Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A52856
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The absolute and peremptory decree of election to eternal glory reprobated in a sermon preached before the university in Great St. Maries Church in Cambridge / by Robert Neville ...
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Neville, Robert, 1640 or 1-1694.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing N518; ESTC R7829
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14,617
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38
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pleases and make himself either a Saint of Heaven or a Fiend of Hell either an Angel or a Devil God would not limit his happiness he left him power to encrease it to polish and beautifie himself or if he refuse it he gives him liberty to ruin himself according to that of the Prophet Hos 13.9 O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self Fourthly No Absolute Decree of Election can ever be supposed to have been made by God because Christ died for all which could not be said if there were any such Decree onely to choose some few persons to Eternal Life and exclude all others Now that Christ died for all is clear and evident from 1 Tim. 2.5 6. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and Men the Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for All and as it is in the 4th verse of that chapter will have all men to be saved the force of which words the Contra-Remonstrants endeavour to avoid by telling us that the word All is to be taken there not Pro singulis generum sed pro generibus singulorum not for all of every kind but for some few onely of every sort and nation which distinction of theirs cuts the sinews of the Apostles Exhortation and enervates the strength of his reasoning For these words of his who will have all men to be saved are used by St. Paul as an Argument why Prayers and Supplications are to be made not onely for Kings and all that are in Authority verse 2. but also for All Men verse 1 and that because God will have all men to be Saved Now if these words All Men were to be understood of some few onely of every sort and Nation the Scripture might have said with far more reason that God will have All Men to be damned since that of every Nation and Condition according to the Contra-Remonstrants the number of the damned does far exceed the number of the saved and reason requires that the Denomination should be taken from the Major part Our safest position then concerning Christs death and satisfaction is this that he died for All For those that Perish as well as for those that Perish not Luk. 19.10 For all that were lost That Christ died for the Elect the Contra-Remonstrants themselves will grant and that he died also for Castaways and those that Perish is clear and evident from 1 Cor. 8.11 where the Apostle tells us that unless we temper our Christian Liberty with prudent Charity 't is possible that through our knowledge a weak Brother may perish for whom Christ died One for whom Christ died if St. Paul speaks truth may perish and be a castaway and the words in the following twelfth verse do more strongly confirm this Truth where the Apostle saith when ye sin so against the Brethren and wound their weak Consciences ye sin against Christ to whom they were so dear that he was willing to dye for their Salvation and that therefore we sin against Christ himself whilst by our imprudent use of our Christian Liberty we rob him of any of those whom he Redeemed not with Corruptible things as Silver and Gold but his most pretious Blood 1 Peter 1.18 Christ tasted Death for every man for the ungodly Romans 5.6 In due time Christ died for the ungodly for the unjust 1 Pet. 3.18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God Christ died for Judas as well as Peter as Judas and Peter were both sinners quoad Impetrationem Reconciliationis as to the Impetration of Reconciliation which was obtained for All promiscuously and without distinction as Sinners But onely the Faithful Penitent and Obedient are concerned in the Fruits and good Effects of this Reconciliation of which Judas could not participate because through his own default he was an Infidel an Unbeliever The Death of Christ was not as Beneficial to Judas as to Peter because Judas superadded a new Infidelity to his former sins which Peter did not Christ hath purchased Salvation for as many as will believe it He shed as much Blood for Judas as for Peter Peter Believed and Repented and was therefore saved Judas would not believe and was therefore condemned And now let me remove one Objection of the Contra-Remonstrants against the universality of Christs satisfaction and I will conclude this particular They Object That the Death of Christ is in it self a sufficient ransom for the whole World if we look upon the intrinsic worth and value of it but that Gods Decree and Christ's intention was that a few persons onely should recieve the benefit of it What is this better than to cast a Reflection upon Gods Justice and blemish his Goodness For if God after he hath declared in Scripture that 1 John 2.2 Christ is the propitiation for the Sins of the whole World should secretly Resolve and Decree not to extend the benefits of his Death to one half of it but confine them onely to some few Select Persons we might justly impeach his Truth and Sincerity question his Justice and say Gen. 18.25 Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right If the Death of Christ were sufficient for All and yet All were not redeemed by it the impediment must be either in God who will not accept this ransom or in Christ that offers it there being no impediment in those for whom 't is offer'd which if any must be their sins but they can be no impediment because the Ransom was paid to take away sin according to that of John 1.29 Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the World therefore the impediment must be in God who will not allow that Christ's death should be sufficient for all and so Gods Secret Will must be repugnant to his Revealed Will in Scripture which but to imagine is to abuse his Sincerity and Justice and make him like the Inhabitants of Biscay who when any of the Spanish Kings come into the Frontiers of their Countrey customarily proffer him some few small pieces of Brass called Maravides but tell him withal that he must not take them So these men make God offer the Blood of his Son to all mankind for their Redemption but then they say his secret Will and Decree is that they shall not All take or receive the benefit of it And what is this better than to make God injure his own Justice and trapan and mock his poor Creatures You see then there can be no impediment in God and as not in him so neither in Christ that offers this Ransom For if as the Calvinists affirm the sufficiency of the Ransom were in it self the Cause that that might be rightly said to be given for All which is onely given for some few because in it self it was sufficient for All though God would not allow that All should enjoy the benefit of that sufficiency then Christ might be said to have
