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	sanctification_n	1,666	5	10.7958	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

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

THE Middle-Way In One paper of THE COVENANTS LAW and GOSPEL With Indifferency between the LEGALIST ANTINOMIAN By J. H. Doing nothing by Partiality LONDON Printed for I Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheap-side 1674. OF The Covenants IT is one reason of my sending out these sheets thus in single Papers that I may have the opportunity my self of Reflexion If any thing be wanting I may supply it where I am in the dark I may explain it or call for Light If I erre I may correct it and put my self at ease still when I need as to the whole It is verily a foolish thing I count for any man to think that he can speak or write so as what he hath once spoken or written cannot be mended When we change our thoughts every day and week in our private Studies what a vain resolution is it that because we have Preached or Printed thus the shutters must be drawen up presently and no more Light be let to come in upon us For my part I declare I will never Preach or Print upon such termes but upon these That I may be mistaken That I may acknowledg it if I be convinced That I may therefore be controuled and have leave to be indifferent to my own opinion as to anothers Two Papers I have sent out already The first or that which in order should be first is of Election and Redemption wherein I observe some things to be misplaced at the Press but so long as the things be put in and my notion proposed I am sollicitous about nothing else That God would have all to be saved and therefore prepares that grace for all that is sufficient which is his antccedent will and that then he foresees who they be that will comply with that grace and and who not and by his consequent will decrees the one to salvation and the other to damnation is that Doctrin in the maine that is the Rachel of the Schools For the latter part whereof I have given my thoughts in that paper the former part requires a little further consideration That the goodness of God is advanced towards all I like well and that they lay the blame on man only that he perishes and that they are so careful against Pelagius for therefore do they bring in a sufficient grace for all because man shall be allowed him to do nothing that disposes him to conversion or justification by his own strength without grace nevertheless whether this sufficient grace of theirs is to pass or not is the question There is the universal convourse of God with man in all his acts as the first cause in whom we live and move and have our being and there is that influx or assistance of his we call Grace It would be known in the first place what is the difference between these That assistance of God which goes to the acts of Nature and the prefervation thereof is the common concourse of his Providence that assistance of his which goes to the production of acts above Nature is called Grace By Nature we mean corrupt Nature and by acts above Nature we mean such acts as we should not do according to our natural inclination if it were not for supernatural help that is some further operation or influence on us from God then that which goes only to our natural preservation Grace then in short is that Divine assistance which Elevates Nature and heales it This Grace is twofold the Divine motion or habitual disposition habitualis gratia or divina motio the infused habit or Divine operation It is said now in the Schools that there is this difference between infused habits and acquired that when the one do introduce only a facility to the action but presupposes the power the other do bring the power it self as without which we can do nothing This is spoken I count very agreeably to the Scripture which sets forth man in his natural state as dead in sin and the work of Grace by regeneration and new life with many the like expressions nevertheless as there must be some limits fixt for the right interpretation of such places which in effect must come to that which I have given in my first paper that there is indeed such an indisposition on all men through original corruption as that there is no man ever does did or will repent do his duty and live but it is was and must be through Gods especial Grace and yet are we to account for all that that they have power that they may if they will that the covenant of grace requires not any thing which is impossible for both these are to be held So must I crave liberty to enter my different opinion It was Pelagius his conceit I have noted in one of my other papers that grace served only to help the power when St. Augustine proves that it inclines the will and works in us the deed my thoughts now lye partly between both that the Posse or Power indeed is of Nature and Grace or the operation of God is that which drawes that power into the Will or Act that is makes us willing This act of the Will laies an impression on the soul inclining it to the like acts These acts iterated turns that inclination to an habit that is Habitual grace infused if you please per modum acquisitorum The agere the act must presuppose the posse the power That 's certain If the habit then brought the power the Divine motion or preventing grace which goes before the habit did nothing You will say There is a double power a remote or next power The remote power is of nature but the next power is of grace and sufficient grace gives to all a next power Let me ask you then whether there be any further grace after we have the next power to make us willing or to give us also the will and deed If you grant it you may make the most of your sufficient grace I will not quarrel with you for it But when the posse the power is of nature and the Will and Deed is of that grace which is more than sufficient I would faine know why nature and effectual grace alone should not serve the turn and whether sufficient grace over and above these is not indeed more than needs Here I stick where I left The second paper is of justification and of this I count there are two parts The one is a reconciliation of St. James and Paul and so of faith and works in that point which I must needs say having lain in my thoughts the main notion in Paper by me this 16 or 18 Years or upwards I cannot but be very throughly satisfied with and much the rather when I see the same growing up in late Books as particularly in those most judicious temperate Theses of Le Blanc and Mr. Trumans Great Propittation The other is concerning the imputation of Christs Righteousness wherein