Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	believe_v	eternal_a	see_v	6,178	5	3.7252	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A76021	Unum necessarium, or, The great duty of a Christian in two tracts : the one, Of adhering to God, written in Latin, by Albertus Magnus, the other, Of the love of God, written in high- Dutch, by John Staupitz / both faithfully translated into English for the promoting of primitive Christianity.; De adhaerendo Deo. English. 1692	Albertus, Magnus, Saint, 1193?-1280.; Johannes von Kastl, 15th cent.; Staupitz, Johann von, d. 1524.	1692 (1692)	Wing A878; ESTC R42992	62,774	183

enjoyest or expectest is handed to thee Believe in him I say and trust in him Is he not the Essential Word of God and the Truth it self Must not he forsake and deny himself before he can forsake or deny thee And would it not be a plain denying of himself in case he should not perform and make good his Fathers Promise to thee Is it not he that made thee in thy first Creation Is it not he that hath redeemed thee in the second Birth or Regeneration Is it not he that hath wholely and without reserve offered up himself to his Heavenly Father for thee and made himself one with thee by feeding thee with his Flesh and Blood to Eternal Lifes CHAP. III. Concerning the Promise of the Blessing in Jesus Christ GOd promised to Abraham that in his Seed all the Nations of the Earth should be blessed and that out of his Seed even of Isaac Christ should be born and yet withal God commanded him to slay and offer up this his Son Isaak Abraham was obedient to the Divine Command and notwithstanding all Objections crowding in upon him firmly believ'd Gods Promise without the least staggering or being sollicitous how the Promise could be fulfilled if he should slay his Son Isaak in his youth but cast all his care upon God not doubting but he would know how to make good his own Word and perform his Promise O what a gracious Promise was this what a strong and unquestionable assurance and what a gracious paternal Performance and Accomplishment What God then promised he hath since made good and performed for we have seen his Glory saith St. John chap. 1.14 the Glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father full of Grace and Truth Who could be more sure to perform this for us than he who is Truth it self And who besides is bound to us in such an intimate Tye of the highest Love that he rather chose to die for us than that we should fail or fall short of the least of his Fathers Promises Wherefore it is impossible for thee to believe in Christ but that at the same time thou must be Blessed of God for Heaven and Earth may pass away but the Word of God abides for ever Alas What is it that blinds us poor wretched Creatures We pretend to believe That God is become Man and yet doubt of the performance of the Blessing annext to it by God himself What greater Affront can we put upon Eternal Truth Or what greater Ingratitude can we express to the unutterable Love of God It is not enough therefore for us to believe that God is become Man but we must also believe that it was done for our Good and Benefit and that by his Incarnation he has put us in possession of whatsoever has been promis'd to us Neither may we desire or look for our Salvation Blessing Grace and Mercy from any one but from him alone and besides him take in no other comfort whatsoever This is it truly and indeed to believe in Christ which is only youchsafed to Gods blessed ones Herein Christians must daily exercise themselves try themselves and view themselves and in case they find themselves doubtful in any thing they must cry to God for the strengthning and increasing of their Faith For these two things to believe and earnestly to desire it are very near of kin to each other But because we have no strong desire to believe therefore neither do we pray heartily for it And thus he who is yet weak in Faith may take comfort from the fervent desire he hath to believe which alone will approve him before God In a word believe in Christ or at least desire firmly to believe in him and then doubt no further but that thou art blessed by him and in him CHAP. IV. Concerning the Promise of our being enlightened by Christ THe Prophet Jeremy declares that they who believe in Christ shall not need any Teacher to instruct them how to believe in God They shall not teach every Man his Brother faith God Jer. 31.33 34. saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them and that I will forgive their Iniquities and will remember their Sins no more yea what is more they shall know my Will and do it for I will put my Law in their inward Parts and write it in their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my People For they believe in the Light walk in the Light and are children of the Light They have Christ the Promised Messiah in whom God hath placed his word and who hath spoke unto them whatsoever God hath commanded him and whosoever will not hearken unto but despise the Words which he shall speak in my Name I will dequire it at his hands Deut. 18.18 19. To him we must draw near and apply our selves so shall not our Faces be ashamed Him we must follow so shall we not walk in darkness but have the Light of Life which not only enlighteneth us but also quickens and makes us alive excites us to all