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
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
passeth unto exhortation conjuring these faithful people to live well and holy forming their deportment to a Piety Honesty and Vertue worthy their vocation He endeth with some particular affairs whereof he speaketh to them and with the recommendations he presents them both on his own part and on the part of some other faithful persons that were with Him But you will better understand the whole by the exposition of each of the parts of the Epistle if the LORD grant us to compleat the same For the present we propose to our selves to consider only the five Verses we have read the two first of which contain the Inscription of the Epistle and the other three the joy and the thanksgivings of Paul unto GOD for the faith and charity of these Colossians These shall be GOD willing the two Points that we will treat on in this action The Inscription of the Epistle is couched in these words Paul an Apostle of JESVS CHRIST by the Will of GOD and the Brother Timothy to the Saints and faithful brethren in CHRIST JESVS that are at Colosse Grace be unto you and peace from GOD our Father and from the LORD JESVS CHRIST Whereas at this day the custom is to put upon Letters the name of those to whom they are written and within after the body of the Letter the Name and Sign of those that write them heretofore the use was otherwise for he that wrote did set both the one and the other Name within at the head of the Letter with a brief salutation in these words Such a one unto such a one health as we learn by a multitude of Greek and Latin Epistles which are left us in the ancient Books of the most renowned Personages of those two Nations The Apostle that lived in those Ages useth the same manner in all his Letters as you know saving that instead of wishing health and prosperity to those to whom he writes He ordinarily wisheth them Peace and the Grace of GOD and of his Son JESVS CHRIST According to this form the inscription of this Epistle containeth First The Names and Qualities both of them that write it and those they write it to and Secondly The good and happy wish wherewith they salute them The Names of those that write it are Paul and Timothy sufficiently known to all that are ever so little versed in the reading of the New Testament They are here described each by certain qualities attributed to them To Paul that of an Apostle of JESVS CHRIST by the will of GOD. To Timothy that of Brother simply The word Apostle signifies in the Language of the Greeks one deputed a person sent by some one But in the Scripture of the New Covenant it is taken particularly for those first and highest Ministers of the LORD JESUS whom He sent with a Soveraign and Independent Authority to Preach the Gospel and establish His Church in the world The highest and noblest charge GOD ever gave to men And to exercise it it was necessary First To have seen JESUS CHRIST alive after His Death that a good and lawful Testimony might be given of His Resurrection They must Secondly Have received their commission from the LORD himself immediately and in the Third place Have the Holy Spirit in an extraordinary measure with the gift of Tongues and Miracles Whence appears how ill founded they are that attribute the glory of an Apostleship to the Bishop of Rome to whom none of those three conditions do agree It is also clear that this dignity is extraordinary and was not instituted but for the first establishments of the Church the government whereof after its plantation the Apostles put in the hands of another kind of in feriour Ministers which are indifferently called in Scripture either Bishops that is Overseers and Superintendents or Presbyters that is Elders The History of the Acts informeth us that to the twelve Apostles afore ordained our LORD added besides afterward St. Paul having miraculously appeared to Him and sent Him with the same power the rest had to convert the Gentiles He assumeth therefore here this glorious Title at the entrance of this Letter and saith moreover that He is an Apostle by the will of GOD signifying that it was the express Order and Mandate of the LORD which honoured him with this Ministry and not the suffrage and authority of men differencing Himself by this means from those false Teachers and Troublers that had not been sent but by the will of flesh and blood The declaration of this His quality was here necessary for Him First To maintain His honour against the calumnies of Seducers who did disparage and black Him as much as they could under pretence that He had not lived as the other Apostles in the company of JESUS CHRIST during the dayes of His flesh and Secondly To ground the liberty He took of writing to the Colossians and of remonstrating to them their duty as well in faith as manners it being evident that the Apostles had right to use this authority over all and every of the Christian Churches To His own Name he addeth that of Timothy whom he calleth Brother as having one and the same faith and labouring about one and the same work whether it were to authorize His Doctrine the more by the consent of this holy man every word being more firm in the mouth of two or three Witnesses than in that of one alone Or to recommend Him to these believers that if he wrote to them or ever came to visit them they might receive Him as a person worthy of the fellowship of the Apostles and whose Name deserved to accompany that of Paul As for those to whom He directeth this Epistle He describes them next in these words To the Saints and faithful Brethren in CHRIST that are at Colosse I pass by as childish and impertinent the opinion of those whom it listed to say that it is the Isle and City of Rhodes He meaneth and that He calleth it Colosse because of that great and prodigious Statue of the Sun which the Rhodians had erected at the mouth of their Haven and which the Greeks ordinarily called the Colossus What need is there of these frigid and ridiculous subtilities since the Ancients shew that there was yerst in Phrygia a Province of Asia the less a City called Colosse not far from two others to wit Laodicea and Hierapolis whom the Apostle also mentions in this Epistle and recommends expresly to the Colossians the communicating this Letter to the Laodiceans when themselves should have read it Afterward this City of Colosse changed its Name and was called Cone and to it one of the famousest Writers of the latter times of Greece who is called Nicetas Choniates owed his birth taking His Surname from the place where he was born In Th saur l. 4. ch 22. and himself boasteth in one of His Works that it had been to the inhabitants of the City of Cone whence he was
he saith that the Gospel is preached to every creature Col. 1.23 that is under Heaven and at the tenth of the Epistle to the Romans where applying to the Ministers of the LORD JESUS what the Psalmist had sung of the Heavens Rom. 10.18 Their sound saith he is gone forth through all the earth and their words unto the ends of the World And elsewhere speaking of himself he saith That from Jerusalem Rom. 15.19 and round about it even to Illyricum he had made the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST to abound and after the time he wrote those words He sowed it besides in the Isle of Malta and at Rome Now if the other twelve Apostles and the seventy Disciples and the Evangelists did labour each according to his measure in proportion with St. Paul as it is not to be doubted but they did no one will have cause to be astonished that all they together should have by that time carryed the Gospel through the whole world We read likewise in the writings of the first Christians Justin Clement Tertullian and others that in their time that is about 130 and 160 years only after the LORD's death all was full of Christian Churches and that there was no Nation either among the Greeks or the Barbarians nay the very Scythians or Tartarians wherein CHRIST JESUS had not servants And though these testimonies cannot be rejected without extream impudence there being no probability that either St. Paul or those other Writers would have spoken of the thing in such sort if it had not been true