Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	law_n	sin_n	word_n	8,031	5	4.9306	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A13267	Iacob and Esau. Election. Reprobation Opened and discussed by way of sermon at Pauls Crosse, March 4. 1622. By Humphry Sydenham Mr. of Arts, and fellow of Wadham Colledge in Oxford.	Sydenham, Humphrey, 1591-1650?	1626 (1626)	STC 23567; ESTC S101842	26,538	44

vnchewed and that is Whether God here as hee is said to harden be the cause of our transgressions Which quaere admits a three-fore distraction and difference of opinion Two of them are extremes and by hot opposition each of other they haue both lost the truth the third runnes in a midway and euer directs to safety Florinus whose opinion posterity records as the monument of a seduced errour with no lesse peremptorinesse than blaspemy hath arraigned the Almighry and made him not onely the permitter but the Author of our sins The Seleuciani after him were poisoned with that heresie the Libertines laboured in the defence therof Manes and his disciples dreampt of a summum malum and vpon that phantasie grounded their assertion that God the summum bonum is to be seene onely in our good actions but euery depraued Act had its deriuation from their summum malum But those of a more solid and well tempered iudgement whom the influence of the Spirit had taught a moderation or the danger of Inquisition forbad curiosity dare not with Florinus impute here sinne vnto God yet maintaine against the Manichees that God is not a bare and idle spectator but powerfull ouer although no actor in the sinne Not in the sinne as it is meerely a sinne but in the sinne as 't is a punishment of sinne And therefore in euery transgression of ours there are foure thing remarkeable 1 Subiectum seu materiale he subiect in which sinne subsists and that is two-fold 1 Substantia the substance or rather the faculties of the reasonable soule in which originall sinne is so riueted that the naturall man can by no meanes purge himselfe of that hereditary contagion or Actio bona on which all our actuall sinnes are grounded 2 Formale the formalitie or obliquity of the action For euery sinne is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the transgression of the Law and in the sinner there 's nothing sinne but this 3 Reatus The guilt of this enormitie which makes vs liable to eternall death 4 Poena the punishment inflicted vpon the guilty whether temporall or eternall or both Now wee may not charge God with the obliquitie of the action for that proceedes from a peruerse and a seduced will but the substance of the action as the Schoolemen speake that hath its originall from God And therefore we consider sinne either vt malum culpae as 't is a violation of Gods law or vt malum poenae as a punishment laid vpon vs for the violation of that Law So Rom. 1.25 The Gentiles turned the truth of God into a lye There 's malum culpae And it followes immediatly at the 26 verse For this cause God gaue them vp into vile affections There 's malum poenae Now God is author of the second not the first If mists still hang on the eyes of clouded errour I thus dispell them with that of Hugo de Sancto Victore Deus malis potestatem solam tribuit non voluntatem quià licet ex ipsius permissione sit quod malum possunt ex inspiratione tamen non est quod malum volunt God onely giues power to the wicked not will that although it be by his permission that we can doe euill yet it is not by his inspiration that we will doe euill And therefore as the Schooles doe commonly distinguish of the decree of God so must wee of the execution of that decree which is either per efficieutiam when the diuine power doth worke any thing with or without the creature or secundum permissionem when the creature hath leaue to worke without the guidance of that power Neither will it sauour of impertinence if we insert here that distinction of Gods prouidence in efficientem deserentem Into a releeuing and forsaking prouidence for whensoeuer God withdrawes his especiall aid and assistance from vs man is hurried where his owne corrupter appetite not Gods grace carrieth him Adam fell as soone as the influence of Gods grace ceased and without the supportance of the same grace we all fall with no lesse certainty of perill than danger of restitution When the Sunne sets we see darknesse followes immediatly vpon the face of the earth and yet the Sunne is not the efficient cause of darknesse but the deficient so when the Sunne of righteousnesse shall forsake vs the darknesse of errour must needs possesse the vnderstanding and the will must mistake in her choice and execution She must necessitate consequentiae non consequentis The necessitie is grounded on a consequent in Logicke not any influence in Nature And here we may borrow a true glosse for that in the 2 Acts where it is said that Christ was deliuered into the hands of the wicked by the determinate counsell fore-knowledge of God We must not thinken hat God was the setter in this villany that he conspired with Iudas in his treason or with Pilate in his bloudy sentence But that he only gaue way to their attempts and suffered them to crucifie the Lord of glory Yea but why did not God curbe them in their cruell proceedings Why should his conniuence betray the ●…ou●… of Innovence Saint Austine shall answer for me Quia melius iudicauit de● malis bene-facere quàm mala nullae esse permittere To extract good out of euill was peculiar onely to omnipotency and goodnesse and therefore no lesse solid than charitable is that caucat of Du-Plesses Malè quaeritur vnde malum essiciatur It is an ill curiosity to seeke an efficient cause of ill Let this then satisfie modesten quiry that it is with the sinner as with an vntuned Instrument and the Musitian the sound is from the finger of him that toucheth it but the iarring from the Instrument That our discourse then with the time may draw to wards a Period we inuolue and wrap vp in this one distinction the very iuice and substance of the controuersie Sinne is considerable two waies ante commissionem before the Commission Sic se Deus habet negatiuè tum respectu voluntatis tum productionis God doth neither worke with vs nor countenance vs in the act of sinning Post commissionem after the Commission sic Deus determinat ordinat peccatum God sets bounds to the malice of wicked men and so mannages the disorder in sin that contrary to the nature of sinne and the intent of the sinner it shall redound ●o his glory We inculcate then that God is not the author but the orderer of sinne Hee causeth the worke not the fault the effect not the delinquencie working by not in mischiefe Wherein according to the rules of Logicke the finall and impulsiue causes euer so distinguish the actions that two doing the same thing to a diuers intent are notwithstanding said not to doe the same So God gaue his Sonne and Christ himselfe and Iudas Christ saith Augustine why is God here holy and man guilty Nis● in re vnâ quam fecerunt non est causa vna ob quam

