but it flieth into it Man naturally is giuen rather to know what hee cannot learne than to doe what he knoweth and should learne to the ende to doe thereafter If the Kings of Persia might weare a Lawne before their faces because they would not be commonly seene why may not the King of Kings the inuisible God keepe the reason of his doinges vnder the veile of his owne determinations counfels or why was it forbidden men to run before or to prie into or to presse too neer the Arke but to represse mans vain humor in quareling with or enquiring after the causes reasons of Gods dealings To this very same end Paul here entering into the declaration of the comming of our Sauiour to mussel the mouth that is open euer to question why he came but now and why not before he sheweth the fulnes of time was not til then God doth al things in number in measure and weight in order and time There is no confusion in his actions though he keepe the causes secret to himselfe And what mā is worthy to be of the priuy counsell of the Almighty God There was a time prefixed by God that should content man When the fulnesse of that time was brim full then and not before then he performed his purposed wil. He could he that is Almighty could haue with a word ipse dixit he spake the word and al things were created hee could if he would haue made all the whole Fabrick and furniture of the world in a moment But he would not Why It is a vile an Atheists and an impious WHY He did not and therefore he wold not For whatsoeuer he would he hath done both in heauen and in earth The causes of the course of things in ordinarie euents are not knowen to man Thou curious man aunswere mee but to the least why that I shall aske Why was thou not borne as soone as thou wert begotten Nay why was thou begotten at al and not rather framed as God made Adam And when thou art borne why art thou not an olde man strait Why is not euery blacke heare gray hory in an instant Why is it not hygh noone at the rising of the sunne If tyme be required in these thinges and in the like and if in the requiring of time recourse also must necessarily bee made to God so ordering the processe of thinges to haue a foorth by pase and pase and by degrees by little and litle til there be a ripenes in continuance I pray thee why may not God appoint a fulnes of time for the sending of his sonne into the world but thou must put in thy quare and thy why For shame lay hand vpon thy mouth subscribe to his will resigne thy selfe vp to his wisedome adore his counsels and be not curious in anie of his doings For he that is curious in any will bee ouercurious in many There is no stay in folly It is an * 2 King 20.10 easier thing for the sunne as Ezechias said to go on extraordinarily many degrees because it is naturally prone to go on than to returne backe against his course but a fewe so curiosity is soone emboldned but hardly repressed and seldome reformed In the fulnes of time God sent his Son made of woman and made vnder the Lawe that hee might redeeme them which c. Wherein is set foorth 1. The person of Christ and 2. His office The person of Christ fullie laide forth 1 His person is being God sent his son and being man made of a woman The wise Grecian and the wilful Heretique at the very hearing hereof are at their wittes ends and quite besides themselues Eutyches denieth the Godhead Nestorius the manhoode Marcian the bodie Apollinaris the soule of our Sauiour The naturall man considereth onelie naturall things he knoweth that euerie child hath a father that begetteth a Mother that beareth but these things in Christ hee cannot find he knoweth lesse herein than is storied of Melchisedeck whose parentes are vnknowen And indeede therein was * Melchisedeck a type of Christ Melchisedeck a type of Christ So was hee For according to his humanitie Christ was without a naturall father and according to his diuinity without mother And yet notwithstanding was he begotten of his father before al worldes and borne of his mother in the woorld at the fulnes of time being the Sonne of God and the sonne of a woman The sonne of God and such as is the father such is the sonne The father God ergo the sonne God also And the Son of Marie Such as is the Mother such is the fruite of her womb and therefore because the Mother was a woman her sonne is a man euen the man Iesus perfect God perfect man hauing both natures absolutely vnited in one person our Immanuel god with vs equal to the father touching his godhead inferiour to the father touching his manhood Equal to the father as being in the * Phil. 2.6 forme of God inferiour to the father as beeing in the form of a seruant mā Wherfore in