Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	natural_a	spirit_n	vital_a	2,146	5	10.9559	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42882	Stimluus [sic] orthodoxus, sive Goadus redivivus A disputation partly thological, partly metaphysical, concerning the necessity and contingency of events in the world, in respect of Gods eternal decree. Written above twenty years since by that reverend and learned divine, Thomas Goad, doctor of divinity, and rector of Hadleigh in Suffolk.	Goad, Thomas, 1576-1638.	1661 (1661)	Wing G904; ESTC R216465	22,144	30

is the cause of his metion and yet not of his halting Confutatio It s a hard case when they have but one frivolous distinction to keep God from sinning Might I here without wandring discourse of the nature of sin I could prove sin it self to be an action and confute this groundless distinction that way but I will keep my self as much to the purpose as I can and so answer it thus or rather confute it That which is a principal cause of any action is a cause of those events which accompany that action necessarily This Rule is most certainly true Concomitants Therefore if God by His decrees do force us to those actions which cannot be done without sin God Himself I am afraid to rehearse it must needs be guilty of sin For example If God decreed that Adam should unavoidably eat the forbidden fruit seeing the eating of the fruit which he had forbidden must needs be with a gross obliquity I do not see how this distinction will justifie God for Adam sinned because he ate the fruit that was forbidden but they say God decreed that he should eat the fruit which was forbidden necessarily and unavoidably The conclusion is too blasphemous to be often repeated The Reader may see how well that common distinction holdeth water yea if this nicety were sound man himself might prove that he committed no murder though he stabbed the dead party to the heart for at his arraignment he might tell the Judge that hedid indeed thrust his dagger into his heart but it was not that which took away his life but the extinction of his natural heat and vital spirits Who seeth not the wild frenzie of him who should make this Apology yet this is all our Adversaries say for God They say His decree was the cause that Adam took the fruit and put it into his mouth and ate that which he had commanded he should not eat Yet they say He was not the cause of the transgression of the commandment The example of the halting Jade is a meer impertinency for suppose it were as it is not appliable to us who halt naturally yet Adam before this action was sound and therefore God necessitating him to such an inconveniency dealt with him as if one should drive a lusty Nag into rough passages where he must needs break his leggs Neither is it as I said appliable unto us the lame posterity of Adam for the who rideth an horse that was lame before although he be not a cause of the impotency which he findeth in the horse already yet in urging him to motion he is now a cause of the actual imperfection in the motion and so perhaps a cause of encreasing the impotency for the future though he were not the cause of his lameness yet he is of his limping at that time Let the horse stand still and see whether he will halt or no. Marry if the horse go of himself then the Rider is no cause of his halting and so we may say that all our haltings are from our selves without any instigation from God I know our Opposites have another shist teaching that God useth to punish one sin by making us to commit another so that although we sin He doth but punish Albeit I do not believe this to be true as 't is commonly expounded yet I abstain at this time from a farther examination of it because it weakens not my Argument about Adam for his sin was the first that ever he committed and the original of all that ever followed and therefore if Gods decree were the cause that he ate the forbidden fruit as our Adversaries teach its apparent whom they make the Author of all sin These two Arguments well scanned are sufficient to make any not fore-stalled with pre-conceits to be afraid of that opinion which believeth all things to come to pass necessarily by reason of Gods irresistable decree and therefore they shall suffice for the confutation of it Moreover seeing it is clogged with such monstrous consequences me-thinks our opinion should be far more amiable which giveth no countenance to such hideous mis-shapen errors as it will appear by the process of this disputation Now I proceed to the confirmation of our opinion concerning the contingency of some events in respect of God by two Arguments more Arg. 1 The first is this That God hath decreed that all his creatures ordinarily and for the most part should work according to their several kinds and endowments by which he in the Creation distinguished them For illustration they may be ranked into three several forms In the lowest stand the meer natural Agents inanimate and sensless creatures to these God hath given certain instincts and inclinations by which they are determinately swayed to these or these certain effects and operations unless they are outwardly hindered for heavy bodies cannot chuse but descend fire cannot chuse but burn c. In the second stand the Sersitive creatures four-footed beasts fouls and fishes to these God hath given sense and knowledge to discern what is good for their nature and what is bad and amongst diverse goods to prefer that which is best He hath given them also a free appetite or a kind of sensitive will by which they may either freely prosecute or avoid such objects as they like or mislike not determinately tyed to this or that certain operation as the other were A stone cannot choose but descend but a beast may as well go up hill as down c. In the upper Forme are Men reasonable Creatures whom God hath made more voluntary than the other by giving them greater freedom of choice and presenting unto their more elevated knowledge a great variety of objects Now then without doubt God distinguished thus his creatures in abilities and faculties that they might operate in their several kinds that the natural agents might work naturally the voluntary voluntarily as that eloquent French-man Du Vain hath well explained this point The truth of all this no man will deny explicitely Well then let them hearken to the consequences of this truth so common both in Logick and Metaphysicks among those who handle of natural and voluntary causes If God hath decreed that many things should be done voluntarily by his creatures then also hath he decreed that many things should be done contingently in respect of him but the first is granted truth therefore the second should be The connexion I prove thus All things are done contingently in respect of God which for ought he hath decreed might with as much possibility not be as be But all things which are done by the crea ures voluntarily may as well not be done as done therefore if he hath decreed that many things should be done voluntarily He hath also decreed that they should be done contingently The Minor is evident because if the creatures may not as well omit them as do them they do them not voluntarily but necessarily This Argument both confirms