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	nature_n	spirit_n	1,729	5	5.0066	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26882	Catholick communion doubly defended by Dr. Owens, vindicator, and Richard Baxter and the state of that communion opened, and the questions discussed, whether there be any displeasure at sin, or repentance for it in Heaven : with a parallel of the case of using a faulty translation of Scripture, and a faulty lyturgy.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1684 (1684)	Wing B1208; ESTC R11859	46,778	44

of the Case Men in flesh have sin and danger and Bodies lyable to sensible commotion of Spirits and so to grief Those in Heaven are not such They have no cause of grief and yet have renewed faculties of mind and will which disgust sin and hate it and are turned from it to a contrary love and life Even here if a man by his own sin and folly had shut up himself twenty years in a Dungeon or put out his Eyes and never seen the light suppose this man suddenly delivered into the light and he would not stay to mourn for his former state but the sudden joy would exclude sorrow And yet his change would be a true Repentance for what he did But as you have wronged all Protestants by fathering your Errour on them you have made it my duty to vindicate them with my self But I am grown such a Prodigal of my Reputation with Men of such a judging disposition that I will cast away a little more of it on your Censure The Scripture speaketh so much more of our Glory after the Resurrection then before and purposely keepeth us so low in our knowledge of the particular state of Souls before and Calvin whom I suppose you take not for an Heretick for all his Treatise against the sleep of Souls did think the difference was so great between the state of the separated Souls and that at the Resurrection that I must profess my ignorance to be so great that I am uncertain whether this first state do set all the blessed so high as that no thought is consistent with it that hath the least degree of suffering For 1. I know that all Creatures are Passive 2. If felicity be imperfect till the Resurrection it must be privatively or positively or both If privatively how can I prove that nothing positive may concur when privation is as bad 3. I think that Protestants mostly agree that Christs own Soul while his Body was in the Grave was in Paradise in Joy and yet in a state that was partly Penal as it was a separation from the Body by death And that all Souls in Heaven are happy and yet in a state partly Penal in Heaven itself as they are separated from the body and short of the Resurrection For not only the minute of dying but the state of death is Penal to a Soul that desireth a return to the body And yet Heaven may be to it unconceivable felicity I only hence conclude that we must not take on us to know more than we do of separate Souls nor to make a measure or manner of blessedness for them of our own heads nor to apply every Text to them that is spoken of the state after the Resurrection There is enough besides to feast our joyful hopes IV. Some few other practical Doctrines we differ about as where pag. 30. you say I doubt not to affirm that doing that which a Law requires so far as the intention is moved by the Law is a justifying of it And submitting to any Law on the consideration of its Penalties is so far a justifying its preceptive part as not so great an evil as the Penal Ans. I first premise that this is little or nothing to the Cause I pleaded for For whereas you say None that I know of say it is a duty simply or without any dependence or human Sanction I have largely told you that taking publick Communion to be but do facto what it is and the Lyturgy as commonly used I take it to be a duty to hold such Communion where no better at least is though there were no human Sanction but voluntary Concord and this by vertue of Gods great Commands of glorifying him with one mind and mouth in Unity Love and Peace not an immutable duty but a duty rebus sic stantibus It is in obedience to Gods Commands more than Mens that I have gone to the Parish Churches and would have gone as much if the Law had not commanded it but only had deprived me of better But as to your undoubted affirmation I am as much past doubt that it is not true as you unlimitedly express it The intention may be moved by a Law for the effects or consequents sake and not justify the Law but only justify the Act of the Subject Yea it may be moved by the formal Authority of the Law-giver exprest by his Law and yet not justify the Law Ioseph and Mary were Taxed with others by Augustus Law They were moved by that Law and its effects to pay the Tax And yet justifyed not the Law nor decided the Case whether it were by Right or Usurpation All Conquered People by unjust War may obey a Taxing Law The Israelites might obey the Philistines that forbad them Smiths and Swords c. They may labour and Travel and pay