Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	adam_n	sin_n	transgression_n	2,441	5	10.4380	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85957	The fort-royal of Christianity defended. Or, a demonstration of the divinity of scripture, by way of excellency called the Bible. With a discussion of some of the great controversies in religion, about universal redemption, free-will, original sin, &c. For the establishing of Christians in truth in these atheistical trying times. / By Thomas Gery, B.D. and Rector of Barwell in Leicestershire.	Gery, Thomas, d. 1670?	1657 (1657)	Wing G618; Thomason E1702_1; ESTC R209377	93,977	264

active and passive is the meritorious cause of salvation and of all the means conducting thereunto So Colos 1.14 We have redemption through his bloud even the forgiveness of sins And 1 John 1.7 The bloud of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin And 1 Pet. 1.18 19. Knowing that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers but with the precious bloud of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot with many such like Texts Thirdly Faith is the instrumental cause that is to say the instrument whereby we receive Christ and apply his merits to us so John 1.12 As many as received him to them he gave power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name And Ephes 3.17 The Apostle saith that Christ dwells in our hearts by faith And hence it is our righteousnesse is called both the righteousness of faith Rom. 10.6 And the righteousnesse which is by faith Heb. 11.7 And the righteousnesse which is of God by faith Phil. 3.9 Fourthly and lastly Vocation and Justification and Sanctification and good works and eternal life and salvation are the joynt fruits and effects of the aforenamed causes successively following one another Vocacion Justification and Sanctification and good works are the first fruits and effects of the foresaid causes brought forth here in this life as numerous Texts of Scripture testifie which I need not recite because they are familiarly known and because I have mentioned divers of them formerly And Eternal Life and Salvation is the last fruit the consummation and ultimate end of all as it 's very often taught and testified Rom. 6.22 Being made free from sin and become servants to God ye have your fruit unto heliness and the end everlasting life And 1 Pet. 1.9 Receiving the end of your faith even the salvation of your souls These are the links of the golden chain of salvation and the order of the causes thereof as they are annexed and held forth to us in the word of God And in Rom. 8.30 they are summed up together though in fewer words Whom he did predestinate saith the Apostle them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified And hence is Mr. Haggar's grosse error in his concatenation of the causes of salvation detected and confuted In that he makes sanctification and good works causes of salvation which are but fruits and effects of God's election and the merits of Christ apprehended by faith for they go before salvation only as necessary antecedents and as the appointed way to lead us to salvation and as preparatives for Heaven as hath been already declared but not as causes thereof 1. They are Via regn● but not causa regnandi So that as the way to any place is not the cause that brings any man to it though he must needs passe through the way to come to that place but the cause of his coming to it is his own will and motion So sanctification and good works though they be necessary antecedents to salvation so that we cannot passe to Heaven but through them yet they are not the causes which brings us thither but the causes thereof are the mercies of God and the merits of Christ apprehended by Faith And so I end this Controversie If now I have not untied the Gordian knots of these long debated Controversies so fully and openly as to give satisfaction to all whose thoughts have been formerly puzzled about them as I believe I shall not yet my labour will not be wholly lost in these regards First Because I have hereby declared my willingnesse to do the Church service to my power by putting my hand to the supportation of the truth of the gospel which these stormy times have so impetuously and vehemently shaken Secondly Because what I have delivered may happily give satisfaction to some and let them loose out of the briers of their hesitation that were doubtful before what opinion to incline to Thirdly Because this Essay may happily be an occasion to invite and induce some more Logical and Learned pen to publish a more Scholastick and plenary solution of them The fifth Controversie About Original sin THat I may the more fully discover and confute this error I will unfold these four points about the sin of our natures the sin wherein we are conceived and born which therefore all Orthodox Divines have fitly and properly called Original Sin First I will render a reason of the epithete why it is called Original Sin Secondly I will give a definition of the Sin what is Thirdly I will alledge some of the evident proofs of Scripture for the justification of it Fourthly I will frame some irrefragable and convincing arguments drawn out of Scripture to prove it by necessary and undeniable consequence The first Point opened THe sinful corruption or corrupt disposition of man's nature from the womb hath many epithetes or names given unto it in Scripture which denote and declare that it hath its original and beginning with man's conception and birth and therefore is fitly and properly termed Original Sin and so ever hath been for above this thousand years by all sound and learned Divines both ancient and modern For though it be not in terminis in these very words so called in Scripture yet hath it divers other epithetes and names there given it which are consignificant and import and imply the same sense and meaning with these words Original Sin amongst which take notice of these Rom. 6.6 It 's called The old man and the body of sin 1 Cor. 5.7 It 's termed The old leaven Rom. 7.17 The sin that dwelleth in us Rom. 7.23 The law in our members Rom. 7.24 The body of death Gal. 5.16 The lusts of the flesh Jam. 1.14 A man 's own lust In which Text in the next words following it is punctually distinguished from all actual sins as being expresly affirmed to be the procreant cause of all actual sin for the cause and the effects cannot be one and the same The second Point opened what original sin is ORiginal sin is a pravity vitiosity or vitious habit or corrupt disposition of man's nature from his first conception as a just punishment of all mens sin in Adam whereby they are born the children of wrath and become subject to death both of body and soul and also become prone to commit all actual sins Or thus Original sin is a pravity of man's nature from his first conception whereby he seems to be prone to all sin as a just punishment of Adam's sin or transgression whereof all men are guilty and for which all men are exposed and subjected to death both corporal and eternal Both these definitions have one and the same sense And from them ye may observe that there be three things in Original Sin or three parts of it The first

