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
A59816	A discourse concerning the knowledge of Jesus Christ and our union and communion with him &c. by William Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1674 (1674)	Wing S3288; ESTC R33886	180,039	448

bestows the rewards of Righteousness on those who according to the strictness and rigour of the Law are not Righteous that for Christ's sake he hath made a new Covenant of Grace which pardons our past sins and follies and rewards a sincere though imperfect obedience for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be made righteous is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be justified that is treated like righteous persons so that the Righteousness of Christ is not the formal cause of our justification that very Righteousness whereby we are righteous but the Righteousness of his Life and Death is the meritorious cause of that Covenant whereby we are declared righteous and rewarded as righteous persons for the Apostle tells us in Ver. 17. who those are who are thus justified by Christ and shall Reign with him in Life not those who are righteous by the imputation of Christs Righteousness to them but those who have received the abundance of Grace and the gift of Righteousness that is who by the Gospel of Christ which is the Grace and the abundant Grace of God are made Holy and Righteous as God is which Righteousness is called a gift because it is not owing solely to humane endeavours but is wrought in us by supernatural means by those powerful arguments and motives and divine assistances which God in infinite love and goodness has afforded the World by Jesus Christ. This gives a fair account how we may be said to be made righteous by the Righteousness of Christ not that his actual obedience is reckoned as done by us which is impossible but because we are made righteous both in a proper and forensick sense by the Gospel-Covenant which is wholly owing to the Grace of God and to the merits and Righteousness of Christ the great arguments and motives and powerful assistances of the Gospel form our minds to the love and practice of Holiness and so make us inherently righteous and the Grace of the Gospel accepts and rewards that sincere and Evangelical obedience which according to the rigour and severity of the Law could deserve no reward so that our Righteousness is wholly owing to the Righteousness of Christ which may in this sense be said to be imputed to us though that phrase never occurs in Scripture because without this Covenant of Grace which is founded on the Righteousness of Christ the best man living could lay no claim to Righteousness or future glory So that the Righteousness of Christ is our Righteousness when we speak of the foundation of the Covenant by which we are accepted but if we speak of the terms of the Covenant then we must have a righteousness of our own for the Righteousness of Christ will not serve the turn Christs Righteousness and our own are both necessary to our Salvation the first as the foundation of the Covenant the other as the condition of it The sum of this Section is this that there is no foundation in reason or Scripture to imagine any such Union betwixt Christ and Believers as should intitle them to all the personal Righteousness of Christ as much as if it had been performed by themselves but the vertue of Christs Obedience and Sufferings so far as it concerns our justification is contained in the Gospel-Covenant he is the Mediator of the Covenant and his blood is the blood of the Covenant and we must expect no other advantage from what Christ hath done and suffer'd but to be saved according to the gracious terms and conditions of the Gospel SECT IV. That these men place our Union to Christ before holiness of life I Have now explained to you the nature of our Union to the Person of Christ as these men represent it whereby they say we are entitled to all his Excellencies Graces Righteousness Preciousness c. and made it appear that there is no foundation for such a notion either in Scripture or reason but before I dismiss this it will be convenient to take notice of the great evil and mischief of this opinion which may satisfie any considering man though there were no other evidence of it how false it is and I shall observe two things to this purpose First That according to this notion men may nay must be united to Christ while they continue in their sins which according to my understanding overthrows all Religion and destroys the necessary obligations to an holy life Secondly That according to these mens discourses no man can certainly tell how to get into Christ or know whether he be in Christ or not As for the first that men may nay must be united to Christ while they continue in their sins it is easie to produce abundant evidence for the proof of it Mr. Shephard tells us expresly that obedience does not make us Gods people or God our God but he is first our God which is only by the Covenant of Grace and hence it is that he being ours and we his we of all others are most bound to obey as for the obligation to obedience we will consider that anon at present it suffices that we are Gods people and that by vertue of the Covenant of Grace before we obey him the same Author tells us that we are not united to Christ our life by obedience as Adam was to God by it but by Faith that is by such a Faith of which Obedience is no part otherwise he opposes a part to the whole and so the same thing to it self and therefore as all actions in living things comes from Union so all our acts of obedience are to come by Faith from the Spirit on Christs part and from Faith on our part which make the Union the meaning of which is this that we must first be united to Christ by this Faith of which more anon before we can do any thing that is good before this Union the best actions we can do are sins which is a plain demonstration of the truth of this charge because according to this principle we can do nothing but sin before we are united to Christ hence these men constantly place our justification before our sanctification that we are first accounted holy by God before we are made holy now our justification follows our Union to Christ and our fanctification follows our justification and therefore we must first be united to Christ so as to have a title to all the Promises of the Gospel to Justification and Eternal Life before we are sanctified that is before we are made Holy hence we are told that Holiness is a remote end of vocation but the next end is to come to Christ and the same Author makes a speech for Christ to a Sinner so gracious a speech that among all the invitations of Christ in the Gospel we find nothing like it though thou hast resisted my Spirit refused my Grace wearied me with thy iniquities yet come unto me and this will make me amends I require nothing of thee

