Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	believe_v	faith_n	justify_v	3,443	5	8.5941	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40084	The principles and practices of certain moderate divines of the Church of England (greatly mis-understood), truly represented and defended wherein ... some controversies, of no mean importance, are succinctly discussed : in a free discourse between two intimate friends : in three parts.	Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.	1670 (1670)	Wing F1711; ESTC R17783	120,188	376

the merciful for they shall obtain mercy To works or sincere obedience Iames 2. 24. A man is justified by works and not by faith onely Where Faith is taken in a more strict sence and Works suppose Faith That is A man is justified by an effectual working faith and not by faith without works And again vers 21. saith he Was not our father Abraham justified by works who yet according to S. Paul was justified by faith But whereas Justification is mostly attributed to faith the reason is because all other graces are vertually therein contained and that is the Principle from whence they are derived Philal. I pray inform me next Theophilus what influence it is that those Preachers tell their people Faith hath upon Justification or how it justifieth Theoph. I should not have forgotten this though you had not minded me in the least of it for it is of as great importance to be spoken to as most of the heads of our past discourse Observe therefore That Faith sometimes signifieth in Scripture the Doctrine of faith or the Gospel so it is to be understood Gal. 3. 23 25. and in several other places But it ordinarily signifieth the vertue or duty of believing and so it is variously expressed as by believing on the Son of God and the record that God gave of his Son 1 Joh. 5. 10. Believing the word or words of Christ Joh. 5. 47. Believing Christ to be the Son of God and the Saviour of the world Joh. 8. 24. Joh. 11. 26 27. Receiving of Christ Joh. 1. 12. All which are to be understood in a practical sence For as the Scriptures scarcely ever call any other the knowledge of God but that which hath the end of knowledge viz. obedience so do they make nothing true believing but that which hath the ends of faith or causeth men to do those things for the sake of which it is required Now as Faith is put for the Doctrine of faith so those Preachers are content it should justifie as an instrument viz. as it containeth the Covenant of grace and holdeth forth pardon to sinners and so it justifieth as the Law condemneth As it signifieth the vertue or duty of faith so it justifieth as it is the condition of the new Covenant wherein forgiveness of sin is offered God the Father is the principally efficient cause of our Justification and so it is said that it is God that justifieth Jesus Christ justifieth as the onely meritorious or procuring cause the Gospel as the instrumental cause and faith therein as the condition without which we cannot be justified and to which that priviledge is assured The new Covenant offereth pardon of sin and eternal life to us upon the condition of believing in Christ So God loved the world that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life He that believeth shall be saved c. If ye believe not that I am he ye shall die in your sins Philal. This is a very easie account of Faiths justifying Theoph. Nothing seems to me to be more plain as obscure a business as 't is made Philal. But what cannot the wit of men make difficult Theoph. First there is nothing more evident as we said than that the new Covenant is conditional and that God doth not therein promise absolutely pardon of sin and the consequent blessings Philal. The great place that is produced against the conditionality of the Covenant of grace is that which you said you would speak to viz. that quotation out of Ieremiah that we finde in Heb. 10. 8. where God seemeth in his Covenant to promise to do all in order to our eternal happiness and to require nothing of us Theoph. It is in a good hand I pray do you answer that Objection Philal. Were I duller than I am I think I could easily enough apprehend a satisfactory answer to it viz. That a condition is there implied for the meaning of those words I will put my laws into their hearts and write them in their inward parts cannot be I will do all for them they need do nothing at all this would make all the precepts of the Gospel most wretchedly insignificant nor indeed do any assert this but some very monstrously wildebrain'd people nor yet as appears from many other Scriptures can this be the sence I will sanctifie their natures and so cause them to keep my laws without their concurrence in that act but I will afford them my Grace and Spirit whereby they co-operating therewith and not being wilfully wanting to themselvs shall be enabled so to do Or I will do all that reasonable creatures can reasonably expect from Me towards the writing of my laws in their hearts putting them into their inward parts Whatsoever God may do for some persons out of his superabundant grace doubtless this is all that he either here or elsewhere engageth himself to do for any Theoph. This exposition of yours is a very good one most agreeable with the analogie of Faith and fully answers the forementioned Objection But there are very judicious Expositors that are led by the consideration of the verse following thus to interpret this place viz. This is the Covenant that I will make in the times of the Gospel I will in stead of those external and carnal ordinances which the house of Israel hath for a long time been obliged to the observance of give them onely such precepts as are most agreeable to their reason and understandings and such as wherein they may discern essential goodness and by this great expression of my grace to them as also that which is expressed in the 12 verse namely assurance of pardon to all reforming sinners of all past wickednesses whatsoever and all present frailties and weaknesses I shall not onely convince them of their duty but also strongly encline them to the chearful performance of it And then it follows very pertinently to this sence in vers 11. And they shall not teach every man his neighbour and every man his brother saying Know the Lord for all shall know me from the least to the greatest i. e. There shall be no need of such pains in teaching men how they must obey the Lord and what they are to do as there was under the Law of Moses which consisted in observations that were onely good because commanded and had no internal goodness in them to commend them to the reason of men and which might cause it to prompt them to them but the precepts now given shall be found written by every man in his own heart so that none need be ignorant of what is enjoyned for the substance of it that will but consult the dictates of their own natures For a confirmation of this sense see Deut. 30. 11 12 13 14 vers Moses having in the later part of vers 10. put the people upon turning to the Lord their

