Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	believe_v	faith_n	impute_v	4,506	5	10.0193	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87879	An answer to the Marques of Worcester's last paper; to the late King. Representing in their true posture, and discussing briefly, the main controversies between the English and the Romish Church. Together with some considerations, upon Dr Bayly's parenthetical interlocution; relating to the Churches power in deciding controversies. To these is annext, Smectymnuo-Mastix : or, short animadversions upon Smectymnuus in the point of lyturgie. / By Hamon L'Estrange, Esqr.	L'Estrange, Hamon, 1605-1660.	1651 (1651)	Wing L1187; Wing L1191; Thomason E1218_2; ESTC R202717	68,906	120

Commandments we hold it impossible for any man in what state soever to observe any one much less all should God be extreme to mark what is done amiss yet we hold too that in some sort the whole Law may be fulfilled and that is in Saint Augustines sense a All the Commandments are then accounted observed when what is defective in our obedience is forgiven The Scripture Luke 1. 6. urged by his Lordship was produced long since by Pelagius and Augustines Answer shall be mine b Zachary was a man of singular sanctity yet was it necessary for him to offer sacrifice first for his own sins Hebr. 7. 28. So then if Zachary had sins he kept not all the Commandments for sin is but the transgression of the Law But it is said 1 John 5. 3. His Commandments are not grievous nor are they but are his Commandments there spoken of the Moral Law assuredly No Saint John will tell you clearly what they are chap 3. v. 23. That we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ And love one another Nor can we fulfill these Commandments but we must first be born of God v. 1. chap. 4. 7. So that an unregenerat person will not be able to set a step forward to that performance nor can our new birth render us so perfect as to say we have not sinned for that were to make God a Lyar 1 John 1. 10. The Marques saith the Fathers are for us But if they be why then did he not cite their words as well as vouch the places but I fear 't is otherwise for I cannot make out no not by conjecture what either Origen or Cyril or Hillary hath to his advantage Hierome indeed saith a It is in our power either to sin or not to sin but it is with this caution and Salvo pro conditione fragilitatis humanae as far as human frailty will admit And how little Hierome is for them his Commentary upon the Galatians ch. 3. will inform us where he saith b No man can fulfill the Law and perform all things which are commanded M. We say Faith cannot justifie without Works you say good Works are not absolutely necessary to salvation Here the Marques slides from the point and wilfully leaves his old wont of challenging our opposition for whereas he should have said You say Faith alone can justifie he tells us here we say good Works are not absolutely necessary to salvation Necessary to salvation is one thing necessary to justification another salvation and justification are different things one is the cause the other the effect We hold good Works are necessary to salvation but not absolutely The Thief upon the Cross was saved without them thousands who believe and are prevented by Death before their Faith can shew it self in Works are saved without them Infants dying are saved without them so they are not absolutely necessary no not to salvation but to justification they are not so much as necessary for as our Church saith We are justified by faith onely this will appear first by considering what things are required to justification and those are three first God's great mercy and grace secondly Christ's Justice in satisfying and paying our ransome and fulfilling the Law for us lastly by a true and lively faith in Gods free grace and Christ's merits So that good works are clearly outed Secondly faith alone justifieth without works because we are justified by faith before we can do good works and works are not good till justifying faith makes them so But though faith alone justifieth without works yet it cannot be alone and without them for impossible it is for any man to believe God will be gratious to him and that Christ's righteousness and merits shall be ever imputed to him who at that instant of believing doth not seriously and unfainedly resolve to obey and observe to his uttermost all God's Commandments The places of Scripture alleadged by the Marques against our Faith alone without Works are first 1 Cor. 13. 2. Though I have all Faith and have no Charity I am nothing There is faith indeed but no justifying faith 't is the faith of miracles Saint Paul tells us so chap. 12. v. 9. The faith mentioned Luke 17. 8. of removing mountains and so the Apostle would have told us in this very Text had not his Lordship by what faith I know not removed those mountains those words out of his way Secondly James 2. v. 24. By works a man is justified and not by faith onely This I confesse is an eminent place and hath exercised the wits of all Expositors how to reconcile it to that of Saint Paul Rom. 3. 28. A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law Many have gone several ways and some not the right Luther having beaten his brains about it a good while at last threw the whole Epistle of Saint James out of the Volume of Canonical Scripture Hugo Grotius that great Scholar of the latter Age hath taken it to task by it self and hath indeed shewn great Reading but I confesse as to the elucidation and clearing of the difficulty he makes me no wiser than I was before and indeed after all hath been said Aquinas his sense will I think have most voices that good works justifie declarative by declaring our faith before men not offective by making us just before God M. This opinion of yours Saint Augustine saith l. de fid. op. c. 14. was an old Heresie Augustine mentions it not as an Heresie but onely saith that in the Apostles time some misunderstanding that place of Paul Rom. 5. Where sin abounded there grace superaboundeth thought faith onely necessary to salvation and therefore neglected moral duties and sanctity of life and this we call the high way to Hell as well as Augustine Hillary in his 7. chapter or canon upon Matth. hath nothing tending to justification either solitary without or associated with works but can. 8. he is expresly at Fides sola justificat Faith alone justifieth Ambrose saith Eternal rest belongeth to those who have that faith Quae per dilectionem operatur which worketh together by charity So Ambrose and so say we M. We hold good works to be meritorious you deny it we have Scripture for it Our Church saith All the good works that we can do be imperfect and therefore not able to deserve our justification His Lordship produceth out of Scripture Matth. 16. 27. He shall reward every man according to his works Answer I confesse our Translation gives it so but the word in the original is not He will reward but {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} He will render But though reward be not there yet Matth. 5. 12. 't is said Great is your reward in Heaven and there is reward and great reward too and the Marques inferreth that Reward in the end presupposeth merit in the work but sure it is

