Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	faith_n	heart_n	purify_v	2,568	5	11.6551	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23656	Animadversions on that part of Mr. Robert Ferguson's book entituled The interest of reason in religion which treats of justification in a letter to a friend.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1676 (1676)	Wing A1054; ESTC R5034	44,339	112

armed with authority from Heaven as by that means it does and when the Laws and Statutes of that Kingdom shall be produced laid open and urged to make it good and enforce it The Scriptures themselves will be found of more authority in the Consciences of men than the best words men can speak though never so rational and true In a word as Apollos was a man mighty in the Scriptures so he mightily convinced his hearers by the Scriptures Acts 18.24 28. I need not mention unto you how much it was St. Paul's manner to reason out of the Scriptures of the old Testament before those of the New were in being when he had to do with those that owned them Acts 17.2 and 28.23 Nor how our Lord Christ himself collected and brought together the things concerning himself which were scattered up and down in Moses and the Prophets and expounded them to his Disciples and thereby opened their understandings and caused their hearts to burn within them and that I think is not unlike the operation of the Motives of the Gospel I have been speaking of Luke 24.27 32 45 46. There is one thing more which I must add to obviate an objection and another to explain and confirm something I have asserted I know some and perhaps your self will be ready to object That the tenour of my reasoning touching God's imputing Faith it self and other inherent Grace for Righteousness in justifying men tends to confound Justification and Sanctification and to make them all one But that follows not at all For Sanctification is the constituting or making men Evangelically righteous or holy by the joint operation of God's Holy Spirit and the Evangelical Doctrine but Justification is God's pronouncing or declaring them as he doth in the Gospel to be righteous according to the terms of the Gospel as having performed the condition upon which forgiveness of Sin and eternal Life are therein promised Justification is a Juridical act of God as Judge which doth not make a man righteous as sanctification doth but upon tryal pronounceth him to be so and by it the person tried is acquited and discharged from the accusation of unbelief impenitency and wilful disobedience to the Gospel and so also from Condemnation it self So that Justification is not Sanctification but supposeth it as antecedent thereunto at least in order of nature Whom he called them he also justified saith St. Paul and whom he justified them he also glorified Rom. 8.30 He doth not say whom he justified them he also sanctified but them also he glorified Sanctification is not brought in between Justification and Glorification in that golden Chain but is placed in order as going before both in effectual calling The other thing I would add for explanation and confirmation is this Whereas I have said that the Faith which is imputed for Righteousness is comprehensive of Repentance and Obedience to the Gospel Now least you should not be satisfied therewith I shall give you this plain account why we cannot reasonably understand otherwise For the Scripture doth exclude such from sharing in the saving benefits of the Covenant as are impenitent unregenerate and disobedient to the Gospel Luke 13.3 Joh. 3.3 Rom. 2.8 And if so then no man can share in those saving benefits whereof Justification is one until his Faith doth produce Repentance Regeneration and Obedience unless you will suppose that which no man does that these are no efffects of Faith For he that believes is born of God is to a degree renewed to his likeness 1 John 5.1 And when I say thus I am not of opinion that men cannot be justified until they have fulfilled some time in a course of holy living and new obedience internal and external But when a man so believes as that such a real change is thereby wrought in the heart as is the beginning of a new life for the present and the foundation of a holy life for the future then undoubtedly he passeth out of an unjustified into a justified state This change in the mind and will by means of Faith doth first constitute a man a good man and when this change first takes place then God's Laws are first put into the mind and written in the heart upon which God promiseth in the New Covenant to be our God and that we shall be his People and that he will be merciful to our unrighteousness and our sins and iniquities to remember no more Hebr. 8.10 12. and 10.16 17. And it is observable that the qualification upon which God in the New Covenant here mentioned promiseth to be our God and to forgive our sins is not mentioned under the Name or Notion of Faith or Believing but of having the Divine Laws put into the mind and written in the heart Which would be somewhat strange if this writing the Law in the heart were no part of the Condition without which God will not vouchsafe unto any man that great benefit of the Covenant Justification There is no doubt indeed but that though Faith be not here mentioned yet it is supposed and implyed in as much as without it the Law cannot be written in the heart in the sense we speak of it now But then when at other times Faith only is mentioned as that which qualifies men for Justification and as the Condition of the promise of Pardon and Salvation yet then this writing of the Law in the heart is also to be understood For it is not to be imagined that the putting of the Law into the mind and writing it in the heart would be mentioned in a description of the tenour of the New Covenant as that qualification upon which God will be our God take us for his people and forgive our sins which imply Justification if any Faith or Faith in any respect short of producing this effect would be available and sufficient unto Justification It 's true the Scripture in some places tells us that Faith is imputed for Righteousness without telling us what or what manner of Faith this is But then in other places it is plainly described to us by the nature of its operation as that it purifieth the heart Acts 15.9 worketh by love Gal. 5.6 overcometh the world 1 John 5.4 and sanctifieth the whole man Acts 26.18 We see then that the inseparable effects of Faith as here the writing of the Law in the heart are sometimes mentioned as those things which qualifie us for the blessing of the Covenant and sometimes Faith it self only But if we will take the whole testimony of the Scriptures together we shall find that both are intended And why then should we contend as some do about dividing these in qualifying us for Justification as parts of that Evangelical Righteousness which will be imputed to us for Righteousness After all this let me tell you Sir That there is a sense in which it is not disagreeable to the Scripture to say that a man is justified by such acts of

