Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	formal_a	justification_n	meritorious_a	1,409	5	11.1733	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25220	A vindication of the faithful rebuke to a false report against the rude cavils of the pretended defence	Alsop, Vincent, 1629 or 30-1703.	1698 (1698)	Wing A2923; ESTC R8101	96,389	154

a Sinner But further Display Epist. informs us That our coming to Christ is our believing on him but come unto Christ we cannot without Faith and Repentance But then the Report leaves out Repentance wholly Name and Thing from his Substance of the Gospel either as necessary to pardon of Sin or Salvation And yet further p. 66. Prop. 1. On the Account of Christ's Sufferings in Humane Nature all Mankind in some sense is so far Redeemed from the Misery in which antecedently unto the Promise of Christ's Death they did lie that they are now in a much happier Condition than the fallen Angels not only on the Account of their receiving at least a temporary Reprieve from everlasting Flames but also because their Salvation is become possible and yet now poor D. W. shall be persecuted for an Arminian a Socinian a Baxterian for one Moiety of this Doctrine Once more p. 68. They who receive least receive one Talent and have given them sufficient for the enabling them to do more towards the saving of their Souls than they actually do and if those Men do actually improve the Common Helps vouchsafed them they may for ought any Man can prove to the contrary receive such further Assistances as may have a special influence in enabling them to turn sincerely to God through Iesus Christ. This was Arminius all over Facienti quod in se est Deus non denegat gratiam So that the Reporter if he be the Man was in those Days a downright Baxterian and an upright Williamite if common Grace could have kept him so What strange Revolutions may seventeen Years produce In half that time a Man's Interest may change and that may warp him his Dependences may change and that may pervert him New Friends and Alliances may beget new Counsels and above all this blessed Change may be the Result of an implacable Enmity against some one Man which may oblige him to alter his Principles in mere spight and to face about to the other Extream However that be it shall be no Concern of mine to compromise the Quarrel whether the Report and the Display came from the same Mint and if so the Report has wretchedly Clipt what the Display had Coyn'd and the Display is now splayed § 3. A third Thing to be removed is what will administer a pleasing Diversion to the Reader so it will discover much Malice or Ignorance in our Author In p. 72. The Defender of the Faith for divers Reasons to himself best known is pleas'd to revive the Memory of an Affair depending between the Reverend Mr. R. Baxter and a certain Author who above twenty Years ago appeared in Print with an odd Title Antisozzo This Author you must know had confidently enough asserted That never any Man in his Wits affirm'd that the Righteousness of Christ was the formal Cause of our Iustification And for ought I can yet see he had sufficient ground for his Confidence for all the Reformed Divines I have yet met withal do with one consent maintain That the Imputing of Christ's Righteousness is the formal Cause but the Righteousness of Christ it self is the Material Cause of our Justification that is it bears some good Analogy with or proportion to the Material Cause But Mr. B. treats this Assertion and the Asserter with some scorn and tells him That Dr. Davenant who was far from being a Mad-man assures us That it 's the Common Sense of all Divines that the Righteousness of Christ imputed to us is the formal Cause of our Iustification Now I appeal to all that have a small glimmering of Understanding and an equal quantity of Impartiality to use it Whether these two Propositions Christ's Righteousness is not the formal Cause and Christ's Righteousness Imputed is the formal Cause of our Iustification do carry any the least face of Contradiction The Righteousness of Christ is the Material Cause the Imputing of the Righteousness is the Formal Cause The Righteousness of Christ is the Matter or Thing to be Imputed the Imputation of the Matter or Thing is the Form The Righteousness of Christ is the result of Christ's Active and Passive Obedience which he as a Priest offer'd up to God for us but Imputation is an Act of God by which he adjudges that Righteousness to a believing Sinner and thereon accepts him as Righteous in his sight And surely Men may easily distinguish between the Act of God and the Undertaking of the Mediator I can readily conceive a difference between a Robe laid up in the Wardrobe and the putting on that Robe by the Hand that has Right to dispose on 't Christ's Righteousness is this Robe but it 's God's putting it on the believing Sinner that covers his Nakedness Let me give the Reader one Quotation from Wollebius Compend Christ. Theolog. lib. 1. cap. 30. § 11. Materia justificationis active sumptae est tota Christi Satisfactio qua peccatis nostris paenas debitas persolvit obedientiam Legi perfectam praestitit § 13. Forma ejus activè intellectae est totius satisfactionis Christi imputatio quae tota quoque nostra est non secus ac si ipsi praestitissemus So that Christs Righteousness is the Matter the Imputation of that Righteousness is the Form of our Justification Thus much has been said to clear that Author from Mr. B's Indignation but I will defeat our Authors Design to commit me with that great Mans Memory I will not contend with his