Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	death_n	eternal_a	wage_n	6,951	5	11.2154	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75582	The just mans defence, or, The royal conquest being the declaration of the judgement of James Arminius, Doctor of Divinity in the University of Leyden, concerning the principall points of religion, before the States of Holland and VVestfriezland / translated for the vindication of truth, by Tobias Conyers, sometimes of Peter-house in Cambridge.; Declaratio sententiae de predestinatione. English	Arminius, Jacobus, 1560-1609.; Conyers, Tobias, 1628-1687.	1657 (1657)	Wing A3700A; ESTC R208013	52,267	187

5 Gen. 2. 17. that thou shalt dye If any of these be taken away from him the force and weight of that monition exciting him to obedience falls to the ground 1. It opposeth the Image of God in man consisting in sanctity and knowledge of him according to which man was apt able obliged to know love worship and serve God but by this Predestination intervening or rather prevening man was fore-ordained That he should be vitious and sinful i. e. That he should not know God love worship or serve him neither perform that which according to the Image of God in his aptitude potencie and obligement he stood bound to do which tant amounts this That God created man after his own Image in holiness and righteousness but fore-ordained and decreed That man should become impure injust i. e. be made conformable to the Satanical Image 2. This doctrine combats the liberty of mans will with which he was invested by his creation in that it impedes and hinders the use and exercise thereof by binding up and determining the same to one part in the doing this or that so that one of these two God which be far from us to think must be guilty of either for that he created man with freedom of will or hindred him in the exercise thereof being thus created the first chargeth him with incogitancy the last with mutability and both with being iniurious to man and himselfe 3. It 's prejudiciall to man in regard of that propensity and capacity implanted in him by his creation for the enioyment of everlasting life in as much as by this predestinatory decree it is fore-appointed that the greater part of men shall not partake of eternall bliss but fall into everlasting condemnation and that before the ordinance was passed in heaven for their creation they are deprived of satisfying their innate inclinations those concreated tendencies to life ingrafted in them by the hand of their Creator and that not by their own preceding sinne and merit but simply and alone by this Predestination Ninethly This Predestination 9. Arg. is diametrically repugnant to the act of Creation For 1. Creation is the communication Creation is made a means to put in to Execution the Decrees of good according to the intrinsecal propriety of its nature but such a Creation as hath this intent and meaning that it may be a way by which Reprobation formerly made might attain its end is not the communication of good all good is to be estimated and judged of according to the mind of the giver or the end to or for which it was given The intent of the Donor here had been damnation which must have the creature for its subject the end or event of this Creation the eternal perdition thereof in which case Creation had not been the communication of any good but a preparatory to the greatest evil and that both according to the intent of the Creator and the event of the thing according to that of our Saviour It had been Matth. 26. 24. better for that man that he had never been born 2. Reprobation savours of hatred ariseth from thence but Creation cannot proceed of hatred therefore it is no way or means appertaining to the execution thereof 3. Creation is a perfect act of God a declarative of his Wisdom Goodness and Omnipotencie therefore not subordinate to the end of any precedaneous Work or action of God but rather is to be looked upon as an act appointed necessarily antecedaneous and preceding all other actions which he either could decree or undertake for without the pre-conception of it he could not ordain the actual undertaking of any other business without its execution he could not absolve and finish any other Work 4. All the actions of God tending to the damnation of his creatures are aliens and forraigners in that God consents unto them for some other extraneous cause but Creation is the most proper act of God to which he could not be moved by any external cause being that first act of God without which indeed there is nothing else but God every thing that now is having its being by this action 5. If Creation be the way or means by which God will execute the Decree of his Reprobation then he wills more the act of REPROBATION then that of creation pleaseth himself That wch a man wils as the means must needs be less considerable by him then that which he wills as the end Arminius meaneth Elect and reprobate persons being both in Adam according to this Doctrine more in the act of condemning some of his harmless creatures then in the act of their Creation Lastly Creation cannot be a way or means to Reprobation according to the absolute purpose of God when that being finished man might still remain in obedience to Gods command and not sinne to which God had afforded sufficient strength on the one part and placed answerable impediments on the other which is in open hostility with this Doctrine of Predestination Tenthly This Predestination 10. Arg. sutes not the nature of eternal life and those Titles wherewith it is dignified in Scripture it s called the Inheritance of the sons of God but those are the onely sons Tit. 3. 7. of GOD according to Joh. 1. 12. the Doctrine of the Gospel who believe in the name of Jesus Matth. 5. 12. Christ it 's further termed The reward of obedience and of the labour of love the recompence of those Heb. 6. 10. who have fought a good fight and Rev. 2. 10. run well a crown of righteousness 2 Tim. 4. 7. c. Therefore God hath not designed eternal life to any out of his absolute decree without any respect or consideration had of faith and obedience Eleventhly This doctrine disagrees with the nature of eternall 11. Arg. death and those names put upon it by the Holy Ghost it 's stiled The wages of sin the punishment of Rom. 6. 23 eternal destruction which is reserved 2 Thes 1. 8 9. for them that know not God neither obey the Gospel of Christ eternal Matth. 25. 41. Fire prepared for the Devil and Heb. 10. 27 his Angels Fire which shall consume the Adversaries of God Therefore everlasting death is prepared for none out of the absolute decree of God without any sight or intuition of sin and disobedience Twelfthly This doctrine jarrs 12. Arg. with the nature and property of Sin and that two ways 1. Sin is known by the names of disobedience and rebellion in Scripture which finds no place in that person upon whom an unavoydable necessity of sinning by vertue of the preceding decree of God is incumbent 2. Sin is the meritorious cause of condemnation Now the meritorious cause is that which moves the will of God to reprobate according to justice it induceth God to whom sin is hateful to reject and reprobate therefore sin can be no middle

