sunk him had he not had more then the strength of a man Therefore that he might be a perfect Mediator between God and man he was God-Man taking Humane nature into the fellowship of the Deity and communicating Divine nature unto those which he did intend to save Hence Paul saith Rom. 3.24 25. We are justified freely by Gods grace through the Redemption which is in Christ Iesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood Hence he further saith Acts 20.28 that God did purchase the Church with his own blood So that in this part of the Priestly Office of Jesus Christ there was the power of God himself put forth Neither is there less strengthning grace manifested when he comes to appear for his people in heaven in the presence of God as Heb. 7.24 This man because he continueth ever hath an unchangeable Priesthood which passeth not from one to another certainly here was wonderful strength that Christ being once offered should bear the sins of many and unto them that looked for him he should appear the second time without sin unto salvation as in Heb. 9.28 That his having done away all their sins should advance them to Salvation which still shews the strength of his grace Therefore well might Paul annex that Heb. 7.25 Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them This is the ground of Pauls triumph not onely for himself but in the name of all the Saints in that admirable place Rom. 8. from the 34 to the 39. ver Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword As it is written For thy sake we are killed all the day long we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter Nay in all these things we are more then conquerors through him that loved us For I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Iesus our Lord. Here is strengthning grace of Almighty and everlasting efficacy As Jesus Christ is the Churches King he hath a proportionable inexhaust stock of strengthning grace without such a power he could never suppress the numerous and potent adversaries of the Church which was the the solemn agreement betwixt him and his Father Psal. 110.1 The Lord said unto my Lord God the Father said unto God the Son Davids Lord sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool He will bring them to the lowest and most abject condition though for the present they look never so high and big upon the poor members of Christ. And accordingly he is still acting in heaven whereas he doth appear for his people so doubtless against his enemies as is most clear in Heb. 10.12 13. But this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever so much strength of grace in that it need be but one sate down on the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool We may with much encouragement wrestle with God and wait upon him both for the discovering and confounding of the great Impostors Mahomet and the Pope and the removing all the Crutches of Babylon in any of the Kings Dominions or elswhere for this work is carried on with so much power that in Gods time all the Kingdoms of the earth will become the Lords and his Christs To the same purpose you shall finde an Angel come down from heaven having great power and the earth was lightned with his glory and he cryed mightily with a strong voyce Babylon is fallen all suitable to the powerful design of Christ Rev. 18.2 And she shall be utterly burned with fire in whom was found the blood of Prophets and of Saints of all that were slain upon the earth some way reducible to her or her adherents for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her ver 8. Neither could Jesus Christ be a Resurrection to any sinners nor quicken with Spiritual life whom he would as Ioh. 5.20 unless that were true ver 26. As the Father hath life in himself so hath he given the Son to have life in himself and that to be able to raise his own unto eternal life ver 29. All which argues abundance of strengthning grace in him This was the foundation of Pauls Prayer for his Ephesians chap. 1. ver 18. That the eyes of their understanding being inlightened here is powerful grace still they might know what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the working of his mighty power Here is a great heap of Emphatical expressions to shew the accumulative power of the grace that is in Jesus Christ Were he not so strong that he were able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think according to the power that worketh in us Eph. 3.20 Paul would never have used such an expression That ye may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height there must it seems be a power in us to inable us to fathom and comprehend the vast dimensions of that strengthning grace that is in our Head here is the breadth of this grace covering all the sins of every one of his eleâ—t even from Adam to the end of the world Here is the length of this grace it extends from everlasting to everlasting Here is the depth of it it lifts up poor creatures from the very pit of hell And the height of it it advances them to sit by him in his own throne in Heaven After the intrinsecal fulness of the grace of Christ follows the Redundancy thereof for there is in him not onely plenitudo vasis but also plenitudo fontis there is the original fulness of a living fountain in him which he delights to communicate for the supplies of his people This discovers it self in four particulars There is a Redundancy into all the faculties of our souls he fills the Minde with gracious principles the Conscience with a holy tenderness the Will with flexibleness and compliance with his Will and sways the Affections to act regularly upon their objects Doubtless Christ Jesus the second Adam will do as much for all those that have Vnion with him as the first Adam did against those that were in him And therefore whereas by his fall there was not onely a total deprivation of original righteousness but a universal depravation of all the faculties a general
