The Seventeenth Sermon, which is the second upon the third chapter - Ephesians 3:7-9
May we accept the same without contradiction, and stoop and submit ourselves obediently and simply to the Gospel, that Jesus
Christ may be honored and thoroughly heard among us, so that we may never depart from Him. And may we be so humbled in ourselves that we never seek to be exalted except by His hand. May it please
Him to grant this grace not only to us but also to all people. Amen.
The Seventeenth Sermon, which is the second upon the third chapter.
7. I am made a minister of the Gospel, according to God's grace, which is given me through the working of His power.
8. This grace is given to me, who am the least of all the saints, to preach among the Gentiles the incomprehensible riches of Christ.
9. To open unto all men what the communicating of the mystery is, which was hid from the beginning of all times in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.
I have told you heretofore how St. Paul had an eye to two things, showing that he was certainly appointed to publish the Gospel throughout the whole world, and especially among the Gentiles. For
no man ought to go about to usurp any office in the Church; God alone ought to have that authority. According to the everlasting order which He has set down, let us look to follow the same, so that those who go about to advance themselves may be put down, and no man take any degree upon him but he who is called. Therefore, mark it as a special point that St. Paul meant to excuse himself of rashness by showing that he did not thrust himself in to be an apostle, but had good and sure warrant that God had appointed him thereto.
And withal, he meant to assure the Gentiles, so that they should receive the message of their salvation as proceeding from God, and not from man. For we must always be at this point: that the forgiveness of sins is too precious a thing for us to be assured of by the authority of man. Then we must be fully resolved that it is God who speaks, so that we may conclude that whatever is unbound on earth is also unbound in heaven. And since St. Paul had previously been an enemy to the Gospel, had persecuted the Christians, and blasphemed God, it seemed that this should have impeded the reception of him as an apostle and the yielding of such reputation to him as was requisite. Therefore, he preempts the things that might be alleged to deprive him of all reverence and says that they must not have an eye to his own person or his deserving, but to God's advancing of him by His grace and by a power that is not ordinary among men.
It is true that St. Paul always humbles himself as much as possible so that men may better know God's free-bestowed goodness. And that is also the rule we must hold, because God will have all mouths stopped, and none of us to have anything whereof to boast. For it is certain that we shall evermore but rob God of His honor if we do not confess that we are beholden to Him for all things and that we have nothing at all of our own. But (as I have touched upon already) he
meant here to remove all impediments, so that no man might upbraid him, saying he was unworthy of so excellent and great a dignity as to be one of the apostles. His intent was to show that God's grace surpassed all the impediments that could be in him before.
First, he sets down God's grace. It would have been enough for him to have granted that God had given him so great a prerogative as to hold all things from Him; but he sets down two words here, to exclude all that might be demanded of him. How now? (might some man have said:) such a condition and such qualities ought to be in an apostle: do you have such virtue? And so you see why he was not content simply to set down the gift but also felt the need to add "freebestowed." And afterward, he magnifies the same gift even more, saying that God worked therein according to the working of His power. To be short, he gives men to understand that they ought to perceive a singular and wonderful goodness of God in him, and withal, a power not ordinary among men. Those are the two points which we have to mark. Now, forasmuch as in the first to Timothy he says also that he himself both is and ought to serve us all as a looking glass, let us learn to apply the same to ourselves.
And first of all, whatever we ask of God, let us understand that it must issue to us from the wellspring of His only mercy and free bounty, so that we should forget all self-deserving. For it is the surest way to shut ourselves out from the door when we come to God if we imagine to bring anything of ourselves. Mark that as one point. And secondly, to amend all distrust, let us hope that God will do more than all our wits can conceive. For it is not in us to measure His infinite power; and therefore, whatever He has given us already, let us think ourselves beholden to His goodness for it, let us do Him homage for it, and let us yield Him the praise of it, as is meet. And so you see that the thing which we have to gather upon Saint Paul's example is that we must with all humility beseech God to work so in
us by own His mere grace that His name may be glorified thereby, because there is no deserving to be found in us. Also, let us be in no doubt that His power surpasses all our capacity, so that we may give
Him place and entrance in every way and not shut Him out from us through our unbelief.
Know we once that? Has God shown us His mercy and power and made us to feel them by experience? Let us put them to use to the utmost of our power, and let us not seek to deface His glory under the pretense that He has made us more excellent than others, as though we had deserved anything of ourselves. But let us yield Him
His due and that which ought to be His peculiar own.
