Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	adam_n	child_n	parent_n	3,091	5	8.4856	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29125	A compendious answer to a book called A brief survay of the judgement of Mr. John Goodvvin, and the Church of God walking with him, touching their reasons of dissenting from many of their brethren, in these imprtant heads of doctrine; 1. Election and reprobation. 2. The death of Christ. 3. The grace of God in and about conversion. 4. The liberty or power of the will, or of the creature man. 5. The perseverance of the saints. VVherein the absurdities of all their dissenting doctrines are clearly exhibited, by a loving friend to the truth it self, Ellis Bradshaw.	Bradshaw, Ellis.	1652 (1652)	Wing B4139A; ESTC R212996	33,087	46

these words of Christ are utterly inconsistent with those pathetical affectionate and bowel-breathing wishes or desires of God for the peace and prosperity even of the vilest men as you imagine Whereas these were all spoken too and concerning his peculiar people that they might have been happy and their posterities after them if they had kept his commandments and this he speaketh after the manner of men and if they had been obedient it had bin so with them but we dare not conclude that God knew not before how they would carry and demean themselves for then we should deny his understanding to be infinite but these are spoken for our incouragement and for our imitation and there should be in us such like bowels earnest desires as there was in Christ consider'd as man to wit that men would repent and return and live and they ought to perswade what they can thereto and such who so do are instrumentall in the hand of God for the good of many and shall doubless receive a reward suitable 3. Your third Reason is in effect but the same with this Intending to prove it as a brand of crueltie and folly if God should reprobate his own as the Ostrich is cruell against her young ones And to this I assent if he should be cruel to his own elect and that is all you can make of it 4. Reason the fourth you proceed on in the same tone replying and arguing against God because He doth reprobate the greatest part of men as if because we are lineally descended from the loins of Adam we were all alike by generation and in alike measure children of wrath which I have already answered that it is not so And further I adde for your fuller conviction that all reprobates are the natural off-spring and fruit of sin and are the children of the wicked one that is the devil in that respect for it was the devil that sowed the tares that is to say sin in the heats of our first parents which have brought forth more tares than the good seed which was of God and was left as a Remnant of the image of God in our first parents hath yet produced So that it is not proper to say of the wicked that they are lineally descended from God through the loines of Adam who was his son but were blasphemous in me to speak it because I thus apprehend and know it to be true 5. You proceed That all particular persons of mankind without exception of any were in Adam before his fall From whence you gather If they were in him before his fall they must be in the same state and condition of righteousness and holiness with him and consequently of grace favour and acceptance with God Now we judge it clearly impossible that any person should at the same time be in an estate of righteousness or of grace and favour with God and yet under a severe decree of Reprobation also so that we cannot but conceive such a decree of Reprobation from eternity as our brethren maintain to be a meer and plain Impossibilitic Answ I answer all mankind was originally in his loins and he was made righteous but they were not personally in him But suppose it true do not you conceive that the Angells that sinned and are cast down and become devils were created perfect and pure from sin and so in favour with God whiles they so continued yet were at that very time under a severe decree of eternall Reprobation had not God decreed and determined with himself to suffer them to sin and fall as they did and so in like manner to suffer man also to be seduced by him cannot you believe it that his decrees are unchangable as you grant at the first and that God acteth nothing in time but what he decreed from eternity And that the Scripture expresly holdeth forth both a decree of Election and a decree of Reprobation in God as you said you agreed with your brethren in that as in the 1.4.5 particulars But whether then have your arguments lead you that you here account it a plain Impossibility so that the decree of God was nothing at all from eternity concerning Reprobation either of Angels or men though the Scripture telleth us that some were of old ordained unto condemnation And some as natural brute beasts are made to be taken and to be destroyed speaking evill of the things they understand not and shall utterly perish in their own corruption 2 Pet. 2.12 And let me but ask you doth he not will now what he willed before even from eternity is his will changed or doth he will any thing now that he did not then But saith the Apostle What if he willing to shew his wrath and make his power known suffer with long patience the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction But if these were the ends of suffering these vessels then it must needs follow that in the decree of God he had this purpose in himself as Ephes 1.9 where it is also said verse 11. That he worketh all things according to the Counsel of his own will so that we cannot believe