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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
state_n	faith_n	grace_n	justification_n	1,459	5	9.0615	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26998	The Protestant religion truely stated and justified by the late Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter ; prepared for the press some time before his death ; whereunto is added, by way of preface, some account of the learned author, by Mr. Danel Williams and Mr. Matthew Sylvester.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Williams, Daniel, 1643?-1716.; Sylvester, Matthew, 1636 or 7-1708.	1692 (1692)	Wing B1359; ESTC R1422	79,512	227

are thought to make the reward to be of Debt and not of Grace and that are set in the least opposition or competition with Christs Merits or in any place save commanded subordination to him nay he says he firmly holds That Works done with a conceit of obliging God by Merit in commutative Justice or as conceited sufficient without a Saviour and the pardon of their failings do more further their Damnation than Salvation Yea p. 97. none but Christ merited of strict distributive Justice according to the Law of Innocency nor by any Works that will save from the charge of sin and desert of death And that thou mayest know what he ascribes to our Graces Holiness or Works He tells us p. 119. we mean by Merit but the moral aptitude for the reward of a free Benefactor who also is Rector when the ordering of a free gift suspended on official conditions is sapientially made a means of procuring obedience This one Clause if understood and he is a bold Traducer of so great a Man that cannot understand words so plain will acquit Mr. B. and inform thee of the place of all Gospel Conditions 1. All Gospel-blessings are the free gifts of Christ as Benefactor they have their being without any regard to what we do therefore nothing in man is a jot of the righteousness or merit for which they are bestowed 2. Christ is our Rector or Governor he will rule us as well as be beneficent to us 3. As a means to incline us to comply with him as Rector he suspends these blessings on terms of what he makes our Duty and wisely orders them as Motives to our Obedience 4. Any Act of our Obedience is no more than a conformity to that Order of his and doth not hinder all we receive from him to be of free gift Obj. But he saith that good Works are necessary to Salvation Answ He doth so and how few deny it But 1. Not if a man dye as soon as he be converted but if he have time p. 94. 2. Their rewardableness is by Gods free Grace and Promise for the sake of Christs meritorious Righteousness Sacrifice and Intercession their imperfection being pardoned and their holiness amiable through him These are his words p. 76. 3. He saith Not without or as a supplement to the Sacrifice Merits and free Grace of Christ our Saviour and Faith in him p. 93 75. And we give our selves to Christ as our Prophet Priest and King to be saved by his Merits p. 94.4 He saith our best Works will not save a man from the charge of sin and desert of death p. 97. 5. He denies that external Obedience is necessary to our admission into a justified state as he shews in the Thief on the Cross And when he saith we are justified by our Faith Godliness and Works Justification is not taken by him for the pardon of sin which he ascribes wholly to the Merits of Christ but he takes Justification there for our acquittance against the accusation that we are Infidels Ungodly and Hypocrites And saith that against the charge that we are Sinners deserving Hell we are justified by Christ believed in p. 94. His meaning is plainly this Christ alone by his Merits forgives our sins and purchased eternal Life for us But seeing that Christ hath promised to forgive none but the penitent Believer and declared he will destroy all impenitent unbelieving ungodly sinners Now he thinks that we must be truly acquitted that we are not such or we shall not be saved by Christ Yea he thinks that when God justifies a man for Christs Merits he doth also declare a man to be a true Believer because he will justifie no other and will justifie all such and when God admits a man into Glory he doth even thereby adjudge him a believing penitent holy and upright man and free from the charge of being an infidel hypocritical unholy Enemy against whom the Gospel denounceth Vengeance and bars relief Let these things be weighed and none will wonder that he should say on his sick bed No works I will leave out works if he grant me the other And truly in health none spake more humbly of his own Works than he used to do But because some confident weak persons have inferred from that passage that he changed his Principles when he came to dye we shall inform thee that after that passage was utter'd by him even the night before his death Mr. Baxter was asked whether he was of the same sentiments as formerly about Justification He answered That he had told the World sufficiently his thoughts about it by several Writings and otherwise and thither he referr'd them And after a little pause with his Eyes lifted up to Heaven he cryed Lord pity pity pity the Ignorance of this poor City And in the time of his sickness he declared to us and others that his thoughts in these things were the same as formerly Our regards to Mr. B. force the Publication of what we here insert tho' we would not be judged so happy as to arrive