The Fifth Sermon on the First Chapter - Ephesians 1:13-14
become our brethren and fellows. God has given them charge to guide and maintain us in all our ways, to watch over us, and to be in continual battle to withstand all the enemies that make war against us until we are all gathered together into the rest of heaven.
Now let us cast ourselves down before the majesty of our good God with acknowledgment of our faults, praying Him to make us feel them so deeply that it may draw us to true repentance, and make us continue the same all the time of our life. Yet, notwithstanding, may we not cease to trust in Him and to offer ourselves boldly in His sight, forasmuch as our sins are scoured out by the blood that was shed for the washing of them.
May we so frame ourselves to this doctrine that we may all the time of our life acknowledge, that seeing He has purchased us so dearly, we ought to give ourselves wholly to His service. Seeing He has shown Himself to be such a good Redeemer towards us, may we not doubt that He will continue His goodness from day to day, to the full finishing of the work that He has begun, and strengthen us in all assaults, until He has delivered us from the cruelty of Satan and all his upholders. May He quite and clean take us out of the world to make us partakers of the happy blessedness to which He calls us.
May it please Him to grant this grace not only to us, but also to all people and nations. Amen.
The Fifth Sermon upon the First Chapter
13. You also do trust in Christ, upon the hearing of the word of truth, that is to say, of the glad tidings of your salvation, by believing whereof you also are sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise.
14. Which is the earnest penny of our inheritance, unto the redeeming of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.
We have seen heretofore how St. Paul has declared that there is no other ground of our salvation than God's free goodness, and that we must not seek anywhere else for the cause why He chooses one and forsakes another. For it becomes us to hold ourselves contented with His only will, purpose, and unchangeable determination. And whosoever goes any further must needs stumble into such a dungeon through his own rashness, as he shall feel that those who cannot honour God's majesty and everlasting ordinance with all lowliness and reverence must come to shame. Therefore, whenever we come to the searching of the cause of our salvation, let us learn to attribute it altogether to God.
It is true that to be God's children and heirs, it behoves us to be of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is done by faith. But we cannot believe the Gospel unless God draws us to it by His Holy
Spirit. Now we see that He deals not alike with all men. For He could very well enlighten all the world and bring to pass that there should be no unbelievers at all, but we see the contrary. Therefore, let us assure ourselves that He chooses whom He pleases. If a man should ask the reason why He does it, it would be too lofty a presumption, and that is the very cause that makes so many overweening folk break their own necks, for they cannot find in their hearts to grant
that God governs men according to His own will, as of good right He may full well.
Furthermore, St. Paul has heretofore set the Jews and Gentiles both on one even ground, and that is a thing that requires yet longer discourse. For seeing that God had chosen Abraham's offspring, it might have been thought that there had been some worthiness in them. Surely if we have an eye to the special favour that God showed to the Jews, they are well worthy to be preferred before all the rest of the world. But if a man takes them as they are of themselves, he shall find them void of all righteousness. For we must always come back to this point, that God is not bound nor beholden to any man at all, and His receiving of the Jews by free adoption is not because they were better worth than other men or because they might make any manner of vaunt at all of themselves.
Therefore, you see why St. Paul says expressly that those who believed in Jesus Christ in times past are comprehended under God's election, as well as the others, and that the others cannot boast themselves to be more worthy or to have deserved more than they, but that all must come to this point: that as well of the Jews as of the Gentiles, God chooses whom He likes and pleases, so that nothing should be considered in that behalf but His only mercy, and that all mouths might be stopped, and no man be able to allege that he brought anything of his own.
However, when St. Paul enters into this comparison between the Jews and the Gentiles, he says that if a man has an eye to God's accepting of the Jews for His own peculiar heritage, they were a holy lineage, and He had given them His law and promises, by means whereof they were in a more excellent and high degree than all the residue whom He had forsaken and shaken off. But if we have an eye
unto God, all man's glory must needs be laid awater. St. Paul in that place speaks only of the forgiving of our sins and of our embracing of God's grace by faith, which things he shows cannot be attributed to any other cause than God's pitying of us.
