Vsher of the Incarnation Fol. p. 428. Last Edit of the Sum and Substance Cameron Myrothec Evang. in Luc. Praeter in Mat. 16. Johan Junii Exam. Socini de Incarnatione fil Dei cap. 1. p 92. c. he shall appear to be shall be acknowledged and professed to be the Son of God for the Son of God hath taken that which is conceived in thee into Union with himself and so altho he is the Man Christ as made of a Woman conceived in the Womb of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost he is indeed the Son of God and shall be so called He shall be glorified with the Name of the Son of God with whom he is made One Person by that Power of the Highest overshadowing the Virgin If he was therefore the Son of God because he was conceived and formed in the Virgins Womb then he must needs be the Son of the Holiest his own Spirit but the Son is the only begotten of the Father and called the Holy Thing which signifies and denotes that which is Essential to Christ the Divine Nature or Person and the same is called the Son of God to whom the Humane Nature is united that so he might be Jesus Our Saviour and God with us in our Nature and for us for our Salvation Had Christ been meer Man and no more he might have been called the Son of God as the first Adam is called Luke 3. v. ult because of his immediate Creation but then he had been but a Creature tho perfectly holy from his Conception and had not been at all the proper and Natural Son of God as not being of the Divine Essence or Nature for every Son hath the same Nature that his Father hath but the Humane Nature is not the Divine Simber de Filio Dei l. 1. c. 5. p. 58 59. the Humane Nature being from the first moment of Conception united to the Second Person the Son of God that which was conceived in the Womb of the Virgin was the Son of God Our Mediator must needs be God and Man in one Person and because the Holy thing that was born was Emmanuel God-Man therefore he was called the Son of God The Natures are distinguished but the Person was but One and being but One there is one glorious Name given him The Son of God The Son of God and the Son of Mary are one and the same called the Son of God Christ the Son of David according to the Flesh Rom. 1.3 had his beginning when he was conceived by the Holy Ghost and that Operation of the Spirit was the Cause of his being called the Son of God Johannes jun. ib. Hooynbeck Socinianismi Confutatio 1 De Christ c. 1. p. 38. The Son of God took our Nature into Union with himself and he was not only to be called the Son of God by Men but was owned and called so by God himself at his Entrance into the Administration of his Office of Mediator Mat. 3.17 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased And besides many other places too many to be opened at this time he is called his dear Son or the Son of his Love Col. 1.13 and demonstrated to be the Son of his Being if I may so speak by the many Arguments in the following Verses 1. The Son of God's Love is the great God our Saviour and so great that he hath a Kingdom and hath translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son O most blessed translation and change To be delivered from the power of Darkness and translated into the Kingdom of his dear Son It is a deliverance and a translation from Darkness and the power of Darkness out of the Devils Power and Tyranny out of the Dominion of Sin where every Lust is a Lord and we Slaves and Drudges working our own Destruction by our own Thoughts Tongues and Hands Great is the Power of Darkness and miserable are they that are under it They are under Wrath and within a step of Hell as long as they are under his Power But O how happy are they who are brought out of it into this Kingdom of the Son of God's Love Such as the King is such is his Kingdom the Son the King is full of Grace and Truth his Kingdom is a Kingdom of Grace and Glory of Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost The Laws Ordinances Priviledges Subjects and the whole Government of this Son of God's Love and King of Saints are answerable or suitable to him and what 's wanting here of perfect Happiness shall be made up in Heaven Our translation by effectual Calling and Grace is a Deliverance from the outward Prison and Suburbs of Hell into the outward Courts of Heaven and out of them there will be another remove and promotion into the everlasting Kingdom of Heaven 2. He is such a Son of God as paid a Ransom for all that have him and that was his own Blood Was there ever such a Son such Love such a Ransom All that are in him by Faith have the Benefit of that Ransom from the Wrath of God and the deserved Punishments of Sin He is the Son that procured our Pardon and Release from the Guilt of Sin the Curse of the Law the Justice of God ver 14. In whom we have redemption thro' his Blood the forgiveness of sin O how blessed is that Man whose Iniquities are forgiven Psal 32.1 Is not this then the Son of God the true God in our Natures purchasing us with his own Blood Acts 20.28 3. This dear Son is such a Son who is the Image of the invisible God God is invisible in his pure Essence and Being What Image can there be that is lively and perfect but what must needs be invisible also So Christ the dear Son of God must needs be invisible also in his Godhead and Divine Person and therefore truly God the Son but then God the Son the essential invisible and perfect Image of his invisible Father having taken our Nature into Union with his Person is a visible Image of the living true invisible God for he who hath seen the Son hath seen the Father also John 14.9 He that hath seen me hath seen the Father Ver. 10. Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me Never did any Image so lively express the Original as the Son of God in our Nature did express the infinite Wisdom Power Grace and Mercy of God God was manifest in his Flesh in his Humane Nature a pure material Glass shewing us Divine Perfections 1 Tim. 3.16 4. He is the First Born of every Creature As Man it is certain he was not born before every Creature As God he is not called the First-Born but the only begotten John 1.14 He is not called the First-Born in respect of Order of Time or Participation of the same Nature with the Creature created after him For if the Notion of the Arians were true
not the Knowledge of it and Wisdom in themselves to come to Christ And the Father draweth No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him John 6.44 2. The Son calls and puts out a mighty quickning Voice and raiseth the dead senseless Sinner to come to him for Life and he outwardly inviteth and draweth also Mat. 11.28 Come to me all ye that labour and are heavy laden c. He draweth objectively all Men to come unto him and all that come are drawn by him effectually John 12.32 And as all that the Father giveth him come unto him so he receiveth them and will in no wise cast off any that come unto him And then the Holy Ghost convincing the ignorant senseless lost miserable Sinner of Sin and Damnation and of Christ Righteousness and Salvation by him worketh Faith and the Heart to consent and receive and take Christ and so we come to have him The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Faith 2 Cor. 4.13 and the Cause of our Union For by one Spirit we are baptized into one Body and into Christ the Head of that one Body who puts Life and Spirit into every living member of it 1 Cor. 12.12 13. 3. The outward means of this Union are The Word of God and the Ministry of it I have espoused you unto one Husband that I may present you as a chaste Virgin to Christ 2 Cor. 11.2 If you desire to know yet further how you have Life The Answer is ready In or by having the Son Christ you have Life You have it in having him who hath received it and hath it for you You have it in him who is the Author Purchaser and Giver of Eternal Salvation He is our Life as the meritorious Cause as the Conservator and Fountain of it as the efficient Cause and Giver of it You have Life and Deliverance from Death Eternal by the Grant of Pardon and Righteousness You have the Life of Grace and Holiness by Union and Influence from him and there is a fulness of habitual Grace to supply you John 1.16 You have the Spirit in you Rom. 8.9 10. and you have the Life of Glory in the Bud Principle First-Fruits Promise and Hopes of it What shall I say You have Life in having Christ as a Branch in a Vine hath Sap and Vertue by being in the Vine as a Member of the Body from the Head as a Spouse hath all that she is endowed with by being espoused and married to the Husband All the incomparable Benefits of Christ come from Union with him As we have Christ now so we have Life now that is such Communications of Grace and Blessings as are convenient for our present state and in the Life to come a Crown of Life All All an incomprehensible All This Union doth not stand only in relation to Christ tho in every relalation there is some kind of Union but it is such an Union tho spiritual and mystical as these Terms are contradistinct to Corporal and Natural as a third one doth result from it But he that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 That one Spirit which our Lord received not by measure that he might be the Head of his Body the Church The Mystery of our Union with Christ consisteth mainly in this That the self-same Spirit which is in him as in the Head is so derived from him into every one of his true Members that thereby they are animated and quickned to a spiritual Life The most reverend Ushers Sermon before the House of Commons 1620. p. 20. Lyford's Senses exercised 127. The same Spirit which was the immediate Conveyor of Grace to the Humane Nature of Christ is so to us Mr. Charnock 2 Vol. p. 134. is that one and same Spirit which teacheth guideth ruleth in and sanctifieth all and every one that by Faith are joyned to the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God To be one Spirit is to be united in the highest degree of Union The Union of one Believer to another is very near and close as of one Member of the same Body to another And this Union of every single Believer to the Body