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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	free_a	grace_n	love_n	2,934	5	6.6495	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26947	A key for Catholicks, to open the jugling of the Jesuits, and satisfie all that are but truly willing to understand, whether the cause of the Roman or reformed churches be of God ... containing some arguments by which the meanest may see the vanity of popery, and 40 detections of their fraud, with directions, and materials sufficient for the confutation of their voluminous deceits ... : the second part sheweth (especially against the French and Grotians) that the Catholick Church is not united in any meerly humane head, either Pope or council / by Richard Baxter, a Catholick Christian and Pastor of a church ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1659 (1659)	Wing B1295; ESTC R19360	404,289	516

gifts may be lost we never denyed it The special gifts that accompany salvation some of us judge are never lost others of us think are left only by those that are not predestinate as Austin thought and your Dominicans think And what cause is here of your quarrell His eleventh Accusation is this Scripture saith that God taketh away and blotteth out our iniquity as a cloud and puts our iniquities far from us as the East is from the West and maketh us as white as snow You say that he takes not away nor blotteth out our sin but only doth not impute it and doth not make us white as snow but leaveth in us the fault and uncleaness of sin which Scripture no where speaks Answ This is half falshood and half confusion raked up to make a matter of quarrel with 1. It s false that we say He doth not take away nor blot out our sin nor make us white as snow Do not all Protestants in the world affirm all this 2. There are these things here considerable 1. The Act of sin 2. The Habit 3. The guilt or obligation to punishment 4. The culpability or reatus culpae 1. As for the Act how can you for shame say that God takes it away when it is a transient act that is gone of it self as soon as acted and hath no existence as Scotus and all your own take notice 2. As to the Culpability you will not sure for shame say that God so put away e. g. Davids Adultery as to make it reputable as a vertue or not a vice 3. As to the Reatus ad paenam the full Guilt we maintain that it is done quite away and if your eyes be in your head you may see that it is in regard of this guilt and punishment that the Scriptures mentioned by you speak or principally speak at least For I pray you tell us what else can they mean when they speak of actual sins that are past long ago and have no existence Learned wranglers would you make us believe that Grace is given to David to put away the Act of his Murder and Adultery so that it may be quid praeteritum non jam existens a thing past and gone which it is without grace so that when you feign us to say that God takes not away sin but only not imputeth it you feign us to make synonymal terms to be of different sences He takes them away by not imputing them 4. But if you speak not of the sence of a particular Text but of the Matter in difference it can be nothing but the habit of sin that you mean that we say that God takes not away And here you play partly the Calumniators and partly the erroneous Pharisees 1. You Calumniate in feigning us to deny that habitual sin is done away Because our Divines say that it is not the work of meer pardon which we call Justification to put it away therefore you falsly say that we hold it is not put away at all whereas we hold without one contradicting vote that ever I read or heard that all that are Justified are Sanctified Converted Regenerate Renewed and must live an holy life And that all their sins are so far destroyed that they shall not have dominion over them that Gross and Wilfull sin they forsake and the least infirmities they groan and pray and strive against to the last and then obtain a perfect conquest 2. But if you mean that no degree of habitual or dispositive sin or absence of holy qualities remaineth in the Justified soul it is a Pharasaical error yea worse then a Pharisee durst have owned And it seems this is your meaning by the words of Calvins which you cite And dare you say that you have no sin to resist or purge or pardon Are you in Heaven already The whole have no need of the Physitian but the sick and have you no need of Christ to heal your soul would you be no better then you are O proud souls and strange to themselves and the purity of the Law Hath not the Holy Ghost pronounced him a Lyar and Self-deceiver that saith he hath no sin 1 Joh. 1. 8. 10. In many things we offend all Jam. 3. 