Sermons volume II Author:Edward Payson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SERMON III. The Fulneai of God Dwelling in Christ. COLOSSIANS II. 9. IK HIV 1IWKI.LETH ALL THE FULNESS OF THE GODHEAD BODILY. This if asserted of Jes... more »us Christ. It appears, at the first glance, to contain most important truth ; truth which cannot but be interesting to all who wish to form just conceptions of our God and our Redeemer. Indeed there are few passages in the inspired volume which would sooner arrest the attention and excite the inquiries of one who was reading it for the first time. I. Let us endeavor to ascertain its import, that we may learn what it is designed to teach us. In attempting this it is necessary to inquire what is meant by all the fulness of the Godhead. The original word, here rendered fulness, signifies that by which any thing is filled, completed, or made perfect. Thus when it is said, the earth is the Lord's aud the fulness thereof; by the fulnesft of the earth is evidently meant, all those things with which the earth is filled, or every thing which it contains. So by the fulness of the Godhead is meant, all that the Godhead contains, all the natural and moral attributes of Deity ; every thing, in short, which renders the divine nature perfect and complete. This phrase, then, includes in its import, the whole deity or divinity, with its attributes of infinity, eternity, immutability, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, holiness, justice, goodness, mercy, faithfulness and truth. Should it be thought that the word fulness does not necessarily mean so much as this, yet it must, I think, be allowed, that all the fulness of the Godhead cannot mean any thing less ; for if any one perfection or attribute of divinity be taken away, all the fulness of the Godhead would not remain. There would be something wanting. The divine nature wou...« less