yet entirely to disarm incredulity I will add that the very same appears by the Books of Pagans of that time that are remaining For Tacitus a Roman Historian a passionate enemy of Christianity Amel. l. 15. though otherwise a grave man and of great esteem among his Countrymen hath left in Writing that in the eleventh year of Nero that is only eight years after the date of this Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians a severe search having been made after it there was found a very great multitude of Christians at Rome This sufficeth to justifie what the Apostle says For since that Preaching was able to penetrate so far on this side athwart Provinces that made as it were the heart of the Roman Empire it might be much more easily spread towards the East in the Estates of the Parthians and in the Indies even whither St. Thomas went as appears by tracks of it that remain of it to this day in those Countries and towards the South in Egypt and Ethiopia where St. Matthew Preached as the ancients do report and towards the North whither passed some of the other Disciples This was well nigh the whole world then known of the Greeks and Romans and thus without doubt the Apostle understands it in this place For as to those great Countreys discovered in the West about one hundred and fifty years ago which they commonly call the West Indies or the New world it is evident the Ancients had no certain knowledge of them and it is very likely that they were not yet peopled in the Apostle's time the furtherst memory which the Nations there have preserved of things yerst done among them being but for four or five hundred years at most Be it concluded therefore that taking the World as is commonly understood for Countries inhabited and known at that time the Gospel was then already come into all the world The Apostle mentions it to the Colossians First to confirm them the more in the saith they had given to the Gospel I confess that its truth depends not upon the success of the Preaching it nor upon the multitude of them that believe it Though all the world should reject it though Heaven and Earth should persecute it the faith of a Christian ought to abide alwayes firm and unshaken being founded as it is upon the word of GOD and not upon the consent of men as on the contrary though the whole universe should maintain errour we should not be for this either obliged to follow errour or excusable for having followed it this order of GOD subsisting for ever that we must not follow a multitude to do evil But thoug it be thus yet it is a great consolation to a faithful soul to see the truth spread abroad And since the Divine Vertue of the LORD is so much the more powerfully declared by how much the more men it converteth unto his Christ it is evident that this extension of the Gospel helpeth and confirmeth our Faith in as much as it furnisheth us with an excellent testimony of the power of GOD and of the efficacy of His word But I add also that the success here touched by the Apostle contains a manifest argument of the Divinity of the Gospel and that in two respects For first if you consider the thing in its self it is so great and marvelous as that it sheweth sufficiently that this Doctrine is not only true but even Divine and Celestial When St. Paul wrote this Letter it was not full thirty years that JESUS CHRIST had suffered death in Judea and yet the Gospel as he saith was already come into all the world How could it have made so much way in so little time penetrated so many obstacles flown into so many places infinitely distant if it had not been both of a Celestial Original and carryed by a divine force Certainly as the extension of the light of the Sun who inlightens the whole Hemisphere in an instant and the rapidness of its motion who visits all the Climats of the universe in four and twenty hours doth evidently shew us that it is a work of GOD and of a nature altogether different from that of Earthly and Elementary things In like manner this so swift and suddain course of the Evangelique Doctrine that fill'd the world in so little time pierced through and dissipated the darkness and made it self be seen so quickly from one end of the Heavens to the other invincibly proves that it is a divine thing and no humane production Look on all the disciplines that ever had sway in the World You shall not find any of them that was establisht in this sort and made such a progress in so small a time The religions of the Pagans lived only in the Countries where they were born and if sometimes they stretched further it was rather the curiosity of strangers that brought them from the place of their birth than their own design or vigour all those so famous sects of the Philosophy of the Greeks did abide each of them in the soil that bare them And the Doctrine which the Popes of Rome have established in their Communion came not to the estate wherein we see it but by a long succession of time one age gaining one point and another adding a second till after many ages it took in fine the consistence and form it hath at this day and wherein
it is maintained by the terrour of Inquisitions and the pomp of a worldly power and the favour of the Great who find their own interests in it It is only the Gospel of the LORD that from its birth had the courage and the force to fly every way penetrating with incredible swiftness all the Regions of the habitable world in less than five and twenty years And let none alledge unto me here the Seduction of Mahomet which infected the East and the South and a part of the West it self in a very little time For there is nothing alike in the progress of the one and the other of these two doctrines I pass by other differences that may be observed I will only touch at one of the most essential namely that Mahomet and his Successours advanced not their impostures but by force of Arms and dint of Sword not Preaching and establishing their Doctrine save in the Countreys they conquer'd and among the Nations they brought under their Yoke To say true it was their Iron and not their Alcoran that ran through and spoiled the World What was strange or supernatural in their success That a Troop of Robbers whom their own need or others cowardice and confusion emboldened to enterprise could seize them of some Towns by fraud or force That puffed up with the good fortune of their first successes and by a multitude of people joyned with them they pushed further on and issuing out of their Arabia should attempt the outmost quarters of the Roman Empire very ill-garded at that time and in a manner exposed to pillage and that gaining ground by little and little they should fall on further and break in on one side and the other as the division and weakness of their enemies gave them opportunity so as in fine in the space of three or four score years they saw by these progresses the East and the South in their hands Sure there was nothing but humane in all this Alexander the Macedonian had yer-while done as much or more in less than fifteen years and Sesostris and divers others both before and after him It is then no Miracle that the Religion of the Saracens born if I may so say upon the wings of their victorious Ensignes saw much of the World by this means in fifty or sixty years If any marvel be it is that of their armes which did so great exploits in so small time and not that of their Alcoran which never entred but into places whose gates fire and sword opened for it But as to the Gospel of the LORD JESUS it is quite otherwise It had not to sustain it and advance it in the world either the aid of force or the favour of armes or the successes of Warr or the exploits of any Conquerour It had not in its service either the charms of Eloquence or the subtilities of Philosophy in one word it had no humane or terrene succour that you can possibly imagine Those that carryed it were twelve or thirteen Fishermen with a little number of others of the same Cloth without Credit without Armes without courage without Experience the off-scouring and sweepage of the world weakness and imbecillity it self who far from enterprising upon ought of other mens had renounced all that was their own who instead of smiting and slaying where whip'd