Prayer can be no means to procure it it 's onely the Worship and service of God for out of his positive decree of Predestination he hath appointed the salvation of such individual men 5. It takes away that wholsome fear and trembling in which we are commanded to work out our Ph. l. 2. 12. salvation in that it positively affirms That the elect and believing person cannot sin with that full bent of will as the wicked do neither totally or finally fall away from faith or grace received 6. It begets in men a despair of doing that which their duty required obtaining that whereunto their desires were carried out when they are taught that the grace of God which is necessary to the production of every good act out of the absolute and precise Decree of God is denied to the major part of men and that in pursuance of a preceding Decree equally peremptory with the later wherein he determined not to confer eternal life but everlasting death upon them it cannot but easily hence arise that whoever is not perswaded of his being elected should judge himself of the number of Reprobates whence must needs spring up in him a fearful desparation of doing righteousness and gaining eternal life Seventeenthly This Doctrine 17. Arg. inverts the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ In the Gospel God requires of men faith and repentance promising to converts and believers life everlasting but by this Decree of Predestination God is set forth as precisely willing to give salvation to some singular men together with faith and repentance by an absolute and irresistible power because 't was his will and pleasure to save them In the gospel God denounceth eternal death to Impenitents and Unbelievers that deterring them by his threats from their infidelity he might save them but in this Decree of Predestination God is represented unwilling to give unto some men that grace necessary to Faith and Conversion because he had peremptorily decreed to condemn them The gospel saith God so loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son 3 Joh. 16. that whosoever believed in him should not perish but have everlasting life but this Doctrine saith God so loved those he absolutely elected to eternal life that he hath given his Son for them alone and works them up to faith by force irresistible In a word the gospel saith Perform the Command and thou shalt obtain the Promise believe and thou shalt live but this Doctrine saith Because it is my will and pleasure to bestow life upon thee therefore will I give faith unto thee likewise which is the very inversion of the gospel and a turning it upside down Eighteenthly This Predestination 18. Arg. is in open hostility with the Ministry of the gospel 1. For no man can be a Minlster and fellow-labourer with God neither the Word preached by him an instrument of grace and the spirit if the Lord quicken him who is dead in sin by an irresistible power no more then the creature could be an instrument of * Instrument of Grace i. e. of love in the Creation of the world grace in the first Creation or Contributory to its resuscitation from the dead 2. By this Doctrine the dispensation of the Gospel is made the savor of death unto death to the greater part of Auditors and an instrument of condemnation out of the primary purpose and absolute intent of God without the least intuition of their preceding Rebellion 3. By this Predestination baptism to reprobate Infants the children of federal and believing Parents is a meer blank and seals nothing and so altogether unprofitable and that out of the precise Intention of God without any default of the Infants to whom according to divine Command this Ordinance is administred 4. This obstructs faith and confidence in publique prayers and supplications to God for the benefit of all those that hear the word when according to this doctrine there are many amongst them whom God is not onely not willing to save but in his absolute eternall immutable will preceding all things and causes would condemne notwithstanding the Apostle injoining Prayers and supplications to be made for all men adds this reason for this is good and acceptable before 1 Tim. 2. 1 4. God our Saviour who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledg of the truth 5. The composure of this Doctrine easily renders Pastors and Teachers sloathfull and negligent in their function as if their diligence were onely advantagious to those whom God would precisely save being in no possibility of perishing and their negligence only Prejudiciall to those whom God would have miscarry and are necessarily to be undone for ever without any possibility of salvation 19. This Doctrine tends to Religions 19 Arg. overthrow in Generall and the christian in speciall Religion considered in generall is founded upon a twofold love of God without which it neither hath nor ever will have any being in the world the first is that Love of righteousnesse which gives being to the hatred of sin the second is the love of the rationall creature the love extended to man as in the businesse in agitation according to that of the Apostle He that cometh unto Heb. ii 6. God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him his love of righteousnesse is demonstrated in this that he will not give eternall life to any but those that seek him his love of men that he will bestow blessednesse upon them if they inquire after him The mutuall relation betwixt them is this There can be no place for the fefluxes of love to the creature but as the love of righteousnesse permits it The * The love of Righteousness more noble then the love of the creature former is far more excellent then the la●er there is alwayes a way open for the emanations of love to the Creature where the love of righteousnesse hath not stop't it The first is evident in Gods condemning man for sin which he loves as his Creature which he would not do if man were more dear to him then his own justice or his eternal ruin more abhorrent then his disobedience The second is clear in that he condemnes none but for sin and saves those that are turnd from it which would not be done by him unlesse he yeelded his love to the Creature so far as justice regulated by judgment permitted it This Doctrine of predestination inverts and changeth this order and mutuall respect First by asserting God precisely to will the salvation of some men without having in his purpose an eye to their obedience whereby his love of men is preferd to his love of righteousnesse and that as men they are more respected by him then his own justice and their misery more abhorrent unto him then their sin and disobedience The second by averring the contrary that God absolutely will 's the