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A77854 VindiciƦ legis: or, A vindication of the morall law and the covenants, from the errours of papists, Arminians, Socinians, and more especially, Antinomians. In XXIX. lectures, preached at Laurence-Jury, London. / By Anthony Burgess, preacher of Gods Word. Burgess, Anthony, d. 1664. 1646 (1646) Wing B5666; Thomason E357_3; ESTC R201144 253,466 294

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with divels we put heavie chaines and fetters that they may doe no hurt so the Lord laid the Law upon the people of Israel to keep them in from impietie The Apostle useth a word shut up as in a dungeon but that is to another sense It was Chrysostomes comparison As a great man suspecting his wife appoints Eunuchs to look to her and keep her so did God being jealous over the Jewes appoint these lawes 2. To curse and condemne and in this respect it poureth all 2. Because it condemnes them its fury upon the ungodly The Law to the godly by Christ is like a Serpent with a sting pulled out but now to the wicked the sting of sinne is the Law and therefore the condition of that man who is thus under it is unspeakably miserable The curse of it is the sore displeasure of God and that for every breach of it and if men that have broken onely mens lawes be yet so much afraid that they hide themselves and keep close when yet no man or Judge can damne them or throw them into hell what cause is there to feare that Law-giver who is able to destroy soule and body Therefore consider thou prophane man are not thy oaths are not thy lusts against Gods Law You had better have all the men in the world your enemy then the Law of God It 's a spirituall enemy and therefore the terrours of it are spirituall as well as the duties Let not your lives be Antinomians no more then opinions Oh that I could confute this Antinomianisme also such a mans life and conversation was against GODS Law but now it 's not 2. To Beleevers it hath this use 1. To excite and quicken them 1. It quickens the godly against sin and corruption against all sinne and corruption for howsoever the Scripture saith Against such there is no law and The Law is not made to the righteous yet because none of the godly are perfectly righteous and there is none but may complaine of his dull love and his faint delight in holy things therefore the Law of God by commanding doth quicken him How short is this of that which God cōmands not that a man is to look for justification by this or to make these in stead of a Christ to him but for other ends Hence Psal 1. and Psal 19. and 119. who can deny that they belong to the godly now as well as heretofore Have not beleevers now crookednesse hypocrisie luke-warmnesse You know not onely the unruly colt that is yet untamed but the horse that is broken hath a bit and bridle also and so not onely the ungodly but even the godly whose hearts have been much broken and tamed doe yet need a bridle Nè Spiritum sessorem excutiant And if men should be so peremptorie as to say they doe not need this it 's not because they doe not need it for they need it most but because they doe not feele it 2. To enlighten and discover unto them daily more and more heart-sinne 2. It discovers sin unto them and soule-sinne This use the Apostle speaketh of Rom. 7. per totum for how should a man come to know the depth of originall sinne all the sinfull motions flowing from it but by the Law and therefore that is observed by Divines the Apostle saith he had not knowne sinne but by the Law intimating thereby that the Law of nature was so obliterated and darkened that it could not shew a man the least part of his wickednesse Seneca who had more light then others yet he saith Erras si tecum vitia nasci putas supervenerunt ingesta sunt And so Pelagius his assertion was that tam sine vitio quàm sine virtute nascimur And you see all Popery to this day holds those motions of heart not consented to to be no sins but necessary conditions arising from our constitution and such as Adam had in innocency Therefore the people of God see and are humbled for that wickednesse which others take no notice of This will satisfie man but not Gods Law 3. To drive them out of all their owne power and righteousnesse 3. It makes them disclaim all their owne righteousness And this is another good consequence for when they see all to come short of the Law that the earth is not more distant from heaven then they from that righteousnesse this makes them to goe out of all their prayers and all their duties as you see Paul Rom. 7. he consented to the Law and he delighted in it but he could not reach to the righteousnesse of it and therefore crieth out Oh wretched man that I am How apt are the holiest to be proud and secure as David and Peter even as the wormes and wasps eat the sweetest apples and fruit but this will keep thee low How absurd then are they that say The preaching of the Law is to make men trust in themselves and to adhere to