2. I shall but recite to you two Canons of a Council which if you use the Lords prayer are fit for you to consider Concil Milevit cont Pelagianos Can. 7. Item placuit ut quicunque dixerit in Oratione Dominica ideo dicere sanctos Dimitte nobis Debita nostra ut non pro seipsis hoc dicant quia non est e● jam necessaria ista sed pro aliis qui sunt in suo populo peccatores ideo non dicere unumquemque sanctorum Dimitte mihi debita mea sed Dimitte nobis debita nostra ut hoc pro aliis potius quam pro se Justus petere intelligatur Anathema sit Can. 8. Item placuit ut quicunque verba ipsa Dominicae Orationis ubi dicimus Dimitte nobis debita nostra ista volunt à Sanctis dici ut humiliter non veraciter hoc dicatur Anathema fit Quis enim ferat Ora●tem non hominibus sed ipsi Domino mentientem qui labiis sibi dicit dimitti velle Corde dicit quae sibi dimittantur debita non habere You see here the Council curseth all those as intolerable Lyars that say the Lords prayer desiring him daily to forgive or remit their sins and yet think that they have no sins to forgive yea or that every Saint hath not such sins What can a Papist say to this but by making Councils as void of sence as they feign the holy Scriptures to be Hus twelfth and last Accusation is this The Scripture saith that Blessedness in the Reward the Prize the Penny the wages of Labourers and the Crown of Righteousness you contend that its meerly the free gift of God and not a Reward which no Scripture doth affirm Answ A meer Calumny and perverting of Calvins words who often saith as we constantly do that Eternal life is given as a Reward and Crown of Righteousness But we distinguish between the Act of God in his Gospel Promise which is a Conditional Deed of Gift of Christ and Life to all that will Accept them and the execution of this by Judgement and Glorification And we say that it was Antecedenter meerly of Gods free Grace that he made such a Deed of Gift the blood of Christ being the purchasing cause and nothing of our works had a handin the procurement Dare you deny this But that our Justification in Judgement and our Glorification which are the Execution of the Law of Grace do make our works the Reason not as having merited it ex proportione operis or in Commutative Justice but as having performed the condition of the free Gift and so being the persons to whom it doth belong And this is the sense of Scotus and of one half of the Papists for still you

that know them to be of Divine Revelation we easily grant you that But that is not because the Things themselves are simply necessary to Salvation but because a Belief of Gods veracity and the Truth of all that he Revealeth in general is of necessity and he that Believeth that God is True verax cannot chuse but believe all to be True which he knows God revealeth He that thinketh God to be a Lyar in one word doth not believe his veracity and so hath no Divine faith at all And therefore you need not fear lest any one should be guilty of not believing that which they know is the word of God but those that take God to be a Lyar and that is those that take him not to be God and so are Atheists But still the thing of Absolute necessity is but first to believe in General that God is true in all his word secondly and to believe the truth of the essential points of Christianity in particular embracing the Good propounded in them Now its true that secondarily all known Truths are of necessity to be believed because else our General belief of Gods veracity is not sincere But yet we must say that antecedently even to that person these superadded truths were not of Necessity to his Salvation to be believed because they were not of such Necessity to be Known and if they had not been known you would say your selves there had not been such Necessity of Believing them But if you go further and say that all that were obliged to know them or that had opportunity or the Revelation if the truth and yet did not and thereupon deny them culpably are in a state of death I deny that and shall prove it false It s true that a wilfull refusing the Light because men love darkness rather then light is a certain sign of a graceless wretch But every culpable ignorance and unbelief is not Damning ignorance or unbelief 1. Otherwise no man should be saved For no man is void of culpable ignorance and consequently of culpable unbelief Had we never been wanting in the use of means there 's no man but might have known more then he doth Is there any one of you that dare refuse to ask God forgiveness of your ignorance unbelief or the negligence that is the culpable cause of them or that dare say you need no pardon of them 2. If you plead for venial sin how can you deny a venial unbelief upon venial ignorance But then I pray you learn more wit and piety 1. then to say that your venial unbelief or sin is no sin save as Analogically so called or 2. then to say it deserves a pardon or deserves not everlasting punishment But if you will call it venial because being consistent with the true Love of God and habitual Holiness and saving faith the Law of Grace doth pardon it and not condemn men for it thus we would agree with you that there is veniall sin but then you must yield us that there is venial unbelief 3. And we easily prove all this from the Law of God It is the nature of the preceptive part to constitute Duty only and the violation of that is sin But it is the sanction the