Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	believe_v	faith_n	justification_n	5,240	5	9.4416	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45121	Animadversions, being the two last books of my reverend brother Mr. Williams the one entituled A postscript to Gospel-truth, the other An end of discord : conscientiously examined, in order to a free entertainment of the truth, in some momentous points in divinity, controverted among the nonconformist brethen, occasionally here determined, for the sake of those honest among us that seek it, without trick or partiality / by John Humfrey ...	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.	1699 (1699)	Wing H3666; ESTC R16328	37,926	42

the Righteousness for which yet it is Faith is the Justifying Righteousness or that Righteousness by which we are justified Do not you again concur p. 258. Seeing the Gospel is a Law promising pardon and life to all such as believe to be exercised in vertue of Christs Obedience it is Faith being the performed Condition is imputed to us for Righteousness or is that upon which God accounts us righteous and so these benefits thereby belong to us Justification being a forinsick act say you more fully p. 276. that upon which the Law a Man is tried by doth acquit him from its threatned penalty and entitles him to is promised benefits is so far Justifying Righteousness by that Law An impartial acknowledgment P. 263. You state a difference which you have or make with others by the Question Whether the Death of Christ is legally esteemed to be endured by us and his Obedience by us to be performed Or whether they are imputed to Believers as their pleadable security for their pardon and title to Eternal Life in the right of Christ Here you say the former they affirm and you deny the latter you affirm and they deay But see what it is to be fudled with a Notion and that such as disturbs the brain more than strong Drink There is not and never was any such question and difference broached by any but your self It is true that as to the former the Antinomian maintains but you deny and upon Reasons that are good For if that were so then must the Believer be in Gods sight as righteous as Christ as you argue and that is inconsistent with pardon But when you say as to the latter that you affirm and they deny it I pray where is the Man that ever opposed you or once thought of the matter to deny it Who ever besides you made such a Distribution Who ever before you offered this Question whether Christs performance of the Covenant of Redemption does afford us a pleadable security that if we believe and repent we shall be saved Why do you pretend a difference with any in this matter that no body ever questioned or perhaps thought on How can Mr. H. deny say you p. 269. such a pleadable security Why Mr. H. denies ●t not and none else ● Let this which you teach us and we never considered before be granted how does this prove the Point that the Righteousness of Christ therefore is imputed to us otherwise than in the Effects It is imputed to us for our pleadable security Be it so and is not that pleadable security an Effect of Christs performance It is we must both acknowledge it and do we not agree in this that Christs Righteousness is indeed imputed to us in the Effects Where is the difference We both assert that Christs Righteousness is no Legally to be esteemed ours and neither of us deny this pleadable security to be every true Believers How then do we differ This pleadable security is not Christs Righteousness it self is it It is an Effect arising from it is it not How then does this make good your assertion that Besides the Effects the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed when it makes out no more but that here is an Effect in regard to which it is imputed or which the Believer has by vertue of it He that enjoys a benefit as merited for him by anothers act be hath that act imputed to him as his pleadable security for his possessing that merited blessing you say and I say so too that is imputed in regard to that Effect and no otherwise than so P. 268. The application of Christs Death to Believers Gods Judicial accounting them the persons in whom the Promise made to Christ is performed and his giving them pardon and eternal life as the merited Reward of his Death and Obedience gives just ground for us to say the Righteousness of Christ is imputed to Believers I say no all this straining will not do It is indeed a ground and proof that it is imputed therefore in the Effects but not otherwise You add they do not only enjoy pardon and such Effects but his Righteousness it self is imputed to them relatively in that pardon Oh Sir Are you come hither How much more ingenuous had it been then for you to make the acknowledgment of your coming up here to me and Mr. Baxter and said plainly that though you have said that Besides the Effects made ours the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to Believers you mean nothing but as we do or your meaning is but this that the Effects being indeed made ours his Righteousness is relatively only to be said ours in regard to those Effects In my Book Ult. Man p. 5. supposing there the Question what we are to apprehend by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness which is no Scripture expression I say there are these two things in it The one is that God did indeed account or allow of what