all is done according to the Counsel of his own Will Some thought all created things did come forth from the Creator by way of emanation as Rivers flow out of their Fountain but there is no stream floweth out of any fountain but it was before a part of that fountain while it was in it but that cannot be said of any Creature in respect of God that it was any part of God before it came out from him Others say the Creatures came out from God by way of representation as an Image in the glass from him that passeth by or looketh on it bâ—t before the world was made there was no such glass to represent God others would express it thus that the world cometh out from God as a shadow from the body but yet this will not fit the turn neither for the shadow doth not come out from the body but follows it because of the deprivation of light from the interposition of another body Others say all cometh from God as a foot-print or tract in Clay or Sand from one that passeth over it but there was nothing on which God by passing might make such an impression What ever good intention they might have by setting forth the Creation by these expressions yet you see they are not proper and accurate These expressions may have their use to raise mans understanding to contemplate the excellency and Majesty of the Creator for they all shew his incomparable Excellency and Perfection together with the vanity nothingness or smallness of the Creature if compared with him as great a bulk as it beareth in our eye They are but as a Ray from the Sun a stream from the fountain or a drop to the Ocean an Image in the Glass or a shadow to the substance or like a foot-print of a maâ— in the Clay or Sand and so are but certain signs leading up to the thing signified or Letters and Syllables out of which we may spell God As the streams lead us to the fountain the image to the man the shadow to the body or the track to the foot that made it But the Scripture leaving those comparisons sheweth us that the World came out from the Creator as the Workmanship from the Artificer the building from the Architect Heb. 11.10 Now every Artificer and builder worketh merely out of the Counsel of his own Will and herein they resemble God but onely what they do with great labour God doth with the beck of his own Will and Word Psal. 33.6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth A bare word of his immediately created all the World the Heavens and Earth and all that is in them 2. When did he make the angels For in the History of Moses there seemeth to be a great silence of it I Answer We read Gen. 1.1 that in the beginning that is when God did first set himself to create that then he created the Heaven and the Earth but we read again in the 20th Verse that in six dayes the Lord made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in them is I argue that if within that compass of time the Lord made Heaven and Earth and all things that are in them Angels are included in that number being the inhabitants of Heaven as Men and Beasts are of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea As here by things in Heaven the Apostle principally understands the Angels and by things on earth Men Therefore as things on earth were not made but after the earth so things in heaven were not created but after the heavens were created The heavens were not created till the second day nor perfected and fitted till the fourth Therefore as God did furnish the Earth with Plants and Beasts before men so did he adorn the Heaven with stars before he filled it with Angels for he first framed the House and adorned it before he brought in the inhabitants Therefore probably they were made the fourth day Is this seemeth too short a time before the fall of the Apostate Angels you must remember how soon man degenerated some think he did not sleep in innocency quoting that Psal. 49.12 Man being in honour abides not but is like the beaâ—ts that perish The word signifies a nights Lodging in an Inne shall noâ— Lodge or stay a Night others make his fall on the next day the Sabbath For at the end of the sixth day all was good very good The Angels fell from their first state as soon as they were Created so short and uncertain is all created Glory Secondly All things were created for him that is for the honour of the Son as well as for the honour of the Father and the Holy Ghost Now this is necessary to be thought of by us because there is a Justice in the case that we should return and imploy all in his service from whom we have received all even though it be with the denial of our nearest and dearest Inteâ—est He is worthy of this Glory and Honour from us and that we should trust upon him as a faithful Creator in the midst of all dangers 1. I will prove that the greâ—tâ—st Glory the Creature is capable of is to serve the Will and set forth the Praise of its Creator for every thing that attaineth not its end is vain What matter is it whether I be a Dog or a Man a Beast or an Angel if I serve not the end for which I was made and that is not the personal and particular benefit of any Creature but the glory of the Creator for God