Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	effect_n	faith_n	justify_v	6,955	5	8.9340	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87879	An answer to the Marques of Worcester's last paper; to the late King. Representing in their true posture, and discussing briefly, the main controversies between the English and the Romish Church. Together with some considerations, upon Dr Bayly's parenthetical interlocution; relating to the Churches power in deciding controversies. To these is annext, Smectymnuo-Mastix : or, short animadversions upon Smectymnuus in the point of lyturgie. / By Hamon L'Estrange, Esqr.	L'Estrange, Hamon, 1605-1660.	1651 (1651)	Wing L1187; Wing L1191; Thomason E1218_2; ESTC R202717	68,906	120

Commandments we hold it impossible for any man in what state soever to observe any one much less all should God be extreme to mark what is done amiss yet we hold too that in some sort the whole Law may be fulfilled and that is in Saint Augustines sense a All the Commandments are then accounted observed when what is defective in our obedience is forgiven The Scripture Luke 1. 6. urged by his Lordship was produced long since by Pelagius and Augustines Answer shall be mine b Zachary was a man of singular sanctity yet was it necessary for him to offer sacrifice first for his own sins Hebr. 7. 28. So then if Zachary had sins he kept not all the Commandments for sin is but the transgression of the Law But it is said 1 John 5. 3. His Commandments are not grievous nor are they but are his Commandments there spoken of the Moral Law assuredly No Saint John will tell you clearly what they are chap 3. v. 23. That we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ And love one another Nor can we fulfill these Commandments but we must first be born of God v. 1. chap. 4. 7. So that an unregenerat person will not be able to set a step forward to that performance nor can our new birth render us so perfect as to say we have not sinned for that were to make God a Lyar 1 John 1. 10. The Marques saith the Fathers are for us But if they be why then did he not cite their words as well as vouch the places but I fear 't is otherwise for I cannot make out no not by conjecture what either Origen or Cyril or Hillary hath to his advantage Hierome indeed saith a It is in our power either to sin or not to sin but it is with this caution and Salvo pro conditione fragilitatis humanae as far as human frailty will admit And how little Hierome is for them his Commentary upon the Galatians ch. 3. will inform us where he saith b No man can fulfill the Law and perform all things which are commanded M. We say Faith cannot justifie without Works you say good Works are not absolutely necessary to salvation Here the Marques slides from the point and wilfully leaves his old wont of challenging our opposition for whereas he should have said You say Faith alone can justifie he tells us here we say good Works are not absolutely necessary to salvation Necessary to salvation is one thing necessary to justification another salvation and justification are different things one is the cause the other the effect We hold good Works are necessary to salvation but not absolutely The Thief upon the Cross was saved without them thousands who believe and are prevented by Death before their Faith can shew it self in Works are saved without them Infants dying are saved without them so they are not absolutely necessary no not to salvation but to justification they are not so much as necessary for as our Church saith We are justified by faith onely this will appear first by considering what things are required to justification and those are three first God's great mercy and grace secondly Christ's Justice in satisfying and paying our ransome and fulfilling the Law for us lastly by a true and lively faith in Gods free grace and Christ's merits So that good works are clearly outed Secondly faith alone justifieth without works because we are justified by faith before we can do good works and works are not good till justifying faith makes them so But though faith alone justifieth without works yet it cannot be alone and without them for impossible it is for any man to believe God will be gratious to him and that Christ's righteousness and merits shall be ever imputed to him who at that instant of believing doth not seriously and unfainedly resolve to obey and observe to his uttermost all God's Commandments The places of Scripture alleadged by the Marques against our Faith alone without Works are first 1 Cor. 13. 2. Though I have all Faith and have no Charity I am nothing There is faith indeed but no justifying faith 't is the faith of miracles Saint Paul tells us so chap. 12. v. 9. The faith mentioned Luke 17. 8. of removing mountains and so the Apostle would have told us in this very Text had not his Lordship by what faith I know not removed those mountains those words out of his way Secondly James 2. v. 24. By works a man is justified and not by faith onely This I confesse is an eminent place and hath exercised the wits of all Expositors how to reconcile it to that of Saint Paul Rom. 3. 28. A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law Many have gone several ways and some not the right Luther having beaten his brains about it a good while at last threw the whole Epistle of Saint James out of the Volume of Canonical Scripture Hugo Grotius that great Scholar of the latter Age hath taken it to task by it self and hath indeed shewn great Reading but I confesse as to the elucidation and clearing of the difficulty he makes me no wiser than I was before and indeed after all hath been said Aquinas his sense will I think have most voices that good works justifie declarative by declaring our faith before men not offective by making us just before God M. This opinion of yours Saint Augustine saith l. de fid. op. c. 14. was an old Heresie Augustine mentions it not as an Heresie but onely saith that in the Apostles time some misunderstanding that place of Paul Rom. 5. Where sin abounded there grace superaboundeth thought faith onely necessary to salvation and therefore neglected moral duties and sanctity of life and this we call the high way to Hell as well as Augustine Hillary in his 7. chapter or canon upon Matth. hath nothing tending to justification either solitary without or associated with works but can. 8. he is expresly at Fides sola justificat Faith alone justifieth Ambrose saith Eternal rest belongeth to those who have that faith Quae per dilectionem operatur which worketh together by charity So Ambrose and so say we M. We hold good works to be meritorious you deny it we have Scripture for it Our Church saith All the good works that we can do be imperfect and therefore not able to deserve our justification His Lordship produceth out of Scripture Matth. 16. 27. He shall reward every man according to his works Answer I confesse our Translation gives it so but the word in the original is not He will reward but {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} He will render But though reward be not there yet Matth. 5. 12. 't is said Great is your reward in Heaven and there is reward and great reward too and the Marques inferreth that Reward in the end presupposeth merit in the work but sure it is

