Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	covenant_n	faith_n	work_n	14,030	5	6.5212	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67397	The life of faith in two sermons to the university of Oxford, at St. Mary's Church there, on the 6th of January 1683/4 and June the 29th following / by John Wallis ...	Wallis, John, 1616-1703.	1684 (1684)	Wing W592; ESTC R18108	31,157	46

by Faith And even by the same Faith to which he doth there exhort the Christian Hebrews It was the same Christ the same Gospel though not so clearly reveiled and the same Eternal Life which they expected though they were more in the dark as to the particulars and the distinct ways and methodes of bringing it to pass And as the first Threatening In the day that thou Eatest thereof thou shalt surely Dy extended to Spiritual and Eternal Death as well as the Natural For we are not to suppose that God Inflicts a greater Punishment than what he threatened So the Life there Promised by way of Insinuation and elsewhere Expressed He that doth them shall Live in them must be understood in a like sense not of Temporal Promises onely but of Spiritual and Eternal And the Apostle expounds it if the same Life or what is equivalent to be obtained by the first Covenant upon condition of Obedience and by the second Covenant by Faith in Christ. That no man is Justified by the Law in the sight of God is evident For the Just shall live by Faith And the Law is not of Faith but the Man that Doth them shall live in them The same Life or Blessedness though by different ways attainable And the Apostle here shews That it is the same Faith by which We beleeve to the saving of our Souls and by which the Elders obtained a good Report And by Faith Abraham with Isaac and Jacob Heirs with him of the same promise Sojourned in the Promised Land as in a strange Countrey of which though promised to them they had no other Enjoyment than mere Strangers For he looked for a City who 's Builder and Maker was God another kind of City than those on Earth All these Died in Faith not having Received the Promises which were therefore such as were to be enjoyed after Death but seeing them afar off and were perswaded of them and Embraced them and confessed that they were Strangers and Pilgrims upon Earth this being not the Countrey they sought for For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a Countrey such a Countrey as yet they had not And truly if they had been mindful of such a Countrey as that from whence they came they might have had opportunity to have returned But now 't is manifest they desire a Better Countrey that is an Heavenly Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called Their God the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob For he hath prepared a City for them By all which the Apostle doth not only Declare that they expected an Heavenly Happiness but Argues strongly That it must needs be so And by Faith Moses he tells us Esteemed the Reproches of Christ greater Riches than the Treasures of Egypt For he had respect to the Recompense of Reward as Seeing him that is Invisible Others were Tortured not accepting Deliverance that they might obtain a better Resurrection Others had Tryal of or did undergo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expertisunt Cruel Mockings of Bonds and Imprisonment Were Stoned were Sawn asunder were Slayn with the Sword c. And all these having obtained a good Report through Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 received not the Promise their Faith was exercised on better Promises than of what they here received God having provided for them Better things that they without us should not be perfect the Promises to them and those to us being the same Again As this Duty and Privilege of Living by Faith extended Backwards to the times before Christ So it extends Wider than the Nation of the Jews A Blessing which the Gentiles are particularly concerned in and which we this day celebrate The Epiphany or the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles For the Blessing of Abraham is come upon the Gentiles also through Jesus Christ that We might receive the promise of the Spirit through Faith And the Scripture foreseeing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that God would Justify the Heathen through Faith preached before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did before hand preach the Gospell to Abraham saying In thee that all Nations be blessed So then they which are of Faith the same are the Children of Abraham They which be of Faith are Blessed with faithfull Abraham And are therefore of the number of those as there it follows who shall Live by Faith Now if it be asked What it is thus to Live by Faith It is too large a Task for one Sermon to give a full account of it For allmost the whole Bible and the Practise of the Saints in all Ages are but a Comment on it I shall therefore content my self to give a short account of some of the chief Heads thereof To Live by Faith therefore is First to Beleeve the Word of God to give Credit to the Truthes of God or things by him declared how unlikely soever they may seem to be and however different from the common Sentiments of Natural men or what the Light of Nature alone could teach us For though there be nothing in Divine Truths Contrary to what the Light of Nature truly understood may teach us Yet there may be some things much above it which without Revelation cannot be known Thus By Faith we Beleeve That the Worlds were made by the Word of God that things that are now seen were made not of things that do appear That is that the now visible World was not made up of such things as we now see or that there was no praeexisting Matter such as we now see of which it was made but was indeed made of Nothing Which however contrary to the sentiments of Philosophers Ex nihilo nihil in nihilum nil posse reverti That nothing can be made out of Nothing Yet when God hath told us that it is so we are to give full credit to it There is indeed nothing from the Light of Nature Contrary hereunto why we should Disbeleeve it when it is Reveiled But yet we are sayd to know it by Faith because it is Above what Nature alone could have taught For when we see this glorious Fabrick of the World we might well admire it but could never know whence it was if God had not told us For though Naturalists have with a great deal of Reason talked of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Causa prima a Common Maker or First Cause which should give Original to all things else Yet this was but either from some faint Remains of an ancient Tradition from Adam and Noah downward to after Ages Or atmost be Conjectural and Groping in the dark and Guessing at this as a more likely Supposition than That it had Allways been or should take its beginning from a Fortuitous Concurse of Atomes Which yet the Wits of this Age as they would be thought or the Fools rather would now cry-up as