Ashes but draw the Curtains softly about him and leave him to his own Everlasting Rest. Yet give me leave to Animadvert upon our Authors Confidence who calls this Assertion That Christs Righteousness is not the formal Cause of our Iustification An overbold rash and untrue Assertion Whereas nothing could be more modest wary and true But we see to what height of extravagancy interest vain-glory and the concupiscence of Cavilling with other Vanities will transport a Reporter or Defender I am Confident that these Truths Christs Righteousness is the material Cause the Imputation of that Righteousness the formal Cause of our Iustification are owned by this Author in his Heart what Temptation therefore he could have to debauch his Pen to call it or them an Untruth I cannot Conjecture unless he was resolved through Thick and Thin over Shooes and Boots through Truth and Falshood per fas aut nefas to Defame and if he had had Wit enough to ridicule that Writer or the Rebuker § 4. But now all Hands aloft our Author has brought from the Neighbourhood of the Lay-stall at Puddle-Dock to his Printers all those Ordures which will imploy all the City Scavengers I hope the Reader has his Florentine Balsom or whatever defensative may be more Potent ready to secure him against the Stench Page 84 Def. He informs us That there 's not the least pretence for his Insinuating that the Reporter is a Favourer of Dr. Crisps Notions No 'T is well an Insinuation is a small

many Deductions Inferences Consequences or rather Pursuances that few or none know where the Truth lies where the Error Causes Impulsive Causes Meritoaious Causes near Meritorious Causes tho how near they must be he does not instruct us and we must not dare to conjecture whereas a Cause may be said to be near in respect of another that lies further off and yet Remote in respect of that which lies nearer Pudet haec opprobria Nobis Et Dici potuisse non Potuisse Refelli III. Reader thou hast here a new Book Conceived and brought forth in a few Moments an evident proof he needed not a Man-Midwife to give him a quick Delivery He 's pleased to call it an Appeal it 's design is to instruct a couple of Learned Persons what they are to believe and not to make them judge the Author graciously teaches them what they are to believe of themselves and how they may believe in him He informs them in the Meaning of their own words which they never understood before and in the Meaning of his Principles which they understand not to this Hour 'T is a piece wherein he sticks close to them by Adulation and to his old Friend by Persecution 'T is a piece that will damn all the World for none can believe it and yet it damns us all for Unbelief But the best of it is the very Persons represented in greatest danger are left safe enough at an impartial Bar because its Charge against them is notoriously false after all the Authors tricks to force them to deny the Sufferings of Christ to be proper Punishments For Mr. Baxter saith Method Theol. Part III. p. 4. Gods hatred of Sin and also his Justice are no less demonstrated in the Satisfaction of Christ at least in a manner no less meet for obtaining the ends of Government than if the Sinners themselves had been damned And p. 53. God doth no less effectually shew his Punitive Justice in the Punishments of Christ than if he had destroyed the World Hence its manifest All the objected Phrases do only come to that he accounted Christ no Sinner when he suffered Mr. Williams in Man-made Righteous saith p. 41. Though Death was due to us as Sinners yet Death was not due to Christ but as it was to be satisfactory and meritorious He was to bear it as a Punishment for the Satisfaction of governing Iustice and to Merit the Pardon of Sinners He was willing to bear the Punishment of our Crimes that thereby he might Merit our forgiveness in a way consistent with the Perfections of God and conducive to the Glory of Divine Government Hence Isa. 53. 5. The chastisement of our Peace was upon him It was on him a Chastisement of Peace as its designed end True it was for Sin or it had not been necessary nor yet a Punishment c. Christs Death must be satisfactory to God or he would not have accounted it meritorious of Peace for us provoked Iustice and the injury to Divine Government for Sin stood in the Sinners way yea stood in the way of all Merit for good to us there must therefore be a Propitiation for Sin to God and this must be made to God it s accepted as a Ransom and Price by him and so it operates on the Sinner in a way of Merit consequential of that Satisfaction Christs Blood was offered as an Atonement c. Reader could one Page more expresly assert what Mr. L's tells thee is denied I might Cite hundreds of Places expressing the same And all Mr. L. objected Passages deny no more than that Christ was joynt Party with us in the Covenant of Works and that Sinners suffered and satisfied in Christ. Nor yet is this piece like to obtain with such whom he designed to ensnare for after all Mr. L. boasts of Dr. Edwards Letter to him you have his Thoughts expressed in the ensuing Lines To the Respected Mr. D. Williams c. SIR I Received yours by the last Post and in Answer to it I am to acquaint you that I lately received a Letter indeed from Mr. S. Lobb but no Sheets of any Book designed by him for the Press In his Letter he desired to know my Opinion in Relation to two Questions therein proposed to which I did return him an Answer in which if he thinks fit to Communicate the Contents to you you will meet with nothing that will be any disadvantage to the Cause