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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	death_n	law_n	sin_n	5,839	5	5.9889	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74995	A glass of justification, or The vvork of faith with povver. Wherein the apostles doctrine touching justification without the deeds of the law, is opened; and the sence in which gospel-obedience, as well as faith, is necessary to justification, is stated. Wherein also the nature of that dead faith is detected, by which multitudes that hope for salvation are (as is to be feared) deceived; and the true nature and distinguishing properties of the faith of Gods elect, is handled. Finally, the doctrine of the imputation of faith for righteousness is herein also briefly discussed; and the great wisdom and folly of men about the proof of their faith, touched ... By William Allen, a poor servant to the Lord Jesus.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1658 (1658)	Wing A1065; Thomason E948_7; ESTC R207578	191,802	230

you remain in the same condition until death what judgment you shall have There 's no fear of the Judges awarding of any sentence contrary to Law contrary to the Doctrine of the Scriptures If your cause be good by that you do not need to fear the Judges being made against you if your cause be naught in the account of that there 's no hopes of deceiving or bribing the Judge as your cause is in the eye of the Law so and no otherwise will it be in the sentence of the Judg. And for your ease and accomodation in this great and weighty affair of your Souls and to the end you may not be mistaken in your own cause by mistaking the nature terms and true intent of the rule of your tryal by which you must be justified or condemned ignorance wherein and mistakes whereabout are wonderful dangerous I have in this Book laboured to fit things to your hands by opening the Doctrine of Justification especially in those parts of it that are most liable to mens mistakes and to deliver it from the incombrance of those crooked notions and mis-apprehensions by which men are in danger of making that to become a snare to them which God hath prepared for a Table That therefore to which I exhort you is that you put your selves upon the tryal now before-hand as men who are to run a race or to try masteries otherwise are wont to be proving their ability by a more private running of the Race or enuring of their bodies to other exercise before the day of publick striving for mastery comes Deal faithfully with your own Souls in trying your selves before the Barr of your own Conscience now for the present by that Doctrine of Faith here laid before you The Conscience is as it were Christs Delegate deputed by him to make Judgement by the rule of his Word of a mans spiritual condition in the interim before the solemn Assize and day of publick tryal come And therefore mens thoughts are said in the mean while mark that word in the mean while to accuse or excuse one another Rom. 2.15 that is to justifie or condemn as it finds a man guilty or not guilty according to that rule by which he is to be tryed by Chaist It is true the Conscience does not alwayes make that infallible Judgement in a mans case as Christ himself will do either for want of a right understanding of the rule of Judgement or the true state of a mans cause as being defiled and darkened and the eye of it made dim by too much communion with sinful lusts which it may be have corrupted and bribed it partially to favour the mans cause or at least to be neuteral as not to justifie so not to condemn but to leave things in doubt But to what degree it is truly enlightened in the nature of Christs Law and the nature of a mans cause that is to be tryed by it so far it will and can hardly do otherwise than make the same judgement and determination concerning a mans condition if a man will bring his cause before it as Christ himself will do Otherwise there would not be that ground of spiritual triumph and rejoycing in the verdict of Conscience which was found in Paul and his Christian companions upon that account 2 Cor. 1.12 For our rejoycing is this the testimony of our Conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God we have had our conversation in the world Sect. 3 The Devil as he makes it his work and business to accuse the very servants of God themselves before God day and night Rev. 12.10 so at certain times and seasons which he watches for on purpose as after some notable slip in the Christian walk or in time of some deep affliction and especially towards the hour of death he will accuse them at the Judgement-seat of their own Consciences and bring their cause to a tryal there to force them if possible to despair of any good issue when they shall come to be tryed before the Lord which he will say hard to if he can but confound and puzzle them in the evidences of their Justification and defence in the Court of their conscience And you shall find still in the issue and upshot that the stress and pinch will lye upon the evidence of