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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	conclude_v	faith_n	justify_v	9,461	5	8.9701	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26659	The church triumphant, or, A comfortable treatise of the amplitude and largeness of the kingdom of Christ wherein is proved by Scriptures and reason, that the number of the damned is inferiour to that of the elect / by Joseph Alford ...	Alford, Joseph.	1649 (1649)	Wing A921; ESTC R22399	57,799	139

would conclude that neither sin nor Law nor the powers of Hell should be able to condemn me As Paul in many places witnesseth We believe saith he that man is justified by faith not by the works of the Law David likewise in this placeth mans beatitude when God imputes righteousness to him without works Blessed are they whose sins are forgiven and whose iniquities are blotted out Blessed is that man to whom God hath not imputed sin Lastly I would conclude that from the appearance of works no infallible criterium could be grounded of our everlasting condition because we are not ignorant that those men that have been most dear to God have collapsed and continued in most presumptious and dangerous sins who afterwards upon repentance have been restored to eternal happiness Therefore we ought not to judge rashly of the final estate of others but leave them to their master either to stand or fall Rom. 14. C. I approve your answer brother Maynordus for it most rationally confutes the cavils of the adversaries and their mistaken expositions and solidly confirmeth our opinion And hereafter by the assistance of God I will thus repel the darts of the devil and elude the subtile arguments of some men M. The Lord teach thy hands to war that bows of steel may be broken by thine arms Psal 18. I conceive I have now sufficiently shewed the first hatching of this barbarous opinion and all its serpentine turnings and windings It remains now that we proceed to the confirmation of our most salutiferous perswasion C. You judge rightly otherwise you may incur the same censure with Lactantius who was said very soundly to confute the opinions of his adversaries but very weakly to maintain and prove his own assertions But in my judgement these men seem ignorant of the duty of a prudent Oratour neither do they fully understand the disposure u●ed by Lactantius in his Books of Divine Institutions For it is the part of a wise Oratour as Cicero teacheth us to endeavour all he can that that part of his Oration which consisteth in the refutation of his Opponent be more firm compact and pithy than that which concerns his own Defence to cast all our darts against him but if our own assertions be easier to be proved and his harder to be overthrown then it is an excellent course to endeavour to entice and withdraw the minds of men from the opposite defence and to convert them to the favouring of our own Which things being true I see no reason why it should be objected against him that he laboured more in refutation than in proof for such is the cause of Religion that it must not be supported by the infirmity of humane arguments and subministration of reason but must flourish in the embraces of an active Faith Go ye into all the world saith our great Master and preach the Gospel to every creature he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Paul also saith That a Bishop should be able by sound Doctrine both to exhort and convince the gainsay rs Tit. 1. For there is no more required but the sincere and pure word of God which to them that are ordained to eternal beatitude is more sure firm and infallible than principles and demonstrations are to Geometricians And therefore if any man hath detected and confuted an erroneous opinion he hath well performed his undertaking I speak not this as though Lactantius had not confirmed true Religion as it was to be proved against them who were ignorant of the Scriptures or despised them For when in the first three Books he confuted the superstitious errours of his adversaries then he falls upon the proof of Christian Religion in the next three Books and in the seventh he sets down the true end of our Religion and sweetly invites men to pursue the reward of immortalitie M. What you speak of that Father is very true that he was to contend against such as denied the authority of the Scriptures neither did they admit of Proofs deduced from that authority But we who have to deal with such men as reverence the Sacred Monuments of Truth must proceed in a different manner I will therefore demonstrate the Amplitude and Largeness of the Church Triumphant f●om four most firm and most clear topick places and with as much brevity as the reason of the matter will allow First from the power of God Secondly from his wisdom Thirdly from his mercy and goodness and Lastly from Divine Testimonies To begin therefore with the first I say Caelius that if we should grant the Church and Kingdom of God to be narrower or less peopled than that miserable Commonwealth of the devil I fear we should derogate from the glory and majesty of our Creatour and King For the power and greatness of a King consisteth not so much in wealth and treasure as in the multitude of his people the largeness of his territories the extent of his provinces and the vast number of his Subjects who pay him tribute and are subject to his Dominion How did the people of Rome swell to that greatness but by the multitude of Kingdoms and variety of Nations which they subdued and governed from hence they were stiled the powerful Romanes and Lords of the world From hence their Senate was called the Haven of Nations the Refuge of Kings For what is greatness but an abundance of power and majesty and what is power but a facultie of protecting others defending themselves and a deliverance of the oppressed from the possession of an enemy but if the enemy of God and man be better provided of subjects than the King of Heaven he is then more powerfull and his greatness more wonderful But who was ever so prodigiously wicked as to affirm the devil to be more powerful than God the work than the workman the basest servant than the most wealthy Lord wherefore doth the Lord of Heaven delight himself in these Titles King of kings Lord of lords the Mighty God the Lord of Hosts Strong in battel and the like C. Although the current of your discourse doth very much affect me nor do I willingly hinder it yet I cannot forbear for a while to stop it Some man might here say this also is a great argument of the power of the King of Heaven in that he hath destinated the major part of mankind who were all his enemies to everlasting banishment M. This might be alledged of some Tyrant who leaves no means unattempted either through justice or oppression to enlarge his Empire and such a Tyrant is that old adversary the devil But to affirm this of our Heavenly King who is our most lawful Soveraign our common Father who made us and hath taken an everlasting care to preserve us were most injurious scandalous and blasphemous Neither is that any right demonstration of power that a Prince destroyeth the greater part of his people but on the contrary