that is good inflames us with the Divine Love and lifting us above and out of our selves draws us into himself so that we become extinguisht in our selves but flaming and enlightned in him aad delivered from all Blindness and Error Neither indeed is it possible that the Children of Light i. e. such who walk in the Light should ever err or go astray Now this Light is found in Faith i.e. in Christ Wherefore it follows that they who do not believe in Christ walk in Darkness and are already judged to Eternal Darkness and Damned whereas they who believe in Christ are and shall be enlightened here and hereafter CHAP. V. Concerning the Assurance of our being Eternally Foreseen and Elected of God IF any Man should become troubled and sollicitous about or doubtful of his Eternal Election he may easily satisfie himself from the Information God hath given him Whosoever Believes in Christ fears no condemnation and shall certainly be saved he is one of the Elect foreseen and fore-ordained to Salvation and hath his Name writ in the Book of Life But he who doth not Believe in Christ as was hinted before in John 3.15 18. he is already condemned because he doth not believe in the Name of the only begotten Son of God For whosoever is foreknown the same is also predestinated to a Conformity with the Image of the Son of God and is called to the Christian Faith Justifyed and Glorifyed Rom. 8 29. on the other hand whosoever is not found in the Faith of Christ he is not predestinated to Salvation What needs therefore any further questioning about the matter We have here a clear and plain Information that if we believe in Christ then we have Christ and together with him Salvation and shall never perish These are they whom the Father hath drawn to Christ to the end that he might

save them and none of them might be lost But why the Father hath foreseen or predetermined one and not another it doth not become us to enquire For this is sufficient comfort and satisfaction to us that we know that they all are Predestinated that believe in Christ CHAP. VI. Concerning the Redemption or Deliverance from Sin NO Man can ever be deliver'd from his Sin save only through Faith in Christ who is the Lamb of God that takes away the Sins of the World Vpon him a●e laid the Sins of us all he is the Scape Goat who carries the Sins of all the World into the Wilderness Without or besides him there is no Redeemer Isa 4.3.11 No Confession no Repentance no human Work is of any avail in this Case We must believe in Christ or else die in our sins Wherefore it is far more necessary for us to exercise our selves in the Faith than in a Confessional at Directory The Faith in Christ never fails the Faith in Christ purifies the heart it justifies us makes us Children of God obtains Grace of God and renews the whole Man Mat. 11.28 29 30. Come hither all ye that labour and are heavy laden with Sin believe in Christ so shall ye be refreshed and find rest to your Souls Joh. 7.37 38. Doth any ene thirst after the Divine Grace let him come hither and drink for he that believes in Christ as the Scripture saith out of his Belly shall flow Rivers of Living Water Faith is the True River of Jordan in which those who are washed obtain the purity and innocence of Children Faith is that Fountain that washeth and purifies from all uncleanness Isa 55.1 2. Come therefore and buy it without Money and without Price you need not give any thing for it for ye are justifyed by Grace alone through the Redemption which is in Christ whom alone God hath set and appointed to be our Saviour and gracious Redeemer only by the Faith in his pretious Blood-shedding for the manifesting and declaring of his Righteousness Rom. 3.24 25. and 5.1 By Faith we are saved without the Works of Love Whence follows that nothing is more needful for us than to exercise our selves in the Faith CHAP. VII Concerning our being set free from Damnable Sins NOtwithstanding that those who believe in Christ do fall into Sin transgress the Laws of God Prov. 24.16 and it may be more frequently than those who do not believe yet they who believe in Christ have the advantage that their Sins shall not be imputed to them to their Condemnation God will not because of them turn away his loving kindness from them but will visit their transgressions with his fatherly Rod and not take his loving kindness quite away from them For so God declares and testifies to David concerning Christ Psalm 89.30 31 32 33. 2 Sam. 7.12 13 14 15. And when thy days be fulfilled and thou shalt sleep with the Fathers I will set up thy Seed after thee which shall proceed out of thy bowels and I will establish and confirm the Throne of his Kingdom for ever and will exalt him above all the Kings of the Earth I will be his Father and he shall be my Son If his Children forsake my Law and walk not in my Judgment if they break my Statutes and keep not my Commandments then will I visit their Transgression with the Rod and their Iniquity with Stripes nevertheless my Loving kindness will not I utterly take from them nor break my Covenant made with them nor alter the thing that is gone out of my Lips I will abide true whether they abide so or no. For whatsoever is once born of God shall never sin neither can ever sin unto Death Their sins are always pardonable if they repent because they have been once born of