of God, or the power and gift of grace quickning our soules.
3. Because from this union which we have by being made partakers of spirituall life, there doth certainly and immediately follow a communion with the Father in all spirituall blessings, and consequently a change of our condition from that which before it was, to wit, sinne and death, to that whereunto we are called, grace and life.
Use 1. This may serve to exhort us to use all diligence to make our calling sure, because without it we have no entrance to the state of grace. 2. To comfort all those that endeavour to obey Gods call; for all of them have (as it were) the door of Gods grace opened unto them. Doctr. 2. God regenerates us, as the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ.
Reason 1. Because in Christ our Redeemer, and in our redemption performed by him, he laid the foundation of all our restoring to salvation.
2. Because he made Christ that great Shepherd, that should gather his sheepe, that is, the elect into his fold, by effectuall calling and regeneration. Heb.13.20. Iohn 10.16.
3. Because through Christ and his name men are called and regenerated by God, 2 Cor.5.18, 19, 20.
Use. This may serve to informe us, that in all those things that belong unto our salvation, we ought alwayes to looke upon God in Christ, and consequently alwayes to call upon and praise God in Christ. The solemne title, and as it were stile of God, that was used in the celebrating of his name, was not alwayes one and the same from the beginning of the world, but diverse: first, he was called by Melchizedeck, the most high God, possessour of heaven and earth, Gen.14.19. Afterwards by reason of that singular covenant, which he made with Abraham and his posterity, he began to be called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Iacob: then againe, after that wonderfull deliverance of his people out of Egypt, for the memory of that thing there was added to his title, The God which brought the children of Israol out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: so also in the Prophet, after his deliverance of them from the Babylonish captivity, he was called
