Selected quad for the lemma: work_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	faith_n	good_a	james_n	14,239	5	9.1170	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66403	A manual, or, Three small and plain treatises viz. 1. Of prayer, or active, 2. Of principles, or positive, 3. Resolutions, or oppositive [brace] divinity / translated and collected out of the ancient writers, for the private use of a most noble lady, to preserve her from the danger of popery, by the Most Reverend Father in God, John, Lord Arch-Bishop of York.	Williams, John, 1582-1650.	1672 (1672)	Wing W2711; ESTC R38653	30,581	162

righteously because it is the Will and Commandment of God 7. If you take more delight than you did in praying to God 8. If you thank God privately for these his good motions By these eight points you may soon know whether you have true faith or not Q. What is the infallible mark of true and justifying Faith A. The effectual applying of Christ and all his benefits to your own soul in particular And is then only effectual when it worketh by love an impartial obedience to the Commandments of Christ This application doth make a difference betwixt justifying Faith and all other kinds of Faith which cannot save us As Historical Faith which is a a bare assent Faith of Miracles which is a bare confidence added to assent Temporary Faith which is but a bare profession of the Faith for a time embraced only for the desire of Knowledge Credit Profit Q. What is the meaning of this assertion of S. Pauls that we are justified by faith alone A. It is meant of a practical and working Faith for even as when you give your alms to a Begger it is received by his hand alone and yet his hand is not alone when it receives these alms but accompanied with an arm sinews and arteries Even so when God offers unto you Christ and his righteousness you do receive him by Faith alone as it stands in opposition to the deeds of the Law and yet this Faith which receives Christ is never alone but still accompanied with Charity good Works In a word 1. To hold alms is proper to the hand and not the arm and to hold Christ proper to Faith not good works 2. You are justified by Faith alone and yet if your Faith be alone it cannot justifie you Q. What is the meaning of St. James when he saith That we are justified by works and not by Faith only A. His meaning is clearly that obedience to God's Commands as well as Faith in his Promises is absolutely required to our Justification Q. What is the least and weakest degree of Faith that I may build upon to keep me from despair in case I find not all those alterations in my self which you spake of before A. 1. If you desire Faith or pray unto God that you may desire Faith 2. If you can pray or desire of God to enable you to pray 3. If you find fault with your want of Faith and desire sometimes of God to help this want 4. If you dare not live indulgently in any one wilful or deadly sin but sincerely and earnestly strive against it Then you are for all your doubting the child of God RESOLVTIONS Oppositive DIVINITY OR The ordinary Objections of Papists against them of the Reformed Churches A DIALOGUE Papist Protestant CHAP. I. Of the Church Papist THe Church of England is no Church Protest That were very strange considering your own Writers conclude a Church to be there where there is found 1. Doctrine of salvation according to Scripture 2. the Vse of the Sacraments and 3. outward Discipline or Ecclesiastical Government although the Church-men should fall short of those Apostolical and primitive perfections which flourished in their predecessors Pap. Yea but it is not the Catholick Church mentioned in the Creed I believe in the Catholick Church Prot. 1. No more is the Church of Rome For there was no Church at all in Rome when the Creed was made by the Apostles at Hierusalem every Apostle making his Article when they were to depart to plant particular Churches in Rome England and other places 2. But our Church is a branch and portion of that Catholick Church as is also the Greek Armenian Aethiopian and Syrian as well if not rather than the Roman Church Pap. Peradventure these other Churches may be members of that Catholick Church as joyned and united with us but the union betwixt your Church and ours hath been cut asunder above an hundred years agone and therefore you are quite cut off from the Catholick Church Prot. This is more than you know or than I am bound to believe For This union of the members of the Catholick Church is inward not outward and therefore discerned only by God himself We never sundred our selves from the People or Church of Rome but from the Faction or Court of Rome not from the sincere doctrin of that Church but from the corruptions and innovations foisted into that Church And therefore although we be never so hated and excommunicated by your Priests yet we may be still united in internal society with your Church if you retain those principles of Religion sound and unaltered in the which our forefathers died and as we well ●ope were saved Pap. How are you then gone from