Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	call_v	faith_n	justification_n	5,686	5	9.0220	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45147	Pacification touching the doctrinal dissent among our united brethren in London being an answer to Mr. Williams and Mr. Lobb both, who have appealed in one point (collected for an error) to this author, for his determination about it : together with some other more necessary points falling in, as also that case of non-resistance, which hath always been a case of that grand concern to the state, and now more especially, in regard to our loyalty to King William, and association to him, resolved, on that occasion / by Mr. John Humfrey.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.	1696 (1696)	Wing H3697; ESTC R16468	49,303	49

this ground is it that he opposes Grace and Works so often as he does in the business of Justification By Grace are ye saved not of Works Eph. 2.8 9. Who hath saved us not according to our Works but his Grace 1 Tim. 1.9 If by Grace then not of Works Rom. 11.6 Not by Works of Righteousness which we have done but according to his Mercy he saved us and yet by Regeneration it follows and renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 3.5 How is that Are we saved by at least not without Works wrought in us by the Spirit or Grace which regenerates us and yet Not of Works Again Not of Works least any Man should boast Eph. 2.9 10. yet it follows we are created in Christ Jesus to good Works To answer this St. Austine and from him the Schools distinguish of Opera Naturae and Opera Gratiae We are not saved by Works or according to Works done in our own strength but by Works done by Grace But is this the Apostles meaning No I have shewn in my Book of Justification that one thing of three wherein Austine was out and hath mislead the Schools is this Notion of Grace By grace he understands still this inherent Grace or Operation of God's Spirit in us when Paul understands it of that without us his Favour or Condescention to us Not of Works but of Grace is all one as not of Desert but of Favour only Grace is Mercy without or contrary to Merit Now when the Papist receives the Solution mentioned the Protestant generally will have all Works though of the Regneerate to be but Rags and Christ's Righteousness alone to save us But they are both out for Paul's meaning is plainer than they think Not by Works of Righteousness we have done The Righteousness which the Jew hath done is living according to the Law of Moses The Righteousness which the Gentile hath done is his living according to the Law of Nature There is neither one or the other that fulfil that Righteousness as answers God's Law so as it should be able to save him and therefore it is of Grace or Mercy that any are saved By this Key must that hard Text also be opened Rom. 9.16 So then it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth Mercy What Is there any that find Mercy or are saved but they that will and run I answer No but there is none of them that will and run do will and run so as would save them if God did not pardon their Failings and accept their Endeavours through the Merits of Christ The meaning is that seeing no Man hath those Works the Law requires to Salvation it is of Grace or of Mercy that we are accepted to Life on Another Condition Well now it being of Grace that we are Saved or Justified in opposition to Work 's and it being necessary that those Works be understood of such as the Law requires to Justifie us that is Perfect Works Meritorious Works which if we had we might boast and expect the Reward as of Debt and the reason why we are not justified by Works being because we have them not it follows that there is another Righteousness which is to be had short of that the Law requires to Justification not Perfect not Meritorious not such as would make the Reward due of Justice but such as needs Grace for the Acceptance Therefore it is of Faith that it might be of Grace and that I say which we must have for God cannot account a Man Righteous which is to justifie him that is not Righteous his Judgment being according to Truth And what Righteousness then is that a Man must have and be found in but that we call our Evangelical Righteousness the Righteousness of Faith The Just shall live by Faith Note it he is Just Righteous that lives or is Justified But how Righteous Not according to the Law but the Gospel Hence is the Gospel called the Ministration of Righteousness Hence do we read of a Righteousness brought in by the Messiah slain in Daniel Hence that we are chosen in Christ to be Holy That he hath redeemed us from Iniquity That the end or one end of his Death or Redemption is to make us Righteous as our Divines still say but I never found any satisfactory account of it by them The matter in short is you may see it fuller in my mentioned Book p. 43. that by Christ's Death a Law of Grace is obtained upon which our Faith and Repentance is accepted to Life or imputed for Righteousness or we made Righteous so when by the Law of Works there is none no not one Righteous or ever could be in the World Hence is this Righteousness called the Righteousness of God as being ordained and accepted by him instead of that I even now called the Righteousness of Man And which is of God by Faith instead of such Works which the Law required