Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	harden_v	judgement_n	pharaoh_n	2,936	5	10.9003	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45400	Charis kai eirēnē, or, A pacifick discourse of Gods grace and decrees in a letter of full accordance / written to the reverend and most learned Dr. Robert Sanderson by Henry Hammond ... ; to which are annexed the extracts of three letters concerning Gods prescience reconciled with liberty and contingency ; together with two sermons preached before these evil times, the one to the clergy, the other to the citizens of London.	Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660.	1660 (1660)	Wing H519; ESTC R35983	108,515	176

one in his sins and when this comes our former supposall of sufficient grace as of the preaching of the word and God's calls are utterly at an end but this breeds no shew of difficulty that man having enjoyed and mispent his time of sufficient grace and now the store-houses are shut up § 39. But there is yet possibly a sixth state of with-drawing when before either cutting off or with-drawing Gods outward calls whilst life and the preaching of the word is continued the obdurate sinner that hath long hardened his own heart against God thereby provokes him totally to with-draw all inward Grace from him as much as if he were already in hell This seems to be Pharaoh's case after the sixth judgement and was designed by God to very excellent ends to make him an example to all those that should be inclined to harden their hearts against God And though we know not that God thus deals with any others yet it is sure he justly may with all whom he may justly cut off in their sins And in this case I acknowledge the non-conversion of such a man is not onely imputable to the indisposition of the person to be wrought on but also to the withdrawing of the divine grace for then as I said the former supposal of the like sufficiency remaining ceaseth and is out-dated § 40. What fresh difficulties can arise from this concession I cannot divine unless 1. it should be objected that then it seems the word is not alwayes the vehicle of Grace and then 2. who knows when it is so when not And how then is this reconcileable with the doctrine of sufficient grace alwayes accompanying the word And to these the answers are obvious 1. that it is granted that the Word is not the vehicle of Grace to the Divils who believe and tremble to the damned who have received their sentence nay nor to those that are thus arrived to the highest degree of obduration in this life and have as Pharaoh this exterminating sentence passed upon them It is sufficient if it be so to them that are in a capacity to make use of it and have not utterly hardened themselves against it the Scripture-expression being that the Gospel is the power of God to salvation to every one that believes it and this is enough to establish our pretensions the doctrine of sufficient grace There is a competent time allowed every man and 't is certain death is the conclusion of it 't is possible some space before death § 41. As for the second if it were on the premised grounds granted that sometimes it cannot be known whether or no the preaching of the Word do then bring this Grace with it yet the one regular consequence would be that we should all be the more carefull to make use of Grace when it is afforded But when to this is added that this barren season is alwayes the reward of obstinate obduration and of nothing less then that As long as we have any softness left that is our assurance that this sad time is not yet come upon us They that go on in their obdurate course have reason to expect this fatal period every hour but they that have remorse and any degree of sincere relenting may know by this that this state of spiritual death hath not yet seized them and that is sufficient to guard this doctrine from all noxious consequences having provided that none shall hereby think his state desperate that is willing to reform it § 42. But then it is farther to be remembred that there appears not in the word of God any other example of this totall spirituall dereliction finally inflicted before death but onely that of Pharaoh after the time that God is said to have hardened his heart and the reason of this is set down God keeps him alive after the time due to his excision that he might shew in him his power And such singular examples ought no farther to be taken into consideration by us at this distance from them then to warn us that we keep as far as it is possible from the like provocations And then there remains not that I discern any farther appearance of difficulty in this matter § 43. As for any others that shall be apt to occur when men set themselves to consider of these points not divining what they are I may not pretend to speak to them any farther then thus that in all probability they may be measured by these which you have chosen to mention and by nearer approach to them be likewise found not to be so deep as at the distance they are conceited to be This then concludes your trouble It remains that according to my promise I now onely annex the Letters of Praescience and hasten to subscribe my self Your most affectionate brother and servant H. HAMMOND The Extracts of three LETTERS Concerning Gods Praescience reconciled with Liberty and Contingency referred to and promised in the first Letter to D. Sanderson §. 8. THE FIRST LETTER § 1. AS to the distinction betwixt inevitably and infallibly of which you desire my sence it is certain you must understand no more by the infallibility then is vulgarly meant by Necessitas ex hypothesi which is no more then that whatsoever is cannot not be or omne quod est eo ipso quod est necessariò est For so whatsoever is seen or which is all one in an infinite Deity foreseen by God is thereby supposed to have in that science of his an objective being If it were not or did not come to pass it should have no such objective being if it have it is thereby evidenced to be seen by him who was is and is to come and so being infinite is equally present to all and equally sees and knows all from all eternity What therefore you conclude as it is most agreeable to this so it is most true that God knows all things as they are such as come to pass contingently he knows to come contingently and from thence I undeniably conclude therefore they are contingent As for Socinus's resolution that he foresees onely what are foreseeable and that contingents are not such but onely those that come to pass by his decree I conceive it as dangerous as M. Calvins that he predetermines all things and it is visibly as false For it is evident by the prophecies of Judas c. that God long before foresees sins which are as certainly contingent and not decreed or decreeable by God If therefore any that writes against the Remonstrants go about to retort their arguments and conclude from their acknowledgements of Gods praescience what is charged on their adversaries doctrine of praedetermination I conceive it is but a boast that hath no least force in it praedetermination having a visible influence and causality on the object but eternal vision or praevision being so far from imposing necessity on the

