Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	covenant_n	grace_n	justification_n	7,486	5	9.7652	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53737	A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux wherein the principles of the Roman church, as to moderation, unity and truth are examined and sundry important controversies concerning the rule of faith, papal supremacy, the mass, images, &c. discussed / by John Owen.	Owen, John, 1616-1683.	1664 (1664)	Wing O822; ESTC R17597	313,141	517

Antidote against despair the only stay of a soul when once entring the lists of Eternity And I am perswaded that many of you fix on the same Principles as to your hope and expectation of Life and Immortality And to what purpose I pray you do you trouble the world with an opinion wherein you can find no benefit when if true you should principally expect to be relieved and supported by it But he that looks to find solid peace and consolation in this world or a blessed entrance into another on any other grounds than those expressed by that dying Emperour will find himself deceived S r you will one day find that our own works or merits Purgatory the sufferage of your Church or any parts of it when we are dead the surplussage of the works or merits of other sinners are pitifull things to come into competition with the blood of Christ and pardoning-Mercy in him I confess the Inquisition made a shift to destroy Constantine who was confessor to the Emperour and assisted him unto his departure And King Philip took care that his Son Charles should not live in the faith wherein his Father Charles died whereby Merit or our own Righteousness prevailed at Court but as I said I am perswaded that when many of you are in cold blood and think more of God than of Protestants and of your last account than of your present Arguments you begin to believe that Mercy and the Righteousness of Christ will be a better plea as to your own particular concernments at the last day Seeing therefore that Protestants teach the necessity of Good works upon the cogent Principles I minded you of in my Animadversions I suppose it might not be amiss in you to surcease from troubling them about their Merit which few of you are agreed about and which as I would willingly hope none of you dare trust unto You have I suppose been minded before now of the conclusion made in this matter by your great Champion Bellarmin lib. 5. de Justificat cap. 7. Propter saith he incertitudinem propriae justitiae periculum inanis gloriae TUTISSIMUM est fiduciam totam in sola Dei misericordia be●ignitate reponere Because of the uncertainty of our own righteousness and the danger of vain-glory it is the Safest course to place all our confidence in the alone mercy and benignity of God Wherein if I mistake not he disclaimeth all that he had subtilly disputed before about the merit of Works and he appears to have been in good earnest in this conclusion seeing he made such use of it himself in particular at the close of all his Disputes and Dayes praying in his last Will and Testament That God would deal with him not as aestimator meriti a Judg of his merit but largitor veniae a mercifull Pardoner Vit. Bell. per Sylvestr à Pet. San. Impress Antuerpiae 1631. And why is this the safest course certainly it must be because God hath appointed it and revealed it so to be for on no other ground can any course towards Heaven be accounted safe And if this be the way of his appointment that we should trust to his mercy alone in Christ Jesus let them that will be so minded notwithstanding all perswasions to the contrary as to trust to their own merit take heed lest they find when it is too late that they have steered a course not so safe as they expected And so I desire your excuse for this Diversion the design of it being only to discover one reason of your failing in morality in affirming mee to have said that which you knew well enough I did not which is this that you stood in a slippery place as to the point of faith which you were asserting being not instructed how to speak constantly and evenly unto it And to take you off from that vain confidence which this proud opinion of the Merit of works is apt to ingenerate in you whose first Inventours I fear did nor sufficiently consider with whom they had to doe before whom sinners appearing in their own strength and Righteousness will one day cry Who amongst us shall dwell with devouring fire who amongst us shall inhabit with everlasting burnings not the purity perfection and severity of his fiery Law judging condemning cursing every sinner for every sinne without the least intimation of mercy or compassion if you would but seriously consider how impossible it is for any man to know all his secret sinnes or to make compensation to God for the least of them that he doth know and that the very best of his works come short of that universal perfection which is required in them so that he dares not put the issue of his eternal condition upon any one of them singly though all the rest of his life should be put into everlasting oblivion and withall would diligently enquire into the end of God in giving his Son to die for sinners with the mystery of his Love and Grace therein the nature of the New Covenant the Importance of the Promises thereof the weight that is layed in Scripture on the Righteousness and blood of Christ with the Redemption that is purchased thereby or to the whole work of our Salvation and the peremptory exclusion of the merit of our works by Paul form our Justification before God I am perswaded you would find another manner of Rest and Peace unto your soul than all your own works and your other pretended supplements of them or reliefs against their defects are able to supply you withall And this I hope you will not be offended at that I have thus occasionally minded you of CHAP. III. A defence of the second Chapter of the Animadversions Principles of Fiat Lux re-examined Of our receiving the Gospell from Rome Our abode with them from whom we received it IN the same page you proceed to the consideration of my second Chapter and therein of the Principles which I gathered out of your Fiat Lux and which I affirmed to run through and to animate your whole Discourse and to be the foundation on which your Superstructure is built Concerning them all you say pag. 21. that in the sense the words do either naturally make out or in which I understand them of all the whole you can hardly own any one Pray S r remember that I never pretended to set down your words but to express your sense in my own And if I do not make it appear that there is no one of the Principles mentioned which you have not in the sense by me declared affirmed and asserted I will be contented to be thought to have done you some wrong and my self much more for want of attending unto that Rule of Truth which I am compelled so often to desire you to give up your self unto the conduct of The first Principle imputed unto your Fiat Lux is That we received the Gospell first from Rome To which you say Wee that is we