Selected quad for the lemma: grace_n
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A43821
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The spring of strengthning grace in the Rock of Ages, Jesus Christ demonstrated in a plain and short sermon / preached at Twickenham in Middlesex, near Hampton-Court, April 16, 1648, by Thomas Hill ...
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Hill, Thomas, d. 1653.
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1648
(1648)
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Wing H2029; ESTC R25713
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49,510
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59
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disharmony being wrought in them accordingly Jesus Christ by the infusion of gracious habits will reduce them to an holy complexion and constitution as 1 Thess. 5.23 The very God of peace sanctifie you wholly and I pray God your whole Spirit soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ You see he takes care for the restitution of the whole man Let the Arminians as falsly as confidently suggest that for our Conversion there needs onely a wakening of the Vnderstanding and a rectifying of the Affections the Will according to them being left as Illibato virgo for freedom to good being never ravished by Adams fall Jesus Christ teacheth other Doctrine who knowing the corruption of the Will tells you what the tenour of The Covenant of Grace is Ezek. 36.26 27. The Lord saith He will take away the stony heart of Flesh and put a new Spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes There is the redundancy of Christs fulness for the supplying of the Will as well as other faculties with holy dispositions Christs fulness is redundant into all the graces of the Saints increasing them where they are little strengthning them where they are feeble and languishing acting and animating them where they are dull and dead Hence it is that some of the Servants of Christ who though they have but a little stock of grace yet keeping in with him and holding communion with him do thrive much more in the Spiritual trading both for the magnifying of Christ and for the good of their own souls then divers others who make a greater shew and it may be have a larger portion of habitual grace Hence it is that Paul hath recourse to this fountain by prayer Phil. 1.9 And this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all sense that you may approve things that are excellent that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God Unto this purpose the Spouse invites her beloved to send forth his influence Cant. 4.16 Awake O North wind and come thou South blow upon my Garden that the spices thereof may flow out It is the presence of Jesus Christ who makes the spices that is the graces of his Spirit which grow in the Garden of his Church to cast a sweet perfume whereas he being absent the Saints will seem to wither at least comparatively even as the Trees they will have an Autumn yea a Winter not onely send forth no pleesant fruit but even the leaves fall off and the sap retire into the root there will be a winter of their graces till the Sun of Righteousness return with healing and quickening in his wings that is by the gracious beams of his Word and Spirit Then and never till then shall they go forth and grow up as Calves of the stall Mal. 4.2 be fat and flourishing Christs fulness is redundant into all their Duties wherein they exercise those several Graces that they may with Spiritual vigor and powerful activity perform those services to which the Lord calls them as Paul saith With my minde I my self serve the Law of God Rom. 7. ult and Rom. 8.26 Likewise the Spirit helpeth our infirmities for we know not how to pray as we ought O what heartless and sapless Performances do we multiply when Jesus Christ withdraws then and then onely we pray with life when the Spirit of Jesus Christ doth help our infirmities A word in the Original is very Emphatical when the Spirit takes us into his arms and carries us on powerfully against those infirmities that would clog and cloud and depress our Spirits in duty then they do duties not onely materially good but formally well in a Spiritual maner from Evangelical principles upon Evangelical motives and for Evangelical ends when there is a redundancy of the grace of Christ into them upon whom all our fruit is found Hos. 14.8 There is a redundancy of the fulness of Christ into all their various estates As when they are called to suffer that they may do it with cheerfulness not sinking under carnal discouragements but rather chide their souls out of it as the Psalmist on the 42. Psal. ver ult Why art thou cast down O my soul and why art thou disquieted within me Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God When they are advanced to a prosperous condition that they may have a victorious Faith triumphing over not onely the frowns but the favors of the world 1 Joh. 5.4 For want of this Solomon and Hezekiah did so miserably lose themselves in a Spring-tide of prosperity It was Pauls great advantage that he had learned how to walk unchangeably with God in great changes Phil. 4.11 12 13. Not that I speak in respect of want for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content I know both how to be abased and how to abound Every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry both to abound and suffer need I can do all things through Christ that strengthneth me Phil. 4.13 the same Original word with that in the Text. We are apt to overgrieve or undergrieve at crosses therefore Solomon gives that wise counsel Prov. 3.11 My son despise not the chastening of the Lord it should not be slighted neither be weary of his correction we should not faint under it And his father David before him spake as seasonably If riches increase set not your hearts upon them There is a danger as our Estates are greatned so our Affections should swell to an inordinate cleaving to them None of these evils can be prevented but by the strengthning grace of Jesus Christ. In the next place I shall endeavor to discover as God inables Christs Title to and possession of this strengthning grace which he hath by a threefold Claim He hath a grace of Vnion so learned Divines call it by vertue of the Hypostatical Vnion our nature being so highly advanced into such a near fellowship with the Divine Nature all his Saints though never so unworthy are brought into a capacity of receiving strengthning grace from him as Joh. 1.14 And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory the glory as of the onely begotten of the Father full of grace and truth where you see clearly when the Word was made flesh there follows in him a fulness of grace and truth And as express to this purpose is that of Paul Col. 2.9 10. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily First There is fulness in him that he might be able to empty and communicate himself according to the various necessities of his Saints Secondly There is fulness of
