Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	free_a	grace_n	love_n	2,934	5	6.6495	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56405	A revindication set forth by William Parker, in the behalfe of Dr. Drayton deceased, and himself of the possibility of a total mortification of sin in this life: and, of the saints perfect obedience to the law of God: to be the orthodox Protestant doctrine, and no innovations (as they are falsly charged to be) of Dr. Drayton and W. Parker; in an illogicall vindication, wherein the necessity of sins remaining in the best saints as long as they live, and the impossibility of perfect obedience to the law of God, is ignorantly and perversly avouched to to [sic] be the orthodox Protestant doctrine; by one who subscribeth his name John Tendring. ...	Parker, William, fl. 1651-1658.	1658 (1658)	Wing P486A; ESTC R200724	221,023	288

righteous and then judgeth them so the elect being in themselves liable to the accusation and condemnation of the law to be just and righteous by faith in Jesus Christ through the imputation of his own justice to the praise of his power and the eternal salvation of their souls Which description of justification is utterly false and shews how farre he and those from whom he borrowed it are out of the way and how ignorant they are in fundamentals even one of the main grounds of their salvation which description he notwithstanding goes about to explicate by the causes as follows saying Now for the causes of justification first they are especially the efficient secondly material thirdly the formal fourthly final Why would he have any more then four causes of an effect I fear in this business he must content himself with fewer for the effecting and producing of the justification at which he aims But each of these aforesaid saith he must be considered two wayes first actively in respect of him that justifies us and secondly passively in respect of the man who is justified first the principal cause of our justification actively considered is God freely purposing to send his Son to be made man to work righteousness for men But God justified men in the Old Testament by the Spirit of his Son Isa 50.8 and 5.3 11. where he cites 1 Pet. 1.10 Gal. 4.4 Then to wit in the fulness of time God sending his Son made of a woman made under the law then revealing his Son unto us by the preaching of the Gospel and perswading us to believe the same and lay hold on the Son of God by the operation of the blessed Spirit and then accounting unto us the obedience of his Son for our righteousness In all which he is gone out of Gods road or way of justification and from the truth of the Gospel for though God so sent his Son made of a woman and made under the law yet it was not to justifie us by active obedience unto the law as we have said And this he did saith he to shew that he is the beginning the middle and the end of our justification and to prove this the Lord himself saith Isa 43.25 I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins and the Apostle plainly saith Rom. 8.33 as he hath it page 77. It is God that justifies and the very Pharisees that rejected Christ most impiously professed this most truly that none can forgive sins but God onely And so saith Gregorie It is meet that he should be the giver of grace that was the author of nature Greg. in Psal paeniten pithily saith It is his office to absolve the guilty by whose justice he is made guilty But who questions any of all this Again the impulsive cause that moved God to do all this for man we find saith he to be two-fold first internal secondly external the first is the meer grace and free mercy of God towards men and this because he would be merciful to man Because we can ascribe no other cause of Gods will which is the cause of all things to wit in their first creation but onely this quia voluit because he would But in acts of providence especially in the punishment of sin there may be an external cause found in the creature And therefore Saint Paul saith he attributeth our redemption to the riches of his grace Ephes 6.7 Rom. 3.24 Titus 3.4 5. where he saith that after the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards men appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour Whereby you see the Apostle maketh the kindness love and mercy of God to be the efficient principal cause or motive that moved God to send Christ to be the means of our salvation Nor is this denied at any hand but if the Vindicator had taken in one verse more of Titus 3. he might have easily seen that regeneration before described and justification is all one work and thing for it follows there that being justified by his grace in the work aforesaid we might be made heirs according so the hope of eternal life But he goes on thus And Augustine Homil. de Nat. Gratia saith that it is the ineffable grace of God that a man guilty of sin yea and say we polluted with sin should be justified from fin And especially against the Pelagian heresie who magnified nature to villifie