Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	justification_n	justify_v	meritorious_a	2,124	5	11.4575	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52291	An answer to an heretical book called The naked Gospel which was condemned and ordered to be publickly burnt by the convocation of the University of Oxford, Aug. 19, 1690 : with some reflections on Dr. Bury's new edition of that book : to which is added a short history of Socinianism / by William Nicholls.	Nicholls, William, 1664-1712.; Bury, Arthur, 1624-1713. Naked Gospel.	1691 (1691)	Wing N1091; ESTC R28145	124,983	144

our Church speaks spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith in so much that a true and lively Faith may be known by them as a Tree is discerned by its Fruit. But still it is Faith not works that do justifie for they having no intrinsick value of their own cannot conferr it on any but Faith alone which takes hold as some speak of the all-sufficient merits of our Blessed Saviour Or as our Church speaks sends us directly to Christ for the remission of our Sins and by which we embrace the Promise of God's Mercy and of the remission of our Sins which thing none other of our Vertues or Works properly doth therefore the Scripture useth to say That Faith without Works doth justifie Not that even Faith it self is a proper and necessary cause of Justification but that it has pleased God to accept it as a cause or means by embracing or taking hold of the merits of Christ which are the true proper meritorious cause of Justification Which justification or righteousness which we so receive of God's mercy and Christ's merits embraced by Faith is taken accepted and allowed of by God as our perfect and full Justification And this is the reason that the Gentlemen of the Authour's persuasion are so unwilling to have Faith onely to justifie Secondly This ought to be an Orthodox Faith in all Fundamentals at least All the admirable Effects which the Scripture does attribute to Faith must be understood of a true Faith such as is agreeable to God's word which is to be the rule of our Faith and not of a false or Heterodox Faith which any one takes up from a Party of Men or from his own Imagination A Heterodox Faith is no more Faith than a dead man or a painted man is a Man they agree in one common equivocal Name 't is true and in nothing else So that an Heterodox Faith can no more pretend to those supernatural Effects which a true Faith by God's grace does produce than a dead Man can pretend to all the Properties and Operations of a live one There is but one Faith as well as one Baptism so that to hope to be justified by a false or another Faith is as unreasonable as to expect to come into the Church by another Baptism So that they that teach a Justification by works or any other Faith than an Orthodox one do themselves for ought as I see teach another Gospel Thirdly The reason why Faith is so pleasing to God as that he should make this the great Means of Justification And here I hope to give an Answer to the Authour's Dilemma and to shew that our Faith in Christ is not irrational and then we are no Fools and as for our merit by Faith we are far from pretending to it we acknowledge it as an infinite mercy of our gracious God that he will accept our Faith in Christ's blood for our Justification and do not go about to argue the worth of it which is none And as for the grounds of our Faith in Christ for Justification I know not what can be more reasonable than to expect only to have our weak Performances accepted for the sake of his all-sufficient Merits And of all our Actions that we can perform I know not what can be more pleasing and acceptable in the sight of God than for an humble and desponding Christian considering his own unworthiness and the insufficiency of his Repentance it self and all other Vertues to incline God to mercy so far as for their sakes to accept him for just and innocent he as the last refuge he hath quitteth all worth and merit in himself and fleeth with a full and undoubting Faith in all God's revelations and a firm confidence in all his promises unto the free grace of God revealed in Christ Jesus and hopes for the sake of his Righteousness alone that he will justifie his imperfect Performances This certainly when we have done the utmost of our Endeavours is more pleasing to God than any action we can do more For if we could be justified by our works it would tempt us to reflect with Pride upon our vertuous Actions but this teaches us a pious despondency in our selves and to cast all our hopes upon our blessed Saviour And this is the summ of the Apostles Arguments Eph. 2. 8. For by Grace ye are saved through Faith not of your selves nor of works least any one should boast And the learned Cassander though a Papist says thus much in favour of this Doctrine of the Protestants that in this Question by the word Faith they mean only the grace of God which is correspondent to faith quae fidei ex adverso respondet and to be justified by faith alone signifies the same as by grace alone in opposition to all kind of works CHAP. III. What figure Faith made in natural Religion OUR Authour in the beginning of this Chapter lays down Faith as a duty in natural Religion that it is a branch of Justice by which we pay to God what is due to his Veracity that this was before all positive Law and that upon this the Gospel is built because the Faith of Abraham which is recommended for our pattern Rom. 4. was nothing else but this Justice that the lack of this Faith was reproved by the Angel in Sarah and was punished in Lot's Wife Gen. 18. and in the incredulous Lord 2 King 7. And that this is the Faith lastly which is commended in the Worthies mentioned Heb. 11. And last of all he endeavours to shew the excellency of Abraham's Faith to consist in believing God against so many difficulties from this natural notion of his Veracity Any one that understands the nature of the Authour's Book will easily see into his design here which is to bring down all Faith to be a meer Creature of Reason to be no longer that which the Schools call an infused Habit or the inspiration of God but only a bare rational belief upon divine Testimony Now as to his notion of Faith its being a branch of Justice and that by the light of nature we are taught to believe God upon his Testimony this is in some measure most certainly true as appears by the practice of the Heathens themselves who had nothing but the light of nature to walk by in their believing their Oracles Auguries Prophesies c. and in suiting their actions according to them So that 't is plain that natural Religion tells us God is to be believed upon his Testimony so that when a Man under natural Religion does believe any thing upon God's Testimony our Authour may if he pleases call this Faith But Theological Faith or Faith under the Gospel is quite of another kind this is not only an assent of the understanding but a divine Grace or Habit infused though our Authour would have them the same by saying the Gospel is built upon this and moreover That Faith in Abraham