Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	death_n	life_n	wage_n	10,497	5	10.9120	5	true

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

shutting of him up under sin and condemnation IIII. For unless God had created some he had not had upon whom he might bestow eternall life and bring upon everlasting death had not he created them in righteousness and sanctitie God himselfe had been the Author of sin and so had been deprived of the right of punishment to the praise of his Iustice and salvation for the honour of his mercy unless they themselves had sinned and by the merit thereof rendered themselves guilty of Death there could have been no place to demonstrate either Justice or Mercy 5. The meanes fore-ordained These are the special means for the putting into execution the decree of election are these three First The preordination or the giving of Jesus Christ a mediatour and Saviour who should purchase by his merit for all and onely the Elect life and lost righteousness and by his vertue communicate the same Second Their vocation to faith outwardly by the word inwardly by his spirit in the mind affections and will by an operation so efficacious that the elect person must needs assent and yeeld obedience thereunto in so much as he is not in any capacity able not to beleeve this his Calling or not to be obedient thereunto Hence comes to passe their justification and sanctification by the blood and spirit of Christ and in like manner all their good workes and this by the same forementioned force and necessity Third meanes to be is the Keeping the Elect in the faith sanctitie and zeale of good works or the donation of the perseverance to them whose vertue is to be this that the beleeving and elect persons do not onely not sin with that plenitude and wholeness of will or not fall Totally from faith or grace but they Cannot sin with that full bent of mind neither Can they totally or finally fall away from faith or grace received 6. The two * Vacotion perseverance last of these means belonging onely to the adult elect person of ripe years but for the children of beleevers who pass out of this life and never come to maturity of age God leads them a shorter way to salvation if they belong to the number of the elect which God onely knows by giving Christ a Saviour to them and them to Christ who saves them by his blood and holy spirit without actuall faith and perseverance and this according to the promise of the Covenant I will be your God and the God of your seed 7. The means appointed to These proper to the decree of Reprobation put into execution the decree of reprobation are partly proper to All the reject and reprobate whether they have lived to ripeness of years or died before their maturity partly peculiar to Some of them onely Means Common to them all is their dissertion in sin by the suspension of that saving grace which is sufficient and necessary to salvation and this hath two branches 1. God not being willing that Christ should die for them neither * i. e. He neither dignitate pretii died for them in regard of the value of the price Nor voluntate propositi God never intending that hee should shed his blood for them Quoad Voluntatem Antecedentem according to his Antecedent will as some call it or Quoad Sufficientem according to the sufficient or the valew of that reconciliatory Price which was never offerd for the Reprobate either in respect of the divine decree or the vertue and efficacy of it The 2. branch Gods unwillingness to communicate the spirit of Christ to them without which 't were impossible for them to be made partakers of him and his benefits 8. The means Peculiar to some of them onely is that obduration which befalls Adult persons for their often enormous violation of the Law of God repudiation of the Grace of the Gospel To the executing the first * For their violation of the law of God induration appertains the witness of their minds to the righteousness of the Law by knowledge illumination and conviction it not being possible for the Law not to detaine them in unrighteousness onely but necessary to the rendring them inexcusable To the execution of the second * For their refusing the grace of the Gospel obduration God makes use of their calling by the preaching of the word which is to be both insufficient and ineffectuall as well in regard of the decree of God as the event thereof This vocation is to be either externall onely which they neither will nor can obey or internall whereby some of them are raised in their understandings to embrace and beleeve the things they heare yet with such a faith as the devils endowed with beleeve and tremble some of them are carried on further even after a manner to desire to taste of the Heavenly Gift these being the most miserable of all who are therefore taken up on high that their fall may be the greater it being impossible that this event should not befall them necessitated to returne to their vomit and to fall away from the f 〈…〉 9. From this decree of election and reprobation divine and the administration of the means appertaining to