and take them in And because this Discovery which God makes of himself to sinful and fallen man by his holy Word is an Act of meer Grace which Man had no wayes merited not could merit nor God could no wayes be obliged or engaged to therefore this Word of God is called the Word of his Grace in respect of the original of it it came forth from God it was the Grace of God that first revealed it Reas 2. It is the Word of Grace materially because the Grace of God towards sinners in Jesus Christ is the principal proper and specifick matter and subject of it True it is indeed that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All-that can possibly be known of God is revealed in the Word The simplicity unity perfection of his Essence the glorious Mystery of the Trinity of Persons the Wisdom Power Goodness Justice Holiness of God all these are made known to us in his Word wherein as in a glass we behold the glory of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.18 But that which the Word doth principally and chiefly reveal it is the Grace of God towards sinners in Jesus Christ this was the substance of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that first Word which God revealed immediately after the Fall of Man in Paradise The Seed of the Woman shall break the Serpents head This was the substance and scope of all the Old Testament all the Sacrifices Laws and Ordinances concerning holy Persons and holy things they all tended to this And this is more clearly and fully the scope of the Gospel and New Testament to make known the unsearchable Riches of Christ as the Apostle speaks Ephes 3.8 And therefore of all the parts of the Scripture the Gospel the New Testament is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 called the Word of Grace and the Gospel of Grace because the whole design and scope of that is to reveal and make known unto sinners the Grace of God in Christ and that and that alone reveals it Men may talk what they please of those Universal Preachers the Sun Moon and Stars and tell us that they preach Christ The creatures indeed do sufficiently reveal God so as to leave all the World without excuse for not fearing and serving of God who made Heaven and Earth but worshipping the work of their own hands in his stead but Christ and the Grace of God towards sinners in Christ is the proper peculiar sole Revelation of the Gospel which therefore is called the Word of Grace Reas 3. The Word of God is the Word of Grace effectively because it works inherent qualitative Grace and Holiness in them that hear it not indeed in all the Word doth not work Grace in the hearts of all nor never did No but where-ever Grace is wrought in the hearts of any there ordinarily it is the Word that works and therefore it may be justly and duely called the Word of Grace So the Apostle Rom. 10.17 Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God So Gal. 3.2 Received you the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of Faith So our Saviour John 17.17 Sanctifie them through thy Truth thy Word is Truth So then the Word worketh Faith and Sanctification in the hearts of God's Children and therefore it is the Word of Grace Reas 4. The VVord of God is the VVord of Grace because it not only begets and begins Grace and layeth the foundation of it but it maintains and increaseth and carrieth on the work of Grace unto Glory As it follows here in the Text The VVord of his Grace which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified Now this in the first place should teach us to bless God for the enjoying of his VVord more than for any other our Enjoyments whatsoever It is true we have cause to bless God for any thing for every thing we enjoy that we have bread to eat though never so course that we have rayment to put on though never so mean we have cause to bless God that we live in a Land of Hills and Valleys that is watered with Springs and with the Dew of Heaven in a fruitful and plentiful Land but that we live in a Land whither God hath caused the Word of his Grace to come this we have cause to bless God for infinitely more than for Corn and Wine and Oyl in greatest abundance Had God inriched this Nation with all the Mines and Treasures of both the Indies were all the Hills and High-wayes in England as full of Gold as they are of Sand were all the Rivers as full of Pearls as they are of Pebles did Cinamon and Cassia grow in England as thick as Bulrushes were all the Riches and Glories of the World laid up here as in Natures Store-house yet if God had hid the Word of his Grace from us what a miserable Nation had we been all this our Wealth would have exposed us to the cruel covetousness and rage of other Nations as it hath done the poor Indians and have sent us down to Hell certainly and unavoidably without any help or remedy But blessed be God for the Gospel of Grace for this VVord of Grace blessed be God blessed be God for the Word of Grace bestowed upon England he hath not dealt so with every Nation In England is God known his Name is great in England in England is his Tabernacle and his Dwelling-place in England He hath not dealt so with every Nation he hath not dealt so with any Nation Praise ye the Lord. Psal 147.20 In the second place This should teach us above all things to fear and deprecate the taking away the VVord of Grace from us or from our posterity after us It was a sore Judgment which the Lord threatned against Judah Jer. 16.5 I have taken away my Peace from this People saith the Lord my Loving-kindness and Mercy O my Brethren when God takes away the VVord of his Grace from a People then is this direful Judgment come upon them then hath God taken away his Peace from that People even Loving-kindness and Mercy then is that People left Regnum Cyclopicum in the Region of Darkness and the shadows of death an habitation for Dragons and Devils Take the Sun out of the Firmament and what would the World be but a Chaos of Confusion a Land of Darkness And satius esset Solem è Colo said the People of Constantinople of that famous Preacher Chrysostom Better the Sun should be taken out of the Skie than Chrysostom out of the Pulpit Chrysostom and an hundred Chrysostoms may be taken out of the Pulpit and yet the Word of Grace not taken away but if once the VVord of Grace be taken away then VVo Wo We to that Place and to that People Brethren you may remember I am sure you ought to remember that upon the 13th of October 1658. from those words Amos 8.11 I shewed
