A64642:402
Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification,…
Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification, by Christ. By the Right Reverend James Usher, late Arch-bishop of Armagh in Ireland. Published by Jos: Crab. Will: Ball. Tho: Lye. ministers of the Gospel, who writ them from his mouth, and compared their copies together. With a preface concerning the life of the pious author, by the Reverend Stanley Gower, sometime chaplain to the said bishop.Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification, by Christ. By the Right Reverend James Usher, late Arch-bishop of Armagh in Ireland. Published by Jos: Crabb. Will: Ball. Tho: Lye. ministers of the Gospel, who writ them from his mouth, and compared their copies together. With a preface concerning the life of the pious author, by the Reverend Stanly Gower, sometime chaplain to the said bishop.
London: printed by S. Griffin for Will, 1660
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.
Now when Christ offers, the other part of the relation holds, we may take. We have an interest to accept what he proffers. Consider it by an example: If one give me a million, and I receive it not, I am never the richer: and so if God offer me his Son, and with him all things, I am nothing the better, if I receive him not. That he is born and given, what's that to us? unless we can say, To us a child is born, to us a Son is given, Isa. 9.6. Faith comes with a naked hand to receive that which is given; we must empty our selves of what is in us. Consider thy estate, the Lord sets down how it is with us, when he comes to look upon us. Ezek. 16.6. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thy blood, I said unto thee, when thou wert in thy blood, live. Why is this set down? Its to show how God finds nothing in us when he comes to show Mercy. He finds nothing in us that is lovely; when he comes to bestow his Son upon us. ⟨p. 398⟩For its said, Rev. 1.5, That Christ loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood. He doth first cast his love upon us when we are unwashed, as I may say unwashed and unblest: When no eye pitied thee, and thou wast cast out in the open field; when thou wast in thy blood, I said unto thee, live; when he comes to m•king up of the match, verse 9. Then I washed thee with water, yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil: I clothed thee also with embroidered work, and shod thee with badgers skins, &c. that is, when Christ comes to cast his affections on us, and to wed us unto himself, he finds us polluted, not with a rag on us. Full of filth, just nothing have we, he takes us with nothing; nay, we are worse then nothing: so that here is the point, what ground is there whereby a man that is dead, and hath no goodness in him, (make him as ill as can be imagined,) what ground hath he to receive Christ? Yes, To as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become the sons of God. First, The receiving of Christ, and then comes Believing. It is the receiving of this gift, that is the means whereby Christ is offered to us. The Apostle joining the first and second Adam together, makes the benefit we have by the second to lie in the point of receiving.