our vnderstanding than remoue our scruple where things from euerlasting haue such a doome which is not malleable either by change or reuocation For the Lord of hosts hath determined and who can disanull it and his hand is stretched out and who can turne it away Isay 14.27 Seeing then that election is from eternity and that not obnoxious to mutability or corruption we neither curtaile the elect of their primatiue glory nor of their number Which though they be a little flocke in respect of that herd and large droue of the damned yet in those sacred volumes of Gods diuiner Oracles we finde them numberlesse So Apoc. 7.9 These things I beheld and loe a great multitude which none could number of all nations and kinreds and people and tongues stood before the throne and before the Lambe cloathed with long white robes and palmes in their hands Whence those Factors for the Romish See would hew out a way to vniuersall grace making our election generall manifolde indefinite and would haue Christs death no lesse meritorious than propitiatory for the sinnes of the whole world A quaere long since on foot betweene Augustine and Pelagius and since in a fiery skirmish betweene the Calumist and the Lutheran out of whose mud and corruption there hath beene lately bred the Arminian a Sect as poisonous as subtill and will no Iesse allure than betray a flexible and yeelding iudgement For our own safety then and the easier oppugning of so dangerous a suggestion let vs examine a little of the extent bounds of this grace which Diuines cut into these three squadrons in Gratiam Praedestinationis vocationis iustificationis Gratia Praedestinationis is that of eternity the wombe and Nursery of all graces whereby God loued his elect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gratia vocationis a secondary grace by which God cals vs and by calling prescribes the meanes of our saluation And this grace hath a double prospect Either to that which is externall in libro Scripturae or creaturae where God did manifest himselfe as well by what he had made as by what he had written or to that which is internall of illumination or renouation of that in the intellect only which a reprobate may lay claime to of this in the heart which by a holy reseruation and incommunicablenesse is peculiar to the elect Gratia instificationis which is not a grace inherent but bestowed and stands as a direct Antipode to humane merit Yet not that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Schooles christen with a gratia gratis data any gift which God out of his free bounty hath bestowed vpon vs beyond our desert as Prudence Temperance and the like for in these the heathen had their share whose singular endowmēts haue made posterity both an admirer and a debter but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gratia gratum faciens a gift perfect and fanctified which doth so qualifie the receiuer that hee is not onely acceptable but glorious in the eyes of the bestower a● Faith Hope the third sister Charity which no lesse reconcile than iustifie vs before God We conclude then that the externall grace which the creature affordeth vs is not limited to a priuate number but to all yet we denie the power and vertue of saluation in it We allow a sufficiencie of redargution for conuicting the heathen who when they knew God worshipped him not as God and therefore are both desperate and inexcusable Moreover the grace which the Scripture affor deth vs as it is not vniuersall so not of absolute sufficiency for faluation but onely in genere mediorum externorum as the Schooles speake because it doth prescribe vs the meanes how we may be saued but it doth not apply the meanes that we are saued Againe that grace of Illumination is more peculiarly confined and if by the beames of that glorious Sunne which enlightneth euery man that comes into the world we attaine to the knowledge of the Scripture yet the bare knowledge doth not saue vs but the application But the grace of regeneration is not onely a sufficient but an effectuall grace and as 't is more powerfull so 't is more restrained they onely partake of this blessednes whom God hath no lesse enlightned than sanctified and pointed out then sealed men inuested in white robes of sinceritie whose delinquencies though sometimes of a deepe tincture are now both dispēsed with obliterated not because they were not sinfull but because not imputed so inuolucrous and hidden are Gods eternall proiects that in those he relinquisheth or saues his reason is his will yet that as farre discoasted from tyranny as iniustice The Quare we may contemplate not scan lest our misprision grow equall with our wonder And here in a double ambush dangerously lurke the Romanist and the Arminian men equally swolne with rancor of malice and position and with no lesse violence of reason than importunitie presse the vertue of Christs death for the whole world Alas we combat not of the price and worth of Christs death but acknowledge That an able ransome of a thousand worlds but the ground of our duell tends to this whether Christ dying proposed to himselfe the saluation of the whole world We distinguish then inter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christi gratiam Christi The merits of Christ and the gracious application of those merits His merits are able to allay the fury of his incensed Father and reconcile vnto him the very reprobates but the application of those merits are restrained to the Elect for they onely are capeable of so great a blessednesse For proofe wherof we haue not only that venerable Bench and Councell of Fathers and Schoole-men but also a higher court of Parliament to appeale vnto the Registers and penmen of sacred Chronicles Euangelists Apostles which punctually insinuate Christs death onely for his own for his Church for his Brethren for those whose head hee was laying down his life for some and shedding his blood for some for his sheepe his little flock his peculiar Priesthood his tabernacle body spouse his Canaan Sion Ierusalem his Ambassadors Saints Angels in a word this Cuius vult The Elect. I 'le not beat your eares with a voluminous citation of text and Fathers I 'le draw only one shaft out of this holy quiuer and direct it to the Roman aduersary which if he shall repell or put by I 'le proclaime hereafter a perpetuall truce The maine and chiefe cause that impeld Christ to die was his loue Iohn 15. But Christ loued not all but his own Eph. 5. Therefore Christ died not for all but for his owne The Iesuite here retraicts and we haue none now left to encounter vs but the Arminian who like a cunning Fencer hath many a quaint flourish and with a false blow sometimes staggers not wounds his aduersary The part most in dangered is the eie of our Intellect and iudgement which he thus dazzels with a subtile nicety That Christ hath