Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	body_n	good_a	life_n	7,085	5	4.4715	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77245	A defence of true liberty from ante-cedent and extrinsecall necessity being an answer to a late book of Mr. Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, intituled, A treatise of liberty and necessity. Written by the Right Reverend John Bramhall D.D. and Lord Bishop of Derry.	Bramhall, John, 1594-1663.	1655 (1655)	Wing B4218; Thomason E1450_1; ESTC R209599	138,196	261

mihi minam Diogenes Let him that taught me Logick give me my money again But T. H. saith that this distinction between the operative and permissive Will of God And that other between the action and the irregularity do dazell his understanding Though he can find no difference between these two yet others do St. Paul himself did Act. 13.18 About the time of 40. yeares suffered he their manners in the Wilderness And Act. 14.16 Who intimes past suffered all Nations to walk in their own wayes T. H. would make suffering to be inciting their manners to be Gods manners their wayes to be Gods wayes And Act. 17.30 The times of this ignorance God winked at It was never heard that one was said to wink or connive at that which was his own act And 1 Cor. 10.13 God is faithfull who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able To tempt is the Devills act therefore he is called the Tempter God tempts no man to sin but he suffers them to be tempted And so suffers that he could hinder Sathan if he would But by T. H. his doctrine To tempt to sin and to suffer one to be tempted to sin when it is in his power to hinder it is all one And so he transforms God I write it with horrour into the Devill and makes tempting to be Gods own work and the Devill to be but his instrument And in that noted place Rom. 2.4 Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thy self wrath against the day of wrath and revealation of the righteous judgment of God Here are as many convincing Arguments in this one text against the opinion of T. H. almost as there are words Here we learn that God is rich in goodness and will not punish his creatures for that which is his own act Secondly that he suffers and forbeares sinners long and doth not snatch them away by sudden death as they deserve Thirdly that the reason of Gods forbearance is to bring men to repentance Fourthly that hardness of heart and impenitency is not casually from God but from our selves Fiftly that it is not the insufficient proposall of the means of their conversion on Gods part which is the cause of mens perdition but their own contempt and despising of these means Sixtly that punishment is not an act of absolute dominion but an act of righteous Judgment whereby God renders to every man according to his own deeds wrath to them and only to them who treasure up wrath unto themselves and eternall life to those who continue patiently in well-doing If they deserve such punishment who onely neglect the goodness and long suffering of God what do they who utterly deny it and make Gods doing and his suffering to be all one I do beseech T. H. to consider what a degree of wilfulness it is out of one obscure text wholly misunderstood to contradict the clear current of the whole Scripture Of the same mind with St. Paul was St. Peter 1 Pet. 3.22 The long suffering of God waited once in the dayes of Noah And 2 Pet. 3.15 Account that the long suffering of the Lord is salvation This is the name God gives himself Exod. 34.6 The Lord the Lord God mercifull and gracious long suffering c. Yet I do acknowledge that which T. H. saith to be commonly true That he who doth permit any thing to be done which it is in his power to hinder knowing that if he do not hinder it it will be done doth in some sort will it I say in some sort that is either by an antecedent will or by a consequent will either by an operative will or by a permissive will or he is willing to let it be done but not willing to do it Sometimes an antecedent engagement doth cause a man to suffer that to be done which otherwise he would not suffer So Darius suffered Daniel to be cast into the Lions den to make good his rash decree So Herod suffered John Baptist to be beheaded to make good his rash oath How much more may the immutable rule of justice in God and his fidelity in keeping his word draw from him the punishment of obstinate sinners though antecedently he willeth their conversion He loveth all his Creatures well but his own Justice better Again sometimes a man suffereth that to be done which he doth not will directly in it self but indirectly for some other end or for the producing of some great good As a man willeth that a putrid member be cut off from his body to save the life of the whole Or as a Judge being desirous to save a malefactors life and having power to repreive him doth yet condemn him for example sake that by the death of one he may save the lives of many Marvell not then if God suffer some creatures to take such courses as tend to their own ruine so long as their sufferings do make for the greater manifestation of his glory and for the greater benefit of his faithfull servants This is a most certain truth that God would not suffer evill to be in the world unless he knew how to draw good out of evill Yet this ought not to be so understood as if we made any priority or posteriority of time in the acts of God but onely of nature Nor do we make the antecedent and consequent will to be contrary one to another because the one respects man pure and uncorrupted the other respects him as he is lapsed The objects are the same but considered after a diverse manner Nor yet do we make these wills to be distinct in God for they are the same with the divine essence which is one But the distinction is in order to the objects or things willed Nor lastly do we make this permission to be a naked or a meer permission God causeth all good permitteth all evill disposeth all things both good and evill T. H. demands how God should be the cause of the action and yet not be the cause of the irregularity of the action I answer because he concurres to the doing of evill by a generall but not by a speciall influence As the Earth gives nourishment to all kinds of plants as well to Hemlock as to Wheat but the reason why the one yields food to our sustenance the other poison to our destruction is not from the generall nourishment of the earth but from the speciall quality of the root Even so the generall power to act is from God In him we live and move and have our being This is good But the specification and determination of this generall power to the doing of any evill is from our selves and proceeds from the free will of man This is bad And to speak properly the free will of man is not the efficient cause of sin as the root

