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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	form_n	formal_a	justification_n	1,583	5	9.7883	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45142	The middle-way in one paper of the covenants, law and gospel : with indifferency between the legalist & antinomian / by J.H.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.	1674 (1674)	Wing H3693; ESTC R16428	27,351	35

is pardon To have righteousness imputed to a man without works is all one as to have faith imputed to him for righteousness so repentance or evangelical obedience and that is not pardon though these are never divided from the same subject I will conclude therefore with that I have said once before will say it again at my parting with the point that it is strange to me our Protestant Divines should be so offward to this cleer Determination To wit God judges and will judge all men according to the Gospel Those who perform the condition of it he accounts or pronounces righteous They whom he accounts righteous are justified I will add That the righteousness of Christ which is the meritorious cause of our justification without dispute on all hands that is the impulsive procatartick cause which alwayes comes under the Efficient cannot for the same reason be the Formal or Material cause of it It is not the infusion of Righteousness with the Papist which is our sanctification nor the imputation of Christs righteousness with the Protestant which is not to be understood but in genere causae Efficientis nor remission of Sin with Protestant and Papist which I have now bin disproving but the imputing to a person his performance of the new covenant for righteousness or the accounting or pronouncing him righteous according to that covenant is the form formal Cause or formal Reason of his justification Do not think this strange Justification I will grant virtually or Eminenter as unum aggregatione containes in it many things and so remission among others for we must find line to speak as Divines use but Justification Formaliter as unum simplex I say is only Gods pronouncing us Just or sincere penitent believers and remission is a benefit which in order of Nature does follow the performance of that condition And so I proceed to my third Paper Of the Covenants Of the Law and Gospel For the Doctrin of the Covenants There is the Covenant of Works say Divines and the Covenant of Grace The Covenant of works say they was made with Adam in his integrity being that Law which is written in all mens hearts and so requires perfection and for the least transgression threatens Death The Covenant of grace is made with man in his Estate fallen or with Christ in his behalf and requires only our Faith repentance and sincerity unto Life which being held forth under the Title of the Promise to Adam Abraham David and all during the Law was ratified by the death and blood of Christ the Redeemer under the Gospel and so promulgated to the world to continue still on force and in that as in one regard called new as long as that lasts Behold the dayes come saith the Lord when I will make a new Covenant not according to the Covenant I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt Here is the Old Covenant and the New Covenant The Old is that which God made with the Jews when Moses lead them in the wilderness The New is that which we have under the Gospel The old Covenant then is not the Covenant of works for that was made with all in Adam and as written in our hearts must be eternally obligatory But the old Covenant was made with the Jews in opposition to other Nations and as peculiar to them is vanished and binds not Neither is it the Covenant of grace for the same reason as also because the covenant of grace is the new covenant but the New is not the Old The Old and New covenants say Divines indeed ordinarily are both the covenant of grace in opposition to that of works the same in substance but differing in the Administration But this with me is not so easy to be received without the distinction of an A and The in the case The Old covenant may be a covenant of grace or covenant of works or both but not the covenant of works or the covenant of grace There are some plead it is a subservient covenant as Camero Some that it is a mixt covenant as Ball. Some that it is a covenant of works as the Loyden Divines The most of our own late Divines do make it a covenant of grace Whereof one voluminous Authour denying the other three opinions does yet say it was so dispensed as to tender life both upon the condition of Faith and works But if it proposed life on condition of perfect doing it was a covenant of works If on believing too a Covenant mixt both of Works and Grace And as perfect doing was urged only in tendency to believing a Covenant-Subservient and so all say true as to the main and yet none so distinctly true as to leave any enquiring man without confusion in what they say There is one thing then I apprehend will serve much for the enodation of many difficulties in theis matter and that is to conceive aright what the Old Covenant is And there is another like it to the same purpose to know what kind of Covenant it was As for the former we have hitherto been seeing but what it is not only now to understand what it is Let us separate what Moses did deliver to the Israelites from that which was before in promise to the Patriarks as single by it self and this is the Old Covenant Or take that and all that whatsoever and in what manner soever that was added to the Covenant of Grace which Abraham and the Patriarks were under and that abstracted therefrom is I count the Old Covenant Let me yet speak more fully Take Abraham before he was ninety years old when he at first Believed and that Faith was imputed to him for Righteousness upon which he became the Father of the faithful while as yet he was in his Uncircumcision for the Law of Circumcision which was after given in peculiar reference to his natural Seed the Jews in pursuance of the temporal Benediction is to be reckoned as Preambulatory to the Law and belonging to it and when you have pared away Circumcision and all that which Moses commanded the Jews afterwards from Walk before me only and be perfect all this rest this pared away from that whatsoever it be is I say the Old Covenant or the Law strictly taken From this in the first place we have light to distinguish between the Law taken strictly and largely In regard whereof we shall find the Apostles somtimes proving the Righteousness of Faith from the Law being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets and another time setting the Law and Gospel at the widest distance and opposition As the Law is taken comprehensively for the promise to Abraham as well as the Covenant made with the Jews that is for the whole state they stood in who were under the Law by vertue of the Covenant confirm'd to their fore Fathers as by vertue of that given by Moses the Law and Gospel are