no general Rule for when the Laborers were called Matth. 20. 8. to receive their {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or Wages for it is the same word both there and here The Steward gave to him that wrought but one hour a penny which was {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the wages for the whole day was this work of an hour adequate to or did it earn that wages Again this Reward is not such to which the Lord is tyed by any precontract but it proceedeth from his meer grace Lastly could the Work merit the Reward it is but still God crowns his own gifts not our works as Augustine saith But if it be true what the Apostle saith That the sufferings of this life even Martyrdom it self which remitteth all sins both original and actual and which justifieth ex opere operato by the very act of suffering if Bellarmine may be believed are not worthy of the joys which shall be revealed hereafter what will become of his Lordships merits He saith The Fathers were of his opinion But the first Tract. de Apolog. David wants a Father it being clearly spurious Hierome hath nothing to the purpose and Augustine is so clear of another minde that the whole chapter is little else but a confutation of the Doctrine of Merits God saith he so worketh justification in his Saints whilest they are cumbered with the temptations of this life as he hath still somewhat to add to them who ask and somewhat to remit to those who are penitent We hold that faith once had may be lost if we have not a care to preserve it you say it can it cannot Our Church hath determined nothing in this point yet because their sister of Ireland affirmeth That a true lively justifying faith is not extinguished nor vanisheth away in the regenerate either finally or totally I shall for this time own her Tenet and consider the validity of his Lordships Texts and first for Luke 8. 13. They on the Rock are they which when they hear receive the Word with joy which for a while believe and in time of temptation fall away Answer the faith mentioned there was but a false conception no living no justifying faith But I see the Marques hath left part of the Text behinde him and left that be lost as well as faith I will for this time bring it after him the words are And these have no root evidently implying the reason why that seed took no better but was scorched with the heat of persecution was that it took no root Now for 1 Tim. 1. 18 19. Which some having put away have made shipwrack of their faith Answer the faith there spoken of is not justifying faith nay so far from it as it is not so much as the faith of assent to the general promises of God revealed in his Word but it is the faith which denoteth the Doctrine of Christianity in which sense it is frequently used in Scripture Acts 6. v. 7. Gal. 1. 23. 1 Tim. 3. 8. 4. v. 1. Jude 3. Such a faith we grant may be lost The authority his Lordship alleadgeth is Augustine I must ingenuously confesse neither Chamier Perkins nor any other do to my seeming come clearly off with him it is not enough to say as they do that Augustine speaketh not of solid and perfect Faith and Love but of imperfect this is no Answer but a meer shift for Saint Augustine saith that some sons of perdition begin to live yea and a while do live and that faithfully and justly in faith which worketh by love and afterwards fall away So that here is not onely a beginning to live but here is a living and a living faithfully and righteously and where these are there is and must be a living and justifying faith My answer shall be what he once said of Cyprian I am not bound to his authority I am the lesse bound because I finde Augustine at odds with himself for he elsewhere saith They who are once ingrafted in Christ are indued with grace not onely to persevere if they will but also to will perseverance We hold that God did never inevitably damn any man from all eternity you say he did Was our Church so weak Is it possible a Church consisting of as many gallant and eminent Divines as ever any Age afforded should fall so foully to assert what never yet to my reading dropt from any private pen To save and damn are proper to God as he is supreme Judge of all the World who is so far from damning any man from all Eternity or before he is born as he actually doth it not when born till he is dead Decree I grant he did from all Eternity to leave a certain number of the comon masse of all mankinde in the state of Damnation being plunged therein by the default of their own free will and as sole Lord and Master of his own not to bestow upon them such grace as would infallibly raise them out and without which they would in time unavoidably incur by their own corrupt and rebellious will eternal Damnation The Texts cited are and must be understood of God's revealed not of his secret will and without allowing that distinction he must be accounted as weak as we according to the Romish censure of us argue him cruel We hold that no man ought infallibly to assure himself of his salvation you say he ought Our Church is silent in this point too Some I confesse there are of prime note amongst the Protestants hold that every man is bound to believe himself predestinated and their main Reason is because every man in the Church is bound to believe the Gospel which I take to be very strong against their own opinion unlesse the Gospel did tell every man that he is of the number of the predestinated But it will be said though this Proposition Such and such a man is predestinated is not expresly found in Scripture yet it may be inferred from thence by unavoidable consequence as such and such a man hath Faith and Charity and therefore he assuredly belongeth to God Most true but then he cannot be assured that he is predestinated till he hath Faith and that the true justifying faith too for he may believe there is a God he may believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God he may believe all things conteined in them to be true and yet come short of a justifying faith still nor must he onely have faith but he must also know that he hath it or else he must not assure himself of salvation and certain it is Faith he may have and not know it yea and a living justifying faith too it may be so weak he cannot feel the Pulse them motion the operation of it and yet the faith may be alive for all that and though we are commandded to examine our selves whether we be in the