and ston'd at every turn instead of attaquing did not so much as make resistance to them that ill handled them living in an extreme humility and innocence With this poor equipage the Gospel undertook the world and though it met every where with gates shut up and walls garrison'd with all that was terrible to force it back though the Jews persecuted it the gentiles derided it great and small had it in abomination Magistrates banish'd it and put it under the most cruel punishments though all did rend it with injuries and reproaches yet naked as it was it made it self room and in spight of so many dreadful impediments ran from East to West and from South to North and so constantly despised all earthly means as it reigned every where for sixcore years before it had one Magistrate or Captain on its side disarming and despoiling them when it received any so far was it from making advantage of their arms or authority We may affirm therefore that this progress of the Gospel is a thing altogether singular not at any time else seen or hapning in the world and with which neither Mahumetism nor any other Religion hath any community Consequently that this is a mark of the truth and divinity of this holy doctrine those that are humane neither having nor being able to have that admirable force and vertue which appeareth in it But this event proves the same thing yet again after another manner inasmuch as it was a manifest accomplishment of ancient Oracles yer-while given by the LORD to His former people and registred in His Scriptures which foretell in divers places that the Messiah should spread all abroad the knowledge of the true GOD which was before shut up within the strait limits of Judea Isa 60.3 9.1 that the Nations one day should walk in His light and that people sitting in darkness should see a great light which the LORD JESUS explaining in the dayes of His flesh had said upon it Mat. 24.14 that His Gospel should be Preached in all the world These predictions therefore appearing at that time so punctually and so admirably and in so short a space fulfilled who can doubt any more but that the LORD JESUS is the true CHRIST since never any but He revealed the GOD of Israel and His service to the World and that His Apostles were the servants of this same GOD who having foretold these things so many ages before so mightily executed them by their Ministry in the fulness of time But besides the confirmation of the Colossians faith in general I account that the Apostle would more-over by this Elogy he gives the Gospel to be come into all the world fortifie them in particular against the new doctrines which some seducers were sowing in their Church For since other Churches founded here and their in divers parts of the world had heard nothing of them it was a very evident argument that they were not any part of the Gospel that is of what the Apostles Preached Whence we may draw to give you this advice by the way an invincible proof both of the truth of the doctrine we believe and of the vanity of that which we contest about with our adversaries of Rome For as to that we hold it is evident the Apostles Preached it in all the world both by word of mouth and by writing there being none of the necessary positive and assirmative articles of our faith but doth appear in all the Monuments of Apostolique Preaching to wit both in the Books they wrote and in the Churches they sounded As for our adversaries it is no less evident they can
and Powers let us conclude that it must be taken as in other places where it is couched after the same manner simply and absolutely that is to say taken for the first and not the second Creation If there be liberty to do otherwise and to give it any where the sense we please without other reason then that of our own fond imagination who seeth not but that by such an overture there will be no longer any thing certain or assured left in Scripture For as these Hereticks by this cavilling gloss would deprive the LORD JESUS of the glory of the first Creation another might bereave the Father of it by the same means interpreting the passages of Scripture which affirm that GOD created the world not of its first Production by which it came out of nothing into being but mearly of a Reparation or a Renovation of the Universe and in consequence hereof pretend with some Philosophers that it was surely long before it was created but not in the condition and the form it afterward obtained But GOD forbid that Christians should ever suffer impiety to have such a licence over the Word of GOD. Let us keep religiously to the truths which the Scriptures teach us and receive their language with a candid and and sincere belief Let Heresie rise in commotion and be as unquiet as it will since the Apostle the mouth of Heaven and the trumpet of GOD proclaimeth That all things were created by the LORD JESVS receive we this sacred Verity believe it and confess it so much the rather for that it is not here alone but in divers other places beside that the Scripture teacheth it us For not to repeat here that which we touch'd afore out of the Epistle to the Ephesians where it is said That the Father created all things by JESVS CHRIST what can be said more expresly or directly then that we read in the beginning of S. John where this Divine Author speaking of the Word which was made flesh and whose glory himself and his Fellow-brethren saw and who was in the beginning with GOD saith aloud That all things were made by Him and without Him was not any thing made that was made and that the world was made by Him What can be uttered or conceived more clear than what we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews where the Apostle not content to have said at the entrance That the Father made the Worlds by his Son doth say of the Son a little after what the Prophet singeth LORD thou hast founded the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the works of thine hands Hebr. 1.10 Certainly this proof is so firm that all the Devils of Hell shall never be able to pluck it from us And nothing can be imagined more bruitish than that evasion which despair hath here inspir'd the Hereticks withal Though say they the Apostle have alledged these words of the Psalm yet his intention was not to apply them to CHRIST but the following words only Thou remainest and art the same and thy years shall not fail For is not this a plain giving the Apostle the lye who directly affirmeth that it is to the Son the holy Spirit saith LORD in the beginning thou hast laid the foundations of the earth Besides if this alledging of the Psalm do infer nothing else but that the Son is permanent and shall not fail it will be impertinent and not at all suffice for the Apostle's design in this place For his aim is to exalt the Son above the Angels but if the passage he brings for this purpose do conclude only that the Son is immortal and immutable who sees not that by this reckoning he attributes nothing to Him but what agreeth to the Angels also whose nature is likewise incorruptible and immutable Since then the Scope of the Apostle is to shew that JESUS CHRIST hath qualities which appertain not to the Angels and since on the other side the passage he alledgeth doth represent nothing of that kind but the creating of the world it must of necessity be acknowledged that it is the holy Apostle's intention to apply to the LORD principally this first part of the place wherein is said That He hath founded the earth and that the heavens are the work of His hands And so you see that the Supreme Wisdom begotten of the Father before all Ages which neither is nor can be any other than the LORD JESUS doth protest in the Book of Proverbs that it was with GOD its Eternal Father Prov. 3. when He created the World to shew us that it was the Governess and Superintendant of that great work And Moses represents it to us in the beginning of Genesis as far as the nature of the time and of the Old Testament would suffer For he reporteth GOD not creating any thing but by his Word He sheweth Him speaking at every part of His Work GOD said Let there be light GOD said Let there be a Firmament GOD said Let the waters be divided and let the day land appear and so in all the rest