Divine efficacy without humane power. Opened in a sermon preached at St. Margarets Church…

It is a spiritual Building, and therefore not reared by humane power, a Kingdom un-attended with worldly splendour, and therefore cometh not with observation, Luke 17. 20. The Enemies of it for the most part spiritual, and therefore not vanquished but by a spiritual power, Eph. 6. 12. 2 Cor. 10. 4, 5. No humane power able to encounter, no humane wisdom to disappoint ⟨p. 36⟩the gates of Hell. None but he who is the power and wisdom of God, hath power enough to overcome, or wisdom enough to defeat the Kingdom of darkness. The special end which God had in erecting the Church, was, to glorify his power, wisdom and grace in the nothingness of the matter, out of which he framed it. The visible world, as it doth by the beauty, order, and greatness thereof set forth the glory of God, so in nothing more then this, that all this great being is made out of nothing. Now Gods glory is more magnified in the Church then in the world. The Church is the Jewel, the world but the Ring wherein it is set. The World, an House or Farm for Creatures and Tenants to dwell in. The Church, Gods own Palace, wherein he dwells himself, Psal. 132. 13. And the Excellency of this glory, is, That it is a Creation out of nothing, no material aptness, no Active concurrence of the subject unto the heavenly being, which by Gods spirit alone is wrought in it. We contribute no more to our own conversion of, or, from our selves, then water doth to its own heating, which naturally resisteth the fire that heats it. We have no good in us either formally or potentially, so as to be educed out of us, all is to be superinduced, by the Spirit of God upon us. No ⟨p. 37⟩flesh must glory but in free Grace, which alone could raise a corrupted mass into so stately a Palace.

It is a spiritual Building, and therefore not reared by humane power, a Kingdom un-attended with worldly splendor, and therefore cometh not with observation,