Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	apostle_n	law_n	transgression_n	5,619	5	10.4785	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90682	The Christians rescue from the grand error of the heathen, (touching the fatal necessity of all events) and the dismal consequences thereof, which have slily crept into the church. In several defences of some notes, writ to vindicate the primitive and scriptural doctrine of Gods decrees. By Thomas Pierce rector of Brington in Northamptonshire.	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1658 (1658)	Wing P2166; Thomason E949_1; ESTC R18613	77,863	94

transgression of some Law so every punishment is the revenge of some sin upon which it follows that if a mans sin is from himself 't is from himself that he is punisht And as the Law is not the Cause but the * Occasion only of sin so God is not the Cause but the inflicter only of punishment for so saies the Apostle Sin taking occasion by the Commandement wrought in me all manner of Concupiscence for without the Law sin was dead That which is good not being made death but sin working death by that which is good God and his Law are each of them the Causa sine qua non the Condition without which sin and punishment could not have been for without Law no sin without God no Reprobation but not the Energetical efficient Cause of which sin punishment were the necessary effects For if God had made a Hell by an absolute purpose meerly because he would that some should suffer it and not in a previous intuition of their sins Damnation had been a Misery but not a Punishment as if a Potter makes a vessel on purpose that he may break it which yet none but a mad man can be thought to do or if a man meerly for recreation cuts up Animals alive which yet none ever did that I can hear of except a young Spanish Prince it is an Infelicity and a torment but no more a punishment than it is any thing else Indeed the Common people who doe not understand the just propriety of words make no distinction many times betwixt Pain and Punishment not considering that Punishment is a relative word of which the correlative is breach of Law and therefore is fitly exprest in Scripture by the mutual relation betwixt a Parent and a Child when lu● hath * conceived it bringeth forth sin sin being perfected bringeth forth death Iam. 1. 15. which is as much as to say according to the propriety of the Apostles words sin is the parent and death is the childe Now there cannot be a child without a parent for they are relata secundum esse much lesse can the child be before the parent for sunt simul natura dicuntur ad convertentiam Upon which it followes that punishment could not be ordained by God either without sin or before it or without respect and intuition of it which yet the great * Mr. Calvin does plainly say I say it could not because it implies a contradiction For though God could easily make Adam out of the earth and the earth out of nothing yet he could not make a sinful Cain to be the son of sinful Adam before there was an Adam much lesse before there was a sinful one because it were to be and not to be at the same time Adam would be a Cause before an entity which God Almighty cannot do because he is Almighty So that when the Romanists assert their Transubstantiation or the posterity of Marcion their Absolute decree of all the evil in the world both pretending a Reverence to Gods omnipotence they doe as good as say † those things which are true may therefore be false because they are true or that God is so * Almighty as to be able not to be God that being the Result of an Ability to make two parts of a contradiction true so said S. Austin against Faustus and Origen against Celsus Whensoever it is said God can do all things 't is meant of all things that become him So Isidore the Pelusiote But to return to that argument in the pursuit of which I have stept somewhat too forward if Gods preordination of mans eternal misery were in order of nature before his prescience of mans sin as Mr. Calvin evidently affirms in his Ideo * praesciverit quia decreto suo praeordinavit setting Praeordination as the Cause or Reason or praevious Requisite to his Praescience either mans Reprobation must come to passe without sin or else he must sin to bring it orderly to passe which is to make God the author either of misery by it self without relation to sin or else of sin in order to misery The first cannot be because God hath * sworn he hath no pleasure in the death of a sinner Ezek. 33. 14. much lesse in his death that never sinn'd And because if it were so the Scripture would not use the word Wages and the word Punishment and the word Retribution and the word Reward Hell indeed had been a torment but not a Recompence a fatal Misery but not a Mulct an act of power but not of vengeance which yet in many places is the stile that God speaks in Vengeance is mine and I will repay Rom. 12 19. Nor can the second be lesse impossible it having formerly been proved that God is not the Author of sin he hath no need of the sinful man whereby to bring mans Ruine the more conveniently about and most of them that dare say it are fain to say it in a Disguise Some indeed are for ligonem ligonem but the more modest blasphemers are glad to dresse it in cleaner phrase A strange {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in Divinity to put the 1 child before the parent the 2 wages before the work the 3 end before the means the Reprobation before the sin yet so they do who make the Decree of Reprobation most irrespective and unconditional and after that say that whom God determines to the end he determines to the meanes To put the horse upon the Bridle is a more rational Hypallage For by this Divinity eternal punishment is imputed to Gods Antecedent will which is called the first and sin to his consequent will which is the second The first {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and the other only {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} punishment chiefly and sin by way of consecution Men are bid not to sin ex voluntate signi or revelata but are determin'd to it ex voluntate occulta or beneplaciti Distinctions very good when at first they were invented for better uses the former by S. Chrysostome from whom it was borrow'd by Damascene and from him by the Schoolmen But I say they all were used to very contrary purposes by them and by these who endeavour'd to repel those Fathers with their own weapons as the elaborate † Gerard Vossius does very largely make it appear I am sorry I must say what yet I must saith * Tertullian when it may tend to edification That the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering abundant in goodnesse and truth who is all Bowels and no gall who hateth nothing that he hath made who in the midst of Iudgement remembreth mercy ever forgiving iniquity transgression and sin is exhibited to the world by the Authors and Abetters of unconditional Reprobation as a kind of Platonick Lover of so excellent a Creature 's everlasting misery Which if