and almost nullifie grace he saith that the grace of God whereby infants and men of years are saved is not procured by deserts but tendred freely without merits and so Anselm in Rom. 11. that because all men are shut up under sin the salvation of men cometh not in or by the merits of men but in the morcy of God The second impulsive cause is Christ saith he God and man who purchased by his merits that we should be justified in the sight of God Which thing hath been justly questioned for God might out of his free mercy and grace justisie us without any such merits and though the death of Christ wants not its inestimable price and merits yet we are not justified in Pauls sense thereby and much lesse by his active obedience but only by his Spirit But he gives us a reason for what he had said out of Isai 53.5 because the chastisement of our offences was laid upon him and that by his stripes we might be healed But here we would aske the Vindicator and his friends these questions first whether Isaiah speaks of a chastisement that was past or yet to come for certain it is that Christ was a Lamb slain from the beginning of the world Rev. 17.8 Secondly if it was a preterit suffering whether it was not Christs inward and voluntary death for us and in us when vve first became actual sinners according to Rom. 5.6 For when we were yet without strength according to the time Christ died for the ungodly and Gal. 3.1 Oh foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified in you Jam. 5.6 Ye have condemned and killed the just one and he doth not resist you See Rev. 1.7 and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him even so Amen And if so what peace was that which was procured for us by that his suffering and death was it not a time and space of repentance for otherwise we as also our first parents had immediately been sent to hell Fourthly what those stripes of Christ are by which we are healed are they his personal sufferings alone inward or outward upon the cross or are they his like sufferings when we suffer with him or for him dying unto all sin

Law and afterward comforted from heaven with a hope of mercy to salvation witnessed in their consciences by the holy Ghost But the words of the Greek Text are commonly mistranslated Concerning the imperfection of hope he saith little to the purpose but what he saith implieth a contradiction in it selfe and to what he would assert also for he saith that the Apostle compareth hope to an anchor for the soul which is both sure and stedfast as the Apostle doth Heb. 6.19 and yet this saith he doth no ways prove our hope to be perfect for what greater perfection can there be in an anchor then to have it sure and stedfast and to stay and preserve us against all winds and storms of Satan which he confesseth that our hope doth Nor is it the anchor that reels to and fro as he absurdly speaks but that which lyeth at anchor or the Ship it selfe but at the distance and the whole length of a cable whence its mobility by the winds and storms doth arise and not from the anchor it selfe And as for charity he goes about page 32 to prove that it must be imperfect all this life long First because our knowledge here is imperfect and but in part It is saith he a Maxime among Divines tantum scimus quantum diligimus which he or some others for him doth English thus imperfect knowledge cannot produce perfect charity But though the English saying is true yet it is not the sense of the Maxime but rather this that we have so much divine experimental and saving knowledge as there is love found in us that knowledge being always accompanied with a proportionable love 1 Joh. 2.3 Hereby we know that we love God if we keep his commandements and verse 4. he that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandements is a lyar and the truth is not in him True it is also which the Poet speaks quod latet ignotum est ignoti but not ignotae as he hath it nulla cupido things simply unknown cannot be loved yet is not our affection always towards men according to our knowledge or acquaintance with them as he affirms for knowledge and acquaintance may be without love But yet it is true also which he out of Bernard saith we can neither desire what we know not nor enjoy what we love not and that we shall love God with an absolute perfection in heaven because that we shall so know him and that with an experimental knowledge of his goodnesse But this hinders us not from so knowing him here as to love him above all which is the perfection of love here required of us Secondly he saith that perfect charity expelleth fear but there is no Saint here without feare Yet we have often shewed the contrary out of Luk. 1.74 75. and 1 Joh. 4.17 18. Thirdly he saith that perfect charity expels sin which he denys to be exterminable here because Saint James saith in many things we all offend chap. 3.1 2. Which is truly spoken of James of the whole race of our life not of our final and best attainments for in the same verse Saint James describes such a perfect man qualis