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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	life_n	name_n	write_v	18,504	5	6.4426	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55299	An answer to the discourse of Mr. William Sherlock, touching the knowledge of Christ, and our union and communion with him by Edward Polhill ..., Esquire.	Polhill, Edward, 1622-1694?	1675 (1675)	Wing P2749; ESTC R13514	277,141	650

such men can be supposed to relapse into a sinful state God will cease to love them therefore they found the immutability of Gods Love to them on their perseverance in doing good God loves all good men but if they cease to be good he also must cease to love Herein the immutability of Gods Love consists not that he always loves the same person but that he always loves for the same reason For it is no perfection to be so fixt in our kindness that where we love once we will always love whatever reason there may be to alter our affections for by this means we may love undeserving Objects which is the greatest degeneracy of Love but the perfection of Love consists in loving deserving Objects and in loving upon honourable reasons and the immutability of Love consists in loving always for the same reasons which is the only foundation of a virtuous immutability The reason of Christs Love to any person is Holiness and Obedience If any love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him Joh. 14.23 The unchangeableness of his Love is seen in this that he will continue to love while we continue to obey him If ye shall keep my Commandments that is continue to do so Ye shall abide in my Love I will continue to love you As I have kept my Fathers Commandments and abide in his Love Joh. 15.20 This is the immutability of the Divine Nature that God always acts upon steddy constant Principles that whatever changes there are in the World which may occasion very different administrations in his providence yet he is the same still and never changes Whereas should God always love the same person however he changed and altered God must change and alter too because though he still loves the same person yet he must love for different or contrary reasons or for none at all and that is the much greater change of the two to alter the reason than the Object of Love If God love a good man because he is good and continue to love him when he is wicked his love is a mutable thing which can love goodness or wickedness which can love for none or for contrary reasons But if God always loves true goodness and good men and never loves any other whatever change there be in Creatures God is the same still and unchangeable in his Love The Author admits an immutable Love in God towards goodness Answer but the Scripture asserts an immutable Love in God towards persons He hath chosen us before the foundation of the world Eph. 1.4 Electing Love is eternal and therefore immutable Non enim est vera aeternitas ubi orttur nova voluntas nec est immortalis voluntas quae alia et alia est An eternal choice must be ever the same and after one there cannot rise another The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his 2 Tim. 2.19 Election which is the foundation is sure and Gods fore-knowledge which includes invariable Love in it is the seal of it The Book of Life hath all the names of the Elect written in it and Gods Love is the Seal that confirms it whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified Rom. 8.30 This Golden Chain of Grace comprises in it certain individual persons as the words whom and them which fasten every link of it doth evidently import and that which holds all the links of it together is immutable Love Nay besides Scripture evidence reason will evince this immutable Love of the Elect without this there can be no design of a Church and without the design of a Church Christs blood must needs be shed irrationally or upon a meer peradventure I say without this there can be no design of a Church for the design of a Church must comprise in it those individual persons which shall make up a Church and undertake that they shall infallibly believe and persevere till they come to Heaven it must first comprise in it those individual persons which shall make up a Church or else it is lame and imperfect unworthy of the Divine Wisdom and Perfection running much after this rate as if God should say I design a Church but I care not of whom it consists which is much one as if God should design an Heaven and not what Stars should be in it or an Earth and not what Plants should be there All the members in mans body are written in Gods book Psal 139.16 And can any man imagine that those who should make up the Mystical Body of Christ as so many Members thereof are not certainly designed God calleth them by name Joh. 10.3 Your names are all down in the Book of Life Phil. 4.3 To design a Church and not who is too weak a thing for the all-wise Deity Again the design of a Church must undertake that those individual persons shall believe and persevere unless this be granted the design of a Church must be framed thus God gives a Saviour and a Gospel in common and over and above a power to men to believe and persevere and so though the issue hang upon mans will hopes for a Church But in Truth this is not to design a Church but the possibility of one there may be one as it may happen and there may be none And is this like that Divine Providence which is perfect in all things and especially in the great design of a Church Nay is it probable upon these terms that any should believe and persevere Innocent Adam and yet alas how soon was that Star shot was more likely to stand in his integrity than any man since upon those terms hath been to believe and persevere The disparity clears it The Divine principles in Adam sweetly inclined him to obedience But the power of believing in men doth not incline but only put the will in aequilibrio The Divine Principles in Adam were pure and without mixture But the power of believing hath in the same heart where it dwells an inmate of corruption which continually counter-works it In innocency the temptation stood without a courting the senses But after the Fall it makes nearer approaches as having a party within ready to open and betray every faculty These things considered methinks every one who with humble eyes looks on that glass of Creature defectibility which was made out of the broken pieces of fallen Adam should conclude it very improbable that any one in all the World upon those terms should believe and persevere it being no less than a proud thought for any to imagine that upon such great disparities he could act his part better than Adam did And is it reasonable that God should found the design of a Church upon such improbabilities The first Covenant in which the stock of Grace