And withal, to continue his matter, he adds that this grace was given to him, even to him the least of all the saints. This serves to expound that which he had said concerning the gift of grace. Now, hereupon we have to mark that if we intend to yield God that which we owe
Him, we must be utterly abased in ourselves. For as long as men fall to parting of stakes with God and will needs be somewhat of themselves, it is all one as if they would set themselves against God and be their own curers. To be short, God never has His full right except we be rid quite and clean of all. Therefore, a man cannot discern how Saint Paul held all things of God's mere grace and free gift, but by considering his former slenderness, that is to say, by considering what manner of man he had been, and what his estate had been before. And this is a point of great importance: for we see how men covet always to reserve somewhat to themselves. And although they grant that God deserves to be exalted without end, yet they cannot find in their hearts to forgo the whole praise of the things that He has given them, but would fain be esteemed and have some reputation for them. Seeing that we are so much given to vainglory, and that there is not a harder thing for us to do than to
humble ourselves with such lowliness as God requires, it is essential for us to mark this doctrine all the more, wherein we see that God shall never be honored as He deserves until we are thrust down under His feet, and have nothing for which to be esteemed, but become like wretched creatures that have nothing in us but misery, whereby God may have occasion to show forth His mercy upon us.
Lo, how Saint Paul yielded the praise of all things to God's free gift without hypocrisy, by acknowledging himself to be the least of all others.
And let us also mark that Saint Paul's doing so was not a feigned modesty, after the manner of most men, who will commonly say and make as it were a proverb of it, "O sir, I am the meanest and least able of all men," and yet in so saying with their mouths, they cease not to have their hearts puffed up with pride. In so much that, in very deed, if a man should answer them, "I believe it well," they would be as hot as a toast and had liever be found liars than to give up their self-worship, with which they are so full. Saint Paul used no such ceremony full of untruth, but protested truly the thing as he thought it, accordingly as in another place to the Corinthians he says he is not worthy to be named an Apostle because he had persecuted God's
Church and withstood His truth. And again, when he sets forth himself for an example in the first to Timothy, to the end that we should not doubt but that God shows Himself merciful towards us, he says he had blasphemed the Gospel and been full of cruelty, seeking to shed innocent blood. There, then, Saint Paul shows well enough that there was no counterfeit in his confession and that his lowliness proceeded from his heart. For he would have chosen to be out of estimation to the worldward and to have received all manner of reproach to himself, yea, and to have been taken for a cursed captive, rather than to have disgraced God's goodness. And like as his doctrine was to endure forever, so he meant to have his wants to
be known in all ages and all times until the world's end, referring all things to this point, namely, that men might know how God had set him, as it were, upon a scaffold to warrant us that He will show
Himself as free-hearted towards us also at this day: and that on the other side, we should not be ashamed to be acknowledged of our own wretchedness, to the intent that God's grace may have the greater gloss in us. Wherefore, let us remember upon this text, that we do then offer God such a sacrifice of praise as He deserves, when we protest truly and unfeignedly that all the good which is in us comes of His grace, who has bestowed it upon us, and that we cannot challenge anything at all to ourselves: but that when we have examined all that is our own, we shall find no other things at all than such as may cause us to cast down our eyes and make us ashamed.
After this manner, say I, must we follow the thing that Saint Paul shows us here. Yea, and let not spite nor vainglory hinder us to humble ourselves among our neighbors. For here Saint Paul has not only shown that he was indebted to God for all things, and that he was bound to Him for all the good things that he had, because they came from His only mere goodness and free gift: but also therewith abases himself in comparison with the rest of the Apostles. Now then, let us rid away this cursed affection which is overly deeply rooted in our nature, namely, of desiring to perk up in such wise as men should look at us above other men, and commend us more than others. For we see how Saint Paul, who was so excellent, did notwithstanding stoop to that lowliness; wherefore let us endeavor to fashion ourselves like him. And let us think well upon this saying of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he who will be exalted of God must be brought low in himself. So then, let us be little ones of our own accord, and then it is certain that God will reach us His hand. And although He send us neither stateliness nor dignity, yet will He give us so much thereof as shall be needful, at leastwise if we have the
true meekness of seeking nothing else but to be governed by His hand.
But here it might be demanded, how Saint Paul acknowledges himself a little one, seeing he has done more than all the rest, as he himself says in the afore-alleged place of the first to the Corinthians.
