Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	faith_n	justification_n	meritorious_a	2,679	5	11.7565	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38139	A short review of some reflections made by a nameless author upon Dr. Crisp's sermons, in a piece entituled Crispianism unmask'd with some remarks upon the union in the late agreement in doctrin among the dissenting ministers in London : subscribed the 16th of December, 1692, and that as referring unto the present debates ... / by Thomas Edwards, esq.	Edwards, Thomas, fl. 1693-1699.; Crisp, Tobias, 1600-1643.	1693 (1693)	Wing E236; ESTC R31409	64,054	46

rather doth he not assign to it its proper place according unto Act. 13. 48. Gal. 1. 15 16. This Orthodoxy though nauseous to our Authors Arminian Palate and which puts him upon so many miserable shifts may be proved and cleared from several exemplary Instances in Scripture as well as positively Doctrinal points in the same for it is not the most Gracious Internal Actings of the Soul tho' wrought and maintained of God himself that works a Change in our personal Covenant-State consider it well Reader and weigh it in the ballances of the Sanctuary and that without respect of Persons or Parties for as God's Act in Justification is purely Forensick and therein respects our Persons and depends not in the least upon his Physical Operation which is entirely regenerative whose subject therein properly is our Natures so also neither doth our part in him in the act of Conversion it self depend upon our actual closing with him any further than our passive recipiency of him makes way for the same both in its productive cause and continued irresistible and yet Gracious complying Designs This is clear from Joh. 1. 12. wherein a passive Reception of Christ is that which precedes an active one See also 1 Joh. 4. 10 19 Isa 65. 1. Joh. 15. 16. comp v. 5. ch 1. 48 49. 50. Phil. 1. 6. Ezek. 16. 60 61 62 63. Thus it was with A●am the Proto-Applicatory Subject of this Grace after his fall How did the Lord deal with him in order to his Recovery Did he wait for an actual Exhibition of his Faith to justifie him for the same Nay did he not rather pursue him when Rebelliously under the obstinate Fruits and reigning Effects of his and ours in him Federal Act of Apostacy But with what even a promise But what was this promise the Seed of the Woman And what was this Seed in the root or primary Acceptation of it I suppose Christ which is evident in Eve's mistake Gen. 4. 1. besides many other undeniable Scriptural positive Proofs therefore reckoned upon as the first Born first Fruits yea first Gift and to have the Preheminence in all things before even Faith or any other work of the Spirit which is fully expressive of not only the nature as to the matter but executive form it self of the Covenant of Grace which Covenant consists of Promises or as Dr. Goodwin says That the Covenant of Grace is Election-purposes and decrees wrapt up in promises But what are these promises Mr. Strong in his Treatise of the Covenants tells us That they consist not only of two kinds viz. personal and real but that the former takes place in the administration of the same from the latter If so then our Doctor is right that Christ is not only the first Gift but that until we receive him in a passive Sense how can he be unto us the Finisher much less the Author of our Faith And 't is true that God convinces our first Parents of their sin and therein begins with Adam which is somewhat remarkable though Eve was first in the Transgression yet chose rather to deal with the former as that in and by him as a Representative Head he dealt with all his posterity But what is the Fruit of all his convincing though just Proceedings against him Nothing but a continued act of Rebellion and that notwithstanding all the mild Proceedings of the Lord with him even in the cool of the Evening not so much as a bare acknowledgment of a matter of Fact in a Transgressive Sense but rather an aggravating of the same by their or our first Parents ultimate tho' tacit casting the cause thereof upon God rather than themselves Which way doth the Lord take to restore them or to bring them to himself It is evident by the application of a promise and that under a personal Consideration before any of that which betokens a real one Gen. 3. 15. comp v. 21. The Person included in the promise they first receive and thereupon their Cloathing or Justifying Garment typified in the Coats of Skins which were made or wrought out and also truly applied by the Lord himself Rom. 3. 23 24 25 26 Thus it was with Paul himself who had a passive part in Christ I speak it not of that which is barely decretive or redemptive even before his actual closing with him Act. 9. 3 4 5. comp v. 6. And is not this Dr. Crisp's Doctrin in his distinguishing between a passive and active recipiency of Christ namely That God out of his Bowels of Pity and Mercy will reach out his Christ to those that have no Hands to receive him no Faith to believe in him but are rather as froward Patients shutting their Teeth against their Remedy And is not this evident without the least reserve in the case of Paul as well as that of Adam as that the part the Elect have in him in a convertive Sense proceeds primarily from a passive Application of them unto their Souls as precedaneous unto their actual knowing and voluntary closing with him Act. 22. 3 4 5 6 7 8. Nay take it in the most gentle of God's Proceedings with his Adult Elect in the Act of Conversion or his bringing them over by Faith unto himself they are primarily passive herein Consult for an instance but the case of Lydia and the Lord 's dealing with her Soul Act. 16. wherein it was evident that her Faith was the Fruit of Union or that she had a passive part in the Lord besides that of a decretive and so a Fountain one and that of a redeemed purchased and so a truly virtual one before she actually closed with him in the recipiency of Faith properly so for it is well known though Faith be the instrumental cause yet that it is the Spirit that is personally and so peculiarly the efficient cause of our Justification and that not by an infusion of qualities but positive substantial Application of that Righteousness as being his voluntary gracious undertaken Office whereof and wherein he makes it not only to appear that Christ is the Meritorious but material cause of the same and that not by the Mediums of Graces as Mediator only but the solid actual Obedience of him who on that very account became their Representative Head Joh. 16. 13 14. comp Rom. 5. 19. And though none of these stand asunder in the compleat uniting as well as operative and consequently Testimonial Act of our Justification but to say or suppose that the two former are not subsequent unto and do not wholly depend upon the latter and that as to the very essence of our justified State as well as Order is at one blow to build and establish the Covenant of Grace upon that of Works and thereby to assign such a CAVSA SINE QVA NON unto our believing as our Author very closely infers p. 4. l. 30 31 32 c. that Faith is not so much a Manifestation as an entitling Grace and what that