promise and threatning that Determines of the Reward and Penalty Now it is only the old Law of works that makes the Threatening as large as the prohibition condemning man for every sin but so doth not the Law of Grace The precept still commandeth Perfect obedience and so makes it a duty but the promise maketh not perfect obedience the condition of Salvation but Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience though imperfect The Law of Nature still makes everlasting Death due to every sin But it is such a Due as hath a Remedy at hand provided and offered in the Gospel and is actually remedyed to all true believers So that as it is not every sin that will damn us though damnation be due to it because we have a present Remedy so it is not every culpable ignorance or unbelief that will damn us though it deserve damnation because the Gospel doth not only not damn us for it but pardons it by acquitting us from the condemnation of the Law All this may teach you not only to mend your abominable doctrine about Mortal and veniall sin but also to discern the reason why a man may deny some points of faith that are not of the essence of Christianity and yet not be damned for it because the Law of Grace doth not condemn him for it though he be culpable because the Law of Grace may command further then it peremptorily condemneth in case of disobedience It is the Promise that makes faith the Condition of Life though it be the Precept that makes it a duty Now it saveth not as a performed Duty directly because the precept gives not the Reward but as a performed Condition And therefore unbelief condemneth not effectually as a meer sin directly but as such a sin as is the violation or non-performance of that condition But it is not a belief of every thing that is preceptively de fide which is made the condition of life CHAP. XVII Detect 8. ANother of their Juglings is to extoll the judgement of the Catholick Church as that which must be the ground of faith and the decider of all Controversies And to this end they plead against the sufficiency of Scripture and bend all the force of their arguings and designs as if all their hope lay in this point and as if it were a granted thing that the day is theirs and we are lost if the Catholick Church be admitted to be the Judge Hence it is that they cry out against private faith and opinions and call men to the faith of the Church and perswade the poor people that the Church is for them and we are but branches broken off Well we are content to deal with them at their own weapon and at that one in which they put their trust For our parts we know that the true Catholick Church nor any member of it in sensu Composito cannot err in any of the Essentials of Christianity for then it would cease to be the Church But we have too much reason to Judge that it is not free from error in lesser things But yet for all that in the main cause between the Papists and us we refuse not their judgement Nay we turn this Canon against the Canoneers and easily prove that the Papists cause is utterly lost if the Catholick Church be Judge But is it the Ancient Church or the present Church that must decide the cause Well! It shall be which you will For the most Ancient Church in the Apostles dayes we are altogether of its belief and stand to its decision in all things and if you prove we mistake them in any thing we shall gladly receive instruction and be reclaimed To them we appeal for our Essentials and Integrals And for some

offenders is a positive duty which at all times is not a duty but unseasonably performed is a sin For a Magistrate therefore to punish such offenders when it apparently tendeth to hinder the progress of the Gospel and overthrow the peace and safety of the Christian State is not a Duty but a sin Would any of these Objectors be against a Magistrates releasing of a Jesuite out of Prison in exchange for a faithful Minister of the Gospel especially of many as prisoners are commonly exchanged in war If not why should they be against the releasing of such a man to higher ends even to save mens souls To give Liberty is but to Permit or not to Hinder or not to Punish and therefore is but the not-doing of a work when it is unseasonable as Sacrifice is when God requireth Mercy And he that may Permit or forbear to punish may on a just reason promise so to do So that this is but forbearing the punishing of Papists when we cannot punish them without the exceeding hurt of the Church and wrong to many thousand souls But I know I speak all this in vain for the Pope will never consent that Protestants shall sow their seed at Rome lest it quickly unneast him But in the mean time let the Papists here confess if they be reasonable that we have no reason to give Liberty to them that will give none to us or upon unequal terms If they claim a special Title to it as having the juster cause we desire no more then a fair tryall of that and let them that have the juster cause take all 3. Another particular that should here be agreed on is this whether the former be consented to or not That on both sides where the Teachers have any Toleration or forbearance they may be forced by the Magistrate to teach the Ignorant people that adhere to them the great Articles of the Christian faith both words and sense which we are all agreed in Which was Bishop Ushers motion to the Papist Priests in Ireland For saith he among the Papists the people are suffered to perish for want of knowledge the vulgar superstitions of Popery not doing them half that hurt that the ignorance of those common principles of faith doth which all true Christians are bound to learn Serm. at Wansted page 33. 