Saint Paul was not ignorant of the gracious gifts that he had received at God's hand, nor did he mean to abase them with his mouth as hypocrites do, who say, "I am nothing at all"; for he knew well that God had endowed him with great gifts, and it is not a point of humility to say, "I have neither skill nor wit, nor anything worthy of praise," for if we speak thus, we are unthankful to God, as those who bury His benefits where His glory ought to shine forth. Saint Paul then meant not to show that he was a man without knowledge and without the gifts of the Holy Ghost, or that he had received a lesser portion of them than other men had: but his calling of himself the least was in respect to that which he had been before he was a member of the Church. For our Lord Jesus Christ had in His lifetime chosen and set apart the twelve, to whom He gave commission to publish the Gospel throughout the whole world. And now in the meantime, what was Saint Paul? He was not only a private person but also banished and cut off as a rotten member from the company of the faithful. And besides that, Satan drove him onward to all cruelty, so long as God's Spirit was not in him. He had indeed a kind of zeal, but that was stark madness, for he ceased not for all that to fight against God in his own misbelief: he did it ignorantly, but that could not excuse him.
So then we see that his terming of himself the least was not without cause, according as he says in another place, that he was as an untimely birth, and that it was not to be thought that ever he should have come to the spiritual life, whereof he was a minister. For he was
as a rotten carcass, and there was no likelihood that ever he should have come to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing he had run so far astray and had been as a tempest thundering upon the Church, and as a ravening wolf that sought nothing else but to devour his prey. And so we see how his confessing of himself to be the least of the saints was unfeigned, namely in respect of his former state. But God, who not only exalts the thing that is small and low, but also makes what He wills out of nothing, vouchsafed to change him in such a manner, that the miracle might amaze us as often as we think upon it, and we might not only learn to magnify God's goodness in that deed but also apply the same to our own use. And with this, each of us should consider carefully and return to our former state (I do not mean to be such as we were in old times) but consider well and examine ourselves thoroughly, that God's infinite grace and goodness may appear the more in us. That then is in the point we have to remember concerning Saint Paul. And therefore, as often as and whenever the great treasures of God's mercy, which are imparted to us in our Lord Jesus Christ, are preached to us: let us be sure that every bit of this was warranted to us in Saint Paul's person. He spoke not of things unknown but had sure experience of them, and in his person, we can still see the things that he uttered with his mouth.
Now let us come to the gracious gift he speaks of, which is the publishing of the incomprehensible riches of our Lord Jesus Christ by the Gospel. It was a great matter that Saint Paul had been received to be a sheep, but God, thinking that not enough, appointed him to the office of a shepherd. The point here is, that whereas he had been a wolf full of cruelty, he was not only changed to become a lamb, to obey the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to be quiet in His flock, but also exalted by God to a much greater and higher dignity. He was ordained as a messenger of mankind's salvation and a dispenser of all the riches of our Lord Jesus Christ, which are
nonetheless incomprehensible—not that we should not seek them, but because their measure utterly exceeds our capacity.
Now we see the effect of what Saint Paul teaches here, continuing with the point he began with earlier: namely, that we must understand that he did not thrust himself forward through foolish boldness to take upon him the office of an apostle, but was called to it from on high and set in that position by God. Furthermore, let us assure ourselves that this doctrine was not put forth into the air at random, but directed at us by God's Holy Spirit and His wondrous forepurpose, as we shall see shortly. Therefore, let us not think that Saint Paul spoke only for those whom he presently taught, and that in the meantime the same doctrine does not belong to us. Rather, let us understand how it was God's will that Saint Paul's labor should be to our benefit today, and that we should receive profit from it. That is what we need to remember concerning the process of this text.
And therefore, let us understand that whenever the Gospel is preached to us, we have there inestimable riches. When we have thoroughly set all our wits to the understanding of the knowledge of the things that are offered us. We may have a taste of the things thereof, but we shall never fully perceive how free God's grace is toward us. However, it is enough for us that we can, to some extent, perceive His goodness and be allured thereof unto. It is true that we ought to be enraptured with it, but no matter how we fare, we shall never get past half our way. Even he who has as good as quite given over the world, forgotten all the enticements and pleasures here beneath, and is led by an angelic mind to aspire to the kingdom of heaven, shall nonetheless have comprehended but a small portion of the riches of our Lord Jesus Christ. This ought to make us esteem the Gospel more highly than we have done. On the other hand, it will be a horrible condemnation of our ingratitude if we think the things set
forth in the Gospel to be ordinary matters, seeing that our Lord Jesus Christ utters there the infinite treasures of His goodness. Moreover, we must understand that once we have our Lord Jesus Christ, we can well give over all other things as needless and superfluous.