of the Catholick or Universal Church is by the Grace and Operation of the holy Spirit quickning and regenerating and all these living Members make one Body in Christ Christ the Head of the whole Body and the Head of Influence from whom they all receive spiritual life and growth and they who are joyned to him are one Spirit and from that one Spirit we have Grace to consent with Christ to will the same and to love and hate the same things to aim at the same End the Glory of the Father and to be govern'd by him against all Distractions and Oppositions that hinder us It was an entire and comfortable happy Union of the Primitive Church an Example to all succeeding Churches Acts 4.32 And the multitude of them that believed were of one Heart and one Soul neither said any of them that ought of the things he possessed was his own but they had all things common They were all of one Heart aimed all at one common Good in one common Action without any private Ends. This was a close Union of Hearts but the Expression of this Conjunction comes far short of that Spiritual real tho not essential Union between Christ and his gracious regenerate sanctified Members made One Spirit It was much to be of one Heart and Soul but it is more to be one Spirit This is the closest Union of all except the Essential Union of the Persons in the Godhead or the Hypostatical or Personal of the Second Person with the Humane Nature For one Believer doth not derive his Spiritual Life and Being from another nor depend upon one another for it but all receive it from their Head Christ and depend upon him for it although their being knit together is a means of their Growth Col. 2.19 And not holding the Head from which all the Body by joynts and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God Our Union with Christ the Head is the closest because from him we all receive our Life and have nourishment ministred that we may increase with the increase of God And because our Union with Christ is most inward and strict therefore it is shadowed out under the Similitude of the streightest natural Union Cum itaque nostra cum Christo unio sit arctissima ea propter in Scriptura sub figura utriusque illius unionis nobis quasi adumbratur c. Cameronis Myrothec in Evang. Jo. 6.56 p. 149. of both See the excellent B. Reynolds Life of Christ and Mr. Polhil's Answer to Dr. S. of the Knowledg of Christ c. 4. s 1. p. 162. c. and his Treatise of Spiritual Union There is no stricter Union in the World than that of Christ to Believers 't is therefore compared to all kind
lost cursed state of Guilt Uncleanness Bondage and utter Inability to come to Life of your self 2. Have you seen the necessity of a Mediator to make your Peace and to bring you to a reconciled God 3. Have you been and are you still satisfied with Christ And Christ alone His Death Merits Resurrection and Intercession alone not joyning Antichrist as a Head bringing him to Christ and sodering him to you with soft Wax or binding him to you with a Rope of Sand nor adding Saints Merits and Intercessions to his Nor any other devised Supplements and Means of your Peace and Salvation 4. Have you with hearty self-abasement been and are you still a great Admirer of the way of your recovery by Jesus Christ And stand amazed at the Grace Wisdom Righteousness and Love of God in Christ 5. Have you come naked wounded poor and humbled to Jesus Christ upon his Offer and Invitation and taken him understandingly advisedly deliberately heartily and resolvedly through his Grace and Assistance without whom you can do nothing casting away whatever offends him out of his place and House namely your Heart And do you still know that you are dead without him And do you love him and observe him and the longer you are acquainted with him the more and better 2. What Use do you make of the Son Do you reckon him your Life Do you draw your Spiritual Life from him And do you alledg him Rom. 8.34 and plead him for your Discharge against all Accusations and trust him for your Salvation in his own way and your way of Adherence and Obedience 2. Positively All that have him are united to him that 's the immediate Work of the principal efficient Cause the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost or the Spirit who makes Application of Redemption and brings Christ and his Members to be one and the immediate Work and Office of Faith given of God and excited by the Spirit like the opening of a blind Eye to behold an admirable lovely Object or quickning a dead Palsie Hand to receive a Pardon 2. Every one who is united to him and made one is regenerate and born of God 1 John 5.1 2 Cor. 5.17 If any man be in Christ he is a new Creature 3. He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit And this having of the Spirit is made a Sign of the mutual Union between Christ and the true Believer 1 Joh. 3.24 And he that keepeth his Commandments of Believing on the Name of his Son Christ and mutual Love to the Brethren vers 23. dwelleth in him and he in him and hereby we know that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us