Christ did and suffered to be in our behalf for our sakes for us in our stead as to the Impetration of the benefits we have by him upon condition And the other is our having those benefits as to the Application upon the performance and that is the having his Righteousness to be ours Really in the Effects and Relatively in regard to them In my Appendix to you p. 83. I have the same where asking how the very Righteousness of Christ is or can be ours or reckoned to us as ours I answer The Effects are ours Really and his Righteousness ours Relatively in regard to those Effects I do not doubt but I can find in some Book of Mr. Baxters words to the same purpose or these same words When we three then thus agree why should not you being put upon it and brought into the case of confession have acknowledged this Agreement as to us and Disagreement with the Brethren for herein it is wherein Mr. Baxter hath broke loose from the commonly received Doctrine of the Protestants who have still talked of Christs Righteousness it self to be the Believers which they meant all even the Antinomian that is learned only Legally and we say not so but Relatively only in regard to the Effects How then comes it to pass that in so many places in your Books you bring in the Charm of Christs Righteousness imputed and as it were sometimes by head and shoulders as it seems purposely to make folks believe as if you were one that maintained the same Doctrine with your Brethren whom you oppose How can this pass and not appear to be without sincerity so long as you are not of their mind As for what you else have in this Postscript that may concern me I would say something more particularly to if I could gather it up and digest it You distinguish between the Covenant of Redemption and Covenant of Grace or Mediatorial Law and Law of the Gospol Of the one you say well that Christ only is

very distinguishable Having laid down what precedes I do as it were give instance in this Citation unto the which I do the more deliberately answer The Impetration of our Justification by Christs performing the Mediatory Law is indeed one thing and the Application of it by our performing the Law of the Gospel is another But Justification it self is one Omneens est unum and not two things or acts and consequently ought to be defined and understood as one act so that when in one place it is said we are justified by Christs Blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through his Blood and in others we are justified by Faith this makes yet but one act one Justification described in one place by the meritorious in the others by the formal cause thereof which both are to be put together in the Definition I must confess Mr. Baxter as I remember does ordinarily speak at your rate as if we were to be justified both by Law and Gospel and furthermore does not scruple to make as many Particular Justifications as there can be Charges laid against us but with the assertion that there is also a Justification Universal and which I apprehend the Gospel alone does yield us Indeed how to reconcile Mr. Baxter herein to his own Doctrine I must confess I have not yet observed from him but crave your help to find out In the mean time I must warn you that you understand him not after the manner you write for if indeed there are two Barrs at which we must be justified as well as two Righteousnesses that goes into our Justification If to be justified by Faith is one Justification and to be justified by Christs Blood be another so that the Believer must have both as one subordinate to the other unto which apprehension your way of expression leads then must Christs Righteousness be indeed ours in se and not only in the Effects as you appear to maintain against me and him for at one of these Barrs nothing less will serve and then must we return all three to the Road of the common Protestant Doctrine and grant that it is not by our own Works whether Legal or Evangelical no not by Faith as a Work not by Faith as productive of Repentance and New Obedience that is not by St. James's Faith and Works also but by Faith only and by Faith taken objective for Christs Righteousness made ours by Faith so as to be our Formal Righteousness or formally to justifie us And if so there may be an end of Controversies with Mr. Baxters Books as one of them is called which concern Justification his Practical Books may still be in credit but his Controversal Works may be all burnt for you who for maintaining one expression not well advised must forsake him and your self and all almost of weight that you have writ besides There is a Distinction therefore which that accurate Man Mr. Baxter who otherwise has so many does yet want as to this Point of Justification which is that Justification may be taken Strictly or Largely seeing the Scripture so speaks of it If we will take it strictly we consider only what respects the form and definition and Justification so taken is Gods constituting by his Law of Grace and accounting a Man righteous upon his believing for Christs sake or imputing his Faith for Righteousness When Justification largely taken may comprehend its Antecedents as Redemption and Consequents as Pardon and Life together with it See my Righteousness of God p. 55 56 57. In such a large sense of it Mr. Baxter and our Divines may take liberty to speak of it in such a manner as they or others do or as they please but