Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	adam_n	eternity_n	irresistible_a	284	4	16.3451	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A07540	Wisdome crying out to sinners to returne from their evill wayes Conteined in three pious and learned treatises, viz. I. Of Christs fervent love to bloudy Jerusalem. II. Of Gods just hardening of Pharaoh, when he 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.; Sapientia clamitans, wisdome crying out to sinners to returne from their evill wayes	Jackson, Thomas, 1579-1640.; Gods just hardning of Pharaoh, when he had filled up the measure of his iniquity. aut; Donne, John, 1572-1631. aut; Milbourne, William, b. 1598 or 9.	1640 (1640)	STC 17920; ESTC S100914	68,657	328

made to tell the truth But a wrangler may work them both to beare evidence for error God from eternitie did not decree to harden Pharaoh by his irresistible will is true of Pharaoh in his infancie or youth but false of Pharaoh after his wilfull contempt of Gods summons by signes and wonders Beza's collection upon this place is grounded upon the indefinite truth of this affirmative God from eternity decreed to barden Pharaoh But hee extends this indefinite truth beyond its compasse For hee makes it an universall in that hee terminates the irresistible decree to every moment of Pharaohs life without distinction of qualification And it may be hee was of opinion that as well each severall qualification as each different measure of Pharaohs hardening or impenitency did come to passe by Gods irresistible will His error into which the greatest Clerk living especially if hee be not an accurate Philosopher might easily slide was in confounding eternitie with successive duration and not distinguishing succession it selfe from things durable or successive Hee and many others in this argument speake as if they conceived that the necessarie coexistence of eternitie with time did necessarily draw every mans whole course of life motu quodam raptus after such a manner as Astronomers suppose that the highest Spheare doth move the lower whereas if wee speake of the course not of Pharaoh's naturall but morall life it was rather an incondite heape or confused multitude of durables than one entire uniforme duration And each durable hath its distinct reference to the eternall decree That which was eternally true of one was not of all much lesse eternally true of another Eternitie it selfe though immutable though necessarily though indivisibly co-existent to all was not so indissolubly linked with any but that Pharaoh might have altered or stayed his course of life before that moment wherein the measure of iniquitie was accomplished But in that moment hee became so exorbitant that the irresistible decree of induration did fasten upon him His irregular motions have ever since become irrevocable not his actions onely but his person are carried headlong by the everlasting revolution of the unchangeable decree everlasting unavoydable destruction The proposition or conclusion proposed Pharaoh was hardened by Gods irresistible will is true from all eternitie throughout all eternitie and therefore true from Pharaohs birth unto his death but not therefore true of Pharaoh howsoever qualified or of all Pharaoh's qualifications throughout the whole course of his life For so the proposition becomes an universall not onely in respect of the time but of the subject that is of all Pharaohs severall qualifications The sense is as if hee had said God from eternitie decreed to harden Pharaoh howsoever qualified as well in his infancie as in his full age by his irresistible will and thus taken it is false The inference is the same with the fore-mentioned Adam in Gods fore knowledge was a sinner from eternitie Ergo Adam was alwayes a sinner a sinner before hee sinned during the time of his innocencie or with this God from all eternitie did decree by his irresistible will that Adam should die the death Ergo Hee did decree by his irresistible will that Adam should die as soone as hee was created or be a sinner all his life long To reconcile these two propositions aright God from eternitie decreed by his irresistible will that Adam should die God from eternitie did not decree by his irresistible will that Adam should die otherwise than wee have reconciled the two former God from eternitie decreed to harden Pharaoh by his irresistible will God from eternitie did not decree to harden Pharaoh by his irresistible will no Writer I presume will undertake The onely reconciliation possible is this God did decree by his irresistible will that Adam sinning should die God did not decree by his irresistible will that Adam not sinning should die nor did hee decree by his irresistible will that Adam should sin that hee might die For as wee said before God did neither decree his fall nor his perseverance by his irresistible will And his death was no more inevitable than his fall Nor was Pharaohs finall induration more inevitable than the measure of iniquitie to which such induration was from eternitie awarded by Gods irresistible will Of Pharaoh thus considered the conclusion was true from eternitie true in respect of every moment of Pharaohs life wherein the measure of his iniquitie was or might have beene accomplished though it had beene accomplished within three yeares after his birth And this accomplishment