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love_n	jesus_n	lord_n	world_n	5,473	5	4.3660	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82313	The building and glory of the truely Christian and spiritual church. Represented in an exposition on Isai. 54, from vers. 11. to the 17. Preached to His Excellency Sir Tho. Fairfax and the general officers of the army, with divers other officers, and souldiers, and people, at Marston, being the head-quarter at the leaguer before Oxford, June. 7. 1646. / By William Dell, minister of the Gospel, attending on His Excellencie Sir Thomas Fairfax in the Army. Together with a faithful testimony touching that valiant and victorious army, in the epistle to the reader. Published by authority.	Dell, William, d. 1664.	1646 (1646)	Wing D918; Thomason E343_5; ESTC R200942	30,138	43

full sense of these words I shall give you forth in several particulars 1. You see here the matter of which the Church of the New Testament is made and that is not of common but of precious stones elect and precious stones and such are the faithful For 1. They have a more excellent nature then other men have for they are born of God and so partake of the nature of God and so in this sense may be said to come forth from God as the childe from the father and the Lord Jesus did not more truely partake of the nature of man then these do partake of the nature of God and therefore saith Peter Great and precious promises are made to us that we should be partakers of the divine nature Others have onely the nature of men in them or which is worse the nature of the devil but the faithful have in them the nature of God communicated to them through a new birth 2. They have a more excellent spirit then others have as it was said of Daniel that there was a more excellent spirit found with him then with all the other wise men Now the excellency of each creature is according to the spirit of it but the Saints have the Spirit of God even the Spirit of the Father and the Son dwelling in them they have the same Spirit of God dwelling in their flesh as Christ had dwelling in his flesh so that the very Spirit of God is found in the faithful and therefore they are more glorious then the rest of the world 3. They have a more excellent lustre then other men One thing that appertains to the excellency of precious stones is the lustre of them Now this lustre in the faithful is the glory of God upon them The Lord shall arise upon thee and his glory shall be seen upon thee saith Isaiah Chap. 60. And Paul saith We all beholding as in a glasse the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord So that as Christ was taken into the glory of the Father so are we taken into the glory of Christ as he saith Joh. 17. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them for the head and members are taken into the same glory according to their proportion 4. They have more excellent operations for the faithful are not such precious stones that are onely for shew but they also have some vertue in them even the very vertues of Jesus Christ for they having the same Nature and Spirit of God as he had are able according to the measure of the gift of Christ to do the same works that he did and so the Saints are excellent in the operations of faith hope love humility meeknesse patience temperance heavenly mindednesse c. and in this regard also are more precious then the rest of the world And therefore the Lord calls them his Jewels In the day wherein I make up my jewels and elsewhere they are called the precious sons of Sion The people of God are a most precious people men and women of a precious anointing though some wicked and scurrilous libellers against the spiritual Church will not allow them this name but according to the anointing they have received from Satan reproach it And yet still it is a truth that the gates of hell shall not prevail against That the truely faithful are precious stones in the building of the Church partaking of the Nature and Spirit of God and of the lustre and operation of both Whereas on the contrary other people are the vile of the earth the true filth and off scouring of all things Psal. 15. in whose eyes a vile person is contemned a man that is a natural man a sinful and unregenerate man who hath no other nature in him but that corrupt nature he brought into the world though in this present world he may be a Gentleman or a Knight or a Noble-man or a King yet in the eyes of God and his Saints he is but a vile person and a poor mean Christian that earns his bread by hard labour is a thousand times more precious and excellent then he according to the judgement of God and his Word And thus much for the first thing The matter of which the Church of the New Testament is made and that is of precious stones 2. Now the next thing observable is the variety of these precious stones For the spiritual Church is not built up of precious stones of one sort onely not all of Saphires or all of Agates or all of Carbuncles but of all these both Saphires Agates Carbuncles and many other precious stones of fair colours And this notes the diversity of gifts in the Saints of God For though all of them are precious stones yet they are of diversity of colours and lustre and operations And this also makes for the greater glory of the Church for the variety of lustre addes to the beauty and ornament of it In the body of a man there is not one member but many If the body were all but one member it would be but a lump of flesh but the variety of members with their several gifts and operations are the glory of the body And so it is in the Church the Body of Jesus Christ wherein are divers members with diversity of gifts and operations excellently set forth by Paul 1 Cor. 12. 