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	law_n	work_n	3,179	5	6.5237	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B22921	Justification onely upon a satisfaction, or, The necessity and verity of the satisfaction of Christ as the alone ground of remission of sin asserted & opened against the Socinians together with an appendix in vindication of a sermon preached on Heb. 2, 10, from the exceptions of H.W., in a pamphlet called The freeness of Gods grace in the forgiveness of sins by Jesus Christ / by Robert Ferguson.	Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.	1668 (1668)	Wing F743; ESTC R37344	97,537	320

〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 justified freely by his grace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justification is free in respect of the love that gave Christ to merit it Heb. 2. 9. Given by the grace of God to taste death for every man The alone moving and impulsive cause of God's bestowing Christ was his eternal good pleasure and love It is free also in respect of any works performed by us to deserve justification Tit. 3. 5. Not by works of the law which we have done but according to his mercy he hath saved us Nothing required or done on our part to merit it and this and no more is intimated by grace and freely for that the excluding the merit and satisfaction of Christ is not here intended the opening of the next words will confirm and demonstrate 2ly There then is the material and meritorious means procuring justification Causa impulsiva 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this is the blood of Christ through the redemption that is in Jesus and in his blood Though justification be free in respect of us yet it is merited in respect of him The import of redemption we have formerly opened and proved it to be a deliverance by solution and payment of a ransome See from pag. 146. to 161. though there be nothing done by us to merit justification yet we have it only by the intervention of Christ as the deserving cause this the Apostle amplifies from God's exhibiting of him to this purpose whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation What the intendment of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is is before opened God set him forth to be a means of atton●ing him and appeasing his anger that by him as a meritorious cause we might be set free from the wrath to which we stood obnoxious To this end God constituted and appointed him Mediator proposed him in the types and shadows of the law actually exhibited him in the flesh and offereth him to the world as he through whom as a placamen God's wrath is appeased and his favour recovered 3ly We have the final cause First the finis cujus the end on the part of God to declare his rightousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to show his righteousness ut justus agnoscatur By righteousness here we can by no means understand God's benignity kindness and mercy not that we deny but that it may admit that signification in some other places where the subject matter necessitates to it but here it clearly signifies that property in God by which he is enclined to punish sin and this is the proper and usual import of it in the Scripture Rom. 2. 5. 2 Thes 1. 6. Rev. 16. 5 6. And it is from this principle of his nature carrying him against sin that he is compared to fire Deut. 4. 24. Isa 33. 14. Heb. 12. 29. and in respect of this wrath and anger are often ascribed to him Rom. 9. 32. Exod. 32 10. Psal 6. 1 Rom. 1. 8. That this is the intendment of righteousness here is evident from hence that Christ in the shedding of his blood is set out to be a propitiation which fully argues both that God was angry and that by Christ as a propitiator● sacrifice his vindictive and ang● is appe●sed Then we have th● finis cu● the end with respect t● us that he might be the justifier● The design God had in all this namely his giving Christ in ● way of death and blood to be ● propitiation was the taking ● company of poor creatures wh● lay obnovious to his indignation into his grace and favour again 4ly We have the instrumenta● cause or the means by which w● come to be interested in Christ and to have the redemption an● justification purchased by him applyed to us and that is through faith in his blood By this time I hope the Reader perceives not only how impertinent but how destructive this Text proves to the Pamphleters design and how he falls by his own weapon The second Text which the Gentleman hath been pleased to prefix ● Col. 1. 14. in whom we have re●emption through his blood even the ●orgiveness of sins And this is ●ltogether as unanswerable to the ●nd it was brought for as the for●er For do but observe here ●ur salvation is expresly asserted ●o be by way of redemption and ●he price of this redemption to ●e the blood of Christ which is ●n plain termes to affirm that we ●re saved by the intervention of a ●atisfaction for to be in a proper sense redeemed and redeemed through blood is to be set free through the sufferings of Christ as a valuable compensation for our release But here is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Socinian party and that which hath imposed upon the Pamphleter in his quotations that because there is mention of forgiveness therefore all satisfrction must be excluded but the falsity of this is already demonstrated and to suppose an opposition where there is so perfect a harmony is to profess 〈◊〉 unacquaintance with the Gosp●l It is forgiveness in that it is no● merited by us but doth this any way hinder but that it may b● purchased by Christ We know no inconsistence betwixt these two that it should be of pur● grace in reference to us and ye● of justice in reference to Christ The third and last Scripture mustured up by the Author in his Title Page is Prov. 12. 15. He that justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the just even they both ar● an abomination to the Lord. Is it possible a Scripture should be produced more destructive to the design of the bringer is it an abomination that the wicked should be justified and shall we afix such a thing on the righteous God can no Judge acqui● the guilty without a satisfaction but he must act that which in its own nature is an abhorrency and shall we ascribe this to the holy and righteous Governour of the world See the foregoing Treatise from pag. 8. to 16. But I suppose the Gentleman thought of serving himself by one part of the Text not considering how ruinous to his whole enterprise the other part would prove and indeed there is nothing more usual with that sort of men than to urge their mistaken sense of one part of Scripture to the overthrow of the true meaning of another but to reply to the place 1. I deny that it is against justice to condemn one that is personally innocent when he hath put himself legally in the room of criminals It is no ways against equity to send a person to prison who possibly may live dy there and have his whole posterity begger'd who never contracted one penny deb● of his own only became bound for anothers So here though Christ was personally innocent yet he stood legally in the room of the guilty and it was that which he had chosen and in a matter wherein he had as much power as any of us have in our estates see before from pag.

