The Trial and Triumph of Faith, Sermon 25

The Trial and Triumph of Faith · Sermon 25

p. 424SERMON XXV.

Omnipotencie hath influence: 1. On Satan. 2 On diseases. 3. Stark Death. 4. On life it self.BE it unto thee as thou wilt.] foreign It… a word of Omnipotency, to create Being its spoken of Satan, and to Satan, Mark 9 25. Luk. 4.35. 2. None can speak to Leprosie, bu… Christ, Mat. 8.3. Luk. 4.39. Be thou clean. 3… Christ can speak to stark death, Joh. 11.43. an… Joh. 5.28. Jesus cryed with a loud voice, Laza…rus, come forth. 4. He can speak to life, In ab…stracto, Ezek. 37.9. Come from the four Winds, … p. 425breath, and breathe upon these slain, 5. On Mother-nothing. 6. On all creatures &c.that they may live. 5. God can speak to Mother-nothing, as if Nothing had ears and reason, & could hear, Rom. 4.17. He calleth things that are not, as though they were: He did but nod upon Nothing, and out of Nothing there compeared before him, The great Hoste of heaven and earth, and all things in them, Psa. 33.9. 6. There is a Language of Providence by which every Being, as Being, hath a power-obedientiall to hear what God saith, and do it, Ion. 2.10. The Lord spake to the Fish, and it vomited out Ionah on the dry land. Mar. 4.39. And he arose, and rebuked the wind, foreign and said unto the sea, Peace, be still; and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm: What wise man can boast the Sea? What ears hath the sensless and …ifelesse waters? Yet they hear Christs language, they speak, Yonder standeth our Creator boa…ting us, and therefore we will obey, Isa. 50.2. Hear himself speak: Behold, at my rebuke, I dry up the Sea, Psa. 114. There is a question put upon the creatures, that they can well answer: ver. 5. What aileth thee, O thou Sea, that thou fleddest? Thou Iordan that thou wast driven backward? vers. 6. What ailed you, ye mountains, that ye skip…ed like Rams, and ye little hills like Lambs? Good reason saith the Spirit: vers. 7. Tremble thou …arth, at the presence of the Lord: Obedientiall power in the creature, what it isat the presence of the God of Iacob: This obedientiall power is not any quality created in the creature p. 426different from their being, for God may use any creature to infinite effects of omnipotency, and so there should be infinite created qualities in every finite creature. 2. This obedientiall power was in that Mother-nothing, out of which, God by an omnipotent act of creation, extracted all the hosts of creatures that now are; and its in that other Mother-nothing, yet objected to omnipotency, according to which God may create infinite moe worlds then now are, so it please him; its then nothing, but a non-repugnancy, to hear and obey God in these particulars: 1As, 1. Omnipotency of strong grace, can speak to sin, which none can do, but God, Ezek. 16.6. I said to thee, when thou wast in thy blood, live: This Mandate of omnipotent grace is spoken to Jerusalem, as hardened, and cold dead in sin, Eph. 5, 14. Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light: This is a Commandement of omnipotency, given out of sinfull rebellion: If Omnipotence say, See ye blind: hear, ye deaf: Grace is a King over sin, and omnipotency a mighty Conqueror: Rebellion cannot stand before the grace of God, could we resigne Rebellious and dead hearts to God, he should change them, though we be most unable to master them: 22. Meer-nothing is a servant to omnipotency: he sendeth his mandate, or statute of heaven, to meer-nothing, and Darknesse, as the Sergeant and Pursevant of GOD, must send out Light, by p. 427vertue of a creating Mandate, 2 Cor. 4.6. 3. Every creature is under the awe of Omnipotency, and 3dare not without (as it were) a written and signed Ordinance and Statute of the Almighty, exercise their naturall operations: As the Lord sendeth an awfull mandate to the Sea, and God saith, Do not ebbe and flow: and the sea is dried up at his rebuke, Psal. 77.16. The waters saw thee, O God, the Waters saw thee, they were afraid: So saith he: Winds, blow not: Seas, rage not: fire, burn not: Lyons, devor not: Sun, move not: Clouds, rain not: Devils, hurt not: Waters, overwhelm not: Sword, destroy not: and they all obey. 4. There is a power obedientiall, in creatures to be instruments that can be elevated above, 4and contrary to their nature to miracles, as clay to be a plaster to blinde eyes to make them see, whereas clay can put out seeing eyes: by this, Iron can swim. Peter walk in the Sea; yea, devils & men crossing Gods Morall wil, fulfill his eternall Counsell; according to that, Ps. 119.91. All are thy servants, Hell, Devils, Gavaliers, Malignants, Papists are Gods servants: 5. By this power, where as nature must have time and hours to work, yet nature followeth 5the swift pace of omnipotency: the Fever departeth from Peters mother in Law in an instant. 6. By this power creatures creep into nothing, when God commandeth them so to do: God 6putteth his arm to the Heaven, and shaketh it, and the Hangings, Pillars, Walls, plenishing of p. 428the house of Heaven and earth, foreign are all dissolved; all the old Tenants of the world, the Heavens which have sitten in Gods house 5000 years, at the first warning of their Almighty Land-lord must remove and retire into nothing, if God so command them.

