Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	death_n	great_a	king_n	2,913	5	3.6168	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23659	The Christians justification stated shewing how the righteousness of Christ, the Gospel-Covenant, faith, and God himself, do operate to our justification / by W.A.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1678 (1678)	Wing A1057; ESTC R20597	102,725	303

makes men full of fears and jealousies of the avenger and not apt to believe that such as they have highly affronted injured and provoked can be reconciled to them until they have avenged themselves on them if they have power to do it therefore our Saviour to assure sinners of the reality of God's desire and intention of being reconciled to them and to pardon them if they will but be reconciled to him hath not only given them his word for it but a wonderful and great proof of it in what he hath done towards such a thing before ever any such favour was desired or sought for on their parts God he so loved the world and was so unwilling to avenge himself on them as that he hath given his only begotten Son not only to tell them so but also to suffer for them to prepare the way of reconciliation between them All this hath been done on God and his holy Sons part towards this reconciliation before there was ever any inclination on mans part of being reconciled to God God hath commended his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us Rom. 5.8 In this was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him Herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins 1 John 4.9 10. And doubtless this way of proceeding with enemies if any will make them willing to be reconciled to God and it is indeed that which doth take with all but desperate contumacious wretches We love him saith St. John because he first loved us 1 John 4.19 Our thoughts and inclinations of returning to God and of being reconciled to him of any love or good will towards him take their first rise from intimations yea more than so from manifestations of Gods love to us first and especially of such love as the giving of his Son for us bespeaks him to have to us Hence the preaching of the Cross the declaration not only that Christ hath suffered but upon what account he hath suffered is said to be the power of God to them that are saved that is it is Gods powerful motive by which he persuades men of his willingness to be reconciled to them and by that means prevails with them to be willing to be reconciled to him The preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness but unto us which are saved it is the power of God 1 Cor. 1.18 All things saith St. Paul are of God who hath reconciled us unto himself by Jesus Christ and hath given unto us the ministry of reconciliation what 's that to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation 2 Cor. 5.18 19. This is we see Gods way and method of reconciling the world unto himself by making known to them that upon account of his Son 's undertaking and suffering for them he is freely willing to pardon them and not to impute their trespasses but to be reconciled to them provided they will be reconciled to him Hence it is that our reconciliation to God and not only God's reconciliation to us is so frequently as it is attributed in Scripture to the death of Christ If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life Rom. 5.10 And that he might reconcile both Jews and Gentiles unto God in one body by the Cross having slain the enmity thereby and came and preached peace c. Eph. 2.16 17. And again having made peace by the Blood of his Cross it pleased the Father by him to reconcile all things to himself And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death Col. 1.19 20 21 22. By these and other like Scriptures we see that one of God's great designs in giving his Son to die for us was the reconciling us to himself by assuring us that upon condition of our being reconciled we should not have any the least cause to question his willingness to be reconciled to us and that it is by this that he procures a willingness in us to be reconciled to him This great transaction between the Father and the Son in behalf of the world the Father's giving and the Son 's undertaking to die for the world in order to this great work of reconciliation is the great and certain security unto men that what was said in the Gospel touching Gods being reconcilable to sinners and his forgiving them provided they will be reconciled to him shall be really performed and made good to them Hence it is that in regard that Christ was made Priest by the Oath of God to offer himself in Sacrifice to expiate sin and then in vertue of that Sacrifice to make intercession for us that he is said to be made surety of the better Testament that is he by that means becomes a surety for God unto men of the reality of his proffers and promises in the Gospel to them and of the performance of them upon the condition of their being reconciled to him Heb. 7.20 22. The Apostles inference is very natural and strongly conclusive when he says He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him freely give us all things Rom. 8.32 Gods giving his Son to die for us is more than the bestowing a pardon and eternal life upon us And therefore he having done the greater already to procure our reconciliation to him it is an earnest and a pledg that he will not stick to pardon and to save us which is a less matter for him to give if we become reconciled to him indeed If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life Rom. 5.10 This assurance which God hath given to the world of his willingness to pardon and save sinners by the death of his Son as an earnest and a pledg of it if they wilfully refuse not to become reconciled to him is that which in the first times in which this was divulged to the wrrld brought in a considerable part of it to Christ who by him yielded up themselves to God In prospect of which success of this gracious design of God upon the world by the death of his Son it was that our Saviour said John 12.32 And I if I he lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me So powerful a motive to reconcile sinners to God is God's declaration by giving his Son to die for them of his willingness to be reconciled to them if they will but answer him

