Ephesians 5

God does love his people on earth, when they are black as well as comely; they have their [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉] imperfections. O how entirely will he love them, when they are without spot or wrinkle (Ephesians 5:27). 1. This is the felicity of heaven, to be in the sweet em…

At death the souls of believers recover their virgin purity. O what a blessed privilege is this, to be sine macula and ruga, without spot and wrinkle (Ephesians 5:27). To be purer than the sunbeams, to be as free from sin as the angels.

2. Others make money their god. The covetous man worships the image of gold, therefore is called an idolater (Ephesians 5:5); that which a man trusts to, he makes his god, but he makes the wedge of gold his hope. He makes money his Creator, Redeemer, Comforter.

Christ taking our flesh, has made us nearer to himself than the angels. The angels are his friends, believers are flesh of his flesh; his members (Ephesians 5:30; Ephesians 1:23). And the same glory which is put upon Christ's human nature, shall be put upon believers.

Resp. 1. From sin; he calls them from their ignorance and unbelief (1 Peter 1:14). By nature the understanding is enveloped with darkness, God calls men from darkness to light (Ephesians 5:8), as if one should be called out of a dungeon to behold the light of the sun. 2. From da…

God is a Spirit, and will be worshipped in Spirit: it is not pomp of worship but purity which God accepts. Repentance is not in the outward severities used to the body — penance, fasting, and chastising the body — but it consists in the sacrifice of a broken heart; thanksgiving…

4. The fourth argument is taken, Ab Unione cum Christo, from believers' union with Christ. They are knit to Christ, as the members to the head by the nerve and ligament of faith, so that they cannot be broken off (Ephesians 5:23). What was once said of Christ's natural body, is…

Fulgens hoc aurum praestringit oculos, Var. Hence it is the covetous man is called an idolater (Ephesians 5:5). Why so?

10. Serpents are great lovers of wine. Pliny, who writes of Natural History, says, if serpents come where wine is, they drink insatiably: In this be not like the serpent; though the Scripture allows the use of wine (1 Timothy 5:23), yet it forbids the excess (Ephesians 5:18): Be…

2. If God be our Father let us imitate him: The child does not only bear his Father's image, but does imitate him in his speech, gesture, behavior; if God be our Father let us imitate him; [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], Gr. Nyssen. Be followers of God as dear children (Ephesians 5…

As original corruption has depraved all the faculties, the whole head is sick, the whole heart faint, no part sound, as if the whole mass of blood were corrupted; so Sanctification goes over the whole soul. After the Fall there was ignorance in the mind; now in Sanctification we…

The children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. They are your own flesh; and as the apostle says, No man yet ever hated his own flesh (Ephesians 5:29). The parent's bountifulness will cause dutifulness in the child.

It is not enough that we cease to do evil (which is all the evidence some have to show) — this is to lose heaven by short shooting; but we must be inwardly sanctified. Not only the unclean spirit must go out, but we must be filled with the Holy Ghost (Ephesians 5:18). This holin…

The first miracle he wrought was at a marriage, when he turned the water into wine. Marriage is a type and resemblance of the mystical union between Christ and his Church (Ephesians 5:32). Concerning marriage,

2. Covetousness precipitates men to ruin: it shuts them out of heaven. (Ephesians 5:5) This you know, that no covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. What should a covetous man do in heaven?

No question a Christian may make such a vow, because the ground of it is morally good, he vows nothing but what he is bound to do by virtue of his baptismal vow, namely to walk with God more closely, and to pursue heaven more vigorously. 7. If you would obtain the kingdom embrac…

At that day it will be true indeed, that God sees no sin in his children. They shall be as pure as the angels, then the church shall be presented without wrinkle (Ephesians 5:27). She shall be as free from stain as guilt, then Satan shall no more accuse, Christ will show the deb…

First, he is said to have no light. Light, says the apostle (Ephesians 5:13), is that whereby things are made manifest — that is, to the sense of sight, to which light properly belongs. And as light and faith are here severed, as you see; so sight also is in 2 Corinthians 5:7 di…

Time is so good a thing, it cannot be spent well enough. But have you misspent time (that is to abuse it) Take Saint Paul's counsel, Ephesians 5:16. Redeem the time: that is, seeing what is past cannot be recalled; then recompense the loss of it, by the well bestowing of time to…

Here we may see a notable resemblance of God's manner of blessing us: When we look for a blessing at God's hand, we must not come in our own garments, in the rotten rags of our own righteousness; but we must put on Christ's garment, the long white robe of his righteousness. And…

5. This word, Your God, imports yet a nearer relation, the relation between the Head and the Members. There is a Mystical union between Christ and the Saints: He is called The Head of the Church, Ephesians 5.23. Does not the Head consult for the good of the Body?

and therefore we must not undertake anything but that which may be a work of some good duty to God; to which end the apostle says, "Awake you that sleep, and stand up from the dead, and Christ shall give you life (Ephesians 5:14)." If this will not move us, yet let the judgments…

4. God calls them vessels of honor (2 Timothy 2:21). Though they are earthen vessels, yet they have heavenly treasure in them; they are filled with the wine of the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). Though they are scoured with affliction, yet it is to make them brighter (Daniel 12:10).

