Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	life_n	love_n	love_v	2,826	5	6.6025	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54228	A testimony to the truth of God, as held by the people, called, Quakers being a short vindication of them, from the abuses and misrepresentations often put upon them by envious apostates, and mercenary adversaries.	Penn, William, 1644-1718.	1699 (1699)	Wing P1380; ESTC R220497	18,332	56

Deniers of Christ's Satisfaction at large Whereas we Sincerely Believe our Lord Jesus Christ was that most acceptable Sacrifice to God for the Sin of Mankind that whatsoever sin is forgiven is not forgiven only because of Repentance but for his sake that dyed and offered him self through the Eternal Spirit an Offering once for all The Doctrine of Satisfaction and Justification truly understood are placed in so strict an Union that the one is a necessary Consequence of the other and what we say of them is what agrees with the suffrage of Scripture and for the most part in the terms of it always believing that in Points where there arises any difficulty be it from the Obscurity of Expression Mistranslation or the Dust raised by the Heats of Partial Writers or Nice Criticks it is ever best to keep close to the Text and maintain Charity in the rest We shall therefore first speak Negatively what we do not own which perhaps hath given occasion to those who have been more hasty than wise to judge us defective in our Belief of the Efficacy of the Death and Sufferings of Christ to Justification As First We cannot believe that Christ is the Cause but the Effect of God's Love according to the Testimony of the Beloved Disciple John Chap. 3. God hath so loved the World that he hath given his only Begotten Son into the World that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have Everlasting Life Secondly We cannot say God could not have taken another way to have saved Sinners than by the Death and Sufferings of his Son to satisfie his Justice or that Christ's Death and Sufferings were a strict and rigid Satisfaction for that Eternal Death and Misery due to Man for Sin and Transgression For such a Notion were to make God's Mercy little concerned in Man's Salvation and indeed we are at too great a distance from his Infinite Wisdom and Power to judge of the Liberty or Necessity of his Actings Thirdly We cannot say Jesus Christ was the greatest Sinner in the World because he bore our Sins on the Cross or because he was made Sin for us who never knew any Sin an Expression of great Levity and Unsoundness yet often said by great Preachers and Professors of Religion Fourthly We cannot Believe that Christ's Death and Sufferings so satisfies God or justifies Men as that they are thereby accepted of God They are indeed thereby put into a State capable of being accepted of God and through the Obedience of Faith and Sanctification of the Spirit are in a State of Acceptance For we can never think a Man justified before God while Self-condemned or that any Man can be in Christ who is not a New Creature or that God looks upon Men otherwise than they are We think it a State of Presumption and not of Salvation to call Jesus Lord and not by the Work of the Holy Ghost Master and he not Master of our Affections Saviour and not saved by him from Sin Redeemer and yet not redeemed by him from Passion Pride Covetousness Wantonness Vanity Honours vain Friendships and Glory of this World Which whoever do will deceive themselves for God will not be mocked such as Men sow such must they reap And tho' Christ did Die for us yet we must by the Assistance of his Grace work out our Salvation with Fear and Trembling As he died for Sin so we must die to Sin or we cannot be said to be saved by the Death and Sufferings of Christ or throughly Justified and Accepted with God But now possitively what we own as to Justification comes next We do believe that Jesus Christ was our Holy Sacrifice and Attonement and Propitiation that he bore our Iniquities and that by his Stripes we were healed of the Wounds Adam gave us in his Fall and that God is just in forgiving true Penitents upon the Credit of that Holy Offering Christ made of himself to God for us and that what he did and suffer'd satisfied and pleased God it being for the take of fallen Man that had displeased Him And that by the Offering up of himself once for all through the Eternal Spirit he hath for ever perfected those in all times that are sanctified who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. Mark that In short Justification consists of two parts or