Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	apostle_n	place_n	zion_n	18	3	8.6627	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A14095	A discovery of D. Iacksons vanitie. Or A perspective glasse, wherby the admirers of D. Iacksons profound discourses, may see the vanitie and weaknesse of them, in sundry passages, and especially so farre as they tende to the undermining of the doctrine hitherto received. Written by William Twisse, Doctor of Divinitie, as they say, from whom the copie came to the presse	Twisse, William, 1578?-1646.	1631 (1631)	STC 24402; ESTC S118777	563,516	728

still I perceive your meaning reacheth further then you dare as yet to professe for your meaning is to prove that All that heare the Gospell and doe not believe it seeing they shall bee guilty of greater sinne and incurre greater condemnation at the day of judgement therefore they could believe it if they would This is the point that sticks in your teeth and which you dare not openly and plainely professe as indeed it is manifest Pelagianisme and which the Arminians dare not at this day openly avouch but rather professe that no man can believe or repent without grace Whereas yet like as your selfe maintaine that no man in state of nature can doe otherwise of himselfe then sinne yet is he justly condemned for sinning none compelling him in like sort no man of himselfe can believe the Gospell yet hee may be as justly condemned for not believing For as for that naturall impotency unto that which is good which is in all derived unto us from our father Adam that is of it selfe sufficient to condemne us and therefore most unsufficient to excuse us And that impotencie being in all alike the condemnation therefore shall be unto all alike but the increase of it by actuall transgressions which are freely committed is not in all alike for neither doth inclination naturall or tentations spirituall or occasions temporall hinder a mans libertie in doing or refusing to doe any act so likewise neither can it hinder the aggravation of his sinne But neither can this naturall impotency bee cured in any part but by the grace of God habituall neither any good act according to this grace habituall he performed without another grace both prevenient and subsequent actuall If your minde serves you to deale plainly in opposing ought of this you shall not want them that will bee ready to enter with you into the lists and scholastically to encounter you Yet I confesse the providence of God especially in ordering and governing the wills of men is a misterious thing and the operation and cooperation of his will with the operation and cooperation of the will of man But I am a long time inured unto this and now I feare no bugbeares least of all from your selfe with whom I have beene of old acquainted in our private and familiar discourse on these and such like arguments and to tell you plainely my opinion I doubt you have written so much that you have had time to read but litle And truly as for my selfe as I have written little so also I have not read much But in these points I have spent not a little time in searching after truth and examining arguments As for the place of the Apostle Act. 17. 30. it seemes your meaning is it pleads for universall grace now after Christs death yet your selfe immediately before profested that onely they that heare it and doe not believe are guilty of greater sinnes implying manifestly that since Christs death all doe not heare it Yet if you have any other meaning and will deale roundly in propounding it I will be ready to consider this or any other place that you shall bee able to produce to what purpose soever if orthodox in my judgement to subscribe unto it if otherwise to doe my best to confute it 3 In the next place you are so farre from maintaining universall grace that you undertake to give causes why all men in the world have not heard of this love of God in Christ. But these causes to be assigned by you are put off till hereafter and that not of certainty neither you onely say They may bee assigned T is your usuall course to feed your Readers with expectation as it were with empty spoones If you doe not gull them in putting them off to expectation t is somewhat the better The reason you give why many might have heard of Christ which yet have not heard of him and might have beene partakers of his death I thinke you meane of the benefit of his death which yet have not beene partakers of it is starke naught For that evill courses of men cannot hinder them from the participation of Christs death appeareth by the calling of the Gentiles and casting off of the Iewes For were the deeds of Babylon thinke you better then they of Sion Wee Jewes by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles saith the Apostle Gal. 2. 15. The Apostle in divers places puts no difference betweene them that are called and them that are not as touching their manners before grace 1 Cor. 6. 11. Eph. 2. 23. Tit. 3. 23. God sindes us weltring in our bloud when he saith unto us Live Ezech. 16. and Saul was taken off from his bloudy courses to be made a member of Christ. And your doctrine to the contrary tends shamefully to the obscuring and disparaging of Gods grace and to the advancing of the power of nature and liberty of will the trick of the Pelagians of old of whom Austine professed thus Inimici gratiae Dei latent in commendatione naturae The enemies of Gods grace welter themselves under the commendation of nature And Austine professeth it to be impiety and madnesse to deny that God can convert any mans will when hee will and where hee will And you blush not to professe in another discourse of yours that humility is the disposition which prepares us for grace I doubt you will finde little comfort in such humility and that at the day of judgement such humility will be found abominable pride What you meane by pledges I know not you love to walk in cloudes and in the darke if you mean the fruits of Gods temporall blessings how will you prove that these were evidences of that love which God man fested in the death of his Sonne And if it were so then this evidence should be manifested to all of ripe yeares for all are partakers of Gods temporall providence even they that have filled up the measure of their iniquity Yet then you usually professe God withdrawes his love from them but how can that bee if hee afford them the unquestionable earnests thereof as before you called these pledges whereas in the close you say that many are not acquainted with this manifestation of Gods love and that out of meere mercy it may well passe for one of your paradoxes I never doubted but that it was a mercy to know Christ and the love of God to the world in him but that it was a mercy to want Christ I never read nor heard till now Neither is it necessary that men though reprobates should be enraged to evill by the Gospell for God can make even reprobates to profit by it ad exteriorem vitae emendationem quà mitius puniantur To the outward emendation of their lives to the end their punishment may be the milder And we finde by experience that all were not enraged against it CHAP. XVIII Want of consideration or ignorance of Gods unfained love to such as perish a