Also, we have seen heretofore in the Epistle to the Galatians how St.
Paul said to Peter, "We are Jews by nature." For inasmuch as it was a common opinion that the Jews were a holy lineage because they were descended from Abraham's race, very well (says he), however the case stands, we have no other refuge nor assurance of salvation but to believe in Jesus Christ, for he knew well that men are utterly undone and lost in themselves, bringing nothing with them but God's wrath and curse.
Therefore, like as in those texts, St. Paul has shown that men beguile themselves if they imagine that they have any desert or worthiness in them. So now, for the better confirmation of the same doctrine and to take away all disputing and to beat back all replyings, he brings us to this wellspring: namely, that God not only gives faith to whom He pleases, but also has elected and chosen us before the making of the world.
You see then that the thing which we have to mark in effect is that all men, from the most to the least, are indebted to God, and there is none so holy or excellent that can exempt himself from that general state of men.
Now hereupon St. Paul magnifies God's goodness, in that the Ephesians were gathered together and made all one with those that were held and accounted before as God's people and the household of His Church. Before the Ephesians believed the Gospel, there was a great diversity between them, as shall be declared more at large in the second chapter. But notwithstanding that the believing Jews,
who had already been converted to our Lord Jesus Christ, were as brethren to the angels of heaven, for as much as they were members of the head that was common to them both, whereas in the meantime the Ephesians were poor wretches, shut out from all hope of salvation, enemies of God, and plunged in all cursedness. Behold,
God took away that diversity and arranged them both in one array.
God's goodness, therefore, was so much the more manifest in that He did so gather back those who were drowned in the bottom of hell to match them with His own children and to make them fellow heirs of His heavenly kingdom.
That, therefore, is the cause why St. Paul, having spoken of such as had believed in Jesus Christ before, tells us expressly that God has gathered and established His Church in such a way that it well appears that the greatest depend wholly upon Him and have no other thing to rest upon than His only mercy, and that those who were after a sort cast away, yea and abhorred, have cause to glorify Him, seeing He has delivered them from the confusion wherein they were.
Herewithal St. Paul shows that the thing which he had said before is verified unto us by the effects of God's grace. For (as I have said before) our election is a secret thing, yea and incomprehensible.
When men have inquired of it as much as is possible, surely they must needs fail in their own imaginations if they mind to enter into the said everlasting ordinance of God. And therefore it is not lawful for us to seek any further than the Scripture guides us and shows us the way. You see then that God's choosing of us is hidden in Himself, but yet He yields us records of it by the gifts of grace which He bestows upon us, such as faith, which is a gift of the Holy Ghost.
Mark that for one point.
Now, were it but such a gift, as when He makes His sun to shine both upon the good and the bad, or as when He causes the earth to bring
forth fruit indifferently for all men, the same ought also to be reckoned among the gifts and benefits of God. But faith is a singular gift, which is not bestowed commonly upon all men, but is reserved by God as a jewel for those whom He likes well of. And what is the cause of it? We are all the children of Adam, and we are all of one mould. Why then does He enlighten one sort and let the other alone in their blindness? There is no other cause but His own choice. So then although we cannot conceive either by wit or by reason how
God has chosen us before the making of the world, yet we know it by His showing of it unto us, and experience itself avouches it sufficiently, inasmuch as we are enlightened by faith. What is the cause that I receive the Gospel and stick to it, and in the meantime others abide still in their beastly blockishness, or rather bear a spiteful rancour against the doctrine of salvation?
If I imagine that it comes of my own towardness, I am a traitor to God. For we must always come back to that which we have seen already and say, "Who is he that has made thee to excel others?" St.