of people of prostituted Consciences let them live never so exactly according to all the notices of Gods will clearly expressed in his Word which as I said those Friends of ours are so far from living in contradiction to that I hear of no clamours against them upon that account which I am confident I should with both ears if any thing of immorality did discover it self in their conversations Philal. But now I think of it don't you believe that there are those Conformable persons that have given too good cause for such a severe Censure Theoph. I don't think that any have done so by their bare Conformity but whereas there are those that in all our Changes have been observed to be zealous still for that which was most countenanced by the Authority that bare the sway and have been taken notice of to leap out of one extreme into another that is from the hight of Fanaticism to that of Conformity these I confess may thank themselvs for the hard words that are heapt upon them but they did not merit them or gave occasion for them by their meer Conforming their former actings might have rendered their Honesty too liable to suspicion though they had never Conformed nor may their doing what is now enjoyned considered as such adde to the suspicion but onely considered as diametrically opposite to former actings And now I have this occasion I must tell you that I know none of our Friends in the number of those that have merited the opprobrious name of Turncoats But under the late Usurpers they did so behave themselvs as that some of them were great Sufferers for his Majestie and the Church and the rest of those I was acquainted with though they were so prudent as to keep as much as they could out of harms way and not to expose themselvs to needless sufferings and such of which there could come no good yet were they no less consciencious and had a care to preserve themselvs unspotted from the guilt of the then wilde extravagances Philal. You have told me no more than I have often before heard but I am glad of its confirmation from your mouth I pray pardon my occasioning so many digressions from the main business and be pleased now again to return to it Theoph. You shall not have my pardon but thanks for the digressions you have occasioned they being none of them I think impertinent To go on then They are not onely not scandalous but very lovely also in their behaviour and greatly obliging I never in any one sort of men observed so much of openheartedness and ingenuity freedom sociableness and affability as in these generally They have nothing of that Crabbed austerity foolish affectation or sullen gravity that render too many of their Censurers to wise men not a little contemptible But as the Pharisees bare our Saviour a grudge upon the account of his being contrary to their humour in this very particular so I have reason to believe that by this means these persons do not a little distaste divers of their Adversaries because they look so unlike them and condemn those their follies by a quite contrary carriage But with any Sarcastical smartness to perstringe those fooleries which some of them have done is looked on as an expression of a profane spirit as if to dislike that which makes Religion ridiculous were to be an enemy to Religion it self Philal. Nay I have thought that there is too much cause to suspect that what they themselvs cannot but acknowledge very commendable in those our Friends is a great motive to them so much the more to traduce them as being jealous that they may thereby gain with many too great esteem For there was one some time since that took occasion to commend a Reverend and most worthy person that is called by the Long name to an eminent Pastor of a Separated Congregation in London from whom he received this answer That Iesus Christ hath not in this Nation a greater enemy and that the goodness of his life was that which put him into a capacity of doing so much the more mischief Theoph. The story you have told me I should have looked upon as not incredible had a less faithworthy person related it than your self For I have often observed that Scandalous Ministers of which there are too many the more is the pity though the number of them is computed by those that gladly take all advantages to bespatter and fling dirt in the faces of their Civil and Ecclesiastical Governours to be far greater than I am verily perswaded it is I say I have often observed that scandalous Ministers have the good luck better to escape the tongues of our Carping people than the most painful and consciencious Philal. Any man may if he will make this observation And truly I have too good reason to fear that not a few of those men are more sorry that all Conforming Ministers are not persons of debauched lives than that any are so for if they hear but an ugly tale of any one of them they never stand to examine whether it be true or false but with great greediness catch at it and send it flying Theoph. Would you have me in the next place to inform you how those Divines in their Pulpits demean themselvs I dare affirm that if our Separating people would be but perswaded to make their own ears judges and for some time deign to be their Auditors if they could also leave all prejudice behinde them they would confess that they cannot in any of their private Meetings at least better spend their time I am sure it must be their own fault if their experience doth not convince them that there are no Preachers by whom they may gain more real profit For none can give their hearers better instructions or back them on with more cogent and effectual motives and arguments than they do I have my self been as constant a hearer of them before I betook my self to this solitary way of living as any man but never was my judgement more convinced my will perswaded nor my affections more powerfully wrought upon by any Sermons than by theirs I found that in their Discourses generally they handled those subjects that are of weightiest and most necessary importance I mean such as have the greatest influence into the reformation of mens lives and purification of their souls Nor had I ever so lovely an idaea of the divine nature which is the most powerful incentive to obedience to the divine will nor so clear a sense of the excellency of the Christian Religion the Reasonableness of its precepts the nobleness and generosity of its designe and its admirable fitness for the accomplishment of it as through the blessing of God I have gained by the hearing of these men Philal. You say Theophilus that you have gained by these men a clearer sense of the Reasonableness of the Gospel-precepts there are many now-a-days