Whence comes it that so sage a Writer makes this Supreme and unspeakable Nature speak thus for the creating of each of His Works Let the Jew toil himself to the utmost he will never be able to give us a good and pertinent reason of it John 1.1 such as may content our minds But S. John calling the Son of GOD the Word unvails this secret to us shewing us that it is by this His Word the Father did create the world And Moses to signifie it mystically and in such sort as became that time represents GOD not creating ought but by speaking Be it then concluded against the obstinate fury of Hereticks that the LORD JESUS is the Creator of all things And this is so clear that the most part of those very men that deny His Eternal Divinity have not refused to acknowledge it as they in particular who after the name of their old Leader are commonly called Arrians these avouching that it is by Him the Father created the Universe at the beginning yet forbear not to deny that He is Eternal GOD of the same Essence with the Father Wherein as I confess they shew more modesty than the rest not having the forehead to reject what the Scripture doth so clearly exhibite So I must needs say they discover less perceivance and acuteness admitting a truth incompatible with the error which they hold For if the LORD JESUS did create the world as they say in concurrence with the Scripture do confess it must of necessity be granted that He is very JEHOVAH whom in time past Israel did adore which notwithstanding is the thing that they oppose This consequence appears first from what we noted afore That the Scripture never ascribes the action of Creating to any but GOD only Secondly from that in Isaiah the title of Creator is given to the true GOD to distinguish Him from creatures
called him saith he had been made not the Master or the Prince or the Judge or the Monarch or the High-priest but the Minister of the Church Whereby you see on the one hand how very farr from the mind of this holy man the doctrine and practise of those is who qualifie themselves with those vain and haughty titles which are not heard of in the Scriptures among the names of the Apostles and Pastors there and who are not ashamed to say and to write openly that Bishops are Judges Masters and Princes of their flocks That he of Rome in particular is the Monarch of the Church its King and its Soveraign Lord on earth whose feet it ought to kiss the lowest homage a vassal can do to his Master that he hath power to impose laws on the Church which shall bind the Conscience so as it can have no faith or salvation out of his obedience that he hath though indirectly even power and dominion over the temporalities of the Church not so much as the Scepters and Crowns of the Soveraign powers of the earth excepted Judge by this if it be not a mocking of the world to strive that they may be taken for true heirs and successors of S. Paul and S. Peter S. Paul calleth himself a Minister of the Church These men say they are the Lords and Monarchs of it S. Paul protesteth that he hath no dominion over our faith These men pretend that they have an absolute empire 2 Cor. 124. such as every man is bound under pain of damnation to believe all that they command for this very reason because they command it S. 1 Pet. 5.1.2 3. Peter stiles himself a Presbyter that is an Elder with the Presbyters or Elders These men say they are their Soveraigns and Kings S. Peter ordereth the Pastors to feed the flock of CHRIST not as having Lordship over his heritages And these men attribute to themselves a direct and a supream dominion over them In sine JESUS CHRIST both Paul's and Peter's Master saith expresly to His Ministers Mat. 20.25 You know that the Princes of the Nations are Masters over them and exercise authority upon them but it shall not be so among you And these men exercise both upon people and Pastors in sum on the whole Church a mastership and a dominion much more absolute more rough and rigorous than ever did any Monarch upon his subjects and such as wanteth neither the pomp of dignity nor the splendor of riches nor arms nor guards nor any other of the ordinary and visible marks and badges of a worldly royalty But you have to observe here also on the other hand how false and unjust the derision is which our adversaries make of the name of Minister which Pastors among us do assume imputing in a manner their modesty to them as a crime and almost accusing them that they are not arrogant I know well that the word here rendred Minister is often used in the language of Scripture and the Church to signifie the ministry of those who have the care of the poor and of the stock of the Church and we have reteined it in this sense in our vulgar tongues in which they that are put into such charges are called in French Diacres in English Deacons as you know which is precisely the Greek word here used by the Apostle But however since S. Paul hath not stuck to use this name Col. 1.23 2 Cor. 3.6 6.4 for the expressing of his office calling himself here as you see a Minister of the Church and before a Minister of the Gospel and elsewhere yet a Minister of the new Testament and again in another place a Minister of GOD and Minister of CHRIST it seems to me that no one can blame us for having followed the example of his humility us who are so far beneath him and that the taxing of us for calling our Pastors Ministers is evidently a reviling this great Apostle who hath so often used this name in this sense yea even to signifie the highest dignities that be in the Church such as without contradiction his Apostleship was For it is evident that he meaneth this here when he saith he was made a Minister of the Church He adds in the second place According to the dispensation of GOD which hath been given me Hereby he sheweth first that it was not man but GOD the supream Master and Lord of the whole universe who called and consecrated him to the Ministry of the Gospel You all know the history of it it being told us at length in the book of the Acts it is full of so many wonders that the vocation of this holy man ought to be counted very singular many circumstances meeting in it which do not occur in the call of any other Apostle JESUS CHRIST had called the rest during the dayes of His flesh He called S. Paul after His resurrection and His sitting at the right hand of the Father He conversed with the rest on earth To this person He spake from Heaven The others were invited by our Saviour and won by little and little Him He overcame and subdued at once by an extraordinary exercising of His Divine power seizing him sodainly by the miraculous force of His right hand If the rest before their call had no affection for the LORD at least they had no hatred nor aversion for Him Paul burned with a furious zeal against JESUS CHRIST and all His and made warr upon Him and had weapon in hand when he was plucked by coelestial power out of the bonds of iniquity and in a moment changed from a persecutor to a Minister of the Church But beside the Author of his call he further discovers to us here the nature of his Ministry by saying that this dispensation of GOD was given him I am not ignorant that the dispensation of GOD may be taken for the conduct and wise disposel of the Providence of GOD who governeth all things and particularly the things of the Church by His eternal counsel And if the Apostle had said simply that he had been made a Minister according to or by the dispensation of GOD it might have been so understood But he addeth expresly that this dispensation of GOD was given him and this necessarily obligeth us to understand it not of the LORD's conduct which was not given him but of the divine office of a steward in His Church to which S. Paul was called and which was commited to him For that the quality and condition of his Apostleship was such 1 Cor. 4.1 he teacheth us expresly elsewhere Let every one saith he account of us as Ministers of CHRIST and stewards of the mysteries of GOD. Whence it clearly follows since the Apostle was a steward or a dispenser that his Office was a stewardship or a dispensation as he calleth it here And from thence it appears again how false the opinion of those is who attribute a
