Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulness of sin. The life…Three treatises of the vanity of the creature. The sinfulnesse of sinne. The life…

Secondly, all Christs works were done for the good of the Church. He was given and borne for us. He was made ⟨p. 421⟩¹sin and curse for us. For our righteousness and redemption² he came, and for our expediency he returned again. When the Apostle urgeth the Philippians not to look to their own things, but every man also on the things of ³others, he presseth them with this argument, Let the same mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus. He thought it no robbery to be equal with God, and therefore to him there could be no accession; all that he did was⁴ for his Church; and this Saint Paul sealeth with his own example: If I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. And else▪ ⁵where, I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I beloved. Only here is the difference, Christs obedience was meritorious for the redemption of His Church, ours only ministerial for the edification of the Church: we do all things, saith the Apostle, for your edification. When the⁶ Apostle saith, I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ for his Bodies sake, which is the Church: We are not to conceive it in our adversaries gloss, that it was to merit, expiate, satisfy for the Church; but only to benefit and edify it. Let him expound himself.⁷ The things which happened unto me, namely my bonds in Christ, have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the Gospel: and again, I endure all things for the Elects sake, that they may also obtain the Salvation, not which my sufferings merit, but which is in Christ Jesus. To note that the sufferings of the Saints are ministerially serviceable to that Salvation of the Church, unto which the sufferings of Christ are alone meritorious and available.