Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	law_n	sin_n	transgression_n	1,540	5	10.6759	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54833	A correct copy of some notes concerning Gods decrees especially of reprobation / written for the private use of a friend in Northamptonshire ; and now published to prevent calumny.	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1655 (1655)	Wing P2170; ESTC R26882	69,017	81

Principle It is taken from the nature and use of Punishment which as soon as it is nam'd doth presuppose a Guilt for as every sin is the * transgression of some Law so every punishment is the revenge of some sin upon which it followes that if a mans sin is from himself 't is from himself that he is punisht And as the Law is not the Cause but the * Occasion only of sin so God is not the Cause but the inflicter only of punishment for so saies the Apostle Sin taking occasion by the Commandement wrought in me all manner of Concupiscence for without the Law sin was dead That which is good not being made death but sin working death by that which is good God and his Law are each of them the Causa-sine-qua-non the Condition without which sin and punishment could not have been for without Law no sin and without God no Reprobation but not the Energetical efficient Cause of which sin and punishment were the necessary effects For if God had made a Hell by an absolute purpose meerly because he would that some should suffer it and not in a praevious intuition of their sins Damnation had been a Misery but not a Punishment as if a P●…tter makes a vessel on purpose that he may break it which yet none but a mad man can be thought to do or if a man meerly for recreation cuts up Animals alive which yet none ever did that I can hear of except a young Spanish Prince it is an Infelicity and a torment but no more a punishment then it is any thing else Indeed the Common people who do not understand the just propriety of words make no distinction many times betwixt Pain and Punishment not considering that Punishment is a Relative word of which the correlative is Breach of Law and therefore is fitly exprest in Scripture by the mutual relation betwixt a Parent and a Childe when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin sin being perfected bringeth forth death * Iam. 1. 15. which is as much as to say according to the propriety of the Apostles words sin is the parent and death is the childe Now there cannot be a Childe without a parent for they are relata secundum esse much lesse can the childe be before the parent for sunt simul naturâ dicuntur ad convertentiam Upon which it followes that punishment could not be ordained by God either without sin or before it or without respect and intuition of it which yet the great * Mr. Calvin does plainly say I say it could not because it implies a contradiction For though God could easily make Adam out of the earth and the earth out of nothing yet he could not make a sinful Cain to be the son of sinful Adam before there was an Adam much lesse before there was a sinful one because it were to be and not to be at the same time Adam would be a Cause before an entity which God Almighty cannot do because he is Almighty So that when the Romanists assert their Transubstantiation or the posterity of Marcion their Absolute decree of all the evil in the world both pretending a Reverence to God's omnipotence they do as good as say those things which are true may therefore be false because they are true or that God is so Almighty as to be able not to be God that being the Result of an Ability to make two parts of a contradiction true so said Austin against S. Faustus and Origen against Celsus Whensoever it is said God can do all things 't is meant of all things that become him So Isidore the Pelusiote But to return to argument in the pursuit of which I have stept somewhat too forward if Gods praeordination of mans eternal misery were in order of nature before his praescience of mans sin as Mr. Calvin evidently affirms in his Ideo * praesciverit quia decreto suo praeordinavit setting Praeordination as the Cause or Reason or praevious Requisite to his Praescience either mans Reprobation must come to passe without sin or else he must sin to bring it orderly to passe which is to make God the author either of misery by itself without relation to sin or else of sin in order to misery The first cannot be because God hath * sworn he hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner Ezek. 33. 14. much lesse in his death that never sin'd And because if it were so the Scripture would not use the word Wages and the word Punishment and the word Retribution and the word Reward Hell indeed had been a Torment but not a Recompence a fatal Misery but not a Mulct an Act of power but not of vengeance which yet in many places is the style that God speaks in Vengeance is mine and I will repay Rom. 12. 19. Nor can the second be lesse impossible it having formerly been proved that God is not the Author of sin * he hath no need of the sinful man whereby to bring mans Ruine the more conveniently about and most of them that dare say it are fain to say it in a Disguise Some indeed are for ligonem ligonem but the more modest blasphemers are glad to dresse it in cleaner phrase A strange {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in Divinity to put the 1 childe before the parent the 2 wages before the work the 3 end before the means the Reprobation before the sin yet so they do who make the Decree of Reprobation most irrespective and unconditional and after that say that whom God determines to the end he determines to the means To put the horse upon the Bridle is a more rational Hypallage for by this Divinity eternal punishment is imputed to Gods Antecedent will which is called the first and sin to his consequent will which is the second The first {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and the other only {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} punishment chiefly and sin by way of Consecution Men are bid not to sin ex voluntate signi or revelata but are determin'd to it ex voluntate occultâ or beneplaciti Distinctions very good when at first they were invented for better uses The former by S. Chrysostome from whom it was borrow'd by Damascene and from him by the Schoolmen But I say they all were us'd to very contrary purposes by them and by these who endevour'd to repel those Fathers with their own weapons as the elaborate Gerard Vossius does very largely make it appear I am sorry I must say what yet I must saith * Tertullian when it may tend to edification That the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering abundant in goodnesse and truth who is all Bowels and no gall who hateth nothing that he hath made who in the midst of Iudgement remembreth mercy ever forgiving iniquity transgression and sin is exhibited to the world