Of EleCiion. 121 CHAP. Vl ,....._,._..... Chap. 6. ~ The Primordial or Foundation Motiver in the Heart of God, that moved hitn to A!feCI, Dejign , and Decree fo high an ·Vnion of Creatum with himfef[, as they are expreffed in Chrifl'r Prayer, Jobn 17. The ftrft Mo– tive was tomanife~ and declare God'r Name, and toil– f~tfirilte hi! Grace and Mercy to the Sonr of Men. ~'I • .. ; ' . . ' ' ' HE Holy Spirit,who is the Intercelfor in us,and who fearcheth the deep things of God, doth offer, prompt, and fuggefi to us in our Prayers, j thofe very Motives that are in God•s heart, to gr.ant tlie thing we delire of him: So as it often comes to pafs, that a poor Creature is carried on to fpeak God's very heart to himfelf, and then God cannot, nor doth not d<;ny. But yet therein the Spirit prays not immediately himfclf, but forms thofe Prayers in us; fo as we are they that pray. But, . Hcreisone, asgrcatanlntimate with God, as the Spirit himfelfis, v;ho here prays hi!Ufelfperfonally unto God, and was of Coilnfel with God from e– verlalting: And therefore furely, when he Jhall fpeak to God for any thing, and go about to move his Father thereto, he mull needs utter the bottom of what did move him from evcrlalling, and will move him now to bellow it. He fpeako the Intimacies of things between his Father and himfelf, which are privately known to them, with the Holy Spirit alone. And truly, methinks w.hen I read this Prayer, and therein his pleadings and memorials to his Father, I am admitted into the Cabinet Council of Heaven; and am made privy tO What Were. and had been the bottom grounds that fway• N1n tx n.dl& ed that great Confultation from Eternity; unto that determination which he :z::;;;t,d;:,,. prayeth to be accomplifhed. Likewife, it became Chrifi, that as the thing Chri~"' o"', prand for (our Union)_ was the higheR and mmofi good that was to be, or ~:,;•;;J;'h~· could be prayed for by htm for us; fo anfwerably, to bttllg forth the deepefi btt "'"' 1 ,. Motive in God's.heart to urge him withal to grant it; for he was his Father's ,;, i•di<i~' Counfellor and prayoaccordingly. C•lv. on Joha The Ind~cements are m•ny: I Jhall lingle forth Two principal grand Ones, ' 1 ' v' 9 ' of thofe which we find here in this Prayer: which Two do yet make Three i The latter being divided into Two, •· The Manifellation of God's Namt, that is, of God himfelf, iri his Per· feClions towards ll>, cfpecially of his Love and Grace; in his doing of which; Cod's manifellative glory, as it is made to m, cloth conlifi. •· The fecond is taken from the Onenefs in Elfencr, and then the intimacy and fweetnefs of_Communion that was and had been from everlalling between hts Father and htmfelf, as Perfons, and fo among!\ the three Perfons them~ . felves, the [~S] and the [Wll]fpokenofverf.t•.and2i. There is aThird, from the Interell of Jefus Chrill, as God-Man, and from the love his Father bears him, his Son, a. firfl fet up to be perfonally united to that Man Je!us, and in him and through him, call and diffufecl upon his Elect , .. as they be conlidered in him, and ior hiS fake, with difference frotn the world. But tbis I fhall refer unto another Head, of Chrij/'s Elrffion aJht HGod-Ma"; and his Intcrcfr in our Election. [R.] r, MO~
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