straiten and preclude the passage into that kingdom Thus by crafty enticement he beguiled our first parents and had not the wisdom and great goodness of God intervened all mankind had perished in their fall But no violence no power no fraudulencie of Hell can nullifie the eternal decrees of God His purpose therefore hath still taken effect and in all ages his Church hath been enlarged according to the predetermination of his good pleasure nor could the seed of God be scattered and lost by all the oppositions of the Devil That Anti-God considereth this and applies his malice to new stratagems amongst others spreads this opinion of the small number of the Elect and the ineffable multitude of the damned among those that are commonly called the wiser sort of men From hence came those verses Omnibus in terris quae sunt à Gadibus usque Ad Gangen pauci dignoscere possunt vera bona Also Rari quippe boni numero vix sunt totidem Quot Thebarum portae vel divitis ostia Nili Another Authour also saith The number of fools is infinite these words are commonly quoted as out of Salomon in his Ecclesiastes yet let the Text be rightly weighed and Cicero must own the saying Another saith All things are full of folly Which speeches fall from such men who think none good none wise none happy but themselves Plato in his book to Phaedon the Philosopher is more moderate for he saith Few men are extreamly good or bad but most men are of a midling iniquitie so likewise the extremities of all things are few and rare as very little or very great very white or very black very swift or very slow but the indifferencies are many and frequent Now if you compare the number of the best men with that of the tolerably good this last number will infinitely exceed the other C. It is even as you say And verily this Philosopher hath ever seemed to me more Religious than the rest But those others I take to be such men as a couple which were lately amongst us when they met in the street and had saluted one another quoth the one I tell thee John there are but two honest men in all our Citie and I assure thee replied the other I think George thou art one of them and truly John saith he thou art the other M. They knibbled one another like horses But I return to that serpent who by little and little rigled himself and insinuated into the judgement of wise men and by subtile extenuations and malicious diminutions gave them to understand that the mercy of God and the goodness of God to mankind was not so great as was imagined That God was good and merciful was undenyable truth but withall he was just and a most severe revenger of offences and transgressions Two wayes he devised to instil this perswasion one from witnesses another from signes and causes His witnesses were those who wrested the fore-mentioned places of Scripture which by the blessing of God we have so far vindicated that hereafter they will not be able to alledge the least matter of moment in opposition His causes are the actions and bad deeds of men which that experienced deceiver doth use to term so And these nets he spreadeth with such diligent and cunning artifice that truely it is no hard matter to fall into them nay it is a most difficult thing to avoid them for thus he encroacheth upon the understanding Wilt thou know O man the truth of thy salvation or damnation and not onely of thine but of all others Contemplate the inclinations the studies the meditations the pursuits the actions of men which are the causes of eternal happiness or eternal misery if the actions be good of salvation if bad of condemnation Now look about thee judge the trees by their fruits and thou wilt easily discern how few they are that keep the commandments and observe the multisarious parts of righteousness how small and contemptible number there is of good men how vast a multitude of wicked men and unjust Wherefore dispelling all doubts and hesitations thus conclude If good works are the inerrable signs of Salvation and wicked actions the infallible causes of everlasting desolation it follows by unavoydable consequence That small is the number of the Elect infinite the number of Reprobates C. O old Serpent O hellish monster compacted of malice and deceit I am afraid too many wise men of this world have been tutord and disciplined by this Sophister whom I have often heard to knit and interweave thus their Fallacies and Sophismes M. Do you doubt it there is nothing more sure than they are taught and instructed by him who seperate themselves from the Communion and fellowship of other Christians as if they onely were Religious and Holy but all other men execrable profane and reprobates For this opinion had its first spring from the Philosophers afterwards by degrees it got a slide into the unwarie perswasion of Christians C. I make no doubt of that But I would now know how to be unintangled from these fallacies M. First I would grant all those things that God is most just that no man perfectly worketh righteousness or fulfilleth the Law in all its requisites and therefore that by nature or the observation of the Commandments no man is justified Eminent is that saying There is none that doth good no not one Also John saith There is none good but God onely But I would remember also that God the Father hath transferred all our iniquities which was his goodness and the universal punishment due to our sins upon the obedience of Christ as Isaiah teacheth He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed All we like sheep have gone astray and have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all This also the Father himself testifieth saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased The Son also attests it I lay down my life for my sheep Then I would deny the antecedent of the connexed words I would answer That good works are not the causes of Salvation but the purpose of God and his everlasting mercy in Jesus Christ comprehended by faith I would also answer that wicked actions are not simply and absolutely the causes of damnation but diffidence unbelief and pertinacy As the Lord saith in the 16. of John The spirit must reprove the world of sin because they did not believe in him As Paul also saith Through unbelief the branches are broken off also That God hath shut up all men under unbelief that he might have mercy upon all both Jews and Gentiles And because I have faith in God and embrace his mercy and am delighted in the Law of the Most High though the appetite and vitious nature of the outward man resist and gainsay yet I