That a Church which hath received any grace from GOD which tendeth to edification should not envy it to others but affectionately communicate unto them all that may serve for their instruction And this communion ought to have place particularly between neighbouring Churches as those of Coloss and of Laodicea were And it 's upon this example and upon the reason on which it depends that the uniting of the Churches of the same Provinces and resorts in the same Classes and Synods is founded a thing instituted and observed from the beginning of Christianity down to our days and still very profitably practised and kept up among us by the goodness of GOD. This mutual communication of neighbouring Churches appears yet further in that the Apostle orders the Colossians in the third place to read also the letter from Laodicea after their imparting to them his When this Epistle saith he hath been read among you cause that it be also read in the Church of the Laodiceans and read ye also that which came or was written from Laodicea It is demanded what this second Epistle whereof he speaks should be Many Theologues of the communion of Rome do answer that it was a letter which St. Paul wrote to the faithful of Laodicea at the same time he wrote this to the Colossians whence they conclude that this piece being lost as well as divers other writings of Prophets and Apostles it cannot be pretended that the Canon of holy Writ is perfect and doth contain all things necessary unto our salvation Others again from thence infer that it is the Church which gives the Scriptures the authority they have among Christians since of the Epistles of St. Paul it hath left this in particular out of the Canon of Divine Books and retained only those fourteen which are in our hands But there is nothing found nor solid in their arguing which concludes ill and presupposeth what is false For suppose the Apostle had written an Epistle to the Laodiceans and that it were lost as I would not avouch that St. Paul and his fellow-brethren the Apostles never wrote any thing to any particular person or to any Church but what is arrived down to us suppose it I say who told them that this loss makes the Canon of our Scriptures defective Who told them that there was in that letter some Article of Faith necessary unto our salvation which is not found in the other parts of the Bible we now have Again who taught them thence to conclude that it is the Church who authorizeth the Divine Books I grant she is the keeper and depositary of them as the Synagogue sometime was of the Books of the Old Testament according to the Apostle's saying that unto them were committed the Oracles of GOD and that it belongs to her charge to preserve them and read them and recommend them to every one But that it is the authority of her voice and testimony which gives them the price and value they have either in themselves or in reference to faithful souls this in my opinion cannot be said without outraging the Majesty of their Author by making the divinity of the instruments of His wisdom to depend upon the phantasie of men As the Romans heretofore submitted the worship and divinity of their Gods unto the Decrees of their Senate They were not Gods except it so pleased men If it were certain that the Apostle had written an Epistle to the Laodiceans and put it in the hands of the Church it should be concluded not that she hath the power to authorize what Divine Books she pleaseth but rather that she hath hugely failed of her duty in having so ill kept an heavenly jewel But the worst yet is that all they talk about this pretended Epistle of St. Paul to the Laodiceans is a vain conceit and hath no other foundation but their imagination I well know that in our Fathers days * Faber Stapulensis a Learned man did publish one under that name having found it in three or four Libraries But the piece is so gross and so ridiculous that it hath been rejected equally on all hands as the work of an impostour who abusing his leisure forged this trifle and shamelesly fathered it upon St. Paul Some of the Ancients do also make mention of a Script bearing the same name whether it were different from this or did resemble it But the Ancients that speak of it do all unanimously decry it as an Apocryphal Book and issued out of an heretical Shop and framed at pleasure after St. Paul's death Tertuld 5. c. 1â— contra Marcion And in truth one of the first Writers of the Latine Church do's declare that a famous Heresiarch named Marcion had changed the Title of the Epistle of St Paul to the Ephesians and instead of this name which it alwayes bore in the Church impudently called it the Epistle to the Laodiceans and read we do Heres 43. contiâ— Marcion in the Epistle to the Ephesians those words which Epiphanius reporteth to have been cited by Marcion out of the Epistle to the Laodiceans This hath given * Gretius a certain Writer occasion to fancy that St. Paul indeed sent and addressed the same Epistle to the Laodiceans which at the same time he wrote to the Ephesians these two Churches having had need of the same remedies and that its this Epistle the Apostle means in this place willing the Colossians to take a copy of it and read it in their Assembly All this would pass if it were at all grounded but it is too much considence or credulity to think to perswade it us upon the credit of Marcion the most impudent impostor that ever troubled the Church and one that in particular played with the Books of the New Testament contracting them maiming them and changing themat his pleasure with an infernal license Besides this supposition accordeth not with St. Paul's words For he doth not all say as these persons pretend that the Epistle in question was written to the Laodiceans True it is the Latine Interpreter hath rendred it the Epistle of the Laodiceans but this would signifie as every one seeth that the Laodiceans had wrote it and not that they had receiv'd it either from the Apostle or from any other Yet though the Latine would suffer this rude gloss it is clear the original cannot be made to bear it without undertaking as these new Doctours do truly with presumption enough to change the words of it which we find uniform in the Greek Copies and which the Ancients observed there above twelve hundred years ago For they clearly import as our Bibles have faithfully translated and represented that this Epistle had been written or sent from Laodicea so that we must necessarily ununderstand them with the ancient Greek Fathers of an Epistle written not to the Laodiceans but from their City Now the Apostle telling us no more of it either here or elsewhere we need not wonder that
see he was not of the opinion of the latter Popes of Rome who do accuse as you heard afore the reading of the Word of GOD of doing more harm than good It the reading of them must be interdicted upon the pretence that some unstable spirits wrest them unto their destruction it should be in the first place prohibited to Bishop Priests and Monks it being clear if my memory does not deceive me that such as have forged heresies by an ill understanding of the Scriptures were all of one of those three orders and not of the common people But it 's a very wild expedient and a remedy altogether extravagant to condemn the use of things because of the abuse of them by some certain persons By this account best and most innocent things and things most necessary for the life of men should be taken from them the light of the Sun the savouriness of meats the excellency of wines and fruits iron silver gold and other metals the accomplishments of learning and the marvels of eloquence For which of these gifts of GOD doth not the intemperance or the malice of men abuse And as the Prince of Pagan Philosophers hath rightly observed there is nothing they so perniciously abuse as that which is of its self best Aristot Rhet. and most profitable To conclude since the same GOD who knows the nature and the efficacy of His own Scriptures better than any commands us all to read them it 's an insufferable temerity for a man to intrude with his advice and change what the LORD hath appointed as if he were wiser than the Most High But the Apostle clearly refuteth this calumny of Rome against Scripture in the other part of this Text 2 Tim. 3.16 where he sets before us the fruits and uses we ought to draw from it Ye teaching saith he and admonishing one another by Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs with grace singing from your heart unto the LORD Else-where he advertiseth us that the Scripture is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness Here in like manner he setteth down for the first fruit we are to gather from this rich knowledge of the word of GOD that mutual teaching we owe one another for the second advertisement or admonition for a third consolation by the singing of Psalms and spiritual Hymns As to the First I grant the charge of teaching in the Church does principally pertain to Pastors appointed to this end yet there is not the privatest believer but doth also participate some way of this function when he hath the gift and the opportunity to edifie men in the knowledge of true religion Particularly Fathers and Mothers owe this office to their children husbands to their wives masters to their housholds the elder to the younger and in fine each one to his reighbour when he hath the conveniency Whence appears again how far distant the Apostles sentiment is from Rome's Paul would have the Faithful entertain with and instruct one another in the things of the word of GOD. Rome will not let any but the Clergie have power to speak of them The second use we ought to make of the Word of GOD is our admonishing one another Teaching doth properly respect faith admonition hath reference to manners The Scripture furnisheth us where-with to discharge both the one and the other of these two duties informing us plainly and plentifully as well of things that are to be beleeved as also of those that are to be done And it 's incumbent on the beleever to acquit himself in the matter according to the knowledge he hath instructing the ignorant and reproving the faulty all with a spirit of sweetness and discretion as the Apostle doth else-where prescribe For every man ought to look upon his neighbour as his brother reduce him if he stray raise him up if he fall clear things to him if he doubt and have in fine as much care of his welfare as of his own Far from us be the ferity of those proud spirits who would not be sollicitous in the least for their brethren's concerns and who if GOD should demand an account of them at their hands would be ready