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
A67122	Mr. Anthony Wotton's defence against Mr. George Walker's charge, accusing him of Socinian heresie and blasphemie written by him in his life-time, and given in at an hearing by Mr. Walker procured ; and now published out of his own papers by Samuel Wotton his sonne ; together with a preface and postcript, briefly relating the occasion and issue thereof, by Thomas Gataker ...	Wotton, Anthony, 1561?-1626.; Wotton, Samuel.; Gataker, Thomas, 1574-1654.	1641 (1641)	Wing W3643; ESTC R39190	28,259	78

our obedience Therefore a man believeth because he trusteth And it is perfected by obedience because no man is truly said to have trusted before he do indeed obey Part. 4. chap. 11. pag. 555 556. And a little after 3 Whereby that appeareth to be most true which we even now strove to prove that that faith which of it self so far as concerneth what is in us doth justifie us is confidence in Christ 559. WOTTON 1 The condition to be performed on our part to justification is to believe Sermon 8. upon John pag. 352. 2 The act of faith or believing bringeth justification and adoption onely and merely by the place and office which the Lord of his own mercie hath assigned it to be the condition required on our parts for the atchieving of these favours and honours Serm. 9. pag. 452. The third errour is That Faith doth not justifie us as it apprehendeth Christ and his righteousnesse but by it self in a proper not metonymicall sense SOCINUS 1 We are justified by faith in Christ so farre forth as we trust in Christ Part. 4. chap. 11 pag. 558. col 2. 2 The faith of Christ doth justifie us by it self or to speak more rightly God doth justifie us by himself pag. 559. col 1. WOTTON 1 Faith in that place to wit Rom. 4.5 is to be taken properly unlesse peradventure it be used for to believe or to trust For that which is by some alledged of a trope whereby they suppose that Christs obedience apprehended by faith is signified I doubt how I may grant And a little after 2 What trope should there lie hid I see not 3 Also Serm. 9. on John Abraham believed God and it that is his believing was counted to him for righteousnesse pag. 453. 4 Also in his Purgation I think that faith in Christ without a trope in proper speech is imputed to all believers for righteousnesse The fourth errour is That for faith properly taken and dignified and made worthy not of it self but in Gods acceptation and of his mercie a man is justified and may lay claim as it were to remission of sinnes SOCINUS 1 For faith we are deemed perfectly just And a little after 2 Abraham believed God and for that cause he was accounted of him for righteous Part. 4. chap. 4. pag. 462. col 2. 3 For one act of faith was Abraham righteous Servetus Book 2. of Law and Gospel as Calvine reciteth in his refutation of Servetus pag. 903. WOTTON 1 He that believeth is accounted by God to all purposes concerning eternall life to have done as much according to the covenant of the Gospel as he should have been accounted to have done according to the covenant of the Law if he had perfectly fulfilled it In his first English paper The fifth errour is That faith is no firm perswasion by which men apprehend and lay hold upon Christ and his righteousnesse and apply them to themselves as of right belonging to us by our spirituall union but that it is a trust and confidence in Christ for salvation joyned with obedience to Christs precepts or to speak plainly a confidence that Christ having obtained by his obedience the Kingdome and all power will certainly give us salvation if we relie on him and obey his counsels SOCINUS 1 Faith in Christ which maketh us righteous before God is nothing else but to trust in Christ Part. 4. chap. 11. in the beginning and in the same page 560. col 2. 2 To believe in Christ is nothing else but to trust in Christ to cleave to Christ and from the heart to embrace his doctrine as heavenly and healthsome And a little before 3 This your apprehension of Christ is a mere humane device and a most empty dream And towards the end of the chapter 4 He calleth our perswasion of righteousnesse already obtained and gotten by Christ vain WOTTON 1 As for that perswasion wherein some would have faith to consist it followeth him that is justified not goeth before as faith must needs do Ser. on John p. 392. also p. 338. and 448. 