Lordly and absolute authority and a dispotical power to Ministers of the Church over the LORD's flocks For the steward or dispenser hath power not to do any thing of his own head and after his own phantasy but only to dispense what the Master hath given him and precisely in such manner as he hath prescribed him If he license himself to do more he exceedeth the bounds of his commission and all that he doth or saith beyond them is null and of no force nor doth it oblige any one of the houshold to obey it But the Apostle adjoyneth in the third place the object of his Ministry that is who they are towards whom he ought to exercise it This dispensation of GOD hath been given me towards you saith he These Colossians to whom he wrote being Gentiles by birth and extraction he considereth them here in that quality and his meaning is that it was for them and others like them that he had been called to this sacred ministry that is to say in a word for the Gentiles It 's true an Apostleship was an universal charge which extended generally to all men of what nation or condition soever having the whole earth for its praecinct according to that clause of the commission which the LORD gave His Apostles when He sent them Go and teach all nations And that the Ministry of S. Mat. 28.29 Paul was of the same condition doth appear evidently by his procedure and by his writings For he often preached the Gospel to the Jews as you may see in divers places of the book of the Acts and he directed to them particularly that excellent Epistle to the Hebrews which remaineth in the Church to this day But though the extent of His charge was such originally and by right nevertheless that He might exercise it with more commodiousness and fruit GOD assigned him peculiarly to the Gentiles and would have him labour particularly for them as He gave him express notice when He directed His call from Heaven to him Act. 26.17 18. I send thee saith he to the Gentiles to open their eyes that they may be turned from darkness to light And afterwards in pursuit of this heavenly order Peter and Paul by a voluntary Oeconomy parted mankind in two Peter with the other Apostles taking the circumcision to preach to that is to say the Jews and Paul the uncircumcision that is the Gentiles as himself reports elsewhere Which must be understood of the ordinary exercise of their charges it being otherwise not prohibited either that Peter should undertake preaching to and the converting of the Gentiles Gal. 2. or Paul the like for the Jews if any opportunity inviting them to it were at any time presented them in the course of their Ministry Whereby you see in general how necessary this appropriating of a determinate flock to each Pastor is and how vain and exorbitant the pretention of Him is who calls himself the universal Pastor and Bishop of all Christendom For if the Apostles themselves who had the power did yet account the exercise of this charge so difficult that to acquit them of it they voluntarily parted the district of their commission between them each of them taking a portion of it only how can we believe that a man who is infinitely inferior in regard of the gifts of these great Ministers of GOD should be capable to govern alone the whole Church of CHRIST But the Apostle alledgeth this very pertinently to the Colossians to keep them fast in the purity of the faith For since he had been sent of GOD to illuminate and teach the Gentiles it is evident that being Gentiles as they were they owed him a particular respect and were to receive nothing into their belief which was unconform to his instructions considering him as the Minister of their faith whom GOD had particularly set over them Whence it follows that they neither could nor ought to embrace that novel doctrine which certain seducers did offer them seeing it was neither preached nor approved by S. Paul And since we our selves are by extraction Gentiles this consideration my Brethren obligeth us also to the same reverencing of this holy man He is our Apostle and the Minister whom GOD hath given us for an interpreter of His will and a conductor of our souls to salvation Let us respect Him among all the Ministers of CHRIST Let us hear him diligently Let us peruse His divine instructions night and day let us abide fixedly hanging on His sacred mouth and not hear ought beside Whatever others may be there was never any but he that received from heaven the particular commission to instruct us Lastly he sheweth us what the work is and the end of this Office of his the dispensation of GOD hath been given me towards you saith he to fullfil the word of GOD. Some there be that understand by this word of GOD whereof the Apostle speaketh the ancient oracles which foretold the converting of the Gentiles to the knowledge of the true GOD in the days of the Messiah as that for instance Isai 42.6 49.6 Zech. 2.11 Mic. 4.1 which we read in Isaiah that CHRIST shall be a light to the Nations and in Zechary Many nations shall be joyned to the LORD in that day and shall become my people and in Michah Many nations shall go and shall say come and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD and unto the house of the GOD of Jacob and he will teach us his ways and we will walk in His paths And other such which are found in great number in the books of the Prophets As if the Apostle meant that he was appointed the Minister of the Gentiles for the accomplishing of these predictions Now sure it cannot be denied but the thing in its self is true it being clear that his preaching was one of the most excellent means which the LORD made use of for the effecting of what he had promised in those oracles namely the conversion of the nations Nevertheless the putting of this sense upon the Apostles words is in my opinion a doing them some violence For first the word of GOD in his stile doth signifie the Gospel which is so called by reason of its excellency being without controversie the most excellent of all the words of the LORD and these terms are alwaies constantly so understood when he coucheth them simply and absolutely as in this place he doth and I do not think that so much as one passage can be produced wherein he takes them otherwaies And though this were not so yet it is impossible to understand them otherwise here where the Apostle to explain what this word of GOD is for the fullfilling whereof he was sent immediately addeth the mystery which had been hidden from ages and from generations but hath now been manifested to His Saints which is as you see an illustrious description of the Gospel And as for this phrase of
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
S. Paul teacheth constantly ev ry where that it was disannulled and abrogated by the death of the LORD JESUS to make room for the Gospel according to the Oracles of the Prophets that GOD would make a new Covenant with his people Here is then the second head of our intended matter upon which we are to consider how GOD hath abolished this obligation which was against us by the Cross of his Son He tells us two things concerning it the one That this obligation is made void the other That it 's by the Cross of CHRIST it was made so He expresseth the former of these with great elegancy as his manner is using three most significant terms all of them taken from the nature of civil promises and obligations in pursuance of the similitude he began with First he saith that this obligation hath been effaced For so 't is ordinary with men to do when they have a debt paid them up they efface the name of their debtor that was upon their Books and the sum which he owed them The Apostle saith that GOD hath done the same in reference to us that he hath effaced this obligation of our mystical debt which was written in his Law and signed in our particular Consciences And this term hath the greater elegancy in this place because there did intervene for our acquitting some such thing as men are wont to do For they strike out their debtors promises with some liquor as Ink or the like which they draw over the lines of their writings So was our obligation made null by the effusion of a liquor to wit the blood of JESUS CHRIST which was poured forth as may be said from the Cross upon that dismal Book