Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
faith_n	covenant_n	sacrament_n	seal_n	4,627	5	9.5821	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55565	Quadriga salutis, or, The four general heads of Christian religion surveyed and explained ... with some few annotations annexed at the latter end.	Powell, Thomas, 1608-1660.	1657 (1657)	Wing P3073; ESTC R13515	58,465	158

onely badges of Christian profession but also sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace agreeable to the Belgic confession Sacramenta non sunt vana vacua signa ad nos decipiendos insti●uta c. For where they are administred and received in the due form and manner we acknowledge that they really give what they promise and are what they signifie on Gods part they give an investiture and possession of the heavenly promises as firmly as a Bishop is invested in his Office per baculum annulum as St. Bernard makes the simile Serm de Caena Dom. The unworthy Receive● indeed doth frustrate and defeat the good that is intended by them and presented in them makes divorce between the sign and thing signified eats the Bakers bread not the bread that came down from heaven Sacramentum non rem Sacramenti If this Romish fansie of the opus operatum were current I marvel why the Sacraments of the old Testament did not confer grace as well as those of the new which they deny making that the main difference between them whereas the truth is they differed onely in the outward symbols not in the inward sense and substance nor yet in the effects for their Sacraments had the same materiam substratam the same invisible grace presented in them though the visible signs were not the same and the worthy partakers did feed on Christ as lushiously and savourly then as others do now they did eat the same spiritual meat and drink the same spirituall drink which was Christ as St. Paul doth expressely teach 1 Cor. 10.3 4. APHOR. 3. They are Seals as well as Signs THe Gospel is the Grand Charter of mans Salvation and the Sacraments are as it were seals appendant thereunto they are not onely signs of some grace exhibited but also seals to ratifie and confirm the promises contained in the Instrument before mentioned As seals are put to civil Contracts and Indentures for a full and final ratification of them This comparison is used by most Writers of the Reformation but it is so foolish in Bellarmine's conceit that nothing can be more and which ought with all diligence saith he to be beaten down Sacramenta dici sigilla vel signacula nusquam legimus nisi in Evangelio secundum Lutherum is the Cardinals witty sarcasm in the forecited Treatise that the Sacraments are called seals saith he we read no where but in the new Gospel according to St. Lather But he might have read it in an old Epistle according to St. Paul who calls Circumcision {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the seal of the righteousness which is by faith that is a seal whereby it was ratified and made sure unto Abraham that he was justified or made righteous before God through faith in Christ Nay the Cardinal himself to prove the Septenary number of the Sacraments doth fetch an argument from the book with seven seals Rev. 5.1 which was the new Covenant with seven Sacraments appendant thereto as he interprets the place if that Text will be of force to evince the Sacraments to be seven in number it will also evince them to be seals for use APHOR. 4. Absolutely necessary where they may be had THe Divine Precept hath layed the highest obligation that may be upon us of using the Sacraments and that with reverence and religion saith Dr. Ames If the Sacraments be wanting unto us through our own default it involves us in guilt saith Augustin neither can that man pretend to a sincere conversion or love to God that contemns any Sacrament of his institution * Faith will not avail any man who receives not the Lords Lords Sacraments when he may saith St. Bernard If this be a duty commanded why may we not slight any other and all other duties as well as this What reasonable hopes hath any man that God will save him by some other means or without means when he hath declared that by these means in conjunction with some others he intends to save Ames calls Baptism one of the ordinary means of Salvation ex istâ hypothesi upon that account he affirms it to be absolutely necessary to Salvation where it is to be had * Except a man be born of water and the Spirit saith Christ he cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven From hence the antient Fathers did infer the necessity of Baptism But some later Writers have ratified this water into spirit and interpret the words tropically except a man be born of water that is of the Spirit for water is here but an emblem of the Spirit say they as fire is elsewhere Mat. 3.11 But to these I shall oppose the sense and censure of the learned Hooker you shall have his own expressions for they cannot be mended I hold it an infallible rule in the Exposition of Scripture that where a literal construction will stand the farthest from the Letter is commonly the worst there is nothing more dangerous than this licentious and deluding are which changeth the meaning of words as Alchimy doth or would do Metals maketh any thing what it listeth and in the end bringeth all truth to nothing The general consent of antiquity concurres in the literal interpretation and must the received construction be now disguised with a toy of novelty We may by such Expositions attain in the end perhaps to be thought witty but with ill advice so he Non possum quin simplicissimam Theologiam hoc est quae minimè recedit a litera caeteris ut commodiorem praeferam APHOR. 5. Infant-Baptism more antient than the Apostles TO secure the interest of children in this Sacrament who ex praerogativâ s●minis as Tert speakes are entitled thereto enough hath been spoken of late years by our English Writers to the conviction of all gain-sayers more particularly by the excellent Dr. Hammond in his Quaer●s When we find the practice of baptizing Infants in the Christian Church to be so antient as the very next age to the Apostles and so universal that it was received through all parts of the world where Christ had a Church I cannot see how it could have any other original than from the Apostles who founded the Churches through the World St. Augustine speaking of this usage or custom saith That the Church of God ever had it ever held it and received it Hanc praxin Ecclesia Catholica ubique diffusa tenet Home de Adamo Eva from the Religion of former ages and Calvin saith That the antientest Writers that we have of our Religion do without any scruple refer the original of this practice to the Apostles Nullus Scriptor tam vetustus qui non ejus originem ad Apostolorum tempora pro certo referat But this practice did not begin with or by the Apostles neither for they did but continue what was before in use in the Jewish Church who