to say as Cain sometime answered Am I my Brother's keeper or Pedagogue Now as we are to be charitable and prudent for the performing of this service to our brethren so ought we again in our turn receive it from them with patience and meekness Remembring how the Psalmist says Let the righteous smite me Psal 141.5 it shall be a kindness and let him reprove me it shall be an excellent balm unto me The third and last use the Apostle would have us make of the word of CHRIST is in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs to sing from our hearts with grace unto the LORD The so doing doth respect partly the glory of GOD which we ought to celebrate by our singing and partly our own consolation and spiritual rejoycing For the LORD is so good that He hath provided even for the recreating of His children and knowing that Song is one of His most natural means extremely proper both to dilate the contentment of our hearts and render it full-blown as also to alleviate and mitigate their sorrows He hath not only permitted us but even commanded to sing unto Him spiritual songs And for the forming us unto so holy and so profitable an exercise He hath given us in His word a great number of these Divine Canticles as the Psalms of David and the Hymns of divers other faithful and religious persons dispersed here and there in the books of the Old and New Testament The Apostle nameth three sorts of them Psalms Hymns or Praisâ— and Odes or Songs Now though there be no need to take much pains in an exact distinguishing of these three sorts of Sonnets nevertheless I think their opinion very probable who put this difference between them that a Psalm is in general any spiritual ditty whatever the subject of it be that an Hymn particularly signifies Sonnets composed to the praise of GOD and that an Ode or Song is a kind of Hymn of more art and various composition than others You have divers examples of them all in the book of Psalms First all the composures there are called Psalms in general But it 's very evident they are not all of a sort There are some in which is celebrated the goodness the wisdom and the power of the LORD either towards David or towards the Church or in reference to all creatures These are properly Hymns and such is the eighteenth Psalm the hundred and fourth the hundred forty fifth and many others There are others in which are mystically and elegantly represenced with an excellent artificialness either the wonders of CHRIST as the forty fifth the seventy second the hundred and tenth and the like or the histories of the ancient people as the seventy eighth the hundred and fifth and hundred and
XLIX SERMONS Upon the Whole EPISTLE OF THE APOSTLE St. PAUL TO THE COLOSSIANS In Three Parts BY THAT FAMOUS MINISTER OF THE REFORMED CHURCH in PARIS Mr. John Daille Author of that Incomparable BOOK Intituled The RIGHT VSE of the FATHERS Translated into English by F.S. LONDON Printed by R. White for Tho. Parkhurst and are to be sold at his Shop at the Bible and three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1672. To the HONOURABLE Sr. Will. Courtenay Of Pouderham Castle in the County of Devon Baronet SIR THE Divine Epistle of S. Paul to the Colossians was not to rest in their hands but by his express order to be communicated unto the neighbouring Laodiceans as we read in the Epistle it self towards the end It would therefore seem a little congruous that these Sermons which expound it do undergoe a like disposal and not confined to the French to whom they were originally Preached be imparted to the neighbouring English The Author of them was He whom his Auditors at Charenton did frequently call for the beauty and richness of his Discourses the Silver-tongue Daille Readers here have applauded and do esteem highly for his Apologie and that exquisite Treatise of the use of the Fathers both which have for some years spoke our Language The learned all abroad do know him and value him for divers other excellent labours He signalized himself both at the Press and in the Pulpit and GOD was pleased to crown him in His service with the glory of a vigorous and venerable old age I confess I was none of the meetest to represent this Work of his and communicate it as I do nor did I design it at the entrance But a private exercise receiving some encouragement grew up and comes at length into a publication Neither am I without hope but that the known English civility for strangers will be shewed Mr. Daille though his Interpreter be no more then he is Yea while that Reverend man interpreteth here a great Apostle and presseth as he doth solid religiousness towards GOD Loyal Subjection to Princes and Superiours Peace and Love and every Vertue among men I would promise him Christian attention and consideration a calm and generous enduring of little discrepancies if any occurr and all the respect that befits a Minister of CHRIST Now Sir I deem it not improper to put into Your hand a piece which had its Original in France when I reflect upon the illustriousness of Your Ancestry sometime there I cannot but mind in particular how the Family was engraffed into the Royal House it self Peter a Son of Louis le Gros espousing the Inheretrix a Name and Arms of Courtenay so becoming the stock whence those Noble afterbranches issued which did spread forth on this and on that side of the Sea But the Dominion and Empire of GOD is equally over all the Kinreds and Kingdoms of the World and unto Him every one 's greatest and nearest relation I tender therefore the present Volume chiefly as spent upon the illustrating and enforcement of His holy mind and will and do beseech You to accept the gratitude which it is tendred withall That every Divine blessing may descend and rest upon Your Person and Affairs Your Vertuous Honourable Lady and all those sweet Branches about Your Table is the earnest and incessant Prayer of SIR Your Obliged and Affectionately devoted Servant F. S. TO MONSIEUR Monsieur du Candal LORD of FONTINAILLE Counsellour and Secritary of the KING House and Crown of France SIR I Present You these Sermons believing I owe this acknowledgement not only to the Friendship wherewith you honour me but much more to the edification and good offices the Church where I preached them receiveth now a long time from your piety For besides the fair example which your life giveth us a life full of vertue and honour always constant and equal in the profession and holy Exercises of the truth of the Gospel there hath been presented no occasion of doing service to the people of GOD either in the one or in the other of their times but you have embraced with zeal and managed with prudence So likewise we see that the Good and Merciful LORD you serve hath crowned your obedience with the benedictions of His Grace For in the inequality of seasons and the diversity of affairs He hath still rendred You acceptable both to those within and even to them without And which is the principal He hath preserved His Covenant in your house that neither the vanity of the world nor the scandal of the time hath been able to make any of the breaches there which we see with grief in other families To establish this pretious heritage of piety in your blood His Providence hath added to it by alliance persons excellent in knowledge and in merit in whose linage you daily see your own life renew and flowrish afresh It is true Sir you have also had your trials as no true believers are exempted from them But those which GOD hath dispensed to you have been so tempered with his goodness as I believe you may truly say that in this more than in any other passage of Your life He hath made shine forth the marveils of His grace towards You. Such was some years ago the bitter but blessed and happy death of the late Sir Your eldest Son taken away untimely and in the prime flower and vigor of His age This was without doubt a very dolorous stroke which cut down in a moment the sweetest of your hopes plucking from your embraces a Son as love-worthy as he was loved and whose deserving to say all in a few words was no less than the dignity of a Senator to which he was already arrived in the chief of the Parliaments of this Kingdom But how sensible soever His death was unto you it was notwithstanding accompanied with grace of GOD so visible and ravishing as I fear not to refresh Your memory of it well knowing it is no less dear and pretious to You for the piety and the high and truly Christian constancy He shewed in those last and happy moments of His life than troublesom and bitter for the mourning and sadness which it left on Your whole House As soon as His malady appeared to be what indeed it was He looked on Death without disturbance He prepared Himself for it with great courage and His air his eyes and all His discourses were full of resolution and contentment He comforted us all and amid the tenderness and resentments of such a separation never expressed ought of feebleness And though He left on earth of the dearest and sweetest one may here possess or desire yet He quitted it not only without regret but even with joy so firm was the hope or to say better so clear and assured the sight which the LORD JESUS then gave Him of the blisses and delights to which He called him He remained in this graceful and holy disposition even to