made all things for himself Prov. 16.4 whether he made Beasts or Man or Angels it was still with a respect to his own glory and service God is independent and self-sufficient of himself and for himself Self-seeking in the creature is monstrous and incongruous 'T is as absurd and unbâ—seeming to seek its own Glory as to attribute to its self it s own being Rom. 11.36 Of him and through him and to him are all things Gods glory is the end of our being and doing for being and doing are both from him and therefore for him alone Above all it concerneth man to consider this who can glorifie God not onely objectively by the impressions of God upon him and passively as God will overule all his actions to his own Glory but actively as he is the mouth of the Creation not onely to honour God himself but to give him the praise which resulteth from all his works It was well sâ—id of a Heathen si essem lusâ—inia If I were a Nightingal I would sing as a Nightingal si alauda If I were a Lark I would pere as a Lark When I am a man what should I do but know love and praise God without ceasing and glorifie my Creator Things are unprofitable or mis-placed when they do not seek or serve their end therefore for what use are we meet
the Law and the stinging sense of Gods Threatnings which are so absolute universal and every way true and evident unless we know a sufficient satisfaction hath been made for us If you think the promises of the Gospel are enough alass when the threatnings of the Law are so just and built upon such evident Reason the soul is exposed to doubtfulness And if the threatnings of the Law seem altogether in vain the promises of the Gospel will seem less â—irm and valid The Truth and Honour of Gods Government must one way or other be kept up and that will not be unless there be a fair passage from Covenant to Covenant and that the former be not repealed or relaxed but upon valuable consideration as it is when our Mediatour and surety beareth our sorrows and griefs and satisfieth for us But now if he were mere Man it would not have that esteem and value as to be sufficient for so many men and so many sins as are committed against an holy God Therefore he needeth to be God also 3. His Kingly Office How can that be exercised without an Infinite Power Because by our King and Judge all our Enemies are to be overcome the World Sin Death and the Devil And what is necessary to do this every man may soon understand And as an Infinite Power is necessary so an Infinite Knowledge that all things in Heaven and Earth may be naked and open to him and that he search the heart and try the Reins and then that he may subject all things to himself raise all the dead to life govern and protect the faithful in all the parts of the world that he may be present with them in every Age and Place to help and relieve them In short to do all things both in Heaven and in Earth that fall within the compass of his office Now what is a divine and infinite Power if this be not What can the Father do which the Son cannot do also yea what doth the Father do which the Son doth not likewise Ioh. 5.19 Is there any work which the one doth but the other cannot do Besides there needeth infinite Authority and Majesty therefore the King of the Church must be infinite But how is he infinite if he hath onely a finite Nature such as a mere Creature hath Or how could his finite Nature without change and conversion into another Nature be made infinite For without doubt that nature is infinite which hath an infinite power of Understanding Willing and Acting Well then Christ cannot be truly owned unless he be owned as Lord and God 5. Those that are rightly conversant about Christ and the Misteries of his Death and Resurrection should take Christ for their Lord and their God Every one of them should say my God on whom I depend my Lord to whose use I resign my self I shall 1. Explain in what sense these words may and ought to be used 2. Give you the Reasons why it becomes Christians to be able to say My Lord my God 1. In what sense these words may and ought to be used My Lord and my God There are two things considerable in those words 1. An Appropriation or a claim and challenge of Interest in him 2. A Resignation or Dedication of our selves to his Use and Service Both are implyed in these Titles My Lord my God Christ was his God or Benefactor and also his Lord and Master However that be in the mutual stipulation of the Covenant 't is evident Cant. 2.16 I am my beloved and my beloved is mine There is the appropriation of Faith and the resignation of Obedience Ezek. 36.28 Ye shall be my people and I will be your God Zech. 13.9 I will say 't is my people and they shall say the Lord is my God 1. The one is the fruit and effect of the other God saith I am thy God and the Soul answereth I am thy servant As when Christ said Mary she presently said Rabboni God awakeneth us by the offer of himself and all his Grace to do us good and then we devote our selves to his Service and profess subjection to him If he will be our God we may well allow him a dominion and Lordship over us to rule us at his pleasure We