Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	death_n	earth_n	life_n	8,796	5	4.3718	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54833	A correct copy of some notes concerning Gods decrees especially of reprobation / written for the private use of a friend in Northamptonshire ; and now published to prevent calumny.	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1655 (1655)	Wing P2170; ESTC R26882	69,017	81

God Almighty So far is God from prostituting his Blessing by such a controlling of the will and such an ob●…ruding of the object as makes the object unavoidable that he doth not only offer and propose it to his peoples choice but desires them also to choose it I call heaven and earth to record this day against you saith God by Moses that I have set before you Life and Death blessing and cursing Therefore choose life that thou and thy seed may live But choose we cannot if God works in us irresistibly as I will farther prove by Reason * That is properly called irresistible which is of such an over-ruling and prevailing force that a man cannot withstand it although he would And thus Dr. Twisse hath well defin'd it Upon which it followes that to choose irresistibly is a contradiction in Adjecto For it is to will a thing whether one will or no He that saith God worketh in us to choose irresistibly doth say in effect He so worketh in us as that we cannot choose but choose Which is as much as to say not only that we do what we cannot do but that we therefore do it because we cannot do it He that cannot choose but choose doth choose because he cannot choose Which is as bad as to say that the thing is necessary because it is impossible To make this plain to my plainest Reader I will shew the legality of my deduction by these degrees First he that is wrought upon by God to believe obey or persevere irresistibly cannot possibly do otherwise then beleeve obey or persevere Secondly he that cannot possibly do otherwise then he doth cannot possibly choose but do what he doth Thirdly he that cannot choose but do what he doth doth clearly do it whether he will or no Fourthly he that doth beleeve obey or persevere whether he will or no doth do it by as evident undeniable Necessity as that by which a stone tends downward Which tendency of the stone though it is spontaneous yet is it not voluntary and as it is not by violence so it is not by choice neither Fifthly he that willeth to beleeve obey or persevere whether he will or no doth do it by a Necessity by which a stone tends upwards when it is thrown Which tendency of the stone is so far from voluntary that it is not spontaneous It is not only an irrational but an unnatural thing and besides implies a contradiction in a voluntary Agent which cannot take place in an involuntary stone For to say a man willeth to obey or beleeve whether he will or no is to say he willeth it either without his will or against his will or else not having a will at all Which is as bad as to say that he must needs will it because he cannot any way possible I know not any trick imaginable to escape the odium of these Absurdities unlesse by denying the definition of irresistible Which were not to escape but to commute absurdities And not only the authority of Dr. Twisse but the very force of the word would cry it down And so little is my deduction in a capacity to be blamed that Doctor Twisse saith expresly of irresistibility it hath no place in the act of willing And though he pleadeth for a Necessity which he will have to follow Gods operation upon the Soul yet he will have that Necessity to be no other then what may very well agree with the liberty of the will So that if that Doctor in that his skirmish with Arminius had not confounded a necessity with a certainty of event and used that word in stead of this his Antagonist and He in that particular must needs have wrangled into Friendship For Arminius denieth the irresistible working of Grace upon the Will and so doth Dr. Twisse Again Dr. Twisse affirmeth that the liberty of the will doth agree with the working of Grace upon the Will and so doth Arminius And therefore I hope for no hard usage from such as are haters of Arminius whilest I say the same things with them that hate him 47. Me thinks the principal Ground of my mistakes heretofore in this businesse if I may be allowed to passe a conjecture upon my self is the misapprehension of certain Texts the cause of whose misapprehension is the illogical confounding of two things which though they look like one another are yet exceedingly different E. G. from Ezek. 26. 27. Cant. 1. 14. 1 Ioh. 3. 9. I will cause you to walk in my Statutes c. Draw me we will run after thee Whosoever is born of God cannot sin because he is born of God and the like many conclude that Gods working upon the wils of his Elect is by such a physical immediate immutation of their wils as doth not only produce a certain but a necessary effect And being forgetful rather then ignorant to distinguish necessity from certainty of events they call that necessary which is but certain and infallible and so through hast or inadvertency they swallow down the Error of irresistible Grace using the word irresistible in stead of efficacious And this is a second inadvertency begotten of the first as commonly one error loves to draw on another Now because a fallacy undiscerned in the praemises cannot possibly be discover'd by gazing only on the Conclusion just as an error in the first Concoction is hardly mended in the second I must mark out the difference betwixt infallible and necessary before I can usefully distinguish betwixt effectual and irresistible 48. Infallible properly is that that cannot erre or be deceived That is properly Necessary which cannot but be The first relates to the perfection of the Knowledge of God but the second to the Almightinesse of his will The first is properly applyed unto the object of God's foresight and though 't is otherwise used yet 't is by such a Catechresis as I humbly conceive to be a stone of stumbling But the second more precisely unto the object of his Decree The first is consistent with those contingent events to which the second is Diametrically opposed E. G. That I am now writing is but contingent because I do it upon choice Yet Gods foreknowledge of this my writing from all Eternity did infer that this my writing would infallibly come to passe This event is contingent for I can choose but yet infallible for God cannot erre This contingent therefore doth infallibly come to passe not by way of a consequent but by way of consequence My writing being not the effect but the object only of God's Omniscience Which is in order before the Act. God foresees a contingent will contingently come to passe and therefore we infer it will infallibly come to passe because he foresees it who is infallible So that his praescience is a consequent of the thing 's coming to passe and its infallibility of coming to passe is inferr'd from his praescience only by way of

