Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	law_n	sin_n	threaten_v	4,607	5	10.0030	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66343	The answer to the report, &c., which the united ministers appointed their committee to draw up, as in the preface also letters of the Right Reverend the Bishop of Worcester, and the Reverend Dr. Edwards to Mr. Williams, against whom their testimony was produced by Mr. Lob : and animadversions on Mr. Lob's defence of The report / by Daniel Williams.	Williams, Daniel, 1643?-1716.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.; Edwards, John, 1637-1716.	1698 (1698)	Wing W2645; ESTC R9333	67,736	107

them I will liken him to a wise Man who built his House upon a ●ock c. Mat. 7.24 Not he that believes that he is one of those who is made Compleatly Righteous by a Change of Persons without any Change of Temper or Disposition of Mind He never promises the least Degree of Happiness to such but still insists on our own Endeavours By striving to enter in at the straight Gate which St. Paul Calls working out our own Salvation with Fear and Trembling and St. Peter giving all Diligence to make our Calling and Election sure For saith he If ye do these things ye shall never Fall Do not these Expressions Note the necessity of the Performance of Conditions on our side And therefore all Imaginary Notions of such a Change of Persons as hath no Regard to any Acts of ours is wholly Repugnant to the main Scope and Design of the Gospel I meddle not with the dispute about the Mortal Law which must continue to oblige us as long as the Reason of it continues but the main Argument to me is from the Gospel as it is delivered by Christ and his Apostles who certainly understood the Substance and Design of it far better than Dr. Crisp or the Reporter doth What was Transacted between the Father and the Son we know no more than they have Revealed to us and we know they had no Design to Impose upon Mankind by laying so much weight upon such Conditions as God had no Regard to and by Concealing from them such a Change of Persons as made them Compleatly Righteous without any Act of theirs Men could never be Reconciled to the just Veneration and Esteem we have of the Sacred Penmen of the Scriptures nor to their Knowledge of the Mysteries of the Gospel nor to their Fidelity in declaring them for the Good of Mankind So that if we find nothing of this Change of Persons in their Writings and so much as is utterly inconsistent with it we have all the Reason in the World to Reject it This Notion of the Change of Persons is attended with very bad Consequences Which I do not charge on those who do not see them or are carrried by some higher Principles above them but we are not to Judge of Persons but of Things and the Natural Tendency of Principles And so the Change of Persons in this Sense hath these very had Consequences That it is apt to Lessen our Reverence of the Divine Perfections our just Sense of the Differences of Good and Evil Our Obligations to all sorts of Duties It tends to the Disparagement of that Free Grace they pretend to Exalt and Exposes the Gospel to the Reproach and Contempt of Infidels and leaves the Minds of those who embrace it under Great Temptations to Presumption These things I can only mention because you des●red a short Answer to your Questions and I have brought it into as narrow a Compass as I could I am Sir Your Faithful Friend and Servant ED. WIGORN Nov. 10. 97. The Learued Doctor Edwards's Answer to the same Three Questions in a Letter to Mr. Williams occasioned by Mr. Lob's Remarks Wherein he pretends the Doctor 's Preservative against Socinianism condemns Mr. Williams's Iudgment concerning a change of Persons SIR I Have perused the Passages which you refer to viz. Gospel-Truth stated p. 37 40. the places objected among the rest besides severel other parts of your Books though I have not as yet had Leisure sufficient to read them over However I have read enough to know your Opinion and to understand how you state the Matter in debate between you and your Antinomian Adversaries and thereby am sufficiently instructed to answer your Queries To the First therefore I say That when speaking of the Sufferings of our Saviour I assert as other Divines usually do a Permutation of Persons I mean no more than what you affirm viz. That Christ not only died for the good but likewise vice or loco peccatorum in the room and place of Sinners But whe● we assert an Exchange or Permutation of Persons this must always be understood under such Restrictions and Limitations as may help us to avoid those two Dangerous Errors which the Antinomians have Fallen into And therefore First