1. Use. Omnipotency is (as it were) a servant to Faith.Vse 1. It is comfort, to the believer all things are possible; Faith hath omnipotency at its service, the sword and wars are gone, the enemies of the Lord broken, the Temple built, Babylon plagued at the nod of Faith, Devils cannot stand, when Christs Mandate chargeth them to fall.

2. Use.Vse 2. It is but little that we can do, let us have Hosts of men, we cannot have the victory: Let man be swift, yet the Race is not to the swift; let him be strong, Yet the battell is not to the strong; let him be wise and learned, Neither is bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, Eccles. 9.11. 1. The word of the Almighty is his deed also, Psal. 33.9. He spake, & it was done, he commanded, and it stood fast; foreign For he himself spake, and it was: The Lords word giveth being to things, by the contrary; mens deeds are nothing but words; so the lives, being, and actions of the Kings of Israel and Iudah, are called Dibre hajamim, foreignwords of dayes: They are the acts and deeds of men living and dying, and compassed with dayes; for the deeds and acts of men are but words, they live and speak a little on earth and die, their acts are of p. 429as little worth, and reality as the airing out, and breathing forth of words: The greatest Prince maketh a sound for a time, as one that speaketh words, and then he is gone, and lyeth silent in the grave; Solomon did many acts, but they are called words only, 1 Kin. 11.41. And the rest of the acts of Solomon; Hebrew,foreign The rest of the words of Solomon, Are written in the Books of the Acts; Hebrew, Of the words of Solomon, 2 Kin. 21.25. And the rest of the words which Amon did, are written in the Book of the words of the days of the Kings of Judah. We use not properly to do, or act words, but to speak words;foreign but the holy Language maketh man and all his noble acts but words, and would expresse that he is a creature of no great action, and can say more, then he can do: Strong and mighty man is but a creature of words, he is a speaking body of clay, and can do but little. We boast much that this, and this we shall do, God hath a lock and a chain of Iron on all the creatures; Armies are not to be feared, the Lord smites the horse and the rider, & maketh war to cease unto the end of the earth, he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the Chariot in the fire, Psal. 46.9. Be not afraid of clay, Esay 51.12.

Vse 3. If the Lords word create the being of things,3. Use. We worship a Dependent God then are we to conceive of him as of an Independent Soveraigne; we forget this, and worship a Dependent God: If I suffer the people to go to worship at Jerusalem (saith p. 430Jeroboam) I shall lose both life and Kingdom; God had promised the contrary to establish him and his Kingdom, so he would do what is right in the sight of the Lord, 1 Kin. 11.37, 38. But he believed that God in the fulfilling of his promise must depend upon the Calves set up at Dan and Bethel: So the Jews will have God in the preserving of their Kingdom and place, Joh. 11.48. to depend upon the sinfull murthering of the Lord of Glory; yea, we imagine that God cannot carry on the work of Reformation, except we comply with some sort of Antichristian Prelate: The King thinketh he cannot be a Monarch except he have a Prerogative to play the Tyrant, and his Throne must fall, except the Antichrist and blood, and unlawfull peace with the bloody Irish murtherers, and destroying of the Lords Redeemed flock in both Kingdoms, be the bloody Pillars of his Throne and Royall power: So God cannot save us, if France, Denmarke, Spain and Ireland come against these Kingdomes; we are so wasted, except we make a Peace dishonourable to Jesus Christ and his prerogative Royal; all this is to place God in a state of Dependency, we are too wickedly carefull how God shall acquit himself in his office of Governing the world; ere you or I were born, the Lord governed the world, and his Church without a miscarry (the Churches Heaven cannot be marr'd in Christs hand) and when we are rotten in the dust, he p. 431shall carry on all in righteousnesse and wisdom, but we take it ill, if we cannot have a providence as fair and eye-sweet, as white Paper, though indeed there be not one spot in Gods wayes; so Martha, Joh. 11.21. Lord if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But Christ-God in preserving lives, dependeth not on his own bodily presence here or there: Another complaineth God hath forgotten me, he is not my God. Why? Because I walk in darknes & have no light, nor any sense of his love. It is the black and dead hour of mid-night with me. So the Church argueth, Isa. 49.14.15. Psal. 77. v. