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
longer either evil that can hurt thee or good that can be denyed thee if it be profitable for thy salvation Away with that cruel and extravagant doctrine which will have it that GOD remitteth the fault without remitting the punishment This is to oppose even natural sense and common reason For what is it to remit a sin save to punish it not and treat him that committed it as if He had not been culpable This is to give the Apostle the lye who proclaimeth both elsewhere That there is no condemnation to them Rom. 8.1 that are in JESVS CHRIST and here that the remission of our sins is a redemption For if GOD punished the faithful as is pretended He would do it after having condemned them to suffer since being most just He neither punisheth nor absolveth any without judgement And if notwithstanding our remission we escape not burning in the pretended Purgatory fire how is our remission a redemption Is this to ransome a criminal person to make Him be burned I grant the faithful after this remission obtained are not freed from divers afflictions during their temporal abode here below But I affirm that their sufferings are exercises or chastisements and not properly punishments of their sin The LORD sends 'em them not in His wrath but in His grace not to punish them but either to amend them or to prove them and render them conform to the image of His Son who was consecrated by afflictions in the dayes of His flesh Such is this remission of sins the redemption we have in JESUS CHRIST Let us now see by what means He hath obtained it for us The Apostle teacheth it us in saying That we have it by His blood We have already said how the word Redemption here used doth signifie that our deliverance was effected by the payment of a ransome This he expresly noteth elsewere saying 1 Cor. 6.20 that we have been bought with a price Now therefore he declareth what this price is what this ransome of our deliverance even the Blood of JESUS CHRIST 1 Pet. 118 19. St. Peter insisteth likewise on the same consideration We have been redeemed saith he not with corruptible things as silver or gold but with the precious blood of CHRIST as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot And the LORD JESUS informs us plainly of the same thing when speaking of the end and design of His mission Mat. 20.28 He saith that He came not to be served but to serve and to lay down His soul a ransome for many Semblably St. Paul 1 Tim. 1.6 that JESVS CHRIST gave Himself a ransome for all And in this same sense it is that we must understand what the Spirits of the Blessed do say Rev. 5.9 Act. 20.28 when they glorisie the Lamb for that He hath redeemed them to GOD by His blood and St. Paul in the Acts that GOD hath purchased the Church by His own blood By these passages and a multitude of others of like import it is evident that the Apostle both in this place and in the first Chapter to the Ephesians where He repeats the same words by the blood of CHRIST understands the violent death He suffered on the Cross with effusion of His blood which He did shed forth in great abundance through the wounds of His feet of His hands and of His side And it 's a thing common in all languages to signifie life by blood and the loss of life by effusion of blood But the Holy Ghost particularly useth this manner of speaking when there is reference to a Sacrifice For in such cases the blood of the Victime is almost alwayes put for the life it loseth when offered so as it need not be thought strange that these divine authors say the blood of CHRIST who is the only Lamb and most perfect oblation which all the old Sacrifices did typifie when they mean the life He spent for us on the Cross offering it to the Father as the propitiation for our sins This now is the great mysterie of the Gospel which was not known to men or Angels nor could have been ever thought on or conceived by any but the supream and infinite wisdom of GOD that JESUS CHRIST the wel-beloved of the Father the most Holy one should lay down His life for us be set in our stead and bear our sins in His own body on the tree and suffer in His sacred flesh and in His most holy soul the pains and sorrows we had merited to exempt us from them It 's this precisely that we mean when we affirm that He satisfied the Justice of GOD for us And the Apostle in these words furnisheth us to preserve this glory to our LORD against two sorts of adversaries one of them that impudently deny His having satisfied for us at all another of those who grant His satisfaction but do extend this honour unto others also and will have it appertain likewise to Saints and even to our selves As for the first they deserve not to be accounted Christians since they reject a truth so cleerly and so frequently asserted in the Gospel confessed by all the Church and which besides is the source of our comfort both in life and death and the only foundation of all our hopes For if JESUS CHRIST satisfied not for us what mean the Prophets and Apostles who proclaim at the beginning in the midst and at the end of all their Preaching that He dyed for our sins 1 Cor. 15.3 Isa 53.5 10. Rom. 3.24 Joh. 1.29 Heb. 9.27 28. 