Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	effect_n	faith_n	justification_n	4,667	5	9.6727	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A13949	Three small and plaine treatises 1. Of prayer or actiue 2. Of principles, or positiue 3. Resolutions, or oppositiue Diuinitie. Translated and collected out of the auncient writers for the priuate vse of a most noble ladie. By an old praebendary of the Church of Lincolne.	Williams, John, 1582-1650.	1620 (1620)	STC 24259; ESTC S102025	30,759	166

God We therfore waue off this little righteousnesse of our owne as a piece of * Esay 64.6 polluted cloth in the Act of our Iustification and cast anchor onely vpon the merits of Christ But according to your Doctrine of * Concil Trid. infused Charitie not the Almighty reconciled but the man qualified not Christ patient but an habite inherent not God by grace pardoning but an instilled vertue like a receipt of Mithridate expelling sinne is the cause of your Iustification Pap. But haue you any vse of your Free-wil in either righteousnes I meane that imputed or this inherent Or are you as some relate your opinions meerely suffering and passiue like so many stockes and stones casting not so much as a sigh grone or short wish towards this great worke of your conuersion Prot. In our first conuersion to be righteous and the Act of our Iustification wee are like so many Niobes or images of marble which moue not at all but as they are in the whole lumpe carted and transported Our vnderstandings not affoording themselues the least glymps of knowledge nor our wils the least shew of inclination vnto this Act but as they are either of them powerfully bended by the Holy Ghost to lay holde by Faith on this imputed righteousnesse But in our second conuersion to be more righteous which we call the Act of our Sanctification wee moue like * Arist polit 1. c. 1. Daedalus his statues or pageants vpon wheeles dull and vnweldy in our owne natures but so quickened and enliued by those engines of Grace and motions of the holy Ghost in our soules and consciences that now our vnderstandings wils and affections doe cooperate and runne along with the Grace of God in all our workes of pietie and deuotion To that imputed righteousnesse therfore we haue no freenesse or cooperation of our Willes to our inherent righteousnesse we haue Wee haue no concurrance in that first Act of our Iustification but we haue a cooperation of the will rouzed vp and excited by grace in all subsequent Acts of our Sanctification The points therfore of this Chapter are these 1. Iustification consists in Gods not imputing of Sinne and in his imputing of Christs righteousnesse vnto vs. 2. It is not our conceipt but the iustice and mercy of God which layes this loade on our Sauiour Christ 3. Whosoeuer is acquainted with the Scripture cannot be vnacquainted with imputed righteousnes 4. Imputed righteousnesse is soone apprehended but infused Faith must bee first obtained 5. We haue an inherent righteousnesse which is the effect but none which is the cause of our Iustification 6. Grace alone works our iustification Grace and we together but wee in the second place our Sanctification CHAP. 4. Of Saints Soules of the Dead and those dependant questions Pap. WEe are scandalized likewise at your Church because you giue no more reuerence to the Saints then you doe neither praying vnto them nor adorning their images nor giuing them any set imployment aboue in heauen or the least care of vs here on earth Which smels very much of the heresies of the a Epiphan Cainans and Eunomians condemned so many yeeres agone in the Christian Church Prot. What employment the Saints haue in heauen besides the contemplation of God face to face b Hugo de S. V. l. 2. de Sacram. c. 11. Al●is l. 3. we know not nor doe c Cassand in consult art 21. we deny their praying for vs. Vpon earth they receiue in our Church all that honour bespoken for them in the primitiue Church Wee keepe duely the memorials of the blessed Virgine and the twelue Apostles and a yeerely panegyricall commemoration of all the Martyrs Saints of God respecting them as our d August contr Faust l. 20. c. 2. fellowes and friends though not as our e Iouius hist lib. 24. Tutelar gods and young little Sauiours We admire their liues and as we doe not furiously deface so doe we not adore their images Because f August in Psal 113. S. Augustin would faine know where that Christian may be found that prayeth or adoreth beholding an image g Idem de ciuit Dei lib. 22. cap. 10. We reare them no Temples as to Gods but trophees onely of praise as to deseruing men h Epi. ad Hebr. cap. 11. S. Paul himselfe did all this and hee did no more We dignifie them as Saints by celebration wee dare not deifie them as Gods by inuocation Your i Eckius in his Enchirid. owne men confesse there is for this praying to Saints neither precept nor example in all the Bible And 1 Orig. l. 2. in Epist ad Rom. Origen made but a question 2 Basil cited by the Bishop of Lincolne S. Basil an If 3 NaZ Orat. 1. in Iulian orat in Gorgon Gregory Nazianzene a thinking or an opinion onely of this which you make an Article of Faith We are commanded to call vpon 4 Psal 50 15. God vpon him 5 Matth. 