Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	king_n	law_n	see_v	2,769	5	3.8029	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A72329	Gods love to mankind manifested, by dis-prooving his absolute decree for their damnation.	Hoard, Samuel, 1599-1658.	1633 (1633)	STC 13534.5; ESTC S104132	103,658	118

sayth he among the Canonists but (h) Ibi maxime verū est ubi rex justus est nihil vult nisi justum Quanto magis in regno Dei c. this is true where the King is just and willeth nothing but what is just In which words he plainly maketh the iustice of the King antecedent to that will of his which must be a law Many more speeches he useth there to the same purpose Gods will therefore is not a rule of Iustice to himself To whom then To us For by it we are 1 to square all our thoughts words and deeds 2 to examine them when they are spoken and done Primum in aliquo genere est regula posteriorum supremum inferiorum 2 I reply that these absolute decrees of mens inevitable salvation and damnation are no parts of Gods revealed will The Scriptures teach us no such matter And therefore to say they are is but a meere begging of the question It hath alwayes beene ordinary with false Teachers to make Gods word a Father to their false opinions that they may stand the faster and winne the greater credit The Papists ground their transubstantiation and the Lutherans their consubstantiation and ubiquity upon the Scripture Hoc est corpus meum This is my body Math. 26. And the defenders of absolute Reprobation do so too they make their cause to be Gods and entitle his word to it because they see it is the surest way to defend it being herein like to some contentious people who being in law and having a bad cause which they are like to lose they entitle the King to it that they may the better uphold it 3 Absolute Reprobation can be no part of Gods revealed will The reason is because it is odious to right reason and begetteth absurdities For Nulla veritas parit absurda no truth begetteth absurdities Divers truths are revealed in Scripture which are above but not contrary to right reason whether they be matters of faith or life faith and reason nature and scripture are both Gods excellent gifts and therefore though there may be a disproportion yet there can be no repugnancy between them The worship which God requireth is cultus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable service Rom. 12.2 and the word of God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 milke reasonable and without guile 1 Pet. 2.2 These things therefore being layd together it will appeare to be but a meere shift and evasion when absolute Reprobation is proved to be unjust and therefore unworthy of God to say Gods will is the rule of Iustice this is part of Gods revealed will and therefore most just whatsoever reason may cavill and say to the contrary 3 Their third answer is that God is not bound to restore men power to beleeve because they once had it and have lost it through their own fault as a master is not bound to renew his servants stocke if he have wasted it by bad husbandry This answer doth not satisfie me For I grant that God is simply and absolutely bound to no man because he is agent liherrimum a most free dispenser of his owne favours where and what and to whom he will and no man is aforehand with God Quis prior illi dedit ut retribuatur Who hath given unto him and it shall be recompensed again Rom. 11.35 But yet he is conditionally bound for he hath determined and tyed himselfe 3 wayes especially 1 Decernendo by decreeing The Almighty is eternally subject to his own ordinances or els he should be mutable And therefore what gifts soever he hath decreed to men he is bound to give them by vertue of his own decree 2 Promittendo by promising We use to say promise is debt it is Iustice to performe what it was free to promise and whosoever he be that promiseth and payeth not is guilty of a trespasse witnesse Ananias and Sapphira and unworthy of the kingdome of heaven Psal 15.4 If therefore God hath made a promise of any gift or grace to men his promise bindeth him to performance Nam semell emissum volat irrevocabile verbum 3 Legem ferendo by giving men a law to keep which without supernaturall grace they can no more keepe then they can eate a rock By such a law the supreme Lawgiver bindeth himself to his people to give them such power as may enable them to keep that law or else he becommeth as the evill servant in the parable stiled him a hard master reaping where he sowed not and the very true and proper cause of the transgression of that law We shall finde God alwayes giving strength when he giveth a command When he commandeth the creatures to increase and multiply he gave them a multiplying vertue when CHRIST bade the lame man arise take up his bed and walk he put into his limbs an ability of walking when Adam had a spirituall law given him to obey which without spirituall strength he could not God gave him strength answerable to the law as Divines agree consenting to that noted speech of St. Austin that Adam had posse non cadere though he never had non posse cadere a power and possibility though no necessity of continuing in obedience That I may bring this home to my purpose I say that God is bound to restore unto men power to beleeve supposing these things that follow 1 That he hath vouchsafed to enter into a new Covenant of peace with men when he needed not 2 That in that Covenant he requireth obedience at mens hands even at theirs that perish 3 That he promiseth eternall life to every man if he obey and keepe the Covenant 4 That he punisheth the disobedient with everlasting death These particulars supposed the most free God who is absolutely bound to none is engaged to give ability of beleeving unto men nor can he justly without this gift punish the disobedient any more then a Magistrate having put out a mans eyes for an offence can command this man with justice to reade a book and because he readeth not put him to death or then a Master that I may returne the Simile in the answer when he hath taken away from his servant the stocke which he hath misimployed can afterward exact of him a just imployment of the same stocke and punish him because he imployeth it not I conclude therefore that the absolute and inevitable reprobation of such men as are called to beleeve in CHRIST and punished if they beleeve not is utterly repugnant to the Iustice of God and therefore can be no part of his word 4 Opposite to Gods Truth FOurthly it oppugneth the truth and sincerity of God God is a God of truth Deut. 32.4 Truth it self Ioh. 14.6 so called because he is the fountaine of truth and the perfection of truth without the least mixture of falshood The strength of Jsraell cannot lye Rom. 3.4 1 Sam. 15.29 Let God be true and every man a lyar sayth the Apostle

