102 SERMON LXXXVII. PREACHED AT A CHRISTENING. GALATIANS iii. 27. For all ye that are baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. THIS text is a reason of a reason; an argument of an argument; the proposition undertaken by the apostle to prove, is, That after faith is come, we are no longer under the schoolmaster', the law. The reason, by which he proves that, is: For ye are all the sons of God by faith, in Christ Jesus; and then the reason of that, is this text, For all ye that are baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. Here then is the progress of a sanctified man, and here is his standing house; here is his journey, and his lodging; his way, and his end. The house, the lodging, the end of all is faith; for whatsoever is not of faith, is sin. To be sure that you are in the right way to that, you must find yourselves to be the sons of God; and you can prove that by no other way to yourselves, but because you are baptized into Christ. So that our happiness is now at that height, and so much are we preferred before the Jews, that whereas the chiefest happiness of the Jews was to have the law, (for without the law they could not have known sin, and the law was their schoolmaster to find out Christ) we are admitted to that degree of perfection, that we are got above the law; it was their happiness to have had the law, but it is ours, not to need it: they had the benefit of a guide, to direct them, but we are at our journey's end; they had a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ; but we have proceeded so far, as that we are in possession of Christ. The law of Moses therefore binds us not at all, as it is his law; whatsoever binds a Christian, in that law, would have bound him, though there had been no law given to Moses. The ceremonial part of that law, which was in the institution, mortale, (it was mortal, it 1 Ver. 25. might die) and by Christ's determination of those typical things, mortuum (it did die) now also mortiferum, (deadly) so that it is sin to draw any part of that law into a necessity of observation; because the necessary admission of any type, or figure, implies a confession, that that which was signified, or figured, is not yet come; so that that law, and Christ cannot consist together. The judicial law of Moses, was certainly the most absolute, and perfect law of government, which could have been given to that people, for whom it was given; but yet to think, that all states are bound to observe those laws, because God gave them, hath no more ground, than that all men are bound to go clothed in beasts' skins, because God apparelled Adam and Eve in that fashion. And for the moral part of that law, and the abridgement of that moral part, the decalogue, that begun not to have force and efficacy then, when God writ it in the tables, but was always, and always shall be written in the hearts of men; and though God of his goodness, was pleased to give that declaration of it, and that provocation to it, by so writing it, yet if he had not written it, or if (which is impossible) that writing could perish, yet that moral law, those commandments, would bind us, that are Christians, after the expiration of that law, which was Moses' law, as it did (de jure) bind all those which lived, before any written law was. So that he that will perfectly understand, what appertains to his duty, in any of the Ten Commandments, he must not consider that law with any limitation, as it was given to the Jews, but consider what he would have done, if he lived before the tables had been written. For certainly, even in the commandment of the Sabbath, which was accompanied with so many ceremonies amongst the Jews, that part only is moral, which had bound us, though that commandment had never been given; and he that performs that part, keeps the Sabbath; the ceremonial part of it, is not only not necessary; but when it is done with an opinion of necessity, it is erroneous, and sinful. For neither that commandment, nor any other of the ten, began to bind them, when they were written, nor doth bind now, except it bound before that. Thus far then we are directed by this text, (which is as far as we can go in this life) to prove to ourselves, that we have faith, we must prove, that we need not the law; to prove that emancipation, and liberty, we must prove, that we are the sons of God; to prove that ingrafting, and that adoption, we must prove, that we have put on Christ Jesus; and to prove that apparelling of ourselves, our proof is, that we are baptized into him. All proofs must either arrest, and determine in some things confessed, and agreed upon, or else they proceed in infinitum. That which the apostle takes to be that which is granted on all sides, and which none can deny, is this, that to be baptized is to put on Christ and this putting on of Christ, doth so far carry us to that infinitissimum, to God himself, that we are thereby made semen Dei, the seed of God; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom'; and we are translated even into the nature of God, by his precious promises we are made partakers of the divine nature3; yea, we are discharged of all bodily, and earthly incumbrances, and we are made all spirit, yea the spirit of God himself, He that is joined to the Lord, is one spirit with him*. All this we have, if we do put on Christ and we do put on Christ, if we be baptized into him. These then are the two actions which we are now to consider: To be washed. Baptizari, { To