4. Another necessary particular to be agreed on is that we use not bitter invectives against each other nor uncharitable contendings especially in the ears of the ignorant people that have not yet learned the common truths which we agree in but that our Debates be managed only in such Assemblies as are capable of them and in a sober Christian way 5. Another is that such Magistrates that will not grant Toleration may yet on both sides avoid cruelties and inflict no more penalties for matters of meer Religious worship then necessity shall require and that herein they may agree upon some equality in the several Nations And in this let Spain Italy Austria and the rest for shame consent to be as moderate as the Turk and to shut up the doors of their bloody Inquisition 6. Let us all agree to renounce all Treachery and unfaithfulness against the Soveraign Powers and all seditious disturbances of the Peace of Common-wealths 7. Let those afford us the common Love of men that think us not capable of the special Love of Christians and so let us Love our Neighbours as our selves and study to do good and not hurt to one another and give over plotting to undermine one another and destroy one anothers civil interest and get our Neighbours under our feet This much well practiced would do something to the peace of the Christian world CHAP. LV. THE lowest Degree that none but incarnate Devils one would think should resist is this that if we will needs live as enemies yet we may remember that we have all greater enemies and therefore let us give over our wars and let every Nation be quietly governed by their own Laws and Soveraigns and let us all join together against the common enemies of Christ We cannot but know that much of Christs interest lyeth in our hands and that if either party were devoured by the Turk it would be a heavy blow to the Christian cause If God should suffer that proud enemy to come and make a third among us to end our quarrels we must justifie him in his judgements and must to our perpetual shame confess that by our proud and passionate contendings and unpeacebleness and self-seeking we did betray the Christian cause O wonderfull stupidity and impiety of great men and Learned men professing so much zeal for God that they can no more agree nor bear in Love and Compassion with each other nor cease their wars when a raging potent enemy stands over them ready to devour them both Let the Venetians take the honour and we the shame How ever their own Interest may engage them yet materially their wars are more honourable then ours The Pope is eager for a General Peace among his subjects that they may be strenghthened to devour us But it were an honester design that would give him more comfort at last to mediate a Peace among all Christians that in this at least they might be one to oppose the Turk and rescue the Heritage of Christ which he hath oppressed And O what a blessed thing it were if the Jesuites Fryars and Protestants could but agree to join together for the conversion of the poor Indians And either preach in the same or several Countries without seeking the destruction there of one another yea and afford each other help that the English Hollanders and others might send Preachers as well as Merchants into the Indies and we might there contribute our endeavours to propagate the Gospel though in our different wayes not envying hating and hindering each other but remembring we all confess one Christ though not one Vice-christ Conclusion I Have cast out these Proposals meerly to acquaint the peaceable Christian what he should desire that the frame of his heart may be right before God and not with any expectation that they should be so regarded as to procure what they drive at I am not so weak or ignorant of the inconsiderableness of the Proposer or of the selfishness and ungodliness of the world But yet I may lawfully take the comfort of the most uneffecutal desires and endeavours that are honest And for those that would have us Reconciled upon the Grotian terms or upon the French Foundation of a General Council and would have all forced as our Bishops attempted to come over to their way and deny Liberty to the rest that cannot thus close with them and all that think that the Church must have some Visible Head or Soveraign to unite in I shall shew them their errour in a distinct Disputation which I am publishing next to this as a supplement and therein I shall give them such further Proposals for