Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	apprehend_v	faith_n	justify_v	2,268	5	9.0045	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40073	The design of Christianity, or, A plain demonstration and improvement of this proposition viz. that the enduing men with inward real righteousness or true holiness was the ultimate end of our Saviour's coming into the world and is the great intendment of his blessed Gospel / by Edward Fowler ...	Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.	1671 (1671)	Wing F1698; ESTC R35681	136,795	332

Christ for the pardon of sin and not also in his power for the Mortification of it In short Is it possible that faith in Christ's blood for the forgiveness of sin should be the onely act which justifieth a sinner when such a multitude of plain Texts assure us that he died also to make us holy and that his death was designed to deliver us from dying in order to a farther end namely to this that we should live unto him who died for us I will never trust my discursive Faculty so long as I live no not in the plainest and most undoubted cases if I am mistaken here And will take the boldness to tell those who are displeased with this account of Iustifying Faith that in my opinion it is impossible they should once think of any other if they did as seriously weigh and throughly consider the Design of Christianity as they ought to do I the more insist upon this because those persons explication of this point hath been greatly lyable to be used to ill purposes by insincere persons and hath given infinite advantage to the dangerous errour of Antinomianism And for my part I must confess that I would not willingly be he that should undertake to encounter one of the champions of that foul cause with the admission of this principle That faith justifieth onely as it apprehendeth the merits and righteousness of Iesus Christ I must certainly have great luck or my adversary but little cunning if I were not forced to repent me of such an Engagement Secondly And as for the other Doctrine of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness we learn from the Design of Christianity that this is the true explication of it Namely That it consists in dealing with sincerely righteous persons as if they were perfectly so for the sake and upon the account of Christ's Righteousness The grand intent of the Gospel being to make us partakers of an Inward and Real Righteousness and it being but a secondary one that we should be accepted and rewarded as if we were completely righteous it is not possible that any other notion of this Doctrine should have truth in it For as from thence it appeareth that there can be no such Imputation of Christ's Righteousness offered in the Gospel as serveth to make men remiss in their prosecution of an Inward Righteousness So is it manifest likewise That that Doctrine is designed for a motive to quicken and excite men in their endeavours after such a Righteousness as this is So far is it from tending to cause in us an undervaluing and sleight esteem of it that as sure as that the Ultimate design of Christianity is to indue us with it it must be intended for no other purpose but to farther and promote that business And it is effectual thereunto in that manner that we shewed the exceeding great and precious Promises of the Gospel are But because both these points are discussed in the Free Discourse I have said so little of the former and will proceed no f●…rther on this but refer the Reader thither and to other much more elaborate Discourses for his fuller satisfaction And indeed it was enough for me in this place to shew That the notion laid down in that Book of both these Doctrines doth evidently follow from that Proposition which is the Subject of this Treatise CHAP. XX. The Fifth Inference That we Learn from the Design of Christianity the Great Measure and Standard whereby we are to judge of Doctrines How we are to judge of the Truth of Doctrines FIfthly we learn from what hath been said of the Design of Christianity what is the Great measure and standard whereby we are to judge of Doctrines both whether they are true or false and in what degree necessary to be received or rejected First we understand how to judge of the Truth of Doctrines We may be certain that seeing the Design of Christianity is to make men holy whatsoever opinions do either directly or in their evident consequences obstruct the promoting of it are perfectly false and with as great peremptoriness and confidence as they may be by some that call themselves Christians obtruded upon us they are not of Christ nor any part of his Religion And those which do appear to us to discourage from serious endeavours after piety and true vertue we ought for that reason while we have such an opinion of them most vehemently to suspect them to be erroneous For it being the business of our Saviour's coming into the world and of his blessed Gospel effectually to perswade us to use our utmost diligence in subduing our lusts and qualifying our Souls by purity and holiness for the enjoyment of God and to make our endeavours successful for that purpose we may be undoubtedly assured that he hath not either by himself immediately or by his Apostles delivered any thing that opposeth this Design If saith S. Paul I build again the things that I destroyed I make my self a Transgressor And no man that hath in him the least of a Christian will once suspect that the perfectly wise as well as holy Jesus should so manage the business he hath undertaken as what he builds with one hand to pull down with the other and frustrate that Design by some Doctrines which he promoteth by others Those Doctrines on the other hand which in their own nature do evidently tend to the serving of this Design of Christianity we may conclude are most true and genuine And those which upon our serious considering of them we are perswaded do so we ought upon that account to have a kindness for them and to believe them of an higher than humane Original And therefore those which give the most honourable accounts of God his nature and dealing with the sons of men that most magnifie his grace and best vindicate his Holiness Justice and Goodness do commend themselves to our belief with infinite advantage Because the most worthy conceptions of the Deity are extremely helpful and likewise necessary to the loving of God and serving him as becometh us and have a mighty influence into the ordering and regulation of our whole man as might be largly shewn Those Doctrines again that most discountenance all sins both against the first and second Table and best enable to answer all pleas and pretences for security and carelesness that are most highly agreeable to the innate Dictates of our minds and least gratifie and please our carnal part we may from the consideration of the Design of Christianity be greatly perswaded of the Truth of them And on the Contrary Those which are apt to instil into mens minds any unlovely notions of the Divine Nature that disparage his Holiness or lessen his kindness and good will to his Creation and the obligations of the generality of the world to him and his Son Jesus and so make his grace a narrow and scanty thing or that naturally cast any dishonorable reflections on any