adigit cogit compellit He makes us willing who are unwilling but does not force us to be willing whilest we are un willing that is to say to be willing against our wils or whether we will or no 12. But I find that I have shot somewhat farther then I aimed it being onely my design and the proper business of this place to shew that the words of the Apostle he worketh all things are infinitely far from being meant either of sin or Reprobation So far from that that God Almighty does not permit sin as permission signifies connivence or consent but he permits it as that signifies not to hinder by main force If I see a man stealing and say nothing to him I so permit as to be guilty but if I warn and exhort if I promise and threaten and do all that may avert him besides killing him I so permit as to be innocent In like manner all that is done by God Almighty by way of permission is his suffering us to live and have that nature of the will with which he made us Whereas to destroy us for the prevention of sin or to make us become stocks as Beza phrases it or like wooden Engines which are moved only by wires at the meer pleasure discretion of the Engineer were by inevitable consequence to * uncreate his creature which to do were repugnant to his immutability as Tertul. shews This is all that I am able to apprehend or pronounce that God permits our sins in this sense onely and that he disposes and orders them to the best advantage 13. Having proved my first Principle by Scripture and Reason it will be as easie to confirm it by the common suffrage of Antiquity and to avoid the repetition of so long a Catalogue which I suppose will be as needlesse as I am sure it will be nauseous to a considerable Reader I REFER him to the CITATIONS which will FOLLOW my FIRST INFERENCE SECT. 18. I will content my self at present to shut up all with a that Article of the Augustan Confession to which our 39. Articles have the greatest regard and conformity and which for that very reason is to me the most venerable of any Protestant Confession except our own That though God is the Creator and Preserver of Nature yet the only cause of sin is the will of the wicked that is to say of the Devil and ungodly men turning it self from God to other things against the will and commandements of God b And the Orange Synod doth pronounce an Anathema upon all that think otherwise If any will not subscribe to this Confession I will leave him to learn modesty both from Arrian the Heathen and from Philo the Iew {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Arrian in Epictet {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Philo {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} p. 325. CHAP. II. 14. MY first Demand being fully granted as in the Mathematicks 't is usual to build upon certain Postulata it doth immediately follow that Man himself is the sole efficient cause of his eternal punishment I say the sole Cause as excluding God but not the Devil whom yet I also exclude from the efficiency of the Cause because he can onely incite and propose objects and adde perswasions to sin but cannot force or cause it in me without my will and consent so that the Devil being onely a Tempter and Perswader cannot for that be justly stiled an efficient Or if he were sure for that very Reason God himself cannot be so but onely Man and the Devil must be the Concauses of mans destruction Which is the second thing I am to prove both by Scripture and Reason and the whole suffrage of Antiquity 15. And here I shall not be so solicitous as to rifle my Concordance but make use of such Scriptures as lye uppermost in my memory and so are readiest to meet my pen These I find are of two sorts negative on Gods part and affirmative on mans God gives the first under his oath Ezek. 33. 11. As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn ye turn ye from your wicked waies for why will you die O house of Israel In the 18. ch. of the same Prophesie the Latine translation is more emphatical than the English for there it is not non cupio but nolo mortem morientis no● that he doth not will the death of a sinner but that he wils it not he doth not only not desire it but which makes the proof more forcible he desires the contrary even that he should turn from his wickednesse and live chapter 33. vers. 14. not willing saith S. Peter that any should perish but on the contrary that all should come to Repentance And so 1 Tim. 2. 4. He will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth Where it appears by the Context that the Apostle does not onely speak of all kindes of particulars but of all particulars of the kindes too For he first of all exhorts them that prayers and supplications and giving of thankes be made for all men verse 1. secondly he does instance in one sort of men for Kings and all that are in Authority verse 2. thirdly he addes the Cause of his exhortation for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour who will have all men to be saved verse 3 4. And if the Spanish Friar said true that few Kings go to Hell giving this reason because all Kings are but few the Apostles way of arguing will be so much the stronger for when he speaks of all men in general he makes his instance in Kings in all Kings without exception thereby intimating Nero the worst of Kings under whom at that time the Apostle lived And he uses another argument verse 6. because Christ gave himself a Ransome for all This is yet more plain from Rom. 2. 4 5. Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thy self wrath against the day of wrath Observe who they are whom God would have to repent even the hard-hearted and the impenitent But I have stronger proofs out of Scripture and lesse liable to cavil than any of these which yet I thought fit to use because I find they are the chief of those that Vossius relies upon and expounds to my purpose from the Authority of the Ancients I will adde to these but three or four Texts more of which the one will so establish and explain the other as to leave no place of evasion to the gainsayer First our blessed Saviour is called by the Apostle the Saviour of all men especially of them that believe 1 Tim. 4. 10. As if