deny our sins i. e. voluntary actions to be free or to deny that Christ foresaw that Peter would deny or Judas betray him both which he foretold to his Disciples § 53. I proceed to your defense of the objected inconveniences against my answers to them And first it breakes no square whether in themselves be inserted or omitted 1. because what is in it's causes utterly uncertain is so in it self 2. because you yeild to all I said on this head as rationall and convincing and onely question the truth of my principle which you know I was not again to prove in that place when I was answering the objections or inconveniences § 54. Your second inconvenience I understood before in the very sence that your instance now sets it and accordingly I rendered answer to it and shewed wherein it was that Exhortations c. were founded viz. in the liberty of our actions so long as till they be actually committed and no longer And to this you give no answer at all nor to ought I say on that head but onely say over in another Scheme the same thing to which I answered § 55. In this your new Scheme you say that had it been known aforehand that A. B. would obstinately have continued in his wickedness it had been vain to have used exhortations and so for God supposing his prescience it were vain to enjoyne them Here the word vain in the obvious notion imports unprofitable or uselesse and then 1. I pray consider whether it be fit to speak thus of God It is certain Christ saw Peter would fall Judas would betray him yet he told them both of it before and that telling them was a timely admonition and equivalent to an exhortation adding of Judas a terrible threat or denunciation that it was better for him that he had never been borne Would you think it tolerable for any Christian to say hereupon it was vain for Christ to do all this I trow you would not and therefore will your self think fit to avoid it § 50. Should you have any scruple in this the story of Pharaoh and the passages Rom. IX referring to it would à multò majori fortiori supersede or answer it God had there foretold Moses that he Pharaoh's heart which I hope is much more toward inferring a necessity then Christ 's foretelling Peter or Iudas of the fall of the one and treason of the other And yet God exhorts Pharaoh after that and he that objects against his doing so Rom. IX that saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why doth he yet after that sixt judgement when God himself hath sent his plagues on his heart why doth he still or yet find fault is answered Nay but O man who art thou that disputest against God § 57. In the former part of that story when it was not come to that height yet it is most evident that from the beginning of Moses's mission to Pharaoh God had foretold that Pharaoh would harden his own heart and that alone is perfectly parallel to our case which is of prescience of future contingent acts of mans will yet are all Gods messages and signes by Moses purposely sent to melt and perswade him to let the people go Doth any man now want a perspective to discerne that these messages of heaven were not vaine Or that such acts of Divine wisdom his wayes that are not like ours are not to be submitted to our tribunall but adored and reverenced and no otherwise approached by us But then § 58. Secondly if by vain you meane no more then that which doth not finally obtain the effect principally designed so there will be no difficulty in affirming with S. Paul that Gods grace and so his exhortations c. may be received in vain for so God knowes it is too frequent for us to do mean while what thorow our default becomes fruitless to us doth not returne so to God but serves Gods subsequent though it resists his antecedent will which is also Gods will viz to punish the obdurate as well as his antecedent is to save the humble and tractable and the more frequent the exhortations are supposing grace annext to enable to make use of them as you know we suppose the more culpable is the obstinacy against such meanes and the more culpable the more justly punished and so Gods justice vindicated from all aspersion and mans freedome asserted And the exhortations that have contributed to all this will not be deemed vain though they attain not the fruit primarily intended the salvifick effect or designe of them § 59. And whereas you compare this to a Physician prescribing a medicine which he foresees will do him no good I must ask by what meanes it comes to passe that that medicine will do him no good By it 's own insufficiency or impropriety to the disease or by the obstinacy of the patient that he will not take it If by the former I then acknowledge with you that Physician were vain but that is no way applyable to God whose medicaments are sufficient being the power of God to salvation to all that believe But if it be by the second onely then the Physician is far from vain as doing all that the wit of man can do or wish toward the recovering of his patient For he that will not use his recipe's seemes bent on his own death and as guilty of it as he that cuts his own throat and 't is no disparagement to the Physician that when he is prescribing remedies for his feaver or consumption he doth not cure his obstinacy or that he prescribes to him as to a wise man he would prescribe though indeed the event be much other then it would be in a wise man but that is not the Physicians fault and as little can the vanity be imputed to Gods operations when by our defaults onely they prove uneffectuall God himself Isa V. appealing to us in the like case what could he have done more to his vineyard which he had not done when yet pro uvis labruscas instead of grapes it brought forth nothing but wild grapes § 60. In that place no doubt it was possible for God to have done somewhat which he did not viz. to have forced the ground to bring forth good grapes but to a vineyard interpreted there to be the house of Israel to a rational vineyard and to that which was to be left in a state of rewardablenesse of doing and not doing of freedome the dowry of the will of men and Angels with which they were created this was not competible and therefore 't is truly said God could do no more then he did or doth whatsoever the event be and be foreseen by him and that is as contrary as is possible to the objection of vainnesse § 61. For the enforcing the third inconvenience you say it seemes hard that finall impenitents should from all eternity