Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	harden_v	heart_n	pharaoh_n	2,001	5	11.6391	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70732	A discourse concerning God's fore-knoledge, and man's free agency wherein their seeming opposition is reconciled, and real consistency demonstrated from the Holy Scriptures, and arguments thence deduced.; Discourse, concerning God's fore-knowledge, and man's free-agency.		1697 (1697)	Wing O123Q; ESTC R217857	45,441	111

and consequently he might have dismissed the Israelites sooner if he had pleased Hence it will also follow that there could be no secret Influence nor any predetermining Concourse from God to bind his Faculties or take away his Free-agency only the Pride of his Heart despising God's Message to him and his domineering Ambition to keep the People in Slavery did out-weigh in his unjust Ballance the other Motives he had to dispense with them And herein consisteth the nature of Election that of two things proposed with Motives on either part a man freely chooseth that which likes him best in his present Apprehension tho' at the same time if he thought good he might choose the other Thus did Pharaoh choose to detain the People there 's his Choice yet before ever the matter was propounded to him God himself says * Exod. 3.19 I am sure he will not let you go here is Fore-knowlege Therefore Divine Prescience and Humane Liberty are consistent and have been conversant about the same individual Action But here an Objection may arise from the seventh Chapter and the third verse where God says † Exod. 7.3 He will harden Pharaoh's heart From whence it might be supposed that Pharaoh could not act voluntarily nor be said to have any real Freedom of Will To this I answer 1. I will not deny but that in consideration of Pharaoh's former Wickedness in dealing so barbarously with the People of Israel God might sorsake him and give him over to hardness of Heart But then 2. I deny that this hardness of heart by whomsoever or in what manner so ever it was wrought could deprive him of the Liberty of doing a Civil Act within his power He might for some self End or with some ill design have dismissed the Israelites and yet still have retained his hard heart it was but a word speaking and the business had been done And it is observable that while the smart was upon him he could say * Exod. 9.27 28. I and my People are wicked and promised too to let the Israelites go but still as he found respite thinking perhaps the storm was over he retracted On the one hand there was the danger of perishing or having at least his Kingdom ruin'd by those Judgments God sent upon him On the other hand there was the lust of tyrannizing over an enslaved People and the benefit of their Labours in making Brick These two weights being opposed each to other in the Scales sometimes the one and then presently the other preponderates And this purely is deliberation the result whereof is choosing and choosing is the undoubted property of a free Agent 3. Concerning the hardening of Pharaoh's heart the Apprehensions of Learned Men are different that which to me appears the most reasonable is to this effect namely that this induration is not to be understood as any positive Act or immediate Efficiency from God whereby Pharaoh's heart was made hard much less his Will Predetermin'd directly and properly no more than it is to be understood that our Saviours coming was directly and properly to fill the World with Dissentions because he himself saith expresly that * Luke 12.51 52. He came not to bring peace on the Earth but rather division The primary intention of the Gospel no doubt was Peace and Good Will towards men but meeting with various tempers and sundry degrees of Corruption in the hearts of men it could not choose but occasion dissention and a sword upon the Earth In like manner the primary intention of God's Judgments is to reform the World and bring men to Repentance whilst in some Persons they have a quite contrary effect So that as the Gospel of Peace was the accidental cause of War so might God's dealing with Pharaoh tend to harden his Heart and yet to sosten a less rebellious one as the same Sun beam melteth Wax and hardeneth Clay And as sin by the commandment becomes exceeding sinful * Rom. 7.11 13. in so much that the Commandment it self which was ordained unto life is found to be unto death So Pharaoh's stubborness under the Divine Hand becomes the more exceeding stubborn and that Chastisement which was ordained unto Reformation did the more effectually promote his destruction Hence it is highly probable that I will harden his heart may import no more than this I will bring such things to pass and in such a manner as shall through his own Corruptions render him much more obdurate That the natural and direct tendency of God's dealing with Pharaoh was to convince him seems very apparent from these Considerations 1. He orders Moses to try him with Innocent Miracles afterwards with smarting ones by such degrees till it come at last to the death of his First-born 2. While the Plagues lay heavy upon him he gave some signs of a yielding and relenting temper but ever in the Intervals he contracted a greater obdurateness 3. The Judgments of God had their proper Effect upon the Egyptians so far that they would gladly have the Israelites dismissed sooner and at last were not only urgent to have them gone in haste but willing to part with their * Exod. 12.33 35. Jewels into the bargain These considerations I say seem very much to favour the forementioned sense of the Place but whether that be the only true meaning of it I shall not contend so long as I can make it good that Pharaoh was a Free Agent in that particular thing which was foretold by God Almighty The next double Testimony shall be out of † Ezek. 3.4 Ezekiel where the Prophet is sent to the Israelites and words put into his Mouth to warn and dehort them from their wicked ways lest they should dye Hence I argue thus either the House of Israel might have obeyed God's message to them by the Prophet or else not If not how shall we clear the sincerity of God's dealings with them Or will his message to them appear any more than a Complement Let us have a Care of intrenching upon Blasphemy But if they might have humbled themselves at the Prophet's voice as Nineveh did in the like case it will follow that they were not by any previous necessity divested of their Liberum Arbitrium as is also evident from these words so often repeated in the Prophet's Commission Whether they will hear or whether they will forbear which is as much as to say they have their free choice And what follows * Ezek. 3.7 But the House of Israel will not hearken unto thee God doth not only afford Liberty and Opportunity of Repentance but he urges the same by strong pleadings and inducements and yet at the same time he foresees a contrary Event And this is what I undertook to assert from the Scriptures Again in the 5th of Hosea † Hos. 5.5 God foretells that Israel and Ephraim shall fall in their iniquity Judah also shall fall with them yet in the 6th Chapter