appear lovely and beautiful as effects of a most wise contrivance for excellent ends Even so the Doctrine of Justification while handled and beheld only in this or that particular part of it remains comparatively obscure But when all which goes to the making up of the whole is put together in order and when it is discovered how one thing depends upon and answers another in it it will not be difficult at all to understand it And when the whole of Gods design in that way and method by which our Justification is brought about is laid open those things in it which have been apprehended by some not well to consist together but to bear hard upon one another will appear quite otherwise For then the grace of God the Righteousness of Christ and the personal Righteousness of him that is justified will appear not in opposition but in a lovely conjunction all operating in several respects to the same end The sense of these things hath I confess inclined me to offer at something of this nature in the ensuing discourse by way of essay Wherein I have endeavoured with what plainness I could to state and explain the nature and causes of our Justification and to shew how the Righteousness of Christ the Covenant of Grace Faith and God himself do both severally and joyntly operate to our Justification and how the grace of God is eminent in all And likewise to shew how that all that goes to our Justification is by the Grace of God founded on the Righteousness of Christ and immediately or remotely receives the vertue and efficacy of its operation from it in conjunction with Gods gracious ordination And particularly that out of this Righteousness of Christ and the Grace of God thereby doth arise the Covenant of Grace and from that Covenant the constitution of Faith for Righteousness and from that constitution Gods approving such for righteous which have that Faith and his adjudging them to be so For which cause our Blessed Saviour may well be said as he is to be made to us of God Righteousness These things will more fully appear in the discourse it self now before you to which I refer you for your more full satisfaction Hoping that the usefulness of what is thereby designed and endeavoured will so far appear as to stir up and engage some others to undertake the same work who may much better go through with it and compleat it than I have been able to do The Christians JUSTIFICATION STATED CHAP. I. Of the signification and use of the word Justification with a description of Justification it self THE design of the following discourse is to state the great Doctrin of Justification and so to represent it from the Holy Scriptures as that it may be adapted and fitted to the capacity of the meanest Christian that is inquisitive into a matter of that grand importance as his Justification before God is And as a guide herein I shall first enquire into the Notation and signification of the word Justification For the use of words being to convey to the mind the Idea and notion of things and the nature of them it is but reasonable to govern our selves in our notion of the nature of Justification by the signification of such words and phrases by which it is in Scripture exprest After this is done I shall enquire into the severals which operate to the producing this great effect Justification and how they do it By all which I hope any Christian of a very ordinary capacity shall be able to discern the true nature of justification what it is and in what it doth consist The word Justification in Scripture signifies either to make just or to approve as just or vindicate and adjudge as just or righteous The word is but sparingly used in Scripture as signifying to make just but another word more commonly which is Sanctification But to be made just is essentially or absolutely necessary to justification as we shall see afterward For God will not approve of or adjudge any man as just who is not so But about the more ordinary and common signification of the word I find that learned men are much of one mind and do conclude that the word generally in Scripture is used in a forensick or law sense and does imply a legal procedure in a Cause or with a person by a Judge and according to some law So the learned Dr. Hammond in his Annotations on Rom. 3.4 And so learned Mr. Tho. Gataker to name no more in the Assemblies Annotations on Isa 5.23 which I shall give you in his own words To justifie saith he is not to pardon as some would expound it in the doctrine of the Gospel for the word is never found so used either in the Hebrew or Greekwriters Sacred or prophane nor in our common speech Nor as it is a law-term doth it ever signifie to make just But to justifie in a legal way doth always signifie to defend or to deem as just and guiltless free from the offence wherewith the party called in question is charged To defend as just and so it is the office of an Advocate to deem as just and consequently assoil from guilt and so it is the part of a Judge As also in private carriages men are said to justifie others when they plead for them and avow their integrity and honesty against those that question it According to this usual sense and notion of the word when applied to God as Judge in justifying of men it signifies his approbation of such as are just in their Cause that is before him to be so his adjudging them to be righteous in the sense of that Lawby which they are tried Thus for instance we have it in King 8.31 32. If any man trespass against his neighbour and an oath be laid upon him to cause him to swear and the oath come before the altar in this house then hear thou in heaven and do and judge thy servants concerning the wicked to bring his way upon his head and justifying the righteous to give him according to his righteousness Where to justifie the righteous does not signifie to make them righteous but to appear for them in Judgment as those that are so and to determine for them accordingly To justifie the wicked in Scripture-phrase does not signifie to make them just but to approve of them and appear for them as if they were just Prov. 17.15 Exod. 23.7 Isa 5.23 And thus again to give some instances in the New Testament S. Paul saith I know nothing by my self yet am I not hereby justified but he that judgeth me is the Lord 1 Cor. 4.4 Where to be justified and to have God to judge for him signifies the same So likewise Rom. 2.13 Not the hearers of the law are just before God but the doers of the law shall be justified The meaning whereof is that not the hearers but the doers of the law shall be approved of by