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A67829 A sermon preached at Lambeth January the 25th at the consecration of the Right Reverend Father in God, Thomas Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells / by Edward Young ... Young, Edward, 1641 or 2-1705. 1685 (1685) Wing Y68; ESTC R34114 12,744 33

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commonly seen to do any thing and Man when he pleases to be vain and ungrateful may impute all Events to his own power and application Now 't is certain that God leaves this obscurity upon his Dispensations on purpose to administer an advantage and commendation to our Faith not an opportunity or Argument to our Doubting but yet if we will Doubt the Case is plain that we may as well doubt of any act of his Ordinary Providence as of his Sanctifying Grace and so by this method of Reasoning God will have no share left him in the managment of the world We allow again that there is another Obscurity upon the face of this Dispensation we know not the Philosophy of Sanctifying Grace not unto what Class of Beings to reduce it nor under what Modes to conceive its Operations And this is a speculation that our Saviour himself argues us Ignorant of as much as we are of the Issues and Retreats of the wind and yet he thought fit to leave us so Whether the knowledge of it were too Excellent for us or whether it were too useless as no way conducing to the ends of Practical wisdom For we may observe of our Saviour that in all his Discourses he never entertained his Auditory with any Doctrine that was purely speculative because such kind of Knowledge is apt to make us more Vain than Wise Had he led our Understandings through the whole Theory of Grace we could not have accommodated it better to our uses than an honest heart now can without any farther insight No more than if he had stoopt to teach us the Philosophy of the Wind any Mariner could have gathered it more commodiously into his Sheet It is not then our Emulation to determine How the work of Sanctification is done our only care is that it be done We pretend not to declare but thankfully to admire By what Ray the Divine Grace opens and shines in upon our understanding clearing it from worldly prejudices and the impostures of Flesh and rendring it Teachable Considerative and Firm By what Motion it inspires Good thoughts excites good purposes and suggests wholesome Counsels and Expedients By what welcome violence it draws our Wills steers our Appetites and checks our Passions By what Heat it kindles Love and Resolution and Chearfulness of Endeavours By what Discipline it extinguishes sinful Imaginations and loose Desires By what Power it aws the Devil and foils Temptations and removes Impediments and strengthens and exhilarates amidst all difficulties And finally by what patient Art it turns moulds and transforms our stubborn Nature into new Notions new Savours new Powers new Acts new Aims new Ioys as if we were entirely new Creatures and descended from another Race All these effects do as well by their wonder as their Benefit render Grace as our Apostle calls it the Unspeakable Gift a Gift surmounting our Apprehensions as well as it does our Merit That these are all the Esfects of Gods Grace we know because he has declared them to be so That they are so we know because many of them are wrought beside our Thinking many without our Seeking and all beyond the reach of our too well Known and experienced infirmity That they are so we know because their being so comports best with the great end of all things that is the Glory of their Maker For it tends much more to the Glory of the Mercy of God to watch over and lead and assist Infirm Creatures than to have made them strong And so I pass to my Second Head the distribution of Grace unto Men and the Measures of it The Doctrine whereof I shall form into this Proposition Viz. That God distributes his Grace to every Man in proportion to the measures of his Necessary Duty God who has laid our burden upon us and commanded us to be strong mocks us not but so far as we are weak offers us strength out of his own treasure with this prospect that receiving it thence we might behave our selves more reverently and thankfully under the sense of the Obligation To every one therefore that considers his want and values the supply and applies himself for the Gift with a worthy affection and through appointed Means God gives it liberally and the measure of his giving to each is that Rule of the Friend St. Luke 11. As much as he needeth For as Gods Providence has ordered a diversity of States in human life producing a diversity of Duty so the same Good Providence has ordained divers Sanctifying Gifts and divers Measures of the same gifts to be distributed respectively among Men that no man might Necessarily be wanting to the Duty of his particular state The Prophet Isaiah Cap. 11. 2. Speaking of that fulness of the Spirit that was to rest upon our Saviour distributes the Holy Spirit according to its operations into the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Counsel and Might the Spirit of Knowledge and the Fear o● the Lord Which the Church looks upon as a proper Enumeration of the Sanctifying Gifts of the Holy Spirit which God does diversly distribute unto men in order to the Common Salvation There is Wisdom for those that Teach and Understanding for those that Learn and Counsel for such as are in Perplexity and Might for such as are in Difficulty and Knowledge for them that Err and the fear of the Lord or Piety as other Versions read it for all that will be Pious Now of these Gifts God giveth such Kinds and Measures to every Man as he has need of To every Private person so much as is necessary for a private Salvation and to every one of a publick Character so much as is necessary to promote Salvation in the publick Salvation of Souls and the Advancement of Christs Kingdom being the only scope of all his Distributions We may take an Instance of the whole from our Bishop in the Text He was a Good Man and endowed with Grace sufficient for a private Salvation before the laying on of Hands as the foregoing Verse implies but being now by that Sacramental Rite to enter upon a new Station of life where greater measures of the Divine assistance were but necessary for the discharge of his duty God confers greater measures of his Grace upon him through the same Rite God confers I say both Grace and Duty through the same Rite to put us in mind that they are Two things morally inseparable For he that does more Duty shall have more Grace and he that receives more Grace receives an Obligation to do more Duty But here it is of importance to observe the Restriction of the Proposition I say it is Necessary Duty to which God apportions the measures of his Grace Where by necessary Duty I mean the Duty of that State or those Circumstances which Gods Providence does assign us For instance If a man shall fall under an unavoidable perplexity of Wordly affairs such a state does bring new