essence being substance nature he was both Forma dat esse he was formally therefore verily both Equall to his father as being the personal word of his father * Iob. 1.1 in the beginning eternally with God coequally and verie God essentially and yet inferiour to the father as the woorde became fleshe dwelt amongest men was made man and manifested in the flesh by infallible arguments he hungred thirsted waked slept and slept in a shippe like a poore naturall man ouer-wearied with labour and hee slept so soundly that neither the rufnesse of the sea nor the rage of the tempests nor his Disciples redoubling * Luk. 8.24 their calling Master Master could skant awake him He was tempted in the wildernes reproched in the cities and skourged in the hal and crucified and made a curse and a subiect to the Lawe in euery point yet these thinges also concerne rather his office but such was his person 2 * The office of Christ His office which hee erecuted to the full was in one word to redeeme them which were vnder the Lawe that wee might receaue the adoption of Sonnes Wherefore the seruitude vnder the Lawe and the adoption to be Sonnes are two diuerse and contrary things and cannot stand together For Christes office was to redeeme vs first from the Law before wee might bee receaued into the adoption to be Sonnes And thus was the natural Sonne of God made after a supernatural maner very man that of seruantes we might bee made Sonnes And if wee will needes require reason in the greatest work of God Why Christ should be both God and man to the effectual performance of his office great reason was it the hy-Priest of the newe Testament and mediatour betweene God and man should bee both God man in the execution of this pearlesse function God whereby he might
preuail by his equal ominnipotent power with the father and likewise was it requisite he should bee man that beeing like to his brethren in al respectes sinne excepted hee might haue a full experience of all the infirmities wherewith man is beset Neyther did Christ what hee did and endured onely in that proportion as hee is the head and the Church his body the head with the body mystically but truely so called but also in the dayes of his flesh he and only he satisfied the Law and that by his personal and proper satisfaction and sacrifice wee are redeemed from the Law ransomed from the curse Into this his office vnder heauen nothing must intrude The Pelagian the Iewe the Papist will finde it a matter of greater charge and cost than our impure nature or the impossible Law or our imperfect works can defray and perfourme All abilities congruities dignities cōdignities wel-willing or our best woorking can neuer make vs Sonnes and when we are Sonnes we are thereby heires not of a first supposed iustification alone but heires of al that foloweth after euen of saluation in heauen The fraction of two iustifications is a fond diuisiō a false that frappet or fraction of two iustifications and of double inheritaunces is but a puppet of Papistes deuising as if Christes office should haue bin to deliuer vs first that wee might be redeemers of our selues afterward No no. For we men bring neuer a farding to the paiment neither of our first as they call it nor as we speak to our full and finall redemption and namely to our saluation to life euerlasting which is Rom. 6.23 the gift of God S. Paul could haue made the diuision if it had bin a right diuision partly to God partly to mā if Christ could haue parted stakes in a matter of such importance that brought him being very God from the top of heauen and the bozom of his father that he might be the only giuer and we but the receauers of our redemption from the Lawe and adoption to be Sonnes 6 And because yee are Sonnes God hath sent the spirit of his sonne into your harts which crieth Abba Father 7 Wherefore thou art no more a seruaunt but a sonne nowe if a sonne then also the heire of God through Iesus Christ The working of the trinitie in the saluation of man and in the assurance thereof In the woork of our happy redemption see the gracious goodnes of the holy Trinity by al means woorking a cleare vnderstanding in vs that we may know and acknowledge both what wee are and by whom The father sendeth the spirit euen the spirit of his sonne into our hartes Wherein we see and obserue the euident * distinction of the persons and therein the Scriptures are plaine that the persons are three distinctly 1. The Father 2. The Sonne 3. The Holy Ghost 1. The Father who gaue his Sonne sent his spirit 2. The Sonne who gaue himselfe And 3. whose the spirit is euen the spirite proceeding from the Father and the Sonne and these three are one