2 To believe in Christ is to trust in Christ and to rest on him to have his heart settled and to relie wholly and onely on him And what this trust is he describeth more particularly pag. 390. where he saith 3 It is such a Faith as maketh us rest upon God for the performance of his promise The sixth errour is That Christs whole obedience and righteousnesse serve first and immediately for himself to bring him into favour and autoritie with God and secondly onely for us Not that it might be communicated to us in him to make us truly and formally righteous but onely that it might serve for our use in that it maketh him gracious with God and so both able to obtain that faith might be accepted for righteousnesse and we for it and also powerfull to give those blessings which are promised to those that trust in him SOCINUS 1 As Adams offense made him and all mankind procreated by him guiltie of death so Christs righteousnesse and obedience procured life eternall to Christ himself Whereby it cometh to passe that so many as shall by procreated by him become partakers of the same life Part. 4. chap. 6. and 2. part 2. Chap. 8. p. 178. col 2. and 3. part 3. chap. 3. in the end WOTTON In a paper written in Latine 1 All the good will wherewith God embraceth us proceedeth from that grace that Christ is in with God Now that is in these things for the most part contained that he is by nature the Son of God that he is perfectly holy that he hath performed obedience exact in all respects both in fulfilling the Law in performing all things belonging to the office of a Mediatour from whence it followeth that those that believe are for Christs righteousnes gracious with God And in the same paper 2 If question be concerning the formall cause of justification I exclude from it either obedience of Christ If of the efficient by way of merit I maintain it to depend upon both The seventh errour is That Christ did not satisfie the justice of God for us in such sort that we may be said when we truly believe to have satisfied the justice of God and his wrath in him and that God of his mercie without Christs satisfaction made ours doth pardon our sinnes and justifie and redeem us SOCINUS 1 Reade over all the places of the New Testament in which mention is made of redemption and you shall find none in which there is evident mention of the paiment of any true price or of satisfaction Part. 2. chap. 1. pag. 109. col 2. And a little after 2 As we are said to be sold under sinne that is enslaved to it without any true price intervening so are we said to be redeemed from the same by Christ that is freed though no price hath truly and properly intervened 3 Likewise Part. 1. chap. 7. in the

concerning the soul of Christ his descent into hell the power of binding and loosing the sacraments of the Church and by name that of the Altar of originall sinne of concupiscence of sinnes of delight infirmitie and ignorance of sinne in work and sinne in will But he telleth us not what they were Now whether Bernard charge him truly herein or no which for divers causes may be justly questioned and the rather for that Abeilard in his Apologie flatly denieth that he ever wrote taught or once thought the most of those points that Bernard fasteneth upon him and for that Bernard's reports concerning others of those times some whereof were his scholars are not unjustly suspected it is not much materiall to our purpose the rather for that the charge granted to be true the more pestilent and blasphemous his errours are found to be the greater inequalitie will appear in the collation unlesse the parties collated can be proved to have maintained opinions as pestilent and as blasphemous as his But for Servetus and Socinus the other two what they held we have records of sufficient credit For Servetus from whom M r Walker borroweth onely one small snip wherewith to piece up his Parallel whether his works be extant or no I wot not and the better it is if they be not But what he taught and maintained we have taken out of his writings from M r Calvine's relation together with an ample refutation of them adjoyned thereunto His chief assertions among a vast heap of other absurd prodigious and blasphemous ones are these That there is no such Trinitie of persons in the Deitie as is commonly maintained where he brandeth the orthodox tenet and the abettours of it with most hideous terms raked up from Hel it self and too vile to be related and fasteneth many uncouth and fantasticall conceits full of impietie and blasphemie upon the names given in Scripture to the second and third Persons That God in the beginning of the world produced the Word and the Spirit and began then as a person to appear in three uncreated elements and communicated of his essence unto all that he then made That This Word being the face and image of God is said then to have been begotten because God then began to breed it but stayed for a woman to bear it untill the Virgin Mary was that then Christ was conceived in her womb of the seed of the Word and the substance of the Spirit so that the Word was then first turned into flesh and then that flesh by the Spirit wholly turned into the essence of the Deitie and that Christ hath now a spirituall body that filleth heaven and earth That The Spirit is a kind of gentle breath which at first proceeded from the Word consisting partly of the essence of God and partly of a created power which having moved in the Creation on the face of the waters and there finding no rest retired again to heaven and there stayed till at the Baptisme of Christ it came down again That Man is said to be made after Gods image because the very essence