their owne righteousnesse for there is no such way to see a mans beggery and guilt as by shewing the strictnesse of the Law For what makes a Papist so selfe-confident that his hope is partly in grace and partly in merits but because they hold they are able to keep the Law God forbid saith a Papist that we should enjoy heaven as of meere almes to us no we have it by conquest Whence is all this but because they give not the Law its due 4. Hereby to quicken them to an higher price and esteem of Christ 4. It makes them set an higher value of Christ and his benefits and the benefits by him So Paul in that great agony of his striving with his corruption being like a living man tyed to a dead carkasse his living faith to dead unbeliefe his humility to loathsome pride see what a conclusion he makes I thank God through Jesus Christ. It 's true many times the people of God out of the sense of their sinne are driven off from Christ but this is not the Scriptures direction That holds out riches in Christ for thy poverty righteousnesse in Christ for thy guilt peace in Christ for thy terrour And in this consideration it is that many times Luther hath such hyperbolicall speeches about the Law and about sinne All is spoken against a Christians opposing the Law to the Gospel so as if the discovering of the one did quite drive from the other And this is the reason why Papists and formall Christians never heartily and vehemently prize Christ taking up every crumb that falls from his table they are Christs to themselves and self-saviours I deny not but the preaching of Christ and about grace may also make us prize grace and Christ but such is our corruption that all is little enough Let me adde these cautions 1. It 's of great consequence in what sense we use the word Law 1. The Law according to the use of the word in the Scripture is not onely a
then the sins of our immediate parents are made ours I know Peter Martyr and hee quoteth Bucer is of a mind that the sins of the immediate parents are made the sins of the posterity and Austin inclineth much to that way but this may serve to confute it that the Apostle Rom. 5. doth still lay death upon one mans disobedience Now if our parents and ancestors were as full a cause as Adam was why should the accusation be still laid upon him But of this more hereafter 6. How the threatning was fulfilled upon him when he did eate of Adam by eating the forbidden fruit became mortall and in the state of death not naturall onely but spirituall and eternall also the forbidden fruit We need not run to the answer of some that this was spoken onely by way of threatning and not positively as that sentence upon the Ninivites for these conclude therefore Adam died not because of his repentance but Adam did not immediately repent and when he did yet for all that he died Others reade it thus In the day thou eatest thereof and then make the words absolute that follow Thou shalt die as if God had said There is no day excepted from thy death when thou shalt eate But the common answer is best which takes to dye for to be in the state of death and therefore Symmachus his translation is commended which hath Thou shalt be mortall so that hereby is implyed a condition and a change of Adams state as soon as he should eate this forbidden fruit And by death we are not onely to meane that of the actuall dissolution of soule and body but all diseases and paines that are the harbingers of it So that hereby Christians are to be raised higher to be more Eagle-eyed then Philosophers They spake of death and diseases as tributes to be paid they complained of Nature as a step-mother but they were not able to see sin the cause of this Yea in this threatning we are to understand spirituall death and eternall also Indeed it 's made a question Whether if Adam had continued he should have been translated into heaven or confirmed onely in Paradise but that his death would have been more then temporall appeareth fully by Rom. 5. Indeed the things that concerne heaven and hell or the resurrection are not so frequently and plainly mentioned in the Old Testament as in the New yet there are sufficient places to convince that the promises and threatnings in the Old Testament were not onely temporall as some doe most erroneously maintaine 7. Whether Adam was mortall before his eating of the forbidden Adam before his sin was immortall fruit And this indeed is a very famous question but I shall not be large in it The orthodox they hold that immortality was a priviledge of innocency and that Adams body then onely became mortall when his soule was made sinfull This is vehemently opposed by Papists and by Socinians now they both agree that man should not actually have dyed but for sin only they say he was mortall as the Socinians or immortall by a meere supernaturall gift of God But a thing may be said to be immortall severall waies as the Learned observe 1. From an absolute A thing may be said to be immortall foure waies necessity either