Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	good_a	nature_n	sin_n	2,557	5	4.8490	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A07536	Sapientia clamitans wisdome crying out to sinners to returne from their evill wayes: contained in three pious and learned treatises, viz. I. Of Christs fervent love to bloudy Ierusalem. II. Of Gods just hardning of Pharaoh, when hee had filled up the measure of his iniquity. III. Of mans timely remembring of his creator. Heretofore communicated to some friends in written copies: but now published for the generall good, by William Milbourne priest.	Jackson, Thomas, 1579-1640.; Donne, John, 1572-1631. aut; Milbourne, William, b. 1598 or 9.	1638 (1638)	STC 17918; ESTC S112664	68,848	322

salvation or damnation of mankind or the meanes which lead to either but what is revealed But this Secret will is not revealed Ergo not to be beleeved Nor are we by the principles of Reformed religion bound onely not to beleeve it but utterly to disclaime it For admitting what was before granted an indefinite beleefe that God wils many things which hee keepes secret from us yet wee most absolutely beleeve that he never wils any thing secretly which shall bee contrary or contradictory to that whereon his revealed will is set or to that which by the expresse warrants of his written word wee know hee wils Now every Christian must infallibly and determinately beleeve that God wils not the death of the wicked or of him that dies seeing his written word doth plainly register his peremptory will unto this purpose Therefore no man may beleeve the contradiction to this to wit That hee wils the death of him that dies Otherwise this distinction admitted untwines the very bonds of mans salvation For what ground of hope have the very Elect besides Gods will revealed or at the best confirmed by an oath Now if wee might admit it but as probable That God voluntate beneplaciti or by his secret will may purpose some thing contrarie to what hee promises by his revealed will who is hee that could have I say not any certainty but any morall probabilitie of his salvation seeing God assures us of salvation onely by his word revealed not by his secret will or purpose which for ought we doe or can possibly know may utterly disanull what his revealed will seemes to ratifie Lastly it is an infallible Rule or Maxime in divinitie That we may not attribute any thing to the most pure and perfect Essence of the Deitie which includes an imperfection in it much lesse may wee ascribe any impurity or untruths to that Holy One the Author of all Truth But to sweare one thing and to reserve a secret meaning contrary to the plaine and literall meaning professed is the very Idea of untruth the essence of impious perjury which we so much condemne in some of our adversaries who if this distinction might generally passe for current amongst us might justly say that wee are as maliciously partiall against the I●suites as the Iewes were against Christ Iesus that wee are ready to blaspheme God rather than spare to revile them seeing wee attribute that to the divine Majestie which wee condemne in them as most impious and contrary to his sacred will who will not dispense with AEquivocation or Mentall reservation be the cause wherein they bee used never so good Because to sweare one thing openly and secretly to reserve a contradictory meaning is contrary to the very nature and essence of the very first truth the most transcendent sin that can be imagined Wherefore as this distinction was lately hatched so it might be wished that it might be quickly extinguished and buried with their bones that have revived it Let God be true in all his words in all his sayings but especially in all his oathes and let the Iesuite be reputed as hee is a double dissembling perjured Iyer The former place of Ezechiel as it is no way impeached by this distinction last mentioned so doth it plainly refute another glosse put upon my text by some worthy and famous writers How oft would I have gathered you c. These words say they were uttered by our Saviour manifesting his desire as man But unlesse they be more than men which frame this glosse Christ as man was greater than they and spake nothing but what hee had in expresse commission from his Father Wee may then I trust without offence take his words as here they sound for better interpretation of his Fathers will than any man can give of his meaning in this passage uttered by himselfe in words as plaine as they can devise These words indeed were spoken by the mouth of man yet as truly manifesting the desire and good will of God for the saving of the people as if they had beene immediately spoken by the voice of God But why should wee thinke they were conceived by Christ as man not rather by him as the Mediatour betweene God and Man as the second person in the Trinity manifested in our flesh He saith not Behold my Father hath sent but in his owne person Behold I have sent unto you Prophets and Wise. Nor is it said How often would my Father but How often would I have gathered you this gathering wee cannot referre only to the three yeares of his ministery but to the whole time of Hierusalems running away from the Prophets call from the first time that David first tooke possession of it