for the Question was about its necessity to salvation if we be justified and saved without it it is not necessary I answer Here we have Justification and Salvation confounded Obedience follows after Justification as we heard but now from our Church but precedes Salvation But to pass that Is nothing necessary to Salvation but what justifies Is not Sanctification necessary to Salvation and yet distinct from Justification and how then are we saved without Obedience But saith the Author Where is the Sanction of this Law Will he damn those that obey not and save those that do obey If after all those Commands God hath left it indifferent Obedience is not necessary But what a strange Supposition is this Commanded and yet left indifferent It is utterly impossible no man will say so so much as of an Humane Command No doubt at all but God will damn the rebellious and save the obedient yet our Obedience no way clashes with Christ's Righteousness neither is Eternal Life given us for Obedience as if it merited the same What follows in the Author Will the Father elect and the Son redeem none but those who are holy is a very strange Question Will they as if the Book of Life were yet unwritten and the Blood of Atonement yet unshed The Father hath elected us that we should be holy Eph. 1.4 and how can he elect us being such The Son gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 2.14 and how could we be holy before However no disregard is cast upon Holiness which though it do not antecede Election and Redemption yet it sweetly streams and issues from thence and Believers are obliged to follow after it as they will answer the End of Election and Redemption And whilest they are passing on in that pure way I dare be their Bondsman that they shall not be met with any such monstrous Conceit as if Holiness which is exaltative of free Grace were destructive of it Yet Holiness is necessary to our honour Mr. Sherlock for it makes us like to God Prophane men that they are as if the perfect Righteousness of Christ were not much more for our honour and did not make us more like to God than the rags and patches of our own Righteousness A very hard case Answer they must be profane for proving the Necessity of Holiness and likeness to God but the reason is this disparages the Righteousness of Christ A sad story but it will be proved much about the time when Christ's justifying Righteousness and sanctifying Spirit shall fall at odds and variance among themselves So horrid a thing cannot be neither let any Christian Mind start a thought of it But it is for Peace what Mr. Sherlock Peace of Conscience Must we fetch our peace from Duties and Graces Is not this to renounce Christ Miserable men must we set about correcting our Lives amending our Ways performing Duties following after Righteousness according to the prescript of the Law Why this is the course wherein many continue long with much perplexity hoping fearing tiring themselves in their way Afterwards they come to the Apostle's Conclusion By the works of the Law no man is justified and is this the way to Peace Is this the way to Communion with God by our own Righteousness Doth not all our wisdom of walking with God consist in our acquaintance with Christ God is Light we darkness he Life we dead he Holiness we defiled he Love we hatred surely this is no foundation of Agreement or Communion the foundation then of this Peace is laid and hid in Christ who is our peace and the Medium of all Communications between God and us So that if this Gentleman's that is Dr. Owen's memory had not failed him he would never have told us that Holiness is necessary to our peace and Communion with God All this is but a mistake Answ for want of distinguishing between the Foundation of our peace with God and the Sense of it The Foundation of our peace is not laid in our Works or Legal Righteousness but in the atoning and satisfying blood of Jesus Christ which speaks peace to all believers Melch. Adam in vit Jureconsult A notable instance whereof we have in that German John à Berg Father of Joachim who in all his life was a zealous Papist standing on his works and legal righteousness but upon his death-bed cast away those fig-leaves and poor coverings and reposed himself in the merit and expiation of Christ as the only foundation of peace But the sence of this peace is found in a way of holiness whilest the believer is there the love of God coming down in the witness of the spirit and ecchoing in conscience makes such a pure serenity in the heart as outrelishes all things in nature Now whether there be any inconsistency between the foundation of our peace and the sence of it I leave to the Reader these may as well stand together as Christs attonement and our Obedience However Holiness serves for the conviction of enemies Mr. Sherlock how so when it is not essentially necessary to his Friends and it is for the conversion of others why so when men may be converted without it It keeps off the Judgments of God from men But why cannot Christs Righteousness do this more effectually than the holiness of men Holiness casts forth a convictive Ray and Glory into the dark world Answ yet it is not essential to Believers to justifie but to sanctifie them It hath a Divine tendency to convert others yet the first act of conversion precedes in habitual Grace and actual Holiness or Obedience follows after Christs righteousness without which there would be nothing but wrath and judgments is the great fundamental reason of keeping them off but Holiness ministers under it to the same end But it is necessary in respect of the state and condition of justified persons Mr. Sherlock for they are accepted and received into friendship with an holy God therefore they must cleanse and purify themselves what need of this when they are cloathed with the Robes of Christs Righteousness which is the only foundation of our Commuuion with God And pag. 267. They fulfill the Righteousness of the Law not by doing any thing themselves but by having all done for them by having this perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to them And pag. 423. The Doctor places Christs righteousness in the room of ours to be not only the foundation but condition of the Covenant And then makes it an expression of our chast affections to Christ quite to thrust out our own righteousness and to allow it no place in our Religion And pag. 427. The foundation of their love to Christ Is a fond imagination that he will save them by his righteousness without any righteousness of their own What! Answer Doth imputed righteousness