Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	condition_n	faith_n	justification_n	3,398	5	9.7058	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41521	A discourse of the true nature of the Gospel demonstrating that it is no new law, but a pure doctrine of grace : in answer to the Reverend Mr. Lorimer's Apology / by Tho. Goodwin ...	Goodwin, Thomas, 1600-1680.	1695 (1695)	Wing G1240; ESTC R14253	86,715	80

fond of any Arminian Opinions we must take the whole System of them together and assert roundly as they do without mincing the Matter what hath an inseparable Connexion with a false Proposition for there are Consequences among Errors as well as Truths and as the one are chain'd the other are link'd together We may then be certain that these Expressions in Scripture He that believeth shall be sav'd but he that believeth not shall be damn'd Mark 16. 16. And whoever believeth on Christ shall receive remission of Sins Acts 10. 43. And except you repent you shall all likewise perish Luke 13. 5. which are urg'd by my Reverend Brother do not signify that God passeth his Word to all Men by a new Law establish'd among them that if they obey it and believe and repent they shall assuredly be saved for God always speaks the Purposes of his Mind and none of his Words contradict his Heart but he never decreed either absolutely or conditionally that all Men should be eternally happy for if he had he would have taken effectual Care that they should be so since the Intents of his Mind and Will always obtain infallibly their desir'd Effect If we also understand that Expression He who believes shall be sav'd that it is promis'd to all that on the performance of this Condition they shall be thus eternally bless'd then by the same Rule we must say that eternal Death and Ruin is threaten'd to them on condition they do not believe But the Threatnings of this Wo are not denounc'd against Men for not believing but as due to them for not perfectly obeying the Law of Works and their Unbelief only leaves them in that perishing Condition wherein they were born as I have prov'd before tho as I said their Unbelief aggravates the Misery and inflames the Anguish of it But what meaning then must we apprehend these Scriptures to bear Why truly they have the same Sense as that Text in Heb. 12. 14. Follow Peace with all Men and Holiness without which no Man shall see the Lord. What! is Holiness the Condition of obtaining the Beatifical Vision No tho it doth naturally dispose the Soul and make it meet for and capable of this blissful Enjoyment No more therefore is meant than that Holiness and this Vision of God are inseparably join'd together and that no unholy Soul can possibly come to his Presence and Sight Thus it is also true that he who believes shall be sav'd which imports no more than this that all Believers are sav'd and none but they and that there is such an unchangeable Connexion between the Blessings of the Gospel that Faith Repentance and Holiness are indissolubly fasten'd with Pardon Justification and Eternal Life in the same Person or in a Word that God justifies and saves no Man but whom at his own due appointed Time he makes a Believer brings him to Repentance I speak in this of Adult Persons and sanctifies his Nature and whoever asserts this is no Antinomian nor so much as like to such an execrable Monster however invidious Names are flung about as thick as Stones in the Streets I might insist more largely on this Argument but I begin to think that the Consideration of it will more properly belong to another Discourse wherein I design with the Assistance of my Lord Jesus Christ who hath help'd me in this beyond the natural Abilities of my own Mind to him be all the Glory to prove that the Covenant of Grace doth not promise nor confer the Blessings on condition of performing Duties requir'd CHAP. VIII Those Texts of Scripture which are urg'd by the Apologist as expresly giving the Name of a New Law to the Gospel recover'd to their right Sense His Testimonies out of the Fathers and Protestant Writers evinc'd to be useless to serve his Design I Shall now examine those Texts alledg'd by my Dear Brother wherein the Gospel is call'd a Law and the Citations produc'd by him wherein the Fathers and Protestant Authors give to it the same Name I shall do it but briefly for I need not be large since any Reader who hath with any intention of Mind perus'd my poor Writing may resolve them all at first sight The first Text produc'd is that known one in Rom. 3. 27. Where is boasting then It is excluded By what Law of Works Nay but by the Law of Faith Without looking on the Context we may be satisfied by what the Apostle saith in the same Verse that by the Law of Faith he means no more than that Doctrine of Grace which declares a believing Sinner to be justified by the Righteousness of Christ which by Faith he receiveth for it is such a Law of Faith that excludes all boasting Now then if it commanded Faith and promis'd Justification on condition that this its Precept was obey'd Boasting would not be excluded but rather a great Occasion would be given to promote it For why should not a Man glory in his Faith if it be an Act of Obedience to this new Law which by the Statute of it makes his Justification to depend on this his Performance He may then as well plead that he hath done what was requir'd and so he may as well claim Life and Happiness on the Account of having done all that this new Law made necessary to Salvation as Adam if continuing in his Primitive State might have form'd a Plea of his Right to Life for having discharg'd all that Duty which the Law of Works commanded and propos'd as the Condition of his being eternally Blessed If he might have boasted for having faithfully observ'd the Covenant of Works the Believer too may assume some Glory to himself for having acted his Duty punctually to the Law of Faith if the Constitution of this Law be such that it makes the promis'd Salvation dependant upon this his Obedience in believing It will signify nothing to say that the Law by which Adam was to have been justified enjoin'd Works as the Terms of his being so but that this new Law insists only on two Acts of Obedience Faith and Repentance as all that it requires for our Justification For these two are Works done by us and so we might boast that we have done something tho not arising to that height of Duty incumbent on our first Father by which according to the Tenor of this new Law we are justified By the Opposition which the Apostle makes of the Law of Faith to a Law of Works it is also manifest that by the first he intends a pure Doctrine of Grace and by the other a Law commanding something to be done For if the Law of Faith requires any Works and constituted them to be Conditions of our obtaining the Blessings make these Works as few as you will and call them by what Names you please Faith and Repentance yet this will result from it that both are Laws of Works only with this difference that the one rigorously insists on

