PUBCHASED BY HIS HUMILIATION. 855
parts of tlie regiment * of Christ whereby he rules his church. He rules his church outwardly by the word and sacraments, and inwardly by his Spirit. His Holy Spirit makes good his own good means ; and therefore as the subjects of Christ, I beseech you let us come to the ordinance of Christ. He is such a Lord as doth great things by despised means, bread and wine, poor means. But consider what a mighty Lord useth them for our soul's good ; and it is his glory to magnify himself by base and weak means. He goes contrary to the course of the world, that stands all upon outward excellency ; therefore let no man stumble at the meanness of the means, but consider what great things he works by the foolishness of preaching, and the meanness of his ordinance, the sacraments. He beats down strong- holds. He builds us up in Christ to salvation. He communicates him- self and all his benefits to us. Therefore, I beseech you, come with faith ; come with this persuasion, Christ will bless his own ordinance ; and come with comfort. Christ communicates himself to us. The nearer we come to the fountain, the more we draw. And come with preparation; know with whom we have to deal, with him that is ' Lord of quick and dead.' Come with reverence. But these things I have oft upon this occason stood upon. So much for this text.
NOTES.
(a) P. 327. — ' Domine quo descendis, &c. Lord, how far goest thon ? He could not go lower and be God.' Qu. One of the many adoring sayings of Bernard ?
(6) P. 327. — ' Christ rose. . . . Therefore many rose with him. . . . And as the " second Adam,'' who could infuse life into others.' The Fathers and Schoolmen supply many singular disquisitions upon the topic here enunciated by Sibbes, more subtle than proiitable. Mrs Clive has finely described the uniqueness of the Lord's resurrection : —
' One place alone had ceased to hold its prey ; A form had pressed it and was there no more ; The garments of the grave beside it lay,
Where once they wrapped Him on the rocky floor. He only with returning footsteps broke
Th' eternal calm wherewith the tomb was bound ; Among the sleeping dead, alone he woke,
And blessed with outstretched hands the hosts around.'
IX. Poems by V. (c) P. 330. — ' A Christian may say of Christ, that he is tofus in meos usus expensus, as one well said. He is all mine ; he is all expended for my use and profit.' This Baying I liave failed to trace.
{d) P. 331. — ' They have some power indeed over their bodies, but, alas ! that is senseless.' Two generations were scarcely gone after Sibbes's death until the mise- rable vengeance on the ' bodies ' of Cromwell and Bradshaw, and other of the illus- trious Commonwealth heroes and worthies, furnished a memorable example of such impotent 'power' as he here describes. Cf. also note m. Vol. II. p. 434.
(e) P. 333. — ' Homo non est natus, kc, as the natural man said, " A man is not born to subjection, but to honour and government," ' Seneca has the sentiment, and likewise Juvenal, and later Philo.
(/) P. 333. — ' Such a Lord as this is cui servire regnare est, cj'c, to whom to servo \a to reign.' Cf. notes c and d, p. 322.
(^r) P. 338. — ' Inright.' See footnote on page 338. The following is Leighton's use of the word : — ' If he be righteousness in himself and holy, and victor over his enemies, and set free from wrath and death ; then are we too in him, for he is ours, and so ours that we become what he is, are inrighted to all he hath, and endowed with all his goods.' (Ten Sermons. Ser. 5.)
* Thg4i is, ' government.' — G.
856 Christ's exaltation purchased by his humiijation.
(h) P. 348. — ' It ia true, in regno nati sumus Deo, ^e. We are born in a kingdom, &c. Cf. note e.
(?) 1*. 349. — ' As thoy could say in the Schools, every thing hath its perfection by being subjoct to a superior, except the Uighest of all, which is not Bubordinute, but independent.' One of the commonplaces of the Schoolmen.
{j) P. 350. — 'Whereas one saith, "I believe because it is impossible."' Tha famous paradox of Descartes, ' I believe because it is impossible,' is hero anticipated. The iihilosoiihcr was a contemporary of Sibbes, but his philosophical treatises were not published until years after his deatli. From whom had he got it?
(A-) P. 351. — 'Now . . . when his jioor church is thus used and trampled upon in France, in tlic Palatinate, in Bohemia, and the princes of Germany.' Our Memoir of Sibbes shews the deep interest Sibbes took in the ' Troubles ' of the Protestant Oontineutal Churches,
(I) P. 352. — ' Calvin. . . . Saith he, whether he did or no, it is curious to search, it is rash to deliuc.' Cf. Calvin in loc, who invariably shews the same reticence and reverence in dealing with the ' secret things ' of God.