If we are at the point that the Papists are, who can say "Jesus Christ our Redeemer" while thrusting Him among their other saints so that Christ is but a little fellow shuffled in among the rest, we are surely renouncing Jesus Christ by disguising Him so through our lewdness.
Therefore, it stands us in good stead to weigh well this text, where it is said that His riches are incomprehensible, that we may set our whole minds upon them and strive even beyond our power to know the good things that are communicated to us by Jesus Christ. For it is certain that the measure of our faith shall never attain to the utmost.
Since it is so, let us assure ourselves that our Lord Jesus Christ ought to suffice us thoroughly once for all, for we shall find in Him whatsoever we can wish. As soon as we stray from Him, we may well surmise we have won I know not what, but it shall be but wind, which shall avail us to no purpose. Let our Lord Jesus be known as He is, with the whole sum of His benefits. For it is certain that by Him we obtain whatsoever we can ask of God. Elsewhere, it is a straying out of the way, for it is said that He is the way, and that by Him we have access unto God His Father. By guiding us to God His
Father, He shows us that we shall be satisfied with all that we ever need, and that we shall come to our salvation, so we rest wholly upon Him. Conversely, when we wander to one side or the other, it is a plain renouncing of all the benefits offered to us in His person.
Therefore, we are well worthy to starve when we insist on adding anything at all to our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing that God has shown
Himself so bountiful in Him that He has not forgotten any of the things that belong to the fullness of our felicity, joy, and glory.
We are warned by Saint Paul's example that the more any of us is exalted by God's hand, the more he should humble ourselves, acknowledging how much he is bound to Him. True, even those who are furthest behind have enough cause to magnify God's goodness for calling them into His Church. For what a thing it is for us to be reckoned as God's children, heirs of His kingdom, and members of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be partakers of the glory wherein He is entered! Now the Christian who is (as it were) an underling to all others, an outcast in a little nook, a rascal, and an idiot with nothing but scorn in this world, is nevertheless adopted of God into the number of His children, to be of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So then, even the least have enough cause to glorify God's grace. But those who are advanced to any degree of honor have so much the less excuse, if they do not honor God for the things He has bestowed upon them above other men. For example, if a man has received knowledge and grace to serve the Church, it is certain that he is doubly guilty if he does not acknowledge himself so much the more beholden to God for it. Those who by their strength or wealth can do more than other poor men, who have no more than wherewith to govern themselves, ought also to humble themselves before God, and to stoop in such a way that there may be no presumption or overweening in them to puff them up. To be short, as every man has received grace through God's goodness, so ought his aim always to be that God is honored, and to confess that we are the more beholden and bound to Him for His liberality. That is another thing we have to gather upon the example of Saint Paul.
But inasmuch as he had spoken of the riches of Jesus Christ, he tells us that those riches were revealed when God's mysteries were published to those who had previously been blind wretches. I have already explained to you the word "mystery," "secret," or "privitie," according to Saint Paul's application in this text. In essence, I said
that all God's works, when well considered, have within them the capacity to draw us to wonder. And why is that? Because they proceed from His righteousness, justice, goodness, and wisdom— which are all of them things infinite. When we speak of God's wisdom, power, or justice, they are not things we can define as if we had full knowledge of them, like the things we see here below. You see then how all God's works, when we come to consider from where they proceed, are wonderful to us.
Well then, are not all the things we see in the order of nature also God's works? Yes, they are, but we partly understand what they are, and partly our wits fall short of them. For example, if it is asked by what means the earth brings forth fruits, we know it does so because it is common knowledge among us. But if the cause thereof is questioned, surely our wits fail us. For is the earth able by itself to yield corn? Is it able to make things live again that were as good as dead? Whence come the leaves and blossoms of trees, and all such like things, after winter has put everything out of fashion? Again, how can fruits, corn, and wine nourish men, seeing they have no life of themselves? Then, if we seek out the grounds of God's works, it is
(as I said) a bottomless pit, and we must confess that God has in Himself an infinite wisdom which we cannot attain.
However, God's works appear even more wonderful to us when we find that their cause is contrary to our natural wit and understanding. For example, when it is said that it was God's will for the Gospel to be preached suddenly throughout the whole world, it seems, by human judgment, to be a very mad kind of dealing. For some will ask why God decided to extend the hope of salvation to the world after having excluded it for so long. Behold, the world, which had continued so long before, was renewed again at the flood. And we see how God suffers the heathen folk to walk in destruction.
When all manner of wickedness had reached its full height and overflowed the world like a horrible flood, then suddenly God showed Himself. And is not that a secret to astonish men withal?