of the Law for the effacing all the clauses of our condemnation in it For as to the writing of men Ink is enough to blot it out But there was nothing save the Blood of the Son of GOD that was able to efface this doleful writing of the Law wherein the sentence of our death was contained Now it seems that this should be sufficient to assure a debtor even the telling him that his obligation is effaced Yet the Apostle contents not himself he addeth that ours hath been taken out of the way or abolished Thus you know among men they that are exact and punctual do not only efface their debtors writings they tear them and reduce them to pieces that no sign of their debt may remain GOD hath done so towards us He hath not only effaced the obligation he had against us He would not have so much as the rasures of it to appear He hath disannull'd it and abolish'd it and rent it with the nails of his Son's Cross He hath saith the Apostle fastned it to the Cross It is not possible to say any thing that should be better or more elegant Those same nails and those same thorns that pierced the body of our LORD upon that fatal Tree whereon he dyed for us did by the same means tear and cut in pieces the obligation which was against us that evidence of our debt and instrument of our death that is to say in sum the Cross of JESUS CHRIST hath disarmed the Law and divested it of that killing-force which it had against us naturally and reduc'd it to such an estate that we being under the covert of his Cross it can no more harm us than if all the Letters of it were estaced and its Papers rent in sunder This divine crucified Person hath by dying himself made the Law dye and that which doth sometime fall out in the combats of men hath been the event here both the Combatants even CHRIST and the Law remained dead upon the place The Law slew our LORD who went unto this combat for us to the end he might take and bear the terrible blows the thundrings and lightnings of our principal enemy But he hath also bereav'd the Law of life and left it in the same estate it had reduced him to though indeed with huge disserence in the issue For our LORD raised up himself from that death which he receiv'd and suffer'd for us rising again the third day gloriously alive whereas the Law shall never resume the life or the strength which he hath depriv'd it of It shall remain for ever in that death he hath given it This is that the Apostle teacheth us very clearly elsewhere when he saith that JESVS CHRIST having been made a curse for us hath redeemed us from the curse of the law Gal. 3.13 His wounds have been our cure his death our life and his curse our bliss The blood which issued out of his sacred body did blot out the sentence of our condemnation and the blows which pierced him did break in pieces the instrument of our ruin Now this great and admirable effect which S. Paul attributeth to the Cross of CHRIST doth furnish us with a clear proof of his Satisfaction For if his death were nothing but an example of patience and humility to what purpose saith this holy Apostle that the obligation which was against us was abolished and fastned to his cross Who seeth not but that by this account the Cross of our LORD would have done the Law no harm at all That his Blood would have been so far from making void our obligation as it would not have made so much as the least rasure in it What doth his death contribute to my deliverance from that curse under which this fatal writing puts me if he dyed only to give me a noble pattern of constancy and not to discharge my debts The Saints have verily suffer'd for our example and their deaths are patterns of our patience Yet it cannot be found that the Prophets or Apostles ever said of them by reason of it that the obligation which was against us hath been made void by their death or that the evils which they suffered have redeemed us from the curse of the Law And besides the blasphemousness of it it would render a man evidently ridiculous to give such language of them or to say of them as the Scriptures speak of the LORD alone that they have born our sicknesses and carried our dolours and been pierced for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities and that the chastisement of our peace was upon them and by their stripes we are healed Conclude we therefore that he verily dyed in our stead and did satisfie on his Cross the Justice of the Father for us For this being presupposed as the Scripture teacheth there is no longer any difficulty and it is clear that his Cross did strike out and abolish the obligation that was kept in the Cabinet of GOD against us and which alone had the right and power to destroy us As when a Surety pays the sum which the man he hath given security for doth owe he voids the Obligation that had been made to the Creditor about it and by virtue whereof he was to
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
Moses was the Mediator and Minister of it the religion or service of the Jews because that people made profession of it the elements or rudiments of the world because it contained but the Alphabet and the first and lowest lessons of piety and was affixed for the most part to the corporeal things of this world But that it was ever called the religion or service of Angels we read not And as for that which those people do alledge out of â—â—â— Epistle to the Galatians namely Gal. 3.19 Heb. 2.2 that the Law was ordained by Angels in the hand of a Mediator and its being called in the Epistle to the Hebrews the word spoken by Angels this I say doth not justifie their pretention at all For in these two places the Apostle does declare only the service which the Angels did to GOD when He gave the Decalogue upon Sinai where these heavenly Ministers accompanied Him and ordered all the Pomp of that admirable manifestation of His forming the lightnings and the thunders wherewith the Mountain did resound elevating in the air the smoke and darkness which covered it shaking its foundations and making all of it to tremble and distinguishing the thunders into those articulate words which the mouth of GOD it self pronounced So far did the operation of Angels extend and no further For as to the rest it was GOD that spake in His own Person I am said He at the beginning the LORD thy GOD and that gave and uttered all the other precepts which the Israelites heard so as the Law or the religion which He then established might well be termed the religion or the service of GOD. But it would be an evident injuring of His Majesty to call it the religion or the service of Angels since it was given neither in their persons nor by their mediation Besides though it were otherwise in this particular yet it is clear that this title would be proper to the Decalogue only and not reach that part of the Law which is called Ceremonial in the establishing whereof the Angels did not intervene at all GOD having delivered it immediately to Moses and Moses to the Israelites and yet it would be this precisely that S. Paul should understand here if His purpose were to speak of the Mosaical Law as our adversaries believe Since then this name The religion of Angels can no way belong unto it it must of necessity be asserted that it is not the Law of Moses that the Apostle means in these words But his design and the thread of his discourse is no less opposite to this gloss than his words For first having already refuted what the Seducers took from the Law of Moses in the verse immediately foregoing in these words Let no man condemn you in meat or in drink or in the distinction of feasts or of new Moons or of Sabbaths which are shadows of things to come whereof the body is in CHRIST having I say so magnificently deposited this for what cause or to what purpose should he go repeating the same again How should the Apostle be capable of such vain babling Let us say then that the errour he rejects here is diverse from that which he condemed just afore That which he condemned afore is the observation of the Jewish law or religion certainly then this is not the thing meant in this place Besides that which he addeth can no way refer unto it Let no man saith he master it over you by humility of spirit and the service of Angels