Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	eternal_a	life_n	work_n	4,885	5	6.6730	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45400	Charis kai eirēnē, or, A pacifick discourse of Gods grace and decrees in a letter of full accordance / written to the reverend and most learned Dr. Robert Sanderson by Henry Hammond ... ; to which are annexed the extracts of three letters concerning Gods prescience reconciled with liberty and contingency ; together with two sermons preached before these evil times, the one to the clergy, the other to the citizens of London.	Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660.	1660 (1660)	Wing H519; ESTC R35983	108,515	176

bonity in damnato quam annihilato because the bonitas entis and so that it is better for the Creature to be in eternall misery then simply not to be when Christ expresly pronounceth the contrary of wicked men that it had been better for them never to have been born to have a milstone about the neck and to be cast into the sea a figure to represent annihilation then to be involved in those dangers that attend their sins 3. His resolving Gods Election of a man to life eternall to be no act of his mercy and likewise his reprobating and ordaining to damnation to be no act of his Justice but of his pleasure A few such Propositions as these are competent to blast and defame any cause which requires such aids stands in need of such supporters and therefore you will be confident I concurr with you in rejection of that though I think neither of us likely to undertake the travel of refuting of his whole work § 18. Next then for the Supralapsarians with whom the object of the decree is homo conditus man created not yet fallen and the Sublapsarians with whom it is Man fall'n or the corrupt Mass your rejections and reasons thereof are twined together and are especially two which you justly call very weighty and so I suppose they will be deem'd by any man that shall consider the force of them without prejudice I shall therefore set them down from your letter in your own words § 19. The first reason is because though it might perhaps be defensible as to the justice of God in regard of his absolute power over his own creature yet it seems very hardly reconcileable with the goodness of God and his exceeding great love to mankind as they are plentifully and passionately set forth in his holy word to decree the eternall damnation of the greater part of mankind for that sin and for that sin onely which was utterly and naturally impossible for him to avoid for the Decree of Reprobation according to the Sublapsarian Doctrine being nothing else but a meer preterition or non-election of some persons whom God left as he found them involved in the guilt of the first Adams transgression without any actuall personall sin of their own when he withdrew some others as guilty as they without any respect to Christ the second Adam it must needs follow that the persons so left are destin'd to eternall misery for no other cause but this onely that Adam some thousand years since did eat the forbidden fruit and they being yet unborn could not help it § 20. The other reason was because the Scripture not onely saith expresly that God hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world Eph. 1. 4 5. and consequently the decree of sending Christ must be praecedaneous to that of Election but also doth every where and upon all occasions hold forth the death of Christ as intended by God for the benefit of mankind in the utmost extent the world the whole world mankind every man c. and not for the benefit of some few onely the rest by an antecedent peremptory decree excluded To which it would be consequent that according to the tenure of the more moderate of these the Sublapsarians doctrine Jesus Christ the Judge at the last day when he should proceed to pronounce sentence upon the damned should bespeak them to this effect Ite maledicti voluit enim Pater meus pro beneplacito ut Adam peccato suo vos perderet noluit ut ego sanguine meo vos redimerem Go ye cursed for my Father of his meer pleasure will'd that Adam by his sin should destroy you will'd not that I by my blood should redeem you the very thought whereof you say your soul so much abhorr'd that you were forced to forsake that opinion of the Sublapsarians having as you profess never phansied the Superlapsarians and conclude it unsafe to place the decree of Election before that of sending Christ § 21. These two reasons of changing your judgement are I confess so worthy of a considering man who makes Gods revealed will his Cynosure and doth not first espouse doctrines of men and then catch at some few obscure places of Scripture to countenance them nor makes his retreat to the abyss of Gods unfathomable Counsels as the reason of that which is its contradictory his attempting to fathome and define them that I doubt not but the tendering of them to all dispassionate seekers of truth that have not so me interests to serve by adhering peremptorily and obstinately to their prepossessions will be of the same force to disabuse and extort from them the same confessions which they have from you causing them fairly to deposite these two Schemes and either not to desine at all or to seek out other solider Methods and more Catholick Grounds of defining and if the wise heathen were in the right Virtus est vitium fugere sapientia prima Stultitia caruisse this will be some degree of proficiency which they that shall with unspeakable joy have transcribed from you will also have temptation to accuse your fears or waryness that they received not this lesson sooner from you especially when they are told what here you express that these have been your thoughts ever since the year 1625. i. e. 34. years since which is an age or generation in the Scripture-use of the word § 22. That none may be any longer deprived of this means of their conviction or permitted to think or teach securely and confidently and as in accord with you what you profess your soul thus long to have abhorred the very thought of I desire you will at length communicate your thoughts your self or else allow this letter of mine to be your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and do it for you under some testimony of your full approbation of this your sence § 23. But all this thus far advanced is but the rejection of the severall erroneous wayes and onely the negative part of your thoughts which yet by the way let me tell you is fully sufficient both to the peace of Churches and of particular souls If the erroneous wayes be rejected from whence all the misapprehensions of God and ill consequences thereof flow the Church is competently secured from tares and then what need express articles and positive definitions come in to her rescue § 24. This I suppose the reason both of our Churches Moderation in framing the Article of Predestination and of our late Kings Declaration in silencing the debate of the questions For if by these methods the Church could but have prevailed to have the definitions of the several pretenders forgotten all men contenting themselves as our Article prescribes with the promises of God as they are declared in Scripture which sure are Vniversal and conditionate not absolute and particular the turmoil and heat and impertinence of Disputes had been prevented which now