4.10 onely for he is our 6 Psal 74.12 King of old and we are starke mad if we thinke to better our selues by changing of Masters Pap. I but how will you answere Antiquitie For I haue beene told that there are found in the writings of the Auncient Fathers prayers made to many of the Saints and holy men departed Prot. If you please to obserue them well you shall finde they are no Orisons but Orations A certain kind of passionate and rhetoricall exclamations made vnto the dead concerning some notable euents happened vnto the Church in generall or the parties themselues in particular This is easily beleeued of them who vse to reade the Greeke Fathers which are full of such eiaculations in their affectionate Discourses And that their passages are no prayers this is an argument 1 Eliens resp ad Apolog. pag. 42. Because there is not any of all these Fathers when they treat of prayer as it is their vsuall theme of set purpose and handle all the obiects and kindes therof that euer mention one syllable of this prayer to Saints This is an answere will neuer be taken away by any of your side Now if your Priests tooke an hint hereby to erect Masses for the 2 Vide Epist Vratislauiens apud S●●ltetum Annal. decad 1. p. 150 dead I hope you know they loose nothing by the bargaine Pap. You likewise contemne and deride the Reliques of the Saints which are shewed preserued and adored in our Churches Prot. We are so farre from contemning any thing in this kinde that did wee knowe them to bee true reliques and no impostures we should honour them more then you doe to wit 1 K. Iames preface monit with an honourable and Christian buriall Wee heare indeed that there were of old 2 August de moribus Ecclesiae some Christians that attributed too much to the reliques of the Martyrs but we heare from the same

the Holy Ghost 2 A minde free from other thoughts and desirous of the truth 3 Knowledge of the Scriptures Creedes Catechismes Principles and other Axiomes of Diuinitie 4 A considerations how our meaning suites with other points of Christianitie 5 The weighing of circumstances antecedents and consequents 6 Knowledge of Histories Arts and Sciences 7 Continuall reading meditating and praying 8 Ioint and vniarring expositions of the Fathers 9 Consenting decrees of auncient Synods and Councels 10 Knowledge in the tongues Because therefore lay-men and women Papists Brownists and Anabaptists are wanting in all or some of these helpes they bring foorth many times such lame and prodigious interpretations Pap. If wee make the Scripture not the Church the rule of our Faith how shall we beleeue the Creed the Trinity the Sacraments the vnity of Essence the three persons in the Deity c. words neuer read in the Bible and yet necessarily to be apprehended of vs vpon paine of damnation Prot. I say that all these things are set downe in Scriptures either in so many syllables or at leastwise by necessarie inferences and deductions And wee doe not therefore beleeue them because they are onely taught by the Church but because they are rooted and grounded in the holie Scriptures the onelie stay and pillar of our affiance To summe vp therefore all this Chapter 1 The Church doeth prepare vs but the Scripture onely doeth force vs to beleeue 2 The whole Church cannot any part thereof may erre damnablie 3 Wee are taught the Scriptures to bee the word of God by the Holy Ghost mouing in our hearts and not by the Church sounding in our eares 4 Lay-men are to reade not to interprete Scriptures 5 The misse of some rules causeth wrong expositions of Scriptures 6 All things necessary to bee beleeued are either found in or collected and inferred from the Scriptures CHAP. 3. Of Iustification Pap. HOW then doe you learne out of the Scriptures that you are to be iustified and saued before God Prot. I am to bee iustified before God by an Act single in it selfe but double in our apprehension which is By Gods not imputing vnto me my sinnes and the