Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	believe_v	faith_n	justification_n	3,844	5	9.3520	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A14923	The soules progresse to the celestiall Canaan, or heavenly Jerusalem By way of godly meditation, and holy contemplation: accompanied with divers learned exhortations, and pithy perswasions, tending to Christianity and humanity. Divided into two parts. The first part treateth of the divine essence, quality and nature of God, and his holy attributs: and of the creation, fall, state, death, and misery of an unregenerated man, both in this life and in the world to come: put for the whole scope of the Old Testament. The second part is put for the summe and compendium of the Gospell, and treateth of the Incarnation, Nativity, words, works, and sufferings of Christ, and of the happinesse and blessednesse of a godly man in his state of renovation, being reconciled to God in Christ. Collected out of the Scriptures, and out of the writings of the ancient fathers of the primitive Church, and other orthodoxall divines: by John Welles, of Beccles in the County of Suffolk.	Welles, John, of Beccles.	1639 (1639)	STC 25231; ESTC S119607	276,075	406

Justification to be in the workes of the Law and doth absolutely ascribe it to the power of faith in Christ and he giveth a reason of this doctrine for saith hee If righteousnesse be by the Law Gal. 2.21 then Christ dyed without cause So then the very cause why Christ died was that righteousnesse might be imputed and apprehended by faith to all them that believe seeing that by workes it is impossible and therefore saith the Prophet David Psal 32.1 Blessed is he whose unrighteousnesse is forgiven Verse 2. and whose sinnes are covered Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sinne so hee thinketh them most righteous that have their unrighteousnesse forgiven them and them most holy that have not their sins imputed unto them Rom. 4. The fourth to the Romanes the whole Chapter is an earnest and sufficient proofe of this argument and doctrine where the Apostle laboureth by direct evidence to satisfie all doubt as if hee had fore-knowne the stiffe and unreconcileable oppositions of these times against this doctrine of Justification in which Chapter he maketh Abraham his instance in whom there was as much cause of boasting and as much righteousnesse as in any other particular save Christ Jesus onely yet he there proveth that Abraham upon whom God had founded his peculiar people was not justified by the righteousnesse of his workes but that this faith was imputed unto him for righteousnesse and for proofe alleadgeth Scripture Gen. 15.6 And Abraham believed the Lord and hee accounted that to him for righteousnesse so that the matter of our justification is the righteousnesse of Jesus Christ onely and the meanes of apprehending it is onely by faith This doctrine howsoever it is made strong and unresistable by many testimonies of holy Scripture and though it be zealously maintained by men of great learning and religious judgement yet it hath endured violence and suffered disgrace both by ignorance and envie this age maintaining such oppositions of error as the ignorance of former times first occasioned therefor● at this day this argument of justification is one of the maine controversies of the world the one maintaine justification by faith onely the other by workes that defending truth this opposing it and though a faithfull man would be willing to quarrell in defence of faith Note Psal 91.4 faith being our shield of defence against all gaine-sayers sin and the dwell yet know not how to give addition of strength to them that have already exceedingly travelled in this manifest truth and whose faithfull paines have maintained this quarrell with valour and victory against all opposition neither is it in the purpose of this businesse to dispute questions of truth but to deliver truth as it is by admonitions and plaine teachings to men of simple easie understanding for whose Christian good these paines are principally taken whose simplicity might most easily be confounded in the intricate search of cunning arguments for these respects And because all contention and strife of words is in the hatred of my nature I will as I finde it written downe sparingly deliver my selfe in a large argument and strike onely one blow at the enemy of faith that I may bee knowne to be an enemy of that enemy and that by a familiar proofe I may instruct the knowledge of them that are lesse learned For they that deny justification by fayth and approve it by works would frame this argument from the testimony of Saint James Jam. 2.17 c. who speaking of a generall faith doth utterly disable it from the office of justification and therefore he saith that Faith without workes is dead in it selfe for as the body without the spirit is dead even so faith without workes is dead also Therefore say they that the Apostle concludeth that of workes a man is justified and not of faith onely To this is answered it is most true that fruitlesse faith is dead neyther can justifie and that good workes are the spirit and soule of a living faith for as the body without the soule is not a living man but a dead carcase so faith without workes is not living is not saving nay is not true faith but onely beares a generall name and with Saint Iames wee may conclude against all such faith But if there be a faith that hath a necessity depending of good workes as necessarily as the soule to the