miraculous School illuminated and consecrated by His Spirit Who could doubt but that it was from the mouth of this holy man that the Mysteries of GOD should be learned and that what was contrary to His Doctrine ought to be judged false and vain I confess his Mission was extraordinary and miraculous and is not to be made a precedent for others Yet notwithstanding what he here saith of it affordeth us two Instructions which reach all Pastors generally The first is that they should never intrude themselves into this Sacred Office if GOD call them not so as they may say with good conscience as Paul doth in this place that they have been made Ministers of the Gospel It is true JESUS CHRIST now speaketh not to men from heaven as He yerst did to S. Paul to call them unto His work But so much He doth that He maketh us perceive His will first by the moving of His Spirit within us which never faileth to incite us to His work when GOD calleth us thereto and secondly by the voyce and authority of His Church that is to say of His faithful people to the Body and Community of whom He hath given the power to apply the right of this Ministry to such as they discern meet for it as the examples of the primitive Church registred in the Book of the Acts and elswhere do shew us And as for Ordination as it is called which is done by the Imposition of the hands of other Ministers already established I confess it also ought to intervene for the compleating and crowning of the call accordingly you see it is seriously practised among us But I add that it is not yet so absolutely requisite but that in case of extreme and invincible necessity as in places and times when there are no true Ministers of JESUS CHRIST found to give it the call of the Church that is of a body of faithful people may suffice to a valid instituting of a Pastor the person supposed to have the ability and inclination requisite for such a charge The other particular that we have to learn here is That all Pastors of what rank soever they may be are Ministers and not Masters of the Gospel It 's the title which the Apostle here assumeth according to the Declaration he makes elswhere that he hath no dominion over the faith of believers 1 Cor. 1.24 but is an helper of their joy The duty of a Minister is to propose what hath been committed to Him what he hath received of the Master If he go beyond it and will have his own will and his private imaginations bear sway he is no longer a Minister he doth the act of a Master and consequently sets up a tyranny since the Church neither hath nor can have any lawful Master but JESUS CHRIST This dear Brethren is th◠which we had to deliver upon this Exhortation of the Aposile to the Colossians Make account that it is to you also he directs it Amid the scandals which Satan casteth in the way of your faith and the temptations he offereth to turn you out of it have still in your hearts and in your ears this Sacred voyce that says aloud from heaven to you Continue in the faith being founded and firm and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which ye have heard and which hath been preached to every creature under heaven whereof I Paul have been made a Minister Oppose the authority of this Divine command to the Seducements and illusions of the world to the flatteries and babble of Sophisters to the suggestions and lusts of the flesh From what Coast soever counsels contrary to it do come whether from within or from without judge them impious and abominable And blessed be GOD who hitherto so settled you in the belief of His Word that neither the forcible attempts of open Enemies nor the fraud of false friends hath been able to remove you at all But dear Brethren it is not enough to have stood fast hitherto There must be preparing for more combats to come after those that are past For we have to do with Enemies with whom we must look for neither peace nor truce They will be still setting on work one Engine or other and if repulsed on one side will not fail to attaque us immediately on another Be we therefore in like manner still upon our guard Let us have no less zeal and constancy for our our preservation then they have rage and resoluteness for our ruine Fortifie we our faith daily Arm it with Armor of proof Found it on the Eternal Rock and so fasten it that nothing may be able to pluck it out of our hearts To this purpose let us continually read and meditate that heavenly Word whence we have drawn it Let us fill our souls with this Divine wisdom and render it familiar to us Let us instruct our youth in it Let us make it to abound on all hands among us Let it be the matter of our mutual entertainments and the most usual subject of our cogitations For as an ancient yer while said very prudently Chrys Hom. 〈◊〉 de Lazaro The reading of the holy Scriptures is an excellent and an assured Preservative to keep us from falling into sin and ignorance of the Scriptures is an huge Precipice a deep gulf of Perdition In the design of our perseverance let us particularly make use of the two means which S. Paul here furnisheth us withal The one that the Gospel which we have heard hath been preach'd in the whole world the other that it is the same which was committed to our Apostle It 's in the belief of this Gospel that he would have us abide firm It 's to this faith that he promiseth the peace of GOD His Favour and His Eternity GOD saith he hath reconciled you to Himself that He might present you holy without spot and unreproveable if indeed you continue firm in the faith and are not moved away from the hope of the Gospel From whence it follows that if we have this Gospel among us we may certainly assure our selves that by retaining it we shall obtain the peace and the Salvation of GOD. The only question therefore is Whether the Doctrine which we have embraced be truly this Gospel or no If it be I have no further search to make I am content to have found what is sufficient for me that I may appear before my GOD without confusion and receive of Him life everlasting But that the Doctrine whereof we make profession is the same Gospel that Paul preached the same that he and the other Apostles sowed in the world and which the world overcome by the force of its truth did in the end receive and adore This I say is so clear that I do not think the Devil himself as hardned in impudence as he is can deny it For the GOD whom we serve and the CHRIST whom we adore and His Merit in
slothfulness No no Christian excuse not your selves by such allegations The affairs of your Family and of your trade are altogether innocent of your faults To say true they rather invite you to honesty and innocency than sollicite you to vice It 's nothing but the rage of your ungoverned passions that causeth this disorder It is nothing but your ambition your covetousness your pride your effeminateness and delicacy that turneth you away from Christian perfection To tend to it there is no need you should retire into a Desert or a Cloister nor that your habits or your food should be different from those of the people among whom you live There needs for this but retiring from vice and sincere renouncing the practice of it plucking up the lusts of it out of your heart changing your life and not your dwelling your carriage and not your clothes And this is it my Beloved Brethren wherein we must labour and combat The design I call you to is great and painful and no less difficult than the conquest of the world the business of S. Paul's Apostleship For there is nothing that is either more harsh to us than to renounce our passions or more difficult than for us to overcome our selves It is much more easie to wear a Cowle or an hair-cloth and blacken the body with blows yea to kill ones self than to put off the desires of the flesh Labour then earnestly and assiduously since you have undertaken so difficult a task Employ all your time in it Let no day pass without putting it on watching and praying mortifying all the members of your old man with a true penitence reading and meditating the word of GOD embracing His promises exercising your selves in the study and practice of those good and holy works which he hath recommended unto us The design is great and you are weak But the LORD JESUS in whom you have believed is allmighty and allmerciful He hath still the same force which heretofore converted the world by the hand of S. Paul If you labour in his work with such zeal as His Apostle did He will also communicate His graces unto you He will display His vertue upon you He will work powerfully in you He will bruise Satan under your feet and crucifie your flesh by the efficacy of His own He will vivifie your spirit by the light of His. He will make you to triumph over your enemies He will comfort you in the afflictions which you shall suffer for so good a cause He will guide you in all your wayes And after the labour and the combat will crown you on high in the Heavens with such glory and immortality as all the pains of the present life are no way comparable to So be it and unto Him as also to the Father and to the Holy Spirit the only true GOD blessed for ever be honour and glory to ages of ages Amen The End of the First Part. SERMONS OF Mr. John Daille UPON THE EPISTLE OF THE APOSTLE St. PAUL TO THE COLOSSIANS The Second Part Containing an Exposition of the second Chapter in sixteen SERMONS LONDON Printed for Thomas Parkhurst and are to be sold at his Shop at the Bible and three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chappel and at the Bible on London Bridge 1672. TO MONSIEUR Monsieur BIGOT LORD of LAHONVILLE Counsellour of the KING in His Counsels Intendant and Controller General of the Gabels of France SIR AMONG the advantages which the Reformation of the Church embraced by our Fathers in these latter ages hath afforded us we must without doubt ascribe the preheminence to the free use we have of the word of CHRIST which He of His abundant Grace hath recovered for us This Divine Taper lighted up from Heaven in the house of GOD to shine unto His people did remain hid a long time under a Bushel that I may express it Mat. 5.15 in the terms of the Gospel the negligence and fraud of men withholding it in this shameful-state It is now set anew on its Candlestick whence it diffuseth every way its enlivening and saving light among us and that in such abundance as we may truly say in this respect the word of CHRIST dwelleth richly in us Col. 3.6 It reigneth alone in our assemblies where its voice and not any other is continualy heard to resound the Fables and Legends of men being altogether banished thence It is read there in a familiar language which every one understands whereas if it be read elsewhere it 's in a tongue dead and barbarous and unknown to the people It is explained among us with all fidelity sincerity and diligence whereas amid the darkness of former ages it was so unworthily treated by Preachers that to consider their Sermons one would think they had designed to make it openly ridiculous I confess those persons that abide in the erroneous opinions of their Ancestors yet are somewhat ashamed of this gross and prophane licentious practice of theirs and they have reformed it after a sort Yet there remain but too many defects among them still and this one in particular that they explain in publick only some pieces and if it may be said shreads of Scripture sometimes taken from one book sometimes from another never shewing their hearers any complete body For it cannot be denied but that this manner of handling the word of GOD doth deprive the faithful of much edification it being evident that the view and the considering of an entire book giveth us a great deal more of knowledge in it and admiration at it than the view of any part of it alone and taken off from the whole can do This fault is so much the less pardonable in our adversaries for that besides reason it crosseth also the custom and authority of those antient Doctors of the first ages of Christianity whose true sons and legitimate successors these Gentlemen boast they are For it was frequent at that time for Pastors to expound in the Church whole books of Scripture throughout by Sermons continued on upon the chain of the holy Text from the beginning of a volume to the very end that remainder which we have of the writings of those days doth clearly evince so much There are extant still the Sermons of S. John Chrysostom upon Genesis upon the Gospels of S. Mathew and S. John upon the Acts of the Apostles and upon all the fourteen Epistles of S. Paul which were delivered by this great man part of them in the Church of Antioch and part in the Church of Constantinople the greatest and most populous Churches of all the East And among the Latines we have the Tractates of S. Augustin upon the whole Book of Psalms and upon the Gospel of S. John and upon His first Epistle which were in like manner made and delivered in the Assemblies of his people An evident sign that about the beginning of the fifth Century when these two excellent and famous personages did flourish