not to Trust in them to be Justified by them either in Whole or in Part. As to Justification she tells us in the 11 th Article That we are Justified by Faith onely and that this is a Wholsome Doctrine and full of Comfort And as to Good Works she tells us in the 12 th Article That though they do not Justifie but follow after Justification yet are they pleasing and acceptable unto God are the necessary fruit of a true and lively Faith and by which it s known as a Tree by its Fruit. And in the Homily or Sermon to which the Article refers she tells us the same more fully That there can no man by his own acts works and deeds seem they never so good be justified and made righteous before God But every man of necessity is constrained to seek for another righteousness or justification to be received at Gods own hands That is to say the forgiveness of his sins and trespasses That this justification or righteousness which we so receive of Gods Mercy and Christs Merits embraced by Faith is taken accepted and allowed of God for our Perfect and Full Justification That all the world being wrapped in sin by breaking of the Law God sent his onely Son our Saviour Christ into the World to Fullfill the Law for Vs and by shedding of his most pretious bloud to make a Sacrifice and Satisfaction or as it may be called Amends to his Father for our sins to asswage his Wrath and Indignation conceived against us for the same That sinners when they turn again to God unfeignedly are washed by this Sacrifice from their Sins in such sort that there remaineth not any Spot of Sin that shall be Imputed to their Damnation That this is that Justification or Righteousness which S. Paul speaketh of when he saith No man is justified by the Works of the Law but freely by Faith in Jesus Christ And again he saith We believe in Jesus Christ that we be justified freely by the Faith of Christ and not by the Works of the Law because that no man shall be justified by the Works of the Law That Although this Justification be Free to Vs Yet it cometh not So freely to us that there is no Ransom paid therefore at all But God hath tempered his Justice and Mercy together that he would neither by his Justice condemn us to the Everlasting Captivity of the Devil and his Prison of Hell remedyless for ever without Mercy Nor by his Mercy deliver us clearly without Justice or payment of a Just Ransom And whereas it lay not in us that to do He provided a Ransome for us that was the most precious Body and Blood of his own most dear and best beloved Son Jesus Christ. Who beside this Ransome Fullfilled the Law for us Perfectly With much more to the same purpose Shewing That Christ Alone hath payd the Whole Ransome and made Full Satisfaction to God's Justice and that our Righteousness or Good Works come not in for any Share or Part thereof as if by them we should at lest in Part be justified This Doctrine I know is not pleasing to the Socinians nor to the Papists Not to the Socinians Because they Deny that any such Satisfaction is made to Gods Justice at all For if they should allow that Christ alone were able to make a sufficient Satisfaction for the Sins of All they must allow him to be more than Man And therefore in order to the Denying of his Divinity they deny his Satisfaction too Nor to the Papists For though they allow a Satisfaction to Justice Yet they would have this to be done at lest in Part by our selves To make way for Purgatory and consequently for Popish Pardons For if we must pay part of the Debt our selves Christ having not payd the Whole and have not payed it in this Life we must either pay it in Purgatory or else by way of Commutation pay Money for the Popes Pardon to be excused from it But Wee who are not concerned for either of these As neither denying Christs Divinity nor being obliged to maintain Purgatory Have no reason to depart from the Language of our own Church Now to make this the more clear our Church observes further That there are Three things which must go together in our Justification Vpon Gods part his great Mercy and Grace Vpon Christs part Justice that is the Satisfaction of Gods Justice or the Price of our Redemption by offering of his Body and shedding of his Blood with fullfilling the Law perfectly and throughly And upon Our part true and lively Faith in the Merits of Jesus Christ which yet is not ours but by Gods working in us So that in our Justification is not onely Gods Mercy and Grace but his Justice also Which the Apostle calls the Justice of God And it consisteth in Paying the Ransome and fullfilling the Law And so the Grace of God doth not shut out the Justice of God in our Justification but onely shutteth out the Justice of Man that is to say the Justice of our Works as to be Merits of deserving our Justification And therefore S. Paul declareth here nothing upon the behalf of Man concerning his Justification but onely a true and lively Faith which nevertheless is the Gift of God and not Mans onely working without God And yet that Faith doth not shut out Repentance Hope Love Dread and the Fear of God to be joyned with Faith in every man that is justified But it shutteth them out from the Office of Justifying So that though they be all present together in him that is justified yet they justify not all together Nor the Faith allso doth not shut out the Justice of our good Works as necessary to be done afterwards of Duty towards God for we are most bounden to serve God in doing good deeds commanded by him in his holy Scripture all the days of our Life But it excludeth them so that we may not do them to this intent to be made Good by doing them For all the good Works that we can do be unperfect and therefore not able to deserve our Justifiction But our Justification doth come freely by the meer Mercy of God And of so great and free Mercy that whereas all the World was not able of their selves to pay Any Part towards their Ransome it pleased our heavenly Father of his infinite Mercy without any our desert or deservings to prepare for us the most precious Jewels of Christs Body and Blood whereby our Ransome might be fully payd the Law fullfilled and his Justice fully satisfied So that Christ is now the Righteousness of all them that truly do believe in him He for them payd the Ransome by his Death He for them fullfilled the Law in his Life So that now in him and by him every true Christian man may be called a Fullfiller of the Law For as much as that which their Infirmity lacked Christs Justice hath supplied I