body and the fruit to the tree and that this faith declare it selfe to bee plentifull in good actions the fruits of a living faith we may then with Saint James conclude against them for hee doth not as they doe disinable all faith in the worke of justification but onely that faith which is dead Note and without workes So both opinions imply a necessity of workes the one as the cause of justification and the other as an effect in them justified It were easie to be large in numbring authorities and in reporting such distinctions and shifts as the deceived use in supporting their erroneous opinions they are but inventions therefore without respect wee will passe them over Note but advise the Christian Reader to beware of both extreames and modestly and moderately to understand the meanes of his justification that his zeale carry him to no extremity but to the vertuous meane onely and not to ascribe all to fayth and nought to workes but to give them both their necessary respects for as wee are not justified but by fayth so our fayth is not justified but by our workes for if our works be not faythfull our fayth working we are not justified neyther can be saved For when it is said that fayth onely justifieth it is meant and not denyed that charity is joyned with that fayth which justifieth being inseparably united unto it but that onely fayth and not charity is the meanes by which we embrace Jesus Christ our justification righteousnesse As for example the fire hath heate and light which qualities cannot bee severed in that subject Note yet the fire burneth by heate only and not by light now if they will reason say if the heate of the fire only burn Similitude then it burneth without the light of the fire but that it cannot do such is their reason against justification only because it cannot be separated from charity Likewise though the parts of mans body bee joyned together and one is not without another in a perfect body yet the eye onely sees and the eare onely heares and every part hath his distinct office and so hath faith and charity Thus may the seeming difference betweene Saint Paul and Saint Iames bee reconciled Heb. 11. but such fayth and workes as Saint Paul meaneth justifie us before God but such fayth and workes as Saint Iames meaneth justifie us before men but God doth justifie effectually fayth doth justifie apprehendingly and good workes doe justifie declaringly that is we doe declare our selves by our workes

salvation be our continuall exercise let us exercise our pleasure in reading and meditating the excellent variety of matter and Majesty of the phrase in the Gospel being the rhetorique and eloquence of the holy Ghost let us also exercise in studying rightly to understand the covenant of our salvation to keepe which covenant wee shall therein often be admonished by promises threats intreaty and by examples in all which the knowledge and meditations of the Gospel will instruct us This doctrine is very usefull and solatious and may be applyed to many notable purposes for it shewes us the true causes of all our happinesse it also confuteth the Pelagians who ascribe salvation to mens owne strength and merits and it serves to correct the course of those that hinder their owne happinesse by their owne presumption diffidence incredulity prophanenesse sensuality and other irregular and irreligious courses Lastly it proves the deity of Christ for in that he hath elected his faithfull unto eternall life we conclude that he is very God for these respects and reasons let us enter covenant with our soules to be carefull in keeping our covenant with God Of the Incarnation of the Word Christ IT is necessary and meet to shew something of the Incarnation of Christ for because that the same doth chiefly belong to the worke of our Redemption we will note those things onely which shall seeme to helpe towards the stay of the purity and certainnesse of our faith and to cut off all curious and unprofitable questions it is needfull for them that will consider the mystery of the word Incarnate Not of mans word but of Gods Word For as much as this Incarnation is reported not of every word but of the Word of God it is first needfull for the confirmation of our faith that wee doe heare the testimony of holy Scripture that the word is in God it is declared even in the beginning of Genesis wherein the History of the Creation of all things is so oftentimes reiterated Gen. 1 c. and God said let it be and it was done he said and they were made he commanded and they were created and in another place By the Word of the Lord the heavens were fastened in the beginning was the Word John 1.1 and the Word was God and God was the Word Paul saith By the vertue of his Word and the brightnesse of his Glory Hebr. 1 c. upholding all things by the word of his Power Againe By faith wee understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God Hebr. 11. so that our faith is confirmed in this by the testimony of holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament that we doe believe the word to be in God of which thing there be found sufficient testimonies also in the writings of the Ethnickes which did attribute unto God-head the Mind the Word and the Spirit wherefore wee Christians may so much the more stedfastly stand unto our faith because that those things which wee doe believe of God the Father and his Word are so certaine and manifestly true that they be approved not onely by the infallible testimonies of holy Scriptures but of Ethnickes also