Paul then, in that saying, pulls down all loftiness of man, to the end that no man should advance himself nor allege that he has aught of his own. We must not think (says he) that we have any worthiness of ourselves, but that every bit of it comes from God. Therefore in this text St. Paul shows by experience how the Ephesians had been chosen by God and that it behoved them to have their whole faith grounded thereupon, that is to wit, upon God's free goodness. And for proof thereof (says he) you have heard the doctrine of the Gospel and believed it. But how comes that to pass? He shows that it must needs be that they were confirmed by the Holy Ghost. Now, if they were confirmed, it was of necessity that the Holy Ghost must have worked beforehand. And so it is to no purpose to enter into so deep a maze as God's everlasting ordinance. For He shows us as it were with His finger how He has chosen us, at least wise if we do not act
ungratefully with Him, but acknowledge the good that He has done us and be fully persuaded and resolved in ourselves that there is no other cause of it than that He had given us His mark from before all everlastingness, that is to say, that He had reserved us to Himself as His own children.
Now then we see St. Paul's meaning: and therefore let us learn to leave making of long ranges when the case concerns our imputing of all things to God's only mere mercy. For the faith that we have does show it well enough; because (as I have said before) the same comes not from our own mother wit, but as a gift that comes from above, and such a one as God does not communicate to all men without exception, but only to those He pleases.
Furthermore, there are many words here worth weighing. On one side, St. Paul intends to magnify the grace of the Holy Ghost by showing that we can have no part or portion in our Lord Jesus
Christ, nor in any of all the benefits that He has purchased for us, except God puts us in possession of our salvation by His Holy Spirit.
That, therefore, is one point. Yet notwithstanding, St. Paul does not fail to show the inestimable benefit that we have by the Gospel, in that he terms it the word of truth and the glad tidings of salvation.
First of all, he meant to assure us so that we might have an infallible warrant to call upon God without doubting or grudge of conscience.
For so long as we are in doubt whether God loves us or hates us, it is impossible for us to pray truly to Him. And so, by that means, you see how our salvation is utterly defeated, according to what is said by the Prophet Joel. It is a common doctrine in the Holy Scripture that we cannot obtain salvation but by fleeing to God with prayer and supplication. But we would be shut out from that if we did not have the said warrant, as we shall see more fully in the third chapter.
Therefore, it stands us in good stead to be thoroughly assured that God is our Father and that He accepts us as His children. And how shall we be warranted that unless the doctrine of the Gospel is so certain in all points that it is not lawful for us to bring it into question? That, therefore, is the cause why St. Paul says that it is the word of truth.
No doubt there are other truths also, for even when God threatens us, He does it not in jest nor in vain, for both His threatenings and His promises have their execution sure and certain. However, forasmuch as the present case concerned the correcting of all distrust in us, as we are too much inclined to it, St. Paul has termed the Gospel the doctrine of truth, as if he should say, "My friends, God is a faithful witness unto you of His own will, for the Gospel is as much as if He laid forth His heart unto you; and therefore settle yourselves upon it." Moreover, he says that our salvation lies enclosed in the Gospel, and that is to make us love it and esteem it. For should we be so witless, or rather stark mad, as to hold in scorn our own welfare?
But yet notwithstanding, he says that all this comes of God's mere mercy and of His everlasting election, which as in respect of ourselves is far off and unknown to us, but we have knowledge of it by the Gospel, which is the means and instrument thereof. For to what purpose were it that our Lord Jesus Christ has offered Himself in sacrifice to reconcile the world to God His Father, unless we were made partakers of it by faith? Now, faith is not an opinion of man's conceiving in his own brain, but a settled belief that God cannot lie nor deceive us, and that it is not to be feared that our hope shall not come to a good end if we wait upon Him.
So then, to be short, St. Paul's intent was to show that if we have the skill to make our profit of the doctrine of the Gospel, we shall no
longer stand in murmuring and perplexity, but shall be able to call upon God with open mouth, acknowledging ourselves so bound and wholly indebted to Him in all things, as we fear not but that He avows us for His children, and that we are accepted at His hand, and that He hears us in all the prayers that we make unto Him.
Thus much concerning the first point. Therefore, according to St.