this custom was in repute among Christians Whether then the thing be considered in its self or the suffrages of the Ancients be taken it is manifest that our Fathers and our selves had all the reasons in the world to re-establish this sacred and just usage in the Church Now Sir this Book which I address unto you is a fruit of it For having undertaken in conformity to this order to expound in our holy assemblies the Divine Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul to the Colossians and being come to the end of it by the grace of our LORD because the whole work could not be commodiously contracted into one volume only I have divided it into three parts of which this here is the second The Piety which hath long flourished in your House Sir and the exquisite knowledge that GOD hath given you of His truth do induce me to believe that this Books which wholy treats of His Divine mysteries and nothing else will not be unpleasing to you It 's this hath given me the liberty to put your name upon it a Name which diverse excellent graces wherewith GOD hath adorned both your Family and your Person do render very dear and very honourable in our Church I am sorry that this Present is no more worthy of it But such as it is I do not despair but it may obtain from the dignity of its subject and from the favour of your goodness that acceptance which it cannot pretend to upon any merit of its own Please you then to receive it as a sincere testimony of the respect I bear your vertue and of the grateful sense I have of the friendship wherewith you honour me withal as an inviolable pledge of the prayers which I present unto GOD for your prosperity and of the fervent affection I have to be as long as I live Paris Apriâ— 1. 1648. SIR Your most humble and most obedient Servant DAILLE The SIXTEENTH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER I II. Verse I. For I would that ye knew how great a combat I have for you and for them which are at Laodicea and for all them which have not seen my presence in the flesh II. To the end that their hearts might be comforted they being joined together in love and in all riches of full certainty of understanding unto the knowledg of our GOD and Father and of CHRIST DEar Brethren As Gardeners and Husbandmen do not content themselves with sowing good grain in the ground that they manure but also take care to pluck up thence the bad herbs which might choak or incommodate the good So in the Spiritual husbandry of JESUS CHRIST it is not enough that the Ministers of his Gospel do cast his Divine Word the good and saving seed of our Regeneration into the Souls of Men They must also be at the pains to weed and cleanse this mystical Soil the tilling whereof is committed to them plucking up out of it error and false doctrine those bad and pernicious weeds which springing up of themselves or being privily sown there by an enemy's hand are apt to marr all this coelestial tillage Hence it is that the Apostle St. Paul having in the first Chapter of this Epistle to the Colossians setled the truth with great efficacy as you have heard cometh now in this second Chapter the beginning whereof we have read to reject and refute the errors which certain false workers ministers of Satan endeavoured to shuffle in that this people as a field or a garden of God's being rid of all naughty and noxious grain the noble seed of the Gospel which the Apostle had cast there might take root and spring up and grow at liberty covering and crowning it all over with the flowers and fruits of incorruption that is sincere piety and true sanctity no strange plant being mingled with it These Seducers as we have often intimated did teach that besides faith in JESUS CHRIST which they made profession of there was also a necessity of observing the Mosaical Law and of worshipping of Angels and of practising certain superstitious Disciplines and Mortifications of their own invention And to put off the whole the better they mingled with it some subtilties and vain speculations of secular Philosophy This is the weed which the Apostle the Church's holy Husbandman now roots up out of his LORD's field fortifying the Colossians against the craft of that sort of men and divinely shewing them how full and sufficient the doctrine of his Gospel was how unprofitable and even plainly dangerous the Seducers additions were You shall hear it afterwards in the progress of the Chapter For as to the two Verses we have read and the three or four following they are as the entrance or gate of this dispute the Apostle in them preparing the hearts of the Colossians to receive his instructions by the evidences he gives them of his ardent affection for their Salvation and presently in the first Verse he declareth to them the pains he was in for them and for their neighbours I would saith he that ye knew how great a combat I have for you c. Then he addeth in the following Verse the end or the cause of this combat of his To the end saith he that their hearts might be comforted c. These two points now we purpose to handle in the present action by the assistance of the grace of CHRIST S. Paul's care and combat for the Colossians and Laodiceans then his design or the end for which he underwent all this trouble for them In reference to the first of these two points ye may remember the Apostle affirmed in the end of the precedent Chapter that to discharge the Ministry which GOD had committed to him he did labour and combat according to his efficacy that wrought powerfully in him Now he descendeth from Generalities to a particular instance and having spoken in gross of the labour he did undergo for the edification of all he tells the Colossians of the pain he was in particularly for them adding For I would that ye knew how great a combat I have for you and for those of Laodicea It is not without cause saith he that I profess to strive and labour for the edification of the faithful For not to alledg other proofs of it to you GOD knoweth and I desire you also should know that I sustain a great combat for you and your neighbours Laodicea which he speaks of was the head-city of Phrygia nigh to Colosse which was situate in the same Province The Vicinity of these two Cities was the cause of a particular commerce between those Churches which GOD had formed in them whence it comes that the Apostle afterward salutes the Laodiceans by name and orders the Colossians to impart this Epistle to them S. John also in his Apocalyps makes mention of the Church of Laodicea and it is one of the Seven Churches of Asia to which the LORD JESUS commanded him to write in his name And
of the same and giving of thanks He expresseth the first two ways First in metaphorical terms being rooted and built up in JESVS CHRIST And next properly and without figure being established or confirmed in faith For this confirmation in faith is no other thing than the self-same that he intendeth by the words rooted and built up in JESVS CHRIST The first of these two Metaphors is taken from Trees which stand firm and easily resist the violence of winds when they have put forth good and deep roots into the earth which serve them for so many stays and bands to hold them fast whereas the Plants which have but little or no root are easily pluckt up the least gust yea the hand of a Child is enough to overthrow them The faithful are often in Scripture compared unto trees You all know the Parable of the Fig-tree in the Gospel Psa 92.13 14 and that of the Palm-tree in the Psalms The just shall flourish as the Palm-tree and grow as the Cedar in Lebanon And there 's no one in the Church but is acquainted with that dainty Tree planted by the rivers of waters which bringeth its fruit in its season and the leaves whereof doth not wither Psal 1.3 which the Psalmist gives us a picture of at the beginning of his Book for an image of a true believer Whence it comes that the Ministers who labour in the culture of these Mystical Plants are likened to Gardeners and Vine-dressers and Husbandmen such an one was he in that Evangelical Parable Luke 13.8 who prayed the Owner to supersede the sentence pronounced upon one of his fig-trees And S. Paul also expresseth his own and Apollos his labouring for the edification of the faithful in terms taken from the same subject saying that he planted and Apollos watered 1 Cor. 3.6 â— In consequence of these figurative expressions which are familiar in Scripture you see that it is with much gracefulness and a great deal of reason that the Apostle here to recommend firmness of faith in JESUS CHRIST doth say they should be rooted in Him He saith the same again elsewhere when he prayeth GOD to strengthen the Ephesians by his spirit Eph. 3.18 that saith he being rooted and founded in love they might be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the breadth and length the heighth and depth and to know the love of Christ For since the faithful man is compared to a tree it is congruous to attribute to him both the production that is fruits and the parts of a tree whereof the principal is the root We say then that a tree is well rooted when its root is spread abroad and thrust far into the ground where it is planted and fastned to it so many ways that it stands upright and firm nor can be plucked up without extream difficulty Who then is the believer rooted in CHRIST Even the man whose whose soul embraceth the LORD JESUS all whose thoughts and affections are stretch'd forth and fastned to this Divine crucified Saviour who hath neither love nor desire nor affiance but for Him It is he who having rightly understood