in a state of friendship 2. In the constituting and proclaiming in the Gospel that whoever believes is justified As a person is condemned by a law and said to be condemned when the law condemns him so we are justified by the Gospel patent and may be said to be so when that Charter declares us justified which it doth if we believe Now the effects of this are a non-imputation of sin and a donation of a right to life our obligation to punishment is dissolved and we are vested with a title to life 1. Sin shall never be charged upon us in the legal guilt of it Rom. 8. 1 33 34. The legal guilt of all sins past is removed formally and the legal guilt of all sins to come is removed virtually That is thus justification takes of legal guilt where once it was and keeps it of where else it would be And 1. It is no more harsh that sins should be legally disimputed to us before committed than that they should be legally imputed to Christ before committed which all the sins of the elect who have lived and are yet to live since the death of Christ were 2. Because the guilt of sin may be as well disimputed to believers before committed by them as the satisfaction of Christ was imputed to believers before made by him which it was to all the Old Testament Saints 2. Being constituted righteous by having the righteousness of Christ accounted ours 〈◊〉 only our obligation to punishment is ●issolved but there also emergeth ●nd ariseth a new title to life Christ purchased not only redem●tion from wrath but a right to ●he heavenly inheritance And this ●hall suffice at least at present to ●ave been discoursed upon this whole affair AN APPENDIX In vindication of the Satisfaction of Christ from th● frivolous Objections of ● late Socinian Pamphlet● made against a Sermon o● mine preached at th● Morning Lecture SECT I. The Title examined The Scriptur● prefixed proved destructive of th● which they were brought to establish IT is not needful to give a● further account of the induc●ments and grounds of ● Preaching upon that subject s● what the Preface to the foregoing discourse intimates The cost of that exercise was before hand considered and whatever may be the consequences of it I hope to have satisfaction and peace in the bearing and encountring of them The party who hath appeared in opposition to the doctrine then held forth hath from what motives himself best knows been pleased to conceal his name and therefore seeing it may be omitted without prejudice to the cause ● manage I shall not concern my self about him though I could particularly declare him and assign his character Only it had been ●ut ingenuous when he had published the name of another and in ●hat exposed him to the law to ●ave given a more particular account of himself than what can meerly be gathered from two nu●erical letters wherein he hath ei●her endeavoured or may be able to wrong me I pardon him but what he hath attemped in opposition to the truth cannot in consistency to conscience and duty be overlookt The Title of his Book is very specious for what can more invite a Reader than the Freeness of God's grace in the forgiveness of sins by Jesus Christ But all is not gold which glisters a Box of poison may have a fair inscription the Prince of Darkness transforms himself into and desires to pass for an Angel of Light Error loves to appear in the garb o● truth I need not to tell whose character that is deceiving and being deceived 2 Tim. 3. 13. But we shall endeavour to unmask● them here by animadverting these three things 1. That it is the great endeavou● of these men to present us as enemies to the grace of God Whereas 1. There is nothing we desir● more to exalt and admire and whatever doctrine of ours either directly or indirectly reflects upon the Freeness of God's Grace we disclaime and renounce it but we boldly affirme the Grace of God to be as free in the forgiveness of sin upon a satisfaction as it would have been if it had been possible to have forgiven sin without a satisfaction and how it is so you may see opened at large from page 23. to page 30. of the preceeding discourse 2. We a●sert our adversaries to be in this particular the only men who are tardy in that they establish justification by works which the Apostle every where excludes as opposite to and in this business utterly destructive of grace Eph. 2. 8 9. Rom. 11 6. 2. We would have observed that it is the method of these Gentlemen ●o cry up the grace of God to the ●verthrow of his holiness and righte●usness We acknowledge God to be infinitely gracious but withal we affirme to be infinitely pure and just We dare not exalt one perfection of God to the diminution of another We know God cannot be gracious if at the same time he may not be righteous also God can as soon cease to be God as that one property of his nature should be exalted to the dishonour of the rest Having therefore in the foregoing discourse from page 38. to 51. demonstrated the inconsistency of forgiveness without a satisfaction with the truth justice and holiness of God it necessarily follows that there can be no such grace in God He cannot be kind to us so as to be cruel to himself 3. We take notice that according to the Socinian Divinity they might have as well stiled their Book the Freeness of God's Grace in the forgiveness of sins by Paul or some other of the Apostles as by Christ For that which they assign as the ground of God's forgiuing sins by Christ being only that he preached the doctrine of forgiveness and afterwards sealed the truth of it with his blood accords to Paul and other of the Apostles as well as to Christ for they Preached the same doctrine and that by immediate revelation and also confirmed the truth of it by martyrdome and death so that according to the opinion of these Gentlemen I see no cause but that they might have given their Book the title I alledge as well as that which they have given it The next thing which comes under consideration is the examination of the Scriptures which he prefixes And he could have quoted few in the whole Bible which are more destructive of his cause and herein God displays his wisdom that that whereof his adversaries hope most to serve their design proves utterly subversive of it The first is Rom. 3. 24. Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ Now the opening of this Verse together with the two following will without any more ado sufficiently evidence how disserviceable it is to the design it was brought for We have in these three verses justification set sorth in all its parts and causes First the efficient impulsive cause of it in God Causa impulsiva