choose him because he chooseth us for all Gods works leave their impression upon our hearts He cometh with Terms of Peace and we with Profession of Duty God loveth first and most and purest and therefore his love is the cause of all 2. The one is the Evidence of the other If God be yours you are his He is yours by gift of himself to you and you are his by gift of your selves to him The Covenant bindeth mutually Many will be ready to apply and call God their God that do not dedicate and devote themselves to God If you be not the Lords the Lord is not yours He refuseth their claim that say Hosea 8.2 Israel shall cry unto me my God we know thee Israel hath cast off the thing that is good In their distress they pleaded their Interest in the Covenant but God would not allow the claim because they denied obedience 3. The one is more sensible and known to us than the other A believer cannot always say God 〈◊〉 mine but he will always say I am his Psal. 119.94 I am thine save me I am thine and will be thine onely thine wholly thine and always thine Appropriation hath more of a Priviledge in it Resignation is onely a Duty We have leave and allowance to say God is my God but we cannot alwayes say it without doubt and hesitancy because our Interest is not alwayes alike evident and clear When you cannot say my God yet be sure to say my Lord. We know God to be ours by giving up ouâ— selves to be his His choice and election of us is a secret till it be evidenced by our choice of him for our God and Portion our Act is more sensible to the Conscience Be more full and serious in the resignation of your selves to him and in time that will shew you your Interest in God 4. Gods Propriety in us by Contract and Resignation speaketh Comfort as well as our Propriety and Interest in God You are his own and therefoe he will provide for you and care for you 1 Tim. 5.8 If any provide not for his own he hath denied the faith and is worse than an Infidel Interest doth strangely endear things to us The world will love its own Iob. 5.19 and will not God love his own and Christ love his own Iob. 13.1 you may trust him and depend upon him and serve him chearfully for you are his own So that if we had no Interest in God established by the Covenant if God had not said to us I am yours yet our becoming his would make it comfortable For every one taketh himself to be bound to love his own provide for his own and to defend his own and do
cause of all our misery when he sees fit all the Creatures soon return to the Elements of which they are compounded all the strokes and judgements which light upon them are dispensed according to his pleasure In a way of Grace we are nothing can do nothing without him Iohn 15.5 He must have all the praise Luke 16.14.1 Cor. 15.10 Gal. 2.20 The more perfections we have the more prone we are to fall if he sustain us not witness the faln Angels and Adam in innocency 3. It teaches us a lesson of reverence and Obedience if God be so near let us observe him and take notice of his presence He knoweth what he doth when he sustaineth such a creature as thou art This thought should continually affect us that God is with us still by us not onely without us but within us preserving our Life upholding our Being It should be a check to our sluggishness and mispense of Time doth God now continue me to what end and purpose If God were absent or gone it were more justifiable to loiter or indulge the ease of the flesh but to spend my time vainly and foolishly which he continueth for service what have we to say SERMON V. COL 1.18 And he is the Head of the Body the Church who is the beginning the first-born from the dead that in all things he might have the preheminence THE Context is spent in representing the Dignity and Excellency of Christ He is set forth by three things 1. By the excellency of the Benefits we have by him the greatest the faln Creature is capable of for the present verse 14. 2. By the excellency of his Person so he is set forth as the eternal and only begotten Son of God verse 15. and proved by his being the Creator and Preserver of all things The Creator verse 16. The Preserver verse 17. Now the Apostle cometh to the third thing 3. The excellency of his Office This is done in the Text where observe that next after the Son of God there is nothing more venerable August then Christs being Head of the Church And again that Christ hath another title to us then that of Creator he is Redeemer also the same God that created us by his power hath Redeemed us by his Mercy By the one he drew us out of nothing by the other he recovered us out of Sin Therefore after he had declared what Christ is to the World and the Church too he sheweth what Christ is particularly to the Church He hath a superiority over Angels and all creatures but he is our head Eph. 1.22 He hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the Church Christ is the Sovereign of the World but by a special relation to his people he is the Head of the Body the Church who is the beginning the first-born from the dead c. In which words Observe 1. The Titles which are given to Christ with respect to