at his Light to lead us to a full Agreement with all his Sentiments As to this Book we wish there be not still great need of such helps against Popery and we are assured it will give more light than some greater Volumes on this Subject That God may render it useful shall be the Prayer of Thy Servants in the Gospel Daniel Williams Matthew Sylvester Protestant Religion Truly Stated and Justified c. THE Deceiver calleth his Book The Touchstone of the Reformed Gospel as if he owned a Gospel distinct from that of the Reformed Church And he undertakes to name fifty two points which the Protestants affirm but tells you not where nor proveth his affirmation but you must believe him as a Touchstone of Truth Dec. The first Protestant affirmation feigned is That there is not in the Church One and that an infallible Rule for understanding the Holy Scripture and conserving of Vnity in matters of Faith Answ A meer Lye if he mean that this is any part of Protestant Doctrine but he may find as crude confused words in some ignorant person that is called a Protestant The Reformed Catholicks hold that there is in the Church one and that an infallible Rule for understanding the holy Scripture and conserving of Vnity in matters of Faith And that Rule is The Evidence of its own meaning as inherent in its self discernible or intelligible by men prepared and instructed by competent Teaching and Study and the necessary help of Gods Grace and Spirit This is that Rule But the Reformed believe not 1. That there is any Rule by which ignorant prejudiced heretical wilfully blind wicked uncapable men can understand such Scripture as they are hereby undisposed to understand unless by a great change made on themselves Nor that any Prince can make a Statute which on Man can misunderstand abuse or violate 2. Nor that Men can understand it

tell him You must believe us that are the Mouth of the Pope and the Pope tho' you think that the Word of God is against it Speak out Deceiver would you have all Men be of their Rulers Religion or not Should the Jews have believed the Church that Christ was a Blasphemer Deceiver and Traytor and the Apostles Seditious Fellows Must we be Mahometans under Turks Persians and Indians and Papists under Papists And why not Lutherans under Lutherans also And so our King shall be our God and our Religion humane Or must Men judge what is true or false good or bad by their own understandings Do Kings and Prelates Rule Men or Dogs and Brutes If Cromwell say He is Supream and King Charles say He is Supream tell us whether we must not use our own understandings to know which of them to believe and obey And must we not do so if the World the Flesh and the Devil say one thing and Christ another And I pray you tell us whether that be Religion that is not Divine and whether it be not our own understanding that must distinguish between God and Man Did not Vulgar Folly fit slothful Fools for Hell they would easily perceive that Popery engaging them to renounce their own understandings maketh us all Voluntary Brutes to gratify the ambition of Men and puts down God from being our Governour and Man from being a Voluntary Subject and turns the Kingdom of Christ into the Kingdom of Beasts The Sixth Point accused That St. Peters Faith hath failed Ans Who could more ignorantly have stated a Controversie 1. Protestants are further from the Opinion that Peters Faith failed than the greatest Papist Doctors Some Protestants hold that no Man that hath true saving Faith doth ever totally lose it much less Peter Others hold that no Elect Person that hath true Faith doth totally lose it And so thought Augustine Others add that though some as Calvin speaks qualecunque semen sidei perderint having no more immutable Grace than Adam had in Innocency yet all that have a Confirmed Radicated Habit persevere And as to Peters Faith all save those called Arminians agree as far as I know that his Faith was not totally lost nor Peter relapsed into a State of Damnation But will all the Jesuits say as much We commonly hold that the Habit of Peters Faith must be distinguished from the Acts and the Act of Assent from the Act that exciteth Confession and conquereth Opposition And that Peters Faith did not totally fail as to the Habit nor the Assent that Christ was the Messiah But that it actually failed as to the latter Act that should conquer Fear Christ said to him and the rest before that Why are ye fearful O ye of little Faith Little Faith is Faith failing in Degree This is our Victory over the World even our Faith saith St. John And did not Peters Faith fail as to part of that Victory when he Curst and Swore that he knew not the Man But by Peters Faith this Deceiver meaneth the Popes Faith And he instanceth in the Scribes and Pharisees that were to be heard because they Sate in Mose's Chair and in Cajaphas the High-Priest Reader see what Christians these Slaves of Christs pretended Vicar are Doth he not plainly infer that the people did well that believed the Priests and the Scribes and Pharisees that Christ was a Deceiver and workt Miracles by the Devil and was a Blasphemer and a Traytor and deserved Death and that cryed Away with him Crucifie him And what wonder if they obey their High Priest when he Commandeth them to Murther Thousands and Hundred Thousands Saints Nicknamed Hereticks when they justifie them that killed Christ and the Apostles because the Church Commanded it unless they will renounce