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	justify_v	salvation_n	3,033	5	8.0315	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87879	An answer to the Marques of Worcester's last paper; to the late King. Representing in their true posture, and discussing briefly, the main controversies between the English and the Romish Church. Together with some considerations, upon Dr Bayly's parenthetical interlocution; relating to the Churches power in deciding controversies. To these is annext, Smectymnuo-Mastix : or, short animadversions upon Smectymnuus in the point of lyturgie. / By Hamon L'Estrange, Esqr.	L'Estrange, Hamon, 1605-1660.	1651 (1651)	Wing L1187; Wing L1191; Thomason E1218_2; ESTC R202717	68,906	120

Commandments we hold it impossible for any man in what state soever to observe any one much less all should God be extreme to mark what is done amiss yet we hold too that in some sort the whole Law may be fulfilled and that is in Saint Augustines sense a All the Commandments are then accounted observed when what is defective in our obedience is forgiven The Scripture Luke 1. 6. urged by his Lordship was produced long since by Pelagius and Augustines Answer shall be mine b Zachary was a man of singular sanctity yet was it necessary for him to offer sacrifice first for his own sins Hebr. 7. 28. So then if Zachary had sins he kept not all the Commandments for sin is but the transgression of the Law But it is said 1 John 5. 3. His Commandments are not grievous nor are they but are his Commandments there spoken of the Moral Law assuredly No Saint John will tell you clearly what they are chap 3. v. 23. That we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ And love one another Nor can we fulfill these Commandments but we must first be born of God v. 1. chap. 4. 7. So that an unregenerat person will not be able to set a step forward to that performance nor can our new birth render us so perfect as to say we have not sinned for that were to make God a Lyar 1 John 1. 10. The Marques saith the Fathers are for us But if they be why then did he not cite their words as well as vouch the places but I fear 't is otherwise for I cannot make out no not by conjecture what either Origen or Cyril or Hillary hath to his advantage Hierome indeed saith a It is in our power either to sin or not to sin but it is with this caution and Salvo pro conditione fragilitatis humanae as far as human frailty will admit And how little Hierome is for them his Commentary upon the Galatians ch. 3. will inform us where he saith b No man can fulfill the Law and perform all things which are commanded M. We say Faith cannot justifie without Works you say good Works are not absolutely necessary to salvation Here the Marques slides from the point and wilfully leaves his old wont of challenging our opposition for whereas he should have said You say Faith alone can justifie he tells us here we say good Works are not absolutely necessary to salvation Necessary to salvation is one thing necessary to justification another salvation and justification are different things one is the cause the other the effect We hold good Works are necessary to salvation but not absolutely The Thief upon the Cross was saved without them thousands who believe and are prevented by Death before their Faith can shew it self in Works are saved without them Infants dying are saved without them so they are not absolutely necessary no not to salvation but to justification they are not so much as necessary for as our Church saith We are justified by faith onely this will appear first by considering what things are required to justification and those are three first God's great mercy and grace secondly Christ's Justice in satisfying and paying our ransome and fulfilling the Law for us lastly by a true and lively faith in Gods free grace and Christ's merits So that good works are clearly outed Secondly faith alone justifieth without works because we are justified by faith before we can do good works and works are not good till justifying faith makes them so But though faith alone justifieth without works yet it cannot be alone and without them for impossible it is for any man to believe God will be gratious to him and that Christ's righteousness and merits shall be ever imputed to him who at that instant of believing doth not seriously and unfainedly resolve to obey and observe to his uttermost all God's Commandments The places of Scripture alleadged by the Marques against our Faith alone without Works are first 1 Cor. 13. 2. Though I have all Faith and have no Charity I am nothing There is faith indeed but no justifying faith 't is the faith of miracles Saint Paul tells us so chap. 12. v. 9. The faith mentioned Luke 17. 8. of removing mountains and so the Apostle would have told us in this very Text had not his Lordship by what faith I know not removed those mountains those words out of his way Secondly James 2. v. 24. By works a man is justified and not by faith onely This I confesse is an eminent place and hath exercised the wits of all Expositors how to reconcile it to that of Saint Paul Rom. 3. 28. A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law Many have gone several ways and some not the right Luther having beaten his brains about it a good while at last threw the whole Epistle of Saint James out of the Volume of Canonical Scripture Hugo Grotius that great Scholar of the latter Age hath taken it to task by it self and hath indeed shewn great Reading but I confesse as to the elucidation and clearing of the difficulty he makes me no wiser than I was before and indeed after all hath been said Aquinas his sense will I think have most voices that good works justifie declarative by declaring our faith before men not offective by making us just before God M. This opinion of yours Saint Augustine saith l. de fid. op. c. 14. was an old Heresie Augustine mentions it not as an Heresie but onely saith that in the Apostles time some misunderstanding that place of Paul Rom. 5. Where sin abounded there grace superaboundeth thought faith onely necessary to salvation and therefore neglected moral duties and sanctity of life and this we call the high way to Hell as well as Augustine Hillary in his 7. chapter or canon upon Matth. hath nothing tending to justification either solitary without or associated with works but can. 8. he is expresly at Fides sola justificat Faith alone justifieth Ambrose saith Eternal rest belongeth to those who have that faith Quae per dilectionem operatur which worketh together by charity So Ambrose and so say we M. We hold good works to be meritorious you deny it we have Scripture for it Our Church saith All the good works that we can do be imperfect and therefore not able to deserve our justification His Lordship produceth out of Scripture Matth. 16. 27. He shall reward every man according to his works Answer I confesse our Translation gives it so but the word in the original is not He will reward but {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} He will render But though reward be not there yet Matth. 5. 12. 't is said Great is your reward in Heaven and there is reward and great reward too and the Marques inferreth that Reward in the end presupposeth merit in the work but sure it is