Contzens Rules there is a little Book called Look about you Translated out of his Works and he gives you Eight Rules to cheat people of their Religion and to serve in Popery by Art I would you could all get that little Book and you should see that very Contzens Spirit is amongst Malignants and they walk by the same Rule Come by Degrees and come by Compulsions and such politique strains he hath there Take notice of your wayes and my Brethren it is most clear your Friends grieve for it your Enemies begin to triumph in it that they can have such a Power in the City and with several well-affected people in the Land who are friends to Truth to Peace and to the Government of Christ They will come and tell you What no Government Can ye believe they are friends to Government What Drunkards and Atheists and Prophane wretches friends to Government They that cannot endure a personal Reformation would they have an Ecclesiastical Reformation Will you trust them with a Government and a Government of their own setling what Government think you we should have Now so many of the well-affected both of Ministers and Gentlemen and Noblemen in Scotland are against an Engagement in War and so are they in England who are they that are forward to engage I 'le put no Character upon them you know who in England are and you have heard who in Scotland and what Government think you they would settle God keep us from a Government of such mens settling for we should have Prophaneness and loosness they would make such a latitude in Government that all should return to the old track again We must have as grosly mix'd Communions as ever and their old Ceremonies their zeal for Christmas-day and their Good-Friday more zeal this year then last for these things and more last then before And what do these men aym at I beseech you The Lord God of Heaven inform us aright if I be mistaken I wish I might see my Error If any of you may through discontent be transported the Lord discover it to you And let us take heed of this that while we are jarring one with another we do not betray our selves and all to a third Party to a Common Party that would destroy both It may be here may be the advantage which is but a poor one first destroy Independents and then destroy Presbyterians and set up Prophaneness and Loosness as much as ever Now the Lord cause you to joyn Faith and Love and Truth so together that you may not be cheated by such men The third Use And truly I have one word more to say and if I thought I should dye the next Fit I should desire to speak to this City and that is this I come hither this day and though I do it chearfully to observe your pleasures yet not without some hazard to my health that I may say a few things to you and the Lord help me that I may deliver what I did intend and that you may entertain it with the same affection I tender it to you My business should be if I had power this day as a poor unworthy friend to the Bridegroom to draw a Contract between Truth and Love in all you Citizens of London that all you though you may have some different Opinions yet I would have Truth and Love matched and married happily together in you Brethren I confess that there are many Errors but take heed you be not more offended then needs or at least thereby perverted by the politique Designs of those that serve themselves in these Divisions and upon you First I do not think all Opinions are Errors that some men call Errors Secondly All Errors are not alike not equally opposite to the Faith Thirdly Clubbing and Imprisoning and Compelling is not the proper way to cure Errors though there may be some course taken to restrain erroneous persons when they are opposite to the peace and welfare of the State c. But that I would say is this That Errors they must be reduced and confuted by Truth and then withal it is most certain That Errors abound not by reason of a Reformation and therefore to charge it upon a Reformation is very gross but there is a defect in our Reformation which gives occasion to them And as for Love they cry for Love for Love and it is a wonder men that are against the very Substantials of the Gospel yet they will cry out against any little Heterodox Opinion and for Love How can they ever expect that godly and wicked men should joyn together in Love What Churches then should we have indeed we will love the most carnal men in the world with a love of pity but not with a love of complacency and delight And Jesus Christ expects it not but that we should love as he loves But then further what love should we have such a love as indeed doth tend to Edification and doth tend to Reformation and such a love as is Soul-love and such a love as is a love to the Head as well as to the Members such love as is not complemental and frothy and flattering O therefore let it be your care still not to suffer your selves to be any ways misled because there are some defects and want of Truth and Love it hath always been so In Origens time and Chrysostoms they came to them complaining that there are Divisions amongst Saints they answered And Divisions will be Are all Philosophers of a minde Are all Physicians of a minde and if all Saints be not of a minde it is no marvel onely let them have a care to preserve Affection though they differ in Opinion But to close up all That great Oracle of the Law learned Sir Edward Cook in his Institutes gives five properties of a Parliament-man and I think they will as well agree to an Alderman to a Common-Councel-man I desire they may be considered First saith he He must be wise and constant so able to discern and know things aright persons circumstances that he be inflexible Secondly He should have a good Memory so to remember past evills that he labor to prevent future dangers The other three he takes from the Elephant First saith he Thirdly An Elephant is without gall that gall that he hath doth transire in nutrimentum corporis if he have heat he will use it not out of a selfish passionate respect but rather guide and direct it to a zeal for the good of the whole Body the Common-wealth And then secondly for that too he draws from the Elephants Fourthly The Elephants they never go alone but they go gregatim and those creatures that go alone Bears and Foxes they are hurtful those creatures that are most innocent they go together If you 'll shew you are most useful and innocent creatures like sheep O keep together And then the third is Fifthly The Elephant is
