Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	apostle_n	faith_n	grace_n	1,407	5	5.8253	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B06542	A brief, and plain apology written by John Wheelwright: wherein he doth vindicate himself, from al [sic] those errors, heresies, and flagitious crimes, layed to his charge by Mr. Thomas Weld, in his short story, and further fastened upon him, by Mr. Samuel Rutherford in his survey of antinomianisme. Wherein free grace is maintained in three propositions, and four thesis [sic] ...	Wheelwright, John, 1594-1679.	1658 (1658)	Wing W1604; ESTC R186427	40,565	36

a sense as the words seem to carry considered by themselves without any Relation to that which goes before or follows You dis-member wrest torture by putting upon the rack some broken Notes of an extemporary Sermon and make them speak what you think good against the Preacher and where they are altogether silent and speak not one word you put in words of your own which makes for your purpose Let such dealings pass for current what Sermon can be Preached by any Minister of the Gospel which ye may not arraign accuse condemne banish as guilty of Heresie contempt of Authority Sedition and what not No man can say with a good Conscience That I did at any time in publick or private in Old England or in New deny true Sanctification to be a good evidence I look at Works of Sanctification to be no dubious nor litigious evidence but demonstrative and infallible without which the imagined spirits witness is delusory and al supposed Faith is vain The Sanctification which I denyed to be any good evidence are certain effects of the spirit of bondage and works of the law and I taught That an act of Faith founded upon them is not saving and according to the Gospel but legal against them who never knew their inward call or hear and learn of the Father and so by Faith come unto Christ The inward witness of the Spirit in a simple promise of grace is not immediately and in it self discerned by them but by their legal Reformation going under the name of sanctification These are my apprehensions concerning our evidencing a good estate The immediate foundation of that act of Faith by which we are perswaded That Christ and his benefits is ours and by which we do receive him is the free simple absolute promise of grace applied by the spirit in our effectual call which is called throughout the Gospel by way of excellency the promise and therefore al Gods children are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the children of the promise Rom. 9 8. This Promise indeed is indefinite yet is it determined to every Elect person in his efficacious call The indefinite Promise with a commandment to believe and make it particular comes not in word only but also in Power and in the holy Ghost from whence he can thus conclude I am perswaded to believe by Christ not only outwardly in his words but inwardly by his Spirit in my heart that the promise and Christ promised belongs unto me therefore Christ with al his benefits is mine The medium of the particular Application of the general Promise is the inward witness of the spirit of Adoption who as Mr. Perkins saith in his Sermon entituled Christ the true and perfect gain beareth witness to our consciences of such things as God hath given us in particular and are only in general manner propunded in the Promise The Apostle Paul grounded his Faith upon this simple promise The indefinite runs thus Christ loved the world and gave himself for the world Christ came into the world to save sinners Paul applies it and makes it particular according to Christs command for thus he expresseth himself He loved me and gave himself for me Gal. 2.20 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of which I am chief 1 Tim. 1.15 How came Paul to make this application Because he was perswaded thereunto not only outwardly in the word but inwardly by the spirit in his heart 1 Cor. 10.12 The Apostle John saith That he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself 1 Joh. 5.10 Believing on the Son of God is the effect the witness in himself the cause Mr. Calvin thus expounds it Non dicit Deum extra loqui sed unumquemque fidelem intus in seipso sentire fidei suae authorem If it be objected That our first act of Faith cannot be a perswasion that Christ is ours because he is not ours antecedently to our act of believing that seems to me easily to be answered Christ unites himself unto us by his Spirit in our effectual call infusing the seed of Faith and al other saving graces is in us novo modo operandi gives us a new heart and puts his spirit within us Ezek. 36.26 27. Christ is ours by a passive Reception antecedently in order to our act of believing Christ unites himself unto us by his spirit before we joyn our selves to him by an act of believing Phil. 3.12 Faith being thus founded upon the free simple promise of grace applied by the spirit of promise is confirmed divers wayes 1. First by works of Sanctification the immediate proper effects thereof For though the habit of Faith be not the cause of the habits of other Christian vertues yet is the act of faith the spirits instrument to produce al acts of sanctity as being apprehensive of Gods grace mercy love in Christ and other motives and perswasives to induce to good works receiving strength from Christ enabling us to perform them So that true faith works by love which love with other Christian vertues wherein we do resemble Christ to whom we are united are unto us a seal of that fellowship we have with him according to that of the Apostle In whom after ye believed ye were sealed with the holy spirit of Promise Ephes 1.13 The spirit in sealing of us imprints in some measure the very image of Christ upon us consisting in righteousness and true holiness being not only holy in his essence and nature but in regard of his gracious effects in us All these works of Sanctification are so many arguments of the truth of our Faith 1 John 2.3 3.14 They are distinguishing marks and put a manifest difference between the children of God and the children of the Devil 1 John 3.10 They who do not know God to be their God as wel by putting his law in their inward parts and writing it in their hearts as by forgving their iniquities were never truly taught of God Jer. 31.33 34. This is one end of the spirits giving that holy spirit that spirit of sanctification not only to work sanctification but to teach us to know it amongst other things which are freely given us of God 1 Cor. 2.12 This hath been practised by Job David Hezekiah Paul and the whole Church of the Elect believers and saints from time to time in al generations who after that they had built their Faith upon Christ revealed offered given in the free promise did under-prop confirm strengthen the same by works of sanctification 2. Secondly by the immediate testimony of the holy Ghost There is an inward testimony of the spirit common to al true Christians Rom 8.16 which I take to be an act of the spirit applying the Gospel with such power as we perceive it is the spirit who speaks and it be gets in us an affured Faith 1 Thess 1.5 This is immediate in and by the word of grace for of his own wil begat he us