invenire posset aut debet saying If any man sin not in a word the same is a perfect man and able to bridle the whole body But to fortifie his own cause he goeth about to disable the word of Christ saying Joh. 15.13 Greater love hath no man then this that he lay down his life for his friend which he saith is not yet perfect for men may doe this out of ambition and for vain-glorious ends and therefore saith he our Saviour doth not bring this to prove the perfection of our love but of his own toward us so far as might be understood by outward apprehension But there is a life which if he and others would lay down in love to the Father Son and the Holy Ghost and their friends whom they should perfectly love it would be an undeniable argument of the greatest and most perfect love towards God and that is not to offer our only son with Abraham or our own natural life but the life of sin and and that is the life which he would have us hate and lay down for his sake Matth. 10.39 Luk. 14.26 Joh. 12.25 Rev. 12.11 nor is there any other life that men can properly call theirs but the life of sin for the natural life and the spiritual life are Gods workmanship and gift but so is not sin And having thus to his power mutilated the words of Christ Joh. 15.13 he goes about likewise to doe Christ the like service where our Saviour saith Ye are my friends if ye doe whatsoever I command you of which this Iohn of Burson as if he affected to be herein an Antichrist saith This is an hypothetical proposition which can never prove his perfection of charity because we can never be able to perform the condition Doth Christ then give us false marks and mock-tokens to try our selves by whether we be his friends or no was not Abraham called the friend of God 2 Chron. 20.7 Isai 41.8 Iam. 2.23 and was it not upon this very score Gen. 26.5 because saith the Lord that Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my commandements statutes and my charge This brought all blessings upon Abraham and his seed after him But he goes on saying For although Bellarmine saith Gods word may be kept that is fulfilled yet he proves it not If he did not he might easily have done it and for to say that Gods commandements are grievous and to say that we can keep them not is not the same saith he yes in the Apostles sense they are Joh. 5.3 4. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandements and his commandements are not grievous and he shews the reason of it in the two next verses to the confounding of both the Vindicators positions for whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world to wit that world of sin opposite to the world of the Father of which sinful world he had spoken 1 John 2.15 16. And this is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith For a thing saith the Vindicator may be very light yet heavier then I can bear Surely he is either a very weak man or this is a strong mistake but how doth he prove it The commandements saith he are just and holy and good Rom. 7.12 and the yoke of obedience is easie and light Matth. 11.30 Both these are true but the former of these doth not speak any thing of the lightnesse or heavinesse of Gods Law nor yet the latter unless it be to those that are weary of the yoke of sin and come to Christ and learn of him the lowlinesse and meeknesse and all other Christian virtues which are contrary to sin and which enable men to obey that Law Now whereas he would prove that these commandements of the moral Law are heavyer then we can bear

left in them Wherein take notice that the Vindicator that cals us Pelagians is herein a Pelagian himselfe as all his fellows are Secondly that whereas he should deny the Minor that concupiscence doth not make the regenerate obnoxious to Gods wrath he admits it and takes it for granted that neither that nor any other sin doth condemn the regenerate or make them obnoxious to Gods wrath and yet he confesseth them to be sins but saith that by accident it cometh to pass that they are not reputed for such but are pardoned by grace Which is true when they are repented of and left and so cease to be sins but not otherwise The fourth objection which he brings is this In baptisme original sin is taken away therefore concupiscence is no sin in those that are baptized Uunto which he answers by distinction yet without the least instinct of truth that by baptisme the guilt of sin is taken away Which we deny against some of the Fathers and the Schoolmen as having no warrant from the Scriptures But he confesseth that the worst part of sin and that which is most offensive to God remaineth even corruption and an inclination to sin But here we first say that the guilt is not taken away before or without the corruption Secondly that children when they are baptized have neither guilt nor corruption to be taken away for the present yet may lawfully be baptized in innocency as Christ himself was for a future document and sign And thirdly that in the baptisme of men grown and newly converted neither the acts and corruptions nor the