suspected of any secret Reservation within my self in the laying down of this Principle I will endevour to speak out and make my Reader my Confessor by revealing the very utmost of what I think in this businesse I beleeve that no man can come to Heaven any otherwise then by Christ nor to Christ unlesse it be given that is unlesse the Father draw him First the Father loves the Son next he loves us in the Son then endowes us with his Spirit so endow'd he elects us so elected he praedestines us so praedestin'd he will glorifie us by crowning his Gifts and Graces in us I say his Graces because they are not acquired by us but infus'd by him Nor so properly given as lent us Lent us as Talents not to hide but multiply We owe it wholly to God not that he gives us his his Grace only but that he gives us the grace to desire his Grace as well as to use it to the advancement of his Glory And we are to thank him as for all other mercies so for this also even that we have the Grace to thank him So far am I from that Pelagianism whereof I have wrongfully been accused I beseech God not to lay it to my Accusers charge that I have never lain under any the least Temptation to any degree of that Heresie No no more then Fulgentius or Prosper or S. Austin himself It not only is but ever hath been my assertion That as we cannot spiritually be nourished unlesse the Father of Mercies doth reach out unto us the Bread of Heaven and as we cannot take it when it is offered unlesse he give us the hand of Faith so cannot we possibly desire to take it unlesse he gives us our very appetite and hunger We cannot pant after the waters of life unlesse he give us our very thirst He stirs us up when we are sleeping that we may seek him and shews himself when we are seeking that we may finde him and gives us strength when we have found him that we may hold him fast unto the end There is no good thought arising in us unlesse suggested by his preventing Grace No nor increasing unlesse strengthned by his subsequent Grace No nor consummate unlesse perfected by his Grace of perseverance If I am better then any man it is God that makes me differ Every good gift is from above and cometh down from the father of lights And therefore he that will glory let him glory in the Lord saying with the Psalmist not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy name give the praise 44. Having thus secur'd my self from giving the Will of Man a sacrilegious Liberty I must withall provide that I be able to answer the Objection of the Marcionites which Tertullian could not do but by asserting the liberty of the Will Which Grace doth correct but not destroy Grace doth strengthen but not compell Grace doth guide but not necessitate Grace makes able to choose good but not unable to refuse it Marcion objected thus If God is good and praescient of all the Evil which is to come and withal able to prevent it why did he suffer mankinde to fall why did he not hold him fast by irresistible Grace Tertullian answered That God made man in his own Image and that in nothing more lively then in the liberty of a Will And to that it is to which his fall must be imputed But saith Marcion Man ought to have been made of such a frame as not to be able to fall away Marry then saith Tertullian Man had not been a voluntary but a necessary Agent which is as much as to say a Man should not have been a Man Nor could have been a right object of Reward and Punishment 45. Before I venture on any rational or Scholastical way of arguing I must first enlighten my self out of some clear places of Scripture Amongst which there is none that seems more proper then that of S. Paul to the Philippians Workout your salvation with fear and trembling For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure He bids them work because God worketh which they needed not have been bid to do if God had workt after a physical irresistible manner That they might not be betray'd into a yawning reliance upon their being superacted to the working out of their salvation he bids them work it out with fear and trembling as our Saviour bids us Strive to enter in at the strait Gate because many shall strive and shall not enter which they needed not have done had their salvation been not only certain but withall a necessary unavoidable thing and so inconsistent with choice and option But the Apostle tels them in the next verse that it is God which worketh in them not only to do but to will and to do by his preventing Grace he worketh in them to will by assisting Grace he worketh in them to do by neither so irresistibly but that they must work it out themselves too and that not only with expectation and hope but with fear and trembling God worketh in us to will saith the Apostle not without or against but according to the nature of that very will with which he made us Grace doth not destroy but establish and strengthen and perfect Nature Shall we say that we do a thing without liberty and choice because God worketh in us to will and to do that is to do it by choice and option is the liberty lost because it is guided and enabled to do that which is good If I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me then can I through him both refuse the evil and choose the Good Which would not be choice if it were whether I would or no And so it would be were I unable to resist it as I shall shew by and by in the open confession of D●… Twisse whose Favourers cannot be angry with one that speaks his language I can do all things through him that strengthens me saith the Apostle now to strengthen is not to necessitate For then to strengthen would be to weaken Because to necessitate or compel with an irresistibility is to vanquish and over-master not to give strength but rather to take it away Again our Saviour is said to tread down Satan under our feet To what end doth he tread the Serpent down but that we may have the freedome to trample on him and though he doth it with his own feet yet it is under ours This liberty and freedome of the regenerate will is at once expressed and expounded in those words of the Psalmist I will run the way of thy Commandements when thou shalt set my heart at liberty To which is agreeable that of our Saviour and the truth shall make you free It being a great absurdity in the opinion of Tertullian that a man should have his happinesse forced on him by