Paul's exhortation, let us learn to rest in such wise upon the doctrine of the Gospel that it may be as much to us as if God showed Himself visibly unto us and that the heavens were opened unto us. And let us always bear in mind how it is announced by the mouth of our Lord
Jesus Christ Himself that whenever sins are forgiven by the preaching of the Gospel, the same is out of hand ratified in heaven.
Thus you see what certainty we ought to have, that we are no more doubtful whether God will hear us or no. But just as the Gospel teaches us to believe, so also St. Paul shows us that we ought to esteem it as an incomparable treasure, forasmuch as it is the power of God, tending to the salvation of all that believe, as he speaks of it in the first chapter to the Romans.
Seeing then that we are forlorn and undone of ourselves, and there is no other means to call us back again to God but by the Gospel, let us set store by that treasure and be well advised to make our profit of it.
And in so doing, let us boldly despise both the Devil himself and all his temptations which he practices against us, seeing that God calls us and has given us a sufficient record of His fatherly love and goodwill towards us.
But let us come to the second part, which I touched upon briefly. For St. Paul shows that besides God's gracious act of having the Gospel preached to us, it is necessary for Him also to work by His Holy
Spirit and by special grace. Indeed, we shall find many who will
readily grant that God was not moved to send us His Gospel upon any other cause than His own mere free goodness. But they surmise that the reason why some receive it and some do not is because their own free will plays the decisive role, and by that means, God's grace is diminished.
For God does not offer us His grace as a man would offer an apple to little children so that the one who can run best should come and have it. If God were to cast it out so, it is certain that the greatest part of our salvation would proceed from our own power and policy, and the commendation thereof would redound to ourselves.
Now then, after St. Paul has shown that God has called, and daily does call us to the inheritance of His heavenly kingdom, and that His doing so proceeds from His own mere free goodness, he adds further that it is necessary for us to be touched by His Holy Spirit. Indeed, he sets down but one part of the grace of the Holy Ghost: and that is because he had set down the other part before. For he has not in this discourse forgotten anything that belongs to his matter, but he began with God's free goodness, with which we are all filled, and showed that faith springs out of the said fountain of free election.
And now, for the second part, he adds that God's enlightening of us by His Holy Spirit, so that whereas we were blind, He has printed His grace in our hearts, and bowed and bent them to obeying Him, is not enough for us. Moreover, He must be willing to confirm us and strengthen our faith, by giving us an invincible constancy to hold out to the end.
You see then that the point to which St. Paul brings us is that besides our receiving of faith at the hand of the Holy Ghost, and besides His enlightening of us by His grace, which I have spoken of already, He also steadies us in such a way that we do not fall away.
For a better understanding of this, we must first recall what has been treated at length already: that is, that so long as God lets us alone in our own state and plight, we are blind wretches wandering in darkness. And whatever is preached or spoken to us, we remain as blocks in our brutishness. For the sensual man shall never understand anything that belongs to God or to his own salvation.
You see then how we are utterly barred and excluded from the heavenly light until God pities us and gives us the spirit of light and insight. Mark that for the first point. However, as that point has been discussed before, it suffices to do no more than to remind you of it.
Now there is yet another point, which is that when we have once embraced God's grace by faith, so that we know that our Lord Jesus
Christ is He in whom we find all that is requisite to make us perfectly happy, it stands us in good stead to be established in the same. Why?
Let us note how wavering men are. He who is best disposed to follow God shall by and by fall, because we are so frail that the devil will overthrow us every minute of an hour if God does not hold us up by a strong hand. For that reason, it is said that God demonstrates His power in maintaining us when He has chosen us and given us to our
Lord Jesus Christ. For if He did not fight for us, alas, what would become of us? We should be confounded out of hand, and we should not take one or two falls, but infinite falls, as I said before. As soon as we were in the way of salvation, we would be turned out of it immediately by our own frailty, lightness, and inconstancy unless we were held back and God worked in us so that we might, by His Holy
Spirit, overcome all the assaults of the devil and the world.
Thus, God's Spirit works doubly in us as it pertains to faith. For He enlightens us to make us understand the things that would otherwise be hidden from us, and to receive God's promises with all obedience.
