Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	declare_v	faith_n	justification_n	4,851	5	9.4048	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61628	Six sermons with a discourse annexed, concerning the true reason of the suffering of Christ, wherein Crellius his answer to Grotius is considered / by Edward Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1669 (1669)	Wing S5669; ESTC R19950	271,983	606

us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Christ our Saviour Titus 3. 5. There being nothing in humane nature which could oblige God to give to Mankinde that assistance of his grace whereby they are enabled to work out this salvation the Gospel is designed for with fear and trembling The whole tenor of the Gospel importing a divine power which doth accompany the preaching of it which is designed on purpose to heal the wounds and help the weakness of our depraved and degenerate nature Through which we may be kept to salvation but it must be through Faith 1 Pet. 1. 5. 3. Which is the last particular of the words the necessity of believing the Gospel in order to the partaking of the salvation promised in it it is the power of God to salvation to every one that believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek An easie way of salvation if no more were required to mens happiness but a fancy and strong opinion which they will easily call Believing So there were some in S. Augustin's time I could wish there were none in ours who thought nothing necessary to salvation but a strong Faith let their lives be what they pleased But this is so repugnant to the main design of Christian Religion that they who think themselves the strongest Believers are certainly the weakest and most ungrounded For they believe scarce any other proposition in the New Testament but that Whosoever believeth shall be saved If they did believe that Christ came into the world to reform it and make it better that the wrath of God is now revealed from Heaven against all unrighteousness as well as that the just by Faith shall live that the design of all that love of Christ which is shewn to the World is to deliver them from the hand of their enemies that they might serve him in righteousness and holiness all the dayes of their lives they could never imagine that salvation is entailed by the Gospel on a mighty confidence or vehement perswasion of what Christ hath done and suffered for them And so far is S. Paul from asserting this that as far as I can see he never meddles with a matter of that nicety whether a single act of Faith be the condition of our justification as it is distinguished from Evangelical obedience but his discourse runs upon this subject whether God will pardon the sins of men upon any other terms than those which are declared in the Christian Religion the former he calls Works and the latter Faith I know the subtilty of later times hath made S. Paul dispute in the matter of justification not as one bred up at the feet of Gamaliel but of the Master of the Sentences but men did not then understand their Religion at all the worse because it was plain and easie and it may be if others since had understood their Religion better there would never have needed so much subtilty to explain it nor so many distinctions to defend it The Apostle makes the same terms of justification and of falvation for as he saith elsewhere We are justified by Faith he saith here the Gospel is the power of God to salvation to every one that believes if therefore a single act of Faith be sufficient for one why not for the other also But if believing here be taken in a more large and comprehensive sense as a complex act relating to our undertaking the conditions of the Gospel why should it not be taken so in the subsequent discourse of the Apostle For we are to observe that S. Paul in this Epistle is not disputing against any sort of Christians that thought to be saved by their obedience to the Gospel from the assistance of divine grace but against those who thought the Grace and indulgence of the Gospel by no means necessary in order to the pardon of their sins and their eternal happiness Two things therefore the Apostle mainly designs to prove in the beginning of it First the insufficiency of any other way of salvation besides that offer'd by the Gospel whether it were the light of Nature which the Gentiles contended for but were far from living according to it or that imaginary Covenant of Works which the Jews fancyed to themselves for it will be a very hard matter to prove that ever God entred into a Covenant of Works with fallen Man which he knew it was impossible for him to observe but they were so highly opinionated of themselves and of those legal observations which were among them that they thought by vertue of them they could merit so much favour at Gods hands that there was no need of any other sacrifice but what was among themselves to expiate the guilt of all their sins And on that account they rejected the Gospel as the Apostle tells us that they being ignorant of Gods righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God Against these therefore the Apostle proves that if they hoped for happiness upon such strict terms they laid only a foundation of boasting if they did all which God required but of misery if they did not for then Cursed is every one that continues not in every thing written in the Law to do it i. e. if they failed in any one thing then they must fail of all their hopes but such a state of perfection being impossible to humane Nature he shews that either all mankind must unavoidably perish or they must be saved by the Grace and Favour of God which he proves to be discovered by the Gospel and that God will now accept of a hearty and sincere obedience to his will declared by his Son so that all those who perform that though they live not in the nice observance of the Law of Moses shal not need to fear the penalty of their sins in another life Which is the second thing he designs to prove viz. That those who obeyed the Gospel whether Jew or Greek were equally capable of salvation by it For saith he is God the God of the Jews only is he not also of the Gentiles Yes of the Gentiles also because both Jew and Gentile were to be justified upon the same terms as he proves afterwards So that Gods justifying of us by the Gospel is the solemn declaration of himself upon what terms he will pardon the sins of men that is deliver them from the penalties they have deserved by them For the actual discharge of the person is reserved to the great day all the justification we have here is only declarative from God but so as to give a right to us by vertue whereof we are assured that God will not only not exercise his utmost rigour but shew all favour and kindness to those who by belief of the Gospel do repent and obey God doth now remit sin as he forbears