Christ for Salvation These two Faiths are of as different kinds as can well be imagined and therefore we cannot reason from one to the other and St. Paul certainly understood himself better than to argue at this weak rate And therefore to bring this discourse to an Head the difference between the Faith of Abraham and the Faith of Christians is this that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for Righteousness and we believe in Christ and this is counted unto us for Righteousness Abraham believed those Revelations God made to him either immediately by himself or by the Ministry of Angels we believe all those Revelations God hath made to us by his own Son for God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son Hebr. 1. 1. So that the first notion of Faith in Christ is a firm belief of his Divine Authority which necessarily draws after it a belief of the whole Doctrine of the Gospel thus in Iohn 20. 31. The Christian Faith is described by believing that Iesus is the Christ the Son of God and 1 Iohn 5. 5. Who is he that overcometh the World but he that believeth that Iesus is the Son of God That is that he came from God with full power and Authority to declare his will and confirm and ratifie the new Covenant So that the difference between the Faith of Abraham and Faith in Christ is that Abrahams Faith was founded on the immediate inspirations of God or the Revelations of Angels but a Faith in Christ is founded on the Authority of Christ which is the first object of the Christian Faith and the reason and foundation of all other Acts of Faith Abraham had only some particular Revelations as the object of his Faith but now Christ hath made a perfect Revelation of the whole will of God which is the object of our Faith and thus the Christian Faith excells all other kinds of Faith as much as the Revelations of the Gospel excel all other Revelations made to Abraham and other good men but still the end of all Faith is the same to govern our lives and make us obedient in all things to God as Abraham was without which no Faith can justifie And the same difference there is between the Righteousness of Faith in a general notion as it is applyed to Noah and Abraham and those worthies of old and the Righteousness of God by the Faith of Iesus Christ Rom. 3. 22. and that Righteousness which is through the Faith of Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith Phil. 3. 9. The first signifies that Righteousness which is owing to an hearty belief of the Being and Providence of God and those particular Revelations which they received from God the latter is the effect of a sincere belief and obedience to the Gospel which is the most perfect Revelation which God ever made of his will to mankind This is so plain and easie an account of the rise and use of these phrases and of the force of the Apostles reasoning from the Faith of Abraham to the Faith of Christ which is unintelligible in any other way that could men be reconciled to plain sense it would need no other confirmation but the natural evidence of naked and simple truth But not to be wanting to a good cause let us now examine those Texts of Scripture which are abused by these men to set up the Personal Righteousness of Christ as the only formal cause of our justification as that alone which can make us righteous before God I shall begin and end with that famous place Phil. 3. 8 9. for the explication of this will give us occasion to consider all the material passages of Scripture which are applyed to this purpose yea doubtless and I account all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Iesus my Lord for whom I have suffer'd the loss of all things and I do account them but dung that I may win Christ and be found in him not having my own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith by my own righteousness these men understand inherent righteousness whatever good St. Paul had done either while he was a Jew or after his Conversion to Christianity this he rejects and therefore the righteousness which is through the Faith of Christ must needs be an imputed Righteousness the Personal Righteousness of Christ apprehended by Faith and imputed to us This is fairly offer'd but what proof have they for it That I confess I cannot learn only it is taken for granted that my Righteousness signifies inherent Righteousness and the Righteousness of Faith imputed Righteousness and it is a sufficient answer to this to say they need not signifie so My own Righteousness can signifie no more than that in which he placed his Righteousness whatever it was and what necessity is there to understand this of Inherent Holiness an external Righteousness serves most mens turn very well and this is the righteousness by which the Pharisees and amongst the rest St. Paul while he was a Pharisee expected to be justified for what his Righteousness was he tells us in Ver. 6 7. Circumcised the eight day of the stock of Israel of the Tribe of Benjamin an Hebrew of the Hebrews as touching the Law a Pharisee who were mighty strict and punctual in observing all external Ceremonies and he exprest his zeal for the law of Moses by persecuting the Christian Church and touching the Righteousness which is in the Law he was blameless which last phrase touching the Righteousness of the law blameless signifies only an external blamelessness of Conversation as Mr. Calvin himself acknowledges for this was the Pharisees notion even of the moral law that the obligation of it did reach no farther than the outward man and Trypho the Iew in Iustin Martyr quarrels with the Gospel of our Saviour for this very reason that it requires the government of our thoughts and passions which he says is impossible for a man to do and thus we must understand this blamelessness here unless we will say that St. Paul while he was a Pharisee did perfectly observe the moral law was blameless before God as well as before men which I suppose those who talk so much of the impossibility of keeping Gods laws will be loath to owne So that my own Righteousness which is of the law is so far from signifying an inherent Righteousness an inward and vital principle of holiness that it signifies only an external Righteousness which consisted in some external Rites as Circumcision and Sacrifices c. or external priviledges as being of the Seed of Abraham and stock of Israel or an external Civility and blamelessness of Conversation and this Righteousness he had reason to reject because God will reject it This