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. But his unchangeable love depends not on the ebbing and flowing of your transient & up and down sense: in this, you worship a dependent God. There is no rule without God to regulate him, or yet to straighten him in his walking; we are not to misplace God, for though the God of Hosts hath purposed to stain foreign Lechallel, to cast a blot on, and prophane the pride of all glory, Isa. 23.9. and suffer Parliaments, Assemblies, Armies, Counsels of War, Statse-men, the Godly, the Princes, Judges, Pastors, men of Wisdom, Learning, Eloquence, parts, to miscarry in this great service against Babylon: it is to cry down the creatures garland, and the rose of their eminency, that when all spots of Sacriledge and Idol-confidence in men are washed off the work, the Lord only may be exalted. It is our wisdom to suffer God to be p. 432wise for us: yea, Antinomians will have Christ no independent Redeemer, but to them his grace shall not be perfect in pardoning, except all sin in root and branch be removed from the justified, and they made as sinless as Adam before his fall, and the Elect Angels: Yea, how many connexions of Providence do we spin and twist out of our own head? As how happy had we been, if the King had remained with the Parl. to countenance it? Yea, but rather how unhappy, for our Reformation had been as an untimely birth, if so it had been: How blessed should I have been saith another, if I had been rich and learned? Yea, rather you should have dishonoured God in that condition. The Catholick and mother sin is, God must be dependent, we independent.

4. Use. We have need of of the devil and other temptations for our humiliation4. Vse. All of us have need of a Devil, one or other, to exercise and humble us: but we go wrong to work when we think to make good our party against the devil by our own strength. This woman yoked Christ and the devil together, and would not yoke with him her alone, and the successe is blessed: we go to dispute with temptations our selves by reason, you shal not dispute Satan to hell with all your Logick, nor can Policie, and State-wit calm the Prince of the bottomlesse pit, who is let loose now in these three Kingdoms to kill with the sword: The Horseman upon the Red and bloody Horse, and his footman Death are posting through the p. 433Kingdoms, more wrestling by prayer, the putting of Satan in Christs gripes,Isai. 57.19.Isa 57:19 by faith effectuall by love, and sincere humiliation should create peace, for peace is a work of Creation: there's but one onelyonly can create, I mean God, by, or at the exercise of these graces should create peace: we lye bleeding and dying under our lusts, because Christ was not intrusted with mortification: if we gave in a bill of complaint against our devils, as this woman did, Christ should loose Satans works and help us.

Be it unto thee] Faith obtaineth the most excellent favours, refined mercies,Immediate mercies, the sweetest mercies. and these are immediate favours, acts of immediate Omnipotency: Christ sent an immediate Post to the Devil, though in a remote place, (its an act of immediate creation) and Satan must be gone, no creature here interveneth; Its Christs foreign, his Omnipotent (be it so) that doth the turn; its not Faith, its not a good Angel, expelling an evill one, nor one Devil beating another, nor the Disciples helping the woman, though they also did cast out Devils. The more immediate mercies be, the more love-expressions of God in them; the first roses, the first trees and plants that Gods own immediate art produced, and in which nature could not share, are the perfectest creatures, the rest of the creatures after the fal, come not near in goodnes & beauty to Gods first samplar, which are (as it were) the first Essays of Omnipotency: the greatest mercies are most immediate, p. 434these be sweet favours that come (as it were) hot and new, immediately from God himself: See it in all the excellent things that God giveth us, especiall in these four. 1. In Christ: 2. Grace: 3. Glory: 4. Comfort. Christ is Gods highest love gift: Now Christ the mediator, was given without any Medium, or any intervening Mediatour. God out of the meer bottom of Free love giveth Christ: The Lord Christ was not given by so much as request, or counsell of Men or Angels: Christ, Heb. 1.3. by himself purged our sins, 1 Tim. 2.6. He gave himself a ransome for all; 1 Pet. 2.24. Who his own self bare our sins, in his own body on the tree: he satisfied and payed in his own person: It was not a deputed work. God the Lord of life in proper person Redeemed us: Christs love to us was not deputy love, he loved us not by a Vicar: Christ is given freely, as a Redeemer is more essentially a gift of Free grace (to speak so) then the grace of faith which is given to those who hear & are humbled for sin. And Christ given to die for sinners, is a more immediate and pure gift of Grace then remission of sins and eternal life, which are given to us upon condition of Faith, whereas a Redeemer is given to die for us without any condition, thought, desire, any sweating or endeavour in man or Angel. 2. So is Grace given out of Grace, saving Grace is made out of nothing, not out of the potency of the matter. The new heart is a p. 435creation, and as its Grace, is framed without tools, agents, art, or service; Grace issueth immediately out of Christs heart, he hath no hire, no payment for it: non-payment, no money is Graces hire, 3. And Heaven is given, not by art, not by merit, not for sweating; But how? Luk. 12.32. Its the Fathers will. And Rev. 21.4. God shall wipe all tears from their eyes. Its the sweeter, that no napkin but his own immediate hand shall wipe my sinfull face.

