Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A23713
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A discourse concerning the period of humane life, whether mutable or immutable by the author of The duty of man laid down in express words of Scripture.
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Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.; R. E.
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1677
(1677)
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Wing A1110; ESTC R7660
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41,105
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158
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after things of a mysterious alloy and God knows how miserably some men have mistaken in their enquiries after a solution of the present doubt and if I could promise to my self to rectify those huge mistakes some men have fallen into this would be a sufficient justification of my present undertaking But in order to the unfolding of this doubt I shall premise four things which will contribute to the better understanding of it First There is no doubt that every mans life hath a Period It is appointed for all men once to dye this is a warfare from which there is no discharge what man is he that liveth and shall not see death as to this the Prince and Peasant stand upon even terms and as the wise-man tells us the rich poor meet together there is no justling in the Grave for precedency I confess it were not worth the pains to consider the trivial instances taken from the translation of Euoch and Elias to infringe this position For first we are not to debate what God may do he has a Soveraignty over his Creatures and must not be called to give a reason of his actions all whose ways are tracts of wisdom and goodness Secondly We know nothing of the manner of their translation he who will positively say that they did not undergo that which is equivalent to death will say more than he can prove I am apt to believe that no sober man will say that they entred their Heavenly habitation with their unrefined bodies no more than those who rise at the sound of the last Trumpet in the twinkling of an eye are carried into Heaven without any change Secondly It is also unquestionable that Sin introduced this Period to every mans life the primitive threatning runs thus in the day thou eats thou shalt dye And the Apostle hath as plainly exprest it as it can be wherefore as by one man sin entred into the World and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned Rom. 5. 12. where it is plain that Death is a punishment inflicted for Sin so that if man had never sinned we have no reason to think he should have died I confess without Revelation we could never have guessed this to be the cause of Death The Heathen Philosophers were exceedingly confused in their notions concerning the origine of Sin and the cause of Death many of them thought that Death was a natural accident originally appurtenant to Humane Nature And indeed if Revelation had not declared the contrary I had been fully satisfied that Death had been no other thing but such a natural accident but it is strange that any man that has conversed with sacred writ should be of this opinion And yet we find the Pelagians of old were great sticklers for it hence is it that the ancient Fathers and Councils have condemned it with a Curse In the Milevitan Council Can. 2. we read thus Placuit ut quicunque dicit Adam primum hominem mortalem sactum ita ut sive peccaret sive non peccaret moreretur in corpore hoc est de corpore exiret non peccati meriâ—o sed necessitate naturae anathema sit In after-ages the Scotists the most subtil of all Scholastick writers inclined much to this opinion against whom the Thomists their irreconcilable Enemies took up the cudgels amongst modern writers the seemingly rational Socinians have owned this groundless conceit But I cannot stay to debate this at length only in brief if Death had been natural to man in the state of Innocency it behoved to have been because of these following reasons 1. Because Adams natural constitution implied mortality the Materials of his constitution were not so amicable as to entertain a lasting amity and friendship 2. It was the primitive precept be fruitfull and multiply now it is plain that procreation includes mortality in its notion and farther it seems to be unconceivable how this little Map of Earth should have contained a numerous multiplying and never-dying off-spring 3. Humane Nature in the state of Innocency did stand in need of Meat and Drink as is plain from Gen. 1. 19. now the end of eating and drinking is not only to hold up but to repair the decays of our Bodies which would sudenly return to dust if they were not this renewed strengthened 4. If Death were only the effect of Sin and the Devil were called a Murderer from the beginning because of his tempting our first parents to eat of the forbidden Fruit it will follow that since Christ came to take away the sins of the World and to destroy the works of the Devil that he also took away the wages of sin which is Death than which nothing is more contrary to daily experience 5. Immortality seems to be entailed only to the state of future Glory where Corruption shall put on Incorruption and Mortality shall be swallowed up in life and then there shall be no more death Rev. 21. 4. These are the most material reasons I can find for the proof of this opinion in answer to which I shall desire the Five following considerations may be weighed Consid. 1. It is not to be doubted that the Eternal wisdom furnished our first parents with all these accomplishments their specifick nature could suffer the signatures of Wisdom and Goodness were legible in the lowest least regarded piece of the creation but in Man in a more eminent manner conspicuous It is almost impossible for us in this fallen state to conceive what those endowments is taken Conditionally and so under various considerations it may be attributed either First To perfected Saints who are stated in Glory where the primitive Image lost by mans fall is renewed and perfected and of those our Saviour in the Gospel of Luke tells us that they can dye no more Luke 20. 36. or Secondly to our first parents in the State of Innocency For so long as they remained obedient to the Laws of Heaven Immortality was entailed upon their nature for the tenor of the primitive threatning is in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye where temporal Death seems to be threatned which had been idle and vain if men had died altho they had never eaten the forbidden Fruit. I know some men think that Sin only laid a necessary obligation upon men to dye and provoked God to remove that Supernatural and Superadded quality and gift which preserved them from Death With such sort of men I have no great quarrel altho I think that God could as easily have made mans constitution so lasting and the constituent parts of his fabrick so harmonious that he should have never dyed if he had not sinned as to create a superadded being to preserve him safe For reason would plead that that superadded gift required another and so in infinitum But farther 't is very unreasonable to infer mans corruption from that precept be fruitful and multiply for altho in some sense