Holiness of God to justifie us upon an imperfect obedience the Law which requireth a perfect remaining still in force and denouncing wrath in case of every failure By all which you will perceive I suppose that Mr. F. holds that the Law remains still in force requiring a perfect obedience unto justification and for want thereof and in case of every failure denounceth wrath And that therefore unles the satisfaction of Christ's death and the righteousness of his life were formally imputed to us ie as I suppose he meanes so as that we may be said to have made satisfaction in and by him and perfectly kept the Law in and by him by having his obedience and satisfaction imputed to us it would be repugnant to the immutability and essentiall Holiness of God to justifie upon an imperfect Obedience In which assertions of his there seem to me to be two grand mistakes besides that of a formal imputation he speaks of The first is in holding the law to be still in force not only in requiring obedience to it self by way of Duty which is true but in requiring perfection of Obedience as a Condition of Justification and in its Rigor and severity in denouncing wrath in case of every failure Secondly In that he holds that though we should answer all that the Gospel requires both in respect of a righteousness of inherent Grace and of a personal sincere obedience yet we could not be justified without the formal imputation of a perfect legal righteousness as aforesaid and that these two are grand mistakes indeed I shall endeavor to demonstrate to you In opposition to the first of them I conceive the Scripture will warrant me to affirm That God by founding a new Covenant a Covenant of Grace with the world in his Son Jesus Christ and his Mediatory undertaking hath Rescinded or Superseded the Rigour and severity of the original Law in two things First as a legal perfection of obedience was by it required as the Condition of Justification and life And Secondly as it did denounce wrath and Condemnation in case of every failure Although the original Law of nature the moral Law be eternal and unchangeable in requiring obedience by way of Duty yet it is not so in the foresaid Rigour and severity of its Sanction To establish the Law again in this sense after the Covenant of Promise is made would be according to the Apostle's reasoning to make faith void and the Promise of none effect Rom. 4.14 Gal. 3.18 For the old and new terms of Justification cannot consist together without the one evacuating the other If by Grace saith the Apostle then is it no more of works otherwise Grace would be no more Grace But if of works then it is no more Grace otherwise work is no more work Ro. 11.6 And again whosoever of you are justified by the law ye are fallen from Grace Gal. 5.4 By the interposition of Christ we are redeemed from the Sanction or Curse of the Law which curseth every one that continueth not in all things which it requireth and that for this very end that the blessing of Abraham viz. of being Justified by faith according to the terms of the new Covenant might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ Gal. 3.13 14. Intimating that this blessing of the new Covenant could not have taken place if the Curse of the old had still remained When St. Paul saith that the Ministration of Death written engraven in stones is done away 2 Cor. 3 7. Compared with v. 11. I pray you what of this was done away by the Introduction of the Evangelical ministration if not the Rigour of the Condition of escaping the Curse of it For from that it is that it is denominated the Ministration of Death and Condemnation and it is done away as such a Ministration For otherwise the Law engraven in stones as it is a Rule of and obligation to Duty is not done away In this sense indeed Christ did not come to destroy the Law Mat. 5.17 This benefit by Christ in God's making a new Covenant and granting new terms upon account of his undertaking is not limited to some men only but extended to all In this sense Christ died for all men without exception And it is not unlikely but that one reason at least why God in his wisdome and goodness thought it meet to vouchsafe unto the whole race of Adam these new and gracious terms of recovery after the fall when no such thing is granted the lapsed Angels was this because the Condemnation into which the Angels fell was by their own personal actuall rebellion without Temptation from another whereas the Condemnation into which all the posterity of Adam fell proceeded originally from his and his wives transgression and that from the temptation of the Devil and not from the personal act of their Progeny And that the benefit of freeing men from the Rigorous Sanction of the Law by the active and passive obedience of Christ in which the new Covenant is founded is as extensive as ever the effect of Adam's disobedience was in subjecting all men to condemnation according to the Rigorous terms of the Law is I conceive plainly asserted by the Apostle when he saith in Rom. 5.18 as by the Offence of One Judgement came upon all men to Condemnation even so by the Righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto Justification of life By the free gift which comes by the Righteousnes of Christ upon all men unto Justification of life I understand the New Covenant For this free gift can neither be the righteousness of the One here spoken of but that which is procured by it Nor yet justification it self for that is the effect of it So that we cannot in reason understand it otherwise than of some middle thing and that in all probability can be none other than the Grace contained in the New Covenant which Covenant God by a most gracious graunt and free gift hath vouchsafed to all men for the Righteousness sake of Christ here spoken of in which remission of Sin and eternal life are promised upon condition of faith And this exactly agrees with what the same Apostle saith Eph. 2.8 when he saith that by Grace we are saved through faith and that not of our selves it is the gift of God that is it is the Grace and gift of God that now we may be saved by faith a favour which the Law never afforded for the Law is not of faith but the man that doth them shall live in them And when the Apostle saith this free gift came upon all men unto justification of life we are not to understand it I conceive as if Justification in act came upon all men universally by the righteousness of Christ and this free gift but that for the sake of the one and in the other such gracious terms are granted and offered to all men without exception as by which they may attain