Act. 7.51 c. and doth openly reprove the blindnesse of the unhappy Jewes but how the word is in God no Christian man must be too curious to search those things which be spoken of God which be so attemperate unto our capacity that they be spoken upon some likenesse rather then according to any exact property of Gods Nature and Essence And because we should not thinke of God to be onely but an Essence but as a most high and excellent Essence dissevered and separated from all others as well spirits as bodies he is called Jehova Ebrew word as existent every where in all places and making Greeke preserving and governing all things and is called God which is piercing and passing thorow and to signifie that he is the same to the end of the world as the minde is in man they called him the Mind the Word and the Spirit to give us to understand that the same infinite Essence in Godhead doth not altogether rest in it selfe and keepe his vertue goodnesse and wisdome to himselfe alone but rather set it forth and reveale it even as the mind of man cannot be idle but doth expresse in word whatsoever it doth conceive in it selfe by the meane of the spirit which is as it were the Conduit whereby the word is brought forth from the deepe secret parts of the mind Similitude As for example Imagine that God the Father were like as a lively and endlesse Fountaine and his Sonne the Word to be as a River continually flowing out of this Fountaine and that the holy Spirit might be the very moving and flowing out whereby the water floweth out of the compasse of the Fountaine which moving cannot be without the moving of the aire The Word is the Sonne of God Now whereas this Word is called the Sonne of God it is like as if a man should call the River the sonne of the Fountaine and our word that wee doe speake the sonne of the Mind but all this is but by way of accommodation to our weakenesse for no Angel were able to utter nor no man able to understand him if he did only speake of the Nature and Essence of God as it is in it selfe What wee ought to judge of this Word of God no man is able better to set it forth then the holy Scripture did expresse by the Evangelist Saint John where he saith In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word John 1.2 3 4 5. the same was in the beginning with God all things were made by it and without it was made nothing that was made In it was life and the life was the light of men and the light shined in the darkenesse and the darkenesse received it not and a little after Verse 14. and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among u● and we saw his Glory as the Glory of the only begotten Sonne of the Father full of Grace and Truth Now touching the Incarnation it is said 1 Joh. 4.3 that the Word was made flesh which is nothing else but the Word was made man now whereas hee saith that the Word was made man of which he said now before that it was God he doth without contradiction say that God was made man or flesh and though the Apostle saith God the Word is made flesh it is not said of the Father neither of the holy Spirit but the Word to be Incarnate not onely for that that he is the Sonne in Godhead and that by him the world was made but for this cause also chiefly because the Word is that Counsell coeternall with God the Father purposed to save man-kinde in whom our Redemption is predestinated even from everlasting in whom also wee

unto men to bee justified therefore good workes doe not precede a man to bee justified but follow him being justified as the effect and fruit of faith that is our workes shall bee our witnesses what wee are in heart and what wee are in fayth Rom. 4 22.23 Eph. 2.10 but by faith wee are justified and made righteous in the sight of God Saint Paul saith not that wee are the creatures of God in Christ through good workes but that wee are created of God in Christ to doe good workes Againe you are saved by grace through faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God Vers 8 9. not of workes least any man should boast himselfe Math. 9.22 29. Marke 5.34 10.52 Luke 7.50 8.48 Acts 26.18 John 1.12 Our Saviour Christ as it is in sundry places of the Evangelists recorded saith often thy faith hath saved thee onely believe believe onely and thou shalt receive remission of sinnes and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in mee as many as believe in me to them hath God given power to become the sonnes of God whosoever believeth in me shall not be condemned shall not perish but have everlasting life these be the words of our Saviour Christ now Saint Paul saith Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ Acts 16 31. and thou shalt be saved Gal. 3.8 Rom. 4 3 c. God doth justifie through faith we are blessed by faith we are the children of Abraham yea we are the children of God by faith the righteousnesse of God commeth by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe If therefore thou confesse with the mouth of the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God raysed him from the dead thou shalt bee saved for with the heart man believeth unto righteousnesse Rom. 3.24 c. and with the mouth man confesseth unto salvation Wee are freely justified by his grace through faith but justification is onely proper to Gods children so that all prophane and ungodly people are out of possibility to bee justified and made righteous in the sight of God this is proved by Saint Paul to the Romans Rom. 8.3 Whom he predestinated them also he called and whom he