presupposed the induration was most inevitable his finall reprobation as irrecoverable as Gods absolute will taking absolute as it is opposed to disjunct is irresistible The same proposition in respect of reprobation is universally true Vniversalitate subjecti that is of every other person so ill qualified as Pharaoh was when God did harden him Whosoever shall at any time become such a man as Pharaoh was then is a reprobate from eternitie by Gods irresistible will And seeing no man is exempted from his jurisdiction hee may harden whom hee will after the same manner that hee hardened Pharaoh although de facto hee doth not so harden all the reprobates that is hee reserves them not alive for examples to others after the ordinary time appointed for their dissolution Nor doth he tender ordinary meanes of repentance to them after the doore of repentance is shut upon them God in his infinite wisdome hath many secret purposes incomprehensible to man as Why of such as are equall offenders one is more rigorously dealt withall than another Why of such as are equally disposed to goodnesse morall one is called before another That thus to dispense of mercy and justice in this life doth argue no partialitie or respect of persons with God is an argument elsewhere to be insisted upon The point whereupon wee are now to pitch is this indefinite Men are not reprobated or hardened by Gods irresistible will before they come to such a pitch or hight of iniquity No man living shall ever bee able to make this inference good Pharaoh was absolutely reprobated from eternitie that is His reprobation was immutable from eternitie Ergo Pharaoh in his youth or infancie was a reprobate To infer the consequence proposed no Medium more probable than this can possibly be brought Pharaoh from his infancy to his full age was alwayes one and the selfe same man Et de eodem impossibile est idem affirmari negari The consequence notwithstanding is no better than this following The Eclipse of the Moone was necessarie from the beginning Ergo The Moone was necessarily eclipsed in the first quarter or in the prime Because the Moone being of an incorruptible substance hath continued one and the same since the creation But unto this consequence every Artist could make replie that the proper and immediate subject of the Eclipse is not the Nature or

and indivisible will hee ordained that other events should be mutable or continguent viz. that of more particulars proposed this may be as well as that the affirmative as well as the negative And of particulars so willed no one can bee said to bee willed by his irresistible will If the existence of any one so willed should be necessarie his will might bee resisted seeing his will is they should not bee necessarie Each particular of this kinde by the like denomination of the thing willed hee may be said to will by his resistible will The whole 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or list of severall possibilities or the indifference betwixt the particulars he wils by his irresistible will The Psalmists oracle is universally true of all persons in every age of Adam specially before his fall Non Deus volens iniquitatem tues God doth not he cannot will iniquitie And yet wee see the world is full of it The Apostles speech againe is as universally true This is the will of God even your sanctification that every one of you should know to possesse his vessell in honour 1 Thess 4. 3. God willeth and he seriously willeth sanctitie of life in our selves uprightnesse and integritie of conversation amongst men and yet behold a Vacuum in this little world in the sonnes of Adam whom hee created after his owne image and similitude So then hee neither wils mens goodnesse nor wils their iniquitie by his irresistible will Hee truly willed Adams integritie but not by his irresistible will For so Adam could not have fallen What shall wee say then God did will Adams fall by his irresistible will God forbid For so Adam could not but have sinned Where is the meane or middle station on which we may build our faith The immediate object of Gods irresistible will in this case was Adams free will that is Potestas labendi potestas standi Powre to stand and powre to fall By the same will hee decreed Death as the inevitable consequent of his fall and life as the necessary unpreventable reward of his perseverance Thus much briefly of Gods will in what sense it is resistible or irresistible The nature and property of an hardened heart cannot in fewer words better bee expressed than by the Poets character of an unruly stubborne youth Cereus in vitium flecti monitoribus asper It is a constitution or temper of minde as pliant as wax to receive the impressions of the flesh or stamp of the old man but as untoward as flint or other ragged stone to admit the image of the new man The first generall part how God doth harden THe difficultie is in what sense God can bee truly said to be the Authour of such a temper The proposition is of undoubted truth whether we consider it as an indefinite God doth harden or as a singular God hardened Pharaoh or in the universality here mentioned God hardemeth whom he will after the same manner he hardened Pharaoh Concerning the manner how God doth harden the questions are two 1. Whether hee harden positively or privatively onely 2. Whether he harden by his irresistible