Philippians 3

If you lean too hard upon a glass, it will break; many break their children, by leaning too hard upon them. 4. Others make a god of their belly (Philippians 3:19): Whose God is their belly. Clemens Alexandrinus writes of a fish that has its heart in its belly; an emblem of Epicu…

If we could weep rivers of tears, out-fast Moses on the mount, if we were exact moralists, touching the law blameless, if we could arrive at the highest degree of sanctification in this life, all this would not save us without looking to the merits of him who is God: our perfect…

What shall we think of them who say they are the redeemed of the Lord, yet are lovers of the world? Like the tribes who desired to have their portion on this side Canaan (Philippians 3:19). Who mind earthly things.

As fire is to the chemist, so is faith to a Christian; the chemist can do nothing without fire, so there is nothing done without faith. Faith makes Christ's sacrifice ours (Philippians 3:8): Christ Jesus my Lord. It is not gold in the mine that enriches, but gold in the hand: fa…

It is such a powerful call, that the will of man has no power to resist. 2. It is a high calling (Philippians 3:14). I press toward the mark for the price of the high calling of God.

How do earth and spirit agree? (Philippians 3:19) Earthly ones may give for their crest the mole or tortoise, that live in the earth. What resemblance is there between an earthly heart and him who is a Spirit?

Saint Paul was assured of Christ's love to him (Galatians 2:20): who has loved me; and how was his heart fired with love? He valued and admired nothing but Christ (Philippians 3:8); as Christ was fastened to the cross, so he was fastened to Paul's heart. (2.) Praise him.

I answer, true justifying faith consists in three things, 1. Self-renunciation: faith is a going out of one's self, a man is taken off from his own bottom, he sees he has no righteousness of his own to save him (Philippians 3:9): not having my own righteousness. Self-righteousne…

4. Other slaves are forced against their will: Israel groaned under slavery (Exodus 2:23). But sinners are content to be under the command of sin, they are willing to be slaves, they love their chains, they will not take their freedom: They glory in their shame (Philippians 3:19…

Sugar laid in a damp [reconstructed: place] turns to water: so all the sugared joys and pleasures of sinners, will turn to the water of tears at last. 3. If we love our belly more than God, we make a God of it (Philippians 3:19): Whose God is their belly. Clemens Alexandrinus wr…

6. He that loves God, prefers him before estate and life. 1. Before estate (Philippians 3:8): "For whom I have suffered the loss of all things." Who that loves a rich jewel, would not part with a flower for it?

When we fail, we weep: we prefer bills of complaint against ourselves, and judge ourselves for our failings (Romans 7:24). Fourth, we do elicere conatum, we endeavor to obey every Commandment (Philippians 3:14): I press toward the mark. We strive as in an agony, and if it lay in…

Quest. How is that? Resp. 1. If you would stand acquitted at the Day of Judgment, then first, labor to get into Christ (Philippians 3:9). That I may be found in him.

2. Clarity and splendor: the bodies of the saints shall have a graceful majesty in them; they shall be like Stephen, whose face shined as if it had been the face of an angel (Acts 6:15). Indeed they shall be made like Christ's glorious body (Philippians 3:21). 2. The bodies of t…

1. Drunkenness casts off the true God (Hosea 4:11): Wine takes away the heart: it takes the heart off from God. 2. It makes the belly a god (Philippians 3:19): to this the drunkard pours drink-offerings; there's a breach of the Second Commandment. 3. The drunkard in his cups tak…

Resp. Corrupt nature may as the spider, suck poison from this flower, but a sober Christian who has felt the efficacy of grace upon his heart, dares not abuse this doctrine: He knows perseverance is attained in the use of means, therefore he walks holily, that so in the use of m…

The saints of old, though they did live in the world, they did trade in heaven. Philippians 3:20. [in non-Latin alphabet], Our conversation is in heaven. The Greek word signifies our commerce, or traffic, or citizenship is in heaven.

If they have some thoughts of this kingdom, yet it is in a dull careless manner, they serve God as if they served him not; they do not vires exerere, put forth their strength for the heavenly kingdom. How industrious were the Saints of old for this kingdom (Philippians 3:13): Re…

Do we send forth the ship of prayer there, which fetches in returns of mercy? Is our communion with the Father and his Son Jesus (1 John 1:3; Philippians 3:20)? 5. Are our lives heavenly?

1. Self-denial. A man must deny his righteousness (Philippians 3:9), his duties and moralities: he would graft the hope of salvation upon the stock of his own righteousness. 2. He must deny his unrighteousness.

So I come to answer this great question, in what manner are we to do God's will that we may find acceptance. Answer. 1. We do God's will acceptably when we do duties spiritually (Philippians 3:3). We worship God, [in non-Latin alphabet], in the Spirit.

Grace alters a man's walk: before he walked proudly, now humbly; before loosely, now holily. He makes the Word his rule, and Christ's life his pattern (Philippians 3:20). Our conversation is in heaven.