to Justification Hence lastly are we said to be Justified by Faith the most single and plain reason whereof is because that Faith to a true Believer is imputed for Righteousness Rom. 4.22 23 24. And Faith is said to be imputed to him for Righteousness because God does account such a one Righteous and deals with him as such in freeing him from Punishment and accepting him to Salvation through the Death and Obedience of our Redeemer Justification in which sense also he calls him the God of his Righteousness When as for any acceptance of him through the Righteousness of the Messiah to come a Righteousness without him made his by Faith which could abide God's district Justice I find not the Footstep of one such Thought To rely therefore I will say on Christ's Righteousness as ours without regard to any thing within or without regard to the Condition is self-deceiving But to rely on God's Mercy and on Christ's Merits for acceptance of what we do and Pardon for the Failings is Substantial Religion and of Justification by Faith in Christ's Blood a good Exposition I have now something more to be farther pondered on this Point The chief is That what I have said before about the Commutation of Persons that it is to be held in regard to the Impetration not Application of our Redemption I would offer over again likewise in regard to the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness I have said and say it over that this Phrase is not found in Scripture but I will acknowledge the thing in the true sense of it which is this Christ Jesus did really obey the Law and suffer its Penalty for us which is in our place or stead To do a thing now in my stead is for another to do it so as to save me the doing it Christ's Suffering and Obeying was to save us that Suffering and Obeying No says Mr. W. somewhere Christ suffered indeed in our stead that we might not suffer but not obeyed that we might not obey But if Christ

of the business There is one Mediator which is the common Appellation of the same import as Surety between God and Man the Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a Ransome for all to be testified in due time 2 Tim. 2.5 6. Christ was a Surety but a Surety in the Scripture Sense not in an Arbitrary Sense Christ was a Surety not in an Antinomian Sense but in a Sense which must be agreeable to every thing else that is said of him in Scripture This is safe and this is true and here I will stand by Mr. W. But whether Christ's Suretiship is to be made commensurate with his Priesthood to make good his or any others Notion of it I question It is no where said we have a Surety though a High Priest and Intercessor now in Heaven As for the Commutation in the next place then of Persons I acknowledge such a one accordingly as is necessary to the Impetration of our Redemption but I understand none so as to go into the Application Christ took on him our Flesh made Satisfaction in our stead and procured an Act of Grace or Pardon for all But there is no Commutation I know as to particular Persons in the Point of Justification If Christ made an exchange of his Righteousness with Peter for his Sins any otherwise than as to the Impetration of Pardon on condition that concerns all alike then Christ's Righteousness must now be Peter's and James and John could never have it In Christ's uniting himself to us by his taking our Nature Obeying Suffering satisfying God's Justice I acknowledge a Commutation even such to wit that our Sins were so imputed to him as that he died for them and in our stead understanding the Phrases aright and his Righteousness so imputed as to be the Cause that upon our believing we enjoy the Benefit But in Christ's uniting us to him by giving his Spirit to work in us that Condition whereby we have our Right to the Benefit there is nothing done by him in our stead nothing by us in his no new no other no father Imputation The Fruit of his Purchase Pardon and Salvation by a Law of Grace cannot be formaliter his and if that the communicates to us be not his how is there a Commutation Of this Sacrifice and Righteousness it self we are uncapable Of the Effect or Fruits Christ is uncapable What he hath not he cannot communicate what he hath we cannot receive It is true he hath receive potestatem conferendi and in that respect eminenter may be said to receive for us his own Benefits but for us then must be only bono nostro if it were loco nostro our selves could not have them The Punishment we deserved Christ bare loco nostro therefore we are not to bear it The Benefits Christ purchased we have therefore loco nostro he could not receive them There is there can be no Substitution of Person in our partaking the Benefits purchased as there was there must be in the purchasing them for us There is a Chapter on this Head in my Book called Peaceable Disquisitions I refer thither for farther Explication With Mr. W. I believe speaking strictly that Christ was no Surety of the Covenant of Works so as to enter into the same Bond before or after it were but trifling to make a Dispute of that it was forfeited And that his Reasons for it are good his fourth especially as to the ill Consequences following upon it Against Mr. W. I apprehend Christ to be no Surety neither of the Covenant of Grace in a strict proper Sense as I say also in my Sheet because the business of this