4. c. Now there are diversity of gifts but the same Spirit and there are differences of administrations but the same Lord and there are diversities of operations but it is the same God that worketh all in all But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every one to profit withal for to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisedom to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit to another faith by the same Spirit to another the gift of healing by the same Spirit to another the working of miracles to another prophecie to another discerning of spirits to another divers kind●s of tongues to another interpretation of tongues but all these work●● that one and the same Spirit dividing to every 〈…〉 he will Here you see are diversity of gifts and administrations and operations in the faithful but all proceed from one and the same Spirit and whatsoever gift proceeds from the Spirit there is an excellent beauty a heavenly lustre in it And therefore labour to distinguish between those gifts that are connatural to thee and flow from thy own spirit and those gifts that are supernatural and flow from Gods Spirit In all the operations of thine own spirit in all thy natural abilities parts wisedom learning actings there is nothing but ungloriousnesse deformity darknesse death how specious soever they may appear to the world but in the gifts and operations that flow from Gods Spirit there is a heavenly beauty and lustre and glory yea even in weak Christians that are true

but do ye live and act in the righteousness of Christ and as the Lord lives though you have Kingdomes and Nations for your enemies you shall not be moved but shall bee established more firmely then the earth And therefore I pray consider your establishment where it lies and that is in righteousnesse and in righteousnesse only Some trust to this strength and some to that some to this aid and some to that but the spirituall Church scorns to trust to any creature for establishment but looks to be establisht only in righteousnesse and because of this neither men nor devils shall prevaile against it And therefore you that are of this Temple and building which is made by God seeing you have so many enemies on all hands pray look to your establishment which is in righteousnesse In righteousnesse shalt thou be established Thou shalt be far from oppression for thou shalt not fear and from terror for it shall not come neer thee The feare and terror he speakes of here is inward feare and terror from which the Church shall be free in the midst of all outward evills for though the Church be full of danger and persecution without yet it is free from feare and terror within Nay the Church hath trouble without but peace within affliction without joy within weaknesse without strength within imprisonment without liberty w●thin persecution without content within against all the sorrowes and suffering of the flesh they have refreshings comforts hopes sweetnesses rejoycings triumphs in the spirit and so in the midst of evill are free from evill and in the midst of sufferings are free from paine yea they rejoyce in tribulations and in the midst of evil are fild and satisfied with good Verse 15. Behold they shall surely gather together but not by me whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake A very strange thing it is that the spirituall Church being thus builded and taught and establisht any should yet be so blinde and mad as to ingage against it and yet the world and the carnall Church especially doth this yea the more pure and s●irituall the Church is the more enmity the world and Formalists have against it Behold they shall surely gather together When they shall see the Churches gathering together into the true communion of Saints then will they gather themselves together against the Churches And why doe these men blame the Churches for gathering together unto Christ when they themselves gather together against the Church as we daily see Indeed the gathering together of the Saints the world doth most hate of all other things Oh this is a dreadfull and terrible thing to them it makes their hearts ake within them and looseth the joynts of their loines they think their exaltation will be their owne abasement and their gathering together their owne scattering and their glory their owne shame and their strength their owne undoing and cut of these conceits the world acts so strongly and furiously to scatter abroad again Christs owne gatherings together But the Lord hath decreed and promised to hew that little stone of Christs spirituall Church out of the mountaine of the world without hands and will certainly accomplish it and is now about this very businesse but the world that never looks beyond sense they think this is surely a plot of ours and that we have a great designe in hand and so we have indeed but the designe is not our designe but Gods contrived in eternity and discovered to Daniel chap. 2. and this is the setting up a Kingdome of Saints in