Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	king_n	people_n	power_n	4,914	5	5.4287	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23659	The Christians justification stated shewing how the righteousness of Christ, the Gospel-Covenant, faith, and God himself, do operate to our justification / by W.A.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1678 (1678)	Wing A1057; ESTC R20597	102,725	303

prove Justification by Faith to be of Grace and not of debt as I have shewed from Rom. 4. but never throughout the whole Scripture stiled Righteousness that ever I could find And if any think it is implyed in such Scriptures where the reward of Righteousness is stiled Righteousness by a Figure yet if it should be so it would no more prove Remission of sin to be Justification than it will prove Glorification to be Justification which yet in St. Pauls account is quite different from it For he says Whom he justified them he also glorified Rom. 8.30 And now for these reasons I hope it will not be thought unnecessary nor unprofitable to have endeavoured to shew that there is a difference between Justification and Remission of sin however what hath been done herein is submitted to the consideration and judgment of the judicious Reader But there is another opinion which I but now mentioned of worse consequence as I apprehend it of which I have said but little And that is the opinion of those who place our Justification in the imputation of the Righteousness of Christ to us not only in its effects as we all hold but in it self as if it were so transferred to us that we were Righteous with the very same personal and numerical Righteousness wherewith he himself is Righteous and that it is so reckoned ours as if we had wrought it in our own persons yea that indeed we have wrought it in and by him The nakedness of which opinion hath been plentifully exposed by others and I shall not concern my self with it now further than what I have already done in these papers Wherein I have shewed that the Righteousness of Christ operates to our Justification in quite another way And likewise that it is the Christian Faith as operative and practical that is imputed to us for Righteousness and that by virtue of Christs Righteousness and Gods act of Grace upon the account of it But then this which yet is the plain doctrine of the Holy Scripture is quite another thing than the transferring of Christs Righteousness it self to us Indeed this opinion excludes and shoulders out the Christian Evangelical Righteousness from the office and use to which God hath designed it and is attended with several dangerous consequences and absurdities otherwise as hath been set forth at large in several Books which treat of this subject which I shall forbear to repeat For my design in these papers was not to treat of Justification in a way of controversie nor so much to detect what is to be avoided as what is to be imbraced and held fast in this matter For I reckon that if that which is the truth be received into the mind upon satisfactory grounds that which is its contrary will fall off of it self The Conclusion WE have now seen how much hath been done by the Eternal Father and his Holy Son our Blessed Saviour that we might be Justified Pardoned and Glorified all things on their part are prepared and made ready The Father hath made and the Son hath fulfilled the Law of Mediation to bring about a Reconciliation between an offended God and us Rebel-Creatures Christ hath now no more sorrows nor pains nor deaths to undergo and suffer for us There are no terms of Grace and Mercy of Pardon and Peace of deliverance from Hell and of obtaining the Glory of Heaven which are not already obtained for us and by the Gospel plainly made known and freely offered to us For it is as I have shew'd of Grace in God and obtained by the Mediatorial Righteousness of Christ that Faith or the Righteousness by Faith is made the condition of Pardon of sin and eternal Life as well as the conferring of Pardon and Life is on that condition Since then such terms of happiness are obtained for us it remains on our part that we receive not this Grace of God in vain but that we be as careful to observe those terms as we are desirous to enjoy the benefits annexed to them because we cannot enjoy the one without observing the other We cannot enjoy the benefits of the new Covenant but by becoming new creatures and by living new lives For this is the new Righteousness by Faith on condition of which the great promises of the new Covenant are made Whoever will come to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb must come in his Wedding garment or else he will be excluded And the Wedding garment in which the Bride the Lambs Wife is said to be arayed is said to be the Righteousness of Saints Revel 19.8 And now Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us we must keep the Feast on this Sacrifice not with the old leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth which is the Evangelical Righteousness I have been speaking so much of 1 Cor. 5.7 8. Old things are past away now and behold all things are become new Our old Righteousness in which man was first made is lost and a new Righteousness instituted In the room of the old terms of happiness perfect innocency now the new ones of Faith and godly Sincerity are introduced This new and living way into Heaven is now consecrated for us through the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ Nothing but a new man a new heart a new spirit and newness of life will correspond or suit with the new Covenant nor with the new Jerusalem which is above These are all of one piece there is no parting of them nor having an interest in the one without having the other And now considering that all this happiness of Pardon of sin and the Glory to come and the terms of obtaining both is brought about only by the Grace of our God and the Mediatorial Righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ what can we do less than to joyn with those Redeemed of the Lord mentioned in Rev. 5. who are said to have sung a new song to the everlasting honor of our Redeemer saying Thou art worthy to take the Book and to open the Seals thereof for thou wast slain and hast Redeemed us to God by thy bloud out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation and hast made us unto our God kings and priests How much more cause have we to sound forth the praises of the Redeemer of the World than those Myriads of Holy Angels which have no such need of a Saviour as we have Who yet out of a grateful sense of it celebrate the memory of his most wonderful and worthy undertaking and performance for the Redemption of us poor miserable and lost men Saying with a loud voice worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing And well may we with those blessed spirits sing aloud of the riches wisdom and strength of the Lamb that was slain as most worthy to receive these because he useth them to so