of God is in every man from his originall and that not in the soul onely but in the body and that though the devil have by a kind of carnall copulation got into and possessed himself of the body yet that the divine essence remaineth still in the soul which notwithstanding it is by sinne become mortall and is breathed out into the aire yet in the regenerate by means of the Spirit it becometh consubstantiall and coeternall with God That Christ should have come to carie men to heaven albeit Adam had never fallen and that the Tree of knowledge of good and evil was a figure of Christ whom Adam over-hastily desiring to tast of threw himself and his posteritie into perdition That None are guilty of mortall sinne till they be twenty yeare old because they have no knowledge of good or evil till then nor are therefore till then to be catechised nor any to be baptized till they be thirty years old because of that age the first Adam was created and at that age the second Adam was baptized That Before Christs coming the Angels onely not God were worshipped nor were any regenerate by the Spirit nor did their faith regard any more then terrestriall good things save that some few by apropheticall spirit might aloof off have some smatch of spirituall things That From the beginning as well Gentiles as Jews that lived well according to natures guidance were thereby justified and without faith of Christ shall thereby at the last day attain to life eternall That The Law was given onely for a time and that men were then saved by the observation of it which was then observed when men did what they could who might therefore glorie then in their works being justified wholly by them but that men are not now to be scared with it That Faith is nothing else but to believe Christ to be the Sonne of God and to justifie nothing but to make a man righteous who was sinfull before and that we are now justified partly by faith and partly by works That On Gods part there is no promise required unto justification nor doth faith depend upon any promise of God or hath any respect thereunto in regard whereof he scoffeth at those that build their faith upon Gods promises or that mention them in their prayers That There is a perfect puritie in every holy action and such as may endure even the extreme rigour of Gods justice That Abraham was indeed justified by works howbeit that his believing is first said to be imputed to him for righteousnesse and he said to be just for one act of faith the place by M r Walker produced as if a prince out of his favour regarding his souldiers mind and good will would be pleased to accept the good endeavour for the thing fully performed and so Abraham was therefore by God deemed just because by his believing it appeared that he stood well affected to acquire a commendation of righteousnesse by his good works Which is all saith Calvine that he ascribeth unto faith either in us or in him Whose faith also he saith as of others before Christ was no true faith but a figure of true faith and the righteousnesse imputed to him no spirituall but a carnall righteousnesse and insufficient not a truth but a shadow and the imputation of it but a type of the great grace of Christ to us And thus much if not too much of Servetus his blasphemous and prodigious dreams and dotages for I have raked overlong in this filthy sinck in this stincking puddle which till upon this occasion I never pried or peered into before nor it may be should ever have done but for it Socinus remaineth whose positions what they were may appear by his

writings yet extant and in the hands of too many by means whereof it is to be feared that they do the more hurt The principall of his tenets though not so prodigious as those of Servetus yet blasphemous and vile enough are these He denieth not Christs deity and eternity onely with Arrius but his existence at all also before he was conceived by the Virgin Mary with Photinus and so maketh him a mere man He denieth Christ to have been a redeemer or to have wrought any redemption or to have paid any price or ransome unto God for us truly and properly so termed or that by his sufferings any satisfaction at all was made unto God for our sinnes or that God is thereby reconciled unto us or that thereby he merited ought from God either for himself or for us That he is therefore onely called a Saviour and is said to save partly because he teacheth us by his doctrine and sheweth us by his practice the way to life eternall and confirmeth the same to us by the miracles that he wrought and by his dying and rising again from the dead and partly because he hath power given him by God to make the same good unto all that believe in him That to believe in him is nothing else but to obey him or to keep his precepts under hope of eternall life thereby to be obtained and that this is the very form and essence of justifying faith and that for so doing a man is justified and accepted to life eternall and that it is therefore in our power by our good works to