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
A56384	A defence and continuation of the ecclesiastical politie by way of letter to a friend in London : together with a letter from the author of The friendly debate.	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.; Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707. Friendly debate.	1671 (1671)	Wing P457; ESTC R22456	313,100	770

upon the World by the Institution of Christianity that they should ever lose it § 9. The last thing pleaded by our Author for the Divine Institution of Sacrifices is the words of St. Paul By Faith Abel offered Sacrifice And faith hath respect unto the Testimony of God revealing commanding and promising to accept our Duty And therefore this was not done by his own Choice but by warrant of a divine Command This Argument indeed is often insisted upon by some sort of Writers out of whom our Author whose custom it is to pour forth his crude Dictate rather from his Memory than his Reason transcribes it in haste without weighing its Force and Validity But it bottoms upon such a short and narrow account of the nature of Faith as would make wild work with the Phaenomena of Providence in the World And therefore to be brief the proper and last Resolution of this vertue as I have already intimated is into the Goodness and not the bare Testimony of God and we therefore trust the truth of divine Revelation because we believe him so essentially good that he nor can nor will deceive his Creatures So that our Belief of the Testimony of God is not the full and adequate Notion of Faith but 't is one particular Instance of our Confidence in his essential goodness and therefore there may be acts of this Duty without any supposal of divine Revelation and such was the Faith of Abel as the Apostle there describes it For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him This upright man therefore being so amply satisfied of the Existence and goodness of his heavenly Father and conscious of his own Integrity in the offering of his Sacrifice rested secure from the Testimony of his own Conscience of Gods gracious acceptance However might not the Faith ascribed to Abel relate to the discharge of his Duty and not to the manner of its Performance And though he worshipped God in obedience to his Command which was an Act of Faith yet that is no more proof that he had any more divine warrant for the manner of his Worship than for the kind of his Sacrifice yet it was indifferent as to divine acceptance whether he had offered the Fruits of his Tillage or the Products of his Flock for the Sacrifice of Cain was not rejected because not of the same kind with that of Abel but had it been presented with the same Qualifications it had been rewarded with the same acceptance And thus does our Authors way of Arguing multiply difficulties upon himself for if it be of any force it will infer a necessity of a divine Command to determine the kind of Sacrifice as well as the manner of Worship and then is he obliged not only to produce a Law for Sacrifices but one to Cain to offer the Fruits of the Field and another to Abel to offer Living Creatures and this is competent evidence that God never prescribed their patticular mode of Worship but left it to the choice of their own Convenience and Discretion and therefore they both chose that which was most proper sutable to their respective conditions of life God entail'd his acceptance not upon the outward Expressions of their worship but the inward Qualifications of their minds To conclude this Argument is utterly impertinent unless upon supposition of this Principle that men have not any Rational Ground to expect that God should accept the faithful discharge of their Duty unless himself have prescribed all particular ways and circumstances of the manner of its Performance but this is to betake themselves to the lazy trade of Begging and this man is bold enough for this shameless employment And though he is not so confident as to take up his Bush so near home yet when he gets aloof off into my sixth Chapter he grows as bold and sturdy as the Gentlemen Cripples of Southwark are in Lincolns-Inn Fields For there to secure the Fundamental Mystery of Puritanism against all opposition viz. that nothing ought to be practised in the Worship of God but what is warranted in the Word of God he lays down certain Proleptick and self-evident Principles the first whereof is That wherever in the Scripture we meet with any Religious Duty that had a preceding Institution although we find not expresly a consequent Approbation we take it for granted that it was approved and so on the contrary where an Approbation appears and Institution is conceal'd And in another Theorem in the same Chapter to the same purpose for People of that Trade and Way of Life are much given to Repetitions he gives in this very Instance of Sacrifices for proof viz. Whatever they the Patriarchs did they had especial warranty from God for which is the case of the great Institution of Sacrifices it self It is a sufficient Argument that they were divinely instituted because they were graciously accepted What figure this is called in his Pedling Logick I know not but in ours 't is y●lep'd begging the Question A singular way of dispute this is it not First to take the Conclusion for granted and then challenge it for a Principle to prove it self and to lay down the main matter in debate for a truth so certain that a man is obliged by the Laws of Reasoning to grant it before he is capable of any right to dispute it Who would ever contradict this Author in these Enquiries that would admit those Postulata for self-evident Propositions But this man is so bold and obnoxious a Beggar that if he will continue to follow this Trade 't is impossible he should long escape the Beadles watchful eye but more cruel hand I know no Refuge he has to protect his Back against this severe Executioner unless by listing himself into some Society of Gypsies for whom he is admirably qualified as to the two great Offices of Canting and Begging and wants not above one accomplishment more to compleat him at all points for that Imployment and 't is more noble and generous than to beg after this stragling rate After this Discourse of the Original of Sacrifices and after another to give an account of the reason of Gods prescribing every particular Rite and Ceremony of his Worship under the Mosaick Pedagogy I proceeded to shew that the main design of the Christian Institution was to establish the great Duties of Vertue and real Righteousness and not to determine Rites and Ceremonies of external Worship in so much that we find none prescribed in the New Testament save only the two Sacraments and upon this I challenged the unpeaceableness of these Men that upon their Principle must be Rebels and Schismaticks to all Churches in Christendom as well as the Church of England But to this hush not one syllable of reply 't is close and immediate to my purpose and therefore of no concern to his he cares not