same Gods imputing vnto mee Christs righteousnesse and withall by his creating of faith in my heart by the Holy Ghost to assure my Soule that God for the Actiue and Passiue obedience of Christ Iesus hath accomplished those two former Actes of not imputing my Sinne and of imputing vnto mee Christs righteousnesse Pap. A verie easie no doubt and reasonable religion which you haue learned out of the Scriptures Heere is no burthen left for your owne backe you cast all vpon Christs shoulders by the meanes of these two fine wordes Not imputing and imputing and a third swimming notion of your own conceipt which any man may haue with a little imagining termed by you faith it would be knowne therefore where your Church hath found out these words of Art in the holie Scriptures Prot. We do in all humilitie confesse that the globe of our sinnes and the world of that righteousnesse which is to appeare in the presence of Gods Iustice is too massie for vs to sustaine that are but dust and ashes and supportable only by that Atlas Verba Lutheri ep ad Henr. 8. tom 2. ep p. 290. Christ Iesus vpon whose shoulders not our conceits but the goodnes of God hath plac't and pressed them But that these wordes imputing and not imputing are such Greeke vnto you I doe impute it to your not reading of Scriptures and taking vp your religion by trust and credit from such Fripperers and Brokers as by lending your soules a false opinion of merits and good workes do diue into your purses and eat vp your estates by way of interest Not to trouble you as I might with a thousand places aske Dauid Psal 32.1 whether not imputing of sin and S. Paul Rom. 4.45 whether the imputing of Christs righteousnesse doth not make vs blessed and iustified For the words vse your owne eyes and inspection And for the meaning I referre you to a August tom 8 in psalm 31. S. Augustines vpon the one and b Amb. in ep ad Rom. c. 8. S. Ambrose his commentarie vpon the other passage Now that you fondlie imagine that Faith this heauenly hand that reacheth at this double Act and applies it to our owne Soules is such an apprehension as you may command when you please out of your owne phantasie it is such a poore opinion that no Soule warmed with the least touch or feeling of religion but contemnes with a most holie scorne and reproach I tell you and if you once haue it your conscience will tell you no lesse this Faith is the richest iewell in Gods cabinet Ephes 2.8 and can neuer be compas'd by any endeuour of ours vntill the Holy Ghost comes downe from heauen to set and enchase it in our hearts with his owne fingers as it were And being once obtained it new moldes and fashions the whole nature of man so as the vnderstanding becomes more enlightned to know God the will to obey God the affections to loue God and our brethren Nor can it bee preserued to the comfort of our conscience without daily praying meditating doing good workes reading the Scriptures hearing good Sermons and perusing of deuout and godly Treatises My beliefe therefore is this Gods not imputing of sinne and imputing of righteousnesse is the worker The Merits of Christ the procurer Faith wrought by the holy Ghost the instrument or applier good workes or my inherent righteousnesse poore as it is a consequent onely effect and follower of my iustification Pap. I haue heard some of your side raile against the very name of inherent righteousnesse which you seem now to acknowledge embrace Do Protestants therefore challenge any other righteousnesse besides that of Christs which is imputed Prot. They doe acknowledge a Sanctification or inherent righteousnes in the same sence as the auncient Fathers tooke the Word but not as Iesuits of late mistake it We haue righteousnesse inherent or subsisting in vs according to the which we shall be iudged but not according to the which wee shall be iustified You make your righteousnesse to goe before as the cause we ours to come after as the effect of Iustification You suppose yours so absolute as to euict from God all wee expect from ours is but to testifie vnto men that we are iustified You bragge of a perfection of degrees wee onely teach a perfection of parts in our righteousnesse For as in the dawning of the day euery part of the heauens is enlightened though none as yet in a full and compleat splendour so after the Act of Iustification apprehended by faith euery facultie of the soule is sanctified and made righteous the vnderstanding the will the affections the thoughts the words the deedes but none of those so exactly perfect as to implead a Iustification at the throne of