prevarication the seed of the woman shall bruise the Serpents head Gen. 3 15. This was the first Gospel in the World extant in the first book of the Bible this was proto-Evangelium and Evangelii aurora the first dawning of Gospel-comfort If ye believed in Moses ye would have believed in me saith Christ to the Jews for Moses wrote of me Joh. 5.46 Moses wrote of Christ both in the forecited Text and else where Abraham saw Christ's day and rejoyced John 8.56 he saw the day of his Incarnation which God revealed by some means unto this his friend wch ministred cause of joy unto him this was the Gospel which God preached unto him Gal. 3.8 for there was Gospel in the World before Christ came to preach it Some of the Prophets tongues dropt some of this balm now and then more especially Esay who was the Evangelist of the old Testament ante Evangelia Evangelicus Isaias saw Christs glory and spake of him John 12.41 Now the Gospel that was preached in those daies was the same with ours to wit justification by faith in Christ remission of sins and life and immortality through him as a reward of faith and sincere obedience Habbakkuk preached the just should live by faith in case he was defective in obedience Circumcision was a Seal of their justification or righteousness which was through faith even a seal of pardon and remission of sins to all believers 3. The Resurrection of the body was a point that Iob a Gentile and an alien from the Commonwealth of Israel was well assured of It is a point generally believed and embraced in the Jewish Church as St. Paul declares in express terms Acts 26. verse 6 7 8. Verse 6. And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers i. the promise of a resurrection from death Verse 7. Vnto which promise our twelve Tribes instantly serving God day and night hope to come for which hopes sake King Agrippa I am accused of the Jews Verse 8. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead Nay the women of the Countrey were strong in this faith for when Christ told Martha that her brother Lazarus should rise again she replied I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day 4. Then for the last point or article of our belief even everlasting life I doubt not but they had knowledge and assurance of it many of them life and immortality was proposed to them as a reward of their obedience if they had kept the Law which if a man do he shall even live in them live not onely a long life here but an endless life hereafter The Law is the administration of death saith St. Paul but that is not the proper work of it that is by accident not in the primary intention of it The Commandment was ordained unto life saith the same Apostle but he found it unto death by reason of his sins the sting of death is sin it is sin and not the Law that bites like a Serpent and gives the mortal wound The old and new Testament do not differ materiâ promissionum in the subject matter of the promises as if the promises of old were onely temporal and under the Gospel onely eternal promises were propounded The Belgic Remonstrants did teach so indeed and so did Michael Servetus whom for this and other Heresies Calvin calls exitiale monstrum These make no other esteem of the antient people of God the seed of Abraham than of a herd of Swine who had their portion in this life without hope of any other as if God had proposed no other guerdon to them nor they expected any but fullness of bread carnal pleasures worldly pomp and power and children to inherit all these after them Michael Servetus whom Calvin terms prodigiosum Nebulonem in another place of his Institutions was by birth a Spaniard of Arragon who of a Physician became a Divine and did pass for a Protestant He was convented at Geneva for sundry heretical opinions that he had broached both there and elsewhere and persevering therein without hopes of reclaiming him he was by the Counsel and consent of the Divines of Bearne Zurick Schaffhauson and Geneva burnt at Geneva in the year 1555. You may see a Catalogue of his errors in Lucas Osiander's Epitome of Eccles History l. 2. Cent 16. c. 21. and in Schlusselburgius and the Anabaptists speak the same dialect as Calvin doth inform us in his Institutions which pestiferous error as he terms it is there fully refuted by him and all Protestant writers tilt at it with their pens where ever they meet it among the rest the Church of England hath laid it under her feet if I do not mistake her meaning In the 7th. Article of her confession where these words are to be found In the old Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ therefore they are not to be heard that feign that the old Fathers did look onely for temporal promises They looked for a City whose builder and maker was God and for a heavenly Countrey Heb. 11.10 16. Fides Abrahae non Palastinae duntaxat regionem spectabat sed caeleflem illam patriam beatorum sedem is a note of Iustinian upon that place APHOR. 5. Of believing the Catholic Church WE must remark that the phrase of this article runs I believe the holy Catholic Church not in the holy Catholic Church for the particle In perfixed to the former articles must be out here and it is out in St. Augustines exposition and Ruffinus and other antient Expositors upon this subject and also in the Trent Catechism * We may not believe in the Church because it is not dominus but domus not the Master of the house but the house as St. Augustin gives the reason We may credere Ecclesiae not in Ecclesiam we may believe the Catholic Church very far and give it the highest credit next Gods own word in matters of fact and practice especially and some points which the Scripture doth not clearly define herein we may follow the practice and embrace the Arrest or judgement of the Catholic Church For it is a staple rule and maxim in St. Aug What is universally * received and retained in the Church we may rationally conclude that it was derived from the first planters of it even the Apostles But we may not rest or relie upon the Church as the chief guide of our Salvation her authority is venerable but it is not the Rule of our faith Wherefore the word Credo I believe in the four last Articles of the Belief imports no more than Credo esse meo bono esse as Alsted doth well expound it I believe that such things mentioned in those several articles truly are