intruding into things he hath not seen Where the Apostle evidently sheweth that the service of Angels enjoyned by the Seducers was founded upon hidden things and such as they could have no knowledge of either by their own reason or by Scripture whereas the Jewish Ceremonies are so clearly and so distinctly explained in the books of Moses that there is not a man but may see them there Lastly the Apostle shews us at the beginning of this discourse that these Seducers had drawn some of their observances from Philosophy which will not find place if by the service of Angels you understand the Jewish religion which as all know was delivered by Moses and not by the Philosophers 〈◊〉 p. 910. For whereas our adversaries understand the discourses of the Jews by the vain deceit of Philosophy this is absurd and rediculous in the highest degree it being evident that the Jewish Doctors are sometimes called Sages 1 Cor. 1.20 and their science wisdom as when S. Paul saith Where is the wise GOD hath made foolish the wisdom of the world But never are they called Philosophers or their Doctrine Philosophy These names being every where constantly referred to the learned men of Greece and of the Heathen and unto their Doctrine Be it then concluded in fine that the Apostle means here by the religion or service of Angels not the religion delivered to the Jews by Moses but the worship and invocation and service which these Seducers would have men address unto Angels under pretext of humility they having drawn this abuse out of the Greek Philosophers in whose Books it is still found to this day Plato one of the chief of them writing expresly that service must be done to the Daemons so called they the Angels as holding a middle place between the GODS and men and serving us for Interpreters to the Divine Nature and all his School hath â—ver thus hold and practised as doth appear by the works of the latest of his disciples And this abuse was common among all the heathen They founded it too just as the Seducers here taxed by the Apostle did and as our Adversaries do upon pretended humility of Spirit Aâ—b os p. 1807. c. 4.5 as we understand by an ancient commentary upon the Epistle to the Romans published under the name of S. Ambrose The Author speaking of the Heathen of his time sayes They are wont to make a miserable excause saying that by means of them that is of the petty Deities they served they might go to GOD as men come to a Prince by means of His Counsellors of State and His Masters of Requests But saith he a little after men go to a King by means of His Officers because after all a King is a man that knoweth not whom he may trust with His estate whereas GOD is ignorant of nothing and knoweth the disposition and actions and capacity of all men so as to obtain His favour we want not the suffrages of an Interposer there needs but a devout soul Such a one He will surely hear wheresoever he speaks to Him It 's from the sinks of this Philosophy of the World that the Seducers here opposed by the Apostle had drawn their pretended humility and their serving of Angels And our Adversaries well perceiving that for the main it cannot be denyed but such was the doctrine here condemned by the Apostle do advance another phancy of theirs telling us that in his
she may reign at her care by the favour of darkness And if she would have sincerely represented her motives in this ordinance of hers there should have been not the Preface we even now reported but such a one as this to wit it being evident by experience thaâ— the reading of the Bible is very prejudicial to her interests giving men the hardness to reject the authority and Doctrine of her Pope who is not only not found any where in this Word of GOD but even contrarieth it in divers instance for these reasons it hath seem'd good to her to shut up and restrain the knowledge of it as much as she can since the abolishing it altogether is both impossible and scandalous This is their true meaning this their true motive And in very deed you see how in conclusion they straiten this reading as much as possibly they can First they will not have men read any version of the Scripture though never so good and faithful and exactly made out of the Original Texts except it have as they speak some Catholique for its Author that is one or other of those people who being passionate for the Romane cause would weaken the words of the Scripture the most they may and sometimes even audaciously corrupt them for their own advantage as you may plainly perceive by the example of him who passing the bounds of the modesty of all others hath not long since put the express term Mass a stranger to all Scripture into the Book of the Acts of the Apostles and written at the third Chapter that the Prophets and Teachers which were in the Church of Antioch did say Mass against the Warrant of the Original and of all ancient Versions the Syriac the Arabick and the Latine it self canoniz'd by the Council of Trent every of which does say conform to the Original that those persons served or Ministred to the LORD against the example of the vulgar versions of the Roman Communion as that of the Doctors of Lovain that of Benedict and of Frison and others and in fine against the evidence of the thing it self this latter version falsly supposing that there could be no Divine Service but it 's pretended Mass Judge by this scantling what the versions of the Bible made by these good Catholicks are like to be But however altered and disguised in favour of them these versions be they yet fear them still well knowing that it is not easie so to sophisticate this Heavenly word but that it will alwayes have vertue enough left to confound their errors Therefore they add another restriction that for the reading of such Bibles there must be had a License and in writing not from the Parish Priest this sufficeth not but from the Bishop of the Diocess or from the Inquisitor an office in the Modern Church which is no more found in Holy Writ than the office of their Mass And yet they do not leave them an absolute disposal of the matter but oblige them to secure themselves first by conference and deliberation with the Curates of the Petitioners that they are persons whom the Word of GOD will do no hurt to that is will not make them disgust the Roman Religion which is at the bottom all the danger that they apprehend Christians do you not tremble to hear that these Masters forbid what the Apostle gives you order to do a thing that JESUS CHRIST Himself commands you when He sayes Search the Scriptures and that their dispensation must be had to do what JESUS CHRIST and His Apostle enjoyn you The Apostle sayes Let the Word of CHRIST dwell in you and these Gentlemen cry on the other side No meddle not with it Cast not your eyes on it Have not so much as the Book in your Houses which is far indeed from getting it to dwell in your hearts except one of our Bishops or of our Inquisitors give you permission for it Oh new and unheard of Theology That a Christian must have a dispensation from Rome or one of her Ministers to obey JESUS CHRIST and cannot do what S. Paul commands him except the Pope's Officers give him a permission in writing Can men more openly debase the authority of CHRIST and His Apostle Sure what 's commanded is a duty and that which is permitted especially what one is obliged to have a permission for in writing is a thing contrary to our duty as every one knows and as you may see by the practice of Rome it self where permission to eat flesh in Lent is indeed demanded but not to cat fish in the Carneval because according to their Laws the first is contrary to a Christian's duty and not the second If then a Christian must have a permission to read the Bible it is evident that the reading of it is a matter of some contrariety to a Christians duty that of it self it is unlawful and prohibited Again if such reading be duly commanded it must of necessity be said that every one is obliged to it at least every faithful man or woman that can read and that they no more need any one's permission to read the Bible than to give an alms or to comfort an afflicted person or to obey their Father or their Prince S. Paul's command as you see is express Let the Word of