determination but not the perswasion of the will God is therefore a truer cause of sinne by this doctrine then the Divell 2 Wicked men are esteemed authors of their owne offences because they plot purpose choose and commit them and are immediate agents in the acting of them But God by this opinion doth more for he overruleth the projects and purposes of wicked men and by an uncontrollable motion proceeding from an immutable decree carrieth all their deliberations resolutions choyses and actions precisely that very way so as they cannot choose but doe as they doe whatsoeuer they may think to the contrary They have indeed potentiam in se liberam a power in it self free to choose what they refuse or to refuse what they choose to determine themselves this way or that way as liketh them best but they have not liberum ●sum a free use of this their power God doth determine their will before it hath determined it selfe and maketh them doe those onely actions which his omnipotent will hath determined and not which their willes out of any absolute dominion over their owne actions have prescribed More rightly therefore may God be called the Author of those offences for (u) Opera magis pertinent ad imperātem quā ad exequentem deeds whether good or bad are owned more truly by him that over-ruleth them then by the servile instruments that onely execute and doe them 3 Wicked counsellers and they who allure and advise men to sinne are accounted by God and men to be the causes of those sinnes to which they are the perswaders and have beene punished for those misdeeds which others through their instigations have committed Jezabell Ahabs wife was reputed and punished as the murderer of Naboth because she counselled and contrived the doing of it as we may see 1. Kings 21.23.25 But what is counselling to inforcing Evill counsels may be refused but an almighty power cannot be resisted God therefore that useth this according to their doctrine in the production of sinnes is much more an author of them then hee that onely useth the other 2 If we could finde out a King that should so carry himselfe in procuring the ruine and the offences of any subject as by this opinion God doth in the effecting of the damnation and transgressions of Reprobates we would all charge him with the ruine and sinnes of those his Subjects (w) Molin Anat. c. 12. de praedest p. 73 Quis non regem abominetur sic loquētem Who would not abhorre sayth Moulin a King speaking thus (y) Ego hunc hominem addico suspendio● sed ut justè suspendatur volo patret homicidium vel peculatum J will have this man hang'd and that J may hang him justly I will have him murther or steale This King saith he should not onely make an innocent man miserable sed sceleratum but wicked too and should punish him for that offence cujus ipse causa esset of which himselfe is the cause It is a cleere case (y) Sueton vit Tib. cap. 61. Tiberius as Suetonius reports having a purpose to put certaine Virgins to death because it was not lawfull among the Romans to strangle Virgins caused them all to be defloured by the Hangman that so they might bee strangled Who will not say that Tiberius was the principall author of the deflouring of those maides In like manner say the Supralapsarians God hath a purpose of putting great store of men to the second death but because it is not lawfull for him by reason of his justice to put to death men innocent and without blame he hath decreed that the Divell shall defloure them that afterward he may damne them It followeth therefore that God is the maine cause of those their sinnes 3 That God is the Author of mens salvation and conversion all sides grant and yet hee doth no more in the procuring of them then these men report him to do in the Reprobates impenitency and damnation The salvation and conversion of the Elect say they he hath absolutely and antecedently without the fore-sight of any deservings of theirs resolved upon and by irresistible meanes in their severall generations draweth them to beleeve repent and endure to the end that so they might be saved and his absolute decree accomplished On the other side the damnation the sinnes and the finall impenitency of Reprobates he hath of his alone will and pleasure peremptorily decreed this his decree he executeth in time drawing them on by his unconquerable power and providence from sinne to sinne till they have made up their measure and in the end have inflicted on them that eternall vengeance which he had provided for them What difference is here in the course which God taketh for the conversion and salvation of the Elect and the obduration and damnation of Reprobates And therefore what hindereth but that God by their grounds may as truly be stiled the prime cause and author of the sinnes of the one as of the conversion of the other The Fathers thought it a plaine case and therefore they did generally make sinne an object of prescience not predestination and bent the most of those arguments by which they refuted this foule assertion against an absolute irresistible and necessitating decree as I could easily shew but that I feare to be overlong Onely I will cite some few of those Authors words whom the learned and reverend Bishop hath alledged in favour and for the defence of the Predestinarians and the mainteiners of Gotteschalkes opinion The Church of Lyons in their answer to the positions of Iohannes Scotus which he framed against Gotteschalk hath these words (z) Bish Vsher his hist of Gottesc pag. 138. Qui vim necessitatem peccandi deum intuliste homini vel inferre dicit manifeste horribiliter in deum blasphemat quem ad peccata compellendo utique authorem peccati osse confirmat Whosoever sayth that God hath layd a constraynt or a necessity of sinning upon any man he doth manifestly and fearfully blaspheme God in as much as he maketh him by affirming that of him to be the very author of sinne Remigius Archbishop of that Church explaining his Churches opinion in the poynt of prescience and predestination in 7 severall rules in the 5th of those rules he hath these words to the same purpose God sayth he by his prescience and predestination hath layd a necessity of being wicked upon no man (a) Id. ib. p. 173. Hee enim si fecisset ipse utique esset author mal rum c. For if he had done this he should have been the author of sinnes And thus in my judgment doth it plainly appeare that by absolute Reprobation as it is taught the upper way God is made to be the true cause of mens sinnes Many distinctions are brought to free the Supralapsarian way from this crimination all which me thinke are no better then meere delusions of the simple and inconsiderate