the Godhead in him not onely of some God-like dispositions and of the Image of God which may be in Saints Thirdly All the fulness of the Godhead the whole Divine Nature Fourthly All this fulness of the Godhead dwells in Christ he is there not as a Guest not as a Friend but as an Inhabitant to fix his constant abode there Fifthly And all this bodily personally most mysteriously and not transciently vertually and by participation onely as in a good degree it may be in the Saints And for this happy purpose hath Jesus Christ such a Spring of good in himself who is the Head of all Principalities and Powers in that ninth verse which is added because they should see they need not go to the Angels as their head verse 18. He hath this fountain of strengthning Grace in himself by the Grace of Vnction the unction of the holy Spirit which God giveth to him not by measure Joh. 3.34 not by drops and measure of the gift of Christ as to us Eph. 4.7 The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hand ver 35. of Joh. 3. And amongst other good things the Holy Spirit the great New Testament Promise was the Promise of the Spirit as the Messiah was the grand Promise in the Old Testament And this he pours not drops out and that much more generally then before as Acts 2.17 And it shall come to pass in the last days saith God I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh And by vertue of this Unction of the Spirit you may see what glorious things Jesus Christ communicated unto poor sinners if you please to compare Isa. 61.1 with Luke 4.18 He hath it in him by the Grace of Office you will allow the expression being designed by the Father as a publike person for the advantage of all those whose Names are written in the Book of life and for those whom the Father had given to the Son He was appointed by Commission under the Broad Seal of Heaven to be The grand Lord Treasurer for his Church the common Storehouse of their strengthning provision This he doth signanter declare and that most fully Joh. 6.27 when he bids them Labor not for the meat that perisheth but for that which endureth to everlasting life Here is the ground which the Son of man shall give unto you never doubt it for him hath God the Father sealed This is the Doctrine that John the Baptist published concerning Christ Joh. 1.16 And of his fulness have all we received and grace for grace It seems there is an overflowing fountain of grace in him which was fully opened when he came into the world Joh. 7.38 39. else how could all Believers with John receive of his fulness had there not been a full fountain it would not have been drawn dry though communicated to so many and grace for grace 1. Whether it be by way of accumulation as some interpret it or 2. Whether by way of additional supplement we receiving the grace of the New Testament instead of the grace of the Old Testament or 3. Whether by way of correspondency there being such proportionable impressions of that grace that is in Christ so far as we are capable for there was that in Christ as Mediator wherein we cannot resemble him made upon us that as the print upon the wax answers to the Seal as the characters upon the Son answer to the Father so there are such visible stamps of the grace of Christ upon the Saints that in the language of Peter they are expresly said to be partakers of the Divine Nature having such Divine dispositions so incorporated so naturalized into them that what good they do springs not from external motives onely as in Hypocrites but from an inward principle of new Nature And therefore acting from this new Divine Nature they do good with more constancy and delight then others And upon the same account doth John tell you 1 Joh. 17. v. The Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ In Moses Law there were shadowing Types in the Gospel of Christ there is the substantial Truth of them there were Predictions and Prophesies here fulfilling grace Hence Christ saith in the 10. Chapter of the Evangelist John ver 10. I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly that he might be a perfect Savior to answer the greatest exigencies of all his poor sheep maintaining their lives in despight of all their Wolvish enemies The third particular follows to wit The various sweetness and sweet variety of that strengthning grace that is in Christ This may be made appear to the great comfort and strong encouragement of the Saints and that in a fivefold Stream flowing from this living Spring of grace in Christ. First Here is strength from the electing grace of God in Christ where there is a great deal of strength and indeed the fundamental Stone which is the strength and support of the house The foundation of all the Spiritual and Eternal building lies there Ephes. 1.45 He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will Grace and his good pleasure is the Spring of all Secondly Here is strength from the transacting grace of Christ when there was an agreement betwixt God the Father and God the Son God had given so many to him he would undertake for those many God did accept his undertaking then Christ went on there was a great deal of strength in this transaction as 2 Tim. 1.9 According to his purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began how possibly given us before the world began why it was given us in Christ Jesus in his negotiating with God for us Thirdly Here is a great deal of strength also in the converting grace of Christ He hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace What purpose and grace That which was in Christ Jesus 2 Tim. 1.9 He did graciously purpose it therefore it should be infallibly effected A place that in the Synod of Palestina 1200 years ago and above the learned Divines made excellent use of to cut asunder the sinews of Pelagianism as indeed it doth and so still of Arminianism which is but that weed revived as learned Dr. Featly makes it most clearly appear in his Pelagius Redivivus Fourthly There is a great deal of strength likewise in the assisting grace of Christ when there shall be new supplies communicated from his Spirit to enable us to perform every duty and to order our sharpest sufferings to the best good of our souls as Paul assures himself Phil. 1.19 For I