Taxes moved by unjust Laws and yet not justify the Law but only their own Acts. When Christ sent Peter to take a Fish with Money in his Mouth and pay Tribute the Law moved his intention because of the offence that would follow the breaking of it And yet his answer intimateth that he justified not the Law If he carried his Cross at their Command that justified not their Command If he bid us give our Coat to him that sueth us for our Cloak if the Law be against us it proveth not he bids us justify the Law If a Confessor go to Prison or Banishment or to the Gallows or fire without resistance to do this as moved by the Law is no justifying of the Law If the Protestants in France should pay each man a yearly Tribute for liberty of Conscience or the Christians under the Turk pay Pos●-mony moved by the Law this justifieth not the Law I am persuaded your Church would gladly pay somewhat for liberty of Worship and yet not justify the Law that required it If the Law required us to meet for Gods Worship at an inconvenient place or time or to use a version of Psalms in Meeter or a Translation of Scripture that is not the best he that useth these in obedience to this because Concord in these according to Law is better then a better Version Translation Hour Place with Discord and because Obedience may do more good then better circumstances would without it yet doth not hereby justify the Law If the Law bid you appear before Justices or Judges that are bad men and unjust you may obey the Law and not justify it Dear Brother I will not aggravate your Errour by its ill Consequences But you and I tell the world what need all men have of pardon in our mistakes even when we are most confident 2. And as to your second affirmation it is not true without limitation That submitting to a Law on consideration of the Penalties is so far a justifying its preceptive part as not so great an evil as the Penal This is confused work The pr●ceptive part of the Law is actus

about consists wholly in the Institutions and on the Authority of Men and therefore is false Worship and to renounce the Kingly Office of Christ in the Church Nor that It belongs to the faithfulness of Christ to appoint and command all things in the Church that belong to the Worship of God in the Forms and Modes of them Doth this speak only of the English Lyturgy Nor that liberty to use gifts in Prayer and Preaching is ridiculously pretended they are excluded in all the solemn Worship of the Church 17. You defend not that This Practice joyning in the Lyturgy condemns the suffering Saints of the present Age renders them false Witnesses of God and the only blameable cause of their own sufferings And if all the Nonconformists that 1660. gave their Testimony for a Reformed Lyturgy were not Saints at least they have been Sufferers And doth not this as much make them false Witnesses And if both you and we were mistaken I am confident you will not justify all that we suffer by and say we are the only blameable Cause As if every such mistake were worthy of all the punishment undergone Nor will you think that every good Mans Opinion must be justifyed which he suffereth for lest he be made the only Cause 18. You defend not that All the Promises Aids of the Holy Spirit with respect to the Prayer of the Church whether as to the matter of them or ability or the manner are rejected and excluded by this Form of Worship 19. You defend not I hope that your Church Covenant is to observe nothing but what Christ commandeth in the Worship of God 20. Nor that The Practice inquired into contains a vertual renunciation of our Church State and of the lawfulness of our Ministry and Ordinances therein If you do it is no renunciation of ours I thank you that you defend none of all these For truly they be not things Indifferent but if they be not true they are of confounding dividing unpeaceable Consequence SECT 2. III. AS to the third thing which taketh up most room viz. your blaming me 1. For using the Doctors name 2. For the manner of my Confutation I say distinctly 1. I confess I think that the name of Christ and Religion and its Honour is to be preferred before all mens And I had many years ago heard a Conformable Preacher before a very honourable and learned Auditory charge the Nonconformists with holding that A thing lawful in itself in Gods Worship becometh unlawful if it be commanded by the Magistrate And that Forms and Liturgies were unlawful because they be not made in Scripture by Christ. And I have read too many such Charges And I always answered that we were slandered 2. I quickly heard that the Manuscript was commonly spread and he that brought it me said he believed a thousand were confirmed by it against going to the Parish Churches and Lyturgy 3. Several of my Friends and Acquaintance had got it and told me they thought it unanswerable And all named the Doctor as the Author 4. I was suddenly told of a very able Conformist that was going to answer it and I feared