Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	papist_n	protestant_n	3,430	5	8.0447	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42503	Sapientia justificata, or, A vindication of the fifth chapter to the Romans and therein of the glory of the divine attributes, and that in the question or case of original sin, against any way of erroneous understanding it, whether old or new : more especially, an answer to Dr. Jeremy Taylors Deus justificatus / by John Gaule ...	Gaule, John, 1604?-1687.	1657 (1657)	Wing G378; ESTC R5824	46,263	130

or effects And this I note that Christs excellency might appear much more in remedying the cause than in removing the effect only Verse 19. For as by one Mans disobedience many were made Sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous FOr as by one man's disobedience many were made Sinners here concludes the comparison betwixt Adam and Christ and he says well this is the sum of all for 't is the principal scope of the Holy Ghost to prefer Christ making righteous to Adam making sinners And therefore he saith yet better we are made much more righteous by Christ than we were sinners by Adam and yet best of all the graces we derive from Christ shall be more and mightier than the corruption and declination by Adom because the excess and excellency of Christ appeareth much more in taking away the Sin and corruption than in a delivering from the misery and mortality of Original Sin And therefore the Apostle in this case and comparison concludes it for his greatest glory in making Sinners righteous above that of making the miserable happy or bringing those that were subject to Death to reign in life saying thus as the sum of all as by one mans disobedience Adams prime and personal Act with all the affections and circumstances Many {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the many that is all for none that ordinarily proceeded out of his loyns are to be excepted were made Sinners from and in that very Act not only imputed and accounted but constituted and really so effected And so the very word is used both by St. Paul in this place and by St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. 8. and by St. Iames Iam. 4. 4. to signifie the very being of the thing and not the bare reckoning only And we may take his own construction of the word put into the order of sinners but then we understand it of the humane and natural order as by generation and propagation and the like but not of the divine and eternal order as made such by Gods appointment It stranges me still that he who even now was so vehemently invective against both Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians upon the account of the horrible and necessitating Decree in this case of Original Sin as reproving their supposition if it be by the Decree of God by his choice and constitution that it should be so c. and again if God may ordain men to Hell for Adams Sin which is derived to them by Gods only constitution c. And now for all that that himself is here saying many were constituted or put into the order of sinners they were made such by Gods appointment to speak altogether so like them Is this the way I pray you to vindicate the Divine Attributes against them nor will such an exception salve it at all to say not that God could be the Author of a Sin to any but that he appointed the evil which is the consequent of Sin to be upon their heads who descended from the Sinner For though Sin and the Sinner may be put for the punishment and the punished in some other places of Scripture yet can neither be so understood or accepted in this to the Romans because the Sin and the punishment both are here noted again and again in their proper plain and distinct expressions and comparisons Neither is there truth much lesse safety to the Divine Attributes to speak in such a sense as that God appointed by his Decree the evil of punishment and misery which is the consequent of Sin anothers and not their own to be upon their heads outwardly and temporally though the pravity was never in their hearts who descended from the Sinner and yet descended not Sinners themselves For thus though he labours not to speak out a man of any strict observation or narrow search must needs accept him and the rather because of former passages to this purpose not a few besides what necessity is there to wrap in here the divine constituting either for sin or suffering where the humane constituting is so evident so sufficient It is but asking by whom or by what were many made sinners and the answer is here already made to our hands by one Mans disobedience to bid us satisfie all our curiosity in that and to seek no further for a constituting cause nor indeed will the whole Analogie endure it For the total comparison is not betwixt God and Christ but betwixt Christ and Adam neither is all this excesse or excellence of State wherein Christ constituted us above that wherein Adam destituted us spoken with any respect to God but in a direct and compleat respect to Adam only So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous By the obedience both active and passive of one Lord Jesus Christ who alone is sufficient to satisfie for all sins original and actual shall many even all the Elect all that beleeve be made righteous made as himself says well and constituted righteous And we hope he means really righteous by the Spirits imparting as well as Christs imputing else where were all this contrariety of the Comparison For what excesse or excellency were it to make a thing really righteous if it was not really sinfull and corrupt before and righteous that is not only happy but holy withall And therefore the Sinners must needs be understood not only as miserable and afflicted but as declined and corrupted and so signifying we joyn with him as we have already approved him in what he says to the end of the Paraphrase Nevertheless we may not doe so as touching the Consequents or Antecedents thereof Therefore 1. As to the Antecedents HIs Position which he intimates in opposition to the Objection is That to deny original sin to be a sin properly and inherently is not expresly against the words of St. Paul in the 5 chapter to the Romans And for this he hath these sayings For as for reasons he hath more reason than to call them so 1. He supposes the words are capable of interpretation otherwise than is vulgarly pretended Now I suppose that the interpretation of the Primitive Churches Councils Fathers Papists Protestants Lutherans Calvinists and the most learned and moderate of them is of other account with him than either as vulgar or as pretended Yea a reason or the Maior of it is propounded by him For any interpretation that does violence to right reason to Religion to holinesse of life and the divine Attributes of God is therefore to be rejected and another chosen True but then it remains on his part to be proved That such an Interpretation as is contrary to his understandiug does so in all or in some one of them at least And withall that an Interpretation of his own understanding be not such in all or any one of them 2. Sin in the Scripture is taken for the punishment what then it is not so here nor in more than hundreds of