there are these words in that Learned Gentleman Sir Charles Wolsley his Letter to me that are more accurate to my purpose than any that I most like in Mr. Baxter The Scripture says he that were written not with any relation to those nice and subtle Distinctions which Men have since used in interpreting them do chiefly intend to express their plain and genuine meaning of things and in an especial manner by various expressions of the same thing does set forth the amplitude of Gospel Salvation Justification is spoken of in Scripture sometimes in its Cause which is imputing Righteousness by Faith and sometimes in its Effect which is Pardon Therefore I am well pleased to say with you to adjust and comprehend that matter right that the formalis ratio of Justification is Gospel Faith and Obedience that is as imputed to us of God for Righteousness and taking Justification passively meaning as I and Pardon of sin as the necessary consequeent concomitant and effect of it He that will give any other account of it must I believe make use of some other Doctor than St. Paul One thing more I will note in this Postscript and have done and that is the particular p. 312. wherein you say you were ready to subscribe with Mr. Cole You look to your self indeed by such words that you may not lye but do you think your meaning and Mr. Coles can indeed stand in one Stable I will therefore express the truth of this sixth Particular for you with little alteration When a Man believes that very Faith and sincere Gospel Works which proceed from it is you say is not the matter of that Righteousness whereby you to save your Not before put in for which a sinner is justified and so intitled to Pardon and Glory Yet is the Righteousness of Christ alone that for which the Gospel gives the Believer a right to these and all saving blessings who in this respect is justified through Christ or through his Righteousness though by Faith Faith being indeed the Matter or Material Cause and Gods Imputing that Faith not Christs Righteousness to us for Righteousness the Form and Formal Cause of our Justification Reverend Brother What will be the issue of this present endeavour according to my small Ability I know not But I will end with this Story Luther one day being with Melancton Phillip says he I am afraid we are gone too far in that matter of the Sacrament Master says Melancton then let us amend and retract it No says Luther if we do so Phillip we shall be believed in nothing Alas what pity it was and what prejudice to the Protestants Cause that Luther had not hearkned to Melancton It must be no wonder therefore if you hearken not to me now in my farewell Admonition which is to chuse in this small matter of Difference between us not to follow Luther but St. Augustine who is so much commended by all for his Book of Retractations Your very respectful Brother JOHN HUMFREY Animadversions ON HIS End of Discord Learned and Worthy Sir I Wrote a Sheet or two in a Letter to Mr. Williams upon his Postscript to Gospel Truth before this later Book called An End of Discord came out I had no Answer to it nor my Copy

Faith for Righteousness upon the account of Christs Satisfaction and Merits and gives Pardon and Life as the benefits of it I cannot but desire to know this Person seeing as these words render him he should be living for what this Author says is so agreeable to my Mind that if it were not but that I know the Commendation he gives him is not belonging to me I should have thought they were my own Words The following Saying he cites accordingly Though Christs Sacrifice the Defects of Faith which is our Righteousness are pardoned and by his Merits that imperfect Duty is accounted or imputed to us for Righteousness which it is not in its self Both I think exceeding well But Mr. Ws. objects How can Pardon be the effect of imputing Faith for Righteousness which is Justification and yet God cannot impute faith for Righteousness unless he first pardon its defects for the sake of Christs Sacrifice This Objection I foresaw and have prevented That he adds besides is stumbling at a Straw and ought not to retard us in my Book of the Righteousness of God p. 24. where having defined Justification after this same manner I ●m the concluding my Explication thereof have these words After this I distinguish this pardoning and bearing with the defects of our Faith Repentance New Obedience which are Conditions of the Gospel Covenant and so our Gospel Righteousness or that which is imputed for Righteousness And that General or Total Pardon which the Covenant promises and becomes absolute upon performing the Condition The one of these is that very Grace or Act of Grace it self that goes into that Act of Imputation or Act that imputes our Faith for Righteousness when the other I say still is the Effect or Benefit following Justification I will add The one let us note farther is dispensed by God as Dominus or Absolute Lord so I apprehend and is more or less to one person than another at his will and pleasure that hath no bounds to be set to it When the other is dispensed by him as Rector and Judge to every Man alike upon the performed Condition I will yet add And this may give some more Line to the Assertors of Free-Grace than they every yet thought on for Improvement and that solid comfort I raise from hence in my Pacification p. 27 28 29. quoted again in my Righteousness of God p. 21. in the Margin