their own plain Consequence And must we indeed believe that the Popes Faith never failed because Peters did not Then we must believe that General Councils that are their Church have been very false and slanderous Reader I will give thee but an Account of one or two when their own most flattering Historians have written of many a long time that they were rather Apostatict than Apostolici and named but to keep the Account of time The great General Council at Constance that Burnt John Hus and Jerome of Prague for Truth and Honesty finding three Popes Heading three Churches called Roman Catholicks had no way to return to Unity but by putting down all three With much adoe they got down two of them But Pope John at Rome had the fastest hold and they had more adoe to get him down and had not the Emperour resolved to back them they had been foiled Hereupon he is accused in the Council First by Fifty Four Articles of such Monstrous Villanies as one would think humane Nature were uncapable of Afterward many more are added of Poysoning Pope Alexander of Incest with his Brothers Wife and the Holy Nuns and Ravishing Maids and Adultery with Men's Wives and much more and of Simony almost incredible And amongst the rest which I forbear to recite lest I tire the Reader they say and prove that he was a notorious Simoniack and a portinacious Heretick That oft before divers Prelates and other Honest Men by the Devils perswasion he pertinaciously said asserted dogmatized and maintained that there is no Life Eternal nor any after this And he said and pertinaciously believed that Man's Soul dieth with the Body and is extinct as are the Bruits And he said that the Dead rise not contrary to the Articles of the Resurrection c. These Articles being shewed to the Pope he confest his Sin and consented to be Deposed and begged Mercy but all in Hypocrisie while he sought to get out of their Hands and Power And now Reader dost thou think that it is the mark of a Heretick and deserveth Burning and Damnation for a Man to think that this Popes Faith failed Were it not for tiring you I would repeat such Articles against many others of them as would make you think that not only the Heathen Philosophers but even Mahomet was a Saint in comparison of these Swinish and Diabolical Popes After this the Great Council at Basil accused Eugenius the 4th of Heresie and multitudes of horrid Crimes and deposed him But he outfaced them and standing it out to the last got the better and the Succession is ever since continued from this Pope that was deposed by a grand General Council Before these Pope John the 12th was deposed by a Council at Rome called by Otho the Emperour for such horrid Villanies as no Pagans that we read of ever matcht Read them but in Baronius and Binnius Drinking Healths in Wine to the Devil and calling at Dice upon Jupiter and Venus besides Murders Simony Incest and all Wickedness are all consistent with Papal Faith And if this be no failing I shall grant that the Popes Faith nor the Devils can never fail The Seventh accused Point That the

good Works that are our Obedience to the Law of Christ are but the performance of our Baptismal Covenant and the Fruits of Faith without which it is dead Hypocrisie and are of absolute necessity to Salvation to all that have time to do them Against the charge That we are Sinners deserving Hell we are justified by Christ believed in Against the accusation That we are Infidels Ungodly Hypocrites we must be justified by our Faith Godliness and Works or perish But we do also hold 1. That if a man be convicted as the Theif on the Cross and should die suddenly no outward good which he cannot do is absolutely necessary to his Salvation but only his inward Faith Love and Repentance and Confession if able 2. We do firmly hold that Works done with a conceit of obliging God by Merit in commutative Justice or as conceited sufficient without a Saviour and the pardon of their failings are such as more further Damnation than Salvation at least in those that hear the Gospel 3. And we are no Papists and therefore believe not that ignorant words of Prayer in a Tongue not understood and wearing Reliques and going on Pilgrimages and needless confessing to Priests and subjection to an universal Vice-Christ and living upon the Blood of Saints Murdering the Living and praying to the Dead and the Sons honouring their Days Relicks and Monuments whom their Fathers Burnt or Persecuted these are not Good Works necessary to Salvation as is plain Math. 23. and Revel 14.17 18 c. We do with Paul renounce all Works of our own that are thought to make the Reward to be of Debt and not of Grace and that are set in the least opposition or competition with Christs Merits or any place save commanded Subordination to him The Two and Twentieth accused Point That no Good Works are Meritorious Ans The word Merit is ambiguous and so abused by Papists that indeed the Protestants are shyer of it than the Fathers were lest the use of it should cherish the abuse 1. There is Merit of man and of God 2. And this in Commutative Justice conceited or only in Governing distributive Justice 3. And this is either according to the Law of Innocency or Moses or according to the Law of Christ Now Protestants hold 1. As to the Name that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worthy and worthiness are Scripture words and may be used and Merit is but of the same signification and we condemn not