Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	eternal_a	good_a	reward_n	7,006	5	8.9757	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45151	Peaceable disquisitions which treat of the natural and spiritual man, preaching with the demonstration of the Spirit, praying by the Spirit, assurance, the Arminian grace, possibility of heathens salvation, the reconciliation of Paul and James, the imputation of Christ's righteousness, with other incident matters : in some animadversions on a discourse writ against Dr. Owen's Book of the Holy Spirit / by John Humfrey ...	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.	1678 (1678)	Wing H3702; ESTC R21932	66,481	118

gifts of prayer does but offer a stinted form which is said commonly as to the hearers particular state and the stinting of the Object does not yet stint the Spirit however in his operation on the affections Praying alwaies with all manner of prayer and supplications in the Spirit Praying with the Spirit or by it in the last place is that we find in the dayes of the Apostles when they had extraordinary administrations of the Spirit in gifts that were miraculous insomuch that they spake with tongues and so preached and prayed Those that spake I apprehend understood not themselves what they delivered but every one in whose tongue they spake were edified and therefore we read of some that did interpret Those were such it is like as had skill in more tongues than their own or else in case there were none such the fame miraculous power might enable some for the interpretation as others to speak Thus praying with the Spirit is opposed to praying with the understanding and the Apostle prefers praying with the understanding before it There is no person had cause therefore to brag of this if he had it and there is none of any sect among us that pretend to it And so I think having said what I intended otherwise that neither the Gentleman nor I need to be put to any more words about it I will pray with the Spirit and I will pray with the understanding also CHAP. IV. Of the closer judgement of the Author in his sixth Chapter which is Arminian and of Election Free-will and Grace upon account of his opinion Of the salvability of Heathen and other incidental matters I Descend to his sixth Chapter which is to shew us who those are to whom the Spirit is promised and given These persons are Believers who yet are not holy persous This is his Notion They cannot be holy till they have the Spirit to sanctifie them and yet they must believe and pray because that is the condition upon which the Spirit is given The holy Spirit consequently and his special grace is necessary to Good works or sanctification but Believing is antecedent to it or must be in a mans power before it I must confess I am made sensible of the sagacity of this Author upon my reading this Chapter which I did not heed so much before and I perceive which way his mind is hankering It was this very light which carried St. Augustine so much in his first writings The doctrine of Pelagius at the first broaching consisted mainly in this point that God did give his grace according to mens merits This doctrine seemed to the Father too arrogant for man and derogatory to God That the grace of God and eternal life is given to some and not to others is manifest That the reason must be in regard of something that one man does and not another seemed to him undeniable That good works should be it appears against the Scripture not by works lest any man should boast Besides if a man should be allowed to be able to do any good works to merit Gods grace by the strength of nature what need were there of prayer for aid from God or the help of his Spirit Man should have need of industry here not prayer If not works then what must it be but that which is so often contradistinguished to works and that is Faith For the Scripture that saies not of Works but of Grace does say likewise It is of faith that it may be of Grace Here then is that which must be in mans power That a man could not do good works without grace St. Austine always asserted for this was his meaning when he saies that good works do not preceed but follow justification understanding by justifying the making a man just by inherent grace as the Schools do after him But that a man can believe if he will by the use of his natural faculties only is what he did maintain readily thinking no body could deny it According to this clear apprehension prehension as he then took it up he did proceed to his doctrine of Election which being defined by the Ancients before his time always ex praescientia he now determines to be of this Faith foreseen It must not be ex operibus praevisis because that will oppose grace but ex praevifa fide and that will salve all objections We are to conceive of other things to follow agreeably as Arminius that acute and I think pious Divine hath since taken up the notion when Augustine himself retracted it and upon his own stock improved it It is me now I must say something notable to see the seeds of the same light springing up in this Gentleman as formerly actuared two such searching Divines as Austin and Arminius were and I cannot therefore without guilt of disingenuity pass over any thing which he hath offered for the farther cultivation of it