Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	faith_n	justification_n	work_n	32,098	5	6.7418	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23667	The mystery of iniquity unfolded, or, The false apostles and the authors of popery compared in their secular design and means of accomplishing it by corrupting the Christian religion under pretence of promoting it	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1675 (1675)	Wing A1066; ESTC R10549	54,027	163

they before suffered from them and by degrees thereby to reconcile them to themselves and to their Religion This Device of theirs occasion'd those jealous apprehensions St. Paul had of the Corinthians after the False Apostles got among them which he thus expresseth in 2 Cor. 11.2 3. I am jealous over you with godly jealousie for I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chast virgin to Christ But I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ S. 3. First for the unbelieving Jews they we know were fierce Enemies against all that professed the Christian Religion labouring to raise Persecution against them every where To take off the edge of which as I said the False Apostles became Factors for Judaism and so fell to perswade the believing Gentiles to mix and compound Judaism and Christianity together as an Expedient both to save themselves from Persecution and to win their Adversaries to a liking of Christianity Of this attempt we read in Acts 15.1 Certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren and said Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses ye cannot be saved And again ver 5. There arose certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed saying That it was needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses That such a thing as this was done to avoid Persecution from the Jews appears from Gal. 6.12 13. As many as make a fair shew in the flesh they constrain you to be circumcised onely lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ That they did it not so much out of Conscience as for this politick end appears by ver 13. For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law but desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh as having now made them as well Proselytes to the Jewish way as before they were to Christianity That this way of compliance in the Christians with the Jews was effectual to secure them from Persecution from the Jews appears likewise from Gal. 5.11 And I brethren if I yet preach circumcision then is the offence of the cross ceased Upon this account doubtless it was that some corrupt Christians pretended themselves to be Jews who were not but were of the synagogue of Satan as we read Rev. 2.9 3.9 Now this way of joyning and commixing Judaism and Christianity together set on foot by false Teachers under the Pretences aforesaid took dangerously among Professors of Christianity which was the occasion of those large Discourses touching Justification by Faith without the Works of the Law which we have in St. Paul's Epistles both to the Romans and Galatians The plain meaning of which was That the observation of the Law of Moses in the Jewish way was not necessary to Salvation in Christians as the false Apostles had taught it to be and that it was unnecessary for the Gentile Believers to be brought over to it and that the Religion revealed and prescribed in the Gospel called The Faith and this alone without adding Judaism to it was both necessary and sufficient to Salvation And by the way those that from the Apostles Reasoning hereabout would oppose the Works of Evangelical Obedience to Faith in the Point of Justification do greatly mistake the Apostle in his design and way of Reasoning S. 2. Secondly the false Teachers to avoid Persecution and the loss of all for the Gospels sake from the Heathen or unbelieving Gentiles struck in with them also in part and taught the Christians that it was lawful for them to comply with their Idolatrous Neighbours so far as to go with them to their Idol-feasts and to eat things sacrificed to Idols so long as they did not intentionally and in their minds do it in any honour to the Idol but kept their mind to God Some such as these were in the Church of Pergamos Revel 2.14 I have a few things against thee because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam who taught Balac to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed to Idols and to commit fornication Such also were in the Church of Thyatira ver 20. I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest that woman Jezabel which calleth her self a Prophetess to teach and seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed unto Idols That this was taught and practised as lawful so long as it was not done intentionally to honour or worship the Idol as the Infidels did I gather from St. Paul's Discourse in 1 Cor. 8. In ver 1. he saith Now as touching things offered to Idols we know that we all have knowledge Knowledge of what This he delivers more expresly in ver 4. We know that an Idol is nothing in the world and that there is none other God but one This it seems was that which they pleaded in justification of their Practice of going to the Idols Temple and of eating of things sacrificed to the Idols They knew that the Idol was nothing and therefore did not intend any worship to it in what they did The Apostle supposeth this to be true and grants indeed that they and all Persons generally that owned the Christian Faith did know that an Idol is nothing and that there is no other God but one and that therefore probably such could not be suppos'd to eat of the Idol-sacrifice with intent to worship the Idol But yet this Knowledge was not universal among all without exception that had begun to own Christianity as he shews in ver 7. saying Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge for some with conscience of the Idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an Idol and their conscience being weak is defiled And so argues the unlawfulness of their Practice upon the account of scandal to weak Brethren to the end of the Chapter But in the tenth Chapter where he reassumes this Business again he argues plainly That whatever their knowledge or intention was yet that by that Practice they had communion with the Idol or Devils to whom indeed the Offering was made See from ver 14. to ver 22. It was for this Seduction by false Teachers that St. Peter and Jude do so earnestly inveigh against them as following the way of Balaam for reward 2 Pet. 2.15 Jude 11. And Balaams way we know was to teach Balac to draw the Israelites to Idolatry and Whoredom by enticing them to eat with the Moabites of their Idol-sacrifices Numb 25.2 31.16 And it was against this Seduction by false Teachers that St. John admonished the Christians when in the close of his first Epistle he said Little children keep your selves from Idols How far this device of sinful compliance with Unbelievers both of Jews and Gentiles did succeed