In sense I can distinguish many things that in nature differ not for example The yee the snow and the water and yet all these three are of one substance and of a watrie nature But neither sense nor reason can deal in these cases it is our Creede There is a blessed Trinity in a sacred Vnity Quod lego credo I reade it in Scripture and therefore beleeue it in heart and leaue off to reason whereof I cannot and I may not reason Well God sent the spirite of his Sonne into the hartes of vs his sonnes * Sonnes by nature and sonnes by adoption So that hee is the Sonne and we the sonnes of God hee by nature and we by adoption through Christ whereupon the Apostle maketh these collections If we bee sonnes and sonnes of a ripe iudgement out of our nonage and wardship of the Law farewell al seruile feare nay because wee are sonnes God hath sent his spirite which crieth in our hartes that which a carnall heart could neuer bring foorth Abba Father And because wee are Sonnes by consequent wee are heires but how Through Christ Sonnes through Christ Heires through Christ sealed and settled with that prerogatiue and most singular priuilege of the holye spirite of Christ The Papist like an Atheist iesteth at the spirit of God in the sonnes of God but what marueil if men laugh at that they knowe not what it meaneth But if they were the children of God and inheritours of heauen they might know that they are not Christes who want his spirite euen this crying spirit The certainty of saluation most assured by the spirit of God and other infallible grounds Heb. 4. A wauering minde hath a stammering tongue in the case of his saluation But the spirit of christ crieth and hath an audible voice in the cōsciences of Christians The Ankerite speaketh simperingly hollowly as it were with the mouth of death out of his grate but the spirit openeth and culargeth our harts and forceth foorth a bold and a free confession and therein wee haue accesse euen as Gods deere Children vnto the throne of grace and not vnto a terrible consistory or tribunall of feare but a most gracious Father and mercifull God Alas alas Popery flyeth after butterflies and beateth the aire and aimeth at vncertainties alas it knoweth neither the right meanes nor the perfect certainty of mans saluation But brethren faith is a sure ground Hope is an infallible anker with God there is no variablenes his promises are all yea and Amen his spirit doth not speake but * Rom. 8. cry thus much in our harts Neither is it an vncertaine sound or a false alarum it is the cry of his spirite I could dilate and I haue debated these things in a treatise of Nature and Grace which you haue in you handes and therefore I referre you thereunto where purposely I haue refuted their chiefest argumentes which either Master Stapleton or Pigghius both being chiefe Papists haue brought in this matter greeuing the spirit of God as much as in them lieth The spirit resēbled to a seale whereby we are sealed vnto the day of our redemption I say whereby we are sealed For therby are we sealed and this seale is set and imprinted on the harts of Christians To an ernest penny The spirite is also called an earnest penny a perfect assurance of a greater sum and a ful payment which shal be discharged in heauen To an inunctiō Likewise it is termed an inunction the annointing of God whereby we are inaugurated and destrinated to an infallible inheritance certainly reserued in the hands of a strong keeper against that famous day of our redemption And therefore they who are Sonns are Heires and they who are Heires shal inherit So saith nay so crieth the spirit Papistes seeke to infirme this faith to weaken our hope to
mount Horeb Deut. 4. you hard a voice you saw no similitude Take heede therefore as you loue your soules that yee make no grauen Image no representation of any figure neither of male nor femal nor of any creature These woords are cleare and plaine and neede no commentary Esaie 40. The Prophet Esay likewise is as vehement herein as was Moses all people are but a drop of a bucket full in comparison of the Lord. The woddes of Libanus can neither finde him fuel for friar nor beastes for sacrifice To whom shal men liken so woorthie a God What similitude can set him forth Shall the Carpenter make him an Image and the goold-smith couer it with gilt or cast it in a frame of siluer plates Or because this is ouer-costly for the poorer sort what shal the poore man doe Gette him into the Forest and choose out a tree and cause it to be carued out O know yee nothing Saith the Prophet As who would say they are vtterly deuoid of vnderstanding and that it is an extremely ignorant extrauagant imagination