Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	act_n	faith_n	grace_n	4,322	5	5.9067	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66871	Justification evangelical, or, A plain impartial scripture-account of God's method in justifying a sinner written by Sir Charles Wolseley ...	Wolseley, Charles, Sir, 1630?-1714.	1677 (1677)	Wing W3308; ESTC R15406	58,996	146

that we might gradually possess that Gift of God which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Quest Secondly By this Doctrine how can we ever come to know we are carefully and compleatly Justified till we have fully perform'd and accomplished all the conditions made requisite to a justified state That is how can we upon good ground be assured of our Justification till our faith and obedience be consummuated Which is not till we dye Answ Every man is then Actually justified according to the Gospel-Law and Compleatly so when he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ with all his heart Because no more is at the first required Legally to constitute a justified state But Justification is a continued act of God and the constant performance of all those duties which a sincere reception of Christ as he is offered in the Gospel implyes are indispensibly necessary to the continuance of it 'T is in this case as 't is in Marriage A Marriage is perfected by a mutual consent But the performance of all matrimonial duties is implyed in that consent The Marriage continues valid till somwhat be done as 't is very possible there may be that does vertually Null and Revoke such consent and what was implyed therein and does ex natura rei Dissolve the Vinculum matrimonij 'T is plain the Apostles did look upon such as declared a firm assent to the Gospel and a sincere and hearty reception of Christ as he is there proposed to be in Christ That is to be in a Justified saved state admitted them to all Gospel-priviledges and never esteemed them otherwise till by their Lives or Professions they contradicted and denyed what by such a faith and consent they had before affirmed and thereby Apostatized from it And of such tergiversation the Gospel every where warns men That they should take heed of an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God And St. Paul tells the Corinthians I am jealous over you sayes he with a godly jealousie for I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste Virgin to Christ But I fear least by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ Whoever avows the faith of the Gospel and a sincere closure with Christ upon the Terms thereof and does after fall into an open Rebellion against him and lives in an allowed disobedience to his Laws such a man is as the Apostle speaks of an Heretick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man condemned by himself For he that in his Baptism and at his first admission into the Christian-Church had made a solemn Profession of the true Christian Doctrine and did after degenerate into Corrupt and Heretical Opinions contrary and destructive to it passed sentence upon himself So He that declares to close with Christ as a Prince and a Saviour which supposeth a general submission to all the Laws of his Kingdom and shall after Indulge himself in a course of open disobedience and choose a continued practice of sin against that grand fundamental Law of Christ That he that names his name must depart from iniquity gives Judgment against himself in this case Disowns Christ and the Gospel Dissolves the Relation that seem'd to be between them and publickly retracts what he before obliged himself to So that a man is at the first actually and legally according to the tenor of the Gospel justified by a true and sincere Faith But a constant prosecution of such a faith in all its proper Ends and Tendencies by an universal submission to all the Laws of Christs Kingdom is of absolute necessity to our continuance in a Justified state Quest 3. Do not divers Scriptures in the New Testament seem to establish Justification solely upon believing and upon Faith only as an instrument receiving and no more in opposition to all sort of working Especially that Text Rom. 4.5 But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness Answ We are said to be justified in the New Testament by faith alone upon these three accounts First as faith intends the Gospel and the Principles of Christianity in opposition to the Law and the principles of Judaisme Secondly As 't is a comprehensive word for all that the Gospel requires at our hands For by Believing in Christ the Scripture intends such a closure with him as receives him in all his offices and sujects us to all those obligations which 〈◊〉 Prince and Saviour he thinks fit by the Gospel to lay upon us And upon that account to Believe and to obey are often in Scripture put one for the other promiscuously and so are unbelief and disobedience All obedience and subjection to Christ is originated in and flows from our Belief of that Revelation God makes to us of him and is naturally implyed and compriz'd in it And so it has by Gods appointment the precedence and preferrence of all other Graces in point of Justification and we do not find any other grace so related to Justification as this And upon that account it is that we are not said in Scripture to be justified by repentance or by love or any other single grace but only by Faith as comprehensive of all the rest And thirdly because we are actually brought into a justified state at first solely by Faith without the actual exercise of any other grace The very act of sincere believing by Gods peculiar and gracious ordination intitles us to Christ and all his Benefits And the reason of that Ordination is evidently this That who ever believes in Christ receives him as he is by God proposed and whoever does so obliges himself therey to all the duties of Christianity But upon no one of these accounts can Faith be said to justifi● 〈◊〉 barely as an Instrument but as 't is comprehensive and productive of all other Gospel-duties and by the subsequent performance of them Faith as St. James tells us is perfected 'T was the fear many good men had of interesting any Works or any thing of our own Justification and Ecclipsing free grace thereby that made them that they would neither allow Faith to be a condition nor a work When they ought to have considered that Gospel works are never opposed to Grace nor can any thing done by Divine assistance be so and when the Apostle opposeth Works to Grace he means such Works as are inconsistent with Grace and so justifie by their merit as to put us out of need of Grace and render it useless but invented that unscriptural notion of its instrumentality of no other use but to make way for metaphysical subtilties and to obscure a plain point when indeed Faith is both a work and a condition First 'T is a work so our Saviour himself calls it Joh. 6.29 This is the work of God that you believe Indeed 't is the chiefest part