the Old Testament is expressed by this Name John 12. 34. The People answered him We have heard out of the Law that Christ abideth for ever and how saist thou The Son of Man must be lift up Who is this Son of Man Where not the Decalogue or Levitical Book of Statutes is intended but the Doctrine concerning the Redeemer to come as appears from those Texts in Psal 110. 4 5. Isa 9. 6. to which John 12. 34. hath a manifest regard It is then plain from this Place of the Evangelist that among the Jewish People when our Saviour lived on Earth not only Exodus and Leviticus but the Instructions which they had concerning their so much desir'd and expected Messiah and Salvation by him in any of the Books of the Old Testament were call'd and known by the Name of a Law And to this common Notion of the People according to which they nam'd the whole Doctrine reveal'd by God whether it were Precepts or Promises a Law the Apostle Paul accommodates his way of writing in stiling the Gospel a Law in Rom. 3. 27. which I shall afterwards more fully vindicate from my Reverend Brother 's imposed meaning and in Gal. 2. 19. which I now shall consider These are the Apostle's Words Gal. 2. 19. For I through the Law am dead to the Law that I might live unto God He writes to the Galatians among whom it was a prevailing Opinion that tho Christ had abated the too rigorous observation of the Law of Works yet Justification was to be obtain'd by some lower degrees of Obedience To shew them how opposite this Doctrine was to the Gospel preach'd by him the Apostle tells them what were the Experiences of his own Soul I am dead says he to the Law of Works and have not the least Heart to seek Justification by it And how was he thus mortified to the Law of Works What by a new Law of Works lower'd to more moderate Conditions No for such an one would rather have cherished and encouraged the Life of his Hopes in his own Obedience By the Law then that is by the pure Doctrine of Grace in the Gospel revealing Christ's Righteousness as that alone by which a Sinner can be justified the Apostle is quite deaden'd as to any hopes of Justification by his own Righteousness and hath not the least motion in his Soul to seek it in that manner What very much weighs with me is That Luther who so excellently hath wrote on this Epistle and who successfully prevailed against the Errors of Antichrist about Merit of Works by subverting the great Foundation of them which is this Assertion of the Gospel's being a milder Law of Works interprets the Apostle to mean by that Law which had such a mortifying Efficacy upon him the pure Doctrine of Grace in the Gospel The Law of the Decalogue says he did bind me against it I have now another Law viz. of Grace which is not a Law to me neither binds me but frees me But it is a Law against the damning LAW THIS it binds that it may no longer bind me If Luther thus calls the Gospel a Law signifying no more by that Name than a pure Doctrine of Grace it is no wonder that others of the Reformed Religion cited by my Reverend Brother call it so too tho not in his Sense but designing Luther's Meaning who ruin'd the greatest Strength of Popery by denying the Gospel to be a new Law of Works and by asserting it on all Occasions to be meerly a Doctrine of Grace But it is not the Authority of this Great Man which solely prevails with me the Design and Scope of the Apostle in this second Chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians hath the greatest Force to perswade me that by the Law which made him dead to the Law of Works he intends the sincere and unmuddied Doctrine of free Justification by Christ's Righteousness alone His Design is plainly to refute an Error prevailing among the Galatians who tho professing the Gospel and to be justified by Faith in Christ yet would make this Gospel to be a new Law exacting Works as necessary to Justification He answerably disclaims every Law of Works whether the old Jewish or that new Evangelical One so lately invented among these Christians and made to look with the polish'd and smooth Face of the Gospel He excludes the Observances of any Duties or any Act of Obedience from having an Interest in our Justification assigning the whole Business of it to Faith alone ver 16. Knowing that a Man is not justified by the Works of the Law but by the Faith of Jesus Christ even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the Faith of Christ and not by the Works of the Law for by the Works of the Law shall no Flesh be justified It is thus he demonstrates this Proposition That we are not justified by the Works of any Law That they who were Jews to whom the Law was more especially given yet they having been instructed by the Doctrine of Grace that they could not be justified by Obedience to the Law and having by the Gospel which brings in a better Righteousness been convinc'd of the Defects of their own and therefore knowing that God had not appointed any Law whereby he would justify a Sinner they answerably had believed on Christ that so according to the Doctrine of the Gospel they might be justified by his Righteousness alone This is undoubted that we must be justified by some Righteousness or other not by our own for then Justification would be by the Works of a Law and so our Faith in another's Righteousness would be insignificant and to little or no purpose For why should we entirely trust in another Person for that which we could so well accomplish our selves If then not our own it must be Christ's Righteousness only that can have this desir'd Effect and knowing this by the Law or Doctrine of the Gospel we have says the Apostle for this very purpose believ'd on Jesus This without any Shuffles or intricate Windings is the plain Sense of this 16th Verse And among other Causes which mortified in him and the other Believers any Inclinations to seek Justification by the Law Pareus numbers the Doctrine of the Gospel as that which had the strongest and most efficacious Influence It is now then very agreeably that the Apostle says of himself That this Law or Doctrine of Grace had made him dead to the Law of Works but alive unto God What is it to be dead to the Law To renounce it in the Matter of our Justification to be freed from its galling Yoke of Servitude and Bondage whereby it keeps guilty unbelieving Sinners perpetually under the Tortures of slavish Fears and amazing Terrors To be dead to the Law is to disclaim our Justification by Works of our own and not to trust in any Obedience which we can perform to it and being convinced