Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	assurance_n	faith_n	justify_v	2,314	5	9.2915	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93724	The wels of salvation opened or, a treatise discovering the nature, preciousnesse, usefulness of Gospel-promises, and rules for the right application of them. By William Spurstowe, D.D. pastor of Hackney near London. Imprimatur, Edm. Calamy.	Spurstowe, William, 1605?-1666.	1655 (1655)	Wing S5100; Thomason E1463_3; ESTC R203641	126,003	320

distinct from assurance as may appeare in their different effects Assurance is riches and not poverty Coloss 2. 2. joy and not mournng 1 John 1. 4. satisfaction and not hunger of want and emptinesse Psal 90. 14. So in that parable of the Pharisee and the Publican going up into the temple to pray Luke 18. 10 11. our Saviour tells us that the Pharisee was full of presumption and false confidence but the Publican through a sense of his unworthinesse was almost overwhelmed with feares and misgivings of heart he stands afar off and dares not draw neere he is so full of shame as that he would not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven He smites his breast as pointing out the fountaine from whence all his misery and sinne did flow He accuseth himselfe in his prayer as a great sinner In all his actions gestures words there is no expression of his assurance of pardon and yet he went away justified and not the other which without faith he could not have been A second demonstration is from the state of desertion into which a believer may fall A child of light may walk in darknesse Isa 50. 10 and neither behold the sun-light of Gods countenance nor the starre-light of his owne graces for many dayes He may be as a tree in winter whose sap is wholly retired to the roote and hath neither fruit nor leaves hanging on it to evidence that it is not dead As in the sufferings of Christ upon the crosse there was for a time subtractio visionis a withdrawing of the light of Gods countenance but not dissolutio vnionis any breaking or dissolution of the Union So in the derelictions that a beleever is subject unto there may be a separation in regard of the comfortable manifestation and shining forth of the beames of Gods love but no interruption in regard of his Union with Christ Thus it was with David Psal 51. 12. who begges the restoration of the joy of Gods salvation and the establishment of his free Spirit And thus it was with Heman Psal 88. who in his own apprehension was as one free among the dead ver 5. Thus it was with Jonah when lying in the belly of the whale as in a grave he said I am cast out of thy sight Jonah 2. 4. But yet still they were believers and their faith was alive at the roote neither was there any intercision of their fellowship with Christ Now if faith when Assurance is lost do continue as believers Union with Christ it will also begin his Union with Christ though it be not accompanied with Assurance Or if a believer may lose his Assurance and yet not wholly lose his saith then may he also have faith before it do grow up into Assurance A third demonstration is taken from the differing stature and condition of believers As in the world there are not onely aged men whose multitude of yeares do teach wi●dom and young men whose bones being moistened with marrow are full of strength but there are also infants which hang upon the breast of their mother who though they enjoy life yet do not know that they have life or are able to reflect upon any action which they do So in the Church there are not onely M●●sons that are old disciples experienced in the mysteries of the Gospel and young Timothies that are trained up in the knowledge of the Scriptures but there are also new borne babes 1 Pet. 2. 2. who are partakers of a spirtuall life and yet are not able to apprehend that they have eternall life given unto them There are in the fold of Christ not onely sheep which he leades forth into green pastures but there are also lambs which he gathers with his arme and carries in his bosom a place both of safety and of warmth Isa 40. 11. Now if the essence of faith did lie in Assurance and that none did believe but they that did know they do believe this distinction and difference between Christians would be of little or no use If all that are believers do exercise the reflex acts of faith as well as the direct in what should the babe in Christ differ from the grown man Where in should the bruised reed be distinguished from the established Cedar How should the thirstie and wearied soule that dares not deny Christ to be his and yet cannot say that certainly he is his be comforted How should the sinking and well nigh despairing Christian that cries out he hath no saving faith because no Assurance have doubts and objections comfortably answered What use would there be of signes and markes which the Scripture gives as a staffe into the hands of weak ones to support and stay them up if faith do stand in a full perswasion of Gods love to a mans self in particular St. Johns whole epistle which was written for this end that believers might know that they had eternall life 1. John 5. 13. would be to no purpose if faith it self did consist in the knowledg of their having it A fourth demonstration is taken from the object of saving and justifying faith which is the person of Christ and not any Maxim or Proposition which is the object of Assurance That on which the chief act of justifying faith is exercised that is the primarie object of faith But the maine act of faith is to unite Christ and a believer together for by being one with him we come to be justified by him and not otherwise Now that which makes this Union on the believers part is the adherence and cleaving of the soule unto Christ as the greatest and chiefest good As the lustfull and evil eye by looking upon a woman doth make such a Union with her in his heart and affections as that thereby he is judged by our Saviour to be guilty of Adultery Mat. 5. 28. So the seeing of the fulnesse of Christ and the true desire of enjoying him is such a Marriageglance as makes a tye and Union between Christ and the soule that thus lookes towards him for life and salvation But it may be objected If faith be not Assurance and a perswasion in particular that Christ is mine Wherein lyes the application of faith which Divines do so much urgeand contend for against the Papists To answer this Obiection It is granted that the Popish faith which stands in a bare generall assent unto the promises and the truths which are revealed in the Gospel is wholly insufficient to salvation and that there is necessarily required to an effectuall and saving faith a speciall and particular application as hath been formerly shewed But there is a twofold Application the one is Axiomaticall and the other is Reall The Axiomaticall application is that which Assurance makes whereby a believer is enabled to say Christ is mine The Reall application faith makes in which though a believer cannot say that Christ is his yet he doth by an act of recumbency cast himselfe upon Christ for