that he either doth or suffereth to be done any thing at all but according to the counsel of his own will For he that could foresee to predestinate such who are his Elect to the adoption of Children by Jesus Christ in himself according to the Good pleasure of his will as Ephes 1.5 could not possibly be ignorant whom he should harden unto condemnation It were therefore wisdome if you could not comprehend the justness of his decree in this respect yet not to make such imperious and bold conclusions whiles you cannot reconcile these you subtill arguments with these texts of Scripture for all Scripture is true and must not be broken to comply with our fancies and weak apprehensions 6. But Argument sixth you speak more boldly for because all things were in God and in his will and power before he created them and made them visible Therefore you will needs make man and not man only but all things whatsoever to be nothing really but God himself according as you say it is a known maxim whatsoever is in God is God The which maxim in one sense may be true to wit whatsoever is in God Attributably and Essentially is God but it is well known that all things yet still are really in God but no creature can in any possibility be God himself for every creature is something else and therfore I much wonder that a whole Church should assert such doctrine And before the creation when all things were in God they were then no more God himself than the dung that is contained in the internal parts of the bellie of man is the man himself And so by consequence notwithstanding your bold Logick God is no more the object of his own Reprobation nor can no more be said to reject himself or harden himself than a man is said to

assert in their fift particular wherein they dissent from us That the only decree of Election that can be asserted from the Scriptures is for substance and effect Whosoever believeth shall be saved As the only decree of Reprobation this Whosoever believeth not shall be damned 8. It concludes it a thing necessary for clearing the Mercy and Justice of God to make every particular person righteous as Adam in innocency before it can stand with Infinite Justice and Mercy to condemn him for sin 9. It concludeth in effect That it could not stand with the Justice and Mercy of God to determine with himself before he created the Angels to suffer some of them to fall and after condemn them to everlasting torments for not keeping their first estate as the Angels did as is shewed in the book by necessary consequence See Reas 6. to the second particular 10. This their doctrine holdeth forth That both Men and Angels yea and even all the whole creation are nothing else but God himself Which is an aspersion blasphemously impious as you may see in the book Reas 6. to the second particular 11. This doctrine importeth That no man can be assured that he shall not perish eternally till the end of his life for they build all their assurance upon perseverance in the faith and that to the end As though men could not know that they have allready eternall life abiding in them which cannot possibly terminate or come to an end being kept not by their own power but by the power of God through faith unto salvation as is at large proved in the book 12. This doctrine teacheth expresly That it were more wisedome in God for making them more religious and more obedient to his will to hold them in suspence all their life long and give them no assureance Whereas the Wisedome and Mercy of God hath thought it better to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remssion of their sinnes that they might serve him without fear in holinesse and righteousnesse all the daies of their life Luke 1.74 75 77 78 79. See allso Reas 1. to the first particular 13. This doctrine teacheth That all children are alike holy or unholy in the sight of God by generation and so till they come to years of discretion and that not only Jewes by nature are the children of wrath as well as Gentiles their father being an Amorite and their mother an Hittite and that all have sinned both Jewes and Gentiles and are therefore deprived of the glory of God as so the text is clear But all they say are in a like condition by generation whatever parents they are sprung from which quite contradicteth the Apostles assertion to wit Else were your children unclean but now are they holy 1 Cor. 7.14 See all their fourth Reason of their dissent from us in their third particular 14. It concludeth expresly either manifest inconsistencies or that the intent and purpose of God in his decree of Reprobation is utterly frustrate and disappointed For particular sixth they say The intent at least the primary or antecedent intent of God in his decree of Reprobation is the salvation not the condemnation of men 15. It quite perverteth the phrase of Christ and his Apostles in dispensation of the doctrines of the Gospell For they say particular the fourth That Faith and Repentance in particular persons are not the fruits and effects of Election But Election rather the fruit of these As if Election decreed before the foundation of the world could be the fruit of Faith and Repentance And further let any rationall man but read the order of the doctrine in these respects Rom. 8.29 30. Whom he predestinated them he called c. Not whom he called them he after predestinated for that were clear impropriety of language for it were not predestination at all if it were not a determination precedent unto calling as here the Spirit of God renders it And whether it be fitter to believe Paul or them let themselves judge FINIS