attain thereunto This is the summe of his doctrine concerning mans justification and salvation wherein also I am the briefer because much of it hath been laid down before Now whether M r Wotton or M r Godwin do conspire and concurre with Peter Abeilard Servetus and Socinus in these their blasphemous dotages and are therefore justly yoked with them by M r Walker or no it concerneth not me let others try and determine But for M r Wotton his own defence of himself herein and the censure of others by M r Walker himself appealed to which he cannot therefore in equity go from I have faithfully delivered being confirmed by the attestation of those whom he cannot except against being men of his own choise and of sufficient credit and good esteem otherwise And as for M r Godwin to me a mere stranger in regard of any acquaintance one whom I never heard or saw to my knowledge save once of late occasionally at the funerall of a friend nor know certainly what he holdeth or hath taught I say no more but as they sometime of their sonne Aetatem habet he is old enough and for ought I know able enough to answer for himself and he surviveth yet so to do if he see good But whether Peter Abeilard ever moved this Question which M r Walker saith he was the first mover of to wit Whether faith or the righteousnesse of Christ be imputed in the act of justification is to me a great question And M r Walker's reading herein as I confesse it may well be is better then mine if he can shew where either he did ever handle it or is reported so to have done Nor do I find in all M r Calvines large relation and refutation of Servetus his blasphemies where ever he propounded or maintained any question in such terms as this by M r Walker is here conceived in For Socinus it is true that in prosecution of his discourses wherein he laboureth to prove Christ to be such a Saviour onely as was out of him before described he is inforced to acknowledge that Faith such as he meaneth that is Obedience to Christs commandments doth justifie without relation to ought done or suffered by Christ any satisfaction made by him or merit of his neither of which he acknowledgeth And the like may be deduced from what Servetus held though his assertions as Calvine also well observeth are found oft to enterfere and to crosse one another and from that also that Abeilard is by Bernard charged to have held But if M r Walker will father this upon him concerning the deniall of the Imputation of Christs righteousnesse because from his positions it may be deduced he might have risen a great deal higher and have fetched in Simon Magus Ebion Cerinthus Marcion Manes and a whole rabble of old hereticks and out of the ancient stories of the Church made a list as large almost as his book is long from whose pestilent positions the same might as well be deduced as from those things that Abeilardus and Servetus maintained Again neither is this sufficient to prove a point to be hereticall and blasphemous because it may be deduced from assertions of that nature for if we shall condemn as hereticall and blasphemous whatsoever by necessary consequence may be extracted from those dotages that some blasphemous hereticks have held the like censure may then yea must then be passed upon many orthodox tenets in the negative especially maintained by us against the Church of Rome since that they follow necessarily from those grounds that by such hereticks have been held For example That Christs body is not really present in the Sacrament nor is sacrificed and offered up to God in the Masse doth necessarily follow from the opinion of Eutyches and others who maintained the humane nature of Christ to be swallowed up into his Godhead from the dotages of Simon Saturn Basilides and many more who held that he never suffered at all of Apelles who held that his body was dissolved into the foure elements of Seleucus Manes and Hermes that held it fastened to the starres or lodged in the sunne That there is no purgatory nor use of invocation of Saints or of singing masses for souls deceased followeth necessarily from the opinion of the Sadduces that held no spirits and from the Psychopannychites dream of the souls sleeping till the last day which in effect therefore the sequestration of them at least from the divine presence till then that Chamaelion Spalatensis pretended the rather to maintain because by it those Popish errours would be easily and evidently overthrown For who is so meanly versed in the art of reasoning as not to know That the clearest truths may be deduced from the grossest falshoods that may be As grant a stone to have life and a man to be a stone and it will thence follow that a man hath life And yet were it absurd from hence to conclude that whosoever holdeth the latter must needs either concurre in judgement with those that should maintain the former or hold any falshood much lesse any absurdity though those positions that inferre it be both false and absurd And let M r Walker consider this calmly and seriously with