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ground_n believe_v faith_n hope_n 2,425 5 7.9570 4 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A27499 The still-borne nativitie, or, A copy of an incarnation sermon that should have been delivered at St. Margarets-Westminster, on Saturday, December the five and twenty, 1647, in the afternoone, by N.B., but prevented by the committee for plunder'd ministers, who sent and seized the preacher, carried him from the vestry of the said church, and committed him to the fleet, for his undertaking to preach without the license of Parliament ... Bernard, Nicholas, d. 1661. 1648 (1648) Wing B2018; ESTC R18366 26,917 36

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Conscience Law of Nature Counsailes of Men Rules of Philosophie Ingenuity of Education yea and the very Law of God it selfe that is it's Letter are nothing else but Stars and Candlelight not to drive away the night But as it were so many arguments to prove that there is a night Things that serve rather to shew that there is a Heaven and an Earth then to inable us to enjoy either And therefore they that doe charitably acknowledg a possibility of salvation to the Heathen which never heard of the Gospel say that this salvation doth accrue unto them from God for Christ sake Man could let in sinne but it is Christ that must expel it Man could embrace wickednesse but God must send his Sonne to blesse us by turning us away from our iniquities Israell could destroy himselfe But it is God must helpe David needed no guide to goe astray like a lost sheepe But it is Davids Lord must seek and save him And lastly concerning the Lawes rigour it fully appeares by that which hath been spoken already that it must be an Immanuell that must exonerate the burthen satisfie the court of justice arrest judgment and take of the seargeant with a supersedeas for an Execution taken out and not served And all this is don by Christ as our Praes and Sponsor Surety and Advocate for the removing of evil from us And this is the first reason The other reason concerning man is the promoting of his good which is done so many wayes so plentifully that St. Bernard after his manner calls Christ incarnate Manna from Heaven the joy of the hungry A cluster of grapes sweete grapes from Gods vineyard the refreshment of the thirsty soule O yle of gladness The health of the sickly and a stone cut out of the mountaine without hands that the negligent may feare In a word For the general let that goe for al which Fulgentius with fifteene other Bishops more have subscribed concerning this parti●ar except the Worde which is God by uniting in a singular way mans nature unto himselfe had been borne of a virgin a true and perfect man there should never have been bestowed upon us that are borne fleshly an Arise of a spiritual birth c. But now what sweet enterchanges do there passe betweene the Lords Anointed and mankind He borrowes our Flesh and gives us his Spirit takes Earth returns Heaven Exchanges his Peace for our chastisement his sonship for our servitude his grace for our sinne his crown for our curse his life for our death his joyes for our sorrowes In sum of God he became Man That wee by communion with him of men might be made partakers of the divine nature And because mans felicity stands in enjoying God Thus familiarly hath the Sonne of God bartered Natures states and goods with man His first nativity from God the Second from Man making him whose First Birth is from Man to have a Second from God And secondly in seeing God whose brightnesse dazling al sinfull sight with the beauty of holinesse Therefore hath the Lord Iesus Christ like unto another meek Moses put on the vaile of the flesh that by it boldly we might enter and have accesse to the Holy of Holies to see as we are seene And thirdly if there be any inhaerent happinesse I understand the cause of it in man aswell as sorrow it is but like the axe among the Prophets a tool not fit for their coat borrowed and that from Christ For there are three several Gifts which are all of them comprehended in or subordinate to the Incarnation of Iesus Christ concurring to the happines of man in the Scripture called by the name of Grace And distinguished by the immediate extrinsecal Giver As first the grace of God which is the Father by which grace I conceive Christ himselfe is specified To which sence I am enduced by comparing that of Saint Paul Tit. 2. 11. to that of St. Iohn c. 3. v. 16. Secondly the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ Which grace must needes be the Spirit if we consider the promise Iohn 15. 26. Which is somewhere also called the Grace of God and of our Lord Iesus Christ Lastly the Grace of the Spirit which is well known to be that frame of holynesse in the Saincts which being diversified is called the fruit of the Spirit Gal. 5 22 To the introducing of which last it was necessary that the two former should precede The Spirit as the proper fountaine of holinesse and comfort The incarnation as the Mediam and Motive of the Spirits mission to and acceptance with man But of this parhaps fully and more clearely hereafter when if ever we come to write of Christ's Egresse from the world Lastly if in Mans felicity we may any way attend to mans actions Or if there be any such thing beside the name of it as moral felicity Christ as incarnate must be the procurer of it which is done by him As an Object of our Faith A Ground of Hope A cause of Love and a Rule of Operation Two things are required in the object of faith without either of which Faith failes Affability the Party we beleeve must be apt to be spoken with Rom. 10. 15. And Veracitie The first is denyed to God though with imputation of fault herein to Mans sinne only according to that Let not God speake least we die The other to man God is not a Man that he should lie Let God be true and every man a Lyer God cannot be beleeved though true because man cannot abide before his voice Man cannot be trusted when he speaks for untruths Now in Christ these two are united The affability of Man Here is our accesse The truth of God Here the object of our faith Secondly the ground of hope as the most plentifull expression of Gods love ●t quid non speremus amati being so loved what may we not hope for He that gave us his Sonne how shal he not with him freely give us all things The cause of love thirdly he is in God to each of us personaly in us to God dutifully We love him because he loved us first Lastly the rule of Operation In a Rule that men work by Two things are necessary Rectitude and Visibilicie The first is in God without the second The second in man without the first That Christ therefore might be a most perfect rule for man to work by To the righteousnesse of God he assumed the visibilitie of Man c. Thirdly the reasons of the Incarnation that respect sinne is without the limitation of the power of God that it might be a remedy to sinne Tolle morbos tolle vulnera et nulla est medicinae causa If there had been no sinne there had been no need of a Saviour and therefore the glosse upon 1. Tim. 1. Christ came into the World to save sinners is not amisse Nulla causa veniendi fuit Christo Domino nisi peceatores salvos facere and