Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	scripture_n	spirit_n	try_v	2,382	5	8.8588	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29090	The doctrine of free-grace, no doctrine of licenciousnesse, or, That Gods free unconditionall pardoning of sinne is the best way to mortifie the power of sinne in believers asserted and cleared by Edward Bagshawe ...	Bagshaw, Edward, 1629-1671.	1662 (1662)	Wing B410; ESTC R5497	30,451	48

THE DOCTRINE OF FREE-GRACE NO DOCTRINE OF LICENCIOUSNESSE OR That Gods Free Unconditionall pardoning of Sinne is the best way to Mortifie the Power of Sinne in Believers Asserted and Cleared By Edward Bagshawe Student of Ch. Ch. LONDON Printed by Abraham Miller for the Author and are to be sold by the Booksellers in Pauls Church-yard 1662. THE PREFACE AMong those many False and Dangerous Opinions which in this Age are let loose upon us there is none that is either more Destructive of the True Nature of Christian Religion or more likely to be imbraced by some seemingly zealous and devout men than the Doctrine of Free-will whereby the Grace of God is rendred either altogether Needlesse or at best only a Coadjutor and partial Assistant to Mens Salvation Were not men Naturally willing to follow that which serves to puff them up and begets an opinion in them that they are like Gods I should wonder how the Opinion of Free-will could ever finde any Learned Assertour since the Reasons against it ever upon a Philosophical account are such as no Wit of man is able to answer For the subordination of Causes and the Necessity that every Effect should have a Cause which did produce it is so strong an Argument that the Will of man is subject to the enforcing influence of the Causes which move and determine it that the most Learned of the Heathen did upon this score altogether reject Free-will and yet this supposed Fatality in every Action did not at all lessen or abate their strict adherence to and prosecution of Virtue None having been more famous in this kinde than the Stoicks which were the Known Assertors and Maintainers of Necessity But without entring into any such kind of Dispute the Apostle having already forbidden us to medale with things which we have not seen and it being according to him plain folly to affirm too positively about things we know not I shall not scruple to admit that as to things of meerly Civil Con●●●ment God hath endued the will of every man with a Liberty 〈…〉 justify himself and that we are not so tied up by the Concurrence of Causes but that a man hath power over his own Will to embrace or to refuse any thing tendred to him with or without Reason as he himself pleases While I say I am content to admit this my meaning is not that I understand how this can be done for I must professe it is to me altogether unintelligible yet because it contradicts no Article of Faith and likewise serves best to demonstrate the Equity of Humane Laws which are all founded upon that supposition I think it altogether a Needlesse thing to dispute about Free-will in Moral Actions and a very Absurd thing to deny it Since in matters which are capable of Contrary Reasonings to follow the Vncontradicted and Vniversal Assent of Mankind is much more Safe and Prudent than to tread in New paths there being but little difference as to the Effect between an Apparant Error and a Suspected because Vnnecessary Truth But how desirous soever I am to comply with the Common Prolepsis and Inbred Notion of Free-will as to Humane Actions yet as to the things of God I must altogether deny it For it is so clear That the Things of God none can understand and consequently not Practice but the Spirit of God and those to whom that Spirit makes them both Plain and Easie that the Apostle urgeth that Sentence not as a Truth then newly discovered to him but as a Principle founded in Nature and apparent by its own Equity and Reasonablinesse And what the Scripture every where mentions concerning the Actings of the Spirit upon Believers the Experience of all Believers that ever were in the World is able to evidence since such must needs confesse that there cannot be a more dangerous Enemy to the Truths of God then the Understanding nor more Rebellious to the Precepts of God than the Will of Man untill the Spirit of God hath enlightned the one and by his own Immediate Worke mightily overpowred the other For the proof of this I might content my self with what I find conteined in the bare letter of Scripture to which if we are what we professe we ought to captivate our own Reasonings but since many men and those not of least Note even in our own Church plead for that Idol Free-will from the many Absurdities which would follow should it not be granted I shall undertake to demonstrate that much more pernicious Consequences will follow should it once be admitted For First It totally destroyes all belief of Gods Power and Providence in his ordering and guidance of Actions according to his own Will For who is there that understands any thing of Gods Sovereignty but must needs acknowledge that he foresaw and predetermined every thing long before it was actually in being but were there such an Independent and Absolute Free-will in Man as some contend for how the motions of his Will could be fore-seen is altogether Inconceivable Socinus therefore who saw how much this Argument did presse him did make no scruple to deny Gods Prescience thereby doing that very thing which Austine complained of in Tully Dum fecit liberos fecit etiam Sacrilegos While he made Men Free he did most sacrilegiously rob God of his chief Prerogative and that is his Omniscience The Arminians therefore who grant both Prescience in God and Free-will in Man do admit both parts of the Contradiction to be True and so not onely thwart the expresse Revelation of Scripture which every where inculcates Gods Absolute and Irrespective Election but likewise speak that which in Reason to which they pretend so much neither themselves nor any one else can possibly understand Secondly The Opinion of Free-will utterly cuts off all manner of Prayer For whereas the greatest Argument of Prayer ought either to be for Pardoning or Preventing Grace with what face can he aske for Pardon who by owning himself to have a sufficient Power to do Gods Will doth thereby acknowledge all his sins not to proceed from Surprize Inadvertency or Weaknesse but to be sins of his Will and therein himself to be a Wilfull and a Malicious Transgressour The Saints of old did use to plead for themselves their Rashness and Haste as David their Ignorance and Unbelief as Paul their Incogitancy and Unmindfulness as John but he that holds Free-will makes all those Apologies to be vain and uselesse since every offence in such an one must needs arise from his own Resolved and Designed Pravity and sins of Infirmity in others in him are sins of strength because he might have avoided them and would not which discovers so grosse an Enmity and Opposition against God that all the while that sentence remains upon Record If we sinne wilfully after we have received the knowledg of the Truth there remains no more Sacrifice for sinne it will be impossible for such an one to look up with Faith and