inward or outward in this sense God onely is said to be immortall 2. When there is no inward materiall cause of dissolution though outwardly it may be destroyed and thus are Angels and the soules of men 3. A thing may be said to be immortall by some speciall gift and appointment of God as the bodies glorified and as some say the heavens and maine parts of the world shall have onely a qualitative alteration not a substantiall abolition 4. That is immortall which hath no propensity to death yet such a condition being put it will die and thus Adam was therefore in some sense he may be said mortall in another immortall But because he is commonly called mortall that is obnoxious to death therefore we say Adam before his sin was immortall and this is abundantly confirmed by this sentence of commination And therefore though Adam would have eaten and drunk though his body was elementary and the originall of it dust though he would have begotten children yet none of these can prove him mortall because the righteousnesse in his soule would have preserved the fit temperament of his body especially having Gods promise made to his obedience 8. Whether upon this threatning Thou shalt die can be fixed The mortality of the whole man cannot be evinced from this threatning In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die that cursed opinion of the mortality of the whole man in soule as well as body Of all the errours that have risen up there is none more horrid in nature and more monstrous in falshood then this so that if it could be true of any mans soule that it was not an immateriall substance but onely a quality of the temperament it would be true of the Authour of that Book which seemeth to have little sense and apprehension of the divine authority in the Scriptures concerning this matter What an horrid falshood is it to call the doctrine of the immortall soule an hell-hatched doctrine But certainly you would think for a man to dare to broach such an opinion he must have places of Scripture as visible as the Sun But this Text is his Achilles and all the rest shrowd under this from which he frames his first and chiefest argument thus What of Adam was immortall through innocency was to be mortaliz'd by transgression But whole Adam was in innocency immortall Therefore all and every part even whole man was lyable to death by sin But what Logician doth not see a great deale more foisted into the Conclusion then was in the Premises Whole Adam was to be mortaliz'd therefore all and every part What a non sequitur is here That is true of the whole as it is the whole which is not true of every part If I should say Whole Christ dyed for death is of the concrete the person therefore all and every part of Christ dyed therefore his divine nature dyed this would be a strange inference yet upon this fallacy is the frame of all his arguments built Man is said to be mortall whole man dieth therefore every part of man dieth There is difference between totum and totalitas the whole and every part of that whole It 's true death doth bring the compositum the person to a non-entity but not every part of that compositum to a non-entity Besides that which was immortall is mortalized according to their natures the soule dieth a spirituall and an eternall death But see how the Divell carries this man further and sets him upon the pinacle of errour and bids him throw himselfe head-long because he doth evidently say that if the soules were destroyed as well as the bodies then there
be manifested to be obedience For as Austin speaking of himselfe in confessing his wickednesse that though he had no need or temptation to sin yet to be a sinner he delighted in that Nulla alia causa malitiae nisi malitia so on the contrary it 's an excellent aggravation of obedience when there is nulla alia causa obedientiae nisi obedientia so that the forbearing to eate was not from any sin in the action but from the will of the law-giver And Austin doth well explaine this If a man saith he forbid another to touch such an herb because it 's poyson this herb is contrary to a mans health whether it be forbidden or no Or if a man forbid a thing because it will be an hinderance to him that forbiddeth as to take away a mans mony or goods here it 's forbidden because it would be losse to him that forbiddeth but if a man forbids that which is neither of these waies hurtfull therefore it 's forbidden because bonum obedientiae per se malum inobedientiae per se monstraretur And this is also further to be observed that though the obedience unto this positive law be far inferiour unto that of the morall law because the object of one is inwardly good and the object of the other rather a profession of obedience then obedience yet the disobedience unto the positive law is no lesse hainous then that to the morall law because hereby man doth professedly acknowledge he will not submit to God Even as a vassall that is to pay such homage a yeare if he wilfully refuse it