faith or not yet assuredly many a dear childe of God notwithstanding all possible search sobs and sighs and howls and laments because he findeth not that faith in himself which yet in the effects and fruits there as self-denial unfained contrition an hungring and thirsting after the righteousness of his blessed Redeemer is most evidently visible to all beholders In this very sad agony and bleeding distress Satan is ready enough to suggest to him that faith he cannot have but he must be sensible of it that the children of God are always assured of their salvation and that the faith which justifieth is and must be without the least doubting This is the wofull consequence of being taught that all the sons of God ought to be and are assured of their salvation A far wiser and warier course take they who with the Church of Ireland hold onely thus that a true believer may be certain by the assurance of faith of his everlasting salvation by Christ implying first that every faithfull person hath all-sufficient and enough within him in his heart to give him that assurance and secondly though in some the beams of that gladsom light are much darkned with the fumes of predominant melancholly and Satan's suggestions co-operating with it yet in other some The Spirit of God beareth witness with their own spirit that they are the sons of God Rom. 8. 15 16. and giveth them infallible assurance of being heirs of the promise But to return to the Marques his Lordship urgeth for Scripture 1 Cor. 9. 27. and saith St Paul was not assured but that whilest he preached unto others he himself might become a cast-away Answer Saint Paul is his own best Expositor and certainly if we may believe him he was not so diffident as the Marques makes him nay it appears clearly he was most assured of obteining the Crown when he said I run but not as uncertainly there 's Paul's assurance As for his scleragogy and strictness of life that he exercised to declare to the world his conversation was conformable to his doctrine least otherwise whilest he preached to others he might be deemed {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} not a cast-away as our Translation hath it very corruptly I must needs say but a counterfeit not the man he seemed for that is the true and proper signification of the word and the most natural to this place as all Expositors agree Next is Rom. 11. 20. Thou standest in the faith be not high minded but fear least thou also mayst be cut off The Apostle here gives the Gentiles a memento of the vicissitude of humane affairs such an one as Marius gave the L. General Sextilius by his Messenger Go tell thy Master said he that thou didst see Marius that Marius who had been six times Consul of Rome sitting in Exile upon the ruines of Carchedon that once famous City Exemplifying thereby saith my Author the misfortune of that City and his own change So the Apostle would have the Gentiles take God's casting off the Jews to be a document against their over-much presumption Stas eo loco unde Troja cecidit said the Tragedian thou stand'st in the very place from whence Troy fell So the Gentiles were they to whom salvation came through the fall of the Jews v. 11. This is an argument against assurance of our temporal not of our eternal state Lastly Phil. 2. 12. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling Here we are taught to distrust our own worthinesse and to stand in aw of offending God nor are we the lesse assured of our salvation through this diffidence of our selves but rather much more As to the Fathers cited I cannot discover any thing in them following sute with this Tenet onely Bernard who comes very tardy a thousand years after Christ and he only upon Septuagesima for in that upon the Advent there 's not a syllable pertinent to this question hath indeed these words Who can say I am elected I am predestinated I am the childe of God But Bernard speaks of such a certitude and assurance as Reason should demonstrate and deriveth his inference from Ecclesiast 9. 1. Who can know whether he be worthy of love or hate True it is know it we cannot but though we cannot know it yet we may believe it and undoubtedly believe it too and so saith Bernard himself Propter hoc data sunt signa quaedam indicia manifesta salutis ut indubitabile sit eum esse de numero electorum in quo ea signa permanserint For this very cause God exhibiteth manifest tokens of our salvation that he who hath these signes in him should not doubt of his Election And again Quibus certitudinem negat causa solicitudinis fiduciam praestat gratia consolationis To make us the more solicitous and carefull he restraineth the certainty of our salvation yet to comfort and support us he affords us confidence M. We say that every man hath an Angel Guardian you say he hath not This is a matter so indifferent as we leave every man to think what he please the Fathers Origen especially held many of them as the Marques holds whether we are guarded by one peculiar or many Angels is not worth the dispute since on all sides we are agreed that guarded we are by them M. We say the Angels pray for us knowing our thoughts and deeds you deny it I deny that Deny we hold that the Angels pray for the Church in general and that they know our Deeds but not our thoughts and because they do not we hold it unlawfull to invocate or pray to them nor do the places alledged import any thing to the contrary M. We hold it lawfull to pray to them you not we have Scripture for it Gen. 48. 16. The Angel which redeemed Me from all evil blesse these Lads c. Hosea 12. 4. He had power over the Angel and prevailed he wept and made supplication unto them In both these places one and the same Angel is understood yet no created Angel but the second Person in the Trinity so Athanasius and something more than so too his Lordship would be loth to hear of Nec enim quispiam precaretur accipere ab Angelis aut ab ullis rebus creatis For no man would supplicate the Angels or any other created nature to receive any thing from them But Job saith Have pity on me O my Friends Job 19. 21. And Saint Augustine saith expounding these words that holy Job addrest himself to the Angels But under his Lordships favour Augustine goeth no further than videtur It seemeth he did apply himself to the Angels so he was not certain not positive in it And his Lordship knows videtur in others many times but in Aquinas always goes by the worst M. We hold that the Saints deceased know what passeth here on Earth you say they know not His Lordship might have omitted this it