the world under Christ the King of Saints wherein the people shall live alone in point of spirituall worship and communion and shall have nothing to doe with the rest of the Nations This councell of God begins to be accomplished and the world thinkes that we are subtile and wee are mighty wheras they are cleerly mistaken in us for the wisedome and strength wherby this is done is Gods and not ours For it is the Lord must build this spirituall Church and set it up in the world and preserve it against the world and cause it to increase till it fills the world so that the designe and the accomplishment of it belongs to God and not to us and they that are displeased at it let them go and quarrel against God and so they will certainly do through the operation of the Devill Behold saith he they shall surely gather together As soon as ever the Church separates from the world the world gathers together against the Church Yea this place is not only to be understood of those that are open enimies without the Church but of a generation in it that are not of it and so the gathering together against the Church shall be in the Church and so Calvin interprets and such a thing will assuredly come to passe that the Church as well as the Kingdome will have domestick enemies it hath been so in all ages and what wonder will it be if it be so in this The first division in this Kingdome was between common profession and open prophannes●e and if ever there be another it is like to lye between the form and the power of godlinesse and the children that are borne after the flesh will up and be persecuting them that are borne after the Spirit and the deepest wounds we shall receive will be in the house of our friends not our friends indeed but of such who seem to be so for they pray as well as we and preach and heare and receive the Sacraments and use the same ordinances with us and yet their enmity of all other will be the greatest against us and we shall receive deeper wounds in the house of these friends then in the streets of our enemies They shall gather together in thee against thee But not by mee The Saints gather together by God having the Spirit of God to bring them into union and communion but the carnall Church gathers together against the spirituall not by God but without him for worldly base ends and interests and profits and advantages But mark the end of such gathering together Whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake Wee have seen the accomplishment of this promise with our eyes even a great party of the greatest men in the Kingdome as well as of meane ones gathered together against the Church but all fallen What is become of the great power and armies that were in the West and the North and other parts of the Kingdom are they not fallen through the strength of this promise and if any new party shall rise up againe they shall also fall in like manner For thy sake For the Lord loves the Church the body of Christ even as he loves Iesus Christ himselfe thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me he loves Head and Members with the same love The Lords people are his portion on earth as he is theirs in

The Building and Glory of the truely Christian and Spiritual CHURCH Represented in an EXPOSITION On Isai. 54 from vers 11 to the 17. PREACHED To His Excellency Sir Tho. Fairfax and the General Officers of the Army with divers other Officers and Souldiers and People At Marston being the Head-quarter at the Leaguer before Oxford June 7. 1646. By WILLIAM DELL Minister of the Gospel attending on His Excellencie Sir Thomas Fairfax in the Army Together with a faithful TESTIMONY touching that valiant and victorious Army in the Epistle to the Reader Matth. 5. 11. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake Verse 12. Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you Psal. 69. 9. The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me Published by Authority LONDON Printed for G. CALVERT at the Black Spread-Eagle at the West-end of Pauls 1646. To the READER HAving obtained this grace from God to be called into some friendship and familiarity with Jesus Christ so as to hear and receive from him something of the minde and bosome of the Father according to his free grace who hath mercy on whom he will and having after many tears and temptations not unknown to many yet in the body obtained this further grace to speak the Word of God with boldnesse I have also been counted worthy to be taken into some fellowship with Christ in his sufferings and to endure the contradiction of sinners and oft-times to encounter the rage and madnesse of men yea and to fight with men after the manner of beasts altogether brutish and furious And thus it hath fared with me often especially at two remarkable times The one at Lincoln upon occasion of two Sermons preached there on these words of the Prophet Isaiah chap. 9. 7. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end Wherein giving unto Christ his own proper due many were angry I had taken too much from men to whom yet nothing belongs but iniquity shame and confusion they could not bear this that the Lord alone should be exalted But that Doctrine of truth the Lord hath strongly upheld with the right hand of his righteousnesse and the glory of it hath since shone into many hearts in this Kingdom much contrary to their desire The other time wherein I met with remarkable opposition was lately at Marston the Head quarter at the Leaguer before Oxford whither some coming out of the City of London in all probability out of some special designe seeing the old malignity now acts in a new form and is daily coming forth in a second and more plausible cunning and deceiving edition became exceeding angry and headie against the plain and cleer truth of the Gospel delivered in this following Exposition wherein the whole truth and substance of what was then delivered is exactly set down and nothing abated but rather some things farther pressed adding as Jeremiah in the second roll many like words to the former New some of these men seeing themselves and their new designe cleerly discovered by the light of the Word and made altogether naked suddenly they grew fierce and furious contradicting and blaspheming yea some of them speaking the language of hell upon earth of which there are some witnesses as became men of such a generation These men according to the operation of that spirit which works mightily in the children of disobedience come and fill the whole City with lyes and slanders laying to my charge things that I knew not the falshood and untruth whereof there are some hundreds and some of them of great and eminent worth and piety ready to witnesse Wherefore of meer necessity I was constrained to publish this Exposition as a witnesse to this present and the following generations of these mens resisting the Spirit and acting against Christ himself in the Word And though the discourse be very plain not savouring of any accuratenesse of humane wisedom and learning yet they that are themselves spiritual will acknowledge somthing of the Spirit in it and for that cause will rellish and love it though others will therefore be at the greater enmity against it But for my part I have set down my resolution in the Lord in this Cause of Jesus Christ not to weigh all the power of earth or hell one feather but to put it to the utmost trial whether the truth of the Gospel or the slanders and lyes of men shall prevail whether the smoke of the bottomlesse pit that comes forth out of the mouth of these and many others shall be able to blot out or darken the brightnesse of Christs coming in the Ministery of the Gospel yea and whether the power and malice of the devil and the world shall be stronger then the love and protection of Jesus Christ And I doubt not but the more the world acts in the Spirit of the devil the more will Christ enable us to act in his own Spirit till all at last shall be forced to acknowledge that the Spirit that is in us is stronger then the spirit that is in the world And what now have all these men obtained by all their malice and fury but a greater and more open discovery of the truth and to cause that that light of the Gospel that onely shone in one Congregation should through the printing of it have its beams scattered in many parts of the Kingdom and wherever the truth comes the children of the truth will entertain it ask no body leave And thus through the over-ruling power of Gods wisedom do these men betray their own and their fellows cause and overthrow their own and their ends and whilst they think to oppresse the truth propagate it the more and thus shall truths enemies perish and the truth it self flourish yea flourish through slanders oppositions contradictions blasphemies and all the vilenes and villany in the world And all this confidence in us arises hence because Christ is not as a dead man but is risen and ascended and sits at the right hand of God and fills all things doth all things in heaven and in earth in the world and in the Church among his friends among his enemies till these be made his footstool which is the very thing we are now in expectation of Now one thing more which I think fit to acquaint the world withal in this Epistle is this That none of these thorny hearers durst after come to discourse with me or to look me in the face but one among them that seemed of a better temper then the rest upon the urging of a godly Citizen then present did speak with me and the question he asked of me was this Whether I thought that all Presbyterians were carnal Gospellers I told him I was far from thinking any such thing for I knew

of the Church in the days of the New Testament that whereas before the Church was to be found but in one kinred and tongue and people and nation now it should be gathered out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation And this is so desireable and comfortable a thing that in the beginning of the Chapter he calls upon all to rejoyce at this vers. 1. Sing O barren thou that didst not bear break forth into singing and shout aloud thou that didst not travel with childe for more are the children of the desolate then of the married wife saith the Lord Enlarge the place of thy tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations Spare not lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left and thy seed shall inherite the Gentiles and make the desolate cities to be inhabited So that there shall certainly be a most wonderful and numerous increase of the faithful in the Christian Church till they become as the stars of heaven and as the drops of the morning dew that cannot be told all of them assembled in the beauties of holinesse And therefore let us not be over-much troubled