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	meritorious_a	righteousness_n	3,361	5	7.8167	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41173	The interest of reason in religion with the import & use of scripture-metaphors, and the nature of the union betwixt Christ & believers : (with reflections on several late writings, especially Mr. Sherlocks Discourse concerning the knowledg of Jesus Christ, &c.) modestly enquired into and stated / by Robert Ferguson.	Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.	1675 (1675)	Wing F740; ESTC R20488	279,521	698

supposing this be true the inference of his being only a Metaphorick Priest is not to be avoided and consequently all the Texts where he is any wayes stiled a Priest are to be understood only Metaphorically For if his Priestly and Kingly Offices be not distinct either his Regal Office must be reduced to and included in his Sacerdotal which our Author will not affirm and if he should he would only gain by it the making Christ a Metaphorick King instead of a Metaphorick Priest or else his Sacerdotal Office must belong to and be included in his Regal being only a readiness to exercise that Authority and Power for his Church which as a King appertains to Him And if so then those innumerable places of Scripture which report Christ to be a Priest to have given himself a Sacrifice to God for us to have expiated Sin to have made atonement and to have rendred God propitious are every one of them Metaphorical I have insisted the longer on this Opinion of Mr. Sherlock concerning Christs Priestly Office being only a different part and administration of his Mediatory Kingdome 1 st to make it appear that by Charging Socinianism upon some of our late pretended Rational Divines we do not transform them into any thing but what they are The truth of the imputation rather than the foulness seems to be that which makes them angry As the Historian tels us of Tiberius that he was both the readier to believe the more offended at something which was said of Him because it was the true report of his guilt so I wish it were not as much the Justness as the Odiousness of the Character of Socinian which renders some men stingy But 2 ly the main reason of my insisting upon these passages was to demonstrate that whereas they arraign the Non-Conformists for turning the plainest Scriptures into Metaphors the crime lodgeth especially with themselves and that the principles which they have Espoused are not otherwise defensible but by turning the plainest Scriptures into Metaphors So that here Clodius accusat maechos And providing Mr. Sherlock will abide by his Notion That the Offices of Prophet Priest and King are not properly distinct Offices in Christ I do here undertake to prove by easy trains of deduction that for one Text capable of a proper sense which the Phanaticks pervert by imposing a Metaphorick one upon it he lyes under a necessity if he will preach or write consequentially to his Tenets of wresting twenty in the same manner § 10. But this is not the only opinion imbib'd by our Author which I impeach as pregnant with this mischief His Notion of Justification being attended with the same inconvenience nor is it any ways maintainable but by perverting innumerable Texts from their plain and natural sense to a Metaphorick In the prosecution of this Charge I shall first give a true representation of his thoughts about Justification and then endeavour to demonstrate that besides what else lyes against him it is accompanied with this fatal unhappiness of turning a great part of the Bible into meer insignificant and empty Metaphors His sentiments then in reference to Justification are these That we are only Justified by our believing and obeying the Gospel of Christ. That the Sacrifice of Christs Death and the Righteousness of his life have no other Influence upon our acceptance with God but that to them we owe the Covenant of Grace That is God being well pleased with the Obedience of Christs life and the sacrifice of his Death for his sake entred into a New Covenant with Mankind wherein he promiseth pardon of Sin and eternal life to those who believe and obey the Gospel so that the Righteousness of Christ is not the formal Cause of our Justification but the Righteousness of his life death is the meritorious Cause of that Covenant whereby we are declared Righteous rewarded as Righteous persons The Covenant of Grace which God for Christs sake hath made pardoning our past sins follies and rewarding a sincere though imperfect Obedience The Gospel by its great arguments motives and powerfull assistances forms our minds to the Love and practice of Holiness and so makes us inherently Righteous and the grace of the Gospel accepts and rewards that sincere Obedience which according to the Rigor and severity of the Law could deserve no reward This I take to be a true account of Mr. Sherlocks Judgement about Justification and I have quoted it in his own words that he may neither complain of his being imposed upon nor the Reader question the Truth and sincerity of this representation And as whosoever consults the pages I referr to will find that I treat my adversary with faithfulness so if they compare them with some other places where he hath declared himself with less Modesty they will have reason to say that I have exposed his Opinion in the favourablest manner I could Now I design not any accurate ventilation of this great Theme nor any severe research into Mr. Sherlocks faileurs in the manage of it nor a Critical survey of his neglect of Truth as well as Modesty in treating his Adversaries about it nor yet his partiality in arraigning only the Non-conformists when he could not but know that the most Eminent Persons that ever the Church of England bred as well as the Generality of Protestant Divines are equally involved having appeared in the Defence of that very Notion of Justification which he so invidiously represents and tragically declaime's against those for The full handling of Justification stands reserved for other hands who in due time will retrive the spoyles wherewith our Author hath enriched his Wardrobe and strip him of the Lawrels wherewith he hath adorned his Temples I shall only bestow one stricture upon him and then apply to the proof of the inconvenience I have already charged his Opinion with and for which in this place I cited it In brief then I see not how the Covenant of Grace is any ways owing to the Sacrifice of Christs Death and the Righteousness of his life providing that Mr. Sherlock will be constant to and write consonantly to some of his other principles For if the Natural Notions which men have of God assure them that he is very Good and that it is not possible to understand what Goodness is without pardoning Grace as our Author elsewhere tells us I say supposing this to be true I see not how the Righteousness of Christs life and Death can be the meritorious cause of Gods forgiving our sins and Follies for as much as his Essential Goodness obliged him to it I take it for a principle of Reason that nothing can be merited which is due upon an Antecedent Title Merit in its essential Notion importing an acquisition of a Right which we had not before there can be no room for it in reference to that which we stood entitled to by the natural goodness of