That is the first working. The second is that the same Spirit is compelled to continue in us and to give us perseverance so that we do not falter in the middle of our journey. That, then, is the matter
St. Paul addresses now. As if he should say, "My friends, you have known God's grace, and you have had experience of it, and that He has drawn you to the obedience of His Gospel. For you had never come to it if He had not shown Himself merciful towards you. But yet assure yourselves that He doubles His grace, in that He gives you the power to hold out in the same. For had you continued but two or three days, or two or three years, yea or more: it must necessarily be that God helped you therein, for else you should always have been in a wavering state, yea, and as poor wretches at your wit's end, without any certainty at all, but that God has promised to have a care for you, and to guide you continually till you have come to your journey's end, and have accomplished your course."
That, therefore, is the reason why he says here that they were sealed or signed by the Holy Ghost. Now it behooves us to mark well the analogy that St. Paul uses. For we know that documents are made authentic by seals, and that has been the case in all times. True it is that men did not set them in such a manner as they do nowadays.
But yet, in place of signing them with their own hands, they delivered their seal or a ring, and that was the manner of the publication of testaments, and of other documents, and of all bargains and covenants.
In this respect, St. Paul says that we must be sealed in our hearts.
True it is, that to speak properly, he should have said that the Gospel was sealed. However, to the end to show that the fault comes and springs from ourselves, and that the Gospel is a doctrine of sufficient authority of itself, he intended to show us that God's sealing of His truth is in respect of our hard-heartedness and inconstancy, for we
are shaken with every wind like wavering reeds until such time as He has strengthened us. But however the case stands, let us note that the Holy Ghost is as it were the seal with which He ratifies and warrants
His truth unto us.
Now I have told you already how greatly we stand in need thereof.
For although we grant that God's Word deserves to be admitted without gainsaying or reply, yet we cease not to doubt it, and that we find well enough by experience. For whenever any trouble or vexation comes, we are as dismayed, whereas if we were thoroughly persuaded of God's goodness in such wise as He assures us of it, it is certain that we should not be in any such fear. All the temptations then which shake us show well enough that we do not profit as we ought to do in the Gospel. And therefore, God is compelled to warrant it on His behalf by His Holy Spirit, and to print it so surely in our hearts, that we may be steadfast, and as that same steadfastness may not be beaten down by all that ever the devil can work or devise to overthrow it.
But we shall understand this thing yet better by continually examining our own weakness, as I have spoken of before. For take all the reasons of the world, and yet shall we never be certified so fully and perfectly as is requisite, that God will be merciful to us and defend us in the midst of all the perils of this world. For we are here as it were in a sea, the winds and storms assail us every minute, and we are still in danger of being swallowed up. How then may we despise Satan, being as wretched sheep unprovided with both armour, weapon, and all other means of help? How can we be merry both in life and death, knowing that Satan might do anything against us, if we were not well sealed, and after an authentical manner?
So then, besides that in this text we are warned to rid ourselves of all presumption and overweening, that only God may be praised and magnified, we may also gather therewith upon St. Paul's words, that we have armour and weapons with which to encounter and fight well, and that although our enemy is mighty and sturdy, yet he shall never overcome us, if we take advantage of what is said here, namely that God's Spirit seals the truth, and the certainty of the promises of the Gospel in us.
And St. Paul adds yet another analogy, saying that God's Spirit is as an earnest penny. Let us not find it strange that St. Paul has so mightily confirmed this doctrine, for the devil has never ceased from the beginning of the world to puff men up continually with some fond opinion of their own wisdom and virtue. The cause of Adam's fall was that he would advance himself higher than was lawful for him and be wiser than God, which God did not permit him to do.
Even so, the case stands with us, and the devil still pursues his challenge. For behold, he overthrew mankind by that sleight, and all his endeavour still is to make us believe that we are able to do this and that. Therefore, it stood St. Paul in good stead to rid men of that false and cursed opinion of their own free will and self-virtue and to show them that they are beholden to the Holy Ghost for all. Mark that for one point.