Suretiship I said now does lye mainly in obtaining for us this Covenant as Moses dealt in his Mediatorship and not in the undertaking on God's part which needs not and on our part that it should be kept In this sense do I understand the Prophet when God says he will give Christ for a Covenant of the People that is to mediate this Covenant to procure it The word Surety I say again must be taken in such a Sense and not any other which agrees with every thing else said of Christ in the Scripture or with the whole Doctrine of the Gospel besides And that Doctrine is false I count which confines the Gospel-Covenant to the Elect. Not that he undertook that all he mediated for should do all that is their Duty says the throughly Understanding Mr. Baxter in his Paraphrase on the place As for Mr. W. I will take leave to say he is to me a considerable Man especially as to his Talent Elocution which yet unless his Judgment also be Good Staid and Unpassionate as it appears may prove to him a Temptation There is nothing I distrust him so much in as in his Distinctions which I cannot but suspect sometimes through his Facility of words to be made rather in diverse Expressions than in the reality of the things he would distinguish I am afraid least he should hereby come to yield more in our main Cause than we can again recover This appears more particularly in these two Points wherein I am more particularly concerned the Conditionality of the Covenant and the Business of Justification It is to be known and acknowledged there are several places in the Old Testament which speak of God's Circumcising the Heart giving a new one putting his Fear into it so as they that have this Promise fulfilled to them shall enter into Covenant with God in Sincerity and never again depart from him Upon which account it is called an Everlasting Covenant and a second Covenant in Opposition to the first that the Israelites brake as it is in the Epistle to the Hebrews In these places then we have a Promise for they are all I suppose in the account of most one and the same Promise which is an Absolute Promise that is to give that which hath no Condition required of us for the obtaining it the first Grace the new Heart Faith and Repentance in order to our Salvation Now the Promise being Absolute and called the Covenant This is my Covenant I will make with the House of Israel after those days saith the Lord I will put my Laws into their Minds and write them in their Hearts And I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a People the Antinomian does apprehend it to be the Covenant of Grace and that the Covenant of Grace therefore is not Conditional for there is no Condition in this Promise and if that we call the Condition is on God's part given and not required as a Condition to be performed on our parts the Covenant is without Condition Here now the Orthodox Calvinist who is neither Arminian or Antinomian are of two sorts one whose Genius carries them so much against Arminianism that they come as near as they can to the Antinomian And the other whose Genius leads them so far from Antinomianism that they come

as near as they can to the Arminian but either of them carefully avoiding the Danger of both Errors Under the first sort I must rank Mr. Cole and Mr. Mather and such as will say here with Mr. Rutherford that this Promise is part of the Covenant of Grace not the whole Covenant and that this Promise of Faith or the first Grace being part of the Covenant-Blessings and the Fruit of Christ's Purchase for the Elect the Covenant in this respect is without any Antecedent Condition But the first Grace being given in order to obtain farther Blessings that first Grace I suppose in their account is a Consequent Condition in regard to the Connexion between them to those Benefits and so save they themselves from Antinomianism Under the Latter sort I had thought I might have ranked Mr. W. with my self but I will name one more worthy than we for his most acute and strong parts Mr. Woodbridge who does deny this Promise to be part of the Covenant of Grace made with Fallen Man But that it is either an indefinite Promise which God will make good on whom he pleases in their use of means or a Promise in regard to the Elect not made to them but made to Christ in the Covenant of Redemption if we may frame such a thing in God's Decrees as it is distinguished from that made with Man or Gospel-Covenant which requires Faith and Repentance wrought in us by God's first Grace as the Condition and upon that Condition and that as performed by us though through that Grace does grant us Remission and Eternal Life And this first Grace God gives to this end that his Elect may in their time enter this Covenant and so have the benefits of it I signified this to Mr. W. in my Sheet but he in his is so full of himself as he will take his Friends by the halves I never wrote says he that Faith and Repentance are not Covenant-Blessings But Mr. Lobb I perceive thought and so do I that this is consonant to what he should write No Man can have any Benefit of the Covenant that is not in Covenant That which is given of God to his Elect as pre-requisite to enter Covenant is given them before they are in Covenant and therefore is not any of the Benefits of it This is what I meant and I for my part therefore do say that Faith and Repentance are the Conditions