the excellency and the fulness of this rich Subject seeks all his felicity in it and withdrawing the desires the cares and affections of his heart from earth which are as it were the strings and roots of our nature by which it is fastned to its objects doth thrust them forth towards JESUS CHRIST doth unite with and bind them about Him and resteth on him alone and draweth the nutriment of his life from none other â—s you know trees by their root do receive all that juice which makes them â—â—ve shoot forth and fructifie Not to alledg any other example such a one was our Paul so fastned was he unto and so incorporated with his LORD that he liv'd in Him alone this divine ground wherein he was planted affording him all the joy all the contentment and all the life he had There is no need to fear that those who adhere to JESUS CHRIST in such a manner who are so really and deeply rooted in Him can ever be pluck'd up by any effort how violent soever it be The winds do in vain shake them tempests do beat upon them to no purpose persecutions will not be able to make them bend nor fraud nor eloquence nor the subtilty of Sophisters remove them Novelties and Curiosities do not tempt them because that sweet sap which they continually draw from their CHRIST as from a rich soil doth content them and purgeth them of that foolish and childish itching humour which openeth the ears of the weak and unstable to such things But if you be not thus rooted in CHRIST it will be no great difficulty to pluck you from the station you are in If it be not this heavenly efficacy of our LORD but either birth or breeding or the discourse or authority of men or the name of liberty or any other such like cause which keeps you in the profession of Christianity I am much afraid you will not long abide in it If your heart be in the world if it still spread its affections as its roots into perishing things if it still admire the pleasures of the flesh and the fumes of ambition and the vanity of riches your perseverance is in truth very dubious The tree that hath no root hath no hold The first gust that falls upon it bears it down And would to God experience had less justified this truth in our eyes But this is the very cause of all their change who have deserted us If you examine their lives you will find they were not well rooted in CHRIST JESUS Wonder not that they were overthrown But let us make our profit of their unhappiness obeying the Apostle And that we may abide firm for ever in the communion of this Divine LORD of ours out of which there is nothing but misery and perdition let us be rooted in him with a lively and profound faith and love Let us love and relish him only and inseparably fasten all the powers of our souls to him alone as dead and risen again for us drawing all our righteousness from his Cross and all our hope and our glory from his Heavenly state and his immortality I come to the other Metaphor here used by the Apostle to set forth the confirming of our faith in JESUS CHRIST being rooted saith he and built up in JESVS CHRIST The former was taken from Trees and this now is drawn from Buildings It is no less famous in Scripture than the other for the faithful are there oftentimes compared to Houses and particularly to Temples and the Church that is the Society consisting of them collectively is represented to us under the same image Whence it comes that the labours of the Servants of the Lord for this end are also called edifyings a word so common in this sense that there is no need we should stay to explain
be more accessible unto us Joh. 14.1 6. Eph. 3.12 He proclaimeth in a thousand places that He is the way the truth and the life and that no man cometh to the Father but by Him that it is He by whom we have boldness Mat. 11.28 and access with confidence by faith in Him He calleth us unto Himself Come unto me saith He and I will give you rest And His Ministers do not only permit us to go to Him Heb. 4.16 they command and press us to do so Let us go say they with boldness to the throne of Grace that we may obtain grace and mercy to help in time of need Insteed of obeying these holy and divine calls of GOD and His Ministers you say No I will not do it I am not so presumptuous as to go either to GOD or to His Son I must beg the intercession of Angels and Saints to present me before that supream light In conscience is not this an exalting of your self above GOD Is it not a presuming that you know better than He what belongs to your duty and His service Is it not an hiding under the fine words of a feigned humility plain rebellion and disobedience to His Holy Majesty which is in effect the highest pride a creature can be guilty of since it is at the bottom a pretending that you are wiser than He and that the way He prescribes you is neither so good nor so reasonable as that which you have chosen But let us forbear any further arguing For where the Apostle speaks there is no need that we should discourse His authority relyes not on the succour of our reasons Here you see it is express against our adversaries corrupt usage He formerly condemns the thing they do For they approve and daily practise this service of Angels which S. Paul forbids us and ground it upon that same humility of spirit the pretexture whereof He hath voided and destroyed becoming doubly culpable both for rebuilding if I may so say this Jericho of superstistition which he hath domolished and for employing in it the very stones which he hath blasted from Heaven What can error say against so clear a determination By what charms can it turn away this flash of lightning from falling on its head Dear Brethren it is too much in love with its own inventions to give glory to GOD and will rather renounce His word than quit its superstitious imaginations In the present matter seeing its self pressed it hath recourse to subtilty and though it both maintain and practise the worshipping of Angels and cannot deny but 〈◊〉 the Apostle condemns those who teach and practise it yet it pretends with an 〈◊〉 â—ible boldness that it is not it the Apostle doth condemn It hath turned its 〈…〉 ways to effect this illusion all which to say the truth have more hardi 〈…〉 in them And to begin at this one the famousest of its last Advocates 〈…〉 â—ink ill satisfied in his conscience with the subtilty of his fellows hath bethought himself of a new gloss unheard of till now in all the Schools of Christianity both antient and modern born of his own conceit alone a very fruitful breeder of such productions and begotten by meer despair of his bad cause Du Perron in His Repl. to K. James p. 909. This man then affirms that S. Paul doth mean by the service or religion of Angels not as all the Fathers and all the Modern have believed the worshiping of Angels but as he all alone will have it the Law of Moses First the novelty of this gloss and the very consideration that for the space of neer sixteen hundred years not so much as one single man hath been found that was aware of it doth sufficiently shew that it is the heat of disputation and not the truth of the thing which suggested it to the author of it and the maxims of his Church he doth evidently renounce too which willeth that Scripture be not interpreted but by the Fathers whereas he laying by their exposition brings in one here that is not only undiscernable in any one of them but also directly contrary to the most Chrysoâ—â— Thâ—odoret Oâ—â—umâ—â— Tâ—â—â—philact and most renowned of their number who do understand these words of the Apostle of the worship done to Angels by those Seducers whom S. Paul doth in this place oppose But I say moreover that it is for good reason that no man ever thought upon it since in very deed it is not maintainable nor can be at all accorded either with the Apostles words or with his scope and design Not with his words for they must be interpreted according to the stile of the Authors of that tongue wherein he writes Now there are but two or three places in Scripture where the word used by the Apostle doth occur so construed as it is in this place One is in S. James Jam. 1.26 If any man among you saith he seems to be religious and bridles not his tongue but deceiveth his own soul that mans religion or service is in vain Another is in the book of the Acts where S. Paul saith that from the beginning he lived a Pharisâ—e Act. 26.5 after the accuratest sect saith he of our religion The word is found again so construed in the book of Wisdom held for Canonical by our adversaries and which though it be not such indeed yet is writ in Greek with the same language and the same stile that the Books of the New Testament are This author then makes use of the word in the same manner Wisd 4.27 The abominable service saith he or religion of idols is the beginning the cause and the end of all evil In all these places the religion or the service of any one doth signifie either the service he does to some other as in the two former passages or the service that is done to him by others as in the latter of them Here therefore except you think the Apostle swerved from the stile wherein he wrote the service or religion of Angels must of necessity signifie one of those two things either the service which the Angels do perform to GOD or the service which men perform to them The first of these two senses cannot take place by the confession of our adversaries themselves and of every sober person They must then necessarily admit the second and confess with us and with all the Ancients that by the service of Angels S. Paul intends not the Jewish religion or the Law of Moses but the religious service which these Seducers rendred to Angels under pretext of humility Moreover in what Prophet in what Apostle in what rational Author either Antient or even Modern have these men ever found this novel and extravagant manner of speaking the service of Angels that is to say the Jewish religion Verily it is called the Law of GOD because GOD instituted it the Law of Moses because