thou O man who disputest against God by which way of Procedure he sufficiently shews that in the opening of Divine Misteries nothing is more hard than to stop a Disputers mouth And the Reasons are Reason 1 First Because Men doe usually sound the Depths of God by a very False and Imperfect Line and that is by Naturall Reason There is indeed a Reason given to man which is capaable of the Highest Misteries this in Philosophy is called Right in Scripture Enlightned Reason i. e. such a Reason as stoops and submits to Faith and dares believe God in spight of all contrary suggestions But all the while our Reason is in its Native and Unreclaimed estate like a Bullock unaccustomed to the Yoke it kicks at every thing which it cannot comprehend Thus even the most Holy men while they did quit their safe Rule which is Gods own manifestation of his Wayes in Scripture and ventured in their own Reasons to argue about Divine Providence Psal 73. Jer. 12. Hab. 1. the Prosperity of the Wicked was so Obvious and withall so Great an Objection that they were unable to resolve it as appears by the Complaints and Inquietudes of David Jeremy Habakuk and others upon this Subject That alone which silenced Job in the midst of his bold Expostulations did likewise satisfie them and that was a distinct and clear Discovery of Gods uncontrolable Soveraignty and Dominion over all his Creatures which ought to be admired at a distance by us and not too curiously pried into least so Wonderfull and Amazing an Object doe strike us Blind Those Tenets wherein Gods Honour is mainly concerned such are His managing of all Events Act. 1.16 3.28 even the Sinnes of Man as the Scripture tells us he did pre-ordain the Treachery of Judas without any Imputation to his Holiness His disposing of all Persons absolutely to their respective Ends and without any Imputation to his Justice Such things as these the Apostle hath taught us to call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Untraceable Paths Rom 11.33 in which onely an Humbled Soul can walk Here if we will goe we must goe groveling with our Faces in the Dust least if like Moses we draw neer to pry with too much curiosity his Dread doe fall upon us and his Terrors make us afraid Till Humane Wisdome be throughly abased and all the Pride of Earthly Knowledge be purged out the more we strive to understand the things of God the more we are entangled till at last we come not onely to Reject but likewise to Revile them Reason 2 The second Reason is Because men are not onely Shallow in their Apprehensions but Rash and Hasty in their Conclusions We are Naturally of Proud Impatient Spirits and apt to range abroad in quest not of Truth but as those at Athens of something that is New Act. 17. without pursuing those firm grounds whereupon to bottom and to fix a Perswasion It is therefore the most common cause of all Practicall Errors in the World that Men doe usually fasten upon that part of a Tenet which favours them in their Lusts without taking notice of the whole Compass and Latitude of it Thus when a Sinner hears that God is Mercifull he presently cries out This is good News for me for I am already and resolve still to be a Sinner never considering that Mercy leads to Repentance and it can no farther be pleaded or pretended to by any then as it doth influence us to return from Sinne to God So perhaps some may argue If I am predestined to be saved I shall be saved and what need I then trouble my self with Holiness Whereas the End is never designed by God but with Respect of and Subordination to the Means And all the severall Stages in our Journey to Heaven are appointed in the same Eternall Register wherein the place it self is designed for us In short as in a Chain when men catch hastily at the Link that is next them without taking notice of the connexion and series whereby many are joyned together the whole chain is apt thereby to be disordered and discomposed so is it in Divine Truths if we look not at the whole contexture of them and that admirable dependance which each part hath upon the other we are apt to be led away by our own Prejudices and to draw Absurd and Monstrous Consequences which had we leasure to take a View of the Whole Body of Sacred Truth we should not have adventured to doe Herein mainly consists the Difference between Truth and Error Error is then strongest when it is considered Single but the strength of Truth lies in its standing linked and confederated unto other Doctrines Therefore to single out any one Opinion how true soever and handle it apart is like the cutting of Sampsons Hair it makes it less strong and more liable to mis-construction It robs it not onely of its Strength but likewise of its Beauty Vse The Use hence is to Advise all not to judge of any Opinion or Party of Men by those Prejudices wherewith they are loaded or by those Ill-favoured Consequences which may be wrested from their Doctrine but let us labour to discern every thing as it shines in its own Light by the clearness of Scripture-discovery All Truth especially Divine must be tried by its Evidence and not by its Consequences When we have tired out our selves and others with needless Objections one Scriptum est wherewith our Saviour answered the Devill with stand like a Rock and abide all those Waves of Opposition which don't so much Batter Scripture as Dash and Break themselves upon it And if ever this Advice were necessary certainly this Age wherein we live doth most of all require it in which whatever may lessen and undervalue Scripture is let in and broken loose upon us For what by Humane Additions on the one side and by Pretences to more Immediate Revelations on the other the Scripture which is the undoubted Word of God is robbed of its Sufficiency and Perfection and harder Conditions are required of us for the attaining of Eternall Life than those which our Saviour hath enjoyned us viz. To Believe and to Obey him alone Let us therefore bring both our own and all other mens Opinions unto this Touchstone and when we have found a Sic dixit Deus the Mouth of the Lord hath spoken it for any thing in controversie let us stick to that Declaration without ever troubling our selves with Consequences which are but so much Dust thrown in our Eyes to keep us from discerning our Duty Should we ever quit this hold I can see nothing before me but Sea and Aire i. e. a Wide and Endless Labyrinth of Inextricable Error But while we stick fast to this Rule we may indeed erre in the Comment but we are sure the Text is Infallible And the more Submiss and Silent our Reason is in things which may at first blush appear Strange and Contradictory the