and not the Benefits of the Gospel-Covenant For if they be granted Blessings thereof then is there no Condition to its Benefits and so the Covenant is not Conditional according to the sense of those that oppose us The Benefits of the Covenant are God's part to perform and if Faith and Repentance were part of those Benefits it were well indeed for us for then must all within the Church be saved The Minister does on God's part declare the Covenant in his Preaching the Word and Seals it in delivery of the Sacraments and that to every one If every one therefore hath not this Faith and Repentance given him either this Faith and Repentance is not indeed one of the Benefits or God is not Faithful in Covenant this Universal Gospel-Covenant which cannot be argued but with a reverential Aversation He hath one thing a little higher to the same effect Sir you omit one part of the Objection that I should say the Conditions are Legal I never called them so I give five Instances of the difference between the Condition of the Covenant of Works and Grace Here is our Cause yielding still but I must beg his Pardon for he says in this he knows not what The Instances he mentions are nothing to the purpose And as he said before he never wrote that Faith and Repentance are not Benefits of the Covenant when he should have wrote so So he says here he never called them Legal Conditions when he needed not scruple it Mr. Lobb put in the word Legal in opposition only to Testamentary and when he grants a Testamentary Condition he does I count under a more soft word ingenuously grant us our Point It is in Mr. Lobb's Peaceable Enquiry which Mr. W. it seems knows not To Mr. Lobb then I say If I have an Estate given me by Will or Testament upon a certain Condition I must perform that Condition or else I cannot have that Estate though it be Gift But the Condition being performed it gives me Right to that Estate by that Testament and the Law will make it good It is so as to a Promise and as to the Covenant The Performance gives us Right by not its own Merit but vertue of that Promise that Covenant This I affirm says Mr. W. himself the Promise conveighs the Title as soon as the Terms of the Grant are answered Gospel Truth p. 61. That thing which being performed gives Right to the Benefit is a true legal Condition in Mr. Lobb's sense There is nothing else to be understood by it Legal is not opposed here to Evangelical but to Not rightful As I said therefore but now that Faith and Repentance are not the Benefits but the Conditions of the Gospel-Covenant So say I they are Antecedent legal Evangelically legal legal in the sense of Mr. Lobb's seeming denial thereof Conditions of those Benefits And this I did not omit as Mr. W. thinks but did de industria own it in my Sheet in these words If we do not make Faith such a Condition as Antecedes the Benefits and that being performed gives right to them that we may not mince the matter whereby I meant the aforesaid distinction it is but trifling to maintain that the Covenant hath any Conditions If we confess our Sins God is Just and Faithful to forgive them They have right to the Tree of Life that keep his Commandments To return then now to the new Heart promised in the Prophets to the House of Israel when the days come that they may enter this Covenant so as to break it no more I have one thing to offer here to publick consideration Our Divines interpret these Texts to belong to the Elect to them only all the Elect with whom this Covenant is made from Eternity in Christ say some supposing This and the Covenant of Redemption to be one Now it is to me a question whether they be not quite out because it is manifest in all the places in the Prophets and that to the Hebrews that this Promise and Covenant to be made is peculiar still to the Jews and that confined to a certain time Behold the days come saith the Lord which is expressed over and over after their scattering and recollection Let us look the Scripture The first Text that we have wherein this Absolute Promise is to be found is in Deut. 30.6 And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy Seed Well but when will the Lord do this They were almost all uncircumcised in Heart at present and continued so during

the ends of it by a perfect obeying of it and suffering for Man's Sin against it and thereby Merit to all Mankind it being done in their behalf a Right to Pardon and Salvation or to Impunity and Life which yet is to be given them upon such Terms as should please him and the Redeemer for so long as it was not the Persons themselves that obeyed and suffered but another in their stead and that by way of Satisfaction not strict Payment the Benefit of that Obedience and Suffering might be disposed at their Will Now this Right to Impunity and Life obtained is given or granted in an Act of Grace declared in the Gospel which runs thus that whosoever he be that Believes Repents and lives sincerely according to it shall be pardoned and saved Even as in an Act of Pardon by Parliament a Man hath committed Treason or the like the Treason is still by the Law Death but upon such an Act passing those Persons that are guilty are pardoned if qualified according to the Act In like manner that Man who performs this Gospel-Condition hath this Right by vertue of this Act Law or Covenant of Grace Grant Deed of Gift Will