“If Christ hath made us kings, why do we live like beggars?
Our diet is manna, the bread of angels.
Our apparel is out of the rich wardrobe of God’s own Son.
Our dwelling (for this is but our pilgrimage) is that glorious court above the starry firmament.
Our revenues be those immortal graces from the treasury of goodness, which can never be wasted.
Our attendance is no meaner than celestial angels.
This blessed Christ is the sole paragon of our joy, the fountain of life, the foundation of all blessedness.
The sum of the whole Bible, prophesied, typified, prefigured, exhibited, demonstrated, to be found in every leaf, almost in every line; the Scriptures being but as it were the swaddling bands of the child Jesus.
Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Samson, David, were all renowned, yet are but meant on the by; Christ is the main, the center whither all these lines are referred.
They were all his forerunners, to prepare his way: it is fit that many harbingers and heralds should go before so great a Prince; only John Baptist was that Phosphorus, or morning star, to signify the sun’s approaching.
The world was never worthy of Him, especially not so early; He was too rich a jewel to be exposed at the first opening of the shop.
Therefore He was wrapt up in those obscure shadows, the tree of life, Noah’s ark, Jacob’s ladder; therefore called ‘the expectation of nations,’ longed and looked for more than health to the sick, or life to the dying.
The golden legend of those famous worthies, Heb. 11, were but so many pictures which God sent before to the church, counterfeits, abridgments, and dark resemblances of the Prince of glory, whom His Father promised to many unto mankind; and ‘when the fulness of time was come,’ Gal. 4:4, He performed it.
Lo! now, all those stars drew in their borrowed light when that sun arose!
To whom, instead of all the rest, Moses and Elias did homage on Mount Tabor, as to the accomplisher of the Law and Prophets.
The best things of the world may be proud and happy to be resemblances of Him. By Him they were made, but for Him they should not continue.
Therefore most willingly they yield all their services to His honour, glad to be as silk and gold, fringe and lace, for the embroidery of His garments.
The sun, the brightest of all stars; wine, the sweetest of all liquors; the rose, the fairest of all flowers; bread, so necessary; water, so refreshing; all emblems to adumbrate some parcels of His infinite perfections.
Were they all compounded into one, the most harmoniously, yet they could not make up an idea of Him.
He is life and light, the sun and the sum, the founder and the finisher of all perfect blessedness.
Christus in imo, Christus in summo; (“Christ in the lowest, Christ in the highest“)
Christ is the root, and Christ is the roof.
With us diverse things have their uses in some cases and places, but to make us righteous before God, to pacify our consciences, to preserve us in this world from sin, and in the world to come from damnation, nothing but Christ!
As for God, He hath so set His love upon Christ, that besides Him, or out of Him, he regards no person, no action. Only look how much there is of Christ in any man, whether imputed or infused, so much he is in God’s books.
Out of that boundless treasury He pays Himself all our debts, and that so sufficiently, that whatsoever God can require for satisfaction, or man desire for perfection, it is all found in Christ.
Now this Christ, as He is our King, govern us; as He is our Prophet, instruct us; as He is our Priest, save us, by the sacrifice of Himself and His own precious merits. Amen.”
–Thomas Adams, “Sermon LXIII: Meditations Upon Some Part of the Creed,” in The Works of Thomas Adams: Being the Sum of His Sermons, Meditations, and Other Divine and Moral Discourses, ed. Thomas Smith, vol. 3, Nichol’s Series of Standard Divines: Puritan Period (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1861–1862), 3: 224–225.
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