A09339:4350
A Golden Chain
A golden chain: or The description of theology containing the order of the causes of salvation and damnation, according to Gods word. A view whereof is to be seen in the table annexed. Hereunto is adjoined the order which M. Theodore Beza used in comforting afflicted consciences.A golden chaine: or The description of theologie containing the order of the causes of saluation and damnation, according to Gods word. A view whereof is to be seene in the table annexed. Hereunto is adioyned the order which M. Theodore Beza vsed in comforting afflicted consciences.
Cambridge: printed by John Legat, 1600Cambridge: printed by Iohn Legat, 1600
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Now the doctrine which we teach on the contrary is, That a sinner is justified before God by faith: yea, by faith alone. The meaning is, that nothing within man, and nothing that man can do either by nature or by grace concurreth to the act of justification before God, as any cause thereof, either efficient, material, formal, or final, but faith alone: all other gifts & graces, as hope, love, the fear of God, are necessary to salvation, as signs thereof, & consequents of faith. Nothing in man concurs as any cause to this work but by faith alone. And faith it self is no principal but only an instrumental cause whereby we receive, ⟨p. 936⟩apprehend, and apply Christ and his righteousness for our justification.
Nowe the doctrine which we teach on the contrarie is, That a sinner is iustified before God by faith: yea, by faith alone. The meaning is, that nothing within man, and nothing that man can do either by nature or by grace concurreth to the act of iustification before God, as any cause thereof, either efficient, material, formal, or final, but faith alone: all other gifts & graces, as hope, loue, the feare of God, are necessarie to saluation, as signes thereof, & cōsequents of faith. Nothing in mā cōcurs as any cause to this work but by faith alone. And faith it selfe is no principall but onely an instrumentall cause whereby we receiue, ⟨p. 936⟩apprehend, and apply Christ and his righteousnesse for our iustificatiō.
Reason I. Joh. 3.14,15. As Moses lift up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lift up: that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. In these words Christ makes a comparison on this manner: when any one of the Israelites were stung to death by fiery serpents: his cure was not by any physic surgery, but only by the casting of his eyes up to the brazen serpent, which Moses had erected by Gods commandment: even so in the cure of our souls, when we are stung to death by sin, there is nothing required within us for our recovery, but only that we cast up and fix the eye of our faith on Christ and his righteousness.