Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	according_a	believe_v	scripture_n	1,612	5	5.8214	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43111	Absolute election of persons, not upon foreseen conditions, stated and maintained in some sermons preach'd at Hartford : with some animadversions on some Pelagian passages in a book entituled, Vulgar errors in divinity removed, written by Mr. Ralph Battell ... / by Will. Haworth ...	Haworth, William.	1694 (1694)	Wing H1193; ESTC R15048	42,137	40

their own Hands God works in Conversion because the Will works saith Bellarmine but we answer by querying Whether we should judg of the Church's Doctrine by her Collect and Catechism or by her Articles of Religion surely by the latter Again Are we to pray for Turks Jews and Infidels Conversion without this addition if it be the Will of God to convert them I think not This Term all Mankind so general no more is signified thereby than Christ died for Mankind in Opposition to Angels kind and we say the same The ground for praying for Turks Jews and Infidels ariseth from the Scripture prophesying of the Jews Conversion and bringing in of the Fulness of the Gentiles which is plainly notified in the 11th of the Romans But that Christ died for all and every one with his own and Father's Intent to save them we deny and offer those Arguments drawn up lately by that Learned and Reverend Brother Mr. Isaac Chauncey in his late Book entituled The Doctrine which is according to Godliness there cannot be better Arguments produced The Preface swells else I would have transcribed them all take but one sutable to the following Subject and I will bid the Reader farewel It is not fit Christ should die for all seeing his Father elected not all and gave not all to him For Christ to redeem more were to disobey his Father's Will and not to do it If any say God elected all it is most absurd to talk of chusing some from among many others when a Man takes the whole Number this is no Election Or if any say Election is conditional provided if a Man will this also is no Election for if Election be upon the Condition of Man's Free-will neither one nor another is chosen but all have equal pervious Designation to the end and so there is no Election at all Farewel EPHES. 1.5 Having predestinated us to the Adoption c. THis Text speaks this Truth viz. That particular Persons are decreed unto Eternal Life and the Means thereof are decreed in their effectual working Some singular Persons are the immediate Objects of Election the word us denotes it it speaks Persons still All the Adversaries grant Persons are elected but here is the difference some think that Persons are in God's Eye first and his Love was first cast upon them as soon as he thought of glorifying himself out of himself among the Sons of Men and whatever Means some calls them Conditions by which they may come to this Salvation they are chosen to they shall have Strength from God to perform The other think that Persons are elected but out of fore-sight that they do fulfil such Conditions and those Conditions are first of all ordained and Persons so far as they come under them Some of them say that the Object of Election is Man dying past the use of Reason who in all probability will not return and live to enjoy the Means wherein they may use the Power of their Will to take or leave Some will say a Man is not elected while he is a Man of this World Therefore this Order they that are of this Opinion make of God's Decrees 1. God decrees to send his Son into the World that he dying his Justice might be satisfied he might be free upon what Terms he would save Men. The second Decree that Men shall have no other Terms for Salvation but Perseverance in believing on him who hath died for them Third Decree to give fit Means to make them believe 4. God picks out particular Persons as his chosen ones as they fulfil the Conditions at the Point of Death Or thus God considered all the ways possible that may bring to Salvation and of all pitch'd upon the way of Faith this they call Predestination unto Life 2. Then there is a particular Decree of this Man or the other to Life according as he hath fulfilled that Condition By what hath been said you may see the difference This is not God's Election to say if Men believe and persevere in believing then they shall be elected and saved then I will pitch upon you rather than others to Life but this is God's Election I do take thee and therefore will enable thee and not others to do all the things I require of thee I will call thee and I will not depart from thee till thou art partaker of Eternal Life the Question then is great about the Cause of God's Election what makes a compleat Act of God's electing God chuses particular singular Persons John Peter Paul these are those God immediately pitcheth upon not Conditions first and then Persons as they fall under these but Persons first and appoints them to all the Means I prove this 1. By Scripture 2. By Reason 3. I will show the danger of the other Opinion The Scripture saith that the very Hairs of our Head are numbred Mat. 10.30 Acts 27.34 not one falls without your Heavenly Father 2 Sam. 14.11 Much more surely hath God a Care of all the Heirs of Salvation of all that shall be made partakers of that Inheritance in Glory things that are numbred are that they may not perish If superfluous things are taken care of by the Providence of God and it reaches to minute things as Hairs of the Head doth it not extend think you to the Persons of them that are saved The Proofs of Scripture for this are three 1. That the Scripture is silent about any such way as the Adversaries speak of now the Scripture is the Light that is given to know the Mind of God by in this matter The Silence of the Scripture in this thing speaks aloud what it saith nothing of is not to be believed For in this lieth the very Nature and Essence of a Rule that what is not according to it is not right nor authentick not to be supposed in the Scripture are all the Truths that are to be received and view it throughout and there is not a word of this viz. That there are Conditions made of Election if we believe and repent and persevere indeed of Salvation there are Conditions the Scripture speaks of taking Conditions in a general sense as they signify Means to a thing or a Connexion betwixt one thing and another but Salvation is much differing from Election as much as the Effect from the Cause and the End from the Means we are saved by Grace therefore in the use of Means but Election gives that Grace Some Scriptures seem to be for them but of them I shall speak afterwards 2. The Scripture speaks of particular Persons singular Persons elected where-ever it speaks of Election or Predestination in this of the first of the Ephesians predestinated us i.e. the Ephesians in distinction from others In the second Chapter he saith they were Children of Wrath by Nature as others till God made known his Purpose to them by calling of them It must have been instead of this word us all Men predestinated all Men