he would lay it on us all 5. I made no doubt but Pulpits and Press would loudly say these are the Nonconformists Principles and if I denyed it would cite the Doctors Paper and Name 6. I knew divers of his Printed Books have the same Opinion of the unlawfulness of Imposed Forms what now should I say against such reporters of the Nonconformists Opinions Must we all bear the Accusation of so many Errours and be published with Scorn and Contempt to be such to make us odious to all rather than one Man should be Confuted I purposed at first to conceal his Name till I saw that all took notice of it and none denyed it and after I conjecture it is your self that in the Letter to me affirmed it I know that multitudes of Men of Name Learning and Power scorn us as they do the Quakers as believing them that say We make all this noise and Schism as a distinct Party and suffer silencing and Imprisonment because we will not Communicate with the Lyturgy which the Martyrs owned I dare not suffer the Innocent to lie under such a slander for one or many Mans Name we gave them our publick Testimony to the contrary 1660. and 1661. If a few that would not come in then and be seen among them that pleaded the Cause of the old Nonconformists have now by our distempers got so many of their mind as that we must be thought intolerably to wrong them if we necessarily give our reasons against them and shall pass their Excommunicating Sentence against the Cause of the old Non-Conformists and yours I cannot be one that shall betray the Truth and Cause of Catholick Communion by silence at such a time when the Erroneous expect that their Opinion should be so necessary to our Union that none must contradict it Therefore your saying that you have met with none that approveth my writing if it were for the Cause as well as my faultiness will make me see the greater necessity of bearing my Testimony against them Epidemical diseases most need Physicians if not to cure the sick yet to preserve the sound Paul wanted not Love nor Prudence to Peter when he not only reproved his Temporizing Separation to his Face but left it with his Name on Record to all Generations when they were both dead Christ had immediately before abundantly honoured and praised Peter who yet for his miscarriage speaketh to him as he did to the Devil Get thee behind me Satan c. Mat. 16. And yet the miscarriage was done in Love to Christ by a prime and dear Disciple and his name must be thus left under this most sharp reproof to be read from Age to Age by all Iames and Iohn were choice Disciples and yet their Ambition and their Uncharitable Zeal for Christ must be recorded with their Names as men that desired they knew not what and knew not what manner of Spirit they were of We are not so much better than they as the Passions of some Applauders intimate Christ will not be more tender of our Names than of his Cause and the good of Souls If David will cause Gods Enemies to blaspheme his sin shall be punished in the sight of the Sun though the sharpest part of the punishment be pardoned But as for my naming the Dr. and your intimation that it 's long of me that he is named as the Author of those Arguments I further say 1. Is not a Man named openly till his Name be Printed Was not the uncontradicted report still continued a publication Was there no publication of Names till 224 years ago when Printing was invented 2. All that I yet desire is to be able to deny it to be his that the next Man that hits the Non-Conformists in the Teeth with it as the Doctors may but be told

Reverend man thus puzled at this as a dangerous Doctrine Doth he attempt in one syllable to blame any thing but the word When I excluded his misliked sense And he will not deny the ordinary use of the word as without sorrow But let us willingly take the Scripture use which speaketh of Repentance in Heaven and on Earth It is not Repetance on Earth that we have now to treat of And do you think its a good Argument that there is no Repentance in Heaven without sorrow because there is none on Earth without it But even on Earth Repentance is either the Act of the Intellect and Will alone or an Act of these joyned with divers Passions It is sometime so largely taken that the Passions of grief shame and fear and specially anger against our selves are parts of it But in all common Authors and ordinary use and even in Scripture it is taken for the change of Mind and Will the Passions being but effects or concomitants of it To Repent in the common and prime sense is but to change our Mind and Will and wish we had not done what we did When a thing was well done of us and yet sped not well we repent and wish we had not done it for the sake of the event but we blame not our selves for the Act nor grieve for that but for the event But usually we have cause of Sorrow as well as of Repentance and must joyn them together But where the Gospel frequently promiseth Repentance pardon and life together and Preacheth both Repenting and Believing in order to present joy there is little mention of the sorrow in the Converts save for the murdering of Christ or some great sin And Sorrow and Repenting are distinguished in Scripture as two things 2 Cor. 7. 