be clothed. Induere, is to cover so far, as that covering can reach; a hat covers the head; a glove the hand; and other garments, more; but Christ, when he is put on, covers us all. If we have weak heads, shallow brains, either a silence, and a reservedness, which make the fool and the wise equal, or the good interpretation of friends, which put good constructions upon all that we say, or the dignity of authority, and some great place, which we hold, which puts an opinion in the people, that we are wise, or else we had never been brought thither, these cover our heads, and hide any defect in them. If we have foul hands, we can cover them, with excuses; if they be foul with usurious extortion, we can put on a glove, an excuse, and say, He that borrowed my money, got more by it than I that lent it; if, with bribery in an office, we can cover it and say, He that knew, that I bought my 2 Matt, xiii. 38. 3 2 Pet. i. 4. 41 Cor. vi. 17. office, will be content to let me be a saver by it; if our hands be foul with shedding of innocent blood, as St. Hierome says that Adam eat the apple, Ne contristaretur delicias suas, lest he should over grieve his wife, by refusing it, Ne contristaremur delicias nostras, either because we should not displease another, or because our beloved sin, to which we had married ourselves, did solicit us to it. Particular excuses cover our particular defects, from the sight of men, but to put on Christ, covers us all over, even from the sight of God himself. So that how narrowly soever he search into us, he sees nothing but the whiteness of his Son's innocency, and the redness of his Son's blood. When the prodigal child returned to his father, his father clothed him entirely, and all at once; he put a robe upon him, to cover all his defects: which robe, when God puts upon us, in clothing us with Christ, that robe is not only dignitas quam perdidit Adam, as Augustine says, but it is amictus sapientiæ, as Ambrose enlarges it, it does not only make us as well, as we were in Adam, but it enables us better, to preserve that state; it does not only cover us, that is, make us excusable, for our past, and present sins, but it indues us with grace, and wisdom to keep that robe still, and never to return to our former foulnesses, and deformities. Our first parents Adam and Eve were naked all over; but they were not sensible of all their nakedness, but only of those parts whereof they were ashamed. Nothing but the shame of the world makes us discern our deformities; and only for those faults, which shame makes us take knowledge of, we go about to provide; and we provide nothing but short aprons, as that word signified; and those but of fig-leaves; that which comes first to hand, and that which is withered before it is made, that do we take for an excuse, for an aversion of our own conscience, when she begins to cast an eye, or to examine the nakedness, and deformities of our souls. But when God came to clothe them, their short aprons were extended to coats, that covered them all over, and their fig-leaves to strong skins; for God saw that not only those parts, of which they were already ashamed, needed covering, but that in all their other parts, if they continued naked, and still exposed to the injury, and violence of the weather, they would contract diseases, and infirmities; and therefore God covers them so throughly, as he doth not only provide for reparation of former inconveniences, but prepare against future. And so perfect effects doth this garment, Christ Jesus, work upon us, if we put him on; he doth not only cover original sins, (which is the effect of those disobedient members, which derive sin upon us, in the sinful generation of our parents) but he covers all our actual sins, which we multiply every day: and not only those, which the world makes us ashamed of, but which we hide from the world; yea which we hide from ourselves; that is, sins, which by a long custom of practice, we commit so habitually, and so indifferently, as that we have forgot, that they are sins. But as it was in Adam's clothing there, so must it be in our spiritual putting on of Christ. The word used there, labash, doth not signify that God clothed Adam, nor that Adam clothed himself; but as the grammarians call it, it is in Hiphil, and it signified Induere fecit eos; God caused them to be clothed, or God caused them to clothe themselves; which is also intimated, nay evidently expressed in the words of this text; we are ourselves poor, and impotent creatures, we cannot make ourselves ready; we are poor and beggarly creatures, we have nothing to put on; Christ is that garment; and then Christ is the very life, by which we stretch out our arms and our legs, to put on that garment; yea he puts it on upon us, he doth the whole work: but yet he doth not thrust it on: he makes us able to put it on: but if we be not willing, then he puts no necessity upon our will: but we remain naked still. Induere then, to put on, is an extension, a dilatation over all; and sometimes it signifies an abundant, and overflowing, and overwhelming measure of God's judgments upon us, Princeps induetur desolatione, The prince shall be clothed with desolation and with astonishment': but most commonly, the rich and allsufficient proportion of his mercies and spiritual benefits: as he expressed it to his apostles, at his ascension, Stay you in the city, quousque induamini virtute ex alto; till ye be indued (so we 5 Ezek. vii. 27, and xvi. 16. |