salvation and resolves neither to seek it nor expect it any other way Thus the Prodigal Luke 15. 18. did cast himself upon his father when he could not tell whether he would owne him as his sonne or make him so much as an hired servant But secondly it may be objected If faith be not Assurance wherein doth lye the certainty of faith To this I answer that there is a double certainty The one is a certainty of sense such as Thomas had who seeing believed Joh. 20. 29. And such a certainty Assurance hath which is rather a kind of sense then faith The other is a certaintie of event and this faith hath though it want the former He that believes shall as certainly not perish as he who is assured though he doth not know it after that manner as the other doth Christ hath promised that he who cometh to him he will in nowise cast out John 6. 37. The words include more then they expresse He will be so farre from casting out any that come to him as that he will embrace them in the armes of his dearest love and manifest the most tender compassions of his heart towards them But the end of all that hath been spoken in answer to this Querie is not that any should rest in their having of faith without assurance or lessen their giving of all diligence to make their calling and election sure Though a malefactor may be pardoned and he not know of it yet he cannot be so comfortable as he that carries his pardon sealed in his bosome He whom God loves though he know it not is happy but he that knowes it knowes himselfe to be happy And therefore believers though they are not to faint under the want of Assurance or to conclude against themselves that they have no faith because they have no Assurance yet they ought in prayer and all other Ordinances to seek not onely the having of eternall life but the knowledge of their having it in Christ CHAP. XIII In which the second Query is resolved THe second Query is What use a believer may make of the promises of mercy and pardon after relapses and falling into grosse sins which waste the conscience and whether he may lay an immediate claime unto his right and interest in them without his being first humbled and afflicted for his sinnes To this I answer that though it be not with a believer under the Gospel as it was with the Nazarite under the Law who if he were defiled in the time of his consecration lost all the former dayes of his separation and was to begin it wholly anew Numb 6. 12. though he do not by his present defilement lose the vertue of his former cleansing and purifying of himselfe so as to extinguish his interest in the promises yet his right may justly be suspended so as that he cannot actually enjoy the benefit and priviledge of them untill he first humble himselfe and lay to heart the greatnesse of his defection and Apostasie from God But that I may give more distinct and cleare satisfaction to this Question I shall speak to these two heads First I shall shew how farre a believer may and ought to charge the guilt of atrocious sinnes that he falls into upon himselfe Secondly I shall shew how farre he may not go or conclude any sentence against himselfe there being errours oftentimes committed in the excesse as well as in the defect SECT 1. How farre a believer ought to censure himselfe after atrocious sinnes First how farre a believer may and ought to judge and sentence himselfe for sinnes that are not quotidianae incursionis of daily incursion and incident to humane frailty but are devorat●ria salutis sinnes that more immediately hazard and endanger salvation it selfe as springing from more mature deliberation and a more full consent of will and take it in these particulars First a believer ought to acknowledge that such sinnes which have in them not●rietatem facti a notoriety of fact do deserve notorietatem poenae a notoriety and exemplarinesse in their punishment and he is to be affected as one who hath justly merited death though it be not inflicted because the desert of sinne is still the same though the sentence be revoked by a pardon The mercy of a Prince is richly manifested in giving unto a traitour his life but yet that doth not disoblige him to confesse that his offence deserved death but layes rather a greater tie upon him to do it that so he may magnifie the clemency of his Soveraigne So though God do keep a believer from coming into the condemnation of sinners by giving unto him a Royal and full pardon for whatever he hath done against him yet this ought to be so farre from withholding him to acknowledge what the just wages of his rebellions are as that it ought the more to provoke him thereunto that so he may give God the glory of his free pardoning grace Thus Peter bewailed the foulenesse of his sinne in denying his Lord and Master Mark 14. 72. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We translate it He thought thereon and wept But Teophilact and others with him interpret it Obvelavit se he covered his head and wept Alluding to the generall custome in the Easterne Countreys where the condemned malefactors had their faces covered And by this ceremony Peter judged his sinne to have deserved no lesse then death and as a sonne of death he wailed himselfe He wept bitterly Luk. 22. 62. Secondly a believer may so farre charge the guilt of grosse sinnes and defections upon himselfe as to acknowledge his utter unworthinesse to stand in any relation of love unto God and that he might be so farre from owning him as a sonne as that he might deny to look upon him in the number of his servants Thus the Prodigal whom Divines not improbably conceive to be the embleme of a regenerate man falling into scandalous sinnes in his returne to his father Luke 15. 19. acknowledgeth himselfe to be unworthy to be called his sonne Though he doth not deny the relation of a sonne yet he judgeth himselfe most unworthy of the title of a sonne and thinkes it an happinesse if he may but be in his house as an hireling And surely every child of God who hath through loose and riotous living wasted both his grace and his comforts and brought sad extremities upon himselfe by straying from his fathers house ought in those resolutions and purposes of heart which he hath of returning unto God againe to be deeply apprehensive how unworthy he is of any favourable reception from him how undeserving he is to lodge in his house as a servant much more to lie in his bosome as a sonne that thereby he may the better prize the mercy of restored love and for the future may the more dread the sad effects of a voluntary departure from God and be more watchfull in preserving his communion with him Thirdly a believer falling into