Objection. Remission of sins, regeneration, and salvation is ascribed to the sacrament of baptism in Acts 22:16, Ephesians 5, Galatians 3:27, and Titus 3:5. Answer: Salvation and remission of sins is ascribed to baptism and the Lord's Supper as to the word, which is the power of…

This use is threefold: in respect of God, of man, and of ourselves. Works are to be done in respect of God: that his commandments may be obeyed — 1 John 5:12; that his will may be done — 1 Thessalonians 4:3; that we may show ourselves to be obedient children to God our Father —…

Though others are licentious and exorbitant, (being carried to hell with wind and tyde) yet let us keep our garments pure, and preserve the Virginity of our Consciences; let us labour to reform our selves, and mourn for what we cannot reform in others. Let us walk accurately and…

Sixtly, by flatterie, when men sooth vp others in sin. Seauenthly, by winking at sins, or passing them ouer by slight reproofe, Eph. 5. 11. Thus Eli sinned in rebuking his sonnes, and thereby brought a temporal judgment upon himselfe, and his family. 1.

When he will not do the less which is to pray for them, it were absurd to think or say that he will do the greater which is to lay down his life for them. A 4th ground is this: Christ's death is one of the peculiar evidences of his [reconstructed: dearest] love, beyond which the…

2. That all these sacrifices and offerings under the law, were types of this one offering, and not that one anniversary sacrifice only which was offered once a year, by the high priest; which we the rather hint at, because both these are by Socinus, that enemy of Christ's satisf…

And indeed believers are behind, and greatly at a loss, who have turned to Christ, and yet live as anxiously and uncomfortably as if they had not a slain Mediator to comfort themselves in, who by His sufferings, soul-travail, and death has made a purchase of so great things for…

It is His glory to do good to sinners, and He counts them His triumph and spoil; and to make conquest of them, He poured out His soul to death, or as the word is, Philippians 2, He emptied himself; which seems to look to this word of the prophet, and is not that warrant sufficie…

Sure the infiniteness of his person conferred infiniteness of worth to his merit; so as he purchased a Church by the blood of God (Acts 20:28). The Lord Jesus gave himself for his Church (Ephesians 5:25-26), and a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28; 1 Timothy 2:6). But I see no reas…

2. It's voluntary in us, and the bondage that we love. 3. The Scripture both calls it impossibility, and also rebukes it as sinful (John 6:44), (Romans 8:6-8), (Ephesians 2:1-3, 11-13), (Ephesians 4:17-19), (Ephesians 5:8). Asser. 3. All preparations even wrought in us, by the c…

Answer: Christ neither died for sinners as sinners, nor for sinners as righteous, as Jacob neither served for his wife as a wife, nor for his wife as a sinful woman, datur tertium. This is an imperfect enumeration, Christ died for the ungodly, the unjust, his enemies; as freely…

3. He is the pattern and exemplar of all these our relations, and they all are but the copies of his. Thus in (Ephesians 5), Christ is made the pattern of the relation and love of husbands; Husbands (says the Apostle) love your wives, as Christ loved his Church, so verse 25. Ind…

Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all Iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar People. Ephesians 5:25, 26. Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of Water.

There is a price or recompense given in our stead. 2. A mediatorial sacrifice (Isaiah 53:3): 'When you shall make his soul an offering for sin' (Ephesians 5:2): 'Christ has loved us, and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor.' He…

God's children are most weary of the world, because they are sinning here, while others are glorifying God, and enjoying God and the company of his blessed ones. Now in Heaven there is no sin (Ephesians 5:27): there is neither spot nor blemish nor wrinkle on the face of the glor…

Pure religion, and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world, (James 1:27). (Ephesians 5:21-22) "Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. And next verse, W…

He cannot pray aright anywhere, much less in secret: the same Psalm tells us what he does in secret, verse 8, 9, 10. In the secret places does he murder the innocent, his eyes are secretly set against the poor: The Apostle says, It is a shame even to speak of those things that a…

And again, Christ may say, I am that sinner, that is, his sins and his death are mine because he is united and joined to me and I to him. For by faith we are so joined together that we are become one flesh and one bone (Ephesians 5); we are the members of the body of Christ, fle…

First, because he presented himselfe as a price and sacrifice for sinne to God the Father, Math. 20. 28. Eph 5:2. 1. Tim 2:6.

In Paul, here first we may behold an example of true virtue, in that he resists evil, to the uttermost of his power, following his own rule, Abhor that which is evil, and cleave to that which is good (Romans 12:9). Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but ra…

This charge the Lord gives of lesser matters, namely, of sights indecent, and unseemly (Deuteronomy 23:15). Again, we are commanded not so much as to name fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, resting, foolish talking, etc. (Ephesians 5:3). Here we are to be put in mind, that…

Rom 12:2. Eph 5:17. Dauid says, All your lawes are before me. 2.

Morall Philosophie, placs happinesse in ciuill vertue, out of Christ: it teaches, that vertue is a meane or mediocritie of affection, whereas in true vertue there is not onely a restraint or moderation of affections, but also the renouation of them by regeneration. It teaches th…

We are therefore to be circumspect and careful, lest we be supplanted. The Apostle admonishes us to take heed lest we be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13), and, that we walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise (Ephesians 5:15), that we walk with a rig…

Here we see then what men are before the Lord has converted and changed their hearts, and received them into his fold, even wild and furious beasts; who then, and not before, abstain from doing evil, when the Lord by the power of his Spirit, has subdued their cruel and hurtful n…

And in regard they were in one and the same condition, it is good reason that this testimony should appertain to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews. Neither must it be referred to an external misery only, but to the shadow of eternal death, until Christ shine upon us by the doc…

"Et avoyent tousjours en la bouche le titre d'Eglise, duquel ils abusoyent;" -- "and had always in their mouth the title of Church, which they abused." Christ here assures them, that a bastard race, which has departed from the faith and piety of the fathers, has "no inheritance…