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A61711
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Sermons and discourses upon several occasions by G. Stradling ... ; together with an account of the author.
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Stradling, George, 1621-1688.; Harrington, James, 1664-1693.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing S5783; ESTC R39104
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236,831
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593
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advantage 3. Besides to make our Estate good is required Investiture so that although Christ hath made a purchase and paid a price for us yet what would this advantage us without Livery and Seizin which the same Apostle calls The Earnest of the Spirit 2 Cor. 5. 5. Lastly What are we at all the better for what Christ did for us if we be not joined to Him as He was to us and 't is by his Spirit that we are joined unto Him For he that hath not Christ's Spirit is none of his Rom. 8. 9. and then Christ will profit him nothing From whence it plainly appears That what the Father and the Son did for us could not be compleat or available without the concurrence of the Holy Ghost They could doe nothing for us without Him nor we any thing for our selves in order to our Salvation For first without Holiness we cannot see God who is therefore called Holy because he is the cause of Holiness in us his Office consisting in the sanctifying of us We are by Nature void of all saving Truth 1 Cor. 2. 10 11. None knoweth the things of God but the Spirit of God And 't is the Spirit that searcheth all things and revealeth them unto the Sons of Men That dispells their Darkness enlightens their Understandings with the knowledge of God and works in them an assent unto that which by the Word is propounded unto them Again 2dly Unless they be regenerate and renewed they are still in a state of natural Corruption Now 't is the Holy Spirit that regenerates and renews us According to his mercy he saveth us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 3. 5. And Except a man be born again of Water and the Holy Ghost he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God Joh. 3. 5. We are all at first defiled by the corruption of our Nature and the pollution of our Sins but we are washed but we are sanctified but we are justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6. 11. Thirdly We are not able to guide our selves and 't is the Spirit that leads directs and governs us in our Actions and Conversations that we may perform what is acceptable in the sight of God 'T is He that giveth both to will and to doe and As many as are thus led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Rom. 8. 14. Fourthly If we be separate from Christ we are as branches cut off from the Tree which presently wither away for want of sap to nourish them Now 't is the Spirit that joins us to Christ and makes us Members of that Body whereof he is the Head For by one Spirit we are all baptized into that one Body 1 Cor. 12. 13. And hereby we know that God abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us 1 Joh. 3. 24. Fifthly Till we be assured of the Adoption of Sons we have no comfort no hope for 't is that which creates in us a sense of the Paternal love of God towards us The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us Rom. 5. 5. And the Spirit it self beareth witness with our Spirit that we are the Children of God Rom. 8. 16. who is therefore said to be the Pledge and the Earnest of our Inheritance In a word had not the Holy Ghost been sent to us we could have done nothing to any purpose no means on our part would have availed us Not Baptism which might wash spots from our Skins nor stains from our Souls No laver of Regeneration without renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 3. 5. Not the Word which without the Spirit would have proved but a killing letter Not the Sacrament The Flesh profiteth nothing 't is the Spirit that quickneth Joh. 6. 63. Lastly Not Prayer which without the Spirit is but lip-labour For unless he help our infirmities and make intercession for and with us we know not what we should pray for as we ought Rom. 8. 26. To summ up all It was expedient nay absolutely necessary that the Spirit should have his Advent as well as Christ. Christ's Advent was necessary for the fulfilling of the Law and the Spirit 's for the compleating of the Gospel Christ's to redeem the Church and the Spirit 's to teach it Christ's to shed his bloud for it and the Spirit 's to wash and purge it in that bloud Christ's to preach the acceptable year of the Lord and the Spirit 's to interpret it The one without the other is imperfect Christ's Birth Death Passion Resurrection are good news but sealed up a Gospel hid till the Spirit come and open it Of such importance was his coming and so expedient yea and necessary for us it was that our Lord should go away to send Him to us And as he did send Him to the Apostles in an extraordinary manner in cloven tongues like as of fire as at this time so all Christians have a promise of the Comforter though not of the firey tongues The promise is to you and to your Children and to all that are a-far off even as many as the Lord our God shall call Act. 2. 39. That is To all that wait for and are in such a fit posture and condition to receive Him as the Apostles themselves were To all that are like Him Holy Pure Charitable Peaceable That have those fruits of the Spirit mentioned Gal. 5. 22 23. That are void of carnal sensual Affections than which nothing will more obstruct his entrance He being a Spirit and having therefore no commerce with the Flesh. Christ carnally apprehended we see could not avail any thing and so long as our Thoughts and Desires run after things here below his Spirit from above will not fill or inflame them Therefore sur sum corda let us lift up our hearts towards Him He will meet us and Christ will send Him to us if we meet Him in his way Send Him if we send for Him too if we send up our Prayers to fetch Him down For being a Spirit of supplication Zach. 12. 10. the proper means to obtain Him is Prayer And surely He is worth the asking for being the greatest gift God can give us or we receive In giving whereof He is said to give us all things Mat. 7. 11. In whom we have a Teacher to instruct The Spirit of Truth to lead us into all Truth necessary for us An Advocate to plead for and defend us A Comforter in all our outward and inward distresses so that Direction Protection Consolation and all that is beneficial to us or we can desire we have in Him But then when we have got let us be sure to retain and to cherish Him not chase Him away for then we had better never to have had Him Be sure not to resist Him by our Pride quench Him by our Carnality and so grieve Him