For doing this I observe he enters first upon an adventure to make some change of our terms in Divinity The state of nature and a state of Grace are terms that signifie Regeneration and Unregeneration with all men even in our practical Books and he will have us by a state of Nature to understand the state of a Heathen and by a state of Grace the state of every one under the Gospel The Gospel now bringing a man into this state a state of Grace he distinguishes of this Grace the Gospel brings And it is either that which goes before our Faith or follows it That which goes before he accounts it all Common Grace that which is given after it special Grace Ordinarily by the way that grace which is given to the Reprobate as well as to the Elect we call Common Grace and that which is peculiar to the Elect we call special grace whether before or after Faith But he offers his reason The Grace which the Gospel brings is either says he that which is given upon condition or that which is given upon none That which is conditional must be given only to some because it is some only perform that condition and that which is given but to some is special Grace That which is given upon no condition must be therefore or rather may be appropriated to all and so is Common Grace Thus he Theologizes when we ordinarily do not account it common grace because every one has it but because the Reprobate as well as the Elect have it and we do not call it special Grace only because some have it but because the Elect only have it so that that Grace which is given but to some if it be given to any Reprobate as well as the Elect we call not special but common Grace Well but these terms being premised that Grace now which he calls special the grace of the Gospel is promised on the condition of Faith It is Faith is the first thing upon which all depends If this be not in the power of every one the

have been more kind to the Nations I have some little light therefore here or I believe it to be so to offer to this very susceptible person There is a three-fold Government in one to speak accurately that God hath had in the world over man in reference to his chief end the salvation of his soul The first was by the Law of Nature the second by the Law of Moses and the third by the Law of Christ Before God gave his Law unto Israel the whole world was under that Law which is written in the heart God must govern man by that only when there was no other This Law now writ in mans heart we are to know is two-fold for Nature coming under a double consideration as entire and as fallen the Law must be double the Law of innocent nature or Law of Innocency and the Law of lapsed nature which is the Law of Grace or mercy toward man in regard to that condition To express it more fully there is Lex Naturae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Lex connaturalis gratiae The Law of Nature and the connatural Law of Grace as Suarez has it in his Book De Legibus I am pleased much with the terms though I found not that he did well understand them or explain them himself Only thus much he says that the Ancients before Moses who were governed by the Law of Nature only must have this Lex connaturalis gratiae together with it or comprehended under it or else no man then upon earth could be saved which is a truth so evident as makes the proof of that Law by that reason alone to be good When he terms this Law then a Law connatural I understand by it that this Law of lapsed Nature this Law of Grace or remedying Law is written in the heart of man in regard to his fallen nature no less than the Law of pure nature it self was The Law of Nature as I take it is the dictates of right reason declaring to us our duty to God to our selves and to our neighbours and the light of the same reason will dictate to us when we have failed in that duty to repent and turn to God with trusting to his mercy and pardon if we do so and not else We do find it legible in our hearts that God is good and wisely gratious to pity our infirmities and consider our lost estate and necessary frailty as that there is a God and any worship that is at all due to him There is mercy with thee that thou shouldst be feared And these Characters thus engraven in the heart of man is the same law of Grace in the practical contents as is more largely paraphrased upon by the Prophets in the Old and the Apostles in the New-Testament There is no difference at all in the Substance as Divines speak but in the Administration It is as one lately hath expressed it lively no otherwise than as a Book thrice Printed the second Edition is larger than the first and the third most compleat and perfect This I will say the Covenant was still on foot the Condition sincerity according to their light men were judged by it and many saved Here only is the difference that the foundation on which all this is laid the Mediation Righteousness and Sacrifice of Christ comes not to be revealed but in Types and darker promises till the promulgation of the Gospel Now I say that though the Heathen be not under or have not this Law of Grace in the third and last setting our or in the state under the Gospel yet they are under it or have it in the state of the Ancients or as they had it in the first promulgation and upon supposition that any of them do