Secondly, we are so gross and earthly that we need to have the doctrine chewed for us, and we cannot conceive any more of God's gracious gifts, which are invisible, than we see with our eyes and touch with our hands. Therefore, it was necessary that St. Paul should by analogies declare how it is God's Holy Spirit that puts us in possession of the Gospel and of all the benefits contained therein, and who holds us in them until the end.
Now we know that bargains are confirmed by the giving of an earnest penny, which men commonly call a God's penny. In buying either lands, houses, inheritances, or goods, although a man's bare word ought to suffice, yet notwithstanding, men are so ill-disposed that if they perceive any disadvantage to themselves in the matter, they will not be ashamed to eat their word. Therefore, this ceremony of giving an earnest penny was added, and it is as if the payment were fully performed, so the bargain is utterly past calling back again. St. Paul then means here that God's Spirit serves to warrant our salvation to the full.
To what end? For your inheritance (says he) to the day of your redemption. It is true that we are God's heirs even in that we are His children. But we must note how it is said in the eighth chapter to the Romans, that our salvation is shut up under hope. So then, we cannot see it, nor enjoy it now, according to the third chapter of the Colossians, where it is said that we are like dead men who have departed out of this world, and that our life is hidden with God in Christ. Therefore, although we are God's children, yet we do not have the full enjoyment of it yet. And it is all one with what St. John says in his canonical Epistle. We know (says he), whereby he shows that our faith is not doubtful.
But yet he adds that it is not yet seen (or it does not yet appear), but we must wait for the day when we shall be like unto God, and then we shall have light to see the thing perfectly, which we now only believe. Again, we have seen how St. Paul said in the second chapter to the Corinthians, that as long as we are in this earthly pilgrimage, we are (after a sort) absent from God. For why? We walk (says he) but in hope, and we do not see the thing as if it were present, but we see it by faith. To be short, although we have passed from death to life (as is said in the fifth chapter of John), yet we fight against an
infinite number of deaths because we are besieged by them. And St.
Paul well matches both together in this text. For on the one side he says we are not yet come to our redemption and heritage, and yet nonetheless he shows that we are sure of it, and that nothing but our own unthankfulness prevents us from fully glorifying God, and saying with full assurance that we do not doubt our coming to the heavenly life, forasmuch as we have an earnest penny thereof by the Holy Ghost, and are so knit to our Lord Jesus Christ, that all the goods which He has belong to us and are made common to us by faith.
Therefore, let us mark well what is contained in these words of St.
Paul. He says that the Holy Ghost is our earnest penny. Seeing it is so, we must needs be sure of our redemption, whereof we shall have the possession at the last day, yea even to the full: and that does the thing itself show sufficiently. For we are but silly worms of the earth, we are compassed about with rottenness and corruption, we are beset with so many miseries as is pitiful to see, the world rails upon us and mocks us and our simplicity, we are fain to endure hunger and thirst, it often seems that God has forsaken us, and after a sort cut us off, yea, and that He vouchsafes not to pity us, as the most despised creatures of the world. Look at what point we are at to outward appearance. And therefore it stands us in good stead to have a remedy, to warrant ourselves withal in the midst of so many perplexities and heartgriefs. That is the cause why St. Paul says purposely, that the Holy Ghost is our earnest penny. Although then that the world has the bridle loose to trample us under its feet, as they say: although our Lord keeps us occupied with many temptations: although He humbles us in such wise, as it may seem that we are as sheep appointed to the slaughter, so as death is continually between our teeth: yet we are not unprovided of good remedy.
For why? Seeing that the Holy Ghost reigns in our hearts, we have whereof to boast even in the midst of all our temptations, according as it is said in the eighth chapter to the Romans, that being once assured that God takes us for His children, we may not only call upon Him, but also although we are afflicted and tormented, yet we cease not to be always fully and infallibly resolved that He is our Father, to lead us to the glory of heaven: for even that also is a means whereby our hope is tried.