which I commend to the Reader as my Blessing while alive and dead The lat is p. 112. The reason for our denial of an Imputation in se he renders truly as the chief reason to be an apprehension that there is no such Imputation unless we are accounted of God to have done and suffered what Christ did which would induce the Antinomian Scheme This is so it is the reason and that the meaning and intent of that phrase is no other than this I know no body like to deny unless himself But that I deny says he to be the only import of that phrase for when that Righteousness it self is imputed Relatively to the special Effects of it it is truly an Imputation in se Here is a double deceit errour or falshood One in the Logick of it the other in the matter of it In the Logick the words it self must not be put in we deny an Imputation of this Righteousness it self or in it self This it self therefore is a Petitio Principis that is fallacious which must be left out and then as to the matter I say an affirming Christs Righteousness to be imputed that is reckoned or made ours Relatively only in regard to the Effects is the denyal of it to be so in se according to the received sense of that Distinction But indeed if we might coyn here a new Distinction between Mr. Ws. and I and not do hurt by it making an Imputation in se to be either a Legal or Relative Imputation only So long as Mr. Ws. does maintain that Christs Righteousness is not imputed in se Legally to a Believer and stands on the Negative against the Brethren herein as much as I If I grant to him this Imputation in se which is Relative only I see not but he and I are perfectly agreed and so all the new-fangled Notion of another Imputation of Christs Right to us in it self or of his Obedience to the Mediatorial Law for our pleadable Security instead of for our Righteousness that is instead of an Imputation in se an Imputation only quoad hunc effectum an open prevarication which will never be made to signifie any thing may be spared and that clutter be quite over But I cannot in conscience grant him the use of an Imputation in se according to this sense because an Imputation quoad Effectus is understood to be Membrum dividens and consequently contrary to an Imputation in se according to our common understanding of that distinction Besides that the use of the term in se in such a latitude may be dangerous to many and the untrue use of it so long by him has done as I doubt too much hurt already I cannot therefore but be a little more severe herein and must observe that when Mr. Ws. does deny the Brethrens sense to be the only import of the phrase in se he denys it upon the account of the term Relatively which term he took from me I am confident and had no thoughts of it or such a meaning or evasion when he at first said that Besides the Effects the very Righteousness of Christ is imputed to the Believer Now when I or Mr. Baxter from which of us he takes it use the Term in contradistinction to that in se while we explain our Opinion thus purposely that the Effects are ours Really but Christs Righteousness ours only in regard to these Effects and Mr. Ws. takes the term from me without telling that but proposing it as his own does come so long after in his Postscript and this Book to give us this account of that Assertion of his as aforesaid and telling us that if the Righteousness of Christ be imputed to us in the Effects then it must be it self Relatively ours in regard to them I cannot see how any one can count that there is either satisfaction or ingenuity in it For when this word it self is I say sophistical and must not be taken for in it self as if we were proprietors of that Righteousness whereof Christ only is the proprietor but of the benefit he hath procured us by it which is the perfect sense and truth and all the truth which in good earnest it contains Mr. Ws. methinks should not be so shameless as any longer to persist If he had said this at first if indeed he had had this and no other meaning but this of Relative at first then could not I or any of Mr. Baxters Friends have been offended as if he had departed from us in this bottom Point of difference between the

the Subject and that he performed it in order to the Impetration of the benefits we have by his Life and Death or by his Redemption Of the other we are all Subjects and are to perform it our selves in order to the Application of that Redemption or participation of those benefits he hath obtained for us This Distinction whether necessary or no for I think it to be of our own late Divines and no antient one is good so far as thus used But as for your Notion which you so industriously build upon it though it hath something of truth in it it is too perplext over-loading and superfluous so that it edifies not For why I pray do you trouble your self and us with this teaching that we have a pleadable security from Gods Promise to Christ in his Covenant of Redemption that if we believe we shall be saved when we have an express Promise thereof to every one our selves in the Gospel and is not that security enough if this moreover had not been started by you It is apparent that seeing the Righteousness of Christ which you count to be imputed to us Is his performance of the Mediatorial Law this is a Righteousness whereof we are uncapable and consequently not that Righteousness which the common Protestant hath accounted to be imputed or