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	justify_v	object_n	6,929	5	9.3831	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A95872	A very short and brief account of the free justification of God's elect, from the condemning power of the law, by that law change of persons, (flowing from an eternal act of grace, by way of covenant transaction between the Father and the Son;) which brought Christ as mediator under the curse and condemnation of that broken law, in the very room and place of elect sinners. : Whereunto are added, some questions concerning this point; : proposed to be answered by those that do so confidently affirm, that the elect of God are equally with others, under the same condemning power of the law, before faith. / By A member of a Church of Christ, in the County of Essex.	Member of a Church of Christ.	1699 (1699)	Wing V279dA; ESTC R185966	13,548	48

are Heirs by Grace though Children of Wrath by Nature as coming from fallen Adam's Loins So considered their State is a State of Wrath and liable and obnoxious to God's eternal Wrath and Displeasure That State strictly considered but the Persons of the elect in this sinful fallen Estate 〈◊〉 are not objects of God's Wrath but objects of his great Immense God like-Love even when they are dead in sins Eph. 2.4 Faith makes not their Persons excepted though it doth their Services the exceptation of their Persons in the beloved is a pure Act of God's Sovereign Will that will because he will and will on whom he will Thus it appears that the Elect are Heirs by Grace and the Testament it self gives them Right to Eternal Life as the free gift of God by absolute promise and to have Right to Eternal Life and all the Blessings of the Testament of Grace by Blood and to be under the condemning Power of the Law are plain contradictions as being opposite one to the other But if any say they have nothing in present possession I answer if they have Right to Justifying Righteousness that is enough to free them from Curse and Wrath in the sight of God's satisfied Justice For there can be no Right except God counts it so and if he counts it so that is enough to Justifie us in his sight for this Righteousness is without us and is not communicated but imputed and Christ as Mediator is the subject of this Righteousness but however the Elect have a proper Right to Sanctification and Glorification before Faith For there was a Grant to Christ in the Eternal compact he performing all old Covenant Conditions as head and Mediator which when he had performed he entered into Heaven by his own Blood having obtained Eternal Redemption Heb. 9.12 what he obtained as our great Executor and surety of the Testament was before granted and he obtained it on the behalf of them for whom it was granted It pleased the Father to intrust him with all fulness of Grace for the Elect as their Covenant Head that so it might be sure to all the Heirs of Promise The Father hath made it as sure in Christ the surety of this Testament as the Eternal God could make it to speak with Reverence Thus I have been shewing which way Sinners are made Righteous in a Mediator and though the Decree produced no immediate effect yet it produced its timely effects at that moment of time the Law was broken a Mediator stood Ready as fore-ordained to step in and stand in the breach to keep off the flood of Wrath from breaking out upon the Elect always remember the Law was put in the Mediators hand or else we make strange Work and set the Law and Promise together by the Ears when the Law could not give life it must march off as a Covenant of Life or Death to God's chosen Christ takes it in his own hand and makes it give way to the Promise Now I shall come to speak something of the Justifying Sentence which pronounceth the Elect Righteous in their Covenant Head and Mediator as grounded upon this preceding Act of Grace by way of Covenant Transaction between the Father and the Son which brought our Sins upon Christ and his Mediatorial Righteousness upon us and we are wholly passive both in our being made Righteous by Imputation which is an Act of pure Grace in God to Sinners and likewise in our being pronounced Just in that Imputed Righteousness which is a sentence of Grace and passeth in the Court of Grace Life by the free promise Now in pronouncing the Sentence of Life upon ungodly Law-breaking Sinners God sits Judge of his own Law as well as the Elect Sinners Cause and instead of pronouncing the Sentence of the Law upon the Poor Sinner to Condemnation God sits Inthroned upon a Mercy Seat in the Court of Grace reconciled in a Mediator in whom Grace and Justice most sweetly agree to pass the sentence of Eternal Life up on the