But how may the true Spirit be known By his Light Life Operations and Fruits As the Soul of Man is known to be a rational Soul by its Operations so is the Spirit of Christ known to be in Believers by his Operation and Effects Take your Aim and Direction in this from one effect of the Spirits uniting us to Christ and dwelling in us and that is Life He that hath the Son and the Spirit of the Son hath Life in him whereby he lives a New Life to God through Jesus Christ Where this Life is it is known by a spiritual sense and motion from Christ and back again unto him 2. By Hunger and Thirst by an Appetite to Spiritual Food As a new born Babe desires the sincere milk of the word 1 Pet. 2.2 3. By Growth and Strength As new born Babes grow and gather strength till they come to be Men by using proper means of nourishment as Milk and stronger meat by abiding in Christ and living by Faith drawing Supplies of Grace by holy Desires and Prayers with all perseverance 4. By Nauseating and loathing refusing resisting and casting out Contraries to it and using Preservatives These things being drawn up for your Service in this little room I return to my Exhortation to persuade you to have Christ to have him for Life for your Necessity is so great that you do not need him for less than your Life and that you would make haste and have him while he is near Isa 55.1 2. Or else you may seek him when you shall not find him John 8.21 And when you have him adhere to him have him and cleave to him for still the same reason continueth it is for your Life What will stir you if the Words of the Text will not Consider the unconceivableness of the loss and what is the consequent of it The greatness of the loss and deprivation and the nearness of it are implied in these Words Hath not Life Oh! Wo Wo to that Soul His state is infinitely worse than his who hath not the Light of the Day to look on nor Eyes to see it Worse than his who hath not a Friend in the whole World not a Rag to his Back not a Farthing in his Purse not a Morsel to eat not as much as a fading Gourd to hide his Head under not the use of a Limb not Skin upon his Back no not a Grave to rest in If every Unbelievers loss were as great as Job's was it were nothing to this Hath not Life It amounts to as much as the loss of God of Heaven and all that is therein The loss of Earth and the present Life is the least part of it This loss cannot be reckoned in the Ages of of the World it is a loss under which there is no support or relief to bear it Miserable Sinners can contribute nothing but Miseries and Sorrows to one another Nor will God himself ever repair it to any of them They who will not have the Son for their Saviour and Redeemer would refuse yea despise all other means and ways of their recovery and readmission to happiness They who do not assent to this wonderful way of God nor consent to the Terms of the Covenant of Grace now revealed would dissent from any other ways if there were any other reserved in the Will of God They who cannot forsake nor give up their Sins which a Disgrace a Shame a Burden a Perversion a Confusion of Nature which every Sinner hath cause to be sick of and in continual pain till he be delivered of it would never accept of Grace and Mercy upon condition of being Holy and pleasing God They who will not have the Son for their Saviour would not have God for their God and Father There being no way left to recover their forfeited Life they are lost for ever who lose it Q. But may not a man who hath not the Son at present have him and Life by him hereafter A. Yes if he have him while it is to day when God waiteth that he may be gracious But if he die before he comes to and receiveth Christ he dies in his Sin and is out of all hopes of Life Oh! who would for any business or any Pretence whatsoever delay the having of the
Bidbanck M. A. Price 6 d. bound A new System of the Apocalyps or plain and methodical Illustrations of all the Visions in the Revelation of St. John Written by a French Minister in the year 1685 and finished but two days before the Dragoons plundred him of all except this Treatise 1 John V.xii. He that hath the Son hath Life and he that hath not the Son of God hath not Life WE that have this Prize put into our hands of labouring to save your Souls near the last Day and Hour and the going down of the Sun of your Lives are constrained to make short Work As blessed Mr. Perkins did in calling down a Malefactor from the very Ladder saying Man come down and thou shalt see what God's Grace will do to strengthen thee In the Life of Mr. Perkins but as true as we can in this little time If we should hold you under the Conviction Wrath and Condemnation of the Law of God for Sin deserving it we should keep you in the dark Prison of Unbelief and endanger your everlasting state by with-holding from you the saving Knowledge of Jesus Christ We have endeavoured faithfully to set before you your Sins and the Ways of Sin not to keep you under Terrors but to draw you to Christ not to bind upon you the heavy Burden of