made ours in their sense for our Justification It must yet be acknowledged that the Righteousness of the Law of Works which we were bound to perform is part of that Mediatorial Law which he performed and I suppose the common Protestant have understood that part thereof consisting in his active and passive Obedience to be the Righteousness which is imputed to Believers And here it is certain that you fall not in with them in this Opinion but hold that the Righteousness of Christ which you call our Justifying Righteousness and that which besides the Effects as you speak is imputed to the Believer is his Mediatorial Righteousness as appears by your expression of it when you say it is imputed to Believers as their pleadable security for their pardon and title to eternal life in the Right of Christ In the Right of Christ this makes it plain that you understand his Mediatorial Righteousness but I hope you do not still mean that the same numerical Right which is his can be ours You know the accident of one subject cannot migrate into another so that Really it cannot and if you grant it to be Legally ours take heed lest you grant all away for then may your Brethren say Christs performance it self is ours also in that sense and Mr. Baxter and I and you are gone But not to stop this being only in the way the Righteousness of Christ you mean being his Mediatorial Righteousness you account then that there is a subordinate Righteousness which we must have in order to the Imputation of this to us for our Justification Hereupon you set up two Barrs the Barr of the Law and Barr of the Gospel the Creators Barr and the Redeemers Barr as you call them insomuch as together with a double Righteousness and double Barr you make us also as any one may think two Specifical Justifications But not after this narration if the Distinction you laid down before be tight that the Law whereto Christ subjected himself in order to the Impetration of our Redemption was the Mediatorial Law and his performance of that Law our Justifying Righteousness according as you affirm then can there be no Creators Barr or Barr of the Law of Works here erected for us to stand at seeing it was Christ alone was accountable for that performance And further seeing Christ as he took on him our Nature did voluntarily come also under the Law the Law of Works as well as Jewish Law as part of his Fathers Commandment and perfectly fulfilled the same and suffered moreover for our transgressing it he did thereby as the Apostle tells us redeem us from the Law And what I pray is this Redemption from that Law but a delivering us fromits Barr if you understand the thing so as we are not to be judged by it Though we are under the Law still as a Rule of Living we are freed from it as the Rule of Judgment as I say in my Pacification Again I must inculcate upon this Hypothesis the Law of Mediation being that Law Christ performed for the Impetration of those benefits which we have by him and the law of the Gospel that we perform for Application of those benefits I pray let me ask is not Justification one of those benefits Christ hath impetrated merited purchased for us As Pardon and Salvation so are Justification whereof these are Effects and the Law of Grace it self which justifies us all of them benefits that Christ hath purchased by performing the Law of Mediation Well Justification then it self being one of those benefits when Christs performance of the Mediatorial Law is that Righteousness alone which goes to the Impetration of it and in this regard that may be said ours It is our performance of the Law of Grace which goes to and is the Righteousness alone which is or can be ours in the Application or enjoyment of it To come at last then to a full point in this matter it being Christs performance which we agree hath merited impetrated procured all our benefits and so is the Principal Righteousness as you may call it if you please when yet there must be a Righteousness of our own to go before as the Condition which this Law of the Gospel requires of us to give us right to these benefits it appears in what sense our Faith or Evangelical Obedience is to be held a Righteousness subordinate seeing Mr. Baxter hath so termed it unto Christs which is no more than this that our Gospel Righteousness of Faith is prerequired in order to the having the Righteousness of Christ imputed according to you and Mr. Baxter But how imputed for here is the upshot Does Mr. Baxter mean imputed in se besides the Effects as you speak No this were to make it Legally ours and he allows no Imputation of Christs Righteousness in any sense of its being made ours but Relatively in regard to the Effects only So that if the phrase of the Imputing Christs Righteousness was left out altogether of our Books as it is in our Bibles and our Divines had said nothing but that upon our believing and repenting we are for Christs sake and through the Law of Grace made partakers of the benefits he hath purchased and so of Pardon and Life the Doctrine of Satisfaction wherein we agree being first Preached the Article of Justification might have been explained well enough for honest Peoples Edification P. 279. Justification by the Righteousness of Christ you should say though and not by and Justification by the Righteousness of Faith are so connected and inseparable in the subject that they are expressed as if but one only Act and yet they are