Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	faith_n	grace_n	spirit_n	4,029	5	5.0239	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45142	The middle-way in one paper of the covenants, law and gospel : with indifferency between the legalist & antinomian / by J.H.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.	1674 (1674)	Wing H3693; ESTC R16428	27,351	35

according to this new Law and so for Christs sake accepted to Salvation In this sense am I apt to understand that everlasting Righteousness which is brought in by the Messiah or by his covenant in Daniel and in this sense do I construe that Title The Lord our Righteousness Only when I have said in my former paper that it is not appropriated to the second Person I desire not to be so taken as if I supposed that by the Branih in the two Texts of Jeremy where we find it Zcrubabble only was meant though a total silence in the new Testament of so pertinent a quotation for Christ if it were spoken of him might well tempt Grotius to that interpretation but that the Divinity of Christ being thereby asserted it is a Title that must belong to him as God and not as Second person For the Son is Lord and the Father is Lord and the Holy Ghost Lord and yet not three Lords but one Lord The Lord our Righteousness There is the uncreated absolute righteousness of God which is the Divine essence it self for as God is Truth in the abstract so is he Righteousness or the created relative righteousness of God that is his righteousness set forth in relation to us which consists in his dealing with us as his Creatures according to our conditions This relative righteousness then is double The Righteousness or Justice of God according to the Covenant of works and the righteousness or equity of God according to the Covenant of grace The one I count to be that our Divines call his Strict the other his Paternal Justice When God made man at first and gave him the Law of his Creation he was to deale with him according to this perfect Law and it was but equal according to his perfect state and this being the original righteousness as I may say of God in relation to us there are none of us but do find some sense of it in our hearts that makes us not so much only to fear as to be afraid of him under that apprehension But there is another righteousness then this which was ever afoot in the world since the promise of the womans seed or else there were no man could have bin Saved though it be said to be now manifested as brought in in Daniels phrase because the reason upon which it is founded that is mans reconciliation to God by Christ is revealed by the Gospel and this is the righteousness of God opposed to works or to his strict Justice which he was bound to exercise according to the Covenant of works that is so magnified by the Apostle And here now is a distinction to be used which I want Termes to express For this righteousness of God must be considered with regard to himself which is his dealing with us according to the Covenant of Faith for Christs sake when he might deale with us according to the Covenant of Nature if he would and with regard to us or to the condition upon which he does so mercifully deale with us As the Love of God is taken in Scripture both for his Love towards us and our Love of him So is the Righteousness of God taken for both these his dealing with us according to this covenant and the condition on our part which he accepts And hence is it that when it is called the Righteousness of God in one place it is called the Righteousness of Faith in another and in a third the Righteousness which is of God by Faith Now when it is our faith our repentance our new obedience which is the Righteousness of God it self taken help me to two Termes whereby we are justified in opposition to the works of the Law which no man can perform to be justified by them and our Divines by works will understand all good works even this faith it self as a work as was said and our Evangelical obedience insomuch as when there is no righteousness but what is without us can be opposed to these it makes them by the Righteousness of God to understand the Righteousness of Christ who is God and by faith the righteousness of Christ apprehended by Faith which are in good earnest conceptions so strained it appeares if I may use those words in humility how being ignorant of the Righteousness of God in the right notion and going about to establish in a contrary vein to the Jews a righteousness which is not their own but anothers in the stead of that which it is not they have not submitted to the truth in this Doctrin of Justification And here in now farther does appeare the ground of reconciliation between the Papists and us upon the point For when the one and the other let their Books be consulted do goe on the supposition that it is by the Law the Law of works that we are justified this Hypothesis being removed the opposition on both sides falls to the ground That no man can bring or plead any such righteousness of his own before God as answers the Law the Protestant must needs be in the right and consequently if it were by the Law that we must stand or fall at his Tribunal there was a necessity for their bringing in the righteousness of Christ made ours by faith as they do to justify us but when indeed it is not so when it is not I say by the Law but by the Covenant of Grace or by the Gospel that we are to be judged it is some wonder to me this plain truth should be no better understood That Gods judging a man to have performed the condition of the covenant of grace is the accounting or declaring him righteous and that Gods accounting a man righteous is his justification Let no man deceive you says St. John he that doth righteousness is righteous That righteousness which makes a man righteous and denominates him righteous is that righteousness which makes God account him righteous But this is the righteousness which he does Note it for it is express And what righteousness is that Why Not the righteousness of works which no man does but the righteousness of the Gospel that is in the stile of the other Apostle a righteousness without works to wit without the works of the Law or perfect works in the sense he sayes also God justifies the ungodly so that it is by Grace while it it by this Righteousness which does and must lean on the merits of Christ no less then we say Faith it self does that we are justified and saved That the end of Christs coming into the world of our redemption and the Covenant of Grace was that we should be holy and righteous is said ordinarily by Divines according to the Scriptures but the right and plain understanding or reason of what they say is not so ordinary He hath chosen up in Christ that we should be holy He hath redeemed us from iniquity that we should be a peculiar People We are his workmanship created unto