knew he would not by his very mercy to him and for other most wise ends that he would actually deliver him up to the wills of the malicious able to destroy the body but no more which again is founded in his foresight of their malice and must suppose it All which makes it as infallible that God might have prevented it as that he would not did not therefore this is far from derogating from his omnipotence in this of his not being able to prevent it the contrary to which is by this our Scheme expressly established § 70. This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for my positive answer you cannot but know already all the necessity consequent to prescience is the necessity ex hypothesi it is necessary to be while it is and because it will be therefore God foresees it will be and if men would have done otherwise God would have foreseen otherwise § 71. When you take it for mine acknowledgment then that God cannot change that which is future so as to make it not future I answer that sensu diviso it is most false for whatsoever is future God can change and make it not future and then foresee it not future But if you meant Conjunctim that remaining future he could not make it not future 1. That is a great impropriety of speech and most unreasonable that he that speakes of changing should mean keeping it still as it is unchanged and 2. You see the fallacy that most palpable one of a benè divisis ad male Conjuncta which I hope will no longer impose upon you The ill consequences you feare and exaggerate should God be thought not to have been able to have prevented it I shall not need insist on detesting the thought as much as is possible and having so far secured our Scheme from it that if God foresees not that he could prevent any future whatsoever I shall not think he foresees any thing § 72. So likewise for his goodness you cannot doubt but I acknowledge that as fully as you in relation to our salvation Let us see then how I am obliged to deny this again by admitting his Prescience Why say you if God willingly suffer so many to be damned whom he might have saved where is his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I answer just where you your self will and must place it unlesse you believe many shall not be damned finally For 't is most certain God by his absolute power might have saved all them that yet are now damned and the shew of inconvenience is exactly the same whether God be believed to foresee all things ab aeterno or no. For suppose we that God foresaw not but saw in time as we do every thing that happens in our presence and suppose we a wicked man filling up the measure of his iniquityes or ready to die in his sins I demand might not God if he would rescue him out of that state convert him into a Saint and assume him as he did Elias in the sanctified state Questionlesse he might yet without all controversy he doth not thus to every wicked man for if he did none should be damned Do you now reconcile this with Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his words and many vehement asseverations as I doubt not but you are well able to do and then review your own question If God willingly suffer so many to be damned whom he might have saved where is his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 'T is not possible you should need more words to disintangle this snarle and in my former papers I shewd you in this place to what Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 belongs giving sufficient grace c. to which you reply nothing and therefore I suppose consent to the truth of it though 't is sure both that God by his absolute power might do more then he doth and therefore I like not your expression that he does what omnipotence could performe citing Isa v. 4. In place of it I should have said what his covenant promise mercy justice equity wisdom obliged him to do or what was reconcileable with all these without interesting his absolute power or omnipotence in it and that obstinate sinners do actually resist and frustrate all the methods that are used by him § 73. Of the manner of S. Austin's asserting prescience I need not farther insist then that by the expresse words of that period I produced he will have it reconciled with the free will of man which if all would do there were little more to be required of them Yet because you have endeavoured to take off the force of S. Austin's words and from Vives's words on Chapter IX Quod si indignum c. Dicamus à providentia voluntateque Dei cognitionem ejus prosicisci voluntatem statuere quod futurum sit scientiam quod volunt as statuerit nosse to draw him to Calvins sence I shall read over that IX Chapter both Text and Comment and give you some passages out of it In the Text 1. That they are much more tolerable that bring in Syderea Fata a fatality depending on the starrs then they which take away praescientiam futurorum foreknowledg of futures and that it is a most open madness confiteri Deum negare praescium futurorum to confess God and to deny his prescience 2. Nos ut confitemur summum verum Deum it a voluntatem summamque potestatem praescientiam ejus consitemur nec timemus ne ideò voluntate non faciamus quod voluntate facimus quia id nos facturos esse praescivit cujus praescientia falli non potest as we confess the supreme and true God so we confess his will and supreme power and prescience neither do we scare least we should not do voluntarily what we do voluntarily because he foresaw it whose prescience cannot be deceived making it the heathen feare of Cicero which now is yours lest the infallibility of the prescience should impose necessity and frustrate Lawes exhortations c. 3. Nos adversus sacrilegos ausus Deum dicimus omnia scire antequam fiant marke omnia voluntate nos facere c. Contrary to the darings of sacrilegious men we both affirm that God knowes all things before they are done and that we do them voluntarily 4. Novit incommutabiliter omnia quae futura sunt quae ipse facturus est he knowes unchangeably all things which are to come and which he will do not onely the latter but the former and all of one as well as the other 5. He that foreknew all the causes of things among them could not be ignorant of our wills quas nostrorum operum causas esse praescivit Which he foresaw to be the causes of our workes 6. Qui non est praescius omnium futurorum non est utique Deus he that foresees not things to come is not God 7. Of our liberty Voluntates nostrae tantum valent quantum Deus eas