God for that Divine Birth withholds them from sinning not their own Virtue Reason or Strength and presence of mind Forasmuch then as no Man is born of God but he that believes in Jesus Christ it is a consideration above all measure wonderful and terrible to see then so little exercised in or acquainted with the Faith that is in Christ It were good and necessary therefore that the Ministers of Gods Word should continually in season and out of Season faithfully exhort and press people to this Holy Faith And indeed tho there were no other Fruit of the true Faith in Christ but this only yet would all men have sufficient Reason to press after and desire it as being of such absolute necessity to Salvation CHAP. VIII Concerning the Encrease of Merit WE all know that no Man can deserve or Merit any thing of God or do any good thing except that he be planted and engrafted by the Father into Christ Joh. 15.1 2 3. which cannot be by any other way than through the Faith that is in Christ I am the Vine and my Father is the Husband Man Every Branch in me that beareth no Fruit he taketh away and every Branch that beareth Fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more Fruit. As the Branch cannot bear Fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no more can ye except ye abide in me I am the Vine ye are the Branches He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much Fruit for without or sever'd from me ye can do nothing He that abideth not in me the same cannot bring forth any good Fruit nor do any good works but his works will be cast into the Fire and be left there It is clear and evident that no man can do any thing that is good except he believe in Christ for otherwise even all his seeming Virtues are no better than Sins rejected and condemned to the Fire of Hell What will then become of the seeming Virtues of the Heathens of the Judgment of right Reason and the counting upon our good meaning without Faith in Christ Since without Christ there is indeed no true Virtue Reason or good meaning And this Doctrine agrees very well with what Jesus declared to the Jews when he bad them labour or work for that Meat which endureth to Eternal life Whereupon when the Jews asked him John 6.27 28. What shall we do that we may work the Works of God Jesus answered them saying this is the Work of God that ye believe in him whom he hath sent Therefore we ought and must employ and exercise our selves in those Works that abide to Eternal Life even such as God himself works in us and that flow forth from the Faith which is in Christ for they only endure for ever unto Eternal Life all the rest will be lost fruitless and in vain CHAP. IX Concerning the certain Hearing of our Prayers IF ye abide in me saith our Saviour and my words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you Joh. 15.7 And again Whatsoever ye shall ask in my Name I will do

by infinite Distractions and crooked winding Paths and being manifoldly divided is scatter'd in it self according to the multiplicity of the Objects its Concupiscence desires Whence necessary follows Motion without steadiness Running without attaining and Labour without Rest But if on the other side our Heart and Spirit do withdraw it self by Desire and Love from the infinite distraction of inferior Things here below wholly quitting them and by little and little gathering up her self into that one Unchangeable All-sufficient Good learn and accustom her self to stay at home and with her whole affection do inseparably cleave unto it so much the more she is gathered up into one and fortified by how much she is elevated by understanding and desire to the Things that are above and becomes so habitually fixed and established in the true Supream Good within her self 'till at length she be made altogether immutable and arrive to that true Life which is the Lord God himself so as that perpetually without any vicissitude of Change or Time she now reposeth her self in that inward Quiet and secret Mansion of the Deity being perfectly fix'd and setled within her self in Christ Jesus who is the Way to those that come to him John 14.6 the Truth and the Life CHAP. VIII How a Devout Person must Commit himself to God in all Events and in all his Concerns I Suppose that from what hath been already said thou dost perceive that the more thou shalt divest thy self from Images and all Worldly and Created Things and by Good Will be united in thy Intellect to God the nearer thou wilt approach to the State of Innocence and Perfection Than which what can be conceived better more happy or more delightful To which purpose nothing can be of more avail than that thou keep thy mind naked of all manner of Phantasms and Images and from all Intanglements whatsoever so as not to be concerned or trouble thy self neither about the World nor about Friends or Relations nor about Prosperity or Adversity neither about any thing past present or to come either in thy self or in others No nor over much about thine own Sins but with a certain pure simplicity suppose thy self to be naked and alone with God without the World for if thy Soul were already launched into Eternity and separated from the Body surely it would not be busied about Secular Matters nor would it be concern'd about the course of the World neither about Peace nor War fair or foul weather or