called them also be justified And againe justification is a righteousnesse in the sight of God that is such as have a true a living and a saving faith and by faith wee doe apprehend the righteousnesse of Jesus Christ God is content to accept of such in the righteousnesse of his Sonne and to obscure their sins and to make them to appeare and stand before him as actually and verily just by his imputative righteousnesse as if they had wrought it personally in the practise of their owne lives If any make demand how can these things be I answer with the Apostle Vers 33 34. Rom. 5.1 It is God that justifieth who shall condemne Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Iesus Christ Thus farre Saint Paul whereby we may see that if justification and salvation should bee attributed to the merits of mans good workes it would occasion boasting and glorying in the flesh and challenging of our justification and salvation as due to the merit of our good workes and so much ab●te and abase the glory of Gods grace that grace should then no more deserve the name of grace The Scripture is full of proofes in this argument looke Gal. 2.16 Rom. 3.21.22.28 30. Act. 13.38 Rom. 1.29.30 31. but if Justification and Salvation be as it ought to be wholly given and ascribed unto Gods grace and mercy promised unto us in Christ Jesus which we doe apprehend and lay hold of onely by faith as the onely instrumentall cause under Gods grace then is all the glory and honour of our justification given onely unto God without any merit of man and so as it is said before is concluded that we meane not by faith onely to exclude the doing but the meriting of good workes Seeing that none can be saved but those that are first justified and seeing none can be justified but they that have a true living and a working faith It behoveth all men to have a principall care to have the assurance of this faith that so they may be sure to be justified that they may be sure to be saved And because all men are naturally prone to deceive themselves with flattery and favourable opinion of themselves and their owne actions because Saint James and so the Scripture James 2. in many places doth utterly dis-inable an idle dead and a fruitlesse faith from the office of Justification it therefore neerely concerneth all men seriously and without private respect to examine their faith and compare their faith and their workes together that their workes being good those workes may justifie their faith to be a living and a saving faith and that they content not themselves with a bare and common historicall faith the which the Divell and the damned soules may have but that their faith may be approved good by the sufficient testimony of their good works without which their faith cannot be good For as the tree is knowne by his fruit and as it is impossible to gather grapes of thornes or figs of thistles even so is our faith judged by our workes and so it is impossible that good workes should proceed from an evill faith or that a good faith should not produce good works good works being a necessary dependance upon a good faith This ought to provoke all men to an emulation of godly exercise to contend to exceed in holy actions and to square and fashion all their workes by their faith Note and to make every act of theirs a testimony that they are truly faithfull For he that is not with us is against us and those workes of ours that witnesse not for us will be witnesses against us and will condemne us in the sight of all men that our faith is not good or not at all and that therefore wee are not justified neither can be saved This may judge all those actions of men that disproportion a good faith and a good conscience For though men flatter themselves and promise peace to their soules and thinke to be justified and saved by a bare acknowledgment of God and their common historicall faith yet in a time when they thinke not on 't Note their ungodly workes will make warre upon their soules and bring upon them a sure and a sudden destruction Againe seeing justification is a meanes ordained by God to bring us to salvation this ought to move all men to a faithfull acknowledgement of Gods love who onely is the principall and first moving cause in every circumstance of our salvation and that we doe acknowledge our selves in great humility to be altogether defective and unable in the worke of our owne salvation and that every grace in us is

power distinguished in three persons the power is not divided every person in the Deity equall and in just comparison all of them but one God and every person God all of them conspiring the same ends from eternity to eternity this ought but is not the condition of men Princes and the great on earth Psal 82.6.7 are called gods these ought like God to combine themselves in holy action and to bend their power against the enemies of God and man sinne and the sinfull and not with implacable displeasure Such are merely politique respect greatnesse without goodnesse to destroy themselves and their estates with civill disagreements for though God say they are gods he saith they shall dye like men and if evill men they are then no gods but divells enemies to God enemies to the good and as in the nature of God mercy doth triumph and hath pre-eminence Mercy the best proof of goodnesse so in all the godly there should be a gracious pitty with which they ought to be most affected and God himselfe best pleased When I had thus considered the nature of God his Omnipotency his Mercy and