A30241:1593
CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…
CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, or, Christs prayer before his passion explicated, and both practically and polemically improved by Anthony Burgess ...
London: printed by Abraham Miller for Thomas Underhill, 1656
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Oh what a Treasure was this, That an Apostle could not have one doubt upon his heart, any scruple in his Conscience, any doubt about any Text in the Old Testament, but he had an infallible Prophet to go to who could teach him all things! Thus there was a time of outward visible enjoying of Christ.
But 2. This outward visible enjoying of Christ was not of any advantage at all, if there had not been also a spiritual believing on him; It was not the seeing, the hearing, the living with him made a man happy, but the spiritual receiving of him as a Mediator; Did not Judas live with him in this kind, was not he as a familiar Friend with him, yet for all that he was a Son of Perdition? Hence our Saviour upon all occasions took them off from attending to such visible advantages, as Luke 11.27. when they cried out, Blessed is the womb that bare Christ, and the paps that gave him suck: He corrected this, and said, Blessed are they that hear the Word of God and do it; So that the very Mother of Christ was more blessed in conceiving Christ in her heart by Faith, then conceiving him in her womb, So Mar. 3.35. when they told him his Mother and Brethren were to seek him, he answered, Whosoever doth the will of God, the same is my Mother and Brother; So that now all such corporal considerations are to vanish, and spiritual Arguments are to take place; Even as when Christ left his Disciples bodily, then the Spirit of God came powerfully upon them. If then we would duly improve Christ as a Mediator, we are to be a spiritual people, our hearts, desires, and aims must be wholly spiritual; But this is too great a lesson for any natural man, he cannot make any use of Christ, but after a fleshly carnal manner one way or other; The life of Faith is as much above them as reason is above a Beast; The natural man cannot receive them because spiritually discerned, 1 Cor. 2.14. Therefore wicked men are called sensual, and are compared to brute beasts, which are wholly carried out by sense.