Ten Thousand Talents which you owe to the Justice of God and leave you to groan under it without hope of unbinding or releasing your Souls but that you may come weary and heavy laden to Christ We have cause of great sadness and heaviness of Spirit to think how nigh you are to the Judgment-Seat of Jesus Christ and how long you have been ignorant careless Despisers of him in whom you must believe or perish everlastingly Oh! How sad and grievous would it be if you should go out of the World without saving Knowledge and Faith without turning to God through Jesus Christ by whom alone you must come to God and obtain remission of Sin and everlasting Life You have now but a little Time left you to learn Christ and we must now open to you the Kingdom of God and set forth Jesus Christ before you evidently for Grace and Life or leave you in the Dark as we found you You must take hold of Christ and of Eternal Life or sink into the Gulf of Eternity You are upon the Brink of that boundless Ocean O now even now while there is any part of this Day left lay hold of eternal Life by Jesus Christ But how shall you believe except you hear and how shall you hear without a Preacher O now then hear a Sermon of Jesus Christ and of eternal Life by him If I were to Preach for my Life and but one Sermon and never to Preach more it should be of God my Saviour of the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ This is certainly like to be the last that you for whose sake principally it is designed shall hear before you die O! therefore now hearken for it is for your Life and by how much the more negligent you have been of your great Salvation be you the more diligent and attentive now O hearken now and the Lord open your Hears to attend to what the Lord shall say unto you from the Text now read to you The Reason why I have chosen this Text is because I would drive home the Point which you heard already Preached by Mr. Dudley the Wednesday before in the Prison and to purpose handled the other day That you cannot contend with God nor stand in his Judgment without Christ from Job 9.3 If he will contend with him he cannot answer him one of a thousand you cannot answer to your Charge therefore take Counsel And this being the last Service I shall ever do for you in this kind the best Service I can do you that are so near your appointed End yea and to all that hear me this day is to open and apply to you this Text which I have read unto you In the Words we may find full Resolutions and Answers to the greatest Questions of Concernment to all Men living The great Case of every Mans Life and Death is determined in them If the Question were asked by any of you 1. Who is the Man that shall escape in the day of the Lords Wrath and live happily with God in Heaven for ever The Answer is That Man and that Man only who hath the Son of God that is to say He who heartily believes in him embraces and receives him as the Son of God the Saviour The Decision is plain in few words He that hath the Son hath Life 2. If a contrary Question be asked Who is that wretched miserable Man who shall not see Life nor come into the Kingdom of Heaven but perish everlastingly in Hell not in respect of his being but happiness and well-being The Answer is plain and peremptory He who hath not the Son of God hath not Life hath no title nor right to Life nor any grounds of hope of it 3. If the Question be What a Man shall do to be saved Or how may a Soul that is convinced of Sin and Death that is made sensible of his Sin and Misery that confesseth how he hath sinned and how he deserves to die for ever for it How may a Soul I say thrust thorough with the fear of the Curse of the Law as with a fiery Dart that sigheth and groaneth under the Sentence of Death and is afraid of dying and being condemned to Hell when he dieth come to be cured of his Wounds and to Hope to see Life This this is the way the Only way the sure and certain way let him come to Christ and have him as he is offered and then he shall not die in his sins but have eternal Life For He that hath the Son hath Life as sure as he hath the one he shall have the other O then you that pant for Life embrace the Son 4. Grant it to be true that such are the Merits Grace and Power of Jesus Christ the Son of God that whoever hath him and believeth in him with a right hearty uniting effectual Faith hath Life But may not a Man who hath not the Son have Life Is there no other way or means of Life and Salvation but Christ Hearken to the Word and give Credit to it it speaks fully to the Question He who hath not the Son of God hath not Life This one Scripture carries Evidence and Conviction with it to stop the Mouths of all Gainsayers and Cavillers But this Text is not alone there are three Scriptures more that conclude in the same Sense both in the Affirmative and Negative See 1. John 3.36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting Life there 's the Affirmative He that hath the Son hath Life And he that believeth not the Son shall not see Life there 's the Negative or Contrary He who hath