being in him can signify no more than being Members of his Visible Church which is made up of Hypocrites as well as sincere Christians But neither doth this nor any other text in the Bible militate in behalf of such an impious Notion however it or they may be pressed wrested and distorted to such a service Should we allow Mr. Sherlocks reading of the words referred to Joh. 15.2 which our present English Translation hath preceded him in yet there is nothing in them towards the Patronage of the Cause they are brought for The meaning of the place is not that there are any really in Christ who bear not fruit but only that there are some void of all fruits of Righteousness who make profession of their being so Who are therefore in an equivocal sense styled branches because they are numbred amongst the Members of the Church For it is usual to speak of persons and things as if they were that which they appear to be But withall the place is capable of another Lection which if admitted our Authors Hypothesis is far from being befriended by it For the words may be as well read Every Branch that beareth not Fruit in me he taketh away as every Branch in me that beareth not Fruit. And then the true import of it is that unless we be in Christ we can bring forth no Fruit to God and that what shew of being branches we make by virtue of an External Member-ship in the Church Yet that shall be no Obex to Christs disclaiming and renouncing our Works Nothing hath the true denomination of Holiness but what proceeds from the Spirit of Christ in us and Principles of Grace by infusion communicated to us which are the Foundation matter and Bond of our Union with Him And under whatever gloss or varnish we or our works appear to the World yet without such a Relation to Christ we are none of His nor are our Duties as to the Principles and Circumstances of them acceptable to God The Obligation upon Men to Obedience in what state soever we suppose them The consistency of Gods Right of Commanding with our contracted inability to the yeilding of due Obedience the Capacity that all men remain in notwithstanding any Congenite Impotency for the performing many External Duties good in themselves and in the matter of them with the subservience of these performances to Conversion as they are means appointed of God in order thereunto all these I in some measure understand and can reconcile with the Oeconomy of the Gospel But that our Lives can be Holy till our Hearts be so through the renuing of the Holy Ghost or that our Works can be adequately Good antecedently to our Reception of supernatural Grace I do no wise understand and I should account my self obliged to Mr. Sherlock would he unfold these things to me without obtruding Pelagianism upon the World And this conducts me to a Second thing wherein our Authors Notion of Union with Christ disserveth and undermines Gospel-Holiness beyond what the highest Malice steel'd with a proportionate Confidence can by any Laws of Reason fasten upon his Adversaries of such a tendency For as if it were not enough to have said that men are in a sense United to Christ before they either are or can be Holy even that very Obedience in which he states the compleatness of our Union with Christ and by which he declares it to be perfected is not owing to an Infused Principle derived from Jesus by the effectual operation of the Holy Ghost but is only the result effect of our Natural Abilities awakened and excited by the Gospel Hence that I may not again repeat what we have heard from him before Sect. 2. he tells us That a Holy Life must at least in order of Nature goe before our Union with Christ because by this we are United to Him and that we are not real and living Members of Christ till we first sincerely Obey Him Now I say that this Obedience wherein our Author places the very perfection of our Union with Christ is not only formally distinct from true Gospel-Holiness but indeed lies in a contrariety to it The Gospel acknowledgeth no Acts of true Holiness performed by any where there is not antecedently at least in order of Nature a principle of true Holiness in the persons performing them No Acts operations or Duties of ours are in the esteem of the Gospel Holy but what proceed from and are done in the virtue power and efficacy of Grace previously derived from and Communicated to us by Jesus Christ. There is pre-required to all acts of Gospel-Obedience a new real spiritual Principle by which our Nature is renewed our Souls rendred habitually and subjectively Holy Grace is not the effect and product of any previous good Actions of ours what ever subserviency through the appointment and dispose of God they may lie in as to his bestowing of it but all Acts Operations truly Good are the fruits and efflorescencies of Grace To talk of sincere Obedience precluding our antecedaneous adeption of a new Principle and the Communication of a Divine Vital Seed to us is to impose Pelagianism upon us and that in a more fulsom way and in cruder Terms than many of the followers of Pelagius used to declare themselves Excluding our being furnished with an active supernatural infused subjective Principle the utmost influence the Gospel hath upon Obedience is only by the equity and reasonableness of its Laws the nobleness and certainty of its Promises to solicite our Minds and to awaken the Strength we have but as to the conferring any real Strength or the begetting a vital Form in our Hearts thereby repairing and restoring the Image of God which we have lost it is altogether incompetent and ineffectual So that upon the whole that very Obedience wherin Mr. Sherlock states the Nature and Perfection of our Union with Christ to consist is not only contra-distinct from but subversive of the Holiness which the Gospel requires being an Obedience educed meerly out of our natural Abilities and no ways owing to any Antecedent Renovation of our Natures by the Holy Ghost which is that alone that the Gospel honours with the name of Holiness Nor is this either all the Invasion which our Author by the Idea he gives of Union with Christ hath made upon Gospel-Holiness but admitting once his account of it to be true that which God alone doth entitle by the Name of Holiness is wholly shut out of the Religion of Christians So that a Third Reason why I except against his Notion of our Union with Christ as pernicious to Holiness beyond what the Opinion of any others is whom he so Tragically declame's against is this that it render's all True Holiness even in persons actually and compleatly united to Christ impossible for the future For as our Union with Christ is perfected without any Communication of New Principles by a real Physical and