CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

5. When we say, The Word of God is instrumental to our Sanctification, this is ⟨p. 471⟩not to be opposed to those other causes, which God hath appointed. Grace is the efficient cause, and Christ the meritorious cause, only this is the medium; God who could convert immediately, and reach home to our souls, as he did to the Prophets by an immediate Revelation, hath taken this way. That as it's the goodness of God in natural things, though he be the first and universal cause, and so could do all things immediately himself, yet he hath ordained second causes, who have their derived causality. Thus it hath pleased God in the Government of his Church, to use means and external helps, the Word and Sacraments, thereby to work grace, when yet he could change the hearts of men immediately, or communicate himself to his Church, as he did once without Scriptures; When therefore you hear many oppose the Scripture to the Spirit, and the Ministry in the Church to Christs teaching, this is absurd and tends to the division of those causes, which God hath so wisely joined together. The Spirit and the Scripture must not be opposed, nor Christs teaching and the Ministers; for that Rule is true here, Quando duorum unum est propter aliud, sunt ut unum.

5. When we say, The Word of God is instrumentall to our Sanctification, this is ⟨p. 471⟩not to be opposed to those other causes, which God hath appointed. Grace is the efficient cause, and Christ the meritorious cause, onely this is the medium; God who could convert immediately, and reach home to our souls, as he did to the Prophets by an immediate Revelation, hath taken this way. That as it's the goodness of God in natural things, though he be the first and universall cause, and so could do all things immediately himself, yet he hath ordained second causes, who have their derived causality. Thus it hath pleased God in the Government of his Church, to use means and external helps, the Word and Sacraments, thereby to work grace, when yet he could change the hearts of men immediately, or communicate himself to his Church, as he did once without Scriptures; When therefore you hear many oppose the Scripture to the Spirit, and the Ministry in the Church to Christs teaching, this is absurd and tends to the division of those causes, which God hath so wisely joyned together. The Spirit and the Scripture must not be opposed, nor Christs teaching and the Ministers; for that Rule is true here, Quando duorum unum est propter aliud, sunt ut unum.