much the odds of Rome M. We hold that every Minister of the Church especially the supreme Minister or Head thereof should be in a capacity of fungifying his Office in preaching the Gospel c. you deny it How his Lordship makes the Church do Penance and puts her head and heels together for how the supreme Head can properly be a Minister of that Church whereof it is Head passeth my understanding what our Church denieth is this It is not lawfull for any man to take upon him the Office of publique Preaching or ministring the Sacraments in the Congregation before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same And this is all his Lordship's Text urgeth M. Nor we onely deny it saith the Marques but so as that our Church hath maintained and practised it a long time for a Woman to be Head or supreme Moderatrix in the Church and many have been hanged drawn and quartered for not acknowledging of it I have read indeed of some such Women as his Lordship speaks of one in Revel. 17. 1. and by her fine cloaths vers. 4. she should be a Queen and as a Queen I am told she sits chap. 18. vers. 7. I will not say what that Queen is for fear I procure my self ill will Another who first made Rome the Mother-church And another in England called Qu. Mary who used that Title of Head of the Church and no offence taken at it having been conferr'd upon her Father by Act of Parlament in the time of Popery but her Sister Elisabeth thought it enough to be called supreme Governess who were martyr'd for not acknowledging her so neither can I nor doth his Lordship tell I shall say little to his Lordship's points of Absolution and Confession their practise is very antient and commendable and as in other cases our Church leaves them arbitrary so in some she injoyns them For Absolution you may see her form prescribed in the Liturgy in the Visitation of the Sick for Confession the Rubrick Paragraph 2. before the Communion M. We hold men may do Works of Supererogation this you deny Had not Supererogation or Superarrogancy rather been a saucy and malepert Tenet it might have given in good manners the Possibility of keeping the Commandments to have been before it for sure we should in reason be out of Gods debt before we bring him into ours But we must take it as we finde it nor am I ashamed to own what our Church holds viz. Voluntary Works besides over and above God's Commandments which they call Works of Supererogation cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety and she reasons from Christ saying plainly When ye have done all that are commanded to you say We are unprofitable Servants His Lordship voucheth onely one single Text and that of the Vow as he takes it of single life But I observe All hear not that saying but they to whom it is given so then it is a gift if we return no more than was given where 's the Supererogation and whereas the Marques tells us it is no Commandment had he consulted with the Greek Grammar he would have found {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} let him receive it in the Imperative Mood and therefore Athanasius calleth it Caeleste aeternae virginitatis mandatum the heavenly commandment of perpetual virginity The Fathers were I grant much enamored with the vow of continency as a condition of life more agreeable to the service of God than the coupled state usually is but they never thought it a work meritorious much less able to supererogate at God's hand If they held any such opinion the Marques should have told us their words for the places urged and quoted demonstrate no such thing M. We say we have free will you deny it Our Church saith We have no power to do goodworks pleasant and acceptable to God without the Grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will and working with us when we have that good will So then we deny not all free will not a free will to evil but to good for the Apostle speaking of us in an unregenerate state saith When we were dead in sin God hath quickened us together with Christ so that there is death first a total disability in us to good then there is the new birth quickned with Christ without this we live neither the life of faith nor of works not of faith for Whosoever believes is born of God 1 John 5. 1. not of works for Whosoever loveth is born of God also 1 John 4. 7. His Lordship's three Texts oppose not what we say 1 Cor. 7. 37. The Apostle speaks of a thing in its own nature indifferent and in such things free will we deny not Deut. 30. 11. Though Life and Death be there propounded to our choice yet doth it not follow that the power of chusing Life and Death is our own and if any say with Pelagius a God would not command what he knew we could not perform my Answer is with Augustine q God commands some things more than we can do to teach us what we are to crave at his hands Matth. 23. 37. We reade that the children of Jerusalem would not be gathered together which argueth a perversity and freeness of will to disobey Christ to obey him no power at all of our selves But there might saith his Lordship have been a willingness as well as an unwillingness else Christ had wept in vain True and there had been a willingness no doubt had God will'd their gathering by his secret and efficacious as well as by his revealed wil To his Fathers A folly it is to deny they many of them exprest themselves somewhat loosly in this point having to deal with those Philosophers who held the fatal necessity of all things went so far on the other side in advancing free will as they were in the ditch of error before they minded it yea Austin himself was a while in it till Pelagius with his Heresie roused him to look up and discover where he was Austin being awake first cals up the Church who upon serious consideration finding her Doctrine in this particular warped somewhat from the Truth by the heat of Disputation sets all those right in two eminent Councels first of Milevis where she saith a God saith not it is harder for you to do without me John 15. 5. but without me ye can do nothing at all Then that of Orange b It is the gift of God when we turn away our steps from wickedness We hold it possible to keep the Commandments you hold it impossible We do not hold it impossible to keep the Commandments we have kept them all we hold it is possible for some of them by some to be lost for we miss the second out of the first Table in the Popish Bibles but as touching observing the