to deeme that any protraiture or imagery of better or baser either matter or fashion can fit and frame out a conuement worship of the liuing and eternal God For hath not the Almighty imparted his pleasure herein hath hee not made a veile betwixt the seate of his glory and the earth his footstoole betwixt himselfe and our sightes that possibly we cannot see discern him as he is therefore must not go about to expres him in a dumb earthly figure as hee is not And to whom wilt thou make him like whom thou hast not seene Wilt thou make him like to whom hee is not like and to whom he neither can neither wil be likened A graie headed man is a monument of our mortality not an expression of the Godhead of the father The forme of an aged gray headed father with intent to declare his ancientnes because he is the ancient of daies is but a good intent falsly called good For there is no good intention without the direction of true faith and a right faith resteth on the foundation and ground of the word of god wel known and wisely pondered and the word of god is full and flat to the contrary and darest thou vpon thine owne head make him like an oulde man whose yeares bring age and whose age bringeth death Good Intentes Schoole distinctions secret traditions are the only foundation of images and image-worship Any secret tradition added to this intent to bolster it vp is but a basterd slip and the watering of it with some few fonde distinctions may make it shewe greene a whâ—le but the thunder of gods spirit proceeding from the breath of his mouth wil blast and wither it and finally root it out and confound all such deuises so expresly and oppositely set against his manifest precept Thou shalt not expresse God in forme of male or female or of anie creature God the Sonne is no more to be depictured thaÌ„ God the father And farther as god the father will not bee pictured of thee nor cannot be carued by thee so will not neither can god the sonne bee portraited out more than the father or otherwise than is prescribed For the sonne is very god of the same substance with his father It is replied that as he was man so may he be pictured The historicall picturing of any thing that may lawefully bee pictured is not the chiefe point of the quarrell betwixt our aduersaries and vs yet herein we require their wisdomes greatly But in their ignorance they not onely made Images but in the grosse darcknesse of later times Images haue receiued an Idolatrous worship and this principally this is that pernicious Popish error which we most abhor * Ioh. 5.39 Search the Scriptures for they bear witnes of Christ this is a true teaching But gaze vpon his Image were a doctrinne for Demetrius the siluer-smith for Alexander the copper-smith for Licippus tooles or Apelles pensill Ephes 4.10 No warrant for Images in the word of God Saint Paul intending to shew that our Sauiour ascending on high notwithstanding left behinde him sufficient woorcke-men and spirituall artisans for the accomplishment of the frame and furniture of his Church to wit Prophets Apostles Teachers and Pastours and yet he maketh no mention at all of Painters and Carpenters of Caruers in wood and Engrauers in stone Also God hath spoken of old sundry both waies and times by Vrim and Thummim by visions and dreames by his holy Prophets and lastly in person by his sonne and stil and euer inwardly by his spirite and outwardely by the ordinarie preaching of his word yea in and to the consciences of natural and wicked men he hath not left himselfe without a witnes at any time Among all these meanes or any other that I can tel these sacredimages are not mencioned If they were so sacred and holy so requisite as they beare vs in hande it were more than a wonder there should bee such silence of them If Christs personall presence were not requisit why require they so much the picture of his person Concerning the image of Christes humanity how can it concerne vs so much When himselfe was personally present was it not expedient he should depart And yet is it so necessary that his corporal image must be retained While hee was on the earth were not his Apostles dull of vnderstanding slow of beleef Did not Peter deny Thomas doubt and all fly and forsake him And while himselfe was in place his image was needeles and when hee entred the heauens he promised the assurance of his spirit and the assistance of the holy ghost Of his corporal shape and feature what pattern I should say what picture left he whence nothing is learned though the painter should perfourme his duety neuer so wel but onely the outward lineaments of his humanity Ioh. 20.17 Marie Magdalen was not permitted to touch