hath a two-fold Consideration viz. Justification from the Guilt of Sin and Justification from the Power and Pollution of Sin and in this sense Justification gives Man a full and clear Acceptance before God For want of this latter part it is that so many Souls Religiously inclin'd are often under Doubts Scruples and Dispondencies notwithstanding all that their Teachers tell them of the Extent and Efficacy of the first part of Justification And it is too general an Unhappiness among the Professors of Christianity that they are apt to cloke their own Active and Passive Disobedience with the Active and Passive Obedience of Christ The first part of Justification we do reverently and humbly Acknowledge is only for the sake of the Death and Sufferings of Christ nothing we can do though by the Operation of the Holy Spirit being able to cancel Old Debts or wipe out Old Scores It is the Power and Efficacy of that Propitiatory Offering upon Faith and Repentance that Justifies us from the Sins that are past and it is the Power of Christ's Spirit in our Hearts that purifies and makes us acceptable before God For till the Heart of Man is turned from Sin God will never accept of it He Reproves Rebukes and Condems those that entertain Sin there and therefore such cannot be said to be in a Justified State Condemnation and Justification being Contraries So that they that hold themselves in a Justified State by the Active and Passive Obedience of Christ while they are not Actively and Passively Obedient to the Spirit of Christ Jesus are under a strong and dangerous Delusion and for crying out against this Sin-pleasing Imagination not to say Doctrine we are Staged and Reproached as Deniers and Despisers of the Death and Sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ But be it known to such they add to Christ's Sufferings and crucifie to themselves afresh the Son of God and trample the Blood of the Covenant under their Feet that walk unholily under a Profession of Justification for God will not acquit the Guilty nor justifie the Disobedient and Unfaithful Such deceive themselves and at the Great and Final Judgment their Sentence will not be Come ye Blessed because it cannot be said to them Well done Good and Faithful for they cannot be so esteemed that live and die in a Reproveable and Condemnable State but Go ye Cursed c. Wherefore Oh Reader Rest not thy self wholly satisfied with what Christ has done for thee in his Blessed Person without thee but press to know his Power and Kingdom within thee that the strong Man that has too long kept thy House

Letter whose Praise is therefore not of Men but of God And this Baptism Christ Preferred and Recommended at his Farewel to his Disciples in Reverence and Duty to whom to say nothing of the abuse of Water-Baptism we decline the use thereof Mark 1. 8. Luke 3. 16. John 1. 17. Acts 1. 5. Rom. 14. 17. Rom. 2. 28 29. 1 Cor. 1. 17. 2 Cor. 12. 9. VI. Concerning Breaking Bread c. BEcause we also disuse the Outward Ceremony of Breaking Bread and Drinking Wine which is commonly called the Lord's Supper we are therefore render'd Deniers and Contemners of the Lord's-Supper whereas the Inward and Spiritual Grace thereby signified viz. that Bread which came down from Heaven which Christ prefers to the Bread the Fathers eat in the Wilderness which did not keep them from Death and that Cup which he promised to drink a-new with his Disciples in his Father's Kingdom we not only Believe but Reverently Partake of to our unspeakable Comfort which is rightly and truly the Communion of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ who said Except you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood you have no Life in you John 6. 53 63. For 't is the Spirit that quickens the Flesh profits nothing It was also his Promise to all those that would open at his Knocks viz. That he would come in and Sup with them which Inward and Spiritual Coming we have both known and testified to feeling the blessed Effects thereof in our Souls and knowing the outward Breaking of Bread and Drinking of Wine in the way commonly Practised is no more than it is declared to be viz. An Outward and Visible Sign Why then should any contend about it and render us Unchristian for disusing what themselves allow to be but an Outward and Visible Sign And that none can reasonably believe to be an Essential Part of Religion as is the Bread from Heaven of which the Outward is at best but a Signification But the Wine that Christ promised to Drink with his Disciples anew is such an Essential that without it none have nor can have Eternal Life Mat. 26. 