of Christ Testament or Gospel The Righteousness of Christ is the Meritorious Cause of it and this Act of Grace the Instrument of Donation or Law-title Here then we see is a Righteousness Evangelical that we have and must have and here is a Right to Impunity and Life which you may if you will call a Righteousness too that we have also But the Righteousness of Christ we have here only in the Effect As in the common instance I have a Friend made Slave in Algiers I give a 100 l. for his Ransom he never has nor sees the 100 l. but the Money is his in the Liberty he possesseth Note When the former sort of Divines mentioned say that by the Imputation of Christ's Death to us we become recti in Curia and there must be then a Righteousness of his Life imputed farther to entitle us to Heaven they understand still that it is by the Law of Works that we are to be tried and judged But let all understand aright as before that it is by the Law of Grace and supposing then we were thereby recti in curia that Righteousness required farther unto this Title must be the Righteousness of that Law we are judged by to wit our Evangelical Righteousness only which is accepted unto Life or made the Condition instead of that of the Law upon the account of this Righteousness of Christ Jesus We must distinguish here to avoid Prejudice and least the tender be offended There is the Duty and the Condition of this Law the Law of Grace the Law of Christ or the Gospel by which we are to be judged God hath constituted the Duty the Condition the Reward the Penalty of it There are few of our Ministers and much less of our People are sensible of the Advantage this Doctrine brings us and the Soundness of it No Man we must know does perform the Duty but every Man must perform the Condition or he cannot be saved This Condition as obtained for the World is the grand Benefit of Christ's Purchase or main Fruit of his Death and is accepted when performed only through him It is not for my Works or Merits sayest thou that my Person is accepted but for Christ's Righteousness and in this alone is my Comfort And I say it is not for the Works sake or Merit of any thing or all we do but for Christ's sake that the Condition is accepted and it is in this is my Comfort In this it is that we have or can have any grounded Sustentation To say thou art Justified by Christ's Righteousness when yet thou must acknowledge his Righteousness is none of thine unless thou hast performed the Condition What empty Comfort is that But to say that through Christ's Merits and Righteousness this it self that I do is the Condition here is Comfort indeed That what we are enabled by his Grace I say to do how little soever if sincerely done if it be but the Grain of Mustard-seed in a hungring and thirsting after Righteousness shall be accepted unto Life that is be that Condition upon account of what Christ hath done for us this I say is solid Consolation Thou saist when I look on my Works my Heart sinks I am not sure I am Sincere but in the Righteousness of Christ I am safe I say this is certain If thou art not Sincere thou art not Safe And when I doubt whether I am or not I can have no Support but in this that I hope I am I trust I am and that it is upon the Satisfaction and Merit of Christ that Faith that Hope does depend For that there is any Condition at all that the Condition is such that what I do shall be accepted as the Condition performed it must all be put upon the account of Christ's Performance or Merit in our behalf and his Merit is sufficient however imperfect be our Duty for its Acceptance with God When then upon a Sense of my Deficiency instead of sinking I grow bolder in my reliance on Christ's Merits and God's Mercy I do not presume on my self but I magnifie his Grace and the higher I raise my Faith thereupon provided I live not willingly in any Conscience-wasting Sin the more Glory am I humbly perswaded do I give my gracious Saviour and good God Thou Man hast the Comfort to apply to thy self Christ's Merits if thou hast performed the Condition But I have the Comfort to apply Christ's Merits to the Condition which makes his Yoke easie and burden light as to the Performance and my very Desires and weakest Endeavours to find Acceptance When I read such Prayers of David that God would not enter into Judgment with him that he would not be extream to mark what he had done amiss for then he could not abide it and that yet he will have God to search him and try his Reins and Heart and the like I cannot but be convinced that in the Acceptance of such an imperfect Righteousness as he accounted his was through God's meer gracious Condescention Mercy and Forgiveness to him he placed his * That there is a Righteousness set forth in the Gospel as another Righteousness than that of the Law by which we are to be justified is signally affirmed Rom. 1.17 Rom. 3.21 23. Now is the Righteousness of God revealed The doing what the Law requires and nothing less is Righteousness the Righteousness of Man I will call it If any one did that it would and must justifie him The Doers of the Law before God are justified Rom. 2.13 The Apostle still so accounts which we must know and tells us thereupon that no Man Jew or Gentile does it but that all fall short thereof in his three first Chapters to the Romans and consequently by their Works cannot be justified Upon