A40370:528
Of free justification
Of free justification by Christ written first in Latin by John Fox, author of the Book of martyrs, against Osorius, &c. and now translated into English, for the benefit of those who love their own souls, and would not be mistaken in so great a point.Of free justification by Christ written first in Latine by John Fox, author of the Book of martyrs, against Osorius, &c. and now translated into English, for the benefit of those who love their own souls, and would not be mistaken in so great a point.
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1694
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.
The cause of Justification depends not on confidence, or the application of Mercy only.
The cause of Iustification depends not on confidence, or the application of Mercy only.
YOU will say, What then? Is 1not the free Promise of God a most true cause on which our whole Justification depends? If you say on God's part, it is true; if you ask on our part, you must go further, and something seems to be necessarily joined with the Promise. Now that we may set the thing more evidently before your eyes; God promises Salvation to his own, and that freely, and for Christ's sake. That indeed is most certain, and beyond all controversy. Go on, And you put trust in the Promise of God: You do very well in doing so, and I commend the constancy of your confidence. ⟨p. 300⟩When Salvation is promised freely for Christ's sake, shall therefore an absolute Promise save all men promiscuously for Christ's sake, without any restriction of condition? I suppose God will not save all promiscuously. Now then this Promise belonging not to all, but some certain persons only, upon some certain condition, I would know, who those are, to whom this Promise properly belongs. You say, Believers, and in that you say well; but how, or believing in whom? Are they not those that believe in Christ himself? 2Is it not he only, for whose sake only Salvation is promised to Believers? Doth not this Faith only in the Person of the Son of God make us partakers of the promise? Doth not this Faith only justify before God? Moreover, is not this the only condition, which every where the voice of Christ, and the Apostles in the Gospel, and the voice of the Prophets inculcate; which the appointment of the Father especially requires; that we should hear his beloved Son, that we should receive Christ, that we should believe in his Name, that we should fly to him by Faith, and betake our selves wholly to him, that we should believe in him, whom he hath sent, whom the Father hath sealed, that we should digest him inwardly in our minds, that we should be ingrafted into him, and should grow in him, that we should know Jesus, and him crucified only, that we should behold him only, as the Israelites of old beheld the Serpent in the Wilderness; that we should put on Christ.