Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	believe_v	jesus_n	remission_n	4,257	5	9.2662	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96866	Justification by faith: or, a confutation of that antinomian error, that justification is before faith; being the sum & substance of a sermon / preached at Sarum; by Benjamin Woodbridge, minister of Newberry in Barkshire. May 26. 1652. Imprimatur, Edmund Calamy.	Woodbridge, Benjamin, 1622-1684.	1652 (1652)	Wing W3424; Thomason E673_18; ESTC R207183	23,288	41

remove those Objections which seem of weight to Mr. Eyre for confirmation of his Opinion The first is drawn from those Scriptures which seem to hold forth an immediate actual reconciliation of sinners to God upon the death of Christ without the intervention of Faith As Matth. 3. 17. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased viz. with sinners and Rom. 5. 10. We were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son Answ To the former of these places I answer 1. That the well pleasedness of God need not be extended beyond the person of Christ who gave himself unto the death an offering and a sacrifice unto God of a sweet smelling savor Eph. 5. 2. 2. If we should extend it also unto men which is neither necessary nor probable yet will the words prove no more then that it is through Christ that God is well pleased with men whensoever it be that he is well pleased Verbs and Participles of the present Tense though the Verb in this place be not the present Tense but the first Aorist have sometimes the signification of the future Tense as John 4. 25. The Messiah cometh that is will shortly come and chap. 5. 25. The hour is coming and now is that is will shortly be and 14. 3. If I go I come again so in the Greek that is I will come again 2 Cor. 3. 16. When it namely Israel shall turn to the Lord the vail shall be taken away The Verbs in the Greek are both of the present Tense hundreds of the like instances are obvious somtimes they are Notes of affirmation without reference to any determinate time as Rom. 8. 24. By hope we are saved not presently for it follows immediately hope that is seen is not hope for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for Ergo to be saved by hope imports that a man is not yet saved but the meaning is That it is in the way of hope and patient expectation that men are saved whensoever it be that they are saved So 1 Cor. 15. 57. Thanks be unto God that giveth us the victory to wit the victory over death by and in the Resurrection and the meaning is That it is through God that we have the Victory be it when it will be that we have it for if the words must needs be understood as if we had the Victory presently then Paul and the Christians of his age were raised before they were dead and the Christians of following ages before they were born So Heb. 10. 35. Your confidence hath a great recompence of reward that is shall have Jam. 1. 17. Every good gift cometh down from above not as if it must needs be coming down when the Apostle spake those words but that whensoever any receives a good gift it is from God But why do we fight against God Is it not the testimony of the holy Ghost as express as words can deliver it That without Faith it is impossible to please God or to be pleasing unto God as Enoch was by Faith Heb. 11. 5. 6. It was a poor answer that Mr. Eyre gave to Mr. Good when he asked him Whether God were well pleased with unregenerate men to say He was well pleased with unregenerate men but not with their unregeneracy as if God were well pleased with unregenerate men whiles unregenerate but afterwards were well pleased with their unregeneracy also The like Answer I give to Rom. 5. 10. we were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son to wit That Christs death was the price of our Reconciliation and and so it is through the death of Christ that we are reconciled be it when it will be that we are reconciled Here then we must distinguish as it were of three Periods of the will of God 1. As it may be conceived immediatly after sin committed before the consideration of the death of Christ And now is the Lord at enmity with the sinner though not averse from all ways and means by which he may return to Friendship with him again 2. As it may be conceived after the consideration of the death of Christ and now is the Lord not onely appeasable but doth also promise that he will be reconciled with sinners upon such terms as himself shall propose 3. As the same will of God may be considered after an intercession on Christs part and Faith on the sinners part and now is God actually reconciled and in Friendship with the sinner when then the Apostle says We are reconciled through the death of Christ he doth not mean That immediatly upon the death of Christ we are actually reconciled unto God for in the very next verse he saith That through Christ we have now and not before received the atonement or reconciliation which in plainer terms is this That now that is since we are Believers we are actually reconciled unto God But his meaning is That through the death of Christ it is that the promise of reconciliation is made by and according to which we are actually reconciled unto God after we believe suitable to that of the Lord Jesus This is the new Testament in my blood obtained and sealed by my blood which was shed for the remission of the sins of many Matth. 26. 28. The ground of all this is because the death of Christ was not solutio ejusdem but tantidem not the payment of that which was in the obligation but of the equivalent being not the payment of the debtor but of the surety and therefore it doth not deliver us ipso facto but according to the compact and agreement between the Father and him when he undertook to be our surety If a debtor bring me what he owes me it dischargeth him presently but the payment of a surety is a payment refusable of it self and therefore effects not the discharge of the principal debtor but at the time and according to the conditions agreed upon between the Surety and the Creditor If then our Adversaries could prove either that it was the will of God in giving up Christ to the death or the will of Christ in giving himself to the death that this death of his should be available to the immediate and actual Reconciliation and Justification of the sinner without any condition performed on the sinners part it were somthing to the purpose But till this be done which indeed can never be done they were as good say nothing When Christ gives us an account both of his own and his Fathers will in this matter he tells us That this is the will of him that sent him That whosoever seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life John 6. 40. without which Faith Christ shall profit us nothing Gal. 5. 4. 1 John 5. 11 12. He that hath not the Son hath not life So much for that Objection The next which was one of the two made use of against me after Sermon is this Object 2. If we