will or by his resistible will onely To give one and the same answer to either demand without distinction of time on persons were to entangle our selves as most Writers in this argument have done in the fallacie Ad plures interrogationes Touching the first question some good Writers maintaine the universall negative God never hardens positively but privatively onely onely by substracting or not granting grace or other meanes of repentance or by leaving nature to the bent of its inbred corruption Vide Lorinum in vers 51. cap. 7. Act. Apost pag. 322. colum 12. Others of as good note and greater desert in Reformed Churches better refute the defective extreme than they expresse the meane betweene it and the contrary extreme in excesse with the maintenance whereof they are deeply charged not by Papists onely but by their brethren How often have Calvin and Beza beene accused by Lutherans as if they taught That God did directly harden mens hearts by infusion of bad qualities or That the production of a reprobate or impenitent temper were such an immediate or formall terme of his positive action as heat is of calefaction or drought of heat But if we take Privative and Positive induration in this sense and set them so farre asunder the division is altogether imperfect the former member comes as farre short of the truth as the latter overreacheth it God sometimes hardens some men neither the one way nor the other that is as wee say in schooles datur medium abnegationis betweene them And perhaps it may be as questionable whether God at any time hardens any man merè privativè as it is whether there can be Peccatum purae omissionis any sinne of meere omission without all mixture of commission But with this question here or elsewhere wee are not disposed to meddle being rather willing to grant what is confessed by all or most That hee sometimes hardens privativè if not by meere substraction of grace or utter deniall of other meanes of repentance yet so especially by these meanes as may suffice to verifie the truth of the proposition usually received or to give the denomination of Privative Hardening But many times hee hardens Positivè not by infusion of bad qualities but by disposing or inclining the Heart to goodnesse that is by communication of his favours and exhibition of motives more than ordinarie to repentance not that hee exhibites the same with purpose to harden but rather to mollifie and organize mens hearts to the receiving of Grace The naturall effect or purposed issue of the Riches of Gods bountie is to draw men to repentance But the very attempt or sway of meanes offered provokes hearts fastned to their sinnes to greater stubbornnesse in the rebound Hearts thus affected treasure up wrath against the day of wrath in a proportioned measure to the riches of bountie offered but not entertained by them And such a cause as God is of their treasuring up of wrath hee is likewise of their hardening no direct no necessary cause of either yet a cause of both more than privative a positive cause by consequence or resultance not necessary or necessary onely ex hypothesi Meanes of repentance sincerely offered by God but wilfully rejected by man concur as positively to induration of heart as the heating of water doth to the quick freezing of it when it is taken off the fire and set in the cold aire If a Physician should minister some physicall drink unto his patient and heape clothes upon him with purpose to prevent some disease by a kindly sweat and the patient throughly heated wilfully throw them off both may be said positive causes of the cold which would necessary ensue from both actions albeit the patient only were the true moral cause or the only blame-worthy cause of his owne death or danger following

that lake are more grievous than all the plagues which Pharaoh suffered on earth so the degrees of his hardning had he beene then cast into it had been in number more his strugling with God more violent and stubborne his possibility of repentance altogether as little as it was after the seventh plague if not lesse But should GOD therefore have beene thought unjust because he continued to punish him in hell after possibility of repentance was past No Pharaoh had beene the onely cause of his owne woe by bringing this necessitie upon himselfe of opposing God and repining at his judgements All is one then in respect of Gods justice whether Pharaoh having made up the measure of his iniquitie bee irrevocably hardned here on earth or in hell To reserve him alive in the state of mortalitie after the sentence of death is past upon him is no rigour but lenitie and long-suffering although Gods plagues be still multiplied in Egypt for his sake although the end of his life become more dreadfull than by the ordinarie course of Gods justice it should have beene if hee had dyed in the seventh plague Another reason why God without impeachment to his justice doth still augment Pharaohs punishment as if it were now as possible for him to repent as once it was is intimated by our Apostle to be this That by this lenitie towards Pharaoh Hee might shew his wrath and declare his power against all such sinners as he was that the world might heare and feare and learne by his overthrow not to strive against their Maker nor to dally with his fearefull warnings Had Pharaoh and his people died of the