Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	death_n	sin_n	sin_v	3,111	5	9.7434	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26998	The Protestant religion truely stated and justified by the late Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter ; prepared for the press some time before his death ; whereunto is added, by way of preface, some account of the learned author, by Mr. Danel Williams and Mr. Matthew Sylvester.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Williams, Daniel, 1643?-1716.; Sylvester, Matthew, 1636 or 7-1708.	1692 (1692)	Wing B1359; ESTC R1422	79,512	227

separating from the far greater part of the Christian World because they refuse Subjection to this usurping Vice-Christ and judging all to Fire and Ruine that renounce not all humane Senses and worship not Bread pretended to be deifyed by daily numerous Miracles of the basest Priests and deposing Kings that will not be such Executioners and justifying their Subjects in Perjury and Rebellion We will not differ with you for the Name whether you will call those that are such Antichrists or Diabolists Whether such a State be the Babylon or far worse as sinning against more Light and by more horrid abuse of the Name of Christ against himself The Fourteenth accused Point That no man nor any but God can forgive or retain Sins Ans False as undistinguished We hold 1. That to forgive Sin being the forgiving of the Punishment of Sin and the obligation thereto 1. Parents may on just cause forgive Corrective punishment to their Children and Masters to their Servants 2. Magistrates may on just cause forgive Corporal punishment to Subjects 3. Equals may forgive Injuries to Friends and Enemies 4. Pastors may on just cause forgive the Church penalties of Excommunication which they had power to inflict And all the Flock must forgive and receive the penitent accordingly 5. When a Sinner by Faith and Repentance truly performeth the Condition of Gods pardon expressed in Scripture the Ministers of Christ are by Office authorized to declare and pronounce him pardoned by God and by the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper to Invest him in a pardoned State by delivering him a Sealed pardon But only Suppositively If his Faith and Repentance be sincere else he hath not Gods pardon of the Divine Punishment This is all true and plain and enough But we detest their Doctrine that say 1. That men can pardon the Spiritual and Eternal Punishment any otherwise than consequently declaring and delivering Gods pardon which shall hold good if the Priest refuse to declare or deliver it 2. Or that Popes or Priests pardon Purgatory pains and Masses and Money and the Redundance of Saints Merits and pleasing the Pope conduce thereto But if you will Speak so absurdly as to say that if the King send a pardon to a Traytor or Murderer the Messenger pardoned him we leave you to your phrases None of the Texts or Fathers cited speak for any more than what we hold The Pastors are to declare men pardoned that God pardoneth And while they so judge according to Gods Word it is pardoned in Heaven But not if they pardon the wicked and impenitent The Fifteenth accused Point That we ought not to confess our Sins to any man but to God only Ans This is a mere impudent Lie 1. We ought to confess our Sin to the Magistrate at his Judicature when we are justly accused of it 2. And to those that we have injured when it is needful to repair the wrong or to procure their forgiveness 3. And to those that we have tempted into Sin or encouraged in it when it is needful to their Repentance 4. And to some faithful bosome Friend when it is needful that such know our Faults that they may watch over us or advise us or pray for our pardon and deliverance 5. And when in Sickness danger of Death or other Affliction we get the Pastors of the Church to pray for us we should confess our Sin to them that they may know on what cause they speak to God for our forgiveness 6. And in any case of Guilt Trouble Fear or Difficulty in which we need the Pastors Counsel for our safety ease and peace of Conscience our selves and other Friends being insufficient hereto we should confess our Sins to the Pastors whose advice we seek As a Patient must truly open his Case to his Physician and a Clyent to his Councellor if he will not be deceived by deceiving them Is all this no Confession But Protestants believe not 1. That we must go to a Physician for every Flea-biting or Scratch or Cut-Finger or to a Lawyer to give him an account of all our Actions Money ot Lands nor to Priests in cases that our selves or ordinary Friends can safely and satisfactorily resolve 2. Nor that our Confessor must needs be a Papist Priest or one chosen by the Pope or our Enemies and not by our selves 3. Nor that we must open all our Secrets to him or make any Confession which will do more hurt than good nor over far to trust the Fidelity of a Knave nor a suspected or untryed person 4. And we have reason to suspect them that are importunate to know our Secrets 5. And when Confession is required as in order to obtain a false forged pardon and to set up the Domination of Usurpers over men's Consciences and over the World it 's then unlawful If Protestants would force Papists to confess all their secret Sins to them would not this same Deceiver say it were unlawful The Sixteenth accused Point That Pardons and Indulgences were not in the Apostles time Ans Another meer Lie as undistinguished Such Pardons as I before owned were in the Apostles times But the Popish feigned pardons were not The Seventeenth accused Point That the actions and passions of the Saints do serve for nothing to the Church Ans Most impudent calumny and falsehood 1. We hold that the Prayers of all the Saints on Earth are of great importance for the Churches welfare 2. And that their Doctrine Counsel and Reproof is so too they being the Lights of the World and the Salt of the Earth 3. And that their Example is of grea● benefit to the Church and World whi●● their Light so shineth before men that the● may see their good works and glorifie the●● Father which is in Heaven 4. And their Charitable Works of themselves sure are beneficial to the Church And so is their Defence of the Truth 5. And their Sufferings Glorifie Gods Power and his promises of reward and they encourage others to Victorious Constancy Do all these serve for nothing to the Church 6. Yea we are so far from holding what he feigneth that it is not the least cause of our hatred of Popery that it liveth by the Defamations Slander Persecution and cruel Murder of Saints 7. Yea as Abels Blood cryed against Cain so the Blood of Martyrs and dead Saints cryeth for Vengeance against the Persecutors of the Church 8. And seeing Christ saith that the Children of the Resurrection are like or equal to the Angels we have reason to believe that even now they are perfected Spirits Heb. 12.24 And knowing that Angels are very serviceable and beneficial to the Church on Earth we know not how far the Spirits of the just are so too But we have a sufficient Mediator and Advocate with the Father whose Sacrifice Merits and Advocation are perfect and need no supplement And the Spirits of the just do praise him as saved by his Merits and never boast that they