us if you be still ●nited with us Prot. As the Prophets went from the corrupt Churches of the Jews and as Christ and his Apostles from the Scribes and Pharises clamando dissentiendo by crying out against your corruptions and dissenting from your innovations and this your own men allowed us to do Pap. I but some of your men say that we had no true Church of God in the West of many years before Luther's time Prot. Their meaning is to be limited in respect of the Predominant and prevailing Faction Your Church held I confess a saving profession of the Truthmof God but your Church-men mingled therewith many damnable impieties And these innovators only carrying the greatest shew of the Church are denied by our Writers to be the true Church of God Pap. This it is we Catholicks observe You dare not for all your malice deny the Church of Rome to have in some sort a saving profession of the truth of God but our Priests conclude directly that your Church hath no truth at all and that none can be saved in that Church Prot. As in every Kingdom the general estate is nothing so forward active quick and peremptory as the private Factions and yet is found at the last more wise and staied in final resolution So in the Catholick Church the Factions are ever more heady and precipitate in their denunciations of Heaven and Hell than the main body thereof Hence it cometh to pass that although the Greek Armenian Ethiopian and Syrian and for the most part the Protestant doth censure charitably of those Laicks who living rather in than of the Church of Rome hold the grounds of the doctrin of Salvation without any notorious mixtures with the late superstitions and impieties crept into the same yet doth the Papist Russeist Anabaptist Familist and Puritan hold no Church a Church of God but his own conventicle and all to be damn'd that are not of his society and combination Now what belief you shall afford these Boutefeux of the Catholick Church that dispose of Heaven and Hell as if it were their own Fee-simple I leave to your wisdom and common understanding Pap. Me thinks

and the Blood of Christ 2. It keeps us from despair because it assures us our sins are washed away 3. It keeps us from sin For it is a shame for one washed to soil himself again 4. It gives an entrance ●nto the Church 5. It hath a visible sign Water Grace invisible Forgiveness of sins by the blood of Christ VII THe Lords Supper is a distribution of Bread ●nd Wine which seals signs ●nd exhibits or gives unto you Christs true Body offe●ed and his true Blood pou●ed out upon the Cross for ●…our sins as certainly as ●he Priests exhibite unto your hands the Bread and ●he Wine And withal the Supper assures your heart that Christs Body and Blood nourish your soul to eternal life as surely as Bread and Wine doth nourish your body to the offices of this temporal life Mark then the Vses of this Sacrament of the Supper 1. It assures you of all the benefit that is to be expected from the Body and blood of Christ 2. It puts you continually in mind that Christ died for you 3. It strengthens and ascertains your faith if it be received worthily And therefore you must not neglect thrice in the year at the least to approach with all reverence to this heavenly Table VIII THat this Sacrament may be received worthily you must examin your self before the receiving Pray unto God for Faith in the receiving and take heed of gross and premeditated sins after the receiving of this Sacrament IX BEfore the receiving you must examin four things 1. You must examin your knowledge 1. Whether you know how you ought to Live To this end read over the Ten Commandements 2. Whether you know how to Believe Read over attentively your Creed 3. Whether you know how to Pray Say over advisedly the Lords Prayer Without this little knowledge at the least you are not fit to Receive 2. You must examin your Faith Whether you are assured in your heart that Christ hath fully satisfied for your sins and perfectly on your repentance reconciled you unto God not others only but your self also Without this assurance in some measure you may not receive 3. You must examin your Repentance 1. Whether you are sorry for your sins 2. Whether you hate sin 3. Whether you resolve to indeavour to sin no more Without this Repentance you cannot Receive worthily 4. You must examin your Charity 1. Whether you forgive all the world 2. Whether you are free from malice and hutred When you have examined these four points you may receive worthily X. NOw your faith in Christ which you have gotten in Gods Church being thus hatched by the holy Ghost in your heart brought forth by your hearing cherished by your reading of the word sealed by your Baptism and strongly confirmed and strengthened by your part a king of the blessed Sacrament of the Supper must be continually maintained and preserved by these two means Prayer unto God and him only And Good works or holiness of life And this is the sum of all your Notes which I recommend unto you for this time 1. Salvation is only by such faith in Christ as worketh by Love 2. Faith only in Gods