Reprover should know it is in regard of such that this difference is to be holden It is true then the Penitent Jew had the Promise to trust to as well as we but yet he was still under the Law and not we and the Law it self did engender to bondage as in the Scripture before quoted He had the Promise as well as we but he could not look unto it as well as we he had a vail over him as we have not that he could not stedfastly look unto the end of that which was abolished This is most apparent that the Jews were in the dark as to their understanding of the covenant and Christ that End after another manner than we are and the more they were in the dark the more must they be in doubts and fears and upon this foundation is this difference built ordinarily I suppose by the Understanding Nevertheless there is yet this one thing or two farther that under the Law there was recourse to be had still unto their Sacrifices which were remembrances of sin I said before and consequently of terrour and bondage seeing if they failed they had reason of fear in regard of temporal punishments as much more then we as they had to expect temporal blessings more then we upon their obedience upon the account they were under a peculiar temral covenant Adde hereunto These temporal things under that covenant were resemblances patterns and in some sence portendments of future To what end then served the Law says the Apostle as you may likewise adjoyn from this supposition It was added because of Transgressions The Law entred that the offence might abound Again By the Law comes the knowledg of sin and though sin was in the world before men were not apt to impute it to themselves without a Law The Law then was for the brideling the Jews from sin and through the conviction of sin upon the Conscience and that temporal death they saw due to them in the Beasts that were slain in their behalfs they might be driven in the sence of their spiritual estates to the remedying Law of Mercy upon Repentance which is the substance of the Promise which God had given to their Fore-Fathers and has established in the Gospel For Christ was the end of the Law for Righteousness and the Law was a Schoolmaster says the Apostle to drive us to Christ Of the Law and Gospel FOR this Theam I shall have need to speak the less in regard of what hath been said already That which I have to offer I shall serve in by way of striking light at a passage or two in a Book which hath been intended in the Chapter before but not named I am sensible how many there are who being taken with the Preaching of free grace are too apt to disrellish other Preachers who press more unto Duty and I think that Writer does not therefore spend his pains without good cause about the consistency of good works with the Gospel and Justification It is objected against such Divines that they are but Legal Preachers and that they impeach the grace of God by putting men so much on Doing To the one his Answer is They Preach not the Works of Moses Law but the Works Christ enjoyns To the other he tells us The Law and Gospel both put us upon doing but not the same thing nor with the same disposition which he explains The Gospel gives better rules of life and power to do according to them with a more willing and chearful mind than the Law did I will here under favour of this ingenious person use a few words For the first I look not on this Answer so jejunely as if the meaning of the Authour was only that they preach not the Ceremonial Law for who need be inform'd of that or that the ceremonial Law does no longer oblige But supposing the Moral Law it self coming under a double consideration to wit as delivered by Moses and as it is in the hand of Christ it is this indeed which is worth his enquiry how the dutyes of the ten Commandements or those good works which we as well as the Jews are bound to perform are obligatory in the one respect and not in the other Now should he have used these words as some of our Divines do and by the distinction intend only we are not obliged to good works in the point of Justification but out of gratitude to our Redeemer or to that purpose he must run streight into that premunire which he strives to avoid to wit of Justification by Faith only If he stick upon this that the Law as it was in the hand of Moses was given for a temporal covenant and not so as it is in the hand of Christ I do not see what that does signify to the objection This is that therefore which is to be said and to be conceived therefore what he intends By the works of the Law understand we that exact obedience which is required unto living by the Law Do this and live By the works Christ enjoyns let us understand that sincerity only in our obedience which God requires unto our living by Faith or accepts though imperfect through Christ Good works are not exacted now of any in the first sence but good works are required of all in the second That Preacher that should Preach obedience to the decalogue as necessary to life in the former sence were a legal Preacher indeed but that Preacher that preaches obedience and good works in the second sence is but a Preacher of the Gospel and may not preach otherwise as he tenders his Hearers Salvation And behold one came to Christ and said what shall I do that I may inherit Eternal Life And he said to him if thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandements The Commandements then I say may be considered as the matter of the covenant of works or our Legal Righteousness or as the matter of the covenant of grace or our Evangelical Righteousness In the former sence if any man could perform them he should merit Eternal Life and be sure to have it but there is no man can keep them as they are so required In the latter sence there is no man but must keep them as to the prevalent interest of his will which constitutes integrity and does that ever was and is finally justified and saved For the second we have two or three things to be touched In the first place I do not believe craving that Gentlemans pardon that the Gospel gives any better or any other rules of life than what are contained in the Law It is true that Christ hath instituted other Sacraments but it is the Moral Law we call the rule of life and that Christ came not to bring us the Systeme of any new Law but to explain aad establish the Law Moral which the Jews I count and Gentiles both ever had the one by the light of Nature the other by Revelation also