Grace it cannot be shewed out of Gods Word That any promise runs thus If you be thus or thus prepared for Christ then he belongs unto you ye have performed the condition and the benefit conditioned is yours I do acknowledge that the formal object of an efficacious Call are Elect persons prepared by the Law being sick lost dead sinners to their own apprehensions to the end that sin may abound and grace abound and that to their sense and feeling Rom 5.20 But there ate no preparations wrought either by Law or Gospel which so qualifie the Soul as a man may conclude from thence That God cals with a purpose to save Mr. Culverwel in his Treatise of Faith much bewailes the cordition of such who build their Faith upon the change of their lives affirming That they can never have sound and stedfast Faith but an unconstant and staggering opinion at the best This grounding of Faith upon gracious qualifications before union is much oppugned by Mr. Coltan in his New Covenant and by Mr. Norton in his Orth. Evang. Surely this is a doctrine which hath too much affinity with that of the Jesuites and Arminians who imagine that God makes a promise that he will give super-natural Grace to men upon condition they will use well their common grace PROPOSITION II. That the first evidence of our Justification is not any work of Sanctification 1. All good works are to be done in Faith Heb. 11.4 Rom. 14.23 Heb. 11.8 We must as ●●rsinus saith be perswaded that both our persons and our actions are accepted in and through Christ If this perswasion be the cause of good Works there must be a ground of this perswasion precedent to our Works Good Works are the effects of a former evidence therefore not our first evidences 2. All Moral Duties are comprehended under this general Precept of Love by which Faith works Gal. 5.6 as being either the elicite or imperate acts of Love but we cannot truly love God or our neighbor before we know and believe the love that God hath to us 1 Joh. 4.16 17 18 19 20 21. Who is righteous saith Bernard but he that requiteth the love of God with love again Which is never done except the Holy Ghost reveal unto a man by Faith Gods eternal purpose concerning his future Salvation Epist 107. If all our acts of evangelical love flow from the apprehension of Gods love to us they cānot be procreant causes of this apprehension nor our first evidences 3. All that the Gospel requires of us is to believe and repent We cannot evangelically repent before we perceive in some measure that God is reconciled unto us in Christ Zach. 12.10 Ezek. 16.63 Wherefore it is not our repentance nor any work of Sanctification which is our first evidence A man cannot earnestly apply himself to Repentance unless he know himself to be of God Cato Inot 3.3.2 4. All Works of Sanctification are so many acts of gratitude which hath ever relation to some former known benefit and especially our Redemption through Christ 1 Cor. 6.20 This benefit must be known by some Argument precedent to our works Therefore Sanctification is not our first evidence ursinus makes Gratitude the third part of his Catechism and placeth it after mans misery and freedom through Christ 5. All good works must be done in the name of Christ our Mediator Col. 3.17 in obedience to God our Father Then are we to know Christ to be our Mediator and God our Father and so by consequence our justification by some Argument antecedaneous to our works 6. The appearing of Gods grace which brings Salvation and of the kindness and love of God our Saviour justifying of us by his grace is the cause of all our good works Tit. 2 3. If the appearing of Justification and Salvation to the eye of Faith be the cause of all our Sanctification then is not Sanctification our first evidence 7. All good works from the first to the last are to be done without a servil fear Luk. 1.74 This sear is never removed but by a precedent sight of our deliverance from our spiritual enemies wherefore our Redemption and Justification is made known unto us by some other means which goes in order before all works of Sanctification 8. To begin to evidence a good estate from works is opposite to the method prescribed by the Apostle Peter He did write to Christians who knew and believed their justification for believing they rejoyced in joy unspeakable and full of glory 1 Pet. 1.8 He exhorts them to add unto their Faith Vertue c. 2. Pet. 1.5 This Faith was existent out of its causes not to be grounded upon works but only confirmed by them He doth not say Add unto your works faith of assurance but add unto your faith works Therefore this Faith of assurance is not founded upon sanctification as a first evidence 9. We have two distinct witnesses of our good estate which in order do precede our sanctification 1 Our inward call of the spirit 2 Our act of believing on the Son of God The spirits inward call accompanying the outward begets this act of Faith 1 Joh 5.10 1 Thess 1.5 This act of Faith brings forth works of Sanctification Gal. 5.6 Sanctification is in order the last of the three witnesses of a good estate as being the effect of the two former wherefore it is not our first evidence Hoc est initium salutis nostrae quod in nobis sentimus efficax interna vocatio Dei fides nostra assentiens Zanchie De Certâ salute Ecclesiae Mr. Calvin with other learned and godly Divines living in that age wherein the light of the Gospel did abundantly break forth defined justifying Faith not only by an act of the Will whereby we receive Christ and his benefits but also by an act of the Mind by which we are certainly perswaded of Gods love to us in Christ and he doth constantly deny sanctification to be our first evidence and in his Commentaries upon Peter and John calls Works after-proofs Faiths props Both he and Zanchie do acknowledge with all sound Divines and the whole Church that good works evidence but with this caution There must be a former evidence Mr. Calvin thus expresseth himself But forasmuch as of the fruits of Regeneration the Saints gather an Argument of the Holy Ghosts dwelling in them they do thereby not slenderly strengthen themselves to look for the help of God in their necessities when by experience they find him their Father in so great a matter And even this also they cannot do unless first they have conceived the goodness of God sealed with no other assuredness than that of the promise for if they begin to weigh it by good works nothing shall be more uncertain or more weak Inst 3.14.19 Zanchie doth declare his judgement in the same expressions Loco 11. De Justificatione Calvin upon this text 1 Joh. 3.19 And hereby we know that we are of