spiritual sense God only is your Father he it is that begets you of his own good will by the Word of Truth Jam. 1.18 Though indeed that Word be dispensed by us as instruments and when he hath thus begotten you he is pleased to trust and honour us so far as to make us Foster-Fathers and Nursing-Fathers to you and this cannot but beget some kind of Affections and Respect in us to you and in you to us as there is between Nurse-Fathers and Nurse-Children and a lothness to part But I beseech you consider If a King that hath had a Child at Nurse some years in a private house judge it convenient to part the Child and Nurse one from another and the Nurse-Father upon notice given of the King's mind carries the Child home and delivers it up into the King 's own arms who is the true and proper Father and is a thousand times better able to provide for the Child than the Nurse-Father and more engaged to do it too hath this poor Child any hurt or any cause to complain or to cry after the Nurse-Father I will go home to my Father again Think my Brethren the case is the same here We have been Nursing-Fathers to you for some time God seeth it fit to make a change who are we that we should murmur or find fault or what cause have you to complain We resign you up into the hands of your Father and our Father your God and our God Why should you cry after us are you not well enough can you be better than in the arms of your dear gracious and mercifull Father Obj. But what shall we do for Ordinances how shall we live who shall feed and nourish our poor souls Ans You that do indeed love and prize and hunger after the Ordinances I will say to you as Abram did in another care My son God will provide As for the rest of you you that neither loved the Ordinances while you had them nor have been at all quickened by the withdrawing of them what God will do with you I cannot tell But you that love and prize the Ordinances I say to you concerning your souls as our Saviour concerning your bodies Take no thought what you shall eat and what you shall drink nor how your poor souls shall live in a time of straitness and scarcity That God that when Israel were in such a place as they could neither sow nor reap fed them with bread from Heaven that God if he bring you into such a condition as you can neither enjoy Word nor Sacraments will feed you too with hidden Manna that shall be better than Word and Sacraments that God who multiplied the Meal in the Widows barrel and the Oyl in her cruse that though her stock was little yet it served turn and lasted as long as the famine lasted So I dare confidently say it shall be with you that fear God in Truth and love his Ordinances in sincerity the less your stock of Grace in your own eyes be be it very little and small it shall hold out till you come to Heaven your handful of Meal and your cruise of Oyl shall not fail As for the rest of People in this Place and Nation what God will do with them I know not I am loth to speak what I see cause to fear even concerning this very place But I shall commend you to God after I have spoken a little of what follows And the Word of his Grace Mark here the Apostle doth not say I commend you to God and the impulse of his Spirit or I commend you to God and the Light within or I commend you to God and the Traditions of men or I commend you to God and the Customs and Orders of the holy Church No these are some of them uncertain others of them unprofitable things But we have a more sure Word 2 Pet. 1.19 A profitable Word a Word able to make wise to Salvation even the Holy Scriptures and to this next under God and in joynt co-operation with God for the good of their souls doth the Apostle commend these Christians I commend you to God and the Word of his Grace From thence observe That the Word of God it is the Word of God's Grace So we find it stiled not onely here but in Acts 14.3 They gave testimony to the Word of his Grace So in chap. 20. ver 24. it is called The Gospel of the Grace of God And the Word of God is the Word of his Grace upon this fourfold account Reas 1. Because it comes from Grace It was the meer Free-Grace of God that moved him to reveal and give forth this Word of his as a Revelation of himself unto the children of men Adam was at first created in such a condition as he needed not a word without to lead him into the true knowledge of the true God He was created after the Image of God in Knowledge Righteousness and Holiness he had the Law of God written in his heart And as the High Priest of old having the Vrim and Thummim upon his breast needed but cast his eye upon that and he might presently kmow any thing that he had a mind to know of God So Adam in his innocency it was for him but to reflect upon himself to cast his eye inward and presently he might know of God and of his Mind and Will that which he did desire But as the Vrim and Thummim being lost in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians God was pleased as the Rabbins tell us to favour his People with a vocal answer from the Oracle which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bathcol a voice without them instead of inward light and inspiration So this innate light of the knowledge of God being extinct and lost by that universal ruine which the sin of Adam hath brought upon all mankind and all mankind now being nothing but blindness and darkness alienated from the Life of God through the ignorance that is in them Ephes 4.18 able at the best but to feel and grope after God as the Apostles expression is Acts 17.27 even as the men of Sodom when they were struck with blindness groped to find the door of Lot's house til they wearied themselves but were never able to find it Gen. 19.11 So it is with all men now by Nature therefore the Lord who is said to dwell in Light inaccessible 1 Tim. 6.16 and who is a Fountain of pure Light inexhaustible 1 John 1.5 hath pleased to display unto his poor creatures some beams of his own Light and that in such a refracted way as their weak nature may be capable of without being overwhelmed and swallowed up with that Glory And to this end hath treasured up those Beams of Light in his holy Scriptures from whence they dart forth unto us not all at once and in their fulness but gradatim and by little and little as we are able to bear them