the goodness of a mans Faith for if a man be but sure he have a right shield of Faith in the hand of his Soul he will easily be able to quench all the fiery darts of the Devil Ephes 6.16 If he lay to their charge and set before them the greatness and multitude of the sins and miscarriages which they have been guilty of at times heightened with all the provoking circumstances of aggravation the plea and defence will be that Christ the lamb of God taketh away the sin of the world John 1.29 That the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin 1 Joh. 1.7 That he is the propitiation for our sin and not for ours only but also for the sin of the whole world 1 John 2.2 And that not only few and small offences but even all manner of sin and blasphemy that against the Holy Ghost excepted shall be forgiven unto men Mat. 12.31 If he tell you though that be granted yet it will not follow that therefore your sins are forgiven or that you are actually cleansed by the blood of Christ because though Christ gave himself a ransom for all yet all shall not be saved by him for that wide is the gate broad the way that leads to destruction and many there be that go in thereat Mat. 7.14 And so put you upon proving your title to the promise of Remission of Sin by his Blood your plea will be your belief in him as that to which the promise of Justification and eternal Salvation is made in whomsoever found John 3.16 Mark 16.16 Acts 16.31 Rom. 3.25 But then its like he will go further with you and argue against you that it does not follow that because you have some Faith in Christ as that he is the Son of God that he dyed was buried and rose again that therefore you are justified and shall be acquitted before the Lord because there is a certain kind of formal feigned and dead Faith which will not save James 2.14 And that Simon Magus did believe though for all that he were in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity Acts 8.13 and so did others who for all that were in no very good condition John 2.23 and 12.42 43. If therefore he shall lay to your charge that yours is but a Faith of this sort and kind and consequently that it will not avail you nor render your title to the promise valid you have no other way to deal with him and so defend your selves against this Article of Indictment but by producing such proofs and evidences of the truness goodness

much of the blessing of God as he hath put into them for your good and to slight any of them is to reproach the wisdom and goodness of God which contrived them for your benefit But if you shall invert the proper order and use of them if when God hath made them servants as it were to the life of holiness and power of godliness if you now shall cause these to sit above and the other to stand below in your hearts if your heart be more upon them if your care be more to promote these if more of your zeal be spent about these then about your own and other mens conformity to Jesus Christ in the inward frame and heavenly temper of the mind and lowly and lovely deportment in life for the sake whereof all the Ordinances were ordained or if you shall value your selves by what you are in these rather than by what you are in that which is the end to which these tend then shall you put a bar to your spiritual growth in grace and holiness by them and loose the end for which they are designed by God and render your selves such as in whom his soul his spirit will take no pleasure Circumcision verily profiteth if a man keep the Law to wit conscionably in all other things Rom. 2.25 and so Baptism verily profiteth if a man keep the Gospel faithfully in all other the holy enjunctions of it to which his Baptism obligeth him but if thou be a breaker of the Law thy Circumcision is made uncircumcision if you be breakers of the Gospel the Statutes of Jesus your Baptism shall be made no Baptism to you and as the Children of Israel were counted but as Ethiopians unto God for all their Circumcision so shall you be as Indians unto him for all your Baptism Amos. 9.7 You know of what it was a sign in the Scribes and Pharisees to be more zealous of the lesser matters of the Law than of the greater Mat. 23.23 And truly I can judge it no better a sign for men to be exact strict and punctual in matters of Form and to be indulgent to wayes and things which intrench upon the power of Godliness like them which strain at Gnats and swallow Cammels keeping a stir about that which costs them little but favouring themselves in what would try their Christianity indeed These things I say not to teach you in the least to have a slight opinion of any of the Ordinances of the Lord Jesus no let my tongue rather cleave to the roof of my mouth than that I should move it or my pen to the disparigement or against the honour of any of the sacred Ordinances of the New-Testament But as it is no disparagement to the Female Sex to say that the Man was not created for the Woman but the Woman for the Man 1 Cor. 11.9 so is it no dishonour to the external Form of the Christian Religion and Worship