doth yearly acknowledge his refractorinesse Hence the Apostle doth expresly call Adams sin disobedience Rom. 5. not in a generall sense as every sin is disobedience but specifically it was strictly taken the sin of disobedience he did by that act cast off the dominion and power that God had over him as much as in him lay and though pride and unbeliefe were in this sin yet this was properly his sin 3. Why God would make this law seeing he fore-knew his fall and The proper essentiall end of the positive law was to exercise Adams obedience abuse of it For such is the profane boldnesse of many men that would have a reason of all Gods actions whereas this is as * Altitudinem consilii ejus penetrare non possum longè supra vires meas esse confiteor August if the Owle would look into the Sun or the Pigmee measure the Pyramides Although this may be answered without that of Pauls Who art thou O man c. for God did not give him this law to make him fall Adam had power to stand Therefore the proper essentiall end of this commandement was to exercise Adams obedience Hence there was no iniquity or unrighteousnesse in God Bellarmine doth confesse that God may doe that which if man should doe he sinned as for instance Man is bound to hinder him from sin that he knoweth would doe it if it lay in his power but God is not so tyed both because he hath the chiefe providence it 's fit he should let causes work according to their nature and therefore Adam being created free he might sin as well as not sin as also because God can work evill things out of good and lastly because God if he should hinder all evill things there would many good things be wanting to the world for there is nothing which some doe not abuse The English Divines in the Synod of Dort held that God had a serious will of saving all men but not an efficacious will of saving all Thus differing from the Arminians on one side and from some Protestant Authours on the other side and their great instance of the possibility of a serious will and not efficacious is this of Gods to Adam seriously willing him to stand and withall giving him ability to stand yet it was not such an efficacious will as de facto did make him stand for no question God could have confirmed the will of Adam in good as well as that of the Angels and the glorified Saints in heaven But concerning the truth of this their assertion we are to enquire in its time For that errour much spreads and the Antinomian cannot by his principles avoid that Christ intentionally died and so offereth his grace to all But for the matter in hand if by a serious will be meant a will of approbation and complacency yea and efficiency in some sense no question but God did seriously will his standing when he gave that commandement And howsoever Adam did fall because he had not such help that would in the event make him stand yet God did not withdraw or deny any help unto him whereby he was inabled to obey God To deny Adam that help which should indeed make him stand was no necessary requisite at all on Gods part But secondly that of Austins is good God would not have suffered sin to be if he could not have wrought greater good then sin was evill not that God needed sin to shew his glory for he needed no glory from the creature but it pleased him to permit sin that so thereby the riches of his grace and goodnesse might be manifested unto the children of his love And if Arminians will not be satisfied with these Scripture considerations we will say as Austin to the Hereticks Illi garriant nos credamus Let them prate while we beleeve 5. Whether this law would have obliged all posterity And certainly The positive law did lay an obligation upon Adam posterity we must conclude that this positive command was universall and that Adam is here taken collectively for although that Adam was the person to whom this command was given yet it was not personall but to Adam as an head or common person Hence Rom. 5. all are said to sin in him for whether it be in him or in as much as all have sinned it cometh to the same purpose for how could all be said to have sinned but because they were in him And this is also further to be proved by the commination In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye now all the posterity of Adam dyeth hereby Besides the same reasons which prove a conveniency for a positive law besides the naturall for Adam doe also inferre for Adams posterity It is true some Divines that doe hold a positive law would have been yet seem to be afraid to affirme fully that the posterity of Adam would have been tryed with the very same commandement of eating the forbidden fruit but I see no cause of questioning it Now all this will be further cleared when we come to shew that this is not meerly a law but a covenant and so by that meanes there is a communicating of Adams sin unto his posterity And indeed if God had not dealt in a covenant way in this thing there could be no more reason why Adams sin should be made ours