though at present we see in a numerous nation but few true children of the spiritual Church for God shall blesse these few and bid them increase and multiply and replenish the earth so that though the Assemblies of the Saints be now but thin and one comes from this place and another from that to these Assemblies and in many and most places of the Kingdom these few are fain to come together secretly for fear of the Jews that is the people of the letter yet through the pouring forth of the Spirit it shall come to passe at last that they shall come in flocks as doves to their windows And it shall be said to the Church by the Lord Lift up thine eyes round about and behold all these gather fellows together and come to thee At I live saith the Lord thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all as with an ornament and binde them on thee as a bride doth c. till at last the Church shall say in her heart Who hath begotten me these seeing I have lost my children and am desolate a captive and removing to and fro and who hath brought up these Behold I was left alone these where had they been Yea these very promises are now in the very act of accomplishing among us for the spiritual Church hath received a very great increase within these few yeers and God hath many faithful people in many places of this Kingdom and of this my self and many more in this Army are witnesses for having marched up and down the Kingdom to do the work of God and the State we have met with many Christians who have much Gospel light and which makes it the more strange in such places where there hath been no Gospel-Ministery which hath put me in minde of that prophecie Isai. 66. 8. Who hath heard such a thing who hath seen such things Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day or shall a nations be born at once For as soon as Sion travelled nay before she travelled she brought forth her children There was no outward Ministery of the Gospel to travel or take pains with them and yet Sion brings forth her children And one thing that is remarkable touching the increase of the Church at this day is this That where Christ sends the Ministration of the Spirit there many young people are brought in to Christ as being most free from the forms of the former age and from the Doctrines and Traditions of men taught and received instead of the pure and unmixed Word of God whereas many old professors who are wholly in the form prove the greatest enemies to the power of godlinesse and thus the first are the last and the last first Now this great and sudden increase of the faithful is that which doth so exceedingly trouble the world and makes them angry at the very heart For if they were but a few mean contemptible and inconsiderable persons whom they might easily suppresse and destroy they would be pretty quiet but when they begin to increase in the land as Israel did in Egypt and notwithstanding all the burdens of their taskmasters wherewith they are afflicted and grieved do yet increase abundantly and multiply and wax exceeding mighty till they begin to fill the land and when they consult to deal wisely with them lest they multiply too much do yet see them grow and multiply the more that they know not at what Countrey or City or Town or Village or family to begin to suppresse them this is that doth so exceedingly vex and inrage the world and makes them even mad again as we see this day For the increase of the faithful as it is the glory of the Church so it is the grief and madnesse of the world But these men in vain attempt against this increase of the faithful as the Egyptians against the increase of the Israelites for none can hinder the increase of the Church but they that hinder God from pouring out his Spirit and according to the measure of Gods pouring forth the Spirit is and must be the increase of the Church in despite of all the opposition of the world And thus much touching the first promise of the Churches Increase Now in the words I read to you the Lord comes to another promise so that the Lord because of the Churches weaknesse addes one promise to another and these promises are nothing but the outgoings and manifestations of his love through the Word Christ But to look more neerly upon the words Oh thou afflicted Affliction in the world doth so inseparably attend the Church that the Church even takes its denomination from it Oh thou afflicted The condition of the Church is an afflicted condition For the Church being born of God and born of the Spirit is put into a direct contrariety to the world which is born of the flesh and is also of its father the devil And so the whole world is malignant against the faithful and spiritual Church and all that are not regenerate set their faces yea their hearts and their hands against the Saints and the unregenerate world is against the regenerate and the carnal world against the spiritual and the sinful world against the righteous and all the people and nations in the world are against that people and nation which the Apostle calls a holy nation and a peculiar people As the world cannot endure God in himself so neither can it endure God in the Saints and so the more God dwells in the Saints the more doth the world afflict the Saints for they oppose not the faithful for any thing of flesh and blood in them but because that flesh and blood of theirs is the habitation of God and