In heaven the vision of him that sitteth upon the Throne is immediate, the mirrour or looking-glasse of Word and Sacraments; being removed, there is, 1 Cor. 13.12. But a vision of God, face to face, Rev. 21.22. And I saw no Temple therein: If any should ask tidings, and say Iohn what sawest thou in that new City, was there any Temple, any Priest, any Prophets, any Candlesticks there? He should answer, O you know not what you speak: I saw no temple there; I saw a more glorious sight then all the temples of the earth; I saw the Lamb the King, in the midst of them; I saw Christ the fountain of Heaven, and though ye should know Moses, David, Paul, in glory, you shall be so taken with beholding the face of the Lamb for evermore in an immediate vision,The Lords action on us in glory immediate. that you find no …easure to look over your shoulder to Moses or any other: For the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb are the Temple of it; it must be sweeter, when the sweet immediate hand of Jesus p. 436Christ shal pluk the soul-delighting Roses of the high Garden, and hold them to your senses, with an immediate touch, so as you shall see, behold, smell and touch his hand with the rose, and when he shall put immediately in your mouth, the Apples of the Tree of life, and the King himself shal make himself (as it were) your Cup-bearer, for there shall be neither need of Pastor, Prophet, or of any Christian brother, but only Christ himself, to hold to your head A Cup of the water of life, Rev. 22.1, 2. And he shewed me a pure River of water of life, clear as Christal, proceeding out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb; be shewed me, which He? The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb, c. 2… 22. He that talked with me, who had a golden reed to measure the City, v. 15. & v. 10. He who carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me the great City, the holy Jerusalem descending out of Heaven from God; no created Angel could shew to John, The Bride the Lambs Wife; and what is that? He shewed me; He made me see; Is that but a naked cast of the eye, or a speculation? No, it is more, He himself who only reveals all the secrets of God, And measures the Temple with a golden Reed; He only gave me a drink of the water of life immediatly; for to see in the holy language, is to injoy, Heb. 12.14. Rev. 22.4. Jer. 17.6. Psal. 34.12. Iob 19.26. And then he shewed me, must be this in good sense, He, He the increated King himself made me, or caused me to injoy; Messengers carry love-Letters now, p. 437there's no need of love-Letters betweene the Lord Jesus, and the Bride the Lambs wife in this condition: certain it is, a draught of such water at the Wel-head must be sweetest: Then immediate comforts in a heavy condition must be sweetest also; as in heavy desertions, Word, Ministery, Pastors, Prayer, and Ordinances cannot raise up the Spirit: What doth the Lord else speak in this? No lesse then that mediation of means is but mediation of means; and Christ is Christ, means in a soul sicknesse: yea, Apostles, Angels, Watchmen fail:Immediate comforts in a sad condition sweetest. But Christ himself with his immediate action faileth not, Cant. 3.1.2.3. vers. 4. Joh. 20.8.9.10.11.12.13.14.15.16.17. Christ himself immediately by himself will do in a moment, that which all means, all Ordinances, all sweatings, all indeavours cannot do: I do not now cry down means, and extol immediate inspirations; the latter I deny not in some cases, but I only compare means and Christ; and is not this an experience of some who are broght to the Margin, and black borders of Hel and dispairing, all Creature comforts having failed them, and they having received the Sentence of the second death: yet Christ cometh with an immediate glimpse, like a fire flaught in the air, which letteth the lost and bewildered Traveller in an extream dark night see a lodging at hand, whereas otherwise he should have fallen in a pit and lost himself? and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the Lord having rebuked p. 438the winds and the stormy Tempests in the soul: there is a calm, and peace, Ps. 31.22. Jona 2.4. Christ is speedy, and swift as a Roe, his leap is but a stride over a whole mountain at once, over many mountains & hils, Can. 2.8. Especially in his immediats, when he cōforts by himself; he then maketh no use of a deputy-Sun to shine, or of borrowed light, the Sun himself riseth with his own immediate salvation, and his own immediate wings; and we see it was Christs immediate love, yea, comfort, because immediate carrieth