A Practical Commentary on the Epistle of Jude

We need not only leave to come to God by Christ, but also quickening and encouragement, for we are backward▪ In other preferments there needeth nothing but leave, for there men are forward enough; but here guilt maketh us shy of God, and ⟨p. 11⟩God is forced to call and hollow after us. By nature we are not only exiles, but fugitives: Before God banished Adam, he first ran away from him, he ran to the bushes, and then God called him, Adam, where art thou? Gen. 3. 9. How often doth God hollow after us in the Word before we return, and come out of the bushes? He maketh proclamation, Isa. 55. 1. Ho every one that thirsteth, &c. We are under spiritual bondage, as the Israelites were in Egypt under corporal bondage, and God sendeth again and again, and out of very anguish of heart we will not believe him; therefore he calleth and crieth, Sinners, where are you? why will you not return unto me? Gods outward Call is managed by men, and therefore it is very hard to persuade them to discern the voice of God; as Samuel would not be persuaded but that it was Eli called him when it was the Lord: We think it to be the charity of the Minister, and will not easily acknowledge a call from God, and therefore do not only need leave, but encouragement. Partly because God will work in a way suitable to his own nature and ours; fortiter & suaviter, strongly like himself, and sweetly with respect to us; and therefore he doth not only draw, but call; not only put forth the power of his Spirit, but exhort and invite by the Word; the efficacy of divine grace is conveyed this way more suitably to the nature of man; There is grace offered in the Gospel, and the Spirit compelleth to come in. In all the Works of God, there is some word by which his Power is educed and exercised: In the Creation, Let there be light, &c. At the Resurrection there is a Trump, and the voice of an Archangel, Arise ye dead, and come to Judgment. In all Christs miraculous cures there are some words used, Be thou clean, and Be thou whole, and Be thou opened; and to Lazarus in the grave Christ useth words of ministerial excitation, Lazarus, come forth: So in converting a sinner, there is not only a secret power, but a sweet call and invitation; some word by which this power is conveyed and represented in a way suitable to our capacity. For all these Reasons doth God work grace by calling.