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 justify_v wrought_v 6,761 5 9.1730 5 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A31095 A brief and plain discovery of the falseness and unscripturalness of anabaptism as the same is now practised by those of that perswasion, w[here]in are plainly proved from God's word the five particulars here handled, that God's covenant with Abraham, Gen. 17.7. is the Covenant of grace whereby all God's elect are saved ... / by Ja. Barry, an unworthy minister of the Gospel. Barry, James, fl. 1650-1702. 1699 (1699) Wing B968; ESTC R34200 57,378 134

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

Principle on which all sound Protestants do maintain and justifie the Right of Believers Infants to Baptism is beyond contradiction When the Most High and Soveraigne Lord God saw fit to make known his Will and Pleasure to be that his Covenant of Grace agreed on between himself and his Son Christ in Eternity should be Dispensed in an Ecclesiastical or Church way he singles out above all other men Abraham his Friend on whom he Confers the Honourable Title of the Father of the Faithful Rom. 4.11 Not that Abraham did or could possibly Beget a Believer as such or could convey into the Children he Begat according to Fleshly Generation that Noble Grace of Faith wherewith God's Free-Gift had Blessed himself But God opens and propounds his Everlasting Covenant of Grace and Salvation to him as a Publick Person who was to Personate all true Believers who in after Ages were to be Members of his Visible Churches to the second coming of Christ The Sum and Substance of that Covenant is briefly comprehended in the Words of Gen. 17.7 I will Establish my Covenant between me and thee and thy Seed after thee in their Generations for an Everlasting Covenant to be a God to thee and to thy Seed after thee This Covenant hath Two Essential Parts as all Right Covenants have 1. God's part held forth in the Words I will be a God to thee c. The meaning whereof according to the Analogie of Faith must be thus understood Tho' thou Abraham whom I now call to become my Friend and Favoright and a Publick Head or Representative of all believing Church Members to the end of the World be'st an undon and guilty sinner polluted in thy Nature and born under Adam's Covenant of Works liable and obnoxious to its Curse and to the Wrath to come unable to recover or help thy self out of that deplorable Condition into which thy natural Birth as Adam's Child hath put thee And albeit thou be no way worthy of any Favour yet I think fit to let thee know what thoughts and purposes of Mercy and Kindness I have in store for thee Abraham And for the Rest of mine Elect whom I have Chosen to my self in Christ the Promised Messiah of whom that Son which I have Promised thee is to be a Type And in whose Person all mine Elect are to be Allegorically or Typically Represented and that as thy Son is to be a Type of mine in whom I have Elected and Chosen them I frankly and freely Pardon and Forgive thee all those Transgressions and Sins wherewith as Adam's Child thou standest Chargeable for breaking that Covenant of Works I made with Adam thy and all Mankinds Natural and Faederal Head I Account thee perfectly Just and Righteous in my sight not by or for that Principal of Inherent Holiness which the Spirit of Grace in effectual Calling hath wrought in thee which Inherent Holiness is ever the fruit and effect of a Justified State but never the Procuring or Meriting Cause But I account and esteem thee as Just and Righteous as if thou hadst in thy own Person exactly performed that Legal Righteousness which the Law Moral requires on the alone account of my Sons righteousness which as the Mediator and surety of this my Covenant of Grace he is to perform in the behalf of thee and all mine Elect I most freely impute to thee I Sanctifie and Renew thy vitiated and poluted Nature by my Sanctifying Spirit that thou maiest be capable of Communion and Fellowship with me both here in my Church Militant And here after in my Church Triumphant I Adopt thee to be my Son by Grace and by virtue hereof thou art restored to all the Blessings Rights and Priviledges which Adam thy Natural and Federal Head lost and forfeited by his Apostacy and Defection Hereby thou art Admitted as a Free Denizon into the Family and Houshold of God from whence thou wast cast out in Adam when he was ejected and cast out for his Rebellion witness his expulsion out of Earthly Paradice a lively Type of the Heavenly I Promise to Establish thee in Grace so as thou shalt never more