other Attributes The cause is every mans duty it caused me to question my owne life and to search the records of my owne actions whereby I understood the truth of my miseries that I was guilty and deserved death and torments Mans desert as if the Justice of God had given sentence against mee then was the knowledge of Gods Majesty a terrour unto me I conceived in my feare the very forms of his indignation and I began to feele in my soule the very terrour of condemnation as if God had given sentence Mercy gives hope in greatest extremity and my soule in the sence of execution In this astonishment I remembred mercy and that God was so delighted in the use thereof as that he carefully watcheth cause and opportunity to give it Acknowledgment most necessary I did therefore acknowledge and submit my selfe to favour God did descend his greatnesse accepted my acknowledgement and gave me the allowance of his mercy then I reduced to memory what my Saviour had done for the Redemption of mankind The promises onely belong to the faithfull and penitent what he had promised the faithfull what the penitent I believed received strength and had my hope established and growing bold with these encouragements I desired and obtained the Sonne of God to restore me the Spirit of God to continue me restored reformed How to judge of good and evill then could my soule receive content in divine meditations then could I despise the profits of the earth and the vaine pleasures of men then could I justly value the honours of this life weigh them with vanity and esteeme them lighter then could I discerne vertue in poverty and holinesse in a contemptible degree of fortune The benefit of patience then I could see the patient beare their load with alacrity and secretly scorne at the base estimation of the earth Thus a reformed Judgement can teach to know and love know and hate let mee love and be beloved of God let me hate and be hated of the World These and many other things attributed to God in Scriptures teach us of what manner his Nature is that is to say good loving kind mercifull faithfull true upright just liking the humble and abhorring the proud The things of nature in God be everlasting slow to revenge wise and foreseeing and being so not by other helpe nor by chance but naturally and of himselfe it followeth that the like nature must for ever and unchangeably keepe in him which thing bringeth unto the faithfull an incredible comfort But in case we finde any other in him than this wee must understand that it is by some speciall sufferance and onely for a time and yet for all that the quality of his Nature in no point altered though some time he seemeth contrary to himselfe Psal 18. but that is to the ungodly perverse and to the destruction of them but the good and godly finde him alwaies such as his nature is The fire at Babylon seemed to have lost his nature A similitude when it saved harmelesse the three Children cast into the Oven but yet it used the strength of his nature toward them Dan. 3.20 c. which made the fire even so wee must thinke of God and alwaies marke what he doth by sufferance to punish the malice of the wicked and what also hee doth according to the quality of his Nature Rom. 11.33 O the deepenesse of the riches of the Wisdome and Knowledge of God how unsearchable are his Iudgements and his waies past finding out Of the Creation of the World THe Creation of the World hath beene the admiration of all men that knew not God nor believed Scripture Wisd 13. because their understanding was darkned wanting divine light they were not able to comprehend the knowledge of so high a secret Therefore the Philosophers have vainely and diversly disagreed in their severall constructions of the beginning of the World The vaine opinion of Philosophers some denying that the World ever had beginning but that it was derived by the power of nature from all eternity and eternall perpetuity to maintaine which absurdity they would demand how God made the world what instruments hee used in the building of so wonderfull a frame and withall holding that God could worke no otherwise then the order and meanes of secondary causes would beare and leade him unto But the truth is God is free in operation God is free in operation and not tied to any second cause or secondary meanes without which he can doe what he will and that which he doth by them and can alter and change them at his pleasure wherein may appeare their grosse mis-understanding of God his Nature that he like man If wee cannot conceive Gods wonderfull workes much lesse his unsearchable wisdome could not worke without the helpe of meanes and instruments Others more true more learned concluded that of necessity the World must have a beginning and that there was a Power Eternall which made moved and governed all things and the reason that the World was not eternall had this sufficient argument That the World did suffer detriment and decay in it selfe and the Elements had lost the purity of their nature which they had in the beginning the moving of the spheares and celestiall bodies which of all things in the World are most constant had endured some alteration so that nothing in the World All worldly things subject to alteration but did suffer a change which could not be if it were eternall This grounded reason did convince the common opinion of the Worlds eternity and did prevaile with them that could not be perswaded but by the power of reason This is not to perswade Christians but infidels and epicures