We must affirm we mean no more thereby then an obligation to Punishment which he no otherwise Contracted then by his own Free and Voluntary consent and undertaking to undergo that Punishment which the Law threatned and our Sins deserved Viz. Death But this must by no means be so far misconstrued as to imagine that thereby the Filth and Turpitude of our sins were Transferred upon him For tho in the former Sense he is said to be made sin for us yet in the latter he still continued Holy Harmless Undefiled separate from Sinners and at an Eternal distance from them Neither Secondly Must this Permutation be extended so far as to imply a Reciprocal Exchange of Persons Viz. Of us Sinners into the Room and Place of Christ As if God did look upon us as doing all that Christ did and consequently that we do Merit Pardon attone Justice compleatly satisfy and fulfill the Law so that we are actually discharged from Punishment without more ado No we continue still under the sentence of the Law Notwithstanding all that Christ did to free us from it till we perform those Conditions upon which the application of Pardon is suspended The immediate therefore Effect and Consequence of the Permutation which we are speaking of is only this that Christ by dying in our room had so far reconciled us to his Father as that he is willing to Pardon and admit us to his favour provided that we on our Parts perform the Conditions of the New Covenant Viz. Repentance and Faith For tho Christ by dying for us hath merited our Pardon yet it still continues so far in his own Power as that he will not dispose of it but upon such Terms as have been agreed upon between him and his Father which indeed are no other then such as without which we are neither capable of Pardon nor can God in Honour bestow it upon us To apply Pardon to a Sinner while he continues in his obstinacy and impenitence is not only contrary to the Holyness of God but inconsistent with his wisdom and destructive of his Authority and Government And therefore the Graces before mentioned must be looked upon by us to be both the necessary Parts of every Christians Duty and the indispensible conditions of his Happyness In another Letter I intend no more by an Exchange of Persons than what you have affirmed in your Writings As to your Second Query I Judge those Assertions and Acknowledgments frequently made by you in your Books concerning the sufferings of Christ and the satisfaction thereby made to the Justice of God for the Sins of Men do fully acquit you from giving any Countenance to the Errors of Socinus in that point In another Letter you have

Subject in his Prayers Sermons and Peaceable behaviour and advices What Fetters are some in If once addressing the Late King by a few big words must Eternally Proclaim a Man an Hypocrite unless he be now a Non-juror Nonassociator Plotter and director of other Ministers in imitation of himself to pray so for the King as either of the two Kings may be intended if they must at all seem to Pray for King William I hope few will be gull'd into such a Character from the fancied obligations of former addresses tho some of them were highly inconsiderate nor any discouraged from persevering Loyalty by the forecited Aspersion This would admit enlargement which provocations might improve But I retain a respect sufficient to forbid it nor had I inserted the least hint at such things except as a warning against the like instances when His First-Rate Man is to Execute his Fiery threats and his very Learned Person already Roused alike obnoxious stretcheth forth his Claws Let Men take their way but the common interest will not long be Sacrificed ere some now imposed on will find out the Instruments and Designs of our Breaches I hope the Reverend Rebuker will Pardon my Interposal and that I acquainted him not therewith His abilities for a reply I acknowledge such that if these short hints serve for a foile to that he is preparing and in the interim abate the ill Impressions of Mr. Lobs attempt I shall Account these few hours well employed which otherwise had been more feelingly spent in resenting those base reflections that I am his Leader Master Principal and what else became scarce any Man besides Mr. Lob their Author Mr. Lob p. 8. owneth I asserted besides the effects made ours the Righteousness of Christ is imputed to Believers but adds I mean nothing by this grant Because I use a simile to illustrate the manner in Man made Righteous p. 77. If one give me my Liberty which he Voluntarily purchased for me at a dear rate He mediately gives me what he paid for my Ransom tho immediately he gives me my Liberty and a right thereto A. Had he Cited the Apodosis