29. Mark 14. 25. John 6. 41 50 51 58 63. Rev. 3. 20. VII Concerning the Light of Christ BEcause we Assert the Sufficiency of the Light within it being the Light of Christ viz. That if Men live up to the Teaching thereof in all manner of Faithfulness and Obedience they shall not abide in Darkness but have the Light of Life and Salvation and the Blood of Christ shall cleanse them from all Sin Our Adversaries from thence conceive that we undervalue the Rule of Holy Scriptures and all outward Means as having no need thereof since we have such a Means and Rule within us and that this leaves us without any certain Rule and exposeth us to many Blasphemies c. Whereas the Light within or Christ by his Light inwardly Teaching was never taught by us in Opposition to or Contempt of any outward Means that God in his Wisdom and Providence affords us for our Edification and Comfort no more than did that blessed Apostle who said You need not that any Man teach you but as the same Anointing teacheth you all things and is Truth and is no Lye John 12. 46. 1 John 1. 6 7. 1 John 1. 2 27. VIII Concerning the Father the Word and the Spirit BEcause we have been very cautious in expressing our Faith concerning that great Mystery especially in such School Terms and Philosophical Distinctions as are Unscriptural if not Unsound the tendency whereof hath been to raise Frivolous Controversies and Animosities amongst Men we have by those that desire to lessen our Christian Reputation been represented as Deniers of the Trinity at large Whereas we ever believed and as constantly maintained the Truth of that blessed Holy Scripture Three that bear Record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and that these Three are One the which we both sincerely and reverently believe according to 1 John 5. 7. And this is sufficient for us to believe and know and hath a Tendency to Edification and Holiness when the contrary centers only in Imaginations and Strife and Persecution where it runs high and to Parties as may be Read in Bloody Characters in the Ecclesiastical Histories IX Concerning Works BEcause we make Evangelical Obedience a Condition to Salvation and Works by the Spirit wrought in us to be an Evidence of Faith and Holiness of Life to be both Necessary and Rewardable it hath been Insinuated against us as if we hoped to be saved by our own Works and so make them the Meritorious Cause of our Salvation and consequently Popish Whereas we know that it is not by Works of Righteousness that we can do but by his own free Grace is he pleased to accept of us through Faith in and Obedience to his Blessed Son the Lord Jesus Christ Heb. 5. 9. and 12. 14. X. Of Christ's being our Example BEcause in some Cases we have said the Lord Jesus was our great Example and that his Obedience to his Father doth not excuse ours but as by keeping his Commandments he abode in his Father's Love so must we follow his Example of Obedience to abide in his Love Some have been so ignorant or that which is worse as to venture to say for us or in our Name that we believe our Lord Jesus Christ was in all things but an Example Whereas we confess him to be so much more than an Example that we believe him to be our most acceptable Sacrifice to God his Father who for his Sake will look upon fallen Man that hath justly merited the Wrath of God upon his Return by Repentance Faith and Obedience as if he had never sinned at all 1 John 2. 12. Rom. 3. 26. and 10. 9 10. Heb. 5. 9. XI Concerning Freedom from Sin BEcause we have urged the Necessity of a perfect Freedom from Sin and a thorough Sanctification in Body Soul and Spirit whilst on this side the Grave by the Operation of the Holy and Perfect Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the Testimony of Holy Scripture we are made so Presumptious as to assert the fulness of all Perfection and Happiness to be attainable in this Life Whereas we are not only sensible of those humane Infirmities that attend us whilst clogged with Flesh and Blood but know that here we can only know in part and see in part The Perfection of Wisdom Glory and Happiness being reserved for another and better World John 8. 24 25. Heb. 13. 20 21. Heb. 6. XII Concerning Worship to God BEcause we say with the Apostle that Men ought to Pray Preach Sing c. with the Spirit and that without the Preparation and Assistance of it no Man can Rightly Worship God all Worship without it being Formal and Carnal From hence Ignorance or Envy suggests against us that if God will not compel us by his Spirit he must go without