with it the heat and smel of Christs own hand, it hath the immediate warmnesse of Christs bosom-consolation,Immediate mercies partake of immediate sweetnes from Christ the fountain. it was an act of tender mercy that came hot and smoking from the heart of Christ, the immediate coal of love smelling of the perfume of the hearth it came last from, and that was heaven, and the bowels of Christ; waters carried from a precious fountain in a vessel many hundred miles, are not so sweet as at the well head, because they are separated from the fountain, they lose much of their vertue; sometimes, it is so long since the Rose was plucked, that the colour and smell which it had, while it grew on its own stalk, is quite gone: Look how inferiour Art (which is but medicine for sick nature) is to nature in its beauty and strength, (as painted Physick can neither purge nor cure) so far are all means and Ordinances (being but the deputies of Christ) below Christ himself. What is Paul? What is Apollo? Put p. 439all the Prophets, all the Apostles, all the Patriarchs, all the chiefest of Saints in one floor, I confesse they should cast forth an excellent smell, like the utter borders of the garden of the high Paradise, but all their excellency should be mediate excellency, and but somewhat of Christ, but alas, as low, as very nothing to Christ, as the smallest drop of dew that sense can apprehend, to ten thousand worlds of seas, fountains & floods: We defraud our spirits of much sweetnesse, because we go no further in our desires then to creature-excellency, we rest on mediate comforts, because mediate; painted things do work but objectively; only a painted meadow casteth no smell, a painted tree bringeth forth no Apples; the comforts and sweetnesse of the creatures have somewhat of paintry in them in comparison of Jesus Christ; all reality and truth of excellency is in him: and we know God marreth the borrowed influence of means. Armies, Parliaments, Learning, and all miscarry; Therefore there was never a Reformation, nor a great work wrought on earth, but Omnipotency put forth many immediate Acts in it: The Lord would not be beholding to Moses, he himself divided the red Sea; he would not ingage himself to fountains and vine trees, but he gave them water out of the Rock; he would not borrow from the earth, and sowing, reaping, and plowing, bread, for his peoples food, he would give them the bread of Angels from p. 440heaven immediately: he would have no Engines at the taking of Jericho, the blowing of Rams horns was a signe, not a cause, God immediately cast down the walls; he would not have a sword drawn, nor a drop of blood shed in the peoples return from Babylon, but the Lord putteth an immediate impulsion upon the Spirit of Cyrus, foreignas if he had been in a dead sleep, and he being awaked by God only, sendeth the people away, and the Temple must be builded again: But how? Neither by King, nor Parliament, nor Armies, for Zach. 4.6. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord: When Babylon is to be destroyed (as the work is even now on the wheels in Britain) Rev. 18.21. A mighty Angel took up the great milstone, and threw it in the sea; though it be a Vision by comparison, yet it holdeth forth an immediate work of God in the ruine of Babylon; and Angels powre their vials on the Sea, God immediate in his most glorious works, and must be so in this great work now on the wheels, in these 3 Kingdoms.on the Sun, on the River Euphrates, to make for the destruction of Babylon, and in delivering of Lot Angels did work: God himself spake to Noah for making an Ark; although Angels be creatures, yet the Lords action by them is more immediate, then when he worketh by naturall causes; when the Judges scourge and imprison the Apostles, no man will speak for them, the immediate power of God doth it, the chains fall off legs and armes, immediate providence is a key also to open the prison doors, and they are p. 441saved: There is a bloody war at the taking of the Ark, and thirty thousand footmen of Israel killed, 1 Sam. 4.10, 11. But there is not a sword drawen when its rescued: The Ark cometh home, its alone Gods immediate providence driveth and acteth upon two milk kine to bring it home again, 1 Sam. 6.12, 13, 14. Who knoweth but when our strength of two Kingdoms hath failed us, the Lord shall make Kine to bring home his Kingdom and Reformation to our doors? were it possible that creatures could work salvation for us, and freedome from the sword, and sure peace in Scotland, England and Ireland, without God, or any subordination to him, let it