you are ingaged in with your Antinomian Adversaries or your way of managing it as I find it stated in your Writings The same sense that I formerly declared to you I had of your Opinion and Explication of the Doctrine of our Saviour's Satisfaction I continue in still and have told Mr. L. so much without which I could not be either Just to you or Consistent with my self If Mr. Lobb shall publish any thing as from me which I am far from thinking he will which may seem to be contrary to what I have formerly declared to you in my Letters which since with my permission you have made publick I do undertake to give you full satisfaction and do assure you as to what shall concern my self you shall have no just ground of Suspicion or Complaint In the mean time while the Matter depends only on Surmises and Conjectures or uncertain Reports I can say nothing in it and have no more to add but that I am Iesus Coll. Oxon. Febr. 11. 1698. SIR Your very humble Servant Jonath Edwards IV. And now Reader I think I can discover Land and shall most gladly leap a Shore and quit my self of this angry raging Element the Controversial Ocean on which I have been so long tossed Thou remembrest I hope how the Defence p. 82. Objected to the Rebuke That he charged the Congregational in the Bulk without a Salvo to the Reputation of any one of them And I hope too thou wilt be so just to thy Self and Me as to refresh thy Memory with the Answer I have return'd in this my Vindication p. 23 This unworthy Calumny had been sufficiently obviated in the Rebuke it self it has been more fully removed among other heaps of Dung I was obliged to remove e're I could come at him I shall only add this one Thing That I never thought spoke wrote that the Congregational Brethren were either in the Bulk or in any considerable number tainted with or inclined to the Antinomian Errors no more than I thought that the other side was tainted with or inclined to the Socinian or Arminian It is very true that the Report had given some ground for such a Suspicion who that his Story might look big had talkt much of the Dissenting Brethren and still had formed his style in the Plural Number we we we Yet I durst never entertain any jealousie of them because I well knew they were clear in this Matter And I lookt upon it as a meer Bravado a pure Artifice to vapour and terrifie us with false Musters whereas indeed 't was Himself and a few a very few more under whose immediate and powerful Influence he then was that had espoused those dreadful Notions But I can now Reader give thee more Recent and explicite Assurance from Authentick warrant that whatever he pretended or made shew of very many of the Congregational Brethren have disowned him in his late Luxuriancy of Scribling Some of those Orthodox Brethren were not Privy in the least to his design others were not so much as Accessary either before the Fact or after the Fact others are ready to disavow those Principles he advances in his Substance of the Gospel They own Faith necessary to Iustification and amongst other Reasons I hope this is one that has Reclaimed him from his wild Notions and Reduced him to Reason and Moderation and I have their Warrant in Terminis to declare The Congregational Brethren in and about the City do all judge themselves unjustly charged as a Party with Mr. Lobb in publishing his Report they being wholly unconsulted and unconcerned in his publishing thereof I will dismis the Reader from farther Attendance when I have observ'd That our Modern Authors that would be accounted Schoolmen do write just as Men in Populous Cities build where because they want Ground to lay a wide Foundation raise their Buiding 6 or 7 Stories high Thus do our Towring School-Divines they have narrow slender Ground for their Discourses and therefore are obliged to soar up into the Clouds where we lose 'em and they are lost themselves We are too prone to be gazing up into Heaven to view the Asterisms of Speculative Theology whilst we stumble at a Stone and tumble into the Ditch of Profaneness 'T was a Judicious and Moderate Saying of the Learned Dr. I. Owen Diatrib de Just. Divin p. 165. Et sane quoniam de facto ita luculenter constat c. Seeing therefore that the Matter is so very clear in Fact That Christ hath born our Sins God having laid them upon him and by that satisfaction hath procured Eternal Salvation although it had pleased God to have kept secret in the Cabinet of his own Goodness and Wisdom all the Causes and Reasons of that his most Wise Counsel and Design for ever it had been our Duty to have acquiesced in his most Righteous most Gracious most Holy most Wise Will and Pleasure but yet so that no helps of our Faith are to be despised nor any Discoveries of his Divine Nature and Will are to be neglected whereby our most Merciful Father shall lead us into the more inward and saving Knowledge of the Mystery of Godliness To shut up all therefore in one word Let us all pray that our Gracious God would bless this present Age with Ministers and Teachers of that Subact Judgment and of those Holy Condescentions that know how to bring down Divinity from Heaven to Earth and Accommodate the Sublime Mysteries of Religion to a Holy and Exemplary Conversation assuring our selves that that Doctrine is none of Christ's which is not according to Godliness FINIS By the same Author A Faithful Rebuke to a False Report lately Dispers'd in a Letter to a Friend in the Country Concerning Differences in Doctrinals between some Dissenting Ministers in London in Octavo Printed for Iohn Lawrence at the Angel in the Poultry