the Ancients that so used it But the worst Sence must not be cherished 2. Do they hold 1. That no Creature can merit of God in Commutative Justice that giveth quid pro quo to his Benefit God receiveth not from Man or Angels unless he will call Acceptance and Complacence Receiving 3. None but Christ merited of strict Governing Justice according to the Law of Senceless Innocence nor by any Works that will save man from the charge of Sin and desert of Death 3. All at Age that will be saved must have good Works according to their Capacity for Christ is the Author of Salvation to all those that obey him Heb. 5.9 Tho' they obey not an unknown Priest at Rome But all these Works are our Obedience to Christs own healing Government such as the Laws of a Physician to the Sick And we all agree that he will Judge that is Justifie or Condemn in Judgment all men according to their Works that is according to the Law and it's promulgation by which in their several Ages and Nations he governed them 4. Your own Doctors that know what they say tell us that by Merit they mean nothing but the Rewardable quality of their acts related to Gods promise through Christs Merits And doth any Protestant Church deny this The Three and Twentieth accused Point That Faith once had cannot possibly be lost Ans Still confused slander and deceit Protestants hold 1. That the Faith not rooted prevalent and saving is frequently lost such as you call sides informis 2. That even sincere Faith may be lost as to the Act for some little time that is suspended in a deliquium as Peters and theirs Luk. 24. that said We trusted this had been he c. 3. That many lose to the Death some degree of their habitual Faith 4. But they differ in the rest just as you do among your selves Dominicans and Jesuits 1. Some think that no one at Age at least in a State of such Faith as at present would have saved him doth ever totally lose it 2. Some think that many have but such loseable Grace as Adam had 1. As being not Elect to Salvation and therefore not in Gods decree of Preservation and Perseverance 2. As having a Faith not Rooted and Confirmed And that these may fall from a justified State But that 1. The Elect. 2. Nor the Confirmed never fall away This was Austins Judgment and his followers of which see Vossii Theses And is that Jesuit honest that feigneth this proper to the Protestants where the Controversie is the same among themselves The Four and Twentieth accused Point That God by his will and inevitable decree hath ordained from all Eternity who shall be Damned and who Saved Ans What a false Deceiver is this that would make us believe that this is proper to the Protestants when it is the Common Doctrine not only of the Dominicans but of the very Jesuits themselves and all their Church 1. None of them dare say that men are Damned or Saved without Gods foreknowledge nor against his absolute will by overcoming his Power 2. None of them dare say that this fore-knowledge of God was not from Eternity but that he knew one day what he knew not before 3. All that the Jesuits themselves say is that God decreed it upon this fore-knowledge and that he hath a Scientia media what will come to pass positis quibusdam if such and such things be done by man and that this fore-knowledge in order of Nature is before the Decree but both from Eternity But Cardin Cameracensis Petrus de Aliaco hath irrefragably confuted this imposing Priority and Posteriority of act on God tho' I think some Divine acts as denominated only Relatively from the order of Objects may be so distinguished 4. In all this we say not that God hath by his will and decree ordained from Eternity or in time that men shall sin or will and choose Evil but only who shall be Damned for sin which God never willed or caused but foresaw not as if he were an idle Spectator but a willing suspender of his own acts so far as to leave Sinners to their self-determining wills 5. But God being the cause of Good and Men and Devils of Evil our Salvation is of him and our Destruction of our selves and therefore God decreeth not Men's Salvation or Sanctification meerly on foresight of our Faith but decreeth our Faith it self Sin he permitteth but Faith he effecteth and decreeth

separating from the far greater part of the Christian World because they refuse Subjection to this usurping Vice-Christ and judging all to Fire and Ruine that renounce not all humane Senses and worship not Bread pretended to be deifyed by daily numerous Miracles of the basest Priests and deposing Kings that will not be such Executioners and justifying their Subjects in Perjury and Rebellion We will not differ with you for the Name whether you will call those that are such Antichrists or Diabolists Whether such a State be the Babylon or far worse as sinning against more Light and by more horrid abuse of the Name of Christ against himself The Fourteenth accused Point That no man nor any but God can forgive or retain Sins Ans False as undistinguished We hold 1. That to forgive Sin being the forgiving of the Punishment of Sin and the obligation thereto 1. Parents may on just cause forgive Corrective punishment to their Children and Masters to their Servants 2. Magistrates may on just cause forgive Corporal punishment to Subjects 3. Equals may forgive Injuries to Friends and Enemies 4. Pastors may on just cause forgive the Church penalties of Excommunication which they had power to inflict And all the Flock must