be in danger of loosing thy self or forfeiting my Love and Favour any more For ever I will be a Sun and a Shield to furnish and supply thee with all necessary Accomodations for Life in this World I will Protect and Defend thee from all adverse Powers Spiritually and Bodily which shall contrive and seek thy Ruin And finally I will receive thee into Heaven when by Death thou goest hence where thou shalt Live and Reign with me Eternally And the very same Mercy and Favour which I have now expressed and shewn to thee I do oblige my self by the promise of this my Covenant that I will do to all mine Elect who are to spring from thy Loyns As also to all mine Elect who are to come of the Gentile Race to the end of the World 2. Man's Part As for thee Abraham this thou must do on thy part thou must walk Humbly and Uprightly before me thou must make the Moral Law Engraven by the Finger of my Spirit on the heart of Adam thy Natural and Federal Head the standing Rule of thy Obedience both Negatively and Positively In all the parts of thy Obedience thou must look exactly to three things 1. To the Subject Matter of thy Obedience let it be what I Command and Require not what Creatures Devise or Enjoyn 2. To the manner See that thou do it in Faith keeping thine Eye on Christ my Son for Acceptance and Acting all by Strength derived from him 3. To the end See that my Glory be that thou aimest at and designest in all thou goest about Thou shalt not do my Work and Service in a Mercenary way as a Servant that Works for Wages but thou must obey my Command as a Son with freedom of Spirit and from a Principle of Love and Gratitude knowing and considering that my Grace and Love hath made Provision of all that is needful to make thee every way Eternally happy both here and hereafter The dreadful Curse and Eternal Death to which by Sin thou becamest obnoxious My Son Christ Typ'd out by the Ram hath set thee for ever Free from it And that by his being made a Curse and undergoing Death for thee as being thy Sponsor or Surety at his Hands I have Received the full of that Debt whereto thou becamest liable by breaking my Law there remains not the least Mite for thee to pay so that now thou hast no cause to fear my Vindicative Justice the many and sharp Afflictions wherewith thou shalt meet in thy way to Glory shall be but the gentle Chastisements of thy dearly Loving and Reconciled Father who by them will Purge out the remains of thy indwelling Corruption and sweetly wean thee from the enticing Objects of the vain and bewitching World thou Livest in That Perfect and Spotless Righteousness which must Recommend thee to me and
the Laws demand as a man naturally dead is uncapable of raising or quickening himself or as a Sparrow is uncapable to remove or carry on its Back the greatest Mountain in the World To what end should the only Wise God make a Covenant of Works with such a fallen sinner Arg. 2. If to hold and Teach that God's Covenant with Abraham in Gen. 17.7 is a Covenant of Works and not a Covenant of Grace be a high Reflection on God and also destructive to the Souls of Men then is God's Covenant with Abraham in Gen. 17.7 the Covenant of Grace and not a Covenant of Works But to hold and Teach that God's Covenant with Abraham in Gen. 17.7 is a Covenant of Works and not a Covenant of Grace is a High Reflection on God and destructive to the Souls of Men. Therefore God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17.7 is the Covenant of Grace and not a Covenant of Works For rendring this Argument Unanswerable Two things want confirmation First That to hold and Teach that God's Covenant with Abraham is a Covenant of Works is a high Reflection on God And Secondly That the same is Destructive to the Soules of Men. The First of these will evidently appear to the unprejudic'd and Impartial Reader if he seriously consider how Inconsistent it is with the Divine Attributes of God to make a Covenant of Works with a Lapsed Polluted Sinner whom he knows to be altogether Dead in Trespasses and Sins and every way as unable to will or do any Work that is Spiritually good as a Dead Man is able to quicken and raise himself For Illustration sake let it be considered How unbecoming a Wise and Prudent Man it would be to strike a Covenant or Bargain for ten or twenty thousand Pounds with an Insolvent Person who is well known not to be worth ten Farthings in the World and which is yet worse who hath neither Wit to contrive nor Health or Limbs to Work to get a Penny towards paying such a vast Sum. I cannot so much as doubt of any worldly Wise Mans unwillingness