to affirm it to be made for the Power sake howbeit this I say also that as the Man is not without the Woman nor the woman without the man in the Lord so neither is the power of Godliness without the Form nor the Form without the Power in the Lord but both mutually helpful one to another 1 Cor. 11.11 My aim and scope then is to arm you against degenerating into meer Form and Carkass in Religion without the spirit of life and power as that which will betray you should you be guilty of it into the same or as bad a condition as befel the Apostolical Churches whose glory was long since laid in the dust For as this very thing was that which prepared the Congregation of Israel for casting out of Gods sight as a dead and unsavory Carkass as I shewed before so without question it was the same thing which brought the Primitive Churches themselves to nothing Take the Church of Sardis for an instance who while she was in the Wane and her Sun going down but not quite set received a rouzing admonition from Christ as you may see Rev. 3.2 3. But what was her Fault and what was her charge verify it was this Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead verse 1. Her Fault was not that she had a name to live but that she had the name without the thing And what was it that gave her the name to live or to be alive but the Form And what was it that denominated her to be dead notwithstanding the name she had to live but the want of spiriritiul life and power to inspire her And truly Friends we had need the best of us all to set these cautioning wakening quickning considerations before our eyes seeing the danger specified is so great that few of the ancient Churches have been able to hold out and bear up against it and how far prevalent upon the present Churches I leave to you and to themselves to judg and seriously to lay to heart And O that there were not too much cause of lamentation and sorrow on this account But whosoever under our Form and Way of Profession shall be found tardy herein hath the greater sin Sect. 10 For you being brought nearer to God in some part of the Form of his Worship than those that differ from you be as I know you beleeve you are you are in that respect if all other things concur under the richer advantage of living more up to the life and power of Godliness than they by how much the pure wisdome of God is more conducible to such an end than that is which hath a mixture of mans Besides your withdrawing from the National way and Form that you might have more close communion with God bespeaks men to expect some singular thing from you above the rate of all others from whom you withdraw And therefore if you shall not mightily endeavour to be exemplary in all worthiness of behaviour in life and conversation you will not answer the light and opportunity which in some things you profess to enjoy above others nor honour that Form and Way of yours wherein you differ from other men but if you be found but like or it may be worse than many of them shall you not take a course to expose your selves if not your way too to the scorn and laughter of other men And O how much have they to answer for do you think who thorough their fruitless and scandalous walking have been a scab and scandal to our way and have laid a stumbling-block of their haughtiness disdain presumption and rashness and sometimes of looseness too in the way of other men By which they as once Elie's Sons have caused the way of God to be abhorred by some to be vilified and set at nought by the tongues and pens of others and the light and beauty of it to be hid and covered from many who otherwise would I am confident have seen and imbraced it And by which also they have filled

at the last day and the eternal judgement that will follow thereupon which are two great Arricles of the Christian Faith and fundamental Doctrines Heb. 6.2 does depend upon our beleef of the Resurrection of Christ For if Christ the Son of Gods love him in whom his soul delighteth more than in any man should not have been raised by the glory of the Father there would have been little reason for any other man to expect so great a favour But now is Christ risen from the dead and is become the first fruits of them that slept 1 Cor. 15.20 as a pledge of their Resurrection also In that any have a lively hope of being raised again to an inheritance uncorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away they are thereunto begotten by the resurrection of Iesus Christ from the dead so saith the Apostle 1 Pet. 1.3 4 And again verse 21. In that God raised him up from the dead and so gave him glory it was that our Faith and hope might be in God that he will do so to us likewise For God hath both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by his own power 1 Cor. 6.14 For if we beleeve that Iesus dyed and rose again even so them also which sleep in Iesus will God bring with him 1 Thes 4.14 Because I live ye shall live also saith he who is the Resurrection and the life Iohn 14.19 and 11.25 And that there shall be a righteous Judgement