Furthermore, we are also warned to walk in patience, and that since God has given us His Holy Spirit as an earnest penny, we must not be as hasty and impatient as we are wont to be. For if God handles us roughly, by and by we fall to grudging, and are very loath to suffer anything: for we see how tender and nice we are by nature. But we must endure patiently, because God will not have us come to His kingdom in one leap, as they say, but will have us pass through this world amid thorns and briars, so that we shall have much to do to get through, and we shall be in great distress.
Seeing that He will have us led in such a way, and yet nonetheless gives us so good a remedy as ought to suffice us, which is that He strengthens us in invincible constancy by His Holy Spirit, let us stand ready to fight till the time of victory is fully come. It is true that our faith even now already gets the upper hand, but we do not yet receive the fruits of it, nor do we fully enjoy it. Therefore, we must determine with ourselves to sigh and groan continually, and yet nonetheless to rejoice also. For why? To rejoice in our hearts, and also to cry with St. Paul, "Alas, wretched wretch that I am, who shall deliver me from this prison of my body," are things that may match very well together.
Therefore, let every one of us mourn, and be grieved at heart, for that we are still so much given to our wicked lusts, and to the number of vices that are in us. And yet nonetheless let us cease not to say that we thank God, and to be contented with His giving of such a portion unto us as ought to suffice us, and to tarry His leisure till He accomplishes and performs the thing that He has begun, seeing we have His Holy Spirit so dwelling in us, with a promise that we shall never be destitute of Him unto the end. Thus, you see how we are here encouraged to take heart and to walk in such constancy, as all the miseries of the world may not stop us from it, till we come to our race's end.
And that is the cause why St. Paul speaks purposely of redemption. It is true that we are redeemed by our Lord Jesus Christ, and He is given us for our redemption or ransom, as is said in another text. Yet nonetheless we have not the effect and full fruition of it yet. Then, there is a double redemption: one which was accomplished in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, and another which we wait for, and which shall be shown upon us at His coming again. According to which St. Paul says in the eighth chapter to the Romans, that although we groan and are held down in anguish, yet we must not be dismayed at it, nor think it strange, because all creatures (says he) do bear us company, and are as a woman in travail of childbirth. For we see that all the world is subject to corruption through the sin of Adam.
Seeing then it is so, let us not quail in our groanings, but let us so measure our affections as to hold ourselves contented in that we have our redemption purchased in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, and thereupon trust that He will accomplish the same thing in us and in our persons, which He has brought us in His own. The thing therefore that St. Paul meant to say is that God's Spirit is our earnest
penny during the time that we wait to be taken out of this transitory life, and to be set free from all miseries, especially from the bondage of sin, which is the heaviest burden that can be. Until such time then as we are delivered from all those things, we must rest upon this, that God's Spirit dwells in us.
And as for the redemption of purchase, it may well be taken for purchased redemption, for it is a very common manner of speech: like as when it is said, the Spirit of promise, it is meant, the Spirit that assures or warrants all the promises: The Spirit of the fear of God, because it is He that makes us obedient to His righteousness.
So likewise when he speaks of the redemption of purchase, it may well be said that it is the redemption which was purchased for us, to show that if we feel the effect of it in ourselves, so as we be out of all doubt of the things that Jesus Christ has done for us, we must not mistrust that He has suffered in vain. For surely His suffering would be to no purpose at all towards us, unless it came unto us, so as it might redound to our profit, and we enjoy it.
That therefore is the thing that is purchased in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And yet in the meantime, as in respect of ourselves, He reins us in short, to the end that we should not through our own unthankfulness refuse the benefit that God offers us, that is to wit, our rejoicing in our afflictions, because we know that our salvation is sure, nor repine against God and blaspheme Him, but walk on quietly till we are delivered from this prison wherein we are, and until we are fully set free by being gathered together in our Lord
Jesus Christ.
Now let us cast ourselves down before the majesty of our good God, with acknowledgment of our faults, praying Him to make us feel them more and more, even so far as to bring us to utter disliking of