any other Temporal Thing but would uniformly and totally intend be at leisure for and cleave to God alone In like manner do thou now according to the present possibility leave thy Body and all Creatures present and to come and steadily fix the view of thy Mind and Spirit according to thy utmost power nakedly and readily upon that increated Light that thy Spirit may be so stript and divested from all Phantasms and from all Intanglements and clowdy overshadowings as may be suppos'd that of an Angel tyed to a Body who is not hindred by the activity of the Flesh neither is intangled with vain and hurrying Thoughts Let thy Spirit therefore fortifie it self against all Temptations Vexations Injuries and Affronts whatsoever so that with the greatest unconcernedness and evenness of Temper it may immoveably persevere in God in Adversity as well as Prosperity And when any thing of trouble listlessness to any thing that is good or confusion of Mind do chance to seize thee do not thou therefore think strange or be discouraged neither run thou upon this account to vocal Prayers or other ways of comfort but let this only be thy exercise that thou awaken and stir up thy self through good will in the Intellect that so thou mayst cleave to God with thy mind whether thy sensual Part will or not For a Devout and truly Religious Soul ought to be so intimately united to God and to have and make his Will so conform to the Divine Will that it may not busie it self with nor cleave to any Creature whatsoever any more than she did before she was Created and as if there were nothing at all besides God and the Soul and that it may with an even temper take all and every thing that happens to it securely and infallibly from the gracious hand of the Divine Providence in all things uniformly suffering the Lord in Patience Tranquility and Silence Wherefore it appears that to strip the mind of all Phantasms doth above any other Exercise whatsoever avail and conduce to a Spiritual Life in which by good will thou mayst be united to and become like to God in thy intellect For by this means there will be nothing to mediate or intervene betwixt thee and God Consider therefore how greatly thou dost degenerate from the Nobility of thy Being and how highly thou Sinnest against the Lord thy God and against all his Righteousness if thou with thy Will and Love do cleave unto the Creature rather than to the Creator by this means preferring the Creature before the Creator CHAP. IX That Divine Contemplation is to be preferr'd before all other Religious Exercises whatsoever FOrasmuch therefore as all things besides God are the Effect and Work of the Creator having their Power and Being and whatsoever they are or can stinted and limited and as at first they were produc'd out of Nothing so are still surrounded with nullities and nothingness and of themselves tend to nothing it follows that they must necessarily every moment receive their existence conservation activity and whatsoever else may be in them from the Soveraign Workman God as being in and of themselves insufficient for themselves and others to whose Divine Working they being compared have the same proportion as Nothing to Something or a Finite thing to that which is Infinite Wherefore let all our Contemplation Life and Operation be in him alone and about him and for him and to him who with one hint of his Will is able and knows to produce things infinitely more perfect than those Creatures we now see There can be therefore neither with respect to the Intellect or to the Will any Contemplation and Fruition of Love more profitable perfect happy and delightful than that which hath for its Object the Creator the true and Soveraign Good from whom in whom through whom and to whom are all things who alone is infinitely sufficient for himself and all things Who most simply fully and supereminently contains and has concentred in himself from Eternity the Perfections of all things in whom there is nothing that is not himself with whom and through whom the Causes of all unstable things have their lasting subsistence and establishment In whom are the Immutable Ideas and Principles of all Mutable Things and in whom the Eternal Reasons of all Rational and Irrational and Temporal Things do live for ever who fulfills all and essentially fills all and every thing with himself and who is more intimately

present by his Essence to every thing than the thing is to it self in whom all things are united and one and in whom they live Eternally Moreover if by reason of weakness or the unaccustomedness of the understanding any Man be oblig'd to Meditate or Contemplate on the Creatures then this will be the best truest and most profitable way for him that at least in all his Contemplations and Meditations whether about Creatures or about the Creator a delight in the Creator himself the One and Trine God may arise within him and that the fire of Divine Love and true Life may thence flame forth in himself and in others for the obtaining of Eternal Felicity And here we may observe the difference there is between the Contemplation of Christian Believers and that of the Heathen Philosophers For the Contemplation of Philosophers is intended only for the perfection of the Contemplator and therefore stops in the understanding and so their end herein is intellectual Knowledge