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450 SERMONS UrON EPHESIANS V. [SeH. XXVIII..
[2.] Saving grace or spiritual life, and all those saving benefits which are given to the regenerate or real LeHevers by the Spirit : 1 John iii. 24, ' And hereby we know that he abidetli in us by the Spirit given- unto us.' They have life, and growth, and strength, and saving influence from him, or from the sanctifying Spirit, that produceth and worketh in them life : Gal. ii. 20, ' The life that I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.' Growth : Col. ii. 19, 'And not holding the head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.' Strength : Eph. iii. 16,' That he would grant you, according to the riches of his gloiy, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.' This is undeniable ; without him we can da nothing, John xv. 5. Through him all things, Phil. iv. 12. Nothing savingly, but all things acceptably.
7. It implies sympathy with his members ; there is none of them hurt but it redoundeth to him : Acts ix. 6, ' Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?' All the injuries done to the body affect the head; the tongue will cry out when the toe is trod upon, You hurt me. So such a near conjunction is there between Christ and his members, that the wrong done to them is done to him ; as, on the other side, the wrong done to Christ is done to the members of the mystical body : Ps. Ixix. 9, ' The reproaches of them that reproached thee have fallen upon me.' As nature causeth all members to expose themselves for the preserva- tion of the head, so the head is not unconcerned in the afiiictions of his people ; their aflSictions are the afflictions of Christ : Heb. xi. 26, ' Esteeming the reproaches of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.' All that write maxims of policy acknowledge that the prince, being the head of the state, is united with his subjects, and their interests are common ; he that offendeth the subjects wrongeth the prince. This was the reason that Seneca sometimes made use of to sweeten the cruel humour of the emperor Nero, and to instil clemency into the heart of that bloody prince, that he was head of the commonwealth, and that in pardoning others he was pitiful to himself, and in favouring his subjects he was kind to himself. And if we- believe him, for a time Nero profited by his advice. If there came an offender before him in the flower of his youth, he pardoned him upon the account of the extravagancy of youth ; if stricken in years, he pardoned his grey hairs, and left death the charge of execution ; if he came of a good house, he respected his birth, and balanced the crime- of the person with the services of his ancestors ; if of an obscure family^ he contemned the offenders, whose example could not prejudice the commonwealth ; but if nothing else occurred, he pardoned him, and spared himself in the person of the delinquent, considering that lie was head of all the people, and suffered by their loss. I have brought this to show you how reasonable it is to conceive that Jesus Christ, who is really united to all his members, and who liveth in them by his S[)irit, and they in him by faith, should be sensible of the indignities and wrongs done unto them. Surely he that liveth in the faithful suffereth in all his members.
Use 1. If Christ be head of the church —
1. Then there is no other that can usurp and take this honour upon-
VeR. 23.] SERMONS UrON EPHESIANS V. 451
him. None can be the head of the church to whom the church is not a body. I ground this argument on the saying of the apostle, Eph. i. 22, 23, ' And gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body/ If the church cannot be said to be the pope's body, the pope cannot be said to be the church's head.
2. None can be a political governing head to the church universal but he who is a mediatorial head, of vital influence to them. I know the papists distinguish of these things, and ascribe one to the pope, and the other to Christ ; but the scripture alloweth not this wall of parti- tion. None can be the one but he must be the other. Whenever it speaketh of a political governing head, it speaketh also of a vital influential head : Eph. iv. 15, 16, ' May grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketli increase of the body, unto the edifying itself in love.' Of this, and no other kind of head, doth the scripture speak.
3. A ministerial, universal head, that shall give law to all other churches and christian societies ; and if they depend not on him, shall be excluded from the privileges of a christian church. This is, as to matter of right, sacrilege ; for this honour is too great for any man, and Christ hath appointed no such head, and therefore it is a manifest usurpation of his royal prerogatives to set up such a head to control his authority without him. And as to matter of fact, it is impossible, the chui'ch being scattered throughout all parts of the known world, which can have no commerce with such a head in matters essential to its government and edification.