is no partiality in God no respect of Persons he acts by the same Measures and the same Rules with Creatures of the same Kind and Qualities The Offence we take at this proceeds from our Ignorance of God and his Works and the Desire we have to extenuate the Guilt and damnable Effects of our Unchristian Care of our Children When God created things at first he did not establish them in the Disorder in which we now see them but all good and excellent in their respective kinds When he establish'd the Propagation of Man to come from Man it was not that they might communicate Imperfections to one another but the Perfections he had given them and God's wise and admirable Conduct in this is thus in some measure represented When he created free and intelligent Beings it was not possible but that at first they must be frail and capable of falling away for then they had no Habits to Good which consisting in frequently repeated Acts and being acquired thereby intelligent Creatures at first were not strengthned in Good and thro' their weakness they might abuse their Liberty and fall away God having seen this come to pass in an infinite Number of Angels and desiring to settle other Creatures in their room thought how he might place others who from their Birth or Being might have Habits to Good and so being thus establish'd in it might not so easily fall away If then all those Creatures should come from one Source that were habitually Good then they who came of them should be born all with an habitual strength to Good and they encreasing and strengthning their good Habits those who descended from them should be yet much more establish'd and invincible in Goodness and so on by a continual Gradation But to accomplish this charitable Design the first Creature of that kind must be produc'd in the common Lot without an habitual Firmness but in a State actually Good and such care taken to prevent his Fall as that God bodily converses with him If therefore Man do not correspond to this Care it is purely his own fault who of his Free-will has chang'd into a Source of Misery that which ought to have been a Source of Communication of Good Now the same Reason for which Men were to come of one another by Propagation is the Reason also why the Lot of Children is the same with that of the Parents so long as they have not the use of their Liberty If Parents had remain'd in the Perfection in which God plac'd them and encreas'd in it according to his Establishment this had been a great Happiness for their Children who had thus been Partakers of habitual Good even from their Original but if the contrary did afterwards happen this is neither from the Decree nor Design of God but purely the fault of Man with which God's Decree has no concern Now suppose that God has appointed that Men should descend of one another by Propagation it follows immediately and naturally without the intervention of a New Decree that the Lot and Liberty of the Children should be bound up in the Parents so long as they are not in a State to make use of it freely themselves As long as an Effect is in its Cause it is one and the same with its Cause And as long as it is not like to its Cause and is not Independent on it it is also in it for it goes out from it but according as it has it self apart the natural and necessary Faculties and Functions for its own Constitution and for its individual Government as its Cause has to be naturally compleat If therefore it have not as yet the free conduct of it self being found to be a free Agent it is as yet in regard of that in its Cause or in its Parents Not that for some Years after a Child is born his Free-will is yet in an inherent manner in his Parents and that it must flow from them into the Child when he is farther advanc'd in Age. But that the Parents produce a Body and a Soul in a State imperfect enough so as yet to need their Care and Operation so to speak for some Years before the Subject which hitherto is imperfect become perfect And so long as it is not it belongs yet naturally to the producing Cause which is obliged to have a care of it as a part of it self as in effect it is Hence also comes the Right which Fathers and Mothers have of educating their Children which is not a Right that is positive or may be dispenc'd with or which simply regards the Body but a natural indispensible Right which much more respects the Soul than the Body XVIII Another great Prejudice rais'd against her was that she spoke so meanly of Reason did not look on it as the surpeam Faculty of the Soul nor the Exercise of it as the best Employment and thought there were such dangerous Fruits of Sciences and humane Learning and the means of acquiring them In the Thoughts of M. Pascal there are I remember excellent Reflections about the Three different sorts of Grandeur which have their different Empires Dignities Honours c. and may be call'd Divine Rational and Earthly

that he spake to his People by him because he was incredulous and rendred himself unworthy of entring into the promis'd Land Must we not believe the Holy Scripture endited by Solomon because ●e fell into Idolatry Or ought we to doubt if David had the Spirit of God because he fell into Adultery and other Sins Truly this would be very extravagant and render all the Works of God suspected and doubtful because of the Trailty of Men. For in the New Testament does not the Apostle make this Distinction of his own Spirit from the Spirit of God When he says It is I who says or does this and elsewhere It is the Spirit of God who says it Even Jesus Christ had he not the Spirit of God in him and the Natural Spirit both When he prays to his Father that his own Will might not be done If he had not had a Natural Will he would not have prayed thus And it could not be the Spirit of God that made him say If it be possible let this Cup pass from me Nor which made him doubt that he was forsaken of his Father in the very brink of Death of necessity these were simply