The Scripture directory for church-officers and people, or, A practical commentary upon the whole…

Secondly, We must preach Christ the foundation of all strength and power, from whom we receive all ability to do any thing that is good. To lay free-will for a foundation; to preach up mans power, for Christs power, will be found st•ustble and hay, if not worse, when the fiery trial shall come Thus Joh. 15. Without me ye can do nothing. O there he doth excellently show! As the branch, unless it be in the Vine, must wither, and can bring forth no fruit; so unless a man be in Christ, and abide in him, he is not able spiritually to live or move. And this is a necessary and excellent way of preaching Christ, when he is set up as the only fountain of all our spiritual abilities, when the humane strength of man is debased, and contemned; yea, discovered to be not only impotent, but abominable and contrary unto God. Hence Christ is compared to the Olive-tree, from whence we have all our fatness, Rom. 11. And he calls himself the life and the way, Joh. 11.25. The way, that is a Prophet: The life, that is a foundation of all spiritual strength. Now in Popery, when there was so much advancing of free-will, and magnifying the merit and worth of the good works we did, Christ was much obscured. Therefore •e are not only to exhort you to pray, to repent, to reform, but to preach Christ as him by whom you must have power to do those things. People generally make little, or no use of Christ in this respect, when yet thou needest him all the day long. I can do all things, through Christ that strengthens me, Phil. 4.13.

Secondly, We must preach Christ the foundation of all strength and power, from whom we receive all ability to do any thing that is good. To lay free-will for a foundation; to preach up mans power, for Christs power, will be found st•ustble and hay, if not worse, when the fiery tryal shall come Thus Joh. 15. Without me ye can do nothing. O there he doth excellently shew! As the branch, unless it be in the Vine, must wither, and can bring forth no fruit; so unless a man be in Christ, and abide in him, he is not able spiritually to live or move. And this is a necessary and excellent way of preaching Christ, when he is set up as the only fountain of all our spiritual abilities, when the humane strength of man is debased, and contemned; yea, discovered to be not only impotent, but abhominable and contrary unto God. Hence Christ is compared to the Olive-tree, from whence we have all our fatness,