A heavenly conference between Christ and Mary after His resurrection. Wherein the intimate familiarity,…

¹Let us therefore make this use of it, and add this further, That if so be ⟨p. 153⟩God is first the Father of Christ, before he is our Father, and first the God of Christ before he is our God, and that all our good is dependent upon what God is to Christ first; then doth not this follow from hence, ²that we should not only thank God for our selves; but thank God for whatsoever he hath done to Christ; not only comfort our selves in it, but let God have the glory of it. And this the spirit of God in the holy Apostles Peter and Paul led them to. Ephes. 1. Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; what? and nothing but so? nay, with a reduplication, Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, even because he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, because out of his infinite depth of wisdom and goodness, he hath found out a way to save us in Christ, to be a Father to him, and in him a Father to us. It is said of the Virgin Mary, A• Generations ³shall call her blessed. Why? because she was Mother of the person that was God: she was the Mother of Christ in humane nature, and of God, because we may not sever the persons. And shall we bless the Virgin ⟨p. 154⟩Mary, as Mother of God, and not God as Father of Christ? If she be the Mother of Christ-man, then God is the Father of whole Christ, and therefore blessed be God, not only that he is our Father, and our God; but that he might be thus with satisfaction to divine justice, he hath ⁴found out such a way to be the Father of Christ, and Christ, as man, is an object of Gods love, and predestination as well as we. We deserved nothing at Gods hands; but he found out •uch a way by taking the nature of man into unity of his second person, and so became a Father of Christ, and of us. And therefore bless God, who hath predestinated Christ to e the Lamb of God, that hath freed him from sin, and raised him from the dead, that hath carried him into Heaven, and set him at his right hand, & ordained him to be judg of quick and dead. Are these things severed from us? no, they be favours that be ours in Christ, his first, then ours. And therefore whensoever we think of any thing Christ hath of his glory in Heaven, as he is King of Heaven