sunk him had he not had more then the strength of a man Therefore that he might be a perfect Mediator between God and man he was God-Man taking Humane nature into the fellowship of the Deity and communicating Divine nature unto those which he did intend to save Hence Paul saith Rom. 3.24 25. We are justified freely by Gods grace through the Redemption which is in Christ Iesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood Hence he further saith Acts 20.28 that God did purchase the Church with his own blood So that in this part of the Priestly Office of Jesus Christ there was the power of God himself put forth Neither is there less strengthning grace manifested when he comes to appear for his people in heaven in the presence of God as Heb. 7.24 This man because he continueth ever hath an unchangeable Priesthood which passeth not from one to another certainly here was wonderful strength that Christ being once offered should bear the sins of many and unto them that looked for him he should appear the second time without sin unto salvation as in Heb. 9.28 That his having done away all their sins should advance them to Salvation which still shews the strength of his grace Therefore well might Paul annex that Heb. 7.25 Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them This is the ground of Pauls triumph not onely for himself but in the name of all the Saints in that admirable place Rom. 8. from the 34 to the 39. ver Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword As it is written For thy sake we are killed all the day long we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter Nay in all these things we are more then conquerors through him that loved us For I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Iesus our Lord. Here is strengthning grace of Almighty and everlasting efficacy As Jesus Christ is the Churches King he hath a proportionable inexhaust stock of strengthning grace without such a power he could never suppress the numerous and potent adversaries of the Church which was the the solemn agreement betwixt him and his Father Psal. 110.1 The Lord said unto my Lord God the Father said unto God the Son Davids Lord sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool He will bring them to the lowest and most abject condition though for the present they look never so high and big upon the poor members of Christ. And accordingly he is still acting in heaven whereas he doth appear for his people so doubtless against his enemies as is most clear in Heb. 10.12 13. But this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever so much strength of grace in that it need be but one sate down on the right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool We may with much encouragement wrestle with God and wait upon him both for the discovering and confounding of the great Impostors Mahomet and the Pope and the removing all the Crutches of Babylon in any of the Kings Dominions or elswhere for this work is carried on with so much power that in Gods time all the Kingdoms of the earth will become the Lords and his Christs To the same purpose you shall finde an Angel come down from heaven having great power and the earth was lightned with his glory and he cryed mightily with a strong voyce Babylon is fallen all suitable to the powerful design of Christ Rev. 18.2 And she shall be utterly burned with fire in whom was found the blood of Prophets and of Saints of all that were slain upon the earth some way reducible to her or her adherents for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her ver 8. Neither could Jesus Christ be a Resurrection to any sinners nor quicken with Spiritual life whom he would as Ioh. 5.20 unless that were true ver 26. As the Father hath life in himself so hath he given the Son to have life in himself and that to be able to raise his own unto eternal life ver 29. All which argues abundance of strengthning grace in him This was the foundation of Pauls Prayer for his Ephesians chap. 1. ver 18. That the eyes of their understanding being inlightened here is powerful grace still they might know what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the working of his mighty power Here is a great heap of Emphatical expressions to shew the accumulative power of the grace that is in Jesus Christ Were he not so strong that he were able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think according to the power that worketh in us Eph. 3.20 Paul would never have used such an expression That ye may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height there must it seems be a power in us to inable us to fathom and comprehend the vast dimensions of that strengthning grace that is in our Head here is the breadth of this grace covering all the sins of every one of his eleâ—t even from Adam to the end of the world Here is the length of this grace it extends from everlasting to everlasting Here is the depth of it it lifts up poor creatures from the very pit of hell And the height of it it advances them to sit by him in his own throne in Heaven After the intrinsecal fulness of the grace of Christ follows the Redundancy thereof for there is in him not onely plenitudo vasis but also plenitudo fontis there is the original fulness of a living fountain in him which he delights to communicate for the supplies of his people This discovers it self in four particulars There is a Redundancy into all the faculties of our souls he fills the Minde with gracious principles the Conscience with a holy tenderness the Will with flexibleness and compliance with his Will and sways the Affections to act regularly upon their objects Doubtless Christ Jesus the second Adam will do as much for all those that have Vnion with him as the first Adam did against those that were in him And therefore whereas by his fall there was not onely a total deprivation of original righteousness but a universal depravation of all the faculties a general