to be guilty of such an oversight as this And shall the Unerringly Wise God be guilty of so great an Absurdity S●condly As this Principle Reflects on God so it is Destructive to the Souls of Men. This appears beyond all contradiction in that it raseth the very Foundation of Men's Salvation by denying that Covenant to be a Covenant of Grace which Abraham and Isaac with Jacob and all the Old-Testament Believers depended on for Eternal Salvation and by which we Gentile Believers hope to go to Heaven For most plain it is that by this pernicious Principle Abraham is lost with all who died trusting to the Grace exhibited in that Covenant And if Abraham the Father of the Faithful be trusting to a Covenant of Works I cannot see how any of his Eccelsiastical Church Seed can be Saved any more than he is For by a Covenant of Works no meer Man ever was or sh●ll be justified and Saved Arg. 3 If the Scripture no where either directly or by consequence calls God's Covenant with Abraham Gen. 17.7 a Covenant of Works then it is a Covenant of Grace and not a Covenant of Works But the Scripture no where either directly or by consequence calls God's Covenant with Abraham a Covenant of Works Therefore the Covenant of God with Abraham is the Covenant of Grace and not a Covenant of Works If it cannot be Demonstrated from the written Word or by Arguments Deducible therefrom that Abraham's Covenant Gen. 17.7 is called or can be proved a Covenant of Works They who so hold and Teach will be found ranked among those who call good evil and evil good and who put Light for Darkness and Darkness for Light Esa 5.10 For Men to take on them to term Abraham's Covenant a Covenant of Works without any Warrant Divine is to me an Argument of an ignorant rash and presumptuous Spirit from which Charge let such Men see how they can Acquit and free themselves Arg. 4. If Abraham was Justified by Faith and not by Works then the Covenant which God made with him is the Covenant of Grace and not of Works But Abraham was Justified by Faith and not by Works Therefore the Covenant which God made with him is the Covenant of Grace and not the Covenant of Works That Abraham was Justified by Faith and not by works the Scripture is express and clear Rom. 4.2 3 4. Gal. 2.5 6 7. Arg. 5. If God hath made no other Covenant of Grace with Abraham distinct from that in Gen. 17.7 then that Covenant in Gen. 17.7 is the Covenant of Grace but God made no Covenant of Grace with Abraham distinct from that in Gen. 17.7 Therefore that Covenant in Gen. 17.7 is the Covenant of Grace and not the Covenant of Works That which will determin the Point in Controversie is this let those who herein oppose me lay down a Scriptural definition of the Covenant of Grace and that in such Terms as best please themselves and in Case their own definition do not agree at least for Substance with Gen. 17.7 if it be according to God's Word then am I freely willing to own my self herein mistaken If they refuse to comply with so fair a Proposal let the Judicious and Impartial Reader Judge who is at the Loss herein they or I I conclude this Chapter with this Dilemma viz. Abraham the Father of the Faithful he is e●ther Sav'd or else he is Damn'd one of these two the Adversaries I now oppose must grant for there is no middle State for Souls Departed If they say he is Damn'd then is there no ground left us to hope that any of Adam's Posterity ever were or shall be Sav'd for we have no other Covenant whereby to expect Salvation but that of Abraham And if he Perished under that Covenant so must we If they grant that Abraham is in a State of Salvation as they must if they speak by the Spirit of Christ then Abraham was Justified and Saved by a Covenant of Grace and if by a Covenant of Grace then that Covenant mention'd in Gen. 17.7 must needs be the Covenant of Grace for besides that Covenant the Scriptures know no other Against what I have said and all Orthodox Protestants constantly ●old and aff●●m conce●ning Abraham's Covenant being a Covenant of pure and absolute Grace this is Obj●cted by the Adversaries Object The Land of Canaan was a Temporal Blessing therefore such was the Covenant of which Circumcision was a Temporary Seal I Answer in two Particulars First The Promise of the Land of Canaan is no Essential part of the Covenant of Abraham Let the Words in the 7th Verse be Read without prejudice The last Clause of the Verse doth fully comprehend the sum and substance of the Covenant of Grace made with Abraham The Promise of the Land of Canaan is only by way of Addition or Overplus No Essential part of the Covenant