natural Motions which mov'd him to all these things and not at all the Motions of the Holy Spirit Why would they then have me of another Stuff than the Prophets Apostles and Jesus Christ himself and hinder that my natural Motions should not act any more in me after that I have received the Holy Spirit Must I become immoveable in Body and Spirit that I may move no longer naturally Must the Spirit of God make all the Functions of my Spirit and Body to cease that he alone may operate in them Truly God would make use of a strange Figure against his Ordinary since he always makes use of humane Creatures to speak to Men and to make known his Will to them by Organs of those like themselves And for this Cause Jesus Christ took a truly humane Body that by means palpable to their Humanity he might make himself to be understood and obeyed And the Body and Spirit of Jesus Christ did act humanly And the Apostles acted in many things according to their natural Motions and in many things were mistaken for we read that the Apostles being one night assembled after that they had received the Holy Spirit when St. Peter was in Prison from whence being come out miraculously he knock'd at the Gate where they were assembled and the Maid Roda told them he was at the Gate they thought with one common Judgment that the Maid dream'd saying to her that she was a Fool. All the Motions which this Holy Assembly had could not come but from Nature Must we conclude from thence that they had not received the Holy Spirit or that they had lost him because of such Mistakes or because they acted according to their natural Passions or Functions in this Opinion I think we should commit a great Sin to believe any such thing or to suspect the Holy Spirit in them because they are mistaken in some things for these Faults and Mistakes are annexed to humane Nature since Sin which has so blinded Man's Understanding that he is oft-times mistaken in that which he sees before his Eyes But the Holy Spirit can never be mistaken in any thing nor inspire things that are not true And it would be an abominable thing to believe it or to judge that a Person were not guided by the Holy Spirit because he is mistaken in some indifferent things For the Holy Spirit does not teach the Soul that he possesses all the Circumstances of that which it ought to do and say but he teaches it the essential things of Righteousness Goodness and Truth in all that it ought to do or avoid And it is the Business of the Understanding to comprehend and search out the means to attain to these Ends whetting its Spirit and all the Faculties of its Soul that it may rightly accomplish in all things Righteousness Goodness and Truth And if those natural Functions were made to cease acting after this manner the Holy Spirit could do nothing by the Person who is the visible and sensible Organ an Instrument of God without which Instrument he cannot make gross and natural Men to understand him Therefore the Angels themselves have sometimes taken humane Bodies to make themselves be seen and perceived by Men according to their natural Sight and Sentiments Now it is true that God has given me his Holy Spirit promised by Jesus Christ which teaches me all Truth but yet it is not true that he teaches me in particular all the Words that proceed out of my Mouth nor all the Letters or Syllables that I write far less all the Motions of my Body for this is done humanly by my own Spirit or my visible Body For if the Holy Spirit did dictate to me all the Words that I must pronounce or all the Words that I must write I could never commit Faults in Speaking or Writing which I do often commit not knowing sometimes where to find Words to express my self well nor Orthography to write well which I have declared in my printed Writings saying It is the Spirit that teaches me the Doctrine which I write but as for the Faults which are in the Pen or the Words it is I who commits them and not the Holy Spirit which may satisfie all captious Spirits who seek to discredit the Wisdom of God by the Faults that I might have done Naturally Since the Proverb says that all Men do fail and mistake themselves and the Perfect are in Heaven because there are no Perfections but in God alone And it would be to tempt him to require of a human Creature the Perfection of all things since this appertains to God only and not to Men who have only a limited Perfection every one his Talent one the Perfection of speaking well another of writing well another of singing well with other natural Gifts which do not come immediately from the Holy Spirit tho' he makes use of all those Gifts when they may serve for the Glory of God and when the Person offers and resigns them up to his Government For Example God has given me an Ability to compose my Writings and it is his Will that I do it for his Glory and the Good of Souls These things come in Substance from the Holy Spirit but it is my natural Hand that writes it and my natural Spirit that conceives it which may commit accidental or material Faults but there can be no Faults in the thing it self every one may assuredly believe and follow that without amusing himself whether I have any Defect in the Manner or if there be any thing of natural mingled with it since God makes use of Nature and even of its Defects to teach Men to seek those things that are above and not the things that are upon the Earth For all that fine Learning and studied