recourse to Miracles we must of necessity conclude them to be of a higher Efficiency Those many more than ordinary Tempests devouring Earthquakes firey Inundations and Apparitions which have been seen and heard of so many though they may indeed have natural Causes yet 't is highly probable that these things are not the ordinary Effects of Nature but that the Almighty for the Manifestation of his Power and Justice may set Spirits whether good or evil on work to do the same things sometimes with more State and Magnificence of horror As the Frogs of Egypt ordinarily bred out of putrification and generation were yet for a plague to that wicked Nation supernaturally also produced I might instance in sundry miraculous Preservations whereunto in all probability Angels concur How many have fallen from very high Precipices into deep Pits past the natural probability of hope which yet have been preserved not from Death only but from Hurt How many have been raised up from deadly Sicknesses when all natural Helps have given them for lost God's Angels no doubt have been their secret Physicians Have we had instinctive intimations of the Death of some absent friends which no humane intelligence had bidden us to suspect who but Angels have been our Informers Have we been kept from Dangers which our best Providence could neither have foreseen nor diverted we owe these strange escapes to our invisible Spies and Guardians And thus Gerson attributes the wonderfull preservation of Infants from so many perils they usually run into to the super-intendency of Angels Indeed where we find a probability of second Causes in Nature we are apt to confine our Thoughts to them and look no higher yet even there many times are unseen Hands Had we seen the House fall upon the Heads of Job's Children we should perhaps have ascrib'd it to the natural force of a vehement Blast when now we know it was the work of a Spirit Had we seen those Thousands of Israelites falling dead of the Plague we should have complain'd of some strange infection in the Air when David saw the Angel acting in that Mortality When the Israelites forcibly expell'd the Canaanites nothing appear'd but their own Arms but the Lord of Hosts could say I will send mine Angel before thee by whom I shall drive them thence Exod. 33. 2. Nothing appear'd when the Egyptians first-born were struck dead in one night the Astrologers would perhaps say they were Planet-struck but 't was an Angel's hand that smote them Balaam saw his Ass disorderly starting in the path He who formerly had seen Visions now sees nothing but a Wall and a Way but his Ass who for the present had more of the Prophet than his Master could see an Angel and a Sword Nothing was seen at the Pool of Bethesda but a moved Water when the sudden Cures were wrought which perhaps might be attributed to some beneficial Constellation but the Scripture tells us that an Angel descended and infused that healing quality into the Water Elias could see an Army of the Heavenly Host encompassing Him when Gehezi could not till his Master's Prayers had opened his Eyes We need not make use of Cardan's Eye-salve to discern Spirits in the Air our Reason may discover them though our Eyes cannot and by the manifest good Effects they produce we may boldly say Here hath been an Angel though we have not seen Him All this may serve to confute the ancient Error of Sadducees who made Angels to be nothing but good Motions or good Thoughts turning them into an Allegory as Hymeneus and Philetus did the Resurrection And 't is observed that they who deny'd Angels did withall deny a Resurrection and both upon the same ground their loose temper which prevails so much with their Successors inclining 'em to baffle themselves out of the belief of those things whose real Being brings them so little advantage 'T is not strange that such men's Senses should swallow up their Faith since it deprives them of their Reason though probably such fancies are rather the issues of their Desires than of their Judgment Behold here a cloud of Witnesses against them not Revelation only but even Sense too backt with Reason Authority and Experience of all Ages and of all Conditions of Men Good and Bad Heathens and Christians If nothing will satisfie their curiosity but a Vision I must tell them that the commerce we have with Spirits is not now by the Eye nor shall any thing confute their Infidelity but Hell where to their cost they shall meet with those Devils whose company they are here so fond of and yet their very Infidelity methinks were they not stupid as well as impious might serve to rectifie their belief here which being the unquestionable effect of Satan is no small evidence of his Existence I shall not stand to confute them the Text does it for me If their Faith be not strong enough their Eyes to be sure will be too weak to discern Angels these cannot be the Objects of Sense since they are Spirits which points to the first thing exprest here their Nature Spirits 'T is an easier matter to prove that there are Angels than to describe what they are Spirits have so little affinity with our Natures that 't is no marvel if they exceed our Apprehensions But this notion suggests so much to us that they are intellectual Substances immaterial incorporeal and consequently immortal In all which capacities most resembling the Almighty and the fairest Copies of the great Original of all things Yet are they not void of all kind of matter no more than the Soul of Man is it being peculiar to the Father of Spirits to be one most pure and simple Act whereas every created Being though never so refin'd admits of some dross some alloy is compounded either by natural composition as consisting of matter and form or at least Metaphysical of the Act and the Power Yet so far we may and ought to allow Angels to be immaterial as not to consist of any corporeal matter though never so fine and subtle for this were to destroy the very Nature of a Spirit and our Saviour's argument whereby he convinced the Disciples that he was no Spirit as they took him for Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self for a Spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have Luk. 24. 39. I shall not trouble you with any Philosophical discourse to prove Angels incorporeal nor with those tedious and impertinent Niceties of the Schools grounded upon their being so How Millions of Angels can lodge together in one point as a Legion of them did in one Man How they move in an instant and pass from one extream to another without going through the middle parts and the like curious matters contributing nothing at all to our edification Some passages there are indeed in Scripture which at first blush seem to favour the corporeity of Angels but in effect