produce it inevitably To these proofs he answers nothing but onely by denying the first consequence as he calls it and then sings over his old song That the nature of sin consisteth in this that the action proceeds from our will and be against the Law which in our sense is most true if he understand a just Law and a free rationall will But supposing as he doth that the Law injoines things impossible in themselves to be done then it is an unjust and Tyrannicall Law and the transgression of it is no sin not to do that which never was in our power to do And supposing likewise as he doth that the will is inevitably determined by speciall influence from the first cause then it is not mans will but Gods Will and flowes essentially from the Law of Goodness That which he addes of a Judge is altogether impertinent as to his defence Neither is a Civill Judge the proper Judge nor the Law of the Land the proper Rule of Sin But it makes strongly against him for the Judge goes upon a good ground and even this which he confesseth that the Judge looks at no higher cause then the will of the doer prooves that the will of the doer did determine it self freely and that the malefactor had liberty to have kept the Law if he would Certainly a Judge ought to look at all materiall circumstances and much more at all essentiall causes Whether every sufficient cause be a necessary cause will come to be examined more properly Numb 31. For the present it shall suffice to say that liberty flowes from the sufficiency and contingency from the debility of the cause Nature never intends the generation of a monster If all the causes concur sufficiently a perfect creature is produced but by reason of the insufficiency or debility or contingent aberration of some of the causes sometimes a Monster is produced Yet the causes of a Monster were sufficient for the production of that which was produced that is a Monster otherwise a Monster had not been produced What is it then A Monster is not produced by vertue of that order which is set in Nature but by the contingent aberration of some of the naturall causes in their concurrence The order set in Nature is that every like should beget its like But supposing the concurrence of the causes to be such as it is in the generation of a Monster the generation of a Monster is necessary as all the events in the world are when they are that is by an hypotheticall necessity Then he betakes himself to his old help that God may punish by right of omnipotence though there were no sin The question is not now what God may do but what God will do according to that Covenant which he hath made with man Fac hoc vives Do this and thou shalt live whether God doth punish any man contrary to this Covenant Hosea 13.9 O Israel thy destruction is from thy self but in me is thy help He that wills not the death of a Sinner doth much less will the death of an innocent Creature By death or destruction in this discourse the onely separation of Soul and Body is not intended which is a debt of nature and which God as Lord of Life and Death may justly do and make it not a punishment but a blessing to the party but we understand the subjecting of the Creature to eternall torments Lastly he tells of that benenefit which redounds to others from Exemplary Justice which is most true but not according to his own grounds for neither is it Justice to punish a man for doing that which it was impossible alwayes for him not to do Neither is it lawfull to punish an innocent person that good may come of it And if his opinion of absolute necessity of all things were true the destinies of men could not be altered either by examples or fear of punishment Numb 18. J. D. BUt the Patrons of necessity being driven out of the plain field with reason have certain retreats or distinctions which they fly unto for refuge First they distinguish between Stoicall necessity and Christian necessity between which they make a threefold difference First say they the Stoicks did subject Jupiter to destiny but we subject destiny to God I answer that the Stoicall and Christian destiny are one and the same fatum quasi effatum Jovis Hear Seneca Destiny is the necessity of all things and actions depending upon the disposition of Jupiter c. I add that the Stoicks left a greater liberty to Jupiter over destiny than these Stoicall Christians do to God over his decrees either for the beginnings of things as Euripides or for the progress of of them as Chrysippus or at least of the circumstances of time and place as all of them generally So Virgil Sed trahere moras ducere c. So Osyris in Apuleius promiseth him to prolong his life Ultra fato constituta tempora beyond the times set down by the destinies Next they say that the Stoicks did hold an eternall flux and necessary connexion of causes but they believe that God doth act praeter contra naturam besides and against nature I answer that it is not much materiall whether they attribute necessity to God or to the Starrs or to a connexion of causes so as they establish necessity The former reasons do not onely condemn the ground or foundation of necessity but much more necessity it self upon what ground soever Either they must run into this absurdity that the effect is determined the cause remaining undetermined or els hold such a necessary connexion of causes as the Stoicks did Lastly they say the Stoicks did take away liberty and contingence but they admit it I answer what liberty or contingence was it they admit but a titular liberty and an empty shadow of contingence who do profess stifly that all actions and events which either are or shall be cannot but be nor can be otherwise after any other manner in any other Place Time Number Order Measure nor to any other end than they are and that in respect of God determining them to one what a poor ridiculous liberty or contingence is this Secondly they distinguish between the first cause and the second causes they say that in respect of the second causes many things are free but in respect of the first cause all things are necessary This answer may be taken away two wayes First so contraries shall be true together The same thing at the same time shall be determined to one and not determined to one the same thing at the same time must necessarily be and yet may not be Perhaps they will say not in the same respect But that which strikes at the root of this question is this If all the causes were onely collaterall this exception might have some colour but where all the causes being joined together and subordinate one to another do make but one totall