died even for Infidels and Unbelievers as such because the price of Christ's blood if considered in it self in its own worth and value is sufficient even for the Redemption of these when yet according to Gods revealed will in Scripture though Christ obtained Reconciliation for all the benefit thereof accrues onely to those that Repent of their sins and apply that Reconciliation to themselves in particular by Faith and Obedience and this brings me to the Fifth reason Why no such Absolute Decree of Election to Eternal Glory can ever be supposed to be made by God And that is Fifthly Because Christ who died for All shed forth his Blood upon terms befitting Mercy and Justice which could never have been if there were any such Decree and this invites me to take in the Second General Part in the Text where we have the Author and Procurer of this Decree of Election namely Christ He hath chosen us in him in Christ Matthew 26.28 this saith Christ is my Blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins and this effusion was upon terms befitting Mercy and Justice For though God was mercifully affected towards man yet out of respect to his Truth and Veracity he would not allow his Mercy to save any till his Justice was satisfied and therefore he made Christ who shed his blood for us the Foundation of our Election and that not in the sense of the Contra-Remonstrants who tell us that God first decreed the Salvation of some few Select persons and then the giving of Christ as a means to bring this Decree to pass so that with them God the Father is the Author of Our Election Christ but the instrument or executor whereas if we will not derogate from the power of Christ he is to be so held the Foundation of our Election as to be the Author and Procurer thereof Christ paid the large score of our sins by his precedent satisfaction before God would choose any person to Life Eternal not that God could not have acted otherwise but that he might have some regard to his abused Justice before he opened a door of Mercy 'T is true indeed that his Will and desire to save Sinners went before either the Actual giving or his Decree to give them a Saviour for John 3.16 God is said to have loved the World and out of his love to have given his Son but That his Will or Desire was no peremptory Decree to save sinners for then the whole satisfaction of Christ would have been vain and unprofitable because there would have been no need of His being reconciled who did before love peremptorily and with so great a Love as to confer eternal Life upon those who were the Objects of it so that Christ may be styled the Foundation of Gods Decree of Election upon a double account First Because unless Gods Decree of giving a Mediator had gone before there had been no place for his Decree of saving them who believe in this Mediator Secondly Because this Mediator satisfied the Divine Justice which before obstructed God's being simply Reconciled to sinners so that That satisfaction to Gods Justice being first made God resolved afterwards to carry on the whole business of our Salvation by that very Mediator by whom his Mercy and Justice were reconciled by that Mediator who Titus 2.14 Gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity Now to what end did Christ bleed a whole Life for sinners if God had before determined that onely some few select persons tyed fast to him by an Absolute Decree should tast the benefits of his Death Hear therefore what Clemens Romanus says in this case let us consider how pretious his blood is to God which being shed for our Salvation (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 brought to the whole World the grace of Repentance You see then that whoever espouses the Doctrine of an ABSOLUTE DECREE seems to contract the beams of Gods Love and Philanthropy which are universally diffused upon all who do not as that sullen Tree in India does it leaves against the beams of the Sun willfully close their eyes against them There is no person now under Heaven for whom Christ did not dye Christ's Death is no enclosure no Monopoly for some few it is common to All His blood is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an universal remedy for the sins of the whole World I now come to the Uses that may be made of this whole Discourse is it so that no Absolute Decree of Election can be inferr'd either from this or any other Text of Scripture this then may serve USE I. First To comfort those who are under the dismal Apprehensions that they are by some secret Decree of Gods made Reprobates to all Eternity thereby they are sunk into the very gulph of Despair which makes them phansie the terrors of the Divine vengeange set in Battle Array against them and the Curses of the Law thundring out their sentence of condemnation and the mouth of Hell gaping wide to swallow them up and devour them these frightful apprehensions do continually haunt them like so many ghosts and Apparitions and follow them like their own shadows To whom let me return this answer that this their fear is groundless and unreasonable and that it is onely either some sudden storm raised within them by the power and subtilty of the Devil or else it is the result of their Melancholly which is of a very impressive temper and Poetic Nature and is apt like a dark room to receive in the Images of Objects without in very strange and monstrous Shapes and Representations let them therefore be couragious and rouze up their fainting and desponding Souls for there is help at hand there is an immoveable Rock for them to Anchor upon in the midst of these waves of despair which will not suffer them to be quite overwhelmed by them they have a Merciful and Loving Saviour who by the sacrifice of himself hath purged away their sins and delivered them from the curse of the Law and the Wrath to come and satisfied the Divine Justice and obtained Reconciliation and pardon for them O then if there be any consolation in Christ let them raise up their drooping and dying Spirits Let them not Dye onely out of a fear and Apprehension that they must Dye Let them not determine and devote themselves to Death by a fatal Necessity God hath passed no Absolute Decree of Reprobation against them and why then should they Enact one against themselves If they will be saved they may God affords them the helps of his Grace and Spirit Let them not therefore shut the mouth of the bottomless pit upon themselves nor like contented Vassals kiss their chains and hug their fetters being their own Jailors The door is open they may come out there is Light enough to guide them out and all the darkness they were in shall vanish at the brightness of