confounded As the Law is taken strictly or precisely for the Old Covenant or the Law of Moses with Circumcision its appurtenance that is for all that apart that was added to the promise before-going and abstracted there-from as I have said so are they distinguished and their differences to be owned and maintained In the next place we may understand from this how the Jews were under both conditions of Believing and Doing Of doing this and live and of believing also that they might be saved To wit As the Covenant of Grace was delivered to their fore-Fathers and so on foot before it must needs hold forth life to them on their Faith as well as to Abraham their Progenitour who received Circumcision as a seal of Righteousness thereby or to come thereby and not by the Law which as yet was not given And as the Law was added as the Apostle speaks to this Covenant or Promise it did tye the Jews to a performance of it as a condition of living by it in some sense as neither the Patriarks before nor we since are under and in regard whereof that which is said by a reverend person that the Old Testament-Spirit was a fearing Spirit with the like expressions are not without a truth in them that desires more consideration then One of late does give them Especially when the Apostle is so express that the Jews were under a School-Master and we are not under that School-Master That the Covenant from Sinai engendered to Bondage but where the Spirit of the Lord is or the New Testament is there is Liberty From this yet in the third place we may enlarge our light further to judge of that abrogation of the Law or deliverance from it which Christians have under the Gospel A glorious thing the Apostle counts it that puts us directly into such an estate and condition as the Patriarks and those holy men before Abraham were in to live according to the light and liberty of their Consciences that is according to the Law of Nature which as it is in the hands of Christ and not of Moses to wit as delivered from the Yoke of his Ceremonies and the superstition of Idolaters and administred with Grace and the Spirit with Grace in God's acceptation of our sincerity instead of perfect obedience for the Redeemers sake and with the Spirit in his assistance of us for the performance is both the Universal Religion of Man-kind and the substance of that which is Christian unto this day I should quote Eusebius De praep Evan. See his Ecc. Hist l. 1. c. 5. From whence also we see in the way how the Covenant of Grace which Abraham and all those holy men which went before him or that ever were have had as well as we is yet called the New Covenant and that is it is called New as the lump is called a new lump by the Apostle to the Corinths That Church was leavened by the ill example of vicious Members particularly of the incestuous person they are therefore commanded to cast him out and that they should not mingle themselves or keep company with the seandalous and in so doing they should become as it were a new body or lump though they were still otherwise but the same Community Purge out therefore the old Leaven that you may be a new Lump So is it with the Covenant it was made by God with all man-kind in Christ ever since the beginning of the World and confirmed to the Patriarchs it being impossible else that any should have been saved and yet it is called a New Covenant in relation to us under the Gospel because I say that that which was added to it by Moses to wit all that which properly is the Old Covenant is removed or purged away as the Leaven in the Jews Feast by Christ our Pass-over who hath been Sacrificed and made for us that expurgation And if that which is done away was glorious how much more that which remains That which is done away was the Ministration of death engraven in stone and of the Letter that killeth That which remaineth is the Ministration of the New Testament of the Spirit which giveth Life and of Righteousness That which remaineth I pray note it That cannot be said to remain which was not before extant The Covenant of Grace with the Patriarchs and the New Covenant with us being the very same as I have said but ours only called New or renewed upon the abolishing of that which was super-added as upon this remaining too it self never to wax old and vanish For the latter what kind of Covenant I take this to be I am now in order to tell you The Old Covenant as to me it seemeth was a kind of Political Covenant made with the Nation of the Jews as Princes compacts are with their people when they first set up Government God promises them his Protection that he would lead them to a fruitful Land overcome all their Enemies with the like blessings and they promise him they will be ruled by him To this purpose did God in sundry ways appear to them to Moses to their Elders to them all in the Clouds and Fire and then causes a Tabernacle to be made for him which was a Keeping house among them where the Sacrifices and Offerings was his Provision and the Priests his Servants that lived on him and unto that Tabernacle and Ark might they repair for Counsel and Judgment This People then being peculiarly under a Theocracy which Samuel in two places does expresly signify at least until the time of Saul so that the Church and Common-wealth of the Jews were but one according to the Apostle it is no wonder if Religion be made their Laws and so required of them together with other political Ordinances and Statutes for their happiness or publick peace as a Nation From hence is it that though their Law is not to be judged the Covenant of Works or the Covenant of Grace either of the two themselves yet may we expect that it should represent both the one and the other to them because in the knowledge of both does the business of Religion and the whole of it virtually consist In the delivery of the Moral Law and that with Thunder and Lightning and such Terrour as we read of it they had a representation of the Covenant of Nature which quafaedus is doubtless in our falne Estate a Ministration only of Wrath or Law of sin and death In their Ceremonial Offerings and Priestly appointments though there was a remembrance still of sin and so matter of bondage and sear yet had they types of Christ of remedying Mercy and the Glory to come These Sacrifices were brought directly as Mulcts to their King to deliver them from the danger of present punishment being Redemptions of their lives which else they should have forfeited by his Laws and served I have said to the maintenance of his house the Tabernacle and Temple which he was