THE PROTESTANT Religion TRUELY STATED AND JUSTIFIED By the late Reverend Mr. RICHARD BAXTER Prepared for the Press some time before his Death Whereunto is added By way of Preface some Account of the Learned Author By Mr. Danel Williams and Mr. Matthew Sylvester LONDON Printed for John Salusbury at the Rising Sun over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1692. TO THE READER THE Author of the following Tract is the Reverend Mr. Baxter now enjoying that Glory he so conversed with in his mortal state Among his many Excellencies his Love to God to Peace and Truth was not the least eminent The last rendred him averse to Logomachies and confusion well knowing How vain all eristick debates be if the Question be not truly and plainly stated This Book will give thee a Specimen of that peculiar accuracy in this kind as even determineth the Controversie before an Argument be produced It is not to be concealed that some complain of the multitude of his distinctions but such may consider that the Comprehensiveness of his Mind accommodated things to the most subtil as well as the less intelligent Reader and provided against future Errours as well as the mistakes he attends to in the particular points before him Indeed he was a man born for more lasting service than one Age yea his Name will be greatest when impartial inquisitiveness after Truth shall render men painful and sad experience of the mischief of narrow and dividing Principles hath forced the confident to mutual allowances and well studied determinations But how unhappy was he or rather such as mistake him that he is oft charged with deserting this or that Truth because he understood it in a consistency with it self and such other truths wherewith it was connected As if Ort hodoxie must be sacrificed when-ever a Doctrine is made intelligible or the choice of terms more apt to confute the erroneous less obnoxious to mistakes and most expressive of digested thoughts ought to alarm all such who seem capable to know little more of Truth than the sound of oft repeated Phrases Nay as more convincing what treatment any man must expect who sets himself to heal a blind depraved World The clearest representation of his mind will not silence the ignorant from charging him with those Errours which he most expresly disowns Three of the most material are denied and confuted by Mr. Baxter in this very Treatise viz. the moral freedom of the Will of an unregenerate man conditional Election and the merit of good Works as opposed to or coordinate with the Righteousness of Christ Neither must it be over-look'd that it was his Concern in this Book above any other to speak as near to these points as his Judgment could admit and in other Treatises he more largely declares against them 1. Of Free-Will p. 87. he tells us he denies that mans Will in his unregenerate state is free from vitious inclination or from the conduct of an erring Intellect or from the Biass of Sensuality c. 2. He denies that the Will thus vitiated will ever deliver it self without Gods Spirit and Grace it being rather inclined to grow worse 3 As that degree of common Grace which is in the unregenerate is but such as consisteth with the predominant Reign of Sin so the Will of every unregenerate man in that pravity is as a Slave to its own vitious dispositions errour and temptations Who can say more against Free-Will Obj. But he affirms the natural freedom of the Will Answ He doth so and explains it p. 84 85 86 91. and it is no more than that a Sinner is a man still tho' he be depraved and he is a liberal and not a forced Agent in what he acteth Obj. But he saith p. 88. That by common Grace a man may do more good and less evil than he doth Answ It 's true he saith so But p. 85. he distinguisheth between common and special Grace and denies that we can do that by common Grace which is proper to special Grace and saith men have but just so much and no more moral Liberty and power as they have of Gods Grace to relieve their vitiated Wills See p. 91. 2. Of Conditional Election p. 99. He condemns the Notion called Scientia Media p. 100. he saith God decreeth not mens Salvation or Sanctification meerly on Foresight of our Faith but decreeth our Faith it self Sin he permitteth but Faith he effecteth and decreeth to effect and p. 101. he shews how God decreeth both the means and end And tho' God justly denieth his Grace to many that forfeit it by wilful resistance and contempt yet he takes not the Forfeiture of the Elect. Yea he adds That he is deceived and wrongeth God that feigneth him to send his Son to redeem the World and his Word to call them and his Spirit to renew them and all this at random not knowing whether it may not all be lost or leaving it chiefly to the Free-Will of them whose Wills are contrarily inclined and vitiated whether Christ and all his preparations shall be lost p. 102. he approveth the plain Christian who holds that our destruction is of our selves but our help and Salvation of God and God is the first and chief Cause of all good and men and Devils of all evil Obj. But he will not say that God hath by his Will and Decree ordained from Eternity that men shall sin or will and chuse evil p. 100 101. God doth not decree that men shall sin that they may be damned for sin is no work of God c. Answ But yet he saith p. 100. that 1. God decreeth who shall de damned for sin 2. That he foresaw mens sins not as an idle Spectator but a willing Suspender of his own Acts so far as to leave Sinners to their self-determining Wills Reader if thou art a man of thought thou seest Mr. Baxter is clear for absolute Election tho' he did not think it necessary for the vindication thereof to judge that God absolutely decreed men to sin that he might damn them it 's enough that it is from Gods Sovereign Will that many are not elected it would be an ease to the damned that they could justly say God decreed us to all our sins that he might bring us under all this punishment a Non-election to Efficacious Grace and a positive Decree to damn such for sin which themselves would choose best suited with his Conceptions of Gods Goodness Truth and Purity 3. Of the Merit of good Works Note Reader that he is not fond of the word Merit but his Adversary leads him to the use of it as thou mayst see p. 96. But let us hear what his sence is of this point p. 119. All Saints are saved by the full sufficient Merits of Christ and have none at all of their own unless the amiableness of Grace freely given them be called their Merit and p. 95. we do with Paul renounce all Works of our own that