forgive and receive the penitent accordingly 5. When a Sinner by Faith and Repentance truly performeth the Condition of Gods pardon expressed in Scripture the Ministers of Christ are by Office authorized to declare and pronounce him pardoned by God and by the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper to Invest him in a pardoned State by delivering him a Sealed pardon But only Suppositively If his Faith and Repentance be sincere else he hath not Gods pardon of the Divine Punishment This is all true and plain and enough But we detest their Doctrine that say 1. That men can pardon the Spiritual and Eternal Punishment any otherwise than consequently declaring and delivering Gods pardon which shall hold good if the Priest refuse to declare or deliver it 2. Or that Popes or Priests pardon Purgatory pains and Masses and Money and the Redundance of Saints Merits and pleasing the Pope conduce thereto But if you will Speak so absurdly as to say that if the King send a pardon to a Traytor or Murderer the Messenger pardoned him we leave you to your phrases None of the Texts or Fathers cited speak for any more than what we hold The Pastors are to declare men pardoned that God pardoneth And while they so judge according to Gods Word it is pardoned in Heaven But not if they pardon the wicked and impenitent The Fifteenth accused Point That we ought not to confess our Sins to any man but to God only Ans This is a mere impudent Lie 1. We ought to confess our Sin to the Magistrate at his Judicature when we are justly accused of it 2. And to those that we have injured when it is needful to repair the wrong or to procure their forgiveness 3. And to those that we have tempted into Sin or encouraged in it when it is needful to their Repentance 4. And to some faithful bosome Friend when it is needful that such know our Faults that they may watch over us or advise us or pray for our pardon and deliverance 5. And when in Sickness danger of Death or other Affliction we get the Pastors of the Church to pray for us we should confess our Sin to them that they may know on what cause they speak to God for our forgiveness 6. And in any case of Guilt Trouble Fear or Difficulty in which we need the Pastors Counsel for our safety ease and peace of Conscience our selves and other Friends being insufficient hereto we should confess our Sins to the Pastors whose advice we seek As a Patient must truly open his Case to his Physician and a Clyent to his Councellor if he will not be deceived by deceiving them Is all this no Confession But Protestants believe not 1. That we must go to a Physician for every Flea-biting or Scratch or Cut-Finger or to a Lawyer to give him an account of all our Actions Money ot Lands nor to Priests in cases that our selves or ordinary Friends can safely and satisfactorily resolve 2. Nor that our Confessor must needs be a Papist Priest or one chosen by the Pope or our Enemies and not by our selves 3. Nor that we must open all our Secrets to him or make any Confession which will do more hurt than good nor over far to trust the Fidelity of a Knave nor a suspected or untryed person 4. And we have reason to suspect them that are importunate to know our Secrets 5. And when Confession is required as in order to obtain a false forged pardon and to set up the Domination of Usurpers over men's Consciences and over the World it 's then unlawful If Protestants would force Papists to confess all their secret Sins to them would not this same Deceiver say it were unlawful The Sixteenth accused Point That Pardons and Indulgences were not in the Apostles time Ans Another meer Lie as undistinguished Such Pardons as I before owned were in the Apostles times But the Popish feigned pardons were not The Seventeenth accused Point That the actions and passions of the Saints do serve for nothing to the Church Ans Most impudent calumny and falsehood 1. We hold that the Prayers of all the Saints on Earth are of great importance for the Churches welfare 2. And that their Doctrine Counsel and Reproof is so too they being the Lights of the World and the Salt of the Earth 3. And that their Example is of grea● benefit to the Church and World whi●● their Light so shineth before men that the● may see their good works and glorifie the●● Father which is in Heaven 4. And their Charitable Works of themselves sure are beneficial to the Church And so is their Defence of the Truth 5. And their Sufferings Glorifie Gods Power and his promises of reward and they encourage others to Victorious Constancy Do all these serve for nothing to the Church 6. Yea we are so far from holding what he feigneth that it is not the least cause of our hatred of Popery that it liveth by the Defamations Slander Persecution and cruel Murder of Saints 7. Yea as Abels Blood cryed against Cain so the Blood of Martyrs and dead Saints cryeth for Vengeance against the Persecutors of the Church 8. And seeing Christ saith that the Children of the Resurrection are like or equal to the Angels we have reason to believe that even now they are perfected Spirits Heb. 12.24 And knowing that Angels are very serviceable and beneficial to the Church on Earth we know not how far the Spirits of the just are so too But we have a sufficient Mediator and Advocate with the Father whose Sacrifice Merits and Advocation are perfect and need no supplement And the Spirits of the just do praise him as saved by his Merits and never boast that they