the Church he is the Head the Beginning The First-born from the dead 2. The consequence of it That in all things he might have the Preheminence 1. The Titles ascribed to Christ they are three The first is the Head of the Body the Church Where observe two correlates the Head and the Body the head is Christ the Body is the Church the Head is the most eminent part of the Body the noblest both as to nature and place or situation As to nature the Head is the most illustrious Throne of the Soul as being the seat not only of the Nerves and Senses but of the Memory and Understanding In place as nearest Heaven The very situation doth in a manner oblige the other parts to respect it these things agree to Christ who as to his essence is infinitely of much more worth then the Church as being the only begotten Son of God As to Office in him there is a fulness of perfection to perform the Office of an Head to such a crasie and necessitous body as the Church is All the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge are in our head for the use of the body Col. 2.3 and he is also the fountain of Life and Grace to every particular member Ioh. 1.16 and for place he Reigneth in Heaven with his Father and from thence he vieweth all the necessities of the Body and sendeth forth such influences of Grace as are needful to every particular member 2. For the other correlate The Church is the Body by the Church is meant the Church Mystical or all such as are called out of the World to be a peculiar people unto God Now these considered collectively or together they are a body but singlely and separately every Believer is a member of that body 1 Cor. 12.29 Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular all the parts and members joyned together are a spiritual body but the several Persons are members of that Body Yea though there be many particular Churches yet they are not many bodies but one body so it is said 1 Cor. 12.12 As the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that body being many are one body so also is Christ. He is the Head and the many and divers members of the universal Christian Church are but one Body The universal invisible Church of real Believers is one Mystical Body knit by Faith to Christ their Head and by love among themselves And the visible universal Church is one politick Body conjoyned with Christ their Head and among themselves by an external entring into Covenant with God and the serious profession of all saving Truths They have all the same King and Head the same Laws the Word of God the same Sacraments of admission and nutrition which visibly at least they subject themselves unto and have a grant of the same common priviledges in the Gospel but of this more anon 2. The next Title is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Beginning I understand it that he is the root and the beginning of the renewed estate the same degree which Christ hath in the order of nature he hath in the order of grace also he is the beginning both of Creation so also of Redemption he is origo mundi melioris still the beginning and ending of the New creature as well as the old Rev. 1.8 He is called in short the beginning with respect to the Life of Grace as in the next Title the First-born from the dead with respect to the Life of Glory 3. The third Title is the First-born from the dead he had before called him the first-born of every Creature now the first-born from the dead Rev. 1.5 The first begotten from the dead because those that arise from the dead are as it were new-born whence also the Resurrection from the dead is called a Regeneration Matth. 19.20 And St. Paul referreth that Prophesie Psal. 2.7 Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee In Acts
that at length they may acquiesce in the injoyment of one that is God as their chiefest good Alass without this union with the head and among themselves in necessary things what can they expect but wrath and the curse and Everlasting destruction 2. With respect to dependance on one head Rom. 12.5 We being many are one body in Christ and every one members of one another that is all things make up one body of which Christ is the Head and are fellow members in respect of one another As necessary and as desirable as it is to be united to God to Life and Glory Everlasting so necessary and desirable it is to depend upon Christ the Head for no man after the entrance of sin can return to God or enjoy God without Christ the Mediator Iohn 14.6 I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh to the Father but by me Acts 4.12 There is no other name under Heaven by which we can be saved but only Iesus Christ 1 Cor. 3.11 Other foundation can no man lay but that which is layed Iesus Christ 1 Iohn 5.12 He that hath the son hath Life and he that hath not the son hath not Life God proclaimed from Heaven Matth. 