untill the last destruction of it For all this while HEE that was now sent by his Father in the similitude of Man did send Prophets Wisemen and Apostles to reclaime them if they would have hearkened to his or his messengers admonitions Saint Luke puts this out of controversie For repe●ting part of this story hee saith expresly Therefore also said the Wisdome of God I will send them Prophets c. And Christ is said the Wisedome of God not as Man but as God and consequently hee spake those words not as man only but as God The same compassion and burning love the same thirst and longing after Hierusalems safety which wee see here manifested by a manner incomprehensible to flesh and blood in these words of our Saviour in my text or the like uttered by him Luke 19. verse 41. sequentibus with teares and sobs wee must beleeve to be as truly as really and unfainedly in the divine nature though by a manner incomprehensible to flesh and blood How any such ●lagrant desire of their welfare which finally perish should be in God wee cannot conceive because our minds are more dazeled with the inaccessible light than the eyes of Bats and Owles are by gazing on the Sunne To qualifie the incomprehensible glory of the Deity the Wisedome of God was made flesh that wee might safely behold the true module or proportion of divine goodnesse in our Nature as the eye which cannot looke upon the Sunne in his strength or as it shineth in the firmament may without offence behold it in the water being an Element homogeneall to its owne substance Thus should all Christs prayers desires or patheticall wishes of mans safety be to us so many visible pledges or sensible evidences of Gods invisible incomprehensible love And so hee concludes his last invitation of the Jewes I have not spoken of my selfe but my Father which sent mee hee gave mee a commandement what I should say and what I should speake And I know that his commandement● is everlasting life Whatsoever I speake therefore even as the Father said unto mee so I speake And what saith our Saviour more in his owne than the Prophet had done in the name and person of his God Sion complained

of falling into evill as an actuall state in goodnesse If then you aske Could not God by his almightie power have prevented Adams eating the forbidden fruit None I thinke will bee so incredulous to doubt whether he that commanded the Sunne to stand still in his sphere and did dead leroboams arme when he stretched it out against the Prophet could not as easily have stayed Adams hand from taking turned his eye from looking upon or his heart from lusting after the forbidden fruit All these were acts of meere power But had he by his omnipotent power laid this necessity upon Adams will or understanding or had he kept him from transgression by restraint hee had made him uncapable of that happinesse whereto by his infinite goodnesse hee had ordained him for by this supposition hee had not beene good in himselfe nor could he be capable of true felicitie but he must bee capable likewise of punishment and miserie The ground of his interest in the one was his actuall and inherent goodnesse communicated in his creation nor was hee liable to the other but by the mutability of his goodnesse or possibilitie of falling into evill In like manner hee that gave that knowne power and vertue to the load-stone could as easily draw the most stony hearted son of Adam unto Christ as it doth steele and iron But if hee should draw them by such a necessarie and naturall motion hee should defeat them of all that hope or interest in that excessive glorie which hee hath prepared for those that love him If againe it bee demanded why God doth not save the impenitent and stubborne sinner it is all one as if wee should aske why hee doth not crowne bruit beasts with honour and immortality That this he could doe by his infinite power I will not deny And if this he would doe no creature justly might controll him none possibly could resist or hinder him yet I may without presumption affirme that thus to doe cannot stand with the internall rule of his justice goodnesse and majestie Nor can it stand better with the same rule to save all men if wee take them as they are not as they might bee albeit hee hath indued all with reason to distinguish betweene good and evill For many of them speake evill of those things which they know not but what they know naturally as bruit beasts in those things they corrupt themselves It stands lesse with Gods infinite goodnesse or power if we consider them as linckt with infinite justice or majestie to bring such into true happinesse than to advance bruit beasts unto immortality It is a people saith the Prophet of no understanding therefore hee that made them will not have mercie on them and hee that formed them will shew them no favour God out of the abundance of his goodnesse mercie and long-suffering tolerates such as the Prophet and Apostle speakes of and out of his infinite love seekes by the preaching of the Word and other meanes not prejudiciall to his justice and majestie to gather them as hee would have done Jerusalem here in my text But finally there is a certaine measure of iniquity which where it is full an height of stubbornnesse and prophannesse whereunto if once they come the stroake