here so insensible we see it may easily come to passe through natural ignorance and ill habits without this diminishing glass of a Metonymical spectacle Conseq. there are some whole Churches which think themselves so little concerned in the matter of Original Sin that they have not a word of it in all their Theologue Inconseq That they have not a word of it their Theologue is defective to them that they think themselves not concerned in it they are defective to their Theologie I could tell him of some Churches that in their Theologie make no mention of the Decalogue do they therefore think themselves but little concerned in it again some Churches think themselves so much concerned in Original Sin that they beleeve Souls as well as Bodies to be propagated from Adam I spake this of the Ethiopians and the Russians no Church but is bound to have such a body of Divinity as may comprehend the whole principles of Faith and Religion yea and to unfold them and confess them so far as they are revealed in the word of God but what is it to object some obscure and confused Churches to the Catholique universal to the most orderly and eminent Churches of the World Conseq. The height of this imagination hath wrought so high in the Church of Rome that when they would doe great honour to the Virgin Mary they were pleased to allow unto her an immaculate conception without any Original Sin Inconseq So far as the Church of Rome seemed to joyn with the Primitive Churches in the point of Original Sin so far also have the Reformed Churches joyned with them as namely That Original Sin is That it is properly and inherently a Sin That it descendeth by natural propagation not by imitation That it hath in both a stain and guilt That it subjected to misery and death in all senses and significations That we are redeemed therefrom by the merits of Christ These are heights indeed but not heights of imagination but sound Doctrine And these she pretended to hold forth against all those who affirmed That Adam lost Original righteousnesse only for himself and not for us his posterity and that by Adams disobedience sin descended not upon Mankind but only a bodily death or punishment Indeed here she hath also some heights of imagination as That Original sin is not only remitted by Baptism but utterly abolished and quite taken away That the concupiscence remaining in the regenerate is no sin That Original Sin is only in the inferiour and not in the superiour faculties That the blessed Virgin was conceived and born free from Original Sin yea and many more heights of imagination they have much disputed on among their Scholasticks so that they owe their errors not to the simple profession of Original Sinne but to their subtle disputation about it As for their opinion of the blessed Virgins immaculate conception it arose from no other height but that o● their own superstition which is too notorious in all they can feign or imagin● for her say of her or doe to her But I pray God this low imagination o● slender and slight conceit of a Metonymical juridical external collateral nay equivocal abusive phantastical imputation serve not to be get a conceit or presumption of an immaculate conception in us all I have read of one that would needs deny the immortality of the Soul with intent to disprove the Popish purgatory but there are other ways to refute this Error of the immaculate conception than by abating the truth or utmost truth of Original Sin One thing more he saith I am to observe before I leave considering the word of the Apostle This one thing is not so much a consequent of what he would say for himself as an argument against all such as would argue against him The ground betwixt both is laid in these last words of the Apostle As by one mans disobedience many were made Sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous Some saith he from hence suppose they argue strongly to the overthrow of all that I have said Thus As by Christ we are made really righteous so by Adam we are made really sinners This we acknowledge not only to be our Argument but our way of Augmentation and if this standing good be sufficient to overthrow all that he hath said then it is easie to be observed to what purpose he hath spoken all this while but to this he hath spoken in his Addresses and to them we can say nothing till we see them But besides saith he I have something very material to reply to the form of the Argument which is a very trick and fallacy Strong reason may be spoken very often without a formal Syllogisme and where the matter cannot be denied to be true and good 't is but a kind of sophistical fallacy to stand too pedantically upon the form But to argue from hence as by Christ we are made really righteous so by Adam we are made really sinners is saith he to invert the purpose of the Apostle The reciprocation or conversion of propositions is no inversion of their purpose where they may truly praedicate either way Neither is the inverting of words in their order always a perverting of them in their intent But the Apostle argues from the lesse to the greater Indeed the Apostle in his comparison proceeds after such a manner as from Adam to Christ from Sin to Grace from Death to Life now Comparates Ianus-like look {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} forwards and backwards and may argue mutually from one to another Nay they must doe it else could they not be Comparates now though the Apostle argue from the lesse to the greater by way of Amplification yet he forbids not to argue from the greater to the lesse for matter of reallity and that is all our Argument But we saith he make it conclude affirmatively from the greater to the lesse in matter of power Will he allow us to doe it negatively why that will serve our turn sufficiently Thus As Christ's righteousnesse was not imputed only so neither was Adams sin or thus As our righteousness by Christ was not a Metonymical righteousnesse so our sin by Adam was not a Metonymical Sin But by his leave we may take liberty to argue affirmatively as before yet offend against no Logical Law or Canon of Comparates nay and the consequence shall be of great force even affirmatively as Thus As Christ did and suffered his Fathers will so ought we to doe and suffer the same As God charged his Angels with Folly how much more may he us mortal men and from the Apostle in this place As the Life was a real life so the Death was a real Death As the Grace was real Grace so the Sin was real Sin But he now assumes the trick or fallacy himself taxing us for concluding affirmatively from the greater to the lesse in matter of power as what a