according to the light they have live up in sincerity to this Law I dare not be the man that shall deny but through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ procuring this Law or Covenant for them as for us and all the world they shall be saved even as we and we shall be saved even as they Not to leave this yet I have learned from Cicero that all Laws must be derived from the Divine Reason and Will I have learned from others that this Reason of God in his Government of all things agreeably to his own nature and the nature of his Creatures is the Eternal Law I have learned from the Scripture that there is a Law of Works and a Law of Grace I do learn by consequence that these Laws as frames of Gods Government over man must be reconcileable with the Eternal Law or the reason of his Wisdom and Justice and Goodness the one of them being fit for the estate of man in Innocency the other for his Lapsed condition How these Laws do now consist and not consist with one another while the Scripture saies sometimes we are freed from the Law and sometimes that it is established That not a tittle of it shall pass and that we are not under the Law but under Grace I do not intend here any full decision I will draw only one chief stroke towards it The Law may be considered as the Rule of man's duty or Measure of Good and Evil according to his own nature and Gods Or as the Instrument of God's Government over man or Measure of his dealing with us or judging of us according to our discernings It cannot be conceived but so long as the Nature of God and Man is the same and Good and Evil which consists in an agreeableness to them both is the same the Law of Nature must remain unchangeable as the measure of our moral actions But as it is the instrument of Gods Government in the world it is as certain that through the Mediation of Christ who hath satisfied his Father for our breach of it it is relaxed so as we are not dealt withal according to the tenour of the Law in the matters of this life or of that which is to come I distinguish these two things a Rule of Life and a Rule for Life A Rule for Life is expressed in these words He that doeth them shall live in them We are freed from the Law upon the later account we are made free to it in regard to the former That is we are under the Law so as we are still bound to live according to it but we are delivered from it so as through mercy and the merits of Christ we shall not be judged by it There is Norma vitae and Norma judicii The Law is of force as a rule of Life or Duty but we are not under it as a rule of Judgement We shall be judged saies St. James by the Law of Liberty and Paul saies according to my Gospel Blessed be God for this truth Now that the Government of God over the whole world is by the Law of Grace and not of Works thus much being said imperfectly only for light in the way does appear as the Sun

God as being of his invention or appointment in opposition to the Law that we are saved This is typed in the children of the Flesh and the children of the Promise and this may be the meaning of these words It is not of him that willeth and runneth that is it is not in the way of works but of God that sheweth mercy that is but of Grace This is delivered here I know roughly and darkly yet may it serve another man to think upon when I my self do not pursue it There is in the Papers called the Middle way something of this in that of Election p. 15 16. and something more accurately in that of the Covenants p. 6 ad 13. There is another notion of Election To wit the choosing of persons or a people to a Church-state or the priviledge of Ordinances and so unto the peculiar government of God or Christ over them upon that account He hath given his Statutes to Israel he hath not done so to other Nations Thus Abraham is the first Elect we read of Thou didst choose Abraham and broughtst him out of Ur and madest a Covenant with him in Nehemiah That was by way of preamble to Gods gathering a Church out of his seed who was to be his people Hence is he said in several places to have chosen them not for their deserts or their number but because he loved thy Fathers therefore he chose their seed after them and hence have they the titles of a peculiar people and a chosen generation with many the like expressions In the New-Testament likewise we find those who receive the Gospel have the same titles They are said to be engrafted into the Jews Olive that is into their external Covenant and Church-state and to be a chosen generation as the Jews were a royal Priesthood and a peculiar people insomuch as when the Apostle writes to a whole Church he calls them Elect as well as Saints and sanctified in Christ Jesus And the faith of Gods elect may perhaps be thus interpreted the Christian faith Blessed is the Nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance These notions I mention but must travail no further in the search of them because I am held by the other doctrines I have named Regeneration and That few shall be saved For if these two Doctrines be not capable of some other notion also than what is commonly understood by them they must fix me in the like received notion of Election If there is such a thing then in the first place as Regeneration that is a work of grace on the souls of some persons