Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	brazen_a	look_v	serpent_n	839	5	9.9901	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26883	Richard Baxter's Catholick theologie plain, pure, peaceable, for pacification of the dogmatical word-warriours who, 1. by contending about things unrevealed or not understood, 2. and by taking verbal differences for real,; Catholick theologie	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1675 (1675)	Wing B1209; ESTC R14583	1,054,813	754

as those as that Accusations against adversaries are to be believed without proof on one side and not on the other Gods Rule against receiving evil reports will be cast out and Charity and Justice will be cast away and meer siding and saction will possess the place And then all the question will be Who are those Accusers that are to be believed And if you think that it is your Teachers the Papists that have many more will think that they have more reason to believe them And ●● the Anabaptists will believe theirs and the Separatists theirs and the Quakers theirs and what falshood and evil will not then be believed against all parties and how odious will they appear to one another and consequently all Christians to Infidels and Heathens L. A man that is set upon a sodering design may palliate any Heresie in the world and put a fair sense on the foulest words but God hateth such cloaking of sin and complyance with it R. May not Papists Familists Seekers Quakers and all Sects say the same against Concord and Complyance with you I pray you tell me what you think of these following words before you know who wrote them and take heed what you say of them lest you strike you know not whom Quest How is Justification free seeing faith and repentance are required to it Answ There are two answers given One is from Augustines doctrine Epist 105. the summ is As Justification is taken inclusively taking in Faith and Repentance as its beginning it is free because faith is free But as it is taken narrowly for Justification following faith that is for Remission of sin and Reconciliation with God it is merited by faith But the other solution I more approve and it seemeth more agreeable to Scripture to wit that even Remission of sin it self and Reconciliation with God are given freely no Merit of ours going before and that neither by faith nor repentance we do merit the gift of this grace For understanding of which Note that Faith hath not of it self any efficacy as it is our act to Remit or Reconcile but all the Vertue proceedeth from the object it self that is Christ who●e Vertue and Merit God hath determined to apply to a sinner for his justification by faith in him And what I say of Faith I say of Repentance and other dispositions as in the example of them that looked to the Brazen Serpent who were healed by looking not that looking as it was an act of the eye had such a healing force but the effica●y was from the Serpent which God had appointed for the Ioure So we say of Faith which hath not in its nature and from its entity any power to Remit and Reconcile but as the Vertue of Christ doth this in believers And so I answer that If Faith justified as an act and of it self Justification were not free But so it doth not but is a Medi●m by Gods good pleasure by which the Vertue of Christ Justifieth believers therefore faith or repentance make it not l●ss free ● g. I give a Beggar a gift He puts forth his hand and taketh it If one tell me Thou gavest it not freely because he took it or else had not had it it were a ridiculous objection For putting forth the hand doth not of it self bring him a gift else every time that he puts forth his hand it would bring in a gift But it is from the vertue and bounty of the giver So is it as to faith and the dispositions by which the vertue of Christ and the free mercy of God do give Remission and Reconciliation to believers and disposed persons so that it taketh not away Christs Merit nor maketh Grace less free that faith or these dispositions are asserted L. I know not how much men may mean worse than they speak but these words are such as the best Protestants use R. They are the words translated of the aforesaid Fr. Tolet a Jesuit and Cardinal on Rom. 3. pag. 157 158 159. But still remember that by Justification they mean the holy effect of the Spirit on the soul and indeed by Remission of sin they most commonly mean the destroying or mortifying sin within us and ceasing to commit the act And they are dark and confused in these matters L. But do not Papists hold forgiveness of deserved punishment R. Yes but they bring it in disorderly and on other occasions But if they did not how could they hold that any sin past from our childhood till Conversion is Remitted or pardoned For the Act is past as soon as done factum infectum fieri non potest and so such past sins can have no remission but forgiving the penalty and healing the effects And wrangling Papists consider not that this is the Remission that Protestants mean who call their kind of Remission by the name of mortification And so we endlesly quarrel about words through our unhappy imperfection in the art of speaking and words being arbitrary signs the world is come to no agreement of their sense L. You confess then their confused Doctrine and you cannot excuse many of their Doctors from gross error herein R. No nor many honest pious persons that go for Protestants What Papists have more plainly subverted the Gospel by their Doctrine on these subjects than many of those called Antinomians have done by the contrary extream And who can justifie all the sentences and phrases of many eminent Divines among us yea or of many of the most wise and accurate For when all are much ignorant who can say I do not err L. But undoubtedly you will be as bitterly censured for these your favourable interpretations of the Papists in the point of Merit as if you were half a Papist your self and were but such a Mongrel as Erasmus Wicelius Cassander or Grotius or as if your Conciliatory designs would carry you as far at last as Grotius Mileterius Baldwin or at least as Mountague Guil. Forbes and such others went And others will then say that you are justly served for writing so much against Grotius and his followers on this account as you have done of which Bishop Bramhall and his Epistoler have already told you R. Truth honesty and Gods approbation change not as mens interests minds or tongues do Time will come that Truth will be more regarded when Love and Peace are to be revived unless God will forsake this contentious and unrighteous World And I am so near so very near that World where there is nothing but Truth Love and Righteousness and where God is All and the Fulness and felicitating object of holy souls and where the censures of men are of no signification that I am utterly unexcusable if I should betray the Cause of Truth Love and Concord to avoid the obloquy of men who speak evil of the things which they never understood The Thirteenth Dayes CONFERENCE Of the great errours sin and danger which many Ignorant Professours fall