themselves and could speak one to another which is very improper in searching the truth of the question You may observe first that to compell a voluntary act is nothing els but to will it for it is all one to say my will commands the shutting of mine eyes or the doing of any other action and to say I have the will to shut mine eyes So that actus imperatus here might as easily have been said in English a voluntary action but that they that invented the tearme understood not any thing it signified Secondly you may observe that actus elicitus is exemplified by these words to Will to Elect to Choose which are all one and so to will is here made an act of the will and indeed as the will is a faculty or power in a mans soul so to will is an act of it according to that power But as it is absurdly said that to dance is an act allured or drawn by fair means out of the ability to dance so it is also to say that to will is an act allured or drawn out of the power to will which power is commonly called the Will Howsoever it be the summe of his distinction is that a voluntary act may be done on compulsion that is to say by foul means but to will that or any act cannot be but by allurement or fair means Now seeing fair Means Allurements and Enticements produce the action which they do produce as necessarily as threatning and foul means it followes that to will may be made as necessary as any thing that is done by compulsion So that the distinction of actus imperatus and actus elicitus are but words and of no effect against necessity J. D. IN the next place follow two reasons of mine own against the same distinction the one taken from the former grounds that Election cannot consist with determination to one To this he saith he hath answered already No Truth is founded upon a Rock He hath been so far from prevailing against it that he hath not been able to shake it Now again he tells us that Election is not opposite to either Necessitation or Compulsion He might even as well tell us that a stone thrown upwards mooves naturally Or that a woman can be ravished with her own will Consent takes away the Rape This is the strangest liberty that ever was heard of that a man is compelled to do what he would not and yet is free to do what he will And this he tells us upon the old score that he who submits to his enemy for fear of death chooseth to submit But we have seen formerly that this which he calls compulsion is not compulsion properly nor that naturall determination of the will to one which is opposite to true Liberty He who submits to an enemy for saving his life doth either onely counterfeit and then there is no will to submit this disguise is no more than a stepping aside to avoid a present blow Or els he doth sincerely will a submission and then the will is changed There is a vast difference between compelling and changing the will Either God or man may change the will of man either by varying the condition of things or by informing the party otherwise but compelled it cannot be that is it cannot both will this and not will this as it is invested with the same circumstances though if the act were otherwise circumstantiated it might nill that freely which now it wills freely Wherefore the kind of actions are called mixt actions that is partly voluntary partly unvoluntary That which is compelled is a mans present condition or distress that is not voluntary nor chosen That which is chosen is the remedy of its distress that is voluntary So hypothetically supposing a man were not in that distress they are involuntary but absolutely without any supposition at all taking the case as it is they are voluntary His other instance of a man forced to prison that he may choose whether he will be haled thither upon the ground or walk upon his feet is not true By his leave that is not as he pleaseth but as it pleaseth them who have him in their power If they will drag him he is not free to walk And if they give him leave to walk he is not forced to be dragged Having laid this foundation he begins to build upon it that other passions do necessitate as much as fear But he erres doubly first in his foundation fear doth not determine the rationall will naturally and necessarily The last and greatest of the five terrible things is death yet the fear of death cannot necessitate a resolved mind to do a dishonest action which is worse than death The fear of the fiery furnace could not compell the three Children to worship an Idoll nor the fear of the Lions necessitate Daniel to omit his duty to God It is our frailty that we are more afraid of empty shadows than of substantiall dangers because they are neerer our senses as little Children fear a Mouse or a Visard more than fire or weather But as a fitte of the stone takes awuy the sense of the gout for the present so the greater passion doth extinguish the less The fear of Gods wrath and eternall torments doth expell corporall fear fear not them who kill the body but fear him who is able to cast both body and soul into hell Luk. 7.4 Da veniam Imperator tu carcerem ille gehennam minatur Excuse me O Emperor thou threatens men with prison but he threatens me with hell Secondly he erres in his superstruction also There is a great difference as to this case of justifying or not justifying an action between force and fear and other passions Force doth not only lessen the sin but takes it quite away Deut. 22.26 He who forced a betrothed Damsell was to die but unto the Damsell saith he thou shalt do nothing there is in her no fault worthy of death Tamars beauty or Ammons love did not render him innocent but Ammons force rendred Tamar innocent But fear is not so prevalent as force Indeed if fear be great and justly grounded such as may fall upon a constant man though it do not dispense with the transgression of the negative Precepts of God or Nature because they bind to all times yet it diminisheth the offence even against them and pleades for pardon But it dispenseth in many cases with the transgression of the positive Law either Divine or humane Because it is not probable that God or the Law would oblige man to the observation of all positive Precepts with so great dammage as the loss of his life The omission of Circumcision was no sin whilest the Israelites were travelling through the wilderness By T. H. his permission I will propose a case to him A Gentleman sends his servant with mony to buy his dinner some Ruffians meet him by the way and take it from him by force The servant cryed