the Apostle had foreseen an objection that the word all might be restrained unto the houshold of Faith he prevents it by a distinction of general and special For if he is a special Saviour of believers he is a general Saviour of those that are unbelievers not that unbelievers can be saved whilest they are obstinate unbelievers but upon condition they will repent and believe else why should the Apostle affirm the Saviour to be of all and then come off with an especially to them that believe Certainly if it is every mans duty to believe in Christ Christ dyed for every man And this very argument is not easily answered in the very confession of Dr. Twisse who yet by and by saies 't is easily answered and yet he leaves it without an answer he only scornes it and lets it passe Twiss. in Respon. ad Armin. Praefat. p. 16. col 2. This is secondly confirm'd from the Apostle's way of arguing 2 Cor. 5. 14. If one died for all then were all dead This is the major Proposition of an hypothetical syllogisme in which the thing to be proved is that all were dead and the Medium to prove it is that one dyed for all Now every man knows that understands how to reason that the argument of proof must be rather more than lesse known than the thing in question to be proved so that if it be clear that all men were dead by the fall of the first Adam it must be clearer as St. Paul argues that life was offered unto all by the death of the second Adam and if none were dyed for but the Elect then the Elect only were dead for the word all must signifie as amply in the Assumption as it does in the Sequel or else the Reasoning will be fallacious and imperfect The Apostle thus argues If one dyed for all then were all dead But one dyed for all that must be the Assumption Therefore all were dead Whosoever here denies the Minor does before he is aware condemn the Sequel of the Major and so gives the Lie to the very words of the Text which I can look for from none but some impure Helvidius who would conclude the greatest falsehoods from the word of Truth This is thirdly confirmed from the saying of the Apostle Rom. 11. 32. that God concluded all in unbelief the Gentiles first verse 30. and afterwards the Iewes verse 31. that he might have mercy upon all From whence I inferre that if this last all belong to none but the Elect then none but the Elect were concluded in unbelief But it is plain that all without exception were first or last concluded in unbelief therefore the mercy was meant to all without exception Lastly it is confirm'd from those false Prophets and false Teachers 2 Pet. 2. 1. who though privily bringing in damnable heresies even denying the Lord that bought them and bringing upon themselves swift destruction yet it seems they were such whom the Lord had bought So far is God from being the Cause of mans destruction by an absolute irrespective unconditional Decree that he gave himself a ransome even for them that perish They were not left out of the bargain which was made with his Iustice but the Apostle tels us they were actually bought He whose blood was sufficient for a thousand worlds would not grudge its extent to the major part of but one He was merciful to all men but the greatest part of men are unmerciful to themselves He is the Saviour of all but yet all are not saved because he only offers does not obtrude himself upon us He * offers himself to all but most refuse to receive him He will have no man to perish but repent by his Antecedent will but by his Consequent will he will have every man perish that is impenitent Which is sufficient to have been said for the negative part of my undertaking That the cause of Damnation is not on God's part in which if any one Text be found of power to convince let no man cavil at those others which seem lesse convincing If any one hath an objection let him stay for an answer till his objection is urged It might seem too easie to solve objections of my own choice or confute an argument of my own making and therefore I passe without notice of common shifts and subterfuges till I am call'd to that Drudgery to the second part of my enterprise which is the affirmative 16. That man himself is the cause of his eternal punishment Which though supposed in the negative must yet be proved to some persons who are prevailed upon by fashions and modes of speech and will deny that very thing when they see it in one colour which they will presently assent to when they behold it in another He who is very loth to say that God is the Author of sin and damnation will many times say it in other termes and therefore in other terms it must be proved that he is not O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thine help Hosea 13. 6. They that privily bring in Damnable Heresies shall bring upon themselves swift destruction The foolishness of man perverteth his way And as when lust conceiveth it bringeth forth sin so when sin is finished it bringeth forth death Iam. 1. 15. If death is that monster of which sin is the Dam that brings it forth how foul a thing must be the Sire and can there be any greater blasphemy than to bring God's Providence into the pedigree of Death Death saith the Apostle is the wages of sin Rom. 6. 23. and wages is not an absolute but a relative word It is but reason he should be paid it who hath dearly earn'd it by his work It is the will of man that is the servant of sin Disobedience is the work Death eternal is the wages and the Devil is the pay-master who as he sets men to work to the dishonour of their Creator so he paies them their wages to the advancement of his glory From whence I conclude with the Book of Wisdome God made not death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living for he created all things that they might have their being and the generations of the world were healthful and there is no poyson of Destruction in them nor the kingdome of death upon the earth But ungodly men with their words and works call'd it to them and made a covenant with it because they are worthy to take {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} part with it 17. I will confirm this truth by no more than one Reason which if it is not the best doth seem to me to be the fittest as being aptest to evince both the connexion and necessity of my first inference from my first Principle It is taken from the nature and use of punishment which as soon as it is named doth presuppose a Guilt for as every sin is the *