him after his resurrection For a fleshly vsage since that time much and since his ascention especially is and was much more inconuenient For we walke by faith and not by the outward appearance we serue God in truth and spirit and blessed is hee that beleeueth though hee see not his fleshe much lesse the image thereof The flesh profiteth nothing neither eaten with teeth nor seene with eie Christ careth little for the gazing of the senses but for the stedfastnes of the hart and so farre onely for signes externall as they bee ordained by himselfe expresly to such purposes as his eternal wisdome hath giuen out direction D. Clement Doctor Clement in Oxford when the Church was supposed to haue beene on fier ranne to the pix indeede in the pix were many pictures made on the wafer cakes yea and these cakes he and all Papists like him thinke to be very God the Son of God and the second person in the blessed
The * The Church a city vpon a hill second obiection of the Citty vpon the Hill that cannot be hidden * Can-not in what sense CAN-NOT is here taken for Cannot in dewty Id possumus quod Iure possumus not for an absolute impossibilitie For the highest hils may bee sometimes hid with mistes And our Sauiour spake those wordes to his Apostles whom they most concerned and they proue a proportionable duty in others but not a very performance of such duties when they who should dwell in the hils either come down build in the valleys or els are driuen from the hils and cōstrained to fly into vauts dens secret places Our sauior that said they were the city on the hil said also they were the salt of the earth but he putteth the case that if the salt lost his saltnesse then wherefore is it good So if things alter keepe not their course their duety is shewed by these termes and not their doings If Libanus turne into Carmel or Carmel into Libanus they have altered their first nature For Libanus was a wood and Carmel a fertill pasture But in processe of time woods become pastures and by the iust iudgement of God the best pastures are turned into barren heathes So hils are made vallyes and vallyes may bee exalted and the verie house of God bu It on mounr Sion may bee and was made a den of theeues The Church a candle on the table 3 The third obiection of the candell in the candle-sticke set on the table suffereth the like answere For if the clear burning candle become a snuf as if the white Nazareth should become a black Aethiop the case is the same that was of the high City that had cast hirselfe beadlong from the mountaine And againe it is to bee remembred that the candle and light of the truth and true Church is not alike lightsome to cuery ey and no man seeeth the light of the house but hee that is in the house Solem non nisi sanus videt Augustine in Psal 47. The bleare ey cannot abyde the light the blind seeth not no not in the sun Againe the Apostles were as this candle thus placed therefore are they also who are nothing apostolick are they the light of the woorld the candle on the table I deny it If bees become drones because they were bees shal they brag of their first being And very waspes make combs as wel as bees but waspes make no hūny therfore there is no sweetnes no sauor no tast in this bragging shew of auncient progenitors and titles without answerable dueties and goodnes according Go not out into the wildernes spoken in what meaning 4 The fourth cauil is that there is no going out into the wildernes to enquire for the church In the 17. of Luke our Sauior being demanded concerning his kingdome which is his church he answereth first generally that it cōmeth not with obseruation which may bee explicated not to be with sumptuous preparation and costly manner after the vsage of earthly princes Al which strōgly reprooueth the pompe and starely brauery of Rome Then meu shal not say of a certainty and of alocal necessity Lo here or lo there as if gods Church were necessarily either in the wildernes or any where esse For the kingdome is not hung as a painting vnpon walles or builte vppon the sand of multitudes or else conueied into the wildernes whence it cannot com fuorth when God would no we neuer said that Elias was alwaies so in his caue and could not come foorth Nay the kingdome of God then when our Sauiour aunswered was offered them and was amongest them and should haue beene inwardely receaued of them For the throne of Dauid belonging spiritually to our Sauiour was no earthly conceat no local matter no corporall respect with a necessary respect heere or there either in the desert or in any place els but may bee here and maie bee there but neither heere or there of pure necessite but as God will