Church 3. Where by the Word read or heard Faith is nourished 4. By the Sacrament of Baptism assured 5. By the Sacrament of the Supper ratified and confirmed 6. By Prayer and Good works for ever established A Prayer after the reading of these few Notes O Lord God that I may be partaker of thy Covenant of Grace make me a believing member of thy Church send thy Holy Spirit into my heart to beget there a confidence and full assurance of the remission of all my sins in Christ Jesus let this assurance be still nourished with my hearing and reading of the Word let it be sealed unto me by my Baptism confirmed by the Sacrament of the Supper and fully established by my serving of thee in Prayer and Good Works to the glory of thy Name and the endless comfort and salvation of mine own soul through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen A SHORT CATECHISM CONCERNING Faith and good Works To be Read and Meditated upon once every Week at the least which may be well called The Catechism of the Conscience Quest WHy hath God made me a reasonable Creature and not as well he might of a meaner kind Answ That with your whole heart that is with your will and understanding you might serve him and love him Which creatures only indued with reason can do Quest How is God principally served and loved of me Answ By your faith and good works which God commands you in his Word And these good works of yours are twofold Prayer to God Charity to men Quest What is Faith Answ A full belief and perswasion of your heart sometimes called an Assurance whereby you are resolved of these three points 1. That there is one only God one Essence and Three Persons The Father who created you Son who redeemed you Holy Ghost who sanctified you 2. That God the Son came into the world to do all that was to be performed and to suffer all that was to be endured by you for your sins actual and original And hereby obtained for you perfect forgiveness of all your sins and hath bestow'd upon you his own perfect righteousness by the means whereof you are reckon'd just and guiltless before the throne of God on a supposal that you repent and are become a new creature by bringing forth fruits meet for repentance 3. That God hath prompted with his Holy Spirit the Pen-men of the Scriptures to teach you all this faith and belief as also all the course of his worship And that every thing contained in these Scriptures is true Q. Why doth God so much require of me faith and belief A. Because without believing in him you cannot love nor reverence him As if you did not believe your father to be your father you would not love him or reverence him as your father Q. How is this Faith first wrought A. By your hearing of Gods word and using those two Sacraments appointed by Christ in his Church Baptism and the Lords Supper And withal by praying continually unto God and doing of good works Q. How shall I know that I begin to have Faith A. If you find in your self these alterations 1. If you find that you have gotten more knowledge of God and of Religion and are glad thereof 2. If you do desire more than you did to have the Son of God to become your Saviour and to stand betwixt you and Gods wrath for the sins you have committed against God 3. If you take more delight than you did in Reading and hearing the Word of God Receiving the Sacrament 4. If when you find doubtings in your mind you can pray unto God to strengthen your Faith 5. If you endeavour to abstain from fin for fear of offending so good a God 6. If you begin to endeavour to live godly and

upon Christ's shoulders by the means of these two fine words Not imputing and imputing and a third swimming notion of your own conceipt which any man may have with a little imagining termed by you faith it would be known therefore where your Church hath found out these words of Art in the Holy Scriptures Prot. We do in all humility confess that the globe of our sins and the World of that righteousness which is to appear in the presence of Gods Justice is too massie for us to sustain that are but dust and ashes and subportable only by that Atlas Christ Jesus upon whose shoulders not our conceits but the goodness of God hath plac'd and pressed them But that these words imputing and not imputing are such Greek unto you I do impute it to your not reading of Scriptures and taking up your Religion by trust and credit from such Fripperers and Brokers as by lending your souls a false opinion of Merits and good works do dive into your purses and eat up your estates by way of interest Not to trouble you as I might with a thousand places ask David whether not imputing of sin and S. Paul whether the imputing of Christs righteousness doth not make us blessed and justified For the words use your own eyes and inspection And for the meaning I refer you to S. Augustin upon the one and St. Ambrose his commentary upon the other passage Now that you fondly imagin that Faith this Heavenly hand that reacheth at this double Act and applies it to our own Souls is such an apprehension as you may command when you please out of your own phantasie