whereby they are begotten again to a holy life as well as to the relation of the children of God then is Election I must say actuated in such persons The Schools distinguish between Eternal and Actual Election and this work of saving conversion or effectual vocation they call Actual election Election is the preparation of effectual grace for some persons that they may be saved and not for others This effectual grace then vouchsafed to any particular person in or for his regeneration is the execution of Election Such dependance have these doctrines upon one another that we shall not need to enquire farther what is Election which we understand and prove by this effect Regeneration better than by any mans definition or arguments If we cannot come off therefore about Regeneration as well as Election we must be determined by the one in our judgement concerning the other For the helping us out here this Author hath said something That to be regenerate is to become the Disciple of Christ and that is to be brought into the Church or Church-state which agrees with the second Notion before of Election He that is a Disciple must be baptized and to be baptized is to be both again by water and incorporated into Christ and he that is but externally in Christ is a new creature as one of that world to come in the second to the Hebrews which is said to be put in subjection to Christ that is the Christian Church under the Gospel Agreeably hereunto this Author tells us out of Dr. Hammond that the proselytes of the very Jewish Church were called recensnati upon this same account Regeneration then may be a Relative term only or but Relative grace whether in regard to a Spiritual or External relation What this may do now with others I know not This Author does make Regeneration to consist in a Real work on the soul as well as others while he defines the regenerate man to be one that does not only become a Disciple but a sincere Disciple of Christ for this includes that effectual grace which proceeds from Election And yet if we could get off from both these Doctrines Election and Regeneration there remains farther the third Doctrine That few shall be saved from which there is no man I ever yet read Arminian or Antiarminian that sought an escape They are words out of our Lords own mouth Few there be that find it and the Evangelist that set them down could not be mistaken in Christs meaning There is no mans heart can serve him to think so because they were inspired in what they writ If this be a truth then that few shall be saved it is a truth that it is Gods will that few shall be saved and consequently if his will his decree If it be Gods decree then that few shall be saved I cannot be solicitous any farther about Personal or Absolute Election There appears to me really to be a greater dishonour put upon Gods goodness and infinite mercy to make him decree salvation to all on such conditions as a few persons only left to their liberty shall thereupon be able to be saved than can be cast meerly on his justice or righteousness to decree that grace or such grace to these few persons that shall effectually bring them to that end And what though Salvation sometimes be taken also as Election in Scripture in reference to a mans being brought into the Ark that is into the Church and so we are said to be saved by baptism as it is said Save your selves from this untoward generation and as they which were added to the Church are said to be saved and as salvation is said to be of the Jews What mans reason can serve him to believe that Christ speaks of this salvation If it could Are there not more that come into the Church than are eternally saved There is doubtless a double Election and Salvation in Scripture Temporal in this sense before spoken in relation to a Church-state and Christs government of us by the Gospel and Eternal in this sense of Salvation whereof Christ is speaking when he saies And few there be that find it Such is our Election and such is this Salvation Election from Eternity and salvation to eternity and both meet in Regeneration For regeneration is Actual

speaks of is that Justification which we have in that Text of Genesis where it is said And Abraham believed and it was accounted to him for Righteousness Or That Juslification Paul speaks of is that Imputation of Faith for righteousness which is spoken of in that Text in Genesis That Justification which St. James speaks of is that Justification which we have in that Text in Genesis Or is that Imputation of Faith for Righteousness as is spoken of in that Text in Genesis Therefore St. Pauls justification and St. James justification are the same Justification Again That Faith which St. Paul speaks of is the Faith that is spoken of in that Text in Genesis or the same Faith as was imputed to Abraham for righteousness in that place That Faith which St. James speaks of is the same Faith which is spoken of in that Text in Genesis Or the same Faith that was imputed to Abraham for righteousness in that place Therefore the faith that St. Paul speaks of and the faith which St. James speaks of is the same faith also And when the Faith is the same and the Justification the same we must distinguish of Works then out of question to reconcile these Scriptures Of Works then let us distinguish and