by seminal production or by immediate creation Again the union of Soul and Body is a very mysterious riddle and the most ingenious hypothesis has been confessed to be unsatisfactory and yet no man was ever so far infatuated as to deny that in man there is a Soul and Body In like manner what altho Humane Reason cannot reconcile the Divine knowledg with the contingency of actions yet may it not rest satisfied with this that God knows all contingencies because his understanding is infinite And indeed the predictions in Scripture are so remarkable and plain evidences that God knows all things that now it cannot be reasonably questioned But suppose Revelation had taught us nothing of this yet we might by natural principles know that God is the most perfect being that can be imagined and therefore of Infinite comprehension that he is our Maker and therefore must know all the intrigues of his creatures But Secondly the Divine foreknowledg is not the cause of things for otherwise criminal actions which do not escape his eye should be caused by him who cannot tempt any man to sin which is impossible if God should reveal to me that Titius were certainly to do such a thing the next day my foreknowledg does not necessitate Titius to do that act so that upon the one hand as the foreknowledg of it hath no influence upon the manner of its production nor crosseth the Humane liberty for the Divine foreknowledg is not the cause why things exist but it supposeth the existence of things so upon the other hand the contingency of the Period of Humane Life does not inser that it cannot be certainly known by an infinite understanding who grasps all things and seasons But the great difficulty is how the Divine foreknowledg can be reconciled with the Divine promises commands comminations and prohibitions how it can consist with the Divine Wisdom and Goodness to threaten men with shortness of life if they continue wicked and rebellious and to pramise longth of days if men will obey his commandments while-as he well knows that the wicked man will continue in his wickedness and be filthy still and that the vertuous and good man will persevere in well doing I confess this is a very great difficulty and hath induced many learned men to doubt if God knows things contingently future not that they would impeach any of the Divine perfections or derogate from the infinity of his knowledg but only they think that the nature of things contingently future is such that they cannot be known as it is no diminution from Omnipotency to say things impossible or which imply a contradiction fall not under its object But yet since Scripture hath so clearly revealed to us the Divine foreknowledg of future actions methinks he is very rash and inconsiderate that doubts it it is a remarkable sentence of Tertullian's Praescientia Dei tantos habet testes quantos fecit prophetas Hence the learned Episcopius tells us that his Religion and the reverence he had to the Divine Majesty would never suffer him to admit this argument which reflected so much upon the truth of Divine Predictions But I answer more particularly that Gods promises and threatnings are serious because altho God knows that some men who are threatned will continue in their wickedness yet it being in their power to turn from their Sins and the Divine threatning being an argument which should prevail upon men no man can doubt but God is serious with sinners in such cases If a parent did certainly know that his Son were to commit a criminal act would any man think that that Parents threatning of his Son if he did commit that act were void of sincerity But 2. As God knows that some wicked men notwithstanding of the severest threatning will continue in their sins yet 1. He knows that even such obdurate persons may do otherwise and 2. He knows that many men would have continued in their sins if they had not been threatned with punishments We have no reason to think that the people of Ninevie would have turned unto God if they had never been threatned Now though God knew that Ninevie when threatned would repent yet since he also knew that if they had not been threatned they should have continued in their wickedness therefore no man can question the seriousness of the Divine threatnings And thus I have dispatched the first particular how the Period of every Mans Life may be said to be determined I come in the next place to enquire in what sense it is not determined Now because I have already rejected the Stoical Fate all that I shall speak concerning this head may be comprehended in this following particulars viz. The Period of every Mans Life is not fatally limited and bounded by any absolute or inconditionate decree of God Almighty Now because many learned men violently urge that God hath from the outgoings of Eternity absolutly decreed the bounds of every Mans Life without any consideration of those circumstances in which they are to be placed so that men do what they please can neither extend nor shorten the lease of their life I shall therefore endeavour to make this assertion plain and remove those objections that it may seem lyable to and the rather because in such kind of assertions as are besides the common opinion men will be ready to suspect some sinisturous design That the Period of every Mans Life is not Fatally determined by any secret inconditional decree will appear from the arguments we shall make use of in proving the inobility of the Period of every Mans Life Now I shall only consider those absurdities and inconveniencies that follow upon the admission of the contrary opinion As first if the Period of Humane Life were Fatally determined then those wretched miscreants who with their own hands put a Period to their Lives may easily excuse themselves before their Judg for since it is supposed that they are physically predetermined to do so how can it be imagined that they could do otherwise is there any resisting of the Divine decree alas it was not in their power to help it how then can they be condemned for it It is a known Maxim Nemo peccatin eo quod vitare non potest the necessity they are plac'd in seems to excuse their sin but if notwithstanding we shall suppose that such brutish actions are really criminal we run our selves upon another absurdity and that is we reflect upon the Divine holiness and goodness for if God has truly determined those brutish actions by a previous secret and unalterable decree if he hath before irrevocably determined and so intangled in such a train of causes as should necessarily make them offer violence to themselves how can we vindicate the Divine Sancty from the blot of being the author of sin alas daily experience shews us how apt men are to make use of this argument for their own vindication when they do what is