by Edward Reynolds
in ePub, .mobi & .pdf formats
OR, THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE SAINTS WITH HIM, IN HIS LIFE, SUFFERINGS AND RESURRECTION.
Updated to modern English
These words we see contain a Doctrine of the greatest consequence to the Soul of Man in the whole Scriptures, and that which is indeed the sum of them all. They contain the sum of man's desires, Life, and the sum of God's mercies, Christ, and the sum of man's duty, Faith; Christ the Fountain, Life the Derivation, and Faith the Conveyance.
Whatever things are excellent and desirable, are in the Scripture comprised under the name of Life, as the lesser under the greater; for Life is better than meat, and the body than mere sustenance. And whatever Excellencies can be named, we have them all from Christ. In Him, says the Apostle, are hidden the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Hidden, not to the purpose that they may not be found, but to the purpose that they may be sought. And we may note from the expression, that Christ is a Treasurer of his Father's Wisdom; He has Wisdom, as the King's treasurer has wealth, as an Officer, a Depository, a Dispenser of it to the friends and servants of his father. He is made unto us Wisdom. The Apostle says that in him there are unsearchable riches, an inexhaustible treasury of Grace and Wisdom. And there needs to be a treasure of riches in him, for there is a treasure of sin in us: so our Saviour calls it, the treasure of an evil heart. He was full of Grace and Truth. Not as a vessel, but as a Fountain, and as a Sun; to note that He was not only full of Grace, but that the fullness of Grace was in Him. It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. God gave not the Spirit in measure unto Him. And as there is a fullness in Him, so there is a Communion in us, Of his fullness we receive Grace for Grace, that is, as a Child in generation receives from his Parents member for member, or the paper from the Press letter for letter, or the glass from the face image for image; so in regeneration Christ is fully formed in a man, and he receives in some measure and proportion Grace for Grace: there is no Grace in Christ appertaining to general sanctification which is not in some weak degree fashioned in Him. Thus there is to Christ a fullness of Grace answerable to a fullness of sin which is in us. The Prophet calls him a Prince of Peace, not as Moses only was a man of peace, but a Prince of peace. If Moses had been a Prince of peace, how easily might he have instilled peaceable and calm affections into the mutinous and murmuring people? But though he had it in himself, yet he had it not to distribute. But Christ has Peace, as a King has Honours, to dispense and dispose of it to whom he will. Peace I leave with you, my Peace I give unto you. If I should run over all the particulars of Grace or Mercy, we should find them all proceed from him; He is our Passover, says the Apostle. As in Egypt wherever there was the blood of the Passover there was life, and where it was not, there was death; so where this our Passover is, there is life; and where he is not, there is death: To me to live is Christ, says the Apostle; and again, now I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life that I live, I live by the Faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.