the distinction is this There are Works which are inconsistent with Grace and Pardon so that if we had them we should have no need of Christ's righteousness or sacrifice but the doing of them would make the reward to be of debt or make life to be due out of district justice He that doeth them shall live in them That is Works which the Law requires unto Justification And these are the Works St. Paul speaks of and the reasons which he alleadges why we are not justified by these Works is because no man hath them This is that which he apparently urges for he ascends in his dispute from the Law of Moses to the Law of Nature which concerns both Jew and Gentile in his three first Chapters to the Romans so that if any man be justified it must be without them Therefore we conclude saies he that by faith without them that is without having them a man is justified There are then Works also which are consistent with Pardon and Mercy though we have them so that when we have done these we do need the righteousness and satisfaction of our Redeemer to cover their imperfection and for acceptation of our persons no less than if we had Faith alone without any and these are Works of sincerity required of us in the Gospel It is no wayes derogatory I say to Gods Grace and Christs Merits for a man to be justified by these works any more than to be justified by Faith alone in regard to Debt or Merit upon which account St. Paul excludes works in his Disputation It is of these Works I must say as the Apostle saies it is of Faith that it may be of Grace And these are the Works St. James speaks of when he saies By Faith and Works also that is all one as by a Faith working by Love in Pauls words otherwhere And the being justified by Faith working by Love or by a Faith productive of Works or by these Works and Faith also which being such Works as fall short of the Law and do need grace and forgiveness for their acceptation with God is all one with St Pauls by Faith without works of the Law or without such as the Law requires unto justification Thus are Paul and James reconciled I will advance hence then my former argument That justification by Faith without works which St. Paul speaks of is that Justification or that Imputation of Abrahams Faith for righteousness which is spoken of in that Text in Genesis That justification by Works and Faith also which St. James speaks of is that Justification or that Imputation of Abrahams faith for righteousness which is spoken of in that Text in Genesis Therefore St. Pauls justification by faith without works and St. James justification by faith and works also or by works and not by faith only is the same in the two Apostles The medium upon which all three Syllogisms depend is the Apostles citing the same Text both of them for that which either of them assert while one saies by faith without works and the other by works and not by faith only The major and minor therefore in all three are undeniable and in the conclusion of the last I am sure the Doctor and I shall agree together I have another thing to offer to the thoughts of the Dr. that whereas he tells us of a Commutation between Christ and us in his taking upon him our sins and our partaking of his righteousness I do apprehend this expression and doctrine to be Christian holy and good according to the sense of that Text He was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him and the like places But only there is a difference to be put between the use of the notion against the Socinians in the point of Satisfaction and the use of it against the Mediocreans in the point of Justification I do believe such a Commutation as the Dr. speaks of is necessary to that great work which Christ undertook for Mankind as it concerns the whole world in the procuring Reconciliation and Life for all upon the terms of the Redeemer for if he had not taken on him our sins to suffer in our behalf which is his being made sin for us and fulfilled the whole Law also for us that God might without dishonour to him as Rector dispense with it so as to impute to us our faith and imperfect obedience for righteousness which is our being made the righteousness of God in him there would have been no satisfaction offered and consequently no Reconciliation or Redemption But as for such a Commutation in the point of Justification which concerns particular Believers I am yet to learn what to make of it from this Reverend person To enquire then to the bottom the foundation of this Commutation is laid I see by him in the Mystical Union between Christ and his Members which must pertain therefore only to such and that as a fruit or effect of the Spirit of Christ given to them if it be so to that end When this indeed is a thing that does not belong at all to the operation of the Third person of the Trinity but to the work of the Son and the arbitrary ordination of the Father Whatsoever influence Christ hath upon the soul as our Head by the operation of the Holy Ghost or whatsoever is an effect of the Spirit when once given for uniting us to him it must have this Union for its ground or foundation But whatsoever arises to us from Christ another way and is no effect of the Spirit it may not be ascribed without contradiction to that spring from whence it comes not The Dr. judges right that such a