guilt are taken away by outward baptisme only there is their duty in following of Christ in his death and resurrection under the hope of his grace and help for the present and of a full remission and eternal life in the end declared unto them therein by which also they observe and fulfill an outward ordinance oblige themselves to the said duty stand under that grace hoped for and are distinguished by an holy ordinance and Christian profession from other men Pag 41. he first concludes that original concupiscence is sin Which we never denyed and then he is so impudent as to say of us that were not these men past shame they would never goe about to revive such heresies as we hoped had been long since buried among us But who revived them he or we But mark his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there But so long as there is a Divell in hell or a Pope at Rome we must never expect to be freed from such disturbers of our peace But what disturbance have we made or what peace have we broken Thus he that hath played the boutefeu himselfe and hath without cause incensed all the neighbouring Ministers and people against us where he could get access and audience chargeth us with his own wicked practise of disturbance who live quietly and cause no commotion amongst men but only seek to awaken them out of security and sloth to watch and war aright against their sins and Ghostly enemies and that out of love to God and their souls and in order to their everlasting peace as well as their present welfare in the unity of the Spirit and the bond of perfection which is love to God and men the conquering of sin and the fulfilling of the Law But we must bear his false charge and challenge in this kind with the more meekness because the holy Prophets and Apostles have undergone the like accusation at the hands of injurious slanderous and outragious men and that upon the self-same account Acts 16.21 and 18.13 and 24.5 and as long as there is a Devil in hell and his hellish kingdom hath room in mens hearts and sets their tongues on fire as Saint James speaks chap. 3.6 we must expect no better usage at their hands till the old accuser of our brethren be cast ou● of them Rev. 12.10 See Mat. 10.25 If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub much more will they do it to them of his houshold But in the end of pag. the 41 to the end of pag. the 48. he comes with his solutive medicines to answer some Scriptures which he saith we allege and wrest to maintain our errours But this he speaks by way of divination for divers of them we have not yet produced nor have we need to wrest those that we alledge for they speak that clearly which we would prove The first saith he is that Rom. 6.6 where Paul saith of the Christians who are baptized into the faith of Christ knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin may be destroyed from thence saith he they conclude that the corruption of old Adam is quite abolished that they are perfectly quitted from sin and perfectly renewed in grace But this is one of his forged lies for we neither cite that Scripture nor inferr any such thing from it but since he by preoccupation hath quoted it for us we shall without wresting it conclude that those which truly confess the Christian faith and baptisme both may and ought to be crucified with Christ and through his grace and help to destroy the whole body of sin and so we have promised by our sureties to doe when we were baptized unlesse we will be renegadoes with him Unto this Scripture he answers pag. 42 as he had done before without fear or wit truth or modesty that the guilt of sin which the Schools term the formal of sin but indeed is the fruit and effect of sin is taken away in baptisme The falshood of which we have shewed before the baptisme which he meaneth neither takes away the guilt nor corruption of sin for Simon Magus was baptized among the other Samaritans and yet was still in the gall of bitternesse and bond of iniquity Acts 8.20 Secondly as to the corruption he saith that the dominion of it is taken away but not the being of sin from Gods Saints because Paul saith Gal. 5.17 the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the same Apostle speaks of himselfe I see another Law in my members warring against the Law of my mind and carrying me captive unto the Law of sin which is in my members But we shewed before that the infant-state of the Galatians being new-born babes in Christ is not the full strength and stature of young men in Christ and much lesse the dayednesse of old men or elders and experienced souldiers or Saints in Christ Secondly that Paul speaks not there of his own present condition And thirdly that this Text flies in his and their faces who affirm that all dominion of sin is taken away from such babes for this sin is a prince and a Tyrant it is not our slave but makes us its slave But he adds this that the Apostle saith not let not sin be in your mortal bodies but let it not reign Which is true in regard of Satans sinful motions as we said before