Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	dead_a	faith_n	lively_a	5,187	5	10.6802	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92898	The Christian man: or, The reparation of nature by grace. VVritten in French by John Francis Senault; and now Englished.; Homme chrestien. English	Senault, Jean-François, 1601-1672.	1650 (1650)	Wing S2499; Thomason E776_8; ESTC R203535	457,785	419

Common-wealth that their vertue though imperfect carried lustre with it and though no way comparable to that of true believers had notwithstanding beauty enough to condemn one day bad Christians But admit the vertue of Infidels be false that hinders not but they may have some assistance from Heaven to discern good from evil and to take from them that excuse wherewith the pride of man shelters it self having sinned through ignorance This was the motive that induced God to give the Law to the Jews Nulli enim hominum ablatū est scire utiliter quaerere Non tibi deput atur a● culpam quod invitus ignorat se● quod negligis quaerere quod ignoras Aug. and 't is the same that prevailed with him to indulge the Heathen some light which in my opinion cannot render them more culpable if it did not withall render them more capable to shake hands with sin This is it perhaps that Saint Augustine means in the nineteenth Chapter of his third Book of Free-will where he grants that God hath deprived no body of the meanes to seek after truth and that the power of finding it is common to all men If their mind may be enlightned with some heavenly light their will may be touched with some regret for their offences they may have good thoughts and good motions which they reject their being in Infidelity puts them not yet in the state of Reprobation God makes some difference between these delinquents and the damned he deals not with them as with the devils and if it be true that he suspends the torments of these I can easily be perswaded that he withholds the sins of those and that they have graces that disengage their Will for some moments from the tyranny of Concupiscence They act not always under the conduct of this enemy and though they are his slaves yet they have a Soveraign who never losing his rights can defend them when he please S. Thomas the truest Interpreter and most knowing disciple of S. Augustine was of the same opinion neither intended to dissent from his Master He judged right with him that whatever is done among Infidels and among Christians by the instigation of Concupiscence is sin but he did not believe that Mercy had utterly forsaken the Heathen and that she imparts no Grace unto them which though leaving them in errour disengageth them many times from sin If there be supernatural assistances that prepare us for Faith and make us conceive some good thoughts before we be made Believers there may also be some which not drawing the Heathen out of their Infidelity may preserve them from the committing of some offences and make them perform some actions which relate to the Supreme Good imperfectly known and imperfectly loved When God heretofore converted the Heathen Concilium Tridentinum pronunciat Anathem a in eos qui dicunt opera omnia quae ante justificationem quacunque ratione facta sint vera esse peccata Sess 6. Can. 7. he gave them not the light of Faith all at once this vertue was ushered in by some good dispositions there were some moments wherein they were Infidels and sinned not wherein they acted by the conduct of Grace and not by that of Charity and when following the inspirations of heaven they were not actually in sin though habitually they still remained it There is some Grace that is not absolutely inconsistent with Infidelity because there is some love that is not altogether incompatible with sin and as every day sinners feel supernatural motions that lift them up towards God and oblige them to do good works we may say also that Infidels receive some extraordinary supply that rectifies their intentions Ex quo apparet habere quosdam in ipso ingenio divinumquoddā naturaliter munus intelligentiae quo moveantur ad fidem si congrua suis mentibus vel audiant verba vel figna conspiciant Aug. de bono Perse cap. 14. and makes them act for a supernatural and divine end And certainly they are not destitute of all Graces because S. Augugustine observes some in them which he acknowledgeth not in the Jews For explaining that famous and difficult passage where Jesus Christ assures us that those of Tyre and Sidon had certainly repented had they seen the miracles he did in Judea this great Doctor avows that the Tyrians were not so blinde nor so hardned as the Jews that they had one advantage which holding from Nature and Grace prepared them for Faith A naturally-divine gift of understanding whereby they are moved to Faith that they had believed the miracles of the Son of God had they had the honour to have seen them Quoniam credidissent si qualia viderunt isti signa vidissent and that this Grace had produced its effect had the circumstance whereon it depended intervened But though it gave them a power of being converted 't was as useless to them as Christs miracles were to the Jews because neither of them were of the number of the predestinated Sed nec illis profuit quod credere poterant quia praedestinati non erant The same Doctor is not far from this opinion when writing against Julian he saith to that Heretick that they were more equitable then he who ascribed the vertues of the Heathen to the assistance of heaven and not to their own Free-will and who granted them some grace in their Infidelity which they acknowledged after their conversion Perhaps the impulse of S. Dennis at the death of the Son of God was of this kinde That the Oracle he pronounced was inspired into him from heaven and that he felt the effects of the Cross before he knew the vertue thereof 'T is to no purpose to object that S. Augustine slights this opinion having judged it not so bad as that of the Pelagians and that he condemns it Sed absit ut sit in aliquo vera virtus nisi fuerit justus absit autem ut sit justus vere nisi vivat ex fide justus enim ex fide vivit when he protests that there is no solid vertue where there is not a lively Faith and true Justice For if we take those words in the strictest acception we must confess that sinners whose Faith is dead can do no good works and that all those that are not just can practise no vertue Sinners are as arrogant as Infidels they contemn the humility of the Son which they do not imitate they are the slaves of the devil whose motions they follow and that remainder of Faith that languisheth in their soul seems to serve onely to render them more culpable then the Heathen When therefore S. Augustine saith that the vertue of these is not true because not quickned by Faith he speaks certainly of a perfect vertue agreeable to God profitable to him that practifeth it and which may merit eternal life for him Now there is no man but sees that the vertue of Heathens and Sinners