But the Contemplation of the Saints is taken up for the Love of him whom they Contemplation that is of God and therefore does not stop in the Intellect by Knowledge as in its ultimate end but passeth over into the affection by Love Wherefore the Saints in their Contemplation have the Love of God for their principal end and aim because it is far more happy and blissful to know and have the Lord Jesus Christ Spiritually by Grace than without Grace corporally or essentially Now whilst the Soul thus abstracts it self from all things and reflects into it self the eye of Contemplation by this means becomes dilated and raiseth it self like a Ladder whereby she mounts to the Vision of God From which beholding the Soul becomes inflamed with the Love of Coelestial and Divine Good Things and looks upon all Temporal Things aloof as if they were just nothing Thus when we draw near to God by the way of Negation or removing from him all that is perceptible or comprehensible in the first place we remove from him all that is Bodily Sensible or Imaginable in the next place all that is Intelligible and last of of all Essence or Being it self as it is in the Creatures And by this means according to St. Dionysius the Areopagite we approach nearest to the Divine Essence and are in the ready way of being joyn'd to him And this is that thick Darkness where God is said to dwell and into which Moses entred and through it passed to his inaccessible Light But that which is Spiritual is not first but that which is Animal so that according to the natural and accustomed Order we are to proceed from the Labour of Action to the Rest of Contemplation and from the Moral Virtues to the Theorical and Speculative Wherefore O my Soul why is it that thou busiest thy self to no purpose about the many vain and superfluous Things where thou art always in want And dost not rather fix thy intention and love upon that one Best and Soveraign Good which contains all Good and is only sufficient for thee and all things Unhappy therefore yea thrice unhappy he who knows and has all things besides him but is ignorant of him For if a Man should be supposed to know all things and him yet would not he be the happier for knowing them but him only whence St. John tells us and this is Life Eternal Joh. 17. v. 3. Psalm 17. v. 15. that they know thee the only true God c. And the Psalmist I shall be satisfied at the appearance of thy Glory or according to the Hebrew when thy image or likeness shall awake in me CHAP. X. Actual and sensible Devotion is not so much to be minded as the adhering or cleaving to God with our Will MOreover do not thou greatly mind actual Devotion sensible sweetness or tears but let it suffice thee to be by good will in thy intellect with thy Mind united to God within thy self forasmuch as nothing is more pleasing to God than a Mind strip'd naked of Phantasms Images and Reptesentations of the Creatures It becomes therefore a truly devout Person to estrange himself from all Creatures that he may nakedly and readily intend apply himself and adhere to God alone within himself Wherefore deny thy self that thou mayest nakedly follow Christ thy Lord God who being truly Poor Obedient and Chast humbled himself and suffered for us and at whose Life and Death many were greatly offended as appears from the History of the Gospel Now as we see that a Soul separate from its Body doth not mind or take notice what becomes of it whether it be burnt hang'd abus'd or cursed and is not at all troubled or grieved for any injuries that are done to it but has all its thoughts fixed upon that ever present Now of Eternity and the one thing necessary our Saviour speaks of in the Gospel In like manner be thou also affected to thy Body being so unconcern'd with it as if thou wast already out of the Body and have always thy mind fixed upon the Eternity of thy Soul in God and earnestly direct and level thy thoughts at that one thing of which Christ saith But one thing is needful Luke 10.42 and by this means thou wilt feel great incomes and assistance of Grace for the attainment of true nakedness of Mind and simplification of Heart And most certain it is that this one thing is most present to thee and will appear so as soon as thou shalt have rid thy self from thy imaginary representations and all other intanglements and thou wilt soon find that now thou canst with a naked free and ready mind apply thy self and cleave to God and by this means thou shalt be invincible in all things whatsoever that can happen to thee as the Holy Martyrs Fathers and all the Elect and Blessed Saints were who despising and rejecting all things only minded the Eternal Salvation of their Souls in God And being thus armed within and united to God by Good will they contemned all the Things of the World even as if their Souls already had been actually separated from their Bodies Consider well therefore how great the power is of a good will united to God yea how by this impression of God upon the Soul as by its virtual and spiritual Division from the Flesh the Soul comes to look upon the outward Man as if it were none of hers and is so unconcern'd at any thing that is done to it or its flesh as if they were done to another Body for he that cleaves to God becomes one Spirit with him Wherefore do thou never dare in the least to think or imagine any thing in the presence of the Lord thy God within thee which thou wouldest blush that Men should hear or see and that because of the highest Reverence which is due to the Divine Majesty in his Holy Temple It is also fit and just that all thy thoughts be erect and lifted up to