Elect Sinner by absolute promise Gen. 3.15 Titus 1.2 1 John 2.25 This Sentence declares God's Eterna● Will that Christ as Mediator was t● die in elect Sinners Place and they t● live by an Act of Sovereign Grace Thus God as a righteous Judge Justifieth the Righteous only that is pronounceth none but such Just as are so Deut. 25.1 and yet he Justifies the ungodly not by dispensing with his Holy Law or making that void but in a way of Justice Magnifying and Honouring his Law declares an act of Eternal Grace by virtue of which Act his Elect did stand Righteous in his sight by Imputation of one Man's Obedience to answer the Law in their place as a Covenant Head opposed to Adam's one Disobedience who was a figure of this second Adam which was immediately to take the first Adam's place with Respect to God's chosen in him upon his failoure And it is Remarkable that with respect to Christ's Mediatorship God comes in the cool of the Day reconciled in him and sounds the Jubilee Trumpet from Heaven and pronounced the sentence of Life in the free promise upon Adam and all the Womans Seed in a better Covenant Head than poor A dam was when he was recking hot in Rebellion and had no Faith For till the sentence was past there was no Grace no Christ no promise Revealed for fallen Man to lay hold on and the case must be the same still for the object must precede the Act that is conversant about that object and if Life were not revealed in an absolute promise there were no footing for Faith for a conditional promise is most properly a Law He that doth the thing required shall live Thus Faith is made void and the free promise of none effect for the first thing lookt to must be the condition annex'd to the promise and then the promise claimed upon that condition Now suppose Faith be annexed to the Justifying sentence of Life then Justifying Righteousness and eternal Life in the free promise is not the object of Faith but Faith it self must first be lookt to and then the promise pleaded upon Faith as the condition of Life but this is not the Nature of Abraham's Faith that took God upon his word and staggered not at the promise nor considered not the unlikeliness or seeming Impossibilities but believed God upon his Word and the object of his Faith was counted to him for Righteousness Thus it is by Faith as an empty Hand or passive Instrument that receives all in the free promise as pure Grace and in no sense upon Faith as a condition annex'd to the sentence of Life Yet I own that this or that Individual Person is not declared to be a Justified Person and free from condemnation but upon believing as no Individual Person is declared to be elected nor Redeemed by the Death of Christ but upon believing Yet the Scriptures do plainly declare that some are elected and them are

charged upon and Imputed to him by God himself should be the very next moment upon believing not charged with one Sin but received into the Favour of God as perfectly and compleatly Righteous in God's sight Now the change is not in the voice of the Law for that neirespects believers nor unbelievers Elect or Non-elect but equally Curseth all that continue not in all things that are written to perfection Deut. ●● 26 then it is not that imperfect ●●ange wrought in believers that can ●●n the sentence of the Law that it ●ould not Curse and Condemn them ●●at are in themselves sinful and imper●●ct Therefore I see not but that ●●ou must make the change to be in ●●od that counts the Mediatorial Obe●●ience of Christ answered the Law 〈◊〉 our place now and not before ●●cept you can find a milder Law that ●●onounceth the sentence of Life up●n this imperfect change wrought in ●s as the condition annex'd to the ●entence of Life And if so Then Question V. HOW will you deny that conditionality of the Covenant of Grace and that Faith is the Condition hereof for if Justification be by the New Covenant then the sentence 〈◊〉 Life must be according to the Teno●● of the Covenant Then if that be a● absolute promise of Life as Titus 1 ● compared with 1 John 2.25 the 〈◊〉 the Justifying sentence of Life must b● absolute as past upon all God's chose● in Christ their Covenant-Head Ge●● 3.15 chap. 22 18 compared wit● Gal. 3.16 17 18. otherwise th● Covenant must be Conditional an● Faith must be the Condition thereof 〈◊〉 and consequently no part of the Covenant Grace because not promised there in For if the first Grace be promised then the promise must be absolute t● Sinners as such as the price of th● Blood of the great Testator Again Question VI. WHY do you set the Seal of th● Covenant of Grace upon th● infinite seed of Believers seeing before ●aith they are in no fence under the ●entence of Life past in that Covenant