A64642:431
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.
2. Obedience hinders it not. I am required, may some say, to be a new man, a new Creature, to lead a new life: I must alter my course: and is not this a great clog and burden? and do you account this free? when I must crucify lusts, mortify Passions, &c. Is this free when a man must renounce his own Will? Yes; It is as free as free may be; as I showed you the last time. The very touching and accepting of Christ implies an abnegation of former sinfulness, and a going off from other courses that are contrary to him. If the King give a pardon to a notorious Rebel for Treason, so that now he must live obedient as a Subject, the King need not in regard of himself to have given the pardon; if he give it, it takes not from its freeness, that he must live like a Subject afterwards; ⟨p. 417⟩the very acceptance of the pardon implies it.
2. Obedience hinders it not. I am required, may some say, to be a new man, a new Creature, to lead a new life: I must alter my course: and is not this a great clog and burthen? and do you account this free? when I must crucifie lusts, mortifie Passions, &c. Is this free when a man must renounce his own Will? Yes; It is as free as free may be; as I shewed you the last time. The very touching and accepting of Christ implies an abnegation of former sinfulness, and a going off from other courses that are contrary to him. If the King give a pardon to a notorious Rebel for Treason, so that now he must live obedient as a Subject, the King need not in regard of himself to have given the pardon; if he give it, it takes not from its freeness, that he must live like a Subject afterwards; ⟨p. 417⟩the very acceptance of the pardon implies it.
But now to declare Faith, and to open the Mystery thereof. Faith is a great thing: it is our life; our life stands in the practise of it: that as in the offering of Christ for us, there is given him a name above every name, That at the name of Jes•s every knee shall bow: As, I say, in the purchasing of Redemption, so in the point of acceptation; God hath given unto this poor virtue of faith a name above all names. Faith indeed, as it is a virtue, is poor and mean, and comes far short of love: and therefore by the Apostle, love is many degrees preferred before faith, because love fills the heart, and faith is but a bare hand, it lets all things fall, that it may fill it self with Christ. Its said of the Virgin Mary, That God did respect the low estate of his hand-maid: So God respects the low estate of Faith, that nothing is required, but a bare empty hand, which hath nothing to bring with it, though it be never so weak, yet if it have a hand to receive, it is [Greek or Hebrew], a like precious faith, that of the poorest Believer, and the greatest Saint.