any other Source or Spring save only the Benigne Kind and Merciful Will of God even that very self subsisting Essential Love which is God himself Accordingly our hope is not in any degree founded on the Love we have to God nor on the Duties or Services we perform to God or for his sake but is only grounded on the Love which God bears to us and the Works that he himself operates in us This the Apostle St. Paul plainly and openly declares from the High Spirit he had received of God for after that he had spoke to the Romans concerning the comfort of Hope he immediately declares to them from whence the same proceeds saying And hope maketh not ashamed because the Love of God is shed abroad in our Hearts Rom. 5. v. 5. through the Holy Ghost which is given unto us This is the saving Comfort and highest Consolation of Man that out of the inexpressible Love of God the Holy Ghost is given unto him though the Merit of Christ not of his desert as it is written Rom. 5.8 9 10. But God Commendeth his Love towards us in that he died for us whilest we were yet Sinners Forasmuch then as he hath so highly loved us whilst we were yet Sinners as to reconcile us to his Heavenly Father when we did not desire in the least any such thing of him how can it be then that being now reconciled through him to the Father we should not be saved yet not in our own but in his Life For most sure it is that all Life must proceed from one Life as all Death 's proceeded at first from one Death From all which it follows that they are not our own works that can give us comfort so as that from them we should be able to conceive a true and lively hope towards God but they afford us only a comfortable conjecture that this true hope is in us in the very same manner as each fruit points us to the tree upon which it grew It is in this Sense St. Peter tells us 2 Pet. 1.10 that we must be diligent to make our Calling and Election to Eternal Salvation sure by the good Works we do When the Holy Ghost is in any Soul her condition may be compared to water springing out of a Rock Now in this case first there must be water in the Rock for otherwise none could ever spring thence in the next place those hidden springing waters must make a Well before that ever any streams can proceed from them Wherefore as the streams or rivulets lead us to the Well or Spring and the Spring to the hidden Water in like manner do good Works lead us to the Fountain wherein Faith Hope and Love do first spring and these three again lead us to the inward hidden Water even to the Holy Ghost who is the self-subsisting Essential Love of God By this very comparison or Similitude God leads the Samaritan Woman from the Water she drew out of Jacob's Well to that Water which is God himself which through Faith Hope and Love becomes a Well springing up into Eternal Life and flowing forth in the streams of all good Vertues and Graces For the Holy Ghost is the hidden Water Faith Hope and Love are the Spring that make the Well or Fountain and good Works are the Streams or Rivulets Thus you see for a conclusion that no good Work can be in us except the Holy Ghost be there before as hath been already mentioned Now when he dwells in us then is he himself in us that Living Water which becomes in us a Well springing up into Eternal Life through Faith Hope and Love Here thou mayst understand how and in what manner Faith Hope and Love are poured forth or conveighed into our Souls why because the Holy Ghost who is the true Living Water sheds himself abroad in our hearts and so causeth them to flow forth which afterwards farther diffuse themselves into manifold other Vertues and Graces first to those that have them and afterwards also to others that see their Works And lastly as the stream is not the Original of the Spring nor the Spring or Fountain the Original of the hidden Water so neither can our Works be the Original of Faith Hope and Charity nor Faith Hope and Charity be the Original or Cause of the Indwelling of the Holy Ghost CHAP. X. The Love to God that is in us is begotten and born of the Revelation of God's Love towards us NOthing can be conceived more proper and efficacious to beget Love than Love therefore 't is that God then and there only appears most amiable and lovely unto us when his unutterable Love towards us his surpassing Benefits and the Merits of Christ are pourtrayed and imprinted on the heart when in his Light we discover how our Heavenly Father when we were as yet his Enemies gave his only begotten Son to come down into Flesh into this mortal Life yea into the bitterest Suffering and Death for us But now this Revelation Manifestation and Impression on the heart cannot be performed by any one but by God alone who has the hearts of all in his own hand and inclines the Will according to his own pleasure Our dear Lord Christ is that flinty Rock that strikes Fire but yet doth not give it forth except it be forc'd from him with the strong Iron Christ also is the Rock that gives forth Water yet not till it be smitten with Moses's Rod. His Holy Life his Suffering