without obseruation of cirtumstances and therefore without a pluralitie of numbers or localities of places or visibilities of set persons The kingdome of God commeth now with obseruation And farther as it came not so when it first came Shal Rebecca ride and Isaack go a foote Gen. 24.64 so shall it not ende in such beuty as popery requireth and why should it The spouse is not better than the brideman the members than the head When the child went into Aegypt Mary and Ioseph went with it And the woman in the Reuelation which is the Church whereof there is a plaine prophesie shee was driuen by name into the wildernes and we ought as occasions shal be offered by the prouidence of the Almighty with patience to suffer our selues to be framed conformable to our Sauiour in the daies of his fleshe Who beeing looked on with a fleshly eye seemed contemptible and to be depised verily without * Esai 53.3 forme or beutie to see to that is without al vistble estimation And as for our selues in the last times we are plainly foretold that there shal bee a defection and that religion shall bee mystically defaced vnder faire pretences and that when Christ shall come he shall scant finde faith on the face of the earth and what careth hee for a painted visibility of faithlesse hypocrites God might vse the papacy to the benefit of his Church though the papacy be not the Church Where not with standing euen in the mids of such God may haue and hath had and hath no doubt many secret ones yea God can vse such hypocrites to the benefite of his Church as a man may vse a bussard to hatch him haukes though when the hawkes bee hatcht the bussard mislike and beate them most that are best of wing and soare highest both for integrity of life and soundnes of doctrine but the very hawk in experience tan tell in time that the bussard as their naturall dame neuer laid the egs from whence they cante So in popery albeit wee and others some-when externally receaue the sacrament of baptisine amongest them or ought that good is else yet inwardly beeing regenerated by the spirite in the blood of Christ through the mercy of the Father and comming to riper yeares by true knowledge out of his holy word we know that we were baptized though ministerially by them yet by the prouidence of God not into the partiality of the Romish faction but into the communion of the vnsuersal church so made no members of Rome but of Christes body to serue him not in a seruility of Ie wish or apish rites or in the visibility of a Church pompt or in the particularity of my place but in the true liberty of a fre people and it the generall lap of his chosen which in this world is hated and spited most euen of them that much pretend to loue her most But
question therein The motiue of Succession Now for the extent of persecution did it liue die in their persons Our aduersaries would fain holde and maintaine by succession the goodnes of their relligion I knowe they knowe that they cannot shew neither orderly beginning nor vnbroken continuance for the matters we charge them with But coulde they prooue a prolonged race what then * Hard. detect Pag. 217. a. Must we then seeke our faith in the Romish comperts A scrole of names is a sory proofe to proue a truth in doctrine Cain killed Abell so did hee so doth he still Ismael mocked Isaack so doth he euer since till this day Persecutors draw after them a long taile and descent of a continued line in euill Wherefore succession is no firme argument to inferre their errors or to infirme our truth The wicked haue it most the good may misse it manie times What did it profit Cham that he was the sonne of Noe or Absolon that holy Dauid was his father Learning Wit Eloquence muchlesse godlinesse goe not by descent in a right line Aristippus was a fine cunning Courting Philosopher which may better beseeme Philosophy than Diuinity but his sonne was a very loute Demosthenes was most eloquent in the grauest kinde but his Sonne was too too rude Cicero was both wise and eloquent and yet his son was a very sot Ely of himselfe except in cockering vp of his children was no euill man but his Sonnes degenerated and were as the Sonnes of Belial Naturally man is naught and therefore a natural succession in persons cannot be good by nature and which is to be noted succession in the place and in the room of predecessors addeth no sanctity and holines Numb 32. Numb 32. Behold you are risen vp an increase of sinnefull men insteede of your Fathers Behold likewise the pleasant valley of Sodome was changed into Surphur Salt Pits of Brimstone and the like stincking matter Oye generation of vipers saith our Sauiour to the Pharisies who sate in the