the execution of both it followes that the elect should necessarily be saved so as they are not in any possibility of perishing and the reprobates unavoidably damned so as 't is utterly impossible for them to be saved and that out of the absolute purpose of Gods preceding all things and causes which are in things or could result from things This Opinion by some of those that adhere thereunto is judged the foundation of Christianity Sa●vation and the certainty thereof in which the sure and undoubted consolation of all beleevers giving them a peaceable conscience is founded and upon which the praise of the grace of God leaneth in so much as the contradicting this doctrine is surely to rob God of the glory of his grace to attribute the merit of salvation to the free-will and power of man which savours of Pelagianisme these being the causes pretended why they labour so anxiously to retaine the purity of this doctrine in their churches and oppose themselves to all alterations repugnant there unto For my part to speake what I thinke freely with the Salvage of a better judgement I am of that minde That this doctrine of predestination containeth in it many things false impertinent and discrepant with it selfe which Universally to run thorough time permits me not but I shal leave it to be examind in grosse in its latitude There 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are foure speciall heads in my view and those of the greatest weight in this doctrine I shall first declare them then give you my own judgement concerning them They are these First That God hath Absolutely and precisely decreed the salvation of some particular men by his mercy or grace and the condemnation of others by his justice without any sight or intuition in this

and others be explained by beleevers and unbelievers my judgement is dilucidly comprehended in it which moved me being to dispute publikely in the Colledge to order the questions In Collegio publicoprivato Academiae to be stated in the words of the Confession It agrees with the Catechism Quest 20. 54. 7. It very well sutes the Nature of God viz. his wisdome goodness and righteousness is the principal matter and clearest demonstration of them 8. It 's at very good agreement with the Nature of Man whether considered in the state of Innocency Apostacy or restauration 9. It holds good correspondency with the Act of Creati●n confirming it to be the communication of good according to the intent of God and the event of the thing that it had its rise from Divine goodness its continuation and preservation from Divine Love and that it is the perfect and proper work of God wherein he pleased himself and procured all things which were necessary ad non peccandum to a not sinning 10. It consents with the Nature of eternal life and those titles wherewith it is dignified in Scripture 11. With the Property of eternal death and those names put upon it by the Holy Ghost 12. It makes sinne to be truly disobedience and the meritorious cause of condemnation and so concords with Apostacy and Transgression 13. It harmonizeth with the Nature of Grace by ascribing all things competible thereunto reconciling it to his justice and the nature and liberty of Mans will 14. It 's a most advantagious declarative of the glory of Gods Justice and Mercy representing him the cause of all good and our salvation and Man the cause of fin and his own ruin 15. It contributes to the honor of Iesus Christ appointing him the foundation of Predestination the procuring and communicatory cause of salvation 16. It greatly promotes the salvation of men being the power and means unto everlasting life procreating in them sorrow for sin a sollicitous care of conversion faith in Christ study of good works zeal in prayer causing us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling and as far as is necessary hinders desperation 17. It confirms and establisheth that Order and Method the Preaching of the Gospel requires First exacting Faith and Repentance then promising Remission of Sin the grace of the Spirit and eternal life 18. It strengthens the dispensation of the Gospel and renders it fruitful in the promulgation thereof administry of the Sacraments and Publike Prayers 19. It is the foundation of Christianity in that in it the double Love of God are haply joyned together and at good agreement one with another namely his Love of Righteousness with his love of men Lastly This doctrine hath always been allowed of by the major part of Christians and to this day stands approved by them neither can it administer an occasion of its abhorrency or ground of contention in the Christian Church It s much to be wished that men would proceed no further in this matter neither be inquisitive into the unsearchable judgements of God any more then as revealed in the Scriptures And this is that most Noble and Potent States I have to declare to your Highness's concerning this Doctrine so much ventilated in the Church of Christ And if I should not be burdensome I have other things to offer to your Highness's conducing to the declaration of my ●udgement and leading to the self-same end for which I am commanded hither by your Highness's The Providence of God the Free-will of Man Perseverance of Saints Assurance of Salvation are points of so great affinity with this Doctrine of Predestination and have so much dependance upon it that with your good leave I shall deliver my self upon them THe Providence of GOD I judge to be that careful continual and ever-present eye of God by which the care of the whole Universe and all particular Creatures not one exempted is upon him to the conservation and government of them in their essence qualities actions and passions as it best becomes him and sutes them to the glory of his Name and salvation of Believers Herein I substract nothing from Divine Providence competible to it but yeeld it the conservation regulation gubernation and direction of all things even to the abolition of Chance and Fortune yea I subject to the great Providence the Will of Man and the very acts of the rational creature so that nothing is done without its will though contrary thereunto This difference betwixt good and bad actions onely observed in that we affirm God both to will and do good acts but freely to permit the bad being willing to concede the attribution of all acts excogitable concerning evil to the providence of God so wee take heed lest thence God be determin'd The Author of Sin which I evidently enough testified in a Dispute once and again under me at Leyden concerning the righteousness and efficacious Providence of God in evill in which I endeavoured to ascribe unto Providence all those acts concerning sin attributed to God in Scripture making such progress herein that occasion was taken by some of impeaching me with making GOD the Author of Sin which was often produced against me at Amsterdam according to their suggestion from those Theses but how justly it is sufficiently manifest from my answer to the one and thirty Articles mentioned above falsly imposed upon me this being one of them Touching mans will I am of that opinion that he was in dowed with knowledg holiness and other ablities by his Creation whereby he was able to understand estimate consider will and performe true good even as far as the commandment obliged him yet not this without the auxiliaries of Divine grace In the state of Apostacy and sin he is disabled of himselfe and by himself to think will or do any thing truly good and stands in need of the renovating and regenerating power of God in Christ by his Spirit in his intellect affections will and all other faculties to impower him hereunto but participating hereof as freed from sin he is able to think will and do good yet still as under the Supplies of the grace of God Concerning the grace of God I believe it to be that gratuitous and undeserved assio● whereby God is well affected towards a miserable sinner by which first he gave his Son that whosoever believe's in him might have eternall life and then in and for Christ justifies him and adopts him into the right of his sons unto Salvation 2. It is the infusion of Spiritual gifts into the understanding will and affections of man appertaining to his regeneration and renovation viz. Faith hope Charity c. without which gratious donatives man is not meet to think will or do any thing that good is 3. Grace is that continued assistance that non-intermissive helpe of the Holy Ghost by which the Spirit doth instantly perswade excite man before Regenerate unto goodnesse infusing Salutiferous cogitations

judge next to the Vindication of Truth and himself to set thy judgment right in the great points of Predestination and Providence and to show the happy compliance 'twixt the free and unmerited grace of God and Mans Will not sacrilegiously addmitting the latter as a copartner with the former in the work of conversion but with much respect subordi●ating the one to the other reserving unto each their peculiar vertues and operations making the new creation so to animate the old as to restore weakned powers and debilitated faculties to much of their antient strength vigor and fit them for action Surely had I thought the Doctor had been an enemie to grace as too many of the great Clerks of the world are I should have wished his Judgment had for ever slept in darkness and never been awaked by me or any other to see the English light But by that lively portraiture which he hath drawn of himself I am apt to think his mind was well beautified with many fair Ideas of Truth and his understanding enlightened with a raie from that divine sight which sighteth every one that cometh John 1. 