ruin the Innocent whenas we heartily declare that God never determined to ruin any but for Sin and never did execute his Will and Determination and so actually ruin any but for Sin contumaciously continued in to the end And is this to ruin the Innocent When the Decree was made Man was neither nocent nor innocent for the Creature had no Existence before the Creation nothing had a Being but the Decree and so that of Reprobation had a Being before the World was The Nature of God he saith cannot come so nigh the Nature of the Devil as to be a Murderer from the beginning intimating that by our Doctrine we make God to be like Satan a Murderer from the beginning But I doubt not but this Author will by this Crimination make himself like Satan a Liar and false Accuser of the Brethren Ad triarios ventum est Cannot we defend our selves Satan was the moral Cause of Eve's sinning and so of Destruction Did we ever say that God was the moral Cause of Eve's sinning I trow not And then how can he be said to be the Murderer He that is not Causa Causae how can he be said to be Causa causati Is the Judg that passes Sentence upon a Criminal a Murderer or the Sheriff that executes the Sentence We profess constantly steadily that God never did sentence any to Death but for final Sin we are speaking of the Adult neither did he decree any to Hell but for final Impenitency in Sin much less doth he execute any inflict Death eternal upon them but for persevering obstinately in Sin to the end of their days without Repentance And to say that the Judg of the Earth in executing Judgment upon Sinners is to make him like the Devil is Monstrum horrendum c. This is all that can be laid to our Charge that God denies Faith and Repentance to some which he gives to others and hath decreed so of his meer Will and Pleasure according to that in the 9th of the Romans He will have Mercy on whom he will have Mercy and whom he will he hardens not by infusing any Hardness into any but by not infusing Grace Is this to make God like Satan a Murderer Is Satan Sovereign Lord Hath he Power over the Creature as the Potter over the Clay But this Man doth apprehend God to be like Satan a Murderer because he wills to punish some for their Sin persisted in and because he will not give Faith and Repentance to all Who can think but he is for universal Salvation The Adversaries do much insist upon this Theam crying out that we render God cruel in this Point of absolute Reprobation One of them hath this strain 'T is contrary to sound Reason which cannot but argue such a Decree of extreme Cruelty c. But doth not sound Reason also argue the Prescience of God of as extreme Cruelty as this Doctrine of Reprobation and they cannot without offering Violence to the Light of Nature deny the Fore-knowledg of God and whatever Absurdity they would fasten upon us from our Tenet of absolute Reprobation shall necessarily divolve upon themselves in every respect if they preserve but the undeniable Doctrine of God's Prescience Another vulgar Error is concerning Free-will in Mr. Battell's Book why he should call the Calvinistical Tenets vulgar Errors is uncouth whenas the Pelagian Heresy sutes the Reason and Affections of all natural Men and is very plausible to the common People There is Popery and Pelagianism in every ones Belly by Nature whole Towns and Countries espouse this Harlot and wonder after her but strait is the Gate and narrow is the Way of Truth and few find it I have read over the Treatise of Free-will and find nothing but what is in Cardinal Bellarmine the Jesuit The Author describes Free-will in the same Terms with the Jesuit but how well does he agree with his Mother the Church of England hath he not undoubtedly spit in her Face while he contentedly sits in her Lap and sucks her Breasts Did he ever subscribe or swear to the tenth Article of Free-will is it not diametrically opposite to his Book Let the Reader judg The Condition of Man after the Fall is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself mark that by his own natural Strength and good Works to Faith and calling upon God wherefore we have no Power to do good Works pleasant and acceptable to God without the Grace of God by Christ preventing us Mark that that we may have a good Will But the Import of all this Treatise is viz. That there is a Free-will-in-fallen Man to spiritual and supernatural Acts tho indeed he calls it a remote Free-will to supernatural Acts that this Will of Man is not subject to the special Motion of God in the Act of Conversion so that the Grace of God is irresistably powerful P. 73. This as the Opinion of our Divines he disputes against that this Will is ready tho with some Remoteness to act with God's Grace and is as bent to chuse Good as to refuse and chuse Evil is not dead but sick and lame and this Power waits for God's Power that they may act evenly and jointly in the working out of Salvation pag. 81. And that Man's Will together with the Grace of God casts the Scale in Conversion not to wrong him he saith Grace hath the chiefest Stroke in it pag. 91. But which of them moveth first he saith not and surely the first Mover hath the greatest Stroke Now Bradwerdine asserts God to be the first Mover in all Actions and it 's most consonant to right Reason and if in all then surely in good Actions He hath it 's true mentioned preventing Grace In pag. 77. he is there setting forth the difference betwixt one dead naturally and one spiritually dead and the first difference is this viz. The one is capable of preventing Grace and the other is not but is not he that is naturally dead as capable of the miraculous preventing Power of God in raising him up from that kind of Death to Life as he that is spiritually dead is capable of Grace preventing to convert him And must not this Grace as really go before Conversion in Order of Nature at least as the other miraculous Power precedes the Resurrection or quickening of him that is naturally dead He saith one may be raised by Means the other only by Miracles we query what those Means are External only or Internal i. e. infusing of spiritual Life as a Principle and is not this a Miracle Job 5.25 compared with 28. there you plainly perceive there is as much Power exerted in raising the spiritually as the naturally dead but the Author supposeth external Means only according to that he writes p. 79. Efficacious Grace is nothing but Perswasion which doth not determine the Will This is noisom Pelagianism Our Opinion is plainly this and we have Boldness in the Truth viz. In our Conversion Free-will