everlasting flames 3. The condemnation with which the unbeliever is condemned is expressed verse 36. by the abiding of the wrath of God upon him 4. It is also opposed unto salvation verse 17. God sent not his Son to condemn the world but to save it and surely the condemnation which is opposed to Salvation is more then the condemnation of a mans own conscience for that may very well consist with Salvation yea they that are saved are for the most part more subject to it in this life then they that perish 3. A third Argument is drawn from the several comparisons by which justification by Faith is illustrated Sometimes 't is compared to the Israelites looking up to the Brazen Serpent for healing Joh. 3. 14. Num. 21. 8 9. As then they were not first healed and then looked up to see what healed them but they did first look upon the Serpent and then they were healed Even so is it the will of God That whosoever seeth and believeth the Son shall be justified John 6. 40. He is not first justified and then seeth the Son sometimes Faith is compared to eating and Justification to the nourishment which we receive by our meat John 6. 51 52 53 54. We are not first nourished and then eat the meat that nourisheth us but we eat our meat that we may be nourished by it In like maner we are not first justified and then believe on Christ that hath justified us but we believe in Christ that we may be justified 4. A fourth Argument is drawn from the perpetual opposition between Faith and Works from whence the Argument is this What place and order Works had to justification in the Covenant of Works the same place and order Faith hath to our justification in the Covenant of Grace But Works were to go before our Justification in the Covenant of Works Ergo Faith is to go before our Justification in the Covenant of Grace To the minor I say nothing because there is not a man in the world that doth deny it as I know of and that being granted the major also must be out of question If the tenor of the first Covenant Do this and live by the consent of all People and Nations Jews and Gentiles will undeniably evince that Works were necessary Antecedents of justification in that Covenant why then should not Believe in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved which is the tenor of the New Covenant Rom. 10. 6 9. plead as strongly for the like necessity of the Antecedency of Faith to justification in this Covenant 2. Faith and Works have the like order to justification in their respective Covenants or else justification by Faith and justification by Works are not opposed for Opposita sunt circa idem The Jews looked after Righteousness by the works of the Law The Apostle tells them they must seek it by Faith Now if they say we must be justified by Works to wit formally and before God and the Apostle say Nay but we must be justified by Faith to wit declaratively and before Conscience then the establishing of justification by Faith will not destroy justification by Works and so there will be nothing but falshoods and equivocations in all the Apostles Disputations against Justification by Works And how easily might the Jews and the Apostle have been reconciled They say We must be justified by Works and he says We must be justified by Faith it is but distinguishing Works do justifie us before God but Faith must evidence and declare this to us and they are agreed 5. Adde further what the Apostle says 1 Cor. 6. 11. Such were some of you but you are washed but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Where the opposition between the time past and the time present doth evidently argue that the words have this sense Such and such you were in time past Fornicators Idolaters c. and therefore must have been shut out of the Kingdom of God verse 10. But Now you are washed Now and not before you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus that is through Faith in his name compare Acts 3. 16. and 10. 43. If then the Corinthians were not justified before Faith Why are Englishmen It is to no purpose to say here That now they were declared in their own Consciences to be justified and so they were not before whiles they lived in those abominable sins For 1. Why may not we understand the word Sanctified in the same sense seeing we are said to be sanctified by Faith Acts 26. 18. and 15. 9. 1 Pet. 1. 22. as well as justified by Faith And so suppose that these Corinthians had a seed of Grace before but buried under the dirt and rubbish of vile sins till by Faith they came to see that they were sanctified There is nothing can be alledged for Justification before believing which will not hold as strongly for Sanctification before believing nor any reason why Sanctification should not be understood for a Sanctification declared as well as Justification for a Justification declared 2. The Justification which they now had was that which gave them right and title to the Kingdom of God which right and title they had not before no more then others that did yet continue in Idolatry Fornication Uncleanness and the other sins specified It is acknowledged of all hands that Justification includes an adjudging of us unto life or a giving us a right to the Heavenly Kingdom if then these Corinthians had this right before they believed then did their Faith give them no more security of Salvation in point of right then they had before or then might be affirmed of them who did yet abide in their sins and by consequence if they had lived and dyed in their sins they might have gone to Heaven notwithstanding though for want of Faith to see this their right they could not have departed with so much comfort of Spirit For if faith do onely declare that we have a Title to the Heavenly Kingdom then it makes no relative change in our condition from a state of death into a state of life and so whether we believe or no all is one as to the certainty of our Salvation though we want the evidence and perswasion of it If it be here said that all whom God in his secret justification hath adjudged unto life shall have the evidence thereof by Faith I Answer This evidence is of such necessity as that if they have it not they shall lose that life to which they are adjudged or no If not then whether they believe or do not believe they shall be saved If it be then is there no absolute justification before Faith and justification must be conditional and the immediate and absolute right to life must be acknowledged to be a consequent of Faith which will at once overthrow Mr. Eyres Opinion and confirm this Argument without any more ado What remains to be done is to