9. into the world I cannot attribute the growth and encrease of the Sup●alapsarian Sublapsarian doctrine in some of the reformd Churches to any thing so much as the untutord zeal of some men otherwise eminent in their generation in the beginning of reformation who having fallen out with the church of Rome and that upon the account of their strange innovations and ungodly errours their Mass Sacraments works merit indulgencies pardons c. they tore away indeed much of this Superstition and testified to the world their dislike of all such erroneous Tenents cursed practises But when like wise Chirurgians they should have known when the cure had been nigh finished they still continued launcing the sore deeper and deeper till they had let out some of the very vitals of Religion and maimd the doctrine of Christianity in some of the principal members thereof What was Orthodox at Rome must needs be Heterodox at Geneva for fear as I imagine least the Orifice should close and the Body Ecclesiastick return to its former temper * A good end is not to be attained by sinister indirect means How doth Calvin beat his head thorough the whole body of his Institutions the more to alienate as I conceive the minds of men from the Romish Religion to draw up the Protestant Principles in the greatest contrariety imaginable to those of Rome fearing least he should never get far enough both in doctrine and discipline from them Think not Christian Reader that I favour the Romish Church herein or intend to throw dirt in the face of the Reform'd this were to slander my mother and reproach the womb that bare me I only labour thy satisfaction and by a modest disquisition to light thee in to the rise and grounds of this controversie Neither am I ingaged in my judgment against all or half of the Protestant Churches the major part are of the same mind in the doctrine of Predestination as the author will satisfie thee in the ensueing discourse I know no rigid Predestinarians but those o● Sabauda and Geneva the Presbiterate Scots who according to their an●ient-league and freindship to comply with the French have fetch 't much of their Religion thence and those at home upon whose Spirits the doctrine of the Kirk hath been too much ascendant Yet what great respect I have born to the opinion of my reverend and learned brethren dissenting herein even to the shaking of my own faith being more ready to accuse my self of pride ignorance and singularity the usual parents of errour then them of unsoundness I have abundantly testified privately and publickly and herein Mr. Richard Copeman a worthy 〈◊〉 Gentleman and a Justice of Peace for the County of Norffolk many others though of a different opinion will be my witness The more I came to search into the nature and being of that great Jehovah reveald in the word of life the more I found it unworthy of the entertainment of a Christians heart that no way could be found out by infinite wisdome to glorifie the divine Attributes but by the precise ordination of almost infinite numbers of his children to eternal and remediless torments without the least intuition or respect to their sin and disobedience I should forget that I were a creature which the egritudes and infirmities of soul and body do dayly admonish me of were I unwilling to acknowledg that great prerogative of heaven Gods Soveraignty over me yet should I be a parasite in religion in attributing any thing to divine power but what his Justice Wisdom and Goodness permits me Job 13. 7. 9. Will a man tell a lye for God I solemnly profess I know not with what hope of advantage I should propound Christ as an object of faith in a generall exhortation to the people if he dyed not for them certainly the secret will of God is the same with his reveald he is unskild in the art of dissimulation his words alwaies agree with his mind let God be true and every man a lyar I cannot be of the judgment of Piscator who Pisc resp ad vors Part 1. pag. 120. saith reprobate persons are absolutely ordained to this twofold evil to undergo everlasting punishment and necessarily sin and therefore to sin that they might be justly punished Zanch. lib. 5. de nat Dei cap. 2. de Predest and Zanchy tells us that reprobates are held so fast under Gods Almighty decree that they cannot but sin and perish It s reported See Gods love to Mankind of Tiberius upo● the fall of Elius Sejanus raised for the ruin of the house of Germanicus being resolved to leave no stemme to grow out af that unhappy root purposd to put the young and tender daughter of Sejanus to death the Roman laws forbiding to strangle a Virgin Peter Bertius Ep. he caus'd her to be defloured by the executioner at the foot of the Gemonian staires and then strangled Pardon O good God the teachers of thy Church who have published thy unalterable resolves in thy eternal decree of putting to everlasting death infinite numbers of virgin and undefloured souls the righteous laws of heaven not permitting it thy determinations likewise that sin and Satan should first vitiate and constuprate them If this were once generally received that men sin necessarily and unavoidably and all that they do in pursueance of the divine decree what would this introduce but Stoicism and Manichisme would it not be an inlet to all loosnesse and licentiousnesse an inundation to all barbarism and wickednesse and in fine this undergovernment of the world suffer a dissolution But O my deare Brother labour to eschew evill and do good and be confident his grace will be sufficient for thee Say not in thy heart I am shut out from the love of God I am as a