and Death give forth no kindling no inflaming fire except they be stir'd and struck with the eternal unchangeable constant strong Love of God in which he immutably and without repentance has elected those who shall be the Inheritors of his Eternal Joy for no striking helps nor kindles any fire except it fall into the true catching Tinder of those Souls whom God from Eternity hath determined to favour with his Grace to sanctifie and save them For else strike who will the Rock never gives fire and consequently neither doth the Tinder catch it But when God strikes the Rock in the heart of his chosen then it presently gives forth fire then the dead Coals become live Coals the black Tinder looks glorious like the burnish'd Gold and the cold fire becomes shining and flaming in that Love which is kindled by God's Love Thus Love proceeds and springs from Love that is from the Love of God to us proceeds our reciprocal Love to him So likewise neither doth this Rock give forth Water except it be struck with the Rod of Moses ever flowing streams of Grace do not flow from Christ neither doth he appear in the highest degree lovely and amiable friendly and kind in that he was scourged crown'd with Thorns mocked and crucifyed but because the merciful Lord God the true Moses the Great Law-giver of the Law of Love out of pure Love to us or as the Prophet Isaiah chap. 53.5 8. saith for our sakes hath

it Joh. 14.13 14. As if he had said as long as men do not ask in my Name they have no assurance of being heard But if you do ask in my Name then need you no other Intercessor Joh. 16.26 27. For the Heavenly Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me and believed that I came forth from God If therefore any one would be sure that his Prayers are heard let him believe in Christ For he that believeth in Christ is beloved of God and needs no other Inte●…ssor But if all the Saints in Heaven should pray for thee and thou have no Faith in Christ it would be all in vain and unprofitable to thee CHAP. X. Concerning our indissoluble Union with Christ THE Faith that is in Christ suffers no man to remain or abide in himself but draws us out and raiseth us above our selves and never ceaseth till it have united us unto God In the first place God doth so unite all Believers amongst themselves that they all become one Heart and one Soul in God wherein Christ's Prayer is heard and fulfilled which he prayed to the Father for them Joh. 17.11 19. Holy Father keep through thine one Name those whom thou hast given me that they may be one as we are one Which Words do not only respect the Twelve Apostles of Christ but all those that for the future should believe on him through their Word as the Text manifestly holds forth and this is the only true Ground and Original of the Unity of the Church Now all that believe in Christ shall in like manner be united in and with God as the Father in Christ and Christ in the Father are of one Will one Mind one Sense one Meaning and one Desire Moreover God doth so unite all those that believe in Christ with Christ that they become one Body with him of which he is the Head and they the Members and as all the Members are Ruled and Influenced by the Head so are they Govern'd and led by Christ in Christ so that no body can be helpful or advantageous to them as to their inward guidance in the Spirit save the only most intimate Jesus With respect to this intimate Union Jesus said Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Act. 9.4 As if he himself had been only concern'd whereas indeed he persecuted those that believed in him By means of this Mystical Union Christ poures forth all Spiritual Gifts and Graces into our heart through the Holy Ghost yea and his very self too But besides this Union there is yet another whereby God the Father Espouseth those to Christ that believe in him so that a Believer and Christ are inseperably United and Joyned together in the indissoluble Band of Wedlock This Marriage-band is the Marriage in Paradise a Sacrament and Seal that Christ hath taken upon him all our Weaknesses Defects Wants and Sins and is become Sin for us that we might become the Righteousness of God in him and made our Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption not without us but within us To us Christ is given to us he is born and for us he dyed his Life Death and Suffering his Doctrine and Works are wholely ours and we in Christ through Faith are united and made one with God This is the Eternal Heavenly Marriage Band that we abide eternally betrothed joyned and united with Christ forasmuch as we are born of God himself and still-are in him who hath born us And this is and is called Faith viz. Christ dwelling in us and that is the true Love viz. God and his Holy Spirit in us This is the highest Union in the which Christ and he that believes in him give up themselves wholely into God that he alone may be All in All and work All in All. Of this Union much might be said but it is above our Understanding and as long as this Life lasteth it will but be in part with us However this is and abides undoubtedly true that he who believes in Jesus Christ becomes thereby Eternally united to God For he that cleaveth to the Lord becomes one Spirit with him which God of his Mercy grant unto all Amen Dr. John of Staupitz Jesu thine I am Save me FINIS