3.17 This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased he being one God with the Father and the Spirit of the same substance and essence he only can procure merit and effect our union with God He first assumed our nature and united it to his own Person and so became one flesh with us but then all those that belong to that nature if they believe in him and enter into his Covenant are not onely literally one flesh but Mystically one body and so also one Spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 That is by the bond of the spirit he hath brought them into the state and relation of a body to himself To gather up all Mans return to God is necessary to his blessedness that he may be inseparably conjoyned to him as his chiefest good to this purpose the son of God assumed our nature in the unity of his person and thereby bringeth about the union of the Church with himself as our Head and our communion with one another in Faith and charity if we desire to be blessed and so is according to Christs Prayer Iohn 17.21 That they may be all one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us verse 23. I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one so that as there is one God and one Mediator between God and Men and one Church united to Christ as his body to this Church we must every one of us be united if we mean to be saved and in the Church with Christ and by Christ with God therefore out of this Mysticall body there is no Salvation 2. How is Christ an Head to this Body This must be explained by answering two question 1. What are the parts of his headship 2. According to what nature doth this office belong to him divine or humane 1. The parts and branches of this headship he is our head with respect to Government and sovereignty and in regard of causality and influence he governeth he quickneth 1. It implyes his Authority to Govern as is manifest by Eph. 5.22 23. Wives submit your selves to your own husbands as unto the Lord for the husband is the head of the Wife even as Christ is the head of the Church So that to be the Churches Head implies superiority or right to govern 2. For the other notion in regard of influence that is evident in Scripture also Col. 2.19 Not holding the head from which all the body by joynts and bands having nourishment ministred and knit together increases with the increase of God the head is the root from whence the vital faculty is disfused to all the members We use to say 〈◊〉 arbor inversa a Tree turned upsided 〈…〉 if this be so the Head is the 〈…〉 Tree So doth Life flow from 〈…〉 the Church the spirit is from 〈…〉 begin the union or to conâ—â—nue the 〈…〉 But let us speak of these branches apart 1. His Authority and power to govern his excellency gives him fitness but his Office right to rule and govern the Church When he sent abroad his Officers and Embassadors to Proselyte the World in his name he pleadeth his right Math. 28.18 All power is given to me both in heaven and in Earth Now the acts which belong to Christ as a Governour may be reduced to these heads 1. To make Laws that shall universally bind all his people 2. To institute Ordinances for Worship 3. To appoint Officers 4. To maintain them in the exercise of these things 1. The first power that belongeth to a governing head is Legislation or making Laws now Christs Headship and Empire being novum jus Imperii a new right which he hath as Mediator for the recovery of lapsed mankind his Law is accordingly It is lex remedians a Law of grace which is given us in the Gospel of our Salvation The sum of his own proper remedial Laws are Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and Repentance towards God Acts 20.21 Without Repentance our case is not compassionable without Faith we do not own our Redeemer by whom we have so great a benefit yet because this new right of Empire is accumulative not privative beneficial to us indeed but not destructive of our duty to God therefore the whole Law of God as purely moral hath still a binding force upon the consciences as it is explained in the Word of God Now to these Laws of Christ none can add none diminish and therefore Christ will take an account of our fidelity at the last day 2 Thess. 1.8 2. He hath instituted Ordinances for the continual exercise and regulation of our worship and the Government of his people that they may be kept in the due acknowledgement and obedience to him such as the preaching of the Word Sacraments and the exercise of some Government now all the Rules and Statutes which Christ hath made for the ordering of his people must be kept pure until his coming his institutions do best preserve his honour in the World great charges are left 1 Tim. 5.21 I charge thee before God and our Lord Iesus Christ and his Elect Angels that thou observe these things where he speaketh of Ecclesiastical Censures and Disciplines he conjureth him by all that is sacred and holy that it be rightly used 1 Tim. 6.14 Keep this commandment without spot and unrebukaâ—le unto the appearing of Iesus Christ. The Doctrines are so determined by Christ that they cannot be changed the Worship not corrupted the Discipline not abused to serve partial Humors and private or worldly Interests 3. God hath appointed Officers who have all their ministries and services under Christ and for Christ Eph. 4.11 He gave some apostles some prophets and some evangelists and some