They forbid all Christians to read the Bible without the Bishops or the Inquisitors permission But they presently declare that no Bishop nor Inquisitor hath power to give any Thus there shall no person be permitted it Is not this an evident mocking of the world But these gallants do so hugely dread the Scripture that they had rather become guilty of thus shamefully and openly deluding Christendom than suffer any one to have or read so dangerous a Book They would rather salve their interest than their honour And in very deed such the practice is in Spain and Italy and in the Territories of the Inquisition where this permission to read the Bible is not given to any man whoever he be and where it 's held for a capital crime and a sure mark of Heresie to have in house but a volume of the Old or New Testament in the vulgar tongue So as it must of necessity be that those who do in these parts permit this reading unto some are either guilty of violating the general ordinances of that Church they profess themselves members of or have some particular and extraordinary power from the Pope to do as they do which yet doth not appear This crime would be less strange if it did clash only with this passage of the Apostle But it also overturneth divers other most expresse instructions Deut. 17.18 19. which occur in the holy Scriptures For GOD commands the King of Israel who was a Laick noâ— a Clerk to write a copy of His law and to have it by him Deut. 11.18 19. 6.7 8 9. and read it diligently and generally all His people to lay up all His words in their hearts and in their minds to bind them for signs upon their hands and for frontlets between their eyes that is to have them as familiar as their own hands and eyes to teach them their children and discourse of them at home and abroad lying down and rising up and write them on the posts of their houses and on their gates which is just the same thing St. Paul here calls in short an having the word of GOD to dwell in them In effect St. Luke praiseth the Ethiopian Eunuch Acts 8.28 17.11 for that he read the Scriptures and the men of Berea for that they consulted them daily to know if the things which Paul and Silas preached to them were so Yet we no where read Psal 1.2 that they had leave of any Papal Bishops or Inquisitors And David pronounceth that man blessed who meditateth day and night in the law of GOD. Again Joh. 20.31 the word of GOD being written that we might believe that JESVS is the CHRIST and that believing we might have life through His Name as saith St. John Rom. 15.4 and for our learning as saith St. Paul that we through patience and comfort might have hope It must of necessity be concluded that the forbidding of Christians to read the Scriptures evidently is either a frustrating the LORD of His intention or an accusing Him of having been unable to give us Scriptures proper for His aim and our aid I say as much and that more positively of the Apostolical Epistles which being directed to the faithful Clergie and Laity indifferently there is no reason to bar any of them from reading what the first Ministers of GOD wrote to them all In fine the fault of our adversaries is so much the more inexcusable for that the ancient Doctors of whom they make so great account Homil. 9. on Levitie are directly contrary to them in this particular As Origen for one who would have Christians not only hear the word of GOD in the Church but exercise themselves in reading it at home and in meditating on it night and day St. Hierom for another Hierom. Ep. 14. 30. August lib. de Catech. rud c. 6.8 Gregor in his Epistles lib. 4. Ep. 40. who would have women and maids themselves to learn the Scriptures by heart St. Augustine for a third who does most earnestly recommend the reading of the word of GOD to the very Catechumeni that is Christians of the lowest form such as had not yet received holy Baptism St. Gregory the Great that famous Bishop of Rome for a fourth who gravely reproves a Physician of the Court for that he took not the pains to read the words of our Redeemer every day For what is holy Scripture saith he but a letter from GOD to His creature If you were in a far Countrey and there received letters from the Emperor your Master you would not be at rest nor sleep at your case till you had read them and perceiv'd what your earthly Prince should have vouchsafed to write you The Monarch of Heaven the LORD of men and Angels hath sent and conveyed to your hands His letters about the concernments of your life And yet my Son you deign not to read them Apply to them I beseech you and meditate daily your Creator's sayings Thus Gregory more than a thousand years a-go Judge how far the language of later Popes is from his spirit and from his principles I pass by other Doctors of antiquity who are no less contrary to this modern abuse and will only mention further John of Antioch Bishop of Constantinople to whom the Church hath given the name of Chrysostome that is Golden mouth because of the richness and sweetnesse of his incomparable eloquence he alone would furnish a man with enough to make a small volume if any would put together all the passages of his works in which he exhorteth all the faithful and in special those of the people to an assiduous reading of the Holy Scripture and particularly in the Sermon he made upon this very Text of the Apostle which we are expounding Hear Chrysost Homil 9. in Ep. ad Coloss saith he you that live in the World and have wife and children hear how he orders you yea you principally to read the Scriptures not slightly and heedlesly but with great care and diligence He would have them heed no other master You have saith he to them the oracles of GOD and no one can teach you so well as these divine books And a little after Have saith he the books of the Bible the true medicines of the soul Get at least the New Testament the Acts of the Apostles the Gospels Let these be your perpetual Masters and Teachers If any affliction befall you loss of goods of children or of friends if death it self present its self unto you make search forthwith in this book as in the store-house of coelestial medicaments and fetch out of it the remedies that are necessary for the mitigating of your miseries Or rather that you may not be put to the trouble of such search lay them all up in your soul and have them ready upon all occasions Ignorance of the Scriptures is the cause of all our evils Thus far Chrysostome And truly as you
the name and title they have in Christian Morality Works that are the same as to the external action do sometimes prove nevertheless very different and even contrary one good another bad because the Spirit that produceth them is not the same As for instance the alms of an ambitious man and of a true believer have no external difference the ones act in that regard is the same the others is yet if you consider the inward springs of them both you will find that the one is a piece of vanity and the other a fruit of charity Whence it comes that notwithstanding all the resemblance they have in open view they are yet at the bottom works of a quite different nature the one evil and condemned of GOD the other good and acceptable to the LORD The one with all its outside paint and colour is an act of vice the other of vertue The same is to be said of those two kinds of Preaching which the Apostle mentions in the Epistle to the Philippians the one of those that Preached CHRIST through envy Phil. 1.15 16. and of contention the other of such as preached Him of good will and of love The language of them both was the same but the diversity of their designs render'd their actions so different that the one 's to say the truth was a sacriledge and an abomination the other 's on the contrary one of the best and most excellent works of Christian piety and charity Thus you see the rule which S. Paul gives us to order all the external actions of our lives our words and works even that we do all in the Name of the LORD JESVS The rule is short and easie but of vast and almost infinite use As a little square serve 's an Artificer to design and mark out a multitude of lines and to discover and correct all those that are amiss so by this little rule which the Apostle puts in our hands there is no humane action but we may certainly perceive whether it be right or wrong good or evil and conform to the will of GOD or otherwise neither is there any part of our lives but this rule if we take care to adjust them by it is capable of guiding and forming unto perfection Now as the name of GOD in Scripture signifies sometimes that Ebrew word of four Letters which the LORD takes for His name and memorial distinguishing Himself by that appellation from all those GODs to whom the error of Nations wrongfully gave that quality and the honours due to it so likewise the name of JESUS is sometimes taken for this very word JESUS which as you know is the name that was given Him by the express command of GOD. And so those of the communion of Rome seem to understand it Phil. 2.10 in that passage of S. Paul where it is said that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth uncovering as oft as they hear the word JESUS pronounced as if the Apostles meaning were that all creatures coelestial terrestrial and infernal should do reverence when those two Syllables JESUS are uttered Wherein verily they are much mistaken the import of that passage beeing quite otherwise It 's not thus neither that S Paul takes the name of JESUS in our Text as if he simply intended that in our actions and discourses we should not fail to intermix alwayes the word JESUS having it incessantly in our mouths and never doing nor saying any thing without pronouncing it first Far be it from us to imagine that such a thought should fix upon the Apostles mind It is not the word nor the letters or syllables of this name that he recommends unto us I grant we cannot have it too much in our mouths provided it flow into them from the heart and that it be a religious and respectful consideration which makes us mention it and not a vain and childish superstition as if there were some secret vertue annexed unto words We are to note then in the second place that as the Name of GOD is very often taken in Scripture for the power the authority the will respect and consideration of GOD in like manner is the Name of JESUS Thus Moses foretelling the coming of the Messiah Deut. 18.19 And it shall come to pass saith he that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which He shall speak in my Name I will require it of him Which He shall speak in my Name that is by my order and authority and in acquitting himself of the charge which I have committed to Him And it 's thus we frequently read that the Prophets spake in the name of GOD that is by His express command they being sent and dispatched from Him 2 Kings 2.24 And it 's said of Eliah that he cursed the children that reviled him in the name of the LORD that is by His authority And this form of speech was so common among the Jews that the Priests and Elders demanded of the Apostles in the fourth Chapter of the Acts Acts 4.7 in whose name they had done that miracle meaning upon whose authority and by whose order they had undertaken it The same exposition is to be given of that which the Psalmist singeth We will boast in the name of the LORD our GOD Psal 20.8.25 that is in His help and power and speaking of the faithful unto GOD They shall rejoyce saith he in thy name that is in the confidence they have in thy power and goodness of like import is that which he addeth that the Horn of His anointed shall be exalted in His name that is by His might and by the vertue and order of His providence So David entring into combat with the Philistin 1 Sam. 17 4â— Thou comest against me saith he with a sword and with a spear and with a shield but I come against thee in the name of the LORD of hosts whom thou hast defied In the name of the LORD that is for His glory which thou hast reproached and in assurance of His protection and succour in the same sense that King Asa mean't it on a like occasion Help us saith he O LORD our GOD. For we rely on Thee 2 Chr. 14.11 and are come forth in Thy name against this multitude that is in Thy quarrel and with confidence in Thee It 's therefore in the same manner we are to take this phrase in the name of CHRIST which often occurs in the Books of the New Testament as in S. Matthew Prophecying and casting out Devils in the name of the LORD that is Mat. 7.22 24.5 Acts 5.28 by His authority and in His might and when men are said to come in His name that is to avouch themselves His and to affirm themselves sent by His order to speak and teach in the name of JESVS CHRIST and likewise to be assembled in His name
