Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	abraham_n	faith_n	isaac_n	4,666	5	10.9370	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30350	Four discourses delivered to the clergy of the Diocess of Sarum ... by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1694 (1694)	Wing B5793; ESTC R202023	160,531	125

the works of the law And by the tenor of the whole Discourse it is plain That by the works of the law are meant the Mosaical Precepts and not the Works of Moral Vertue For St. Paul had divided Mankind into those who were in or under the law and those who were without law that is into Iew and Gentile The design of the Epistle was not to give us Metaphysical Abstractions and Distinctions between Faith as it is a special Grace and Works or Obedience to the Laws of God but by Faith he means the entire receiving of the whole Gospel in its Commands as well as Promises for so he reckons Abraham's readiness to offer up his Son Isaac as an Act of his faith so that faith stands for the complex of all the Duties of Christianity and therefore his Assertion of our being justified by faith without the works of the law signifies no more than that those who received the Gospel who believed it and lived according to it were put in the favour of God by it without being brought under the obligation of the Mosaical Precepts The same Argument is handled by him upon the same grounds in his Epistle to the Galatians only there he gives a more explicite notion of that faith which justified that it was a faith that wrought by love So that in all St. Paul's Epistles he understands by faith the compleat receiving the Gospel in all its parts But whether these Expressions were any of those that St. Peter says the unstable wrested to their own perdition or not we see plainly by St. Iames's Epistle that some began to set up the Notion of a bare believing the Gospel as that which justified as if the meer profession of Christianity or the persuasion of its truth without a suitable Conversation justified For St. Iames speaks not of the works of law but of works simply and as he had just reason to condemn a Doctrine that tended to the total corruption of our Faith so he plainly shews that he did not differ from St. Paul since he takes his chief Instance from Abraham's Faith which made him offer up his Son Isaac upon the Altar by which he was justified so that faith wrought in his works and by works faith was made perfect And he concludes all That as the body without the spirit was dead so faith without works was dead also From whence it is plain that faith in St. Iames stands strictly for a believing the Truth of the Christian Religion and not for an entire receiving the Gospel which was the faith that St. Paul had treated of These things will appear so clear to any one who will attentively read and consider the scope of St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans and Galatians and the Discourse in St. Iames's Epistle that I am confident no scruple can remain in men that are not possessed with prejudices or over-run with a nice sort of Metaphysicks that some have brought into these matters by which they have instead of clearing them rendred them very intricate and unintelligible Their stating the instrumentality of faith in Justification their distinguishing it from Obedience in this but joining it with it in Sanctification are niceties not only without any ground in Scripture but really very hurtful by the disquiet they may give good minds For if the Christian Doctrine is plain in any one thing it must be in this which is the foundation of our quiet and of our hope It would make a long Article to reckon up all the different Subtilties with which this matter has been perplexed As whether Justification is an immanent or transient Act whether it is a Sentence pronounced in Heaven or in the Conscience or whether it is only a Relation and what constitutes it what is the efficient the instrument and the condition of it these with much more of the like nature filled many Books some years ago The strict sense of Iustification as it is a legal term and opposite to Condemnation is the absolution of a Sinner which is not to be solemnly done till the final Sentence is pronounced after death or at the day of Judgment But as men come to be in the state to which those Sentences do belong they in a freer form of speech are said to be justified or condemned And as they who do not believe are under condemnation and said to be condemned already that is they are liable to that Sentence and under those Characters that belong to it blindness obduration of heart and the Wrath and Judgments of God So such Believers to whom the Promises of the Gospel belong and on whom the final Sentence shall be pronounced justifying them are said now to be justified since they are now in the state to which that belongs They have the Characters of it upon them Faith Repentance and Renovation of heart and life by which they come to be in the favour and under the protection of God The Gospel is of the nature of a publick Amnesty in which a Pardon is offered to all Rebels who return to their duty and live peaceably in obedience to the Law and a day is prefixed to examine who has come in upon it and who has stood out upon which final Acts of Grace or Severity are to pass It is then plain that though every man is pardoned in the strictness of Law only by the final Sentence yet he is really in the construction of Law pardoned upon his coming within the Terms on which it is offered and thus men are justified who do truly repent of and forsake their sins who do sincerely believe not only the truth of the Gospel in general but do so firmly believe every part of it that acts proportioned to that belief arise out of it when they depend so much on the Promises that they venture all things in hope of them and do so receive the Rules and Laws given in it that they set themselves on obeying them in the course of their whole life and in a most particular manner when they lay claim to the Death of Christ as their Sacrifice and the means of their Reconciliation with such a Repentance as changes their inward Natures and Principles and such a Faith as purifies their hearts and makes them become new Creatures These are the Conditions of this Covenant and they are such Conditions that upon lower than these it became not the Infinite Purity and Holiness of God to offer us pardon or to receive us into his favour For without these the Mercies and Favours of the Gospel had been but the opening a Sanctuary to Criminals and the giving encouragement to Sin if a few howlings to God for mercy and the earnest imploring it for the sake of Christ and on the account of his Death would serve turn This every man under the least agony of thought will be apt to do especially when death seems to be near him and yet be still in all