9 10. I rejoyce not that ye were made sorry but that ye sorrowed to Repentance For Godly sorrow worketh Repentance to salvation not to be repented of Is the sense Godly sorrow worketh Godly sorrow No but a change of mind and life Heb. 6. 1. It is not called Repentance for dead works but from dead works as speaking the change rather than the grief Exod. 13. 17. Lest the people repent when they see war and they return to Aegypt Hence sear is the moving Passion and Repenting is wishing they had not left Aegypt and returning is the effect I am readier to think that sorrow is no part but an adjunct of Repentance in the strictest properest sense then that it is no Repentance without sorrow sure the specifying faculties of Man are the Intellect and Will and I think the specifying Acts of Rational true Repentance are the Acts of the same faculties and Sorrow is but such an adjunct as shame and anger at our selves are But it is Repentance in Heaven that is our subject And I have cited you Texts enough which speak of Gods Repenting And do you believe that he hath sorrow You 'l say that 's but metaphorically spoken Ans. No more is knowledge or will or any such Act that we can speak of God But if it be not a name unmeet to be spoken of God are Souls there greater or happier then he But we find no talk in Scripture of any in Heaven Repenting save God No wonder How little hath God told us of the particular state and action of separated Souls before the Resurrection when it pleaseth God so sparingly to mention their present state yea and their immortality in the old Testament shall we feign that he must tell us of all their thoughts But all these Acts of Repentance Souls in Heaven have 1. They know more of their sins both as to the matter and evil then ever they did on Earth 2. They own their Culpability that is that they are the Souls that committed these sins and deserved Death and Hell for them 3. They know the goodness of all the ways that are contrary to their sin 4. They love all that good and hate all their sin more than they did here 5. They wish they had never committed them 6. If it were to do again they would not do it This is proper true Repentance Either you deny the Things or but the Name If the Thing which of these deny you 1. If Saints in Heaven know not sin better then they did here Heaven is to them as dark as Earth 2. If they know not that they themselves were the Subjects and Actors of these sins they are ignorant or erroneous 3. If they know not that Gods way is better than sin they are brutish 4. If they love Good and hate Evil no better then here then they are no better 5. If their will do not wish that they had not done it then their will is not holy and averse to sin Either they review it with approbation which you believe not or with dislike or senselesly with no act of will If with dislike and displicence as before is proved that hatred or aversation contains a wish they had never done it Else David Peter Paul c. were better Men on Earth then in Heaven For here they wisht they had not been guilty of Murder Persecution c. And if they wish it not there their wills are more unholy than here Perhaps you 'l say It 's a vain wish of an impossibility Ans. No such matter I talk not of a prayer or a desire that factum non factum fiat but a Vellem or Mallem me non peccasse I had rather I had not sinned And that is not vain which is the Wills perfection or Holiness itself 6. And that they would not do the like again I need not prove I were a greater dishonourer of Heavenly felicity if I denyed any of these then you feign me to be I doubt not but those aforesaid that are disposed to obloquy will take occasion from your words yea the Papists from your entitling all Protestants to it to say The Nonconformists or the Protestants hold that Murder Rebellion Perfecution and all sin is so small a matter to their Saints in Heaven that they do not so much as Repent of it or will or wish they had never done it Therefore they either justify it or are neuters to it They say that the Mother of Lombard Gratian and Pet. Comestor being a Whore said she could not repent of the Fornication that had begot three such Sons If any say that the Saints in Heaven do not so much as wish or will that they had not sinned because Christ is glorifyed by saving them from it they pervert the Gospel Doctrine of Grace and would teach the justifyed on Earth to be impenitent But if you return to wordy Quarrels again and say all these Acts ought not to be called Repentance if they have not sorrow 1. I durst not so make my self Master of Languages against the use of all the world 2. And against the Scripture that speaketh of Gods Repenting 3. Nor against Etymology 4. And against the nature