degree of society either civil or domestick or religious they be placed And though this part being once well comprehended hath in it a great and almost sufficient light to direct and govern all the rest yet they forbear not upon it to descend unto the particular duties of each of those estates and conditions which the faithful live in in humane society Thus the Apostle S. Paul hath done in this Epistle for after having formed us all in general unto piety and sanctity and charity which belong to all Christians equally as you have heard in the precedent exercises he now addresseth himself in particular to each of those three orders of which an houshold is composed the first whereof is the Husband and the Wife the second the Father and the Children the third Master and Servants giving each of them a good lesson for their conduct in the condition to which GOD hath called them Elsewhere he regulateth the duties of Subjects in reference to the civil Powers under which they live of the faithful in reference to their Pastors and reciprocally of Pastors in reference to their flocks not omitting Deacons the other part of Ecclesiastick Ministry and this not in one place alone but many In consideration hereof before we proceed any further permit me I beseech you to make here at the entrance one general reflection upon this the Holy Apostles way of treating thus Whence comes it that having been so careful to instruct and to direct in particular each of those different ranks of persons which then were and still are in the Church they never drop'd one word of the duties of three kinds of conditions in which now a dayes Rome makes the main and in a manner the all of the Christian Commonweal to consist I mean the Pope Sacrificers or Priests and Monks The Apostles do instruct the lowest Masters how they ought to treat their attendants and the simplest Presbyters or Bishops that is Pastors how they ought to feed their flocks They never tell the Pope in what manner he ought to deport himself in that great government of all Christendom which as is said hath been given him of GOD. The Apostles do advertise the most abject slaves of the servitude they owe their Masters and every flock of the diference and respect it owes its Pastors They never speak a word either to single believers or their guides of that infinite subjection which they are obliged to profess unto the Pope or of kiâ—â—ing his feet or of submitting the conscience or any other such like thing The Apostles do exactly inform Bishops or Pastors of the duties of their charge of preaching exhorting instructing of watching of correcting of censuring of excluding the scandalous from communion They never order any Sacrificers to offer a propitiatory hoast unto GOD for the sins of quick and dead nor tell them of the preparations ceremonies and observances necessary thereto nor of purifying by means of an auricular confession the consciences of such as are to participate of such a sacrifice nor of the precautions and subtilties that are necessary for the right administration of it In fine the Apostles verity vouchsafe to take the pains to enter into Families and there regulate the demeanour of Husbands and Wives of Virgins and Widows of Fathers and Children of Masters and Servants Why say they nothing unto Monks neither to the solitary as Hermits and Anachorets nor to those that live associated in separated dwellings Why do they not somewhere instruct the Guardians the Abbots the Superiours and Generals of these orders Why do they not exhort their inferiors to yield them a blind obedience Why say they nothing of their three vows and of the means of well observing them And why give they no instructions to Religious women who imitating the zeal of men shut themselves up in Convents But what say I that they no where regulate the carriage and particular duties of these three sorts of conditions More than so they make no mention of them at all neither expresly nor implicitly And if you read the Books of the New Testament you will find that there is no more speech in them of the Pope and the Sacrificers and the Monks of Rome than of the Bramines of India or the Bonzians of Japan or the Muphti of the Musulmen Whence comes so strange a silence so universal an obliviousness Is it that the thing was not worthy of the Apostles care and quill But how can that be imagin'd since if you believe those of Rome it 's upon these three orders that Christianity depends For as to the Pope he is the head of the Church and exerciseth so necessary an imperial power that out of his communion there is no salvation And as for Priests or Sacrificers it 's they alone that purifie the souls of men both by the absolution they give those whom they confess and by that Deity which they deliver unto such as they communicate Lastly as for Monks their order is the state of perfection They are the Angels of the earth the glory and the rampart of the Church the sole patterns of Evangelick piety and sanctity wherefore they call their fraternities Religions and disdaining their old name of Monks each sex of them stiles themselves Religious as if the piety of other Christians did not deserve to be called Religion in comparison of theirs Whence comes it then that the Apostles have so forgotten these three sorts of people which are as highly or more necessary in the Church than the four elements in the world Dear Brethren you plainly see the reason and if passion did not blind our adversaries they might see it too as well as we The Apostles have said nothing to these three sorts of people because there were none such among Christians in their time Had there been then a Pope and Sacrificers in the Church the Apostles without doubt would have told them their duty as well as Bishops and Elders that is Pastors And if there had been Monks and Religiouses they would undoubtedly have spoken unto them as well as unto men and women that live in wedlock Since they did it not be we certainly assured that neither of these three plants was sown or set by JESUS CHRIST or His Apostles but they have all sprung up since their dayes partly from the imprudence partly from the superstition and corruptness of men who also affording them cultivation have raised them by little and little to that prodigious greatness which now for divers ages they have had And this be spoken at the entrance upon occasion of the care the Apostles in general had to form and regulate the duties of the divers conditions of persons which are found in the Church As for S. Paul's particular in this place he speaks here first unto Husbands and Wives next unto Fathers and Children and last of all unto Masters and Servants following therein the natural order of the things themselves For if you consider the
the will of the LORD is and elsewhere again he commandeth us to prove it The necessity of the other point Rom. 12.2 our LORD JESUS CHRIST sheweth us when He saith in the Gospel according to St. Matthew Not every one that saith unto me LORD LORD shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven Mat. 7.21 I acknowledge that while the beleever is here below there want many degrees both in his knowledge of the will of GOD and in the obedience he renders Him of that ultimate and supreme perfection which he shall one day attain unto in Heaven 1 Cor. 13.12 according to the Apostle's assertion in 1 Epist to the Corinthians that now we see through a glass darkly and know but in part but then we shall see face to face and know as we are known Yet this hinders not but that setting this comparison aside that measure of faith and holiness which the faithful do at present attain unto may be termed a perfection and compleatness because it is without hypocrisie reaching to internals and externals and doth include all the parts of true piety and chastity not one left out And it 's in this sense that the truly faithful are oft-times in Scripture called perfect and compleat to wit in reference to the state and measure of the present life for a distinguishing of them not only from prophane and brutish men who take up no part of the will of GOD at all but also from hypocrites and carnal Christians who consider but a part thereof halting between two and are throughly and absolutely neither in CHRIST nor of the world Epaphras had reason to desire this perfection for his Colossians since that no one without it can inherit everlasting life And they who dogmatize that it is not universally necessary for the obtaining of salvation and that it is a matter of counsel as they call it not of command they I say are grievously mistaken and do by this pernicious errour open a door of licence unto wicked men and furnish them with pillows to sleep upon in mortal security For our parts dear Brethren follow we the prayer of Epaphras and take good heed we never count that thing superfluous or unnecessary which he so instantly beg'd of GOD for his flock and sheep And knowing that they shall have no part in Heaven whose righteousness doth not exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees and that JESUS CHRIST will receive in thither none but them that have done the will of GOD His Father let us apply our selves with all our might