of his infinite justice fals heavie upon them for wilfull contempt of his infinite mercie that as hee himselfe somewhere saith Hee cannot any longer endure them The suspitions to which these resolutions seeme liable are specially three First that they derogate from Gods extraordinary favour towards his elect Our answer is briefe the offence if any there be is taken not given seeing wee onely affirme that none so perish but that they had a possibility to be saved we deny not that many are so saved as it were not possible for them finally to perish yet so saved they are not by Gods infinite power laying a necessity upon their wils but by his infinite wisdome preparing their hearts to bee fit objects of his infinite mercy and fore-casting their finall salvation as necessary by assenting not altogether necessarily to the particular meanes whereby it is wrought That is in fewer termes unto their salvation an infinite power or infinite mercy matched with justice infinite without an infinite wisdome would not suffice To call some how many none may determine extraordinarily as hee did Saint Paul may well stand with the eternall rule of his goodnesse because hee used their miraculous and unusuall conversion as a meanes to win others by his usuall and ordinary calling Speciall privileges upon peculiar and extraordinary occasions doe not prejudice ordinary lawes Albeit to draw such privileges into common practice would overthrow the course of justice It is not contrary then to the rule of Gods justice to make some feele his mercy and kindnesse before they seeke that others may not despaire of finding it having assured all by an eternall promise that seeking they shall finde and that they which hunger and thirst after righteousnesse shall be satisfied The second suspition and imputation is that this doctrine may too much favour free will In briefe wee answer there have beene two extremities in opinions continually followed by the two maine factions of the Christian world The one That God hath so decreed all things that it is impossible ought should have beene that hath not beene or not to have beene which hath beene This is the opinion of the ancient Stoicks which attribute all events to fate and is no way mitigated but rather improved by referring this absolute necessity not to second causes or nature but to the omnipotent power of the God of nature This was refuted in our last meditations because it makes God the sole author of every sinne The second extremity is That in man before his conversion by grace there is a freedome or abiliment to doe that which is pleasing and acceptable to God or an activity to worke his owne conversion This was the errour of the Pelagians and communicated to the moderne Papists who hold a meane indeed but a false one betweene the Pelagians and the Stoicks The true meane from which all these extremities swerve may bee comprised in th●se two propositions the one negative In man after Adams fall there is no freedome of will or ability to due any thing not deserving God● wrath or just indignation the other affirmative There is in man after his fall a possibility left of doing or not doing of some things which being done or not done he becomes passively capable of Gods mercies doing or not doing the contrary he is excluded from mercy and remaines a vessell of wrath for his justice to worke upon For whether a man will call this contingence in humane actions not a possibilitie of doing or not doing but rather a possibilitie of acknowledging ou● infirmities or absolute impotencie of doing any thing belonging or tending to our salvation I will not contend with him Onely of

true moral cause or the only blame-worthy cause of his owne death or danger following Just according to the importance of this supposition or similitude is the cause of hardening in many cases to be divided betwixt God and man The Israelites did harden their owne hearts in the wildernesse and yet their hearts had not beene so hardened unlesse the Lord had done so many wond●rs in their sight In every wonder his purpose was to get beleefe but through their wilfull unbeleefe the best effect of his greatest wonders was induration and impenitencie Now as it suits not with the rule of good manners for Physicians to tie a mans hands of discretion or place lest hee use them to his owne harme so neither was it consonant to the rules of eternall equitie that God should necessitate the Israelites wils to a true beleefe of his wonders or mollifie their hearts against their wils that is Hee neither hard●ns nor mollifies their hearts by his irresistible will nor did he at all will their hardning but rather their mollification All this is true of Gods ordinarie manner of hardning men or of the first degrees of hardning any man But Pharaohs case is extraordinarie Beza rightly inferres against Origen and his followers that this hardening whereof the Apostle here speaketh was irresistible that the party thus hardened was uncaple of repentance that God did shew signes and wonders in AEgypt not with purpose to reclaime but harden Pharaoh and to drive him headlong into the snare prepared for him from everlasting All these inferences are plaine first that interrogation Who hath resisted his will is equivalent to the universall