place which God had chosē reprouing them both because they were vipers and because they were a generation euen SVCCESSIVELY a venemous race The motiue of Antiquity Pa. Supra 42. Againe our Aduersaries claime by antiquitie but doe you not see the elder brother persecuting the younger the elder brother killing Abel the elder brother selling young Ioseph into the hands of strangers And euen so is it nowe as it was of old But of this Motiue more before And note also that it is the lot of the best both to bee interrupted 1. in their continuance while the badde produce out whole generations and then 2. to be the yongest in their beginnings and lastly 3. to be euil intreated euen of their brethren 3 The thirde difference betwixt the children which I obserued was the right the obtaining of their inheritance wherein is set forth that the bond woman by name with her brat for their intolerable brables at the fast were shut out of dores and cast as it were out of the the Arke of Abrahams family Cain complaineth findeth fault that he was as a rough stone cast out of the hande of God to bee a vagabond vpon the face of the earth Agar also and Ismael of whom we speake betoke them to their portions but such portions are * Gen. 21. soone spent and in the anguish of soule they were a cōfortlesse couple and cried out for want which was a pattern of farder distres For though the chaffe for a time growe in the field and rest in the mow and lie in the flower in greater quantity than the good graine yet after fanning time the chaffe shal be cast out into the fire and the corne shal be receaued into the Lordes euerlasting garners While they were in prosperity who but Agar against Sara Ismael against his brother the Iews against the Gentils The chaffe exceedeth the corne and the corne seemeth to be but chaffe But that day is neuer intirely faire that endeth in a wette raine Ismaels scoffing iollity commeth to nothing Isaac obtaineth the promise and tarieth with his father and inioyeth the inheritance and Ismaels pleasureable waters of many frumpes and sundry delights runne all into the salt Sea receiue a bitter end and onely Isaac inioyeth that inheritance Now looke ye to it saith the Apostles exhortation of whether Testament of whether Hierusalem of whether Mother of whether Mountain of Agar or Sara of Sinay or Sion will ye be Will yee bee Ismaelites or Isaackes With Moses or Christ alone will you Christians hold Will you tarry in the house and inioy the inheritance or be cast out of doores CHAP. V. 1 STAND fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made vs free be not intangled againe with the yoke of bondage 2 Behold I Paul say vnto you that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing 3 For I testifie againe to euery man which is circumcised that hee is bound to keepe the whole Law 4 Yee are abolished from Christ whosoeuer are iustified by the Law ye are fallen from Grace 5 For wee through the spirite wait for the hope of righteousnes through faith 6 For in Iesus Christ neither circumcision auaileth any thing neither vncircumcision but faith which worketh by Loue. The happy condicion of a true Christian THE case of a christian man stādeth thus The horror of death the terror of hel the suttlety of sinne the frailty of the fleshe the might of the world the power of Sathan haue naught to doe with him For why the fauor of God the comfort of the spirit the merit of the son the force of faith the nature of hope doe swallowe vp all those former enimies and terrible inuasions For are we not a royal race children of choice sons of the promise wheritours with Isaack a freed and a free people manumitted from the Law and set at liberty by Christ Iohn 8.36 Whom the sonne freed they are free without question The apostle hath inculcated this heauenly doctrine both in plain words often likewise by sundry parables as also by certain special euentes in the family of Abraham and thereupon he willeth the Galathians to bee wise and couragious to mainteine their liberty to stand to it yea to die in the quarell A million of liues were well lost in such a cause and yet not lost but well and wisely laide forth This liberty is no humane freedome as from the Turkes Gallies or Spaniards Mines or such like Aegyptian Slauery but a liberty of conscience from a spiritual thrall and euerlasting damnation Christianitie is not made as Lincy-Wolsey of diuerse matters The purchase of this liberty as wee say cost whot water nay my brethren it cost the shedding of the precious bloode of the sonne of God and of the Lord of glory and therefore stand to it saith Paul quit your selues like men loose not this liberty entangle not