be a deliverance from the creature only, it should be no deliverance, but a curse; that which maketh salvation to be salvation, is, that God hath a finger of power, and an influence of Free-grace in it: O but this putteth the lustre, sweetnesse and smell of Heaven on it, that it is the salvation of the Lord, Ex. 14.13. In regard of irresistable efficacy, and successe under causes, though chained to the influence of God, are but Idoll-causes, they lie as Cyphers, and do nothing, no more then a lame arm can master a sword: The Lord worketh all our works for us; and he is daily marring, and shal further mar our Armies, Parliaments, Counsels, undertakings, to the end that more of Christ may appear in these wars, then in other wars; some immediate power must close and crown p. 442this glorious work in Britain, God must be his alone, and appear his alone, and only Jehovah must be visible in the Mount, to the end that bleeding England, long afflicted Scotland, and wasted Ireland, may with one shout cry, Not unto us, O Lord Not unto us, but unto thy name be the glory, This discovereth the deceit of our confidence,The deceitfulnesse of our confidence, when God and the creature are joined in one work for when the Lord and the creature worketh together for our good, Asa, though his heart was perfect, possibly seeth not whether he trust on the Lord, or on the Physitian; and yet the Scripture saith, When he was diseased in his feet, there was a worse disease about his heart: for because he sought to the physitians, he is blamed: yet to seek to Physitians is lawfull, but the spirit of God blameth his seeking to the Physitians: and saith, 2 Chron. 16.12. He sought not the Lord in his sicknesse; and the reason is given foreign Because he was in the Physitians: So the Hebrew readeth it,foreign he is said, not to seek the Lord, not because he sought to the Physitians, for that had not been a sin, but because he was wholly, the whole man, soul and all in, or on the Physitians, foreign his care, paines and heart, was all on the Physitians; so also the Greek expresse great care and diligence by the like Phrase,Arias Monta. Qu…a in medicis 1 Tim. 4.15. foreign Give thy self to these things. Seldome do we seek to God and trust in him, when God and the creature are yoked together in a work that we are much bent upon, as in Wars, in a Reformation, p. 443yea, in a journey that the spirit is intent upon, but in trusting on God we interpose a folding and a ply of the creature between our soul confidence and the Lord, just as a pillow is put between the mans shoulder & a pressing burden, for fear the burden crush a bone; we are afraid we give God too much to do, or more then he is able to bear: When we sail, we seem to betrust our selves to the Lord and the Sea; but the truth is, often we trust more to the strong Ship, then to the Sea or the Lord. Our confidence shifteth it self from under the Lord, on upon the creature and the Arm of flesh, so we walk often in the strength of the Lord, as some walk upon Ice, they walk softly and timorously upon it, fearing it should break under them, they put no faith upon cracking and weak Ice: we are not daring and venturous in casting our selves and our burdens on the Lord.

So in judgements, Davids choice fell upon the Pestilence rather then the Sword, Why? Gods hand is sweeter and softer then the devils, then the Malignants hard hand: Samuel is one of the best children, because he is given of God, and is a child of many prayers. Isaac the joyfull childe, Why? No thanks to nature, or to Sarahs dead womb for him, he is the son of an immediate promise, Free-grace is rather Isaacs Father and Mother then Abraham and Sarah; in ordinances a man speaketh, but if Christ himself would speak, O his Spikenard! O his own p. 444Perfume! O his own lips drop honey! O his own Lebanon-like countenance! Alas, we think Christ is not Christ, except the King help him; Religion is not Religion, except worldly throns bear it up; the Gospel is a very immediate thing: the Lilly amongst the thorns, is Christs Lilly; the Church stands more immediatly by Christ then any worldly thing doth. God maketh the earth to bud and bring forth her fruits: but the Son, the soil, the season of the year, and nature, are his under-servants; God watereth the earth but by clouds. Kings are indigent and very mediat and dependent creatures: they need Armies, Multitudes, Navies, Prelats, Babylon, Ireland, France, Spain, Denmark, Holland, Moneys, Friends, Parliaments; But Grace and the Gospel are more immediate, and lesse needy: The Gospel can live without all these.