is the guilt of Adam's sin whereof S. Paul speaks Rom. 5.19 where he saith By one man's disobedience many were made sinners Secondly There is the defect and want of original righteousnesse whereof he speaks Rom. 3.23 All have sinned and come short of the glory of God i.e. of God's image which was in man's first creation stamped upon him And for this exposition I have warrant from 1 Cor. 11.7 in that the Apostle there joyned these together as synonimas image and glory when he saith That man is the image and glory of God Thirdly There is the succession of a vitious habit and corrupt disposition in man's nature in place of his primitive righteousnesse whereof we read Gen. 6.5 where God himself witnesseth That the whole imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evill continually And Psal 14.2 ● verse David saith That the Lord looked down from Heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God They are all gone aside they are altogether become filthy And here I desire the Reader to consider how these three parts of this our native sin do produce and bring forth one another the first namely the guilt of Adam's sin being the sole cause of the other two as these Texts beside many other declare Rom. 3.23 All have sinned that is in Adam and come short of the glory of God i.e. come short of that glorious image of God by reason of that sin of Adam's whereof all are guilty And Rom. 5.19 By one man's disobedience many wert made sinners By which one man Adam is understood as all acknowledge And so these two Texts make it clear that childrens want of Original or Primitive righteousnesse and the inquination and depravation of their natures do both flow from their guilt of Adam's sin and are the sad consequents of it The third point opened The evident proofs of Scripture for it BEsides the Texts already named it 's plentifully taught elsewhere Gen. 5. the 1 3. verses compared In the first verse it 's said that Adam was created in the likeness of God And in the 3. verse it 's said that He begat a child in his own likeness after his image which imports that he begat not a child in the likenesse of God which consisted in holinesse but in the likenesse of himself who then was stained with sin Gen. 8.21 The imagination of man's heart is evill from his youth Which Text is rendered by Junius and Tremellius The imagination or frame of man's heart is evill from his childhood Now children are free from actual sins and therefore the evill of their hearts must need be Original because all evill of sin is comprehended under one of these two sorts Job 14.4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one Which is spoken in reference to man's birth as it 's there most apparent in the first verse Job 15.14 What is man that he should be clean or he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous And again chap. 25.4 How then can man be justified with God or how can he be clean that is born of a woman The interrogations in both these Texts imply an impossibility that any woman should bring forth a child free from the pollution and tincture of sin in the ordinary way of conception and parturition Psal 51.5 Behold saith David I was shapen in iniquity If David then all others but our Saviour only whose conception was not after the ordinary manner but by the miraculous and incomprehensible operation of the holy Ghost The Anabaptists to avoid the repugnancy between their Tenet and this Text have devised this shift They say that David spake this of his mother's sin in his conception and not of his own fin But this is so weak a subterfuge and evasion and so dissonant from the scope and purpose of the Psalm that I should think that any judicious man that seeks the truth should blush to own it for this is one of David's penitential Psalms wherein he makes humble confession of his own sins to God and not of his mother's and makes earnest request and supplication for the expiation of them as all the precedent verses declare And again though the latter words in the verse might be wrested to be spoken of his mother's sin as well as his own because mention is made of her yet the first words which are these Behold I was shapen in iniquity must of necessity be understood of himself and can have no reference to his mother without violence to the Text and wilful wresting of it Psal 58.3 It 's said That the wicked are estranged from the womb And the like place is in Isa 48.8 where the Lord calls the house of Jacob A transgressor from the womb which is as much to say as a sinner by birth Ezek. 16.4 5 6. verses Jersalem's nativity is affirmed by God to be polluted and he saith That he saw her polluted in her own bloud which Text though it should be granted to be allegoricall as some Interpreters would have it yet inevitably concludes mans birth to be unclean Joh. 3.6 That which is borne of the flesh is flesh saith our Saviour that is is sinfull For when the flesh is opposed to the Spirit as it is here in this Text it usually denoteth and is put to signifie the pravity or sinfullness of nature as Gal. 5.17 The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to another Roman 5.12 By one man sin entred into the world and death by sin and so death pasled upon all men for that all have sinned If all have sinned then have infants sinned as well as others for we do not find them any where excepted Now infants have no actuall sin while they are infants and therefore that sin which they are said to have must needs be originall all sin whatsoever being comprehended under one of these two kinds as was said before The fourth Point opened namely Arguments drawn from Scripture to prove original sin by necessary consequence Argument 1. IF children be not conceived and born in sin then is there no need of their regeneration or second birth to their salvation before they have made themselves sinners by actual transgression for nothing hinders from salvation but sin But children have need of a regeneration or second birth to their salvation before they have committed any actual sin as is clear from our Saviour's words twice affirmed with vehement asseveration John 3.3 5. verses Verily verily I say unto thee except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God And this is spoken without any exception of Infants either there or in any other place of Scripture and is also proved by our Saviour in the verse next following to concern Infants as well as men of years because whatsoever is born of the flesh that is of fleshly