Now, just as the wicked and all such as despise God, and all worldlings are dazed at these things, and so far out of conceit with the strangeness of them, that they could find it in their hearts to go to law with God, so the faithful are taught to know that God's wisdom is incomprehensible.
Again, St. Paul, speaking hereof in the fourth chapter of the second to the Corinthians, sends us back to the creation of the world, saying that if we think it strange that God should enlighten blind wretches and that such as were but wandering beasts before should be brought into the way of salvation by the doctrine of the Gospel, we should consider how the light was created at the beginning. What was there in the confused lump, whereof it is said that God created the Heaven and the earth? There was neither beauty, nor order, nor aught else; darkness covered all, as it is said in Moses. But God commanded that light should be made, and so he drew light out of darkness. Therefore
(says St. Paul), although the world was in irksome darkness, and the Gentiles had their eyes as good as stopped up, so there was not any knowledge of salvation at all, yet God at the coming of His only son showed how His promising by His prophets that He would gather the world to Him was not for naught. And so, you see how He brings light out of darkness anew again. However, the case stands, we must always come back to this point, that the drawing of the Gentiles to the hope of salvation by the doctrine of the Gospel was a secret of God. And he speaks of the communicating thereof unto them because God had kept it secret to Himself, and therefore he adds that it had been unknown in all times and all ages. And how so? For God kept it secret to Himself.
We are warned anew in this text to revere God's incomprehensible ordinance when we hear of our salvation and to consider that it is a work which surpasses all our capacity. If we intend to have such knowledge of it as is good and profitable to glorify God withal, we must be, as it were, at our wit's end to say, "It is a thing that I cannot understand aright." True, it is that we ought to set our whole study thereupon, and it behooves us to exercise ourselves in it all the time of our life, as we see in the other text. But howsoever we deal, yet the final summation of it must always be that God has not encompassed the work of our salvation according to our slender capacity and weakness, but meant to humble us to the end we should be abashed in ourselves. And when we have revered His everlasting ordinance, which is hidden from us, let us employ all the power and ability we have to the praising of His holy name. This is the thing we have to bear in mind: and what is spoken to all men generally, every one of us must apply particularly to himself. For St. Paul treats here of the coming of the Gospel to us who come from the race of the Gentiles, and says that the same is a secret of God. Now, if each of us looks into himself and asks this question of himself, "How comes it to pass that I am made a partaker of the Gospel? How have I been brought into the Church?" If we consider well these things, we shall all of us, from the greatest to the least, confess that our Lord has worked after an unaccustomed fashion. For it is not of the order of nature that God has so reformed us and created us a second time, to the end we should be His children and bear His image. But it is a very miracle which ought to ravish us and amaze us, as I have said already. Let that serve for one point.
And besides that, forasmuch as I must be fain to reserve what follows till another time, let us note for a conclusion that when there is any speaking of God's secrets, it is good reason that we should be sober and allow ourselves to be ignorant of the things that God has not
revealed to us. That is the thing we have to consider upon the word "communicate." For even very experience shows what the end of those is who give head to their own curiosity and will need to know all things and search out all God's secrets by piecemeal. They that mount up into such overweening shall, in the end, be confounded.
And the higher they climb, the more horrible their fall shall be, and God must needs cast them down utterly. Therefore, let us learn to know no more than God discloses to us. For it is fitting for Him to show us as much of His power and purpose as He thinks good. When it pleases Him to open to us the things that were strange before, then let us learn them of Him, and not say, "This is too dark," but let us pray Him to give us such understanding by His Holy Ghost that we may perceive whatever He shows us by His word. You see then how we ought to be diligent and heedful in receiving the things that God has vouchsafed to teach us in His Holy Scripture and the things that are preached to us in His name. But with that, let us also wait till He imparts to us what He thinks good, and let us not thrust ourselves in at all adventure to know more than is lawful for us. Instead, let us be contented with that which God shows us, assuring ourselves that it is not from any envy that He suffers us to know no more, but because
He regards what is expedient and needful for us, and therefore gives us such light as He thinks meet, in measure and proportion. Thus, you see in effect how St. Paul meant that the Gospel was communicated to him, and also that the Gentiles received their part of it by his means, insomuch that all men knew the things that were as good as buried from them before, till God brought them forth to light. Likewise, let us at this day understand that whenever it pleases
God to raise up men of skill who have the gift to teach us, it is a sure token that He has pitied us beforehand and is minded to call us to the inheritance of salvation. And therefore, let us be teachable, let us allow ourselves to be taught by the word that is preached to us, and let us covet no further, but let us rest upon that which God shows us.