promise though I grant that God is ●t liberty to shew his Sovereignty 〈◊〉 in Abraham's Family if the promise ●e not Real and absolute at least to ●ome as to the Internal part thereof ●hat God is their God by Covenant ●tomise Then the Seal of the Covenant is vain or only holds forth external priviledges and consequently believing Parents have no grounds for their Faith that God is the God of their seed by Covenant promise Again Question VII DOth God pronounce any Just but such as are so in his sight by Imputation If not then making over a Righteousness to elect Sinners in a Mediator must be taken in to God's Justifying Act as well as the pronounced sentence which is grounded upon this Act of Grace in a way of Justice because God as Righteous Judge Justifies ungodly Law-breaking Sinners as clears them from the voice of the Law as to the condemning power thereof by a righteousness without us by Imputation Then that Act of God's Grace that turns the sentence of the Law upon Christ the spotless Lamb by imputing our Sins to him and turns the sentence of Law as to its Condemning power from Guilty Law-breaking Sinners by imputing his Mediatorial obedience to them comes into Justification as well as the pronounced sentence that declares this Act of Grace by which the Sinner stands clear in a way of Justice For all sentences of Court according to Justice are grounded upon some preceding Act according to which Act the sentence is Just and the sentence Justifies as it declares the Act by which they stand clear Again Question VIII WHat is God's Act of Imputation by which he makes that Law Change of Persons which sets Christ as Mediator under the Curse and Condemning power of the Law Gal. 4. verse 4. chap. 3. verse 13. compared though in himself spotless and sets elect Sinners under the Blessings of the New Covenant Gal. 3. v. 14. as the immediate effects of his Mediatorial obedience though in themselves and with respect to the Law ungodly Sinners The Apostle speaking of this Sovereign Act of God Rom. 4.5 saith God Justifies the ungodly Then brings in David describing it by imputing Righteousness without works which is the Grounds Grounds of his not imputing Sin and consequently the Grounds of his pronouncing them Just This he brings in as the Quintessence of God's Justifying Act now if this Sovereign Act that makes this Law change of Persons and turns the Condemning sentence of the Law from the guilty Law-breaking Sinner to the spotless Lamb be not an Act of God's Sovereign Will as Imminent and Internal then I desire you would undeceive me and shew plainly what manner of Act it is for I take God's Will to be the Rule of all Justice and things are therefore Just because he Wills them and as it was his Will that the breach of his Law should be punished with Eternal Death and he would by no means clear the guilty Exo. 34.7 so it was his Will that this spotless Lamb should stand Guilty as Mediator by way of Imputation and should mediate between a broken Law and his Chosen ones and stand between all Harms and them And I humbly conceive that in this Act of imputing our Sins to Christ and his obedience as Mediator to us God respects no manner of inherent change in us Again Question IX WHen doth the Mediatory undertakement of Christ first take place for an Elect Person If when we believe and not before then Christ Intercedes not for the Elect uncalled which is contrary to the Scripture Jo. 17.20 Christ's Mediatorship is figured out in the Type Deut. 5.5 I stood between the Lord and you saith Moses when the Law was given upon Mount Sinai And Deut. 10.5 I came down from the Mount and put the Tables in the Ark and there they be as the Lord Commanded me Compare this with Gal. 3.19 20 21. there he shews that the Law in the Mediator's Hand made the promise take place upon the seed of Abraham Jews and Gentiles Which was the Gospel God preached to Abraham and to Adam too as Law and promise meet in Christ they sweetly agree Christ being delivered up to Justice for all the Elect in their Law-place Who can charge them saith Paul God Justifies them Christ died and is Risen again and received to God's Right Hand and there pleads Rom. 8.33 34. his plea as an Advocate is mighty and prevailing as he pleads his propitiatory Sacrifice as the propiciation of the Elect World Jew and Gentle 1 Jo. 2.2 Thus he pleads out all Bills of Indictment whatsoever out of Court and his atoneing Blood was Efficacious from the very moment Adam fell He is called a Lamb slain from the foundation of the World Rev. 13.8 he was not actually slain neither do I understand it in the Decree only but by vertue of the Decree his Blood was Efficacious from the first moment Adam fell Had it not been