Iohn and Christ damneth the contemners of God and such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent Those the Scripture excludeth from the generall promise of grace It may seeme that The contemners of God and such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent in master Hoopers phrase are the same in your judgement with those whom you account to have filled up the measure of iniquity But what ground have you for that Master Hooper saith not that all such whom he accounts contemners of God and such as willingly continue and sinne and will not repent have hereupon filled up the measure of their iniquitie or that hereupon all possibility of amendment is taken from them these are your assertions they are not master Hoopers Again all contemners of God and such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent master Hooper saith the Scripture excludes from the generall promise of grace and this he utters without any distinction as well he may to wit for the present and so long as they continue in this their contempt and hardnesse of hart For as much as the promise of grace both for the pardon of sinne and salvation of our soules belongs to none but such as breake off their sinfull courses by faith and repentance But you distinguish betweene such contemners of God and presumptuous sinners and tell us that some of them have arived to the full measure of their iniquity and that there is no possibility of their amendment such as Pharaoh was after the seventh plague others though contemners of God c. yet in this their course of contempt have not filled up the measure of their iniquity such as Pharaoh was before the seventh plague who undoubtedly was a contemner of God before that time and one that willingly continued in sinne and would not repent and of all such you professe that God doth unfainedly love them Now there are no tracks or footsteps of such strange assertions as either of these to be found in Bishop Hooper Of all contemners of God he professeth according unto Scripture that they are excluded from all promise of grace to wit for the present he doth not say God unfainedly loves any of them but as for the time to come he doth not affirme that all possibility of amendment is taken from them Had hee thought so then he should acknowledge them to bee in a desperate condition But hee is so farre from this that hee accounts Desperation to bee a principall let and impediment unto godlinesse chap. 18. fol. 90. The first let saith hee or impediment is desperation when as men thinke they cannot be saved but are excluded from all mercy and a little after Of the contrary nature to presumption is desperation it taketh from God his mercy For when they offend and continue in sinne they thinke there is no mercy left for them and that as in the next sentence he sheweth specially because of custome and long continuance in sinne Then he proceeds saying This discourse and progresse in that knowledge of sinne beareth him in hand that it is impossible to returne unto God This is as much as in your phrase to affirme that all possibility of amendment is taken from him But doth Mr. Hooper justifie this Nothing lesse for this is a maine let or impediment to repentance which he desires to remove out of the way of sinners and to that hee proceeds in this manner Moses saith he like a good Physitian teacheth a remedie against this dangerous disease and sheweth the way unto God declareth that God is full of mercy and ready to forgive and beginneth his oration in this manner unto such as bee afflicted and oppressed with sinne When there commeth upon thee all those things when God hath afflicted thee for thy sinnes and thou returnest unto him with all thy heart he shall deliver thee from captivity and receive thee to his mercy againe Of the which text learne this doctrine that God will alwaies forgive how many and how horrible soever the sinnes bee and learne to feare presumption and to beware of desperation So that hoe acknowledgeth no just cause of desperation no not in respect of custome and long continuance in sinne The next sentence in Mr. Hooper transcribed by you in this eighth Section of yours conteines no more then that which wee all acknowledge Thou seest saith he by the places before rehearsed that though wee cannot believe in God as undoubtedly as is required by reason of this our naturall sicknesse and disease yet for Christ sake in the judgement of God wee are accounted as faithfull believers for whose sake this naturall disease and sicknesse is pardoned by what name soever Saint Paul calleth the naturall infirmity and originall sinne in man This is something concerning the nature of originall sinne in the opinion of Mr. Hooper nothing at all touching a certaine state of sinne wherein all possibility of amendment is taken from a man to which purpose Mr. Hooper is alledged by you in this place Yet because I doe not know what reaches you have in this also I answer that Mr. Hooper speakes of originall sinne as it is found in the regenerate and as it is in them hee calls it onely A naturall sicknesse and disease And indeed when wee are once regenerate wee are no longer dead in sinne no longer estranged from the life of God But herehence it followeth not that Mr. Hooper was of opinion that originall sinne was even in the unregenerate to bee accounted onely A naturall sicknesse and disease and not rather a death in sinne especially considering that the holy Apostle acknowledgeth A law in his members rebelling against the law of his minde and leading him captive to the law of sinne and calleth it A body of death crying out against it and saying Who shall deliver me from this body of death Rom. 7. 1. The last clause as I take it makes more for your present purpose as when hee saith And this imperfection and naturall sicknesse taken of Adam excludeth not the person from the promise of God in Christ except wee transgresse the limits and bounds of originall sinne by our owne folly and malice and either of a contempt or hate of Gods word wee fall into sinne and transforme ourselves into the image of the devill Then wee exclude by this meanes ourselves from the promises and merits of Christ who onely received our infirmities and originall disease and not the contempt of him and his law This passage I confesse is somewhat strange and of my knowledge hath troubled some conc●iving it as an assertion of yours and not so much as dreaming that it was delivered by Mr. Hooper I answer therefore First of all that this serves not your turne for the present that in two respects First you distinguish the contempt of Godsword and of his law according to different degrees eithersuch as was in Pharaoh before the seventh plague or such as was in