following the Resurrection and that Christ Jesus shall be the Judge is such a thing of which the Father hath given assurance or offered Faith unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead Acts 17.31 Sect. 8 5. The Word Gospel or Doctrine of Christ and of his Apostles is so the object of Faith as that salvation is promised unto the right beleef thereof Mark 16.15 16. Go ye into all the World and preach the Gospel to every Creature he that beleeveth and is baptized shall be saved 2 Thes 2.13 Because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and beleef of the truth 2 Thes 1.10 When he shall come to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that beleeve because our testimony among you was beleeved in that day The Doctrine of Christ and of his Apostles may well be counted the object of Faith inasmuch as to beleeve it is all one as to beleeve that the Father hath set forth his Son to be a propitiation for sin through Faith in his blood and so it is to beleeve that Christ dyed for our sins according to the Scriptures and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures because the Doctrine of the Gospel is a testimony and declaration of these things and he that beleeves the one beleeves the other also Gods giving his Son to dye and Christs dying and rising again without a declaration of the mind and counsel of God thereabout as viz. for what cause upon what account and for what end he did so as also upon what termes and conditions men shall reap the fruit of his Death Resurrection and Intercession I say the one without the other does not seem to be the adequate object of Faith but both together are For which cause the Doctrine of the Gospel in its Enunciations Precepts and Threatnings as well as in its Promises is the object of Faith And because the Doctrine of the Gospel contains declares and amply sets forth all these things together with those things which are to come viz. the Resurrection of the Dead and Eternal Judgement in order to which the former first take place as being all of them matters about which Faith is busied therefore is it that the Doctrine of the Gospel is frequently called the Faith Gal. 1.23 and 3.2 5 23. Acts 6.7 Romans 1.5 1 Tim. 4.1 Iude 3. And so now I have done with my first point touching Faith viz. the object of it or the beleeving of what it is that shall be imputed for righteousness CHAP. V. Shewing that that Faith which consists onely in assenting unto the truth of that report which the Gospel makes touching Christ his being the Son of God and of his coming into the World to save Sinners by dying for them will not availe to Iustification and Salvation as a Gospel-Faith of the right kind will do Sect. 1 HAving briefly shewed from the holy Scriptures the beleef of what it is objectively that hath the promise of Salvation annext to it I shall now in the next place come to enquire what and what manner of beleeving it is subjectively that hath the same promise or whether every act of beleeving that is placed on a right object hath this great priviledge of Justification entailed to it And upon due enquiry it will be found that not any act or acts of Faith one or more be they never so many of them that fall short of engaging the Soul in true Love and sincere obedience unto the Lord Jesus will avail the man in whom they are unto the saving of the soul If I mistake not all the acts of a saving Faith may be reduced to and comprehended under these three heads The first I call an act of Credence the second an act of Adherence and the third an act of Confidence in the exertion of which three acts of Faith having Christ for their object the whole soul mind will and affections are engaged which make up the beleeving with all the heart which the Gospel calls for Acts 8.37 By that act which I call an act of Credence I mean the assent of the mind unto the truth of what the Gospel reports especially touching Christ and Gods love to mankind in him as that he is the Son of God and Saviour of the world that he was sent of God the Father to shew unto men the way of salvation and then to dye rise again and after his ascension to make intercession to bring that salvation about and that remission of sins is to be had through his name By that act of Faith which I call an act of Adherence I understand the souls fast cleaving unto the Lord Jesus in affection and subjection as counting him more worthy of both than any Creature or thing in all the world as also taking hold of that grace and strength which is in Christ for deliverance from the power of sin and of bringing the soul back again to God in point of holiness And lastly by an act of Confidence I mean the Souls relyance rest or dependance upon Christ or on the Father through Christ for remission of sins acceptation and eternal salvation the committing of the Soul to his mercy the throwing it upon his grace These three acts of Faith relate to each other by way of dependance the second depending upon the first as the acts of the Will do upon the Understanding and the third upon both the