Impenitence then repent at the rate of a publick satisfaction And hence it is that though I. O. has made the door to Atheism so wide yet that to Loyalty is as to them like that to the Kingdom of Heaven Straight is the gate and narrow is the way and few if any there be that find it So that for them to pretend to Loyalty is a ruder and more unhandsom Insolence then all their open Crimes and execrable Practices t is an affront to our understandings when Persons so stain'd with perfidious and disloyal Actions shall go about to perswade us of their Innocence and Integrity and cry up themselves for brave Subjects though they have nothing to shew for it but their zeal in Treason and Rebellion This is bold-fac'd wickedness when men that have done such base and dishonourable things shall look confidently and scorn to accept all your Acts of Indempnity unless they may challenge one of Justification To conclude Plutarch I remember somewhere commends the Wisdom of those Birds that conspired to beat the Cuckow lest in process of time it should grow up to an Hawk but what if the Cuckow had been an Hawk already and they or any of their flock had been grip'd in its Talons what sort of Birds would you have judged them had they been so silly as to suffer it to become an Hawk again only because it sung the old Cuckow Tune The Mythology is plain That Prince that has felt the pounces of these Ravening Vultures if after that he shall be perswaded to regard their fair speeches at such times as they want Power without other evident and unquestionable tokens of their Conversion deserves to be King of the Night § 10. But here our Author adds and 't is suggested a thousand times over Are not we both Protestants and shall we persecute our Brethren of the same Church and Communion with our selves No no we are Papists and Idolaters have you so often branded us with the charge of Popery and so confidently involved us in the grand Antichristian Apostasie and can you now think it a seasonable Argument to work upon our Compassion and Good Nature by declaring your selves Protestants This is an admirable motive to prevail upon the Affections of rank Papists 't is just as if our Author should hope to win us to the grant of an Indulgence by pleading as he often does that they are right Godly men when he has made an implacable hatred of all Godliness the Characteristick note of the Episcopal Clergy But he does ever did and ever will pour out his words at Random and they are any thing and we are any thing and every thing is any thing Truth to day and Heresie to morrow as it shall happen to conduce to their present Interest And therefore to be short and plain with them and to abate the Confidence of this popular pretence The name of Protestant as they use it is but a term of Faction and the word of a Party a Title to which every man may pretend that is no friend to the Pope of Rome and if he be fall'n out with the Papacy upon what Account soever that is enough to list him a Member of the Protestant Communion And if any man through the Licentiousness of his life or principles be forced even for his own security to turn Renegado to the Church of Rome he shall be immediately admitted into the Fellowship of the Reformed Churches and thus shall the Reformation be made the Sanctuary of Romulus a Refuge for Enthusiasts and Hereticks a device to draw together all the lewd and wicked people in the world to unite themselves into one body in defiance to the Roman Interest This is a wild and boundless thing and signifies nothing but popular Tumults and Confusions and shelters all the Sacriledges and Enormities in the world provided they that commit them rail at his Holiness And thus I confess was the Reformation of some places the meer effect of the Tumults and Outrages of Boors the Factions and Seditions of Mechanicks the Crafts and Artifices of Statesmen and the Ambitions of peevish and pragmatical Priests And all that some men who think themselves some of the most refined Protestants contributed to the carrying on of this great work was by breaking Church-Windows demolishing Altars defacing Shrines beating down Images doing despite to Pictures burning Libraries stealing Consecrated Plate plundering Churches of their Sacred Ornaments and adorning their own Houses with the Spoils and Reliques of Popish Trumpery And therefore we must distinguish and 't is Mr. Chillingworths distinction between Protestants and Protestants those that Protest against Imperial Edicts and those that Protest against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome Between those who only remonstrate to the Papal Apostasie and endeavour to retrieve the true ancient and Catholick Christianity and those who under this Pretence shelter State Factions and paint Reformation upon their Banners and purge the Church of Idolatry by Civil Wars and Desolations of States and cast off Allegiance to their Prince together with their Subjection to the Pope enter into Leagues and Associations raise Armies and run into all the Disorders of Treason and Disloyalty against their lawful Sovereign to extort by force of Arms the free exercise of their Religion And it would grieve a man to observe how the sober and moderate Reformers were in many places run down by seditious and hot-headed Preachers and to mention no more how Melancthon with his Disciples were supplanted by Flaccus Illyricus and his Confidents The Flaccinians because he would allow of no Seditious Counsels to carry on the work immediately impeach him of Apostasie to the Papal Cause and send their Complaints abroad to Calvin and other Patriarchs of the Reformed Churches and the good man was put to the expence of much time and paper to prove himself no Jesuite Now the Church of England disclaims the Communion as well as the Principles of these blustering Religionists she abhors Rebellion as much as Idolatry and looks upon defection from Loyalty and Allegiance as an Apostasie from the Christian Faith and therefore men of disloyal Principles or Practices do but abuse her and themselves too when they pretend to her Communion because forsooth they have a mighty spleen against the Pope and Cardinals whereas the rankest and most Jesuitical piece of Popery is the Doctrine of Treason and Rebellion And what Agreement there is between the Jesuite and the Puritan concerning the Civil Magistrate you may see parallel'd in divers material Points of Doctrine and Practice to take down the too absolute and unrestrained Power of the Monarchs of Christendom by Lysimachus Nicanor of the Society of Jesus in his Epistle to the Covenanters of Scotland And therefore what Perswasions soever they may have in other matters contrary to the Church of Rome unless they are Orthodox in this Fundamental Article of the Royal Supremacy if they are not Guelphs they are and that is as bad