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
A90682	The Christians rescue from the grand error of the heathen, (touching the fatal necessity of all events) and the dismal consequences thereof, which have slily crept into the church. In several defences of some notes, writ to vindicate the primitive and scriptural doctrine of Gods decrees. By Thomas Pierce rector of Brington in Northamptonshire.	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1658 (1658)	Wing P2166; Thomason E949_1; ESTC R18613	77,863	94

transgression of some Law so every punishment is the revenge of some sin upon which it follows that if a mans sin is from himself 't is from himself that he is punisht And as the Law is not the Cause but the * Occasion only of sin so God is not the Cause but the inflicter only of punishment for so saies the Apostle Sin taking occasion by the Commandement wrought in me all manner of Concupiscence for without the Law sin was dead That which is good not being made death but sin working death by that which is good God and his Law are each of them the Causa sine qua non the Condition without which sin and punishment could not have been for without Law no sin without God no Reprobation but not the Energetical efficient Cause of which sin punishment were the necessary effects For if God had made a Hell by an absolute purpose meerly because he would that some should suffer it and not in a previous intuition of their sins Damnation had been a Misery but not a Punishment as if a Potter makes a vessel on purpose that he may break it which yet none but a mad man can be thought to do or if a man meerly for recreation cuts up Animals alive which yet none ever did that I can hear of except a young Spanish Prince it is an Infelicity and a torment but no more a punishment than it is any thing else Indeed the Common people who doe not understand the just propriety of words make no distinction many times betwixt Pain and Punishment not considering that Punishment is a relative word of which the correlative is breach of Law and therefore is fitly exprest in Scripture by the mutual relation betwixt a Parent and a Child when lu● hath * conceived it bringeth forth sin sin being perfected bringeth forth death Iam. 1. 15. which is as much as to say according to the propriety of the Apostles words sin is the parent and death is the childe Now there cannot be a child without a parent for they are relata secundum esse much lesse can the child be before the parent for sunt simul natura dicuntur ad convertentiam Upon which it followes that punishment could not be ordained by God either without sin or before it or without respect and intuition of it which yet the great * Mr. Calvin does plainly say I say it could not because it implies a contradiction For though God could easily make Adam out of the earth and the earth out of nothing yet he could not make a sinful Cain to be the son of sinful Adam before there was an Adam much lesse before there was a sinful one because it were to be and not to be at the same time Adam would be a Cause before an entity which God Almighty cannot do because he is Almighty So that when the Romanists assert their Transubstantiation or the posterity of Marcion their Absolute decree of all the evil in the world both pretending a Reverence to Gods omnipotence they doe as good as say † those things which are true may therefore be false because they are true or that God is so * Almighty as to be able not to be God that being the Result of an Ability to make two parts of a contradiction true so said S. Austin against Faustus and Origen against Celsus Whensoever it is said God can do all things 't is meant of all things that become him So Isidore the Pelusiote But to return to that argument in the pursuit of which I have stept somewhat too forward if Gods preordination of mans eternal misery were in order of nature before his prescience of mans sin as Mr. Calvin evidently affirms in his Ideo * praesciverit quia decreto suo praeordinavit setting Praeordination as the Cause or Reason or praevious Requisite to his Praescience either mans Reprobation must come to passe without sin or else he must sin to bring it orderly to passe which is to make God the author either of misery by it self without relation to sin or else of sin in order to misery The first cannot be because God hath * sworn he hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner Ezek. 33. 14. much lesse in his death that never sinn'd And because if it were so the Scripture would not use the word Wages and the word Punishment and the word Retribution and the word Reward Hell indeed had been a torment but not a Recompence a fatal Misery but not a Mulct an act of power but not of vengeance which yet in many places is the stile that God speaks in Vengeance is mine and I will repay Rom. 12 19. Nor can the second be lesse impossible it having formerly been proved that God is not the Author of sin he hath no need of the sinful man whereby to bring mans Ruine the more conveniently about and most of them that dare say it are fain to say it in a Disguise Some indeed are for ligonem ligonem but the more modest blasphemers are glad to dresse it in cleaner phrase A strange {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in Divinity to put the 1 child before the parent the 2 wages before the work the 3 end before the means the Reprobation before the sin yet so they do who make the Decree of Reprobation most irrespective and unconditional and after that say that whom God determines to the end he determines to the meanes To put the horse upon the Bridle is a more rational Hypallage For by this Divinity eternal punishment is imputed to Gods Antecedent will which is called the first and sin to his consequent will which is the second The first {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and the other only {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} punishment chiefly and sin by way of consecution Men are bid not to sin ex voluntate signi or revelata but are determin'd to it ex voluntate occulta or beneplaciti Distinctions very good when at first they were invented for better uses the former by S. Chrysostome from whom it was borrow'd by Damascene and from him by the Schoolmen But I say they all were used to very contrary purposes by them and by these who endeavour'd to repel those Fathers with their own weapons as the elaborate † Gerard Vossius does very largely make it appear I am sorry I must say what yet I must saith * Tertullian when it may tend to edification That the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering abundant in goodnesse and truth who is all Bowels and no gall who hateth nothing that he hath made who in the midst of Iudgement remembreth mercy ever forgiving iniquity transgression and sin is exhibited to the world by the Authors and Abetters of unconditional Reprobation as a kind of Platonick Lover of so excellent a Creature 's everlasting misery Which if