know no true Christians it cannot be understood that I know them for true Christians because I call them by that Name but I conform my self in this to the Disposition of those who hear me and not to the Truth of what they are Which if I would follow I behov'd sometimes to call those nominal Christians Atheists or Antichristians which scarce any Man would understand therefore to make my self be understood I must use common and ordinary Terms and pronounce them as briefly as I can since we must give an account of every idle Word I ought not to add uselesly to the Name of Christians as they call them since it is understood well enough of it self without pronouncing those Words as the Quakers do To make appear how fully she clears her self as to Contradictions which they were ready to impute to her I shall here adduce one Instance I understand says she by yours that my Writings have had some good Operation in your Soul but withal that you have found as it seems to you some Contradiction in them in that I say absolutely that to be a true Christian one must abandon all that he possesses and nevertheless you find in one of my Letters that a Man must keep his Goods for his Necessities since the World is now without Charity and they would leave the Just without help in his need Both these things are most true and do not at all contradict one another for a Man must absolutely abandon the Love of earthly Goods if he would become a true Christian Jesus Christ has very often affirm'd this Truth in his Gospel and said that he who does not renounce all that he possesses cannot be his Disciple I bring no Novelties when through all my Writings I press this Necessity of forsaking all things to be a Disciple of Jesus Christ since Jesus Christ his Apostles and all who have received the Holy Spirit say the same thing and there is but one Truth which is God which says through all the same thing So that they who speak otherwise are Liars and Seducers of the People who flatter Men to destroy them under the Pretext of Glosses and false Reasons which they draw from the Holy Scriptures without any Ground This I have declar'd sufficiently in my Writings as you have well observ'd and approved as you say seeing I very much blam'd a Woman of Friesland who was yet careful what she should eat and drink and wherewithal she should be cloathed after she had resolved to become a true Christian as you have remarked in the Second Letter of the Fourth Part of La lum née en tenebres And I am still of the same Sentiment that when one relies upon temporal things and will not voluntarily abandon them to follow Jesus Christ he cannot be his Disciple and that Woman will never be one so long as she is not disengag'd from temporal Goods Tho' she be now gone out of her Country with a design to embrace a Gospel Life she cannot attain to it because of the Affection she has still for her Ease and Conveniences which proceeds from Self-love being anxious for the temporal Part and fearing Want And I can assure all those who are still in that Disposition that they are not true Christians But when I wrote to one of my Friends in the 24th Letter of the Fourth Part of La lum née en tenebr as you alledge that he ●ought to keep his Goods for his own Necessities or that of others without leaving them to his Friends or giving them to the Poor now adays I had reason to do it because this Man was more disengag'd in his Soul from temporal Wealth than that Woman and had already resolv'd to abandon them all so that his Heart was free to possess them as if he did not possess them which a Person wedded to them could not do tho' it seems to him he could and he will say so with his Mouth for there is nothing more deceitful than the Heart of Man which none knows but God and he to whom God reveals it And I had reason to advise this Man to keep his Goods and that Woman that she should not care for the Morrow without any Contradiction in my Advices but in the Disposition of those Two Persons whom you mention Since the one was free to possess Wealth without sinning and not the other and a good Physician ought always to consider the Original of his Patient's Disease if he would heal him For if he ordain the same Physick for all sorts of Maladies he would kill more than all the Executioners together So you must not think that there is a Contradiction in my Two Letters mentioned by you but that there are Two divers Remedies for Two different Diseases to wit one Remedy against the Love or Desire of earthly things and another against too great Liberality or Indiscretion Again A. B. says somewhere That no Body ever was or can be saved but by the Merits of Jesus Christ and some Pages after in the same Treatise she says that no Body can be saved by the Merits of another This seems contradictory as well as those Two Propositions the one of St. Paul and the other of St. James Man is justified by Faith without the Works of the Law and Man is justified by Works and not by Faith only This last Contradiction ●s reconciled by saying that St. Paul understands that the Principle which admits in us that true Righteousness which God places there is Faith and that Works are not that Principle But St. James means that that Principle which admits in us the Righteousness of God is Faith but that Faith is not destitute of Works for if Faith were without Works it were a dead Faith which would justifie no Body Thus these have no Contradiction and yet are harder to reconcile than any Passages of the Writings of A. B. Thus as to the forecited Passage when she says that no Body is saved but by the Merits of Jesus Christ her meaning is that Jesus Christ is the Author and meritorious Cause of the Salvation of Men who will accept of this Salvation by the ways that God teaches them and when she says that no Body can be saved by the Merits of another this signifies that none who will not co-operate to their Salvation by the ways that God pre●cribes them c●n be saved by the Merits of Jesus Christ or that the Merits of Jesus Christ will not save those who will not follow the way of Salvation Thus you see how easie it is for critical and captious Spirits to find Contradictions where there are none that the Holy Scriptures themselves have many seeming Contradictions tho none in Truth that they who are led by the Spirit of God write in great Simplicity regarding the Essence and Substance of divine Truths and not the niceness of Terms and how captious Spirits may misinterpret them and divine Truths had need to be read and