which is in the next words He had spoiled his suggestion I shall Contract what I there enlarge on I make Pardon and Adoption to be benefits or effects following upon the Imputation of Christs Righteousness And the Righteousness of Christ I distinguish into 1. His performance of the conditions of redemption 2. His right or jus adjudicatum by the Covenant of redemption to our Pardon and Adoption for his performance of the conditions adjusted in that Covenant The former I said is mediately imputed The latter I said is immediately imputed it 's reckoned to us when believers because it was acquired expressly for believers Iohn 3.16 Isa. 53.10 11. The judicial imputation of this right of Christ intervening the Righteousness of Christ as a performance of the conditions is imputed as our Plea for that Pardon it being the procuring cause of that right of Christs which is immediately imputed to us And this right I also distinguish from that which the Gospel-promise made to believers doth invest them in for the former right results immediately to Christ from the Covenant of Redemption and is subjectively in him tho imputed to us Whereas the promise he that believes shall be forgiven or saved not only supposeth the former Transactions and is the Instrument by which God imputeth Christs Righteousness to the believer But it also as a conditional promise giveth believers a right to Forgiveness whereof they are the immediate Subjects Here Mr. Lob may see the Vanity of his Objection it is not Pardon or such possessed effects that intermediate between Christs Righteousness and us nor only the right given by the Gospels conditional grant No it 's Christs own right and that imputed to us by God himself and that immediately to us And Pray Is Gods imputing to us Christs performance of the conditions so far as to be our Plea and Foundation of Claim no imputation of his Righteousness at all because the imputation of Christs acquired right Intervenes Nothing is left out but Gods Legal accounting us to have performed all that by which Christ merited and made Atonement Yet without this Proud assumption nothing will please Mr. Lob. Being so often pressed to it by Mr. Humfreys and Mr. Lob I will endeavour their satisfaction If Christ had acquired by his Death a Power indefinitely to forgive sins without a Compact determining either by Name or Qualification the Persons that should be Pardoned in the Virtue of his Death or only purchased the Gospel Covenant as conditionally offering Pardon I should agree with Mr. H. but it being otherwise I differ from him And add as the possessed effects are not properly imputed so I will not confine the support of my Faith ultimately and only to the Gospel conditional promise tho that 's infallible when God hath made the Compact between the Father and our Mediator to be my security and Christs performance of the conditions of that Compact to be my Plea with God among which conditions was what Answers the Law of Works which I have Transgressed Altho I own I must try my interest by Christs Gospel Law as what describeth the Person who is Entitled to Pardon and injoyneth us to be such with a promise of that interest In short a believer having for his Security and Plea the Gospel promise the Covenant of Redemption and the Value of Christs Death I 'll retain each and therefore still say Besides the effects possessed by me the Righteousness of Christ is imputed to me as above Accounted for On the other hand could I think it was by the Covenant of Works that Christ was constituted our surety so that his obligations to suffer the Punishment of our sins did immediately result from that Law And that we Sinners were Principals in Redemption Work and Christ such a surety as to be Ioint Party with us in that Work of Redemption And that the Law of Works required the Divine Nature to give a value to what it Accounted to be Righteousness And lastly that this Law promiseth Pardon to sinners for the sake of a Mediators sufferings I should then agree with Mr. Lob that we satisfied for our sin dyed and obeyed in Christs Person and he and we paid the Idem Nay be a full Crispian and say I was justified at the time of Christs Death I had nothing to do to become partaker of the effects of that Death I was as Righteous as Christ deny any proper forgiveness Nay own that Christ was really a sinner for I am sure the Law could immediately oblige no other to dye But I must disagree with Mr. Lob and them Because I am well perswaded God never proposed the Work of Redemption to Condemned Sinners but to Christ our Mediator Also that to the Redemption of Sinners God in Justice requiring for the Honour of his Violated Law that a perfect