it is such a poor opinion that no Soul warmed with the least touch or feeling of religion but contemns with a most holy scorn and reproach I tell you and if you once have it your conscience will tell you no less this Faith is the richest jewel in Gods cabinet and can never be compas'd by any sole endeavour of ours until the Holy Ghost comes down from Heaven to set and enchase it in our hearts with his own fingers as it were And being once obtained it new molds and fashions the whole nature of man so as the understanding becomes more enlightned to know God the will to obey God the affections to love God and our brethren Nor can it be preserved to the comfort of our conscience without daily praying meditating doing good works reading the Scriptures hearing good Sermons and perusing of devout and Godly Treatises My belief therefore is this God not imputing sin and imputing righteousness is the worker The Merits of Christ the procurer Faith wrought by the Holy Ghost the instrument or applier good works or my inherent righteousness poor as it i is partly a concause or a necessary condition and partly an effect of my Justification For Faith it self does sanctifie in part and thereupon it is God that justifies Pap. I have heard some of your side rail against the very name of inherent righteousness which you seem now to acknowledge and embrace Do Protestants therefore challenge any other righteousness besides that of Christ's which is imputed Prot. They do acknowledge a Sanctification or inherent righteousness in the same sense as the ancient Fathers took the Word but not as Jesuits of late mistake it We have righteousness inherent or subsisting in us according to which we shall be judged but not according to which we shall be juctified though we cannot be justified in the whole unless in some measure such as God in Christ accepts we be sanctified first Which yet we cannot be of our selves but by Gods free Grace We cannot therefore plead Merits as you of Rome are wont to do at the Throne of God For Faith it self cannot justifie although without it we cannot be justified That indeed is a Condition but God in Christ is the sole Author of our Justification because by him and by him alone our sins are not imputed to us You make your righteousness to go before as the cause we ours to come after as the effect of justification Pap. But have you any use of your Free-will in either righteousness I mean that imputed or this inherent Or are you as some relate your opinions meerly suffering and passive like so many stocks and stones casting not so much as a sigh grone or short wish towards this great work of your conversion Prot. In our first conversion to be righteous we are not like so many Niobes or images of marble which move not at all but as they are in the whole lump carted and transported Our understandings not affording themselves the least glymps of knowledge nor our wills the least shew of inclination unto this Act but being quickened enlivened by the engines of Grace and motions of the Holy Ghost in our souls and consciences our understandings wills and affections do cooperate and run along with the Grace of God in all our works of piety and devotion The points therefore of this Chapter are these 1. Justification consists in Gods not imputing of Sin and in his imputing of Christs righteousness unto us 2. It is not our conceipt but the justice and mercy of God which layes this load on our Saviour Christ 3. Whosoever is acquainted with the Scripture cannot be unacquainted with imputed righteousness 4. Imputed righteousness is soon appprehended but infused Faith must be first obtained 5. We have an inherent righteousness in part which is the Condition of our Justification 6. Grace alone works our justification grace and we together but we in the second place our Sanctification CHAP. IV. Of Saints Souls of the Dead and those dependant Questions Pap. WE are scandalized likewise at your Church because you give no more reverence to the Saints than you do neither praying unto them nor adoring their images nor giving them any set imployment above in Heaven or the least care of us here on earth Which smells very much of the Heresies of the Cainans and Eunomians condemned so many years agone in the Christian Church Prot. What employment the Saints have in Heaven besides the contemplation of God face to face we know not nor do we deny their praying for us Upon earth they receive in our Church all that honour bespoken for them in the primitive Church We keep duely the memorials of the Blessed Virgin and the twelve Apostles and a yearly panegyrical commemoration of all the Martyrs and Saint of God respecting them as our fellowes and friends though not as our Tutelar gods and young little Saviours We admire their lives and as we do not furiously deface so do we not adore their Images Because S. Augustin would fain know where that Christian may be found that prayeth or adoreth beholding an Image We rear them no Temples as to Gods but trophees only of praise as to deserving men S. Paul himself did all this and he did no more