For all the strength that the law and God's justice has, sin also has to back it — 'for the strength of sin is the law' (1 Corinthians 15:56). Second, as to know the power of Christ's resurrection, so also the fellowship of his sufferings — that thereby the soul may be made more…

But you will say: we do not trust in this our own righteousness, for we profess Christ and believe in him, and this, added to what we have, is enough. I answer: though you profess Christ, yet first, unless you have had a light that has shown you that all the righteousness you ha…

And our Savior Christ in one of his parables, Matthew 13:44, compares the kingdom of heaven, to a treasure hid in the field; which, when a man finds, he hides it, and goes home and sells all he has, to buy the field. Whereby he would teach us, that every one's duty, who would en…

So should we, when we are in our best estates, in our greatest jollity, in the midst of our wealth, and abundance of pleasures, cast our minds from them, and have our thoughts even then conversing in heaven, where is the place of our abode. This is likewise the Apostles exhortat…

Secondly, hence inferiors also must learn to follow the godly, holy, and religious examples of their governors and superiors (whether they be civil or Ecclesiastical); as we may see in this place, Joseph does imitate the godly example of his father Jacob. Hereof Saint Paul gives…

And for this cause, the righteousness, that makes us righteous before God, is rather called the righteousness of faith, than of any other Christian virtue, or grace of the spirit. And for the same cause is it, that so often in Saint Paul's Epistles, it is called by the same name…

Of our glorification. Philippians 3:21: The Lord Jesus shall change our vile bodies, and make them like to his own glorious body. Of a new world, 2 Peter 3:13.

A CLOUD OF FAITHFUL WITNESSES, LEADING TO THE HEAVENLY CANAAN: Or A Commentary upon the eleventh Chapter to the Hebrews, preached in Cambridge by that Godly, and judicious Divine, Mr. William Perkins: Long expected and desired; and therefore published at the request of his Execu…

3. The bearing of affliction in this life (Romans 8:29): Those which he knew before, he did predestinate to be made like to the image of his own son. Philippians 3:10: That I might know him and the virtue of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his afflictions, and be made co…

Now as God did show his power in raising Christ from death: so every one must labor to have this knowledge and experience in himself of the mighty power of God, in raising him from the grave of sin to newness of life. For thus Paul makes a special request, that he might know Chr…

And in these also we join with the church of Rome, and say (as experience teaches) that men have a natural freedom of will, to put them or not to put them in execution. Paul says (Romans 2:14), The Gentiles that have not the law do the things of the law by nature, that is, by na…

And sundry kings of Judah are said to walk uprightly before God with a perfect heart, as David, Josiah, Hezekiah, and others. Paul accounts himself with the rest of the faithful to be perfect, saying: Let us all that are perfect be thus minded (Philippians 3:15). Now this perfec…

Our salvation stands not so much in our apprehending of Christ, as in Christ's comprehending of us. Therefore Paul says in Philippians 3:12: He follows after perfection, if that he might comprehend that for whose sake he is comprehended of Christ. Now if any shall say that witho…

For Paul says we are not saved by such works as God has ordained that regenerate men should walk in (Ephesians 2:10). And he says further that he counted all things — even after his conversion — loss to him that he might be found in Christ, not having his own righteousness which…

Reason 1. The faith whereby we live, is that faith whereby we are justified: but the faith whereby we live spiritually, is a particular faith whereby we apply Christ to ourselves, as Paul says (Galatians 2:20): I live, that is, spiritually, by the faith of the Son of God: which…

And surely then, you have no reason to quarrel with, but rather to admire, that God should concern himself so much in your good as to use any means for the accomplishing of it. Paul could bless God if by any means he might attain the resurrection of the dead (Philippians 3:11).…

There are three sad sights with which our eyes should continually affect our hearts. The first is to behold in every place so many profane and dissolute ones who bear the very image of Satan: the face of whose conversation plainly discovers what they are and where they are going…

The end of a thing signifies the immediate event, issue, period thereof. As of wicked men it is said, whose end is destruction (Philippians 3; Hebrews 10, last verse). Apostasy and unbelief are said to be a drawing back to perdition.

Paul accounteth it happines, to know the fellowshippe of Christs afflictions, and to be made conformable unto his death. Phil. 3. 10. Secondly, if the partie afflicted repent, Christ communicateth with him in all his Crosses, and accounts them as his own.

It is a serious matter when folks are more taken up with notions and speculations, than with these soul-saving truths, as, that Christ was born, that he was a true Man, that he was, and is King, Priest, and Prophet of His Church, etc. and that other things are heard with more ea…

And therefore upon the one side we would commend to you the study of Christ's worth, and upon the other, a high estimation of him, as that which will fix your faith, and love, and hope on him. This we see to be in a high degree in Paul (Philippians 3): I account all things (says…

Use 2. By this you may see a necessity of making use of the mediator Christ Jesus; It's God's great mercy that he has given a mediator, and that the mediator is come, and that he has taken on our debt: What had been our eternal perishing and wallowing in hell's torments with dev…

Whereas another man, who does not rightly make use of it, though he may see his sin, and so his need of it, yet he sees not, neither will take with the tendency, propensity, and inclination of his heart to rest upon some other thing beside it. See this difference in Paul, before…

Or, when the sinner lays his reckoning to make use of Christ's satisfaction for payment of his debt, so that if he were to appear at the bar of justice, his answer would not be that if he had done a fault he had made or would make amends, nor that he prayed and repented and soug…

Come and receive a Savior; and the act of faith is a gripping to that offer, a receiving and embracing of it, a being well content to take a free discharge through His blood. A third expression is, Philippians 3:12, where faith is set out as an apprehending of Christ, and Hebrew…

And when the thirst and longing of the soul is so carried out after Him, as it cannot be satisfied without Him, which is to be sick of love for Him, as it is (Song of Solomon 2:5 and Song of Solomon 5:8). To be in a manner swooning and fainting because of His absence, and even y…

And 3. A determining to know no other thing, but Him to rest upon for life and salvation. It is in this respect that the Apostle, (Philippians 3) does count all things to be but loss and dung and cast, as it were, all overboard, that he may win Christ, and be found in Him. Many…

4. The way how Christ justifies; it is not simply by forgiving (as he indeed has power to forgive sins), but meritoriously, namely, by his satisfying for them, therefore it is added, For he shall bear their iniquities; he shall take on their sins, and pay their debt; and therefo…