for the first was not destroyed and the second did not die at that determinate time when God had threatned they should Of which no reason can be given but that Gods Purposes and Decrees Threats were conditional on supposition of their Impenitence he threatned to destroy and therefore on sight of their Repentance he promis'd to preserve And from hence it is natural to argue thus Is God so merciful to bodies and is he lesse merciful to souls Does he decree temporal Iudgements conditionally because he is pitiful and will he decree eternal ones absolutely meerly because he will Is he so unwilling to inflict the first death and will he shew his power his absolute power in the second Did he spare the Ninevites in this life because they were penitent and will he damn them in the next because they were Heathens by his peremptory Decree Is he milde in small things severe in the greatest Is there no other way to understand those Texts in the 9. to the Romans than by making those Texts which sound severely to clash against those that sound compassionately Is it not a more sober a more reasonable Course to interpret hard and doubtfull Texts by a far greater number more clear and easie than perversly to interpret a clear Text by a doubtfull one or an easie Text by one that 's difficult which is to shew the light by the darknesse Or if some Texts have two senses if some Texts are liable to many more must we needs take them in the worst and that in meer contradiction to the universall Church If I had no other argument against an absolute Reprobation this one were sufficient to prevail with me That that Father of mercies and God of all consolation who spareth when we deserve punishment did not determine us to punishment without any respect to our indeservings He that had mercy upon wicked Ahab meerly because of his Attrition did not absolutely damn him before he had done either good or evill before the foundations of the world were laid He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Lam. 3. 33. much lesse doth he damn them for his meer will and pleasure When God doth execute a temporall punishment upon such as already have deserv'd it he comes to it with reluctation {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and therefore calls it his * strange work a work he loves not to be acquainted with a work which he doth sometimes execute because he is Iust but still * unwillingly because he is compassionate And he therefore so expresses it as we are wont to do a thing we are not us'd to and know not how to set about How shall I give thee up Ephraim how shall I deliver thee Israel how shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim Mine heart is turn'd within me my repentings are kindled together I will not execute the fiercenesse of mine anger for I am God and not man Now that God doth professe to afflict unwillingly and many times to repent him of the evill which he thought to do unto his people is a demonstrative argument of his Conditionall decrees in things Temporall by a greater force of Reason in things Eternall 30. My eighth Reason is taken from the little flock which belongs to God and the numerous herd which belongs to Belial which would not have been if they had both been measur'd out by a most absolute Decree For when it pleas'd the Divine goodnesse to suffer death upon the Crosse for all the sins of the world the every drop of whose blood had been sufficiently precious to have purchased the Redemption of ten thousand Adams and ten thousand worlds of his posterity he would not yield the major part unto his Rival Rebel the black prince of darknesse reserving to himself the far lesser portion and all this irrespectively meerly because he would He would not absolutely determine such a general harvest of wheat and tares as freely to yield the Devil the greater crop He would not suffer his Iustice so to triumph over his Mercy who loves that his Mercy should rejoyce against Iudgement It was not for want of a new Instance to shew his Power or his Iustice for they were both most eminent in the great Mystery of Redemption Much greater instances and arguments than an absolute Decree as I could evidently shew if I were but sure of my Readers patience My ninth Reason is taken from the Reprobation of Angels which was not irrespective but in regard to their Apostasie as is and must be confessed by all who place the object of Reprobation in massa corrupta For the overthrowing of which tenent in all the Sublapsarians Dr. Twisse himself does thus argue Si Deus non potuit Angelos reprobare nisi ut contumaces ergo nec homines nisi ut in contumacia perseverantes De Praedest Digres 4. Sect. 4. c. 2. 31. My tenth Reason is taken from the absurdities which have and still must follow if Gods eternal decree of mans misery is not conditional but absolute And those absurdities are discernable by this following Dilemma Let Dives be suppos'd to be the man that is damn'd It is either because he sins or meerly because God will have it so If for the first Reason because he sins then sin is the cause of his damnation and consequently before it From whence it follows that Dives is not damn'd meerly because God will have it so but that God will have it so because he sins Which plainly shews the conditional Decree But if it be said that it is for the second Reason meerly because God will have it so then that absolute Decree to have it so doth either necessitate him to sin damnably or it does not First if it does then how can Dives be guilty of that thing of which Gods absolute Decree is the peremptory Cause Or how can that be guilt which is necessity Dives could as little have cherisht Lazarus as the Tower of Siloe could have spared the Galileans if his will had been no more free than that Tower had a will And secondly if it does not necessitate him to sin damnably then Dives who is damn'd might possibly have not been damn'd From whence it follows that Dives is not damn'd absolutely but in regard to his sins Which had they not been his choice they had not been his but his that did chuse them And it is a contradiction to say a man chuses any thing without a free will or by an absolute necessity which is whether he will or no Besides if God did absolutely decree the end which is damnation and consequently the means which is final impenitence these Absurdities would follow First it would be a Reprobates duty to be damn'd And to endeavour his salvation would be a sin because it were striving against the stream of Gods absolute Will If all men are to