in Christ what would they stick at and what would they not do under the notion of furthering and promoting the Christian the Catholick Cause either to secure or procure their worldly enjoyments and to gratifie their various lusts Many when they perceived that by the doctrine of Faith in Christ men were freed from the Law of Moses in many of those things which before Faith came the Jews were bound to observe they were willing to understand that this doctrine of the Faith of the Gospel gave them a greater Latitude in other things also than indeed it did And this opinion as we may well suppose occasioned such cautions as these Brethren ye have been called unto liberty only use not liberty as an occasion to the flesh Gal. 5.13 As free and not using your liberty as a cloak of maliciousness 1 Pet. 2.16 Nay some it seems went so far as to think they might do things in their own nature evil so long as they did them for good ends to sin that grace might abound and would have fathered this opinion on the Apostles also Rom. 3.8 As we be slanderously reported saith St. Paul and as some affirm that we say let us do evil that good may come From such Libertine doctrines as these false Apostles broached under the notion of Evangelical priviledges and to procure the more Converts to the Christian profession sprang as it is very probable those cursed practices which turned to the reproach of Christianity and to the hindrance of its progress of which we read in 2 Ep. of St. Peter and in the Ep. of Jude and other places It 's true they were not probably so bad at first as they were at last but were led from one error to another till they arrived at last to monstrous heights of wickedness as we have also seen some in our days have done who began but in Antinomianism at first Evil men and seducers saith St. Paul speaking of those false Teachers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived 2 Tim. 3.13 2 Thes 2.10 11. S. 14. Shall I now need after all that I have said touching the design the false Apostles drove and the manner how to say any thing farther to unfold the working of the Mystery of Iniquity in the Apostles daies Seeing all upon the matter which I have hitherto said tends as I apprehend it to shew what we are to understand by those words of St. Paul in the 2 Thes 2.7 For the Mystery of Iniquity doth already work However take this farther account briefly In a Mystery there is one thing hid under another So that the inward and more secret part is hardly discernable but to considering men So it was here in the business before us The worldly design of the false Apostles and their corrupting the Christian Religion to accomplish it were obscured and hid under a show and profession of Christianity and Religious pretences as that the Gospel did allow of what they did and stood in need of some things they did to promote it Before the Gospel came the Iniquity of the Gentiles abominable Idolatries and gross impurities both in worship and manners was openly profest and practised But when the Gospel by coming among them had prevailed against these things and had turned them from dumb Idols to serve the living God Then Satan who as St. Paul saith can transform himself into an Angel of Light did by his ministers labour to corrupt and entangle again those who were once clean escaped from them who lived in errour the errour of Gentilism but not so as to profess Gentilism again but under a show of Christianity to return to it in part The Devil was too subtile to appear so openly as to tempt them to return to downright Gentilism again in the grossest kind For the Gospel had come among them with such demonstration and power by the signs and wonders and mighty deeds which did accompany it and by that means had so triumpht over the Religion of the Gentiles that the Devil could have little hope of prevailing with them to return to downright Gentilism again who had been but lately so convinced of the truth and excellency of the Christian Religion as to be brought to renounce Gentilism and to profess Christianity But he thought it best as the case stood to go another way to work with them and to put them upon corrupting the Christian profession by degrees by mixing something of Gentilism with it under the notion of being consistent with it yea as tending to promote it by reconciling the heathen to it by meeting them half way And that wherewith the Devil in temptations of this kind baited his hook was by insinuating that by this means they might keep fair quarter with their Infidel neighbours render themselves in some sort friends to the world stave off persecution and retain their worldly possessions together with their Christianity This I apprehend to be the Mystery of Iniquity of which the Apostle speaks as then already working But when the Apostle saith the Mystery of Iniquity doth already work referring to the time then present he implies that the spreading and more eminent prevailing of it was to be expected afterwards in time then to come and to this agrees the scope of the place as well as the form of words and manner of speaking there used For when he saith only he who now letteth will let untill he be taken out of the way it 's evident that the more general spreading and prevailing of this Mystery was for the present hindred by that which in time would be removed and that then it should get up to its height I will not undertake positively to determine who or what is meant by the he which the Apostle saith now letteth But this I say that if the false Apostles corrupting the Christian Religion for worldly advantage under pretence of that Religion was not a Mystery of Iniquity and such a Mystery of Iniquity as was then working then I confess I cannot imagine what was But if it were then that which then hindred all such as profest the Christian Religion as the corrupt Christians did from rising to any considerable greatness in the world must in all probability be it which did then lett or hinder that mysterious design managed under pretence of that profession from coming to that growth which afterwards it came to when that impediment was removed out of the way And what did or could so much hinder such as profest Christianity from rising to worldly greatness as the then Roman power as Heathen which was so far from preferring men for the Christian profession sake that it did depress and keep them under upon that very account And if that were it which did lett and you see what reason there is to think it was Then the first Bishop of Rome as Popish and those that succeeded him who when the Roman power as heathen was removed and now become Christian did by