pestilence or other disease when the cattell perished of the murraine the terror of Gods powerfull wrath had not beene so manifest and visible to the world as it was in overthrowing the whole strength of Aegypt which had taken armes and set themselves in battell against him Now the more strange the infatuation the more fearefull and ignominious the destruction of these vessels of wrath did appeare unto the world the more bright did the riches of Gods glory shine to the Israelites whom hee was now preparing for vessels of mercy the hearts of whose posteritie hee did not so effectually fit or season for the infusion of his sanctifying grace by any secondarie meanes whatsoever as by the perpetuall memory of his glorious victory over Pharaoh and his mighty host But this faithlesse generation whose reformation our Apostle so anxiously seekes did take all these glorious tokens of Gods extraordinarie free love and mercy towards their Fathers for irrevocable earnests or obligements to effect their absolute predestination unto honour and glory and to prepare the Gentiles to be vessels of infamie and destruction Now our Apostles earnest desire and unquenchable zeale to prevent this dangerous presumption in his countrie-men enforceth him in stead of applying this second answer to the point in question to advertise them for conclusion that the Aegyptians case was now to become theirs and that the Gentiles should be made vessels of mercy in their stead All which the event hath proved most true For have not the sons of Iacob beene hardened as strangely as Pharaoh Have they not beene reserved as spectales of terror to most nations after they had deserved to have beene utterly cut off from the earth yea to have gone quick into hell Nor have the riches of Gods mercy towards us Gentiles beene more manifested by any other apparent or visible document than by scattering of these Jewes through those Countries wherein the seed of the Gospell hath beene sowne The third generall point proposed concerning the Logicall determination of this proposition whom hee will hee hardneth or concerning the immediate or proper object of the induration here spoken of PHaraoh we grant was hardened by Gods absolute irresistible will Could Beza can Piscator or any other Expositor living enforce any more out of the literall meaning of those texts whether granting thus much wee must grant withall what their followers to my apprehension demand that Pharaoh was an absolute Reprobate from the wombe or that hee was by Gods irresistible will ordained to this hardening which by Gods irresistible will did take possession of his heart is the question to be disputed They unlesse I mistake their meaning affirme I must even to death deny I desire then that in this case I may enjoy the ancient pivilege of Priests to be tried by my Peeres which God wot need not be great ones I will except against no man of what profession place or condition soever either for being my Judge or of my Jury so his braines be qualified with the speculative rules of syllogizing and his heart seasoned with the doctrine of the ninth Commandement which is Not to heare false witnesse against his Neighbour against his knowledge To avoid the Sophisticall chinkes of scattered propositions wherein Truth often lyes hid in rhetoricall or popular discourse wee will joyne issue in this syllogisme Whatsoever God from eternity decrees by his irresistible will is absolutely necessarie and inevitable or impossible to be avoided God from eternitie decreed to harden Pharaoh by his irresistible will Ergò The hardning of Pharaoh was absolutely necessarie and impossible to be avoided And if his hardning were inevitable or impossible to bee avoided it will bee taken as granted that he was a reprobate from the wombe Damnatus antequàm natus the absolute childe of eternall death before he was made partaker of mortall life The Major proposition is a Maxime not questioned by any Christian Jew or Mahometane And out of it wee may draw another Major as unquestionable but more immediate in respect of the conclusion proposed Whomsoever God decrees to harden by his irresistible will his hardning is absolutely inevitable altogether impossible to be avoided The Minor Pharaoh was hardned by Gods irresistible will is granted by us and as wee are perswaded avouched in termes equivalent by our Apostle The difference is about the conclusion or connexion of the termes which without better limitation than is expressed in the proposition or corollarie annexed is loose and Sophisticall Would some braine which God hath blest with naturall perspicacitie art and opportunitie vouchsafe to take but a little paines in moulding such sit cases for the Praedicates as Aristotle hath done for the Subjects of Propositions though those wee often use not or use amisse those seeming Syllogismes whose secret flawes clear sighted judgements can hardly discerne by light of arts would crack so fouly in framing that bleare eyes would espie their ruptures without spectacles It shall suffice mee at this time to shew how grosly the Syllogisme proposed failes in the fundamentall rule of all affirmative Syllogismes The Rule is Quae cunque conveniunt cum aliquo tertio inter se conveniunt All other rules concerning the quantitie of propositions or their disposition in certaine Mood and Figure serve onely to this end that the