CHRIST dwell in you It 's then our duty to read it and meditate it It 's then a manifest enterprize against the Apostles authority to bind us up that we may not read it without any man's permission who ever he be It 's a changing of what Paul hath ordained It 's a taking it out of the rank of duties where he had let it and a placing it among transgressions It 's a making that to pass for prohibited which the Holy Apostle hath commanded there being no place for a permission but in things which the Law of GOD or of men have forbidden Can a stranger thing be ordained Yet they stoop not here For fearing least such a permission though difficult and strait and depending upon the will of their Officers should yet prejudice their Religion if any use were made of it they withdraw welnigh altogether the power to grant it which they gave the Bishop and the Inquisitor afore Index libr. prohibit observ circa 4. Regul For in the observation which they add upon this fourth Rule they declare expresly that the meaning is not there is by it any power attributed of new to Bishops or Inquisitors or to the Superiors of Regular Societies to give leave to any to read or buy or keep the Bible or any piece either of the Old or of the New Testament or so much as summaries or historical abridgments of the Books of Holy Scripture in any vulgar tongue whatever because say they they have hitherto been deprived of the power of giving such permissions by the Roman holy general Inquisition and it must be inviolably observed See I beseech you a most manifest illusion
sixth To these properly doth the name of Odes or Songs belong It 's with these sacred layes of which the word of CHRIST affordeth us both the matter and the form that the Apostle would have us solace our selves St. James gives us order for it Jam. 5 13. Is any among you merry saith he and in repose of spirit let him sing Psalms The Apostle calleth all these sonnets spiritual both because of their author who is the holy Spirit and also for their matter which concerneth only divine and heavenly things the glory of GOD and our salvation not the vanities and passions and follies of men as carnal Poems do He adds with grace signifying by that expression the sweet and saving effect of these spiritual songs which do profit and refresh both together He would have us in the third place to sing from the heart that is not barely with the mouth as hypocrites but with the attention and affection of the heart In conclusion he intends that we sing unto the LORD that is unto the praise and glory of CHRIST who is ordinarily signified by that term the LORD when it is couched single as here it is This is the rule he gives us for this holy and spiritual melody a rule which Rome hath as little spared as the other which we have seen him prescribe about our being studious of the word of GOD in general For first She hath banished from the Church the faithful peoples singing and that so far as those that be of her communion do down-right declare that to sing the Psalms of David as we do is an huge scandalizing of Christians Strange Christianity which is scandalized at a singing that the Apostle commands a singing that celebrateth the glory of GOD a singing of what was endited by His Spirit composed by His Prophets and tendeth not but to the edification and consolation of faithful souls Certainly beside the authority of the Book of GOD it appeareth also by the writings of men that heretofore in the ancient Church the Christian people bore a part in the singing of Psalms and did it both in publick and in private Again for what our adversaries make their Clergie sing of what conscience can they say that they sing it with the heart since they that hear it and the greater part of them that sing it understand it not all their Anthems being in Latin a tongue long since dead and unknown to the people Consider too whether the pomp and the niceness and the curiosity of their singing and such a many of instruments as they mingle with it and all the other artifices of their musick be not more proper for the pleasing of the ear than the edifying of the spirit But dear Brethren let us lay â—side the defaults of others and mind our selves First bless we our good GOD for that He hath set up the word of His CHRIST again among us in its light and in its genuine use and acknowledging this grace of His from the bottom of our hearts improve His favour Let this word be the only governess of our hearts and lives Hear we its voice in publick consult it in private Let us have these divine Books in which the Holy Spirit hath consign'd its instructions Read them without scruple and without fear of finding ought that 's dangerous or venomous in them They are the Paradise of JESUS CHRIST in which the tree of life grows and whence flow the streams of sanctity of joy and of immortality but a Paradise where the old Serpent never entred where his breath and poison are unknown Fathers and Mothers instruct your children in this wholsome study Young ones addict your selves to it betimes Fill your memories out of this treasury of wisdom Men and women old and young rich and poor learned and unlearned receive ye all this Divine guest whom the Apostle hath now lodg'd at your house Let it dwell there as he hath ordered richly and abundantly in all wisdome If you receive and treat it with the respect it merits it will cure your souls of all their maladies it will inform your understandings of all heavenly truth and purge them of all the errors of earth and superstition It will fill your hearts with love to GOD and charity towards your neighbour and by the efficacy of its truth extinguish all those petty passions that tye you to the World It will comfort you in your troubles it will fortifie you in your weaknesses it will sustain you in your combats it will arm you against all sorts of enemies and guide you in all your waies It will sweeten your adversities and govern your prosperity and to comprise all in few words it will conduct you to the haven of eternal salvation notwithstanding all the storms of this wretched life Employ likewise this word of the LORD to those uses which the Apostle recommends unto you even to those mutual teachings and admonishings which you owe one another giving and receiving them as there is occasion with a sincere and truly Christian charity In fine possess the liberty he gives you of singing from the heart with grace unto the LORD Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs This sole Book of Psalms if ye learn it aright is able to make you for ever happy Oh GOD what a source of blessing and joy do they deprive themselves of who reject it or neglect it It 's a publick magazine of heavenly wisdom in which every one may find what is meet for him the ignorant whereby to be instructed the knowing whereon to be exercised the afflicted wherewith to comfort and the contented to recreate himself There are repentant tears for the guilty and songs of thanksgiving for the faithful preservatives against vice attractives and excitements to piety and lessons for all kind of Vertues And the wonder is that these so high so useful and so necessary things are all presented us there in the delicious sonnets of a graceful and a pleasing poetry as in so many vases of pearl and diamonds and emeralds to induce us to receive them the more easily Oh sage invention of our Great Master wherein we have together pleasure and profit refreshing and instruction of soul at once singing and learning what 's most necessary for us May Himself please to bless this Divine artifice by which He invites and allures us to Himself and so touch our hearts by the efficacy of His Spirit that as He draws us to Him with these holy cords of His sweetness and love we also on our side may freely and chearfully run after Him to the end that having faithfully followed Him in this World He may in the next lodge us with Himself in the Sanctuary of His Glory where bearing our part with the Angels we shall bless and glorifie Him eternally Amen THE FORTY SECOND SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER XVII Verse XVII And whatsoever ye do whether in word or in work do it all in the name of
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