negative No man no creature can at any time resist his will That is according to the interpretation premised Whatsoever particular Gods will is to have necessary or so to be as the contrary or contradictorie to it shall not be the existence of it cannot be prevented or avoyded Now that God did in this peremptory manner will Pharaohs hardening is evident from the Emphasis of that message delivered unto him by Moses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Even for this very purpose and for no other end in the world possible have I raised thee up that I might shew in thee my power and his power was to be shewed in his hardening For from the tenor of this message the Apostle inferres the latter part of this conclusion in my text Whom hee will hee hardneth yea so hardneth that it is impossible they should escape it or his judgements due unto it In all these collections Beza doth not erre Yet was Beza with reverence bee it spoken more to blame than this filthy Writer for so it pleaseth him to entitle Origen in that he referres th●se threatnings For this very purpose hare I raised thee up that I may shew my power in thee not only unto Pharaohs exaltation unto the Crowne of Egypt as I thinke Origen did we need not we may not grant but to his extraction out of the wombe yea to his first creation out of the dust as if the Almighty had moulded him by his irresistible will in the eternall Idea of reprobation before man or Angell had actuall being as if the only end of his being had beene to bee a reprobate or vessell of wrath Beza's collections to this purpose unlesse they be better limited than hee hath left them make God not only a direct and positive cause but the immediate and onely cause of all Pharaohs tyrannie a more direct and more necessarie cause of his butchering the Israelites infants than he was of Adams good actions during the space of his innocencie For of these or of his short continuance in the state of integritie he was no necessarie nor immutable cause that is hee did not decree that Adams integrity should be immutable But whether Gods hardning Pharaoh by his irresistible will can any way inferre that Pharaoh was an absolute reprobate or borne to the end he might bee hardned wee are hereafter to dispute in the third point All wee have to say in this place is this If as much as Beza earnestly contends for were once granted the objection following to which our Apostle vouchsafes a double answer had beene altogether as unanswerable as impertinently moved in this place Let us then examine the pertinencie of the objection and unfold the validitie of the answers The second generall point concerning the pertinencie of the objection WHy doth hee yet finde fault 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Why doth hee yet chide with whom doth he find fault or whom doth hee chide All that are reprobates doth hee only chide them is this all that they are to feare the very worst that can befall them were this speech to bee as farre extended as it is by most Interpreters no question but our Apostle would have intended the force and acrimonie of it a great deale more than he doth thus farre at least Why doth he punish why doth he plague the reprobates in this life and deliver them up to everlasting torments in the life to come seeing they doe but that which bee by his irresistible will hath appointed Or suppose the Greeke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might by some unusual synecdoche which passeth our reading observation or understanding include as much or more than we now expresse all the plagues of the life to come yet it is questioned what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath here to doe It must be examined whence it came and whither it tends It naturally designes some definite point or section of time and imports particulars before begun and still continued it can have no place in the immutable sphere of eternitie no reference to the exercise of Gods everlasting wrath against the reprobates in generall The quaere's which here naturally offer themselves though for ought that I know not discussed by any Interpreters have occasioned mee in this place to make use of a Rule more usefull than usuall for explicating the difficult places of the New Testament The Rule is this To search out the passages of the old Testament with their historicall circumstances unto which the speeches of our Saviour and his Apostles have speciall reference or allusion Now this Interrogation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was conceived from our Apostles meditations upon those expostulations with Pharaoh Exod. 9. 16. And indeed for this cause have I raised thee up for to shew in thee my power and that my name may be declared throughout all the Earth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And yet exaltest thou thy selfe against my people or oppressest thou my people that thou wilt not let them goe Chap. 10. vers 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hee yet chides and threatens him againe How long wilt thou refuse to humble thy selfe before mee Let my people goe that they may serve mee Else if thou refuse to let my people goe behold to morrow I will bring the lo●usts into thy coasts That which makes most for this