â—o know it and fulfil it Let us give our selves no rest untill by prayers and tears and by continual labour and exercise in the Gospel we have attained to be perfect and compleat in all the will of GOD. Yet it is not enough to attain hereto we must abide and stand firm in it as the Apostle here says persevere constantly to our last breath in this brave and blessed undertaking neither the menaces nor the caresses of the world neither the Sophisms of seducers nor the scandals of false brethren nor the weaknesses of our own flesh ever prevailing over us to make us vary For you know that the crown of salvation is for them alone that persevere It 's thus that Epaphras strove to obtain of GOD by his ardent and assiduous prayers that the Colossians might abide perfect and compleat in all the will of GOD. But because the Apostle knew how much it concerned this people to be firmly perswaded of the affection of their Pastor that he might assure them fully of it he alledgeth to them the authority of his own testimony For saith he I bear him witness that he hath a great zeal that is a very ardent affection for you and for them of Laodicea and of Hierapolis These were two Cities of Phrygia neighbouring on Colosse where the LORD JESUS had Churches that served Him in the faith of His Gospel And that of Laodicea is one of the seven to whom He caused to be written by St. John those excellent Epistles which are read in the first Chapters of his Apocalypse You see what care the Apostle takes to set Epaphras right in the Spirit of his flock Whence you may judge how execrable is the rage or envy of those who quite contrary to this holy man do by their detractions and ill offices endeavour to alienate or slacken the inclination of Churches towards their Pastors and in so doing render their ministry unprofitable to them But to proceed After the salutation of Epaphras the Apostle presents them that of Luke and Demas Luke the beloved Physitian saluteth you saith he and also Demas It 's the constant opinion from all antiquity that the first of these two is the same St. Luke that wrote the third of our Gospels and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles two of the most excellent pieces that we have in the Divine writings of the New Testament And verily besides the name of Luke his own history as seems to me leads us to it For himself relateth that he embarqued with St. Paul when he was carried prisoner into Italy and that he came with him to Rome as you may see in the two last Chapters of the Acts where he describes this voyage Therefore being there with the Apostle there is all the probability in the World that he 's the person St. Paul speaks of in this place it being not found that mention is made in Scripture of any other faithful man of that name He calls him Physician because of his former profession as you see that St. Matthew is sometimes termed a Publican because he e'rwhile was so before his conversion But that same heavenly call that had changed Matthew from a Publican into an Apostle and afore-time of a keeper of sheep made David a Pastor of Nations wrought a like miracle in St. Luke and of a Physician to the body made him a Physician of souls His two books shew us how able he was in this Divine art and as often as you read them at home or hear them publickly here where because of their excellency they are both of them explained to you make account that they are a quantity of wholsome medicines presented you to be applied to your souls as you have need I well know that there are some modern Expositors who referr what the Apostle saith here unto another Luke but they produce no valuable reason For whereas they alledge that the Apostle would have adorned this person with some more illustrious Elogie if he had spoken of Luke the Evangelist this is extremely feeble Is it not a very glorious qualifying of him to call him his well-beloved It 's a great honour to have the love of so holy an Apostle and an assured testimony of piety and vertue Withal it is not alwaies necessary to accompany the names of illustrious persons
by the Letter which he wrote thereupon registred in the said Book it doth appear that there was much loosness and coldness and many defects in this flock whether such corruption had got footing there so early as S Paul's own time or whether as I judg more probable it were slipt in afterwards through carelesness of the faithful and the craft of foes However it be there is great likelihood that Laodicea was troubled at this time with the same evils that the Colossians were and that these Seducers who endeavour'd to infect the one apply'd themselves also to the other Therefore the Apostle would have this Epistle which is as a preservative against the venom of these false teachers to be communicated to those of Laodicea an evident sign that since they had need of the same remedies they were threatned with the same maladies But to the Colossians and the Laodiceans whom he here expresly nameth he further adds indefinitely all those which had not seen his presence in the flesh His name was so very famous among Christians that there could hardly be any one of that number but had heard speak of him knew him by reputation and consequently had seen him in heart and in spirit But he speaks of those only that had not seen him present in body whether he by these words do understand all the faithful in general that had not at all enjoy'd his presence in what coast or country soever they were for we know that the care of this eminent Apostle extended to them all Or whether he speak here of the faithful in Phrygia or in Asia only which in my opinion is more likely For there being no possibility that S. Paul and the other Apostles should present themselves every where they often sent Evangelists who were as their assistants and coadjutors hither and thither to divers places to travel for the Conversion of Souls And so though the Apostle had traversed the greatest part of Asia the less and honoured with his presence and preaching many of the principal Cities in it and in special the Province of Phrygia Act. 16.6 18.2 3. as may be gathered from the Book of the Acts Yet it may not be doubted but that there remained still many Cities to which he had not been able to go in person Expositors both ancient and modern for the most part do conclude from these words of S. Paul that he had not been yet in the City of Colosse nor in the City of Laodicea when he wrote this Epistle and they suppose that he had converted those people and founded Churches among them by the Ministry of Epaphras without conveying himself in person thither Nor can it be denyed but that the words do give us some apparent ground so to conceive For saying That he hath a great conflict for the Colossians and the Laodiceans and for all those that had not seen his presence in the flesh he seems to enroll the Colossians and the Laodiceans among those that had never seen him Theodoret. in his Preface to this Epist on the place it self Nevertheless there are Authors found among the Ancients and they of as great repute as any for height of Learning as well as for choiceness of Wit and solidity of Judgment who are otherwise minded and do hold that S. Paul had been both at Colosse and at Laodicea accounting it improbable that he should have gone through Phrygia twice as S. Luke expresly testifies and not have seen these two Cities the principal ones of that Country And for these words and all those which have not seen my presence in the flesh they conceive them added not to rank the Colossians and the Laodiceans with such as had not seen the Apostle but quite contrary to distinguish and separate them from them as if S. Paul had said that he had a great combat not only for them but even for those who never saw his presence in the flesh But this disterence being of no great importance at the bottom and means necessary for an exact decision of it also failing there is no need we should stay to solve it but may leave every one at liberty to take either way of the two neither of them endamaging the truth of faith or holiness of life And thus we have seen who they were for whom the Apostle sustained this great combat which he speaks of Consider we now the combat it self what it was I doubt not but he means thereby first and principally that care and sollicitousness and thoughtfulness which the consideration of these Churches drew upon him For though their faith and constancy afforded him much contentment and encouraged his hope yet when he cast his eyes upon the great tentations that surrounded them the hate and persecutions of the world the seducements and artifices of the false teachers and reflected on the weakness of humane nature he could not but fear left so many things and those of so much force should debauch them from piety Love is not without apprehension no not in the greatest safety how much less in the midst of so many dangers The Apostle assureth us elswhere that the affection he bore to the faithful was so great that he sympathiz'd in all their miseries and was as if he had suffered them himself The care which I have of all the Churches Cor. 11.29 saith he keeps me besieged from day to day Who is weakned but I am weakned also who is offended but I also burn And in the same place he represents unto us the pain he was in for the Corinthians in particular 2 Cor. 11.3 I fear saith he lest as the Serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty so by any means your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in CHRIST Just the same did he apprehend for the Colossians and Laodiceans and other Christians in Asia even lest the cheats and crafts of Seducers should disorder their faith and make a like spoil among them as they made in the Church of the Galatians as appears by the Epistle he wrote them upon this occasion Yet these just fears wherewith the thoughts of the Apostle were incumbred were not his whole combat For under this word he compriseth also all that he did to divert the danger which he apprehended First he was perpetually in prayer for the safety of these dear Churches and as Moses in elder time upon the mountain ceas'd not lifting up his hands to the Almighty for the Victory of his Israel that was in fight the while with Amalek So this great Apostle from that high station where JESUS CHRIST had set him in His Church did continually present his supplications and sighs to Heaven for the good success of the Combats which his Master's troops were engaged in 2 Thes 1.12 Phil. 1.4 Colos 1.9 We pray always for you saith he I still make request for you all in all my prayers We cease not to pray for you and to