during their state of total unbelief are Aliens and Strangers unto these great Mysteries that therefore God should not know them as being in Christ as a publick Person and as such through him be reconciled unto them 2 Tim. 2. 19. Or have any of the Elect any more by Faith in their actual possession than what they had through Grace an irreversible Title unto from all Eter●ity Tit. 1. 1 2. But our Author tells us of which he seems to be very fond by his bandying of it backwards and forwards against the Dr. That Because whilst even the Elect are in a state of Nature they are the Children of Wrath and also that they that believe not the wrath of God abideth on them therefore they cannot be as much the Favourites of Heaven as the Saints now in Glory are I beseech thee Reader mark it well and a very ordinary capacity will introduce thee not only into the fallacy of his proceedings but the Arminian rottenness of his Hypothesis lu●king under the same From whence is it that they come to be translated out of a state of Nature into that of Grace or to be actually removed from an obnoxiousness unto and an eternal abiding under the Wrath spoken of which indeed is the portion of Reprobates amongst which Hypocrites and Double-Dealers especially if Professors and those of them with a witness indeed who would under a pretence of Holiness carry on their sinister ends by those ways and means which are absolutely inconsistent with the same I say is it from themselves or from God If the former then we are not deceived in these our Adversaries but know where they are if they say the latter then it is evident that their own Concessions must give their Assertions the Lie for it is either in the ability of the Elect to discern into and also change both the state of their Persons and frame of their Natures or it wholly lies in God and that both as to his Will and Power therein But in our Author's sense there is nothing but wrath in God against them all whilst in unbelief what then in God must be the motive to remove this unbelief for a justly provoked wrath in my apprehension would scarcely be moved to step one step to work that in man which must remove and annihilate it self and indeed it were unreasonable to expect it Therefore certainly it appears to me That this Vnbelief which in it self exposes to the wrath of God must be removed by its contrary which is Faith and this is wrought by the mighty operation of God Now whether this proceeds from Love even the very same the Saints in Glory are undisturbedly filled with and consequently Reconciliation in all the fruits of the same the former being the root-root-cause of the latter let the Learned Athenian Club determine in the next of their most admirably unintelligible Debates Observe Reader that Scripture Exod. 34. 6 7. And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth Keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin and that will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children and upon the Childrens Children unto the third and to the ●ourth Generation Where the Lord proclaiming his Name to be The Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering c. yet declares That he will by ●o means clear the guilty Now one would think according to our Neonomian Scheme That this is highly incongruous for who can be more properly the object of this grace than the guilty And yet the Lord will not pardon these though he pronounces himself to be a God forgiving iniquity transgression and sin who then will he pardon Why the Text infers those that are clear from guilt but where shall he find them since the most holy that ever was or shall be on Earth never yet was without sin nay he charges even his Angels with folly It is only his Elect and Redeemed ones that he will pardon and that because he hath provided for them such a righteousness and price to cover their nakedness and pay off their scores That though they be guilty in themselves and that as considered in their natural state and Covenant-relation unto Adam together with the corrupt defilements of their Natures thereupon and so lies obnoxious unto Divine Wrath and Vengeance yet he freely of his grace justifies pardons and acquits them as being in Christ though ungodly in themselves and thereupon effectually renews and sanctifies them Rom. 3. 24 25 26. chap. 4. 5. John 17. 6. compar'd with v. 17. Ezek. 16. 8 9. Mal. 4. 2. And hence it is that he sees no spot in his Spouse nor iniquity in Jacob. Hence it is also that the Lord before he makes thus known himself unto Moses in this his gracious and yet mysterious Proclamation doth not only change his covenant station by putting him upon a rock but also covers him with a compleat unspotted and yet external Righteousness by his putting of him into a Clift of the said Rock as not willing that Christ who indeed was figured out by that Rock should become a pedestal for Moses to stand upon before God in his own inherent righteousness of Faith Repentance and Sincerity but he must be clothed with or put on Christ in his own Righteousness even his actual obedience unto the preceptive and sanction-part of the Law and that in the solid matter and not meritorious or consequential effects of the same Phil. 3. 9. Let me further tell thee Reader and by then thou hast thoroughly search'd into the consonancy of Scripture thou wilt certainly find it so That as on the one hand no one's holiness though of the right kind can or ever did produce the least dram or particle of the Love of God so neither will i● in the perfection of it's degree in Glory it self when without all spot or blemish prove or appear to be the matter wherein their justified estate doth consist Nay take the very merits of Christ themselves properly and distinctly as such and they will not subserve so unscriptur●l an end for though the King's Daughter be all glorious within in the real and true renovation of her Nature here whilst upon Earth and unspotted perfection thereof in Glory yet that which gives her admittance into and an eternal standing before God is her clothing or covering nor the former which is indeed but a result of the latter and that not in a remote meritorious sense but material and substantial interesting of her in and investing of her with that Gold of Ophir or Garment wrought of Gold which is the Righteousness of the Saints Psa 45. 9 13. Rev. 19. 8. THIS appears from the nature and manner of Christ's proceedings on his juridical Throne at the day of Judgment Matth. 25. 31 c. A Text out Adversaries so impertinently urge to prove that