strive against its prevailing upon them as I have shewed For the Gospel is the power of God to Salvation Now then if this be true that God by means of his antecedent Grace hath given such power unto men of acting towards their believing unto Righteousness as hath been said there is then there is very great reason this should be made known to them and that they should not be made believe that they have no more power of acting towards their own Salvation than there is in a dead man to raise himself to life I say there is great reason for this because their Salvation or Damnation are much concerned in it For to persuade men that they have no power to act towards their believing is the direct way to take them off from the use of means tending thereto For what greater discouragement can be given unto men to attempt a thing than to persuade them that they have no power of accomplishing it if they do As good never a whit as never the better as the Proverb runs The quite contrary is doubtless to be done by such as would not betray mens souls to destruction nor lay a stumbling block in their way nor cramp their endeavours in seeking to be saved They should be throughly acquainted with what power God hath put into their hands of being saved if they will by having given them his Gospel and power to hear and consider the terms of Salvation that are therein offered to them and the powerful motives that tend to persuade them to believe and obey it They should be brought to a great sense that God is not nor will be wanting to them in his Grace and assistance nor in the matter of their salvation if they be not greatly wanting to themselves in not doing what they may and can do towards it That God hath set life and death before them and persuaded them to chuse life and that he hath given them power to do so much towards it by the helps wherewith he hath prevented them as that he will not fail to give them so much more as shall put them into an immediate capacity of salvation if they will but make such use as they may and can of that which he hath already given them And that therefore if they perish it is of their own choice because they judg themselves unworthy of everlasting life And that for this cause they will be left without all excuse if they perish and that God will be justified in their condemnation in that he hath done that which was sufficient on his part to have prevented it It was not the manner of our Saviour to persuade men that they could do nothing towards their own salvation but complains of them saying ye will not come to me that ye might have life how oft would I have gathered you as a Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings and ye would not and expostulates the matter with them saying yea and why even of your selves judg ye not what is right And from time to time cryed to them in his doctrin with an extended voice saying whosoever hath ears to hear let them hear meaning that if they would make use of their teachable and considerative faculties in any thing then about those things he preached among them And upbraided those that would not when they had eyes to see and ears to hear other things wherein they were nothing so much concerned as they were in his doctrine saying they seeing see not and hearing hear not neither do they understand And can any man that thinks well of our Saviour wisely think also that he upbraided them for not doing that which they had no power to do Nevertheless although it be Gods ordinary declared method of proceeding with men in reference to their salvation to add a subsequent power to enable such to believe unto Righteousness who had not grosly neglected to use and improve the antecedent power and Grace which had been vouchsafed them before yet doubtless God always reserves unto himself a liberty of acting extraordinarily in a way of Grace towards men where and when and to what degree he pleaseth though they have not improved but grosly neglected their first talents Several instances of this nature there have been in men whose natures and lives have been debauched with a custom of sinning who yet have been surprised as it were on a suddain and their consciences awakened and let loose upon them either by a Sermon or some great affliction or some other providence and such a change presently wrought that they have afterward become very good men And so God hath been found of those that sought him not as the Prophet speaks as he was by the extraordinary Conversion of those of the Gentile Nations upon the first going out of the Gospel among them many of whom till then had lived without God in the world as the Apostle speaks Now this liberty of shewing more Grace and favour to some than to othres God may well make use of and yet no man have cause to complain that he does so so long as he is not wanting to the rest in that which is sufficient unto their Salvation but puts it within their own power to be saved if they will So that if they perish it is through their own wilful neglect to do what they might have done Indeed God can no more wrong one creature than another because he cannot but do right to all But in dispensing favours it is nowise unbecoming his wisdom and goodness to do more for one creature than for anotheer no more than it was in the work of Creation when he did not make all Men Angels nor all Brutes Men. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own Is thy eye evil because I am good saith the Housholder in the Parable to him that murmured for that he that laboured but one hour in the Vineyard had as much as the hire of another for a whole day came to Mat. 20.15 Since then it is but Gods unusual and extraordinary way to convert some such men by surprising them with the mighty operations of his Grace as had in a manner wholly neglected the improvement of their first Talents the antecedent Grace of God And since he hath made no promise of doing so for any man but rather on the contrary threatened to take away from such that which they had received before It remains then that no man presume or take any encouragement to neglect Gods ordinary and prescribed way and means of attaining to Grace and Salvation in hope that God should go out of his usual way to meet with them and to convert them in a way and manner that is unusual and extraordinary No man in his wits will act by such measures in things pertaining to this present life and the outward man Some men we now and then see have strange and fortunate hits in the world Estates conferred on them