the true reason why the Pope and his Accomplices do so studiously smother the Scriptures from their People is that rendred by our Saviour John 3.20 For every one that doth evil hateth the Light neither cometh to the Light lest his deeds should be reproved And their doom shall be with those Luke 11.52 Wo unto you Lawyers for you have taken away the Key of Knowledge you entered not in your selves and them that were entered in you hindered In the second place This reproves the Impiety of the Papists who under pretence of honouring the Scriptures shut them from the commom people So this on the other side reproves the blasphemy of those that think themselvs too good to stand in need of the Scriptures the Word of God The Papists think the Scriptures too good for the vulgar people to have any thing to do withal these think themselves though God knows they are poor ignorant people yet they think themselves too good to have any thing to do with the Scriptures or to stand in need of any instruction or direction from the Scriptures the Word of God they think they have the VVord of God within the Light within and that is sufficient for them Indeed they will grant you that the Prophecy of Isaiah and Jeremiah it was the Word of God to Isaiah and Jeremiah and the People that lived in their times and so the Epistles of Paul and Peter they were the VVord of God to Peter and Paul and to those to whom they wrote them but as for themselves they have they make account the same infallible Spirit that Peter and Paul had and the dictates and motions of that Spirit are the same infallible VVord of God to them that it was to the Prophets and Apostles binding them and others to whom they are sent to speak it as infallibly as the Revelation of God to the Prophets and Apostles and their speaking them to others did bind them O Pride O Blasphemy Supposing it to be true which they say that they have the same infallible Spirit which the Apostles and Prophets had Yet first it will not follow that they have it in the same Operations and Manifestations that the Prophets and Apostles had it is a certain Truth that all the Elect of God that are sanctified have but one and the same Spirit quickning all guiding all As it is written There is one Body and one Spirit Eph. 4.4 But saith the Apostle there are diversity of Gifts but the same Spirit and diversity of Administrations and diversity of Operations 1 Cor. 12.4 5 6. And all these worketh one and the same Spirit ver 11. Thus it was in the Apostles dayes all that had the same Spirit that Peter and Paul had to renew them and sanctifie them and work all Grace in them needful to Salvation had not the same infallible Guidance of the Spirit to enable them to deliver things that should be infallible and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Are all Apostles are all Prophets 1 Cor. 12.29 much less then can it be said now And it is highest presumption for any one that thinks he hath received and hath indeed received the Spirit unto sanctification to think that therefore he hath the Spirit in its infallible guidance and direction Secondly Suppose that these People had the Spirit of infallible guidance and direction and were indeed inspired Prophets yet that doth not give them a supersedeas from attending to the Scripture the Word of God Daniel was a Prophet immediately infallibly inspired yet he studied the Scriptures Dan. 9.2 I Daniel understood by Books the number of the years whereof the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the Prophet So did David though an inspired Prophet Psal 119. So did all the Prophets 1 Pet. 1.10 11. Of which the Prophets have enquired and searched diligently who prophesied of the Grace that should come unto you searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signifie when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the Glory that should follow So that were they what they would pretend to be which they are not Prophets yet they are not too good to attend still upon the Scriptures the Word of God Methinks I hear the God of Heaven speaking to these poor but proud ones as sometimes he did by way of holy sarcasm to the Prince of Tyre Ezek. 28.2 and so on Because thine heart is lifted up and thou hast said I am a God He that saith he is godded with God and perfect as God is doth he not say I am a God Behold thou art wiser than Daniel ver 3. Daniel was such a simple man as though he was a Prophet and had glorious Visions and Inspirations yet he like a simple man would hang upon the Scriptures the written Word of God but thou art wiser than Daniel thou regardest not the Scriptures thou hast as sure and infallible a Light within thee as that Word is Thou sealest up the sum full of wisdom and perfect in beauty ver 12. Thou hast been in Eden the Garden of God every precious stone was thy covering ver 13. Thou art the anointed Cherub thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire ver 14. Thou wast perfect in thy wayes from the day that thou wert created ver 15. All this is spoken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the opinion that the Prince of Tyre had of himself God doth but speak his own words and thoughts And truly such are the thoughts of this proud generation they think they are so perfect and so full of wisdom they have no need of the Scriptures the VVord of God In the third place Let this that you have heard That even the best have need of the VVord O let it teach every one of you to labour to maintain in your heart an humble sense of your continual need of the Word an holy hunger after the Word a ready closing with every Opportunity of attending upon the Word a lothness above all things to part with the VVord to be left without the VVord better part with the Light of your eyes with the Bread that is the staff of your lives yea with the Life of your bodies than part with the VVord which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among them that are sanctified And so I come to the third Doctrine which is this That the VVord of God is able to build up the Saints Therefore saith Paul here I commend you to God and the VVord of his Grace which is able to build you up Yea might they think it is true if we had such a one as Paul for to preach the VVord of God still unto us then indeed we should hope to be edified and built up Nay saith the Apostle though I shall preach no more to you and though you shall see my face no more whatever becomes of me yet the VVord of