10.10 1.3 was wounded for our trespasses and bruised for our iniquities That the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and by His stripes we are healed that His soul was made an offering for sin That He is our propittaion through faith in His blood That He is the Lamb of GOD which taketh away the sins of the world That He offered up Himself a sacrifice for sin and sanctified us by this oblation and purged away our sins by Himself I omit at present other places the number whereof is infinite These are sufficient to settle the truth For first since our deliverance is called a Redemption it must needs be that JESUS CHRIST hath purchased it for us by some ransome He gave in our behalf But He gave none at all except in dying He laid out His life and His blood for us and in our stead Again if it be not thus why saith the Apostle it is by the blood of CHRIST that we have the remission of our sins If it be not a satisfaction for our sins 't is evident it 's of no use at all to obtain us the remission of them In this case we should have it not by the blood or death of CHRIST which after this account would have contributed nothing thereunto but by the sole goodness either of GOD or of His Son For to say that the remission of sins is attributed to the blood
miraculous School illuminated and consecrated by His Spirit Who could doubt but that it was from the mouth of this holy man that the Mysteries of GOD should be learned and that what was contrary to His Doctrine ought to be judged false and vain I confess his Mission was extraordinary and miraculous and is not to be made a precedent for others Yet notwithstanding what he here saith of it affordeth us two Instructions which reach all Pastors generally The first is that they should never intrude themselves into this Sacred Office if GOD call them not so as they may say with good conscience as Paul doth in this place that they have been made Ministers of the Gospel It is true JESUS CHRIST now speaketh not to men from heaven as He yerst did to S. Paul to call them unto His work But so much He doth that He maketh us perceive His will first by the moving of His Spirit within us which never faileth to incite us to His work when GOD calleth us thereto and secondly by the voyce and authority of His Church that is to say of His faithful people to the Body and Community of whom He hath given the power to apply the right of this Ministry to such as they discern meet for it as the examples of the primitive Church registred in the Book of the Acts and elswhere do shew us And as for Ordination as it is called which is done by the Imposition of the hands of other Ministers already established I confess it also ought to intervene for the compleating and crowning of the call accordingly you see it is seriously practised among us But I add that it is not yet so absolutely requisite but that in case of extreme and invincible necessity as in places and times when there are no true Ministers of JESUS CHRIST found to give it the call of the Church that is of a body of faithful people may suffice to a valid instituting of a Pastor the person supposed to have the ability and inclination requisite for such a charge The other particular that we have to learn here is That all Pastors of what rank soever they may be are Ministers and not Masters of the Gospel It 's the title which the Apostle here assumeth according to the Declaration he makes elswhere that he hath no dominion over the faith of believers 1 Cor. 1.24 but is an helper of their joy The duty of a Minister is to propose what hath been committed to Him what he hath received of the Master If he go beyond it and will have his own will and his private imaginations bear sway he is no longer a Minister he doth the act of a Master and consequently sets up a tyranny since the Church neither hath nor can have any lawful Master but JESUS CHRIST This dear Brethren is th◠which we had to deliver upon this Exhortation of the Aposile to the Colossians Make account that it is to you also he directs it Amid the scandals which Satan casteth in the way of your faith and the temptations he offereth to turn you out of it have still in your hearts and in your ears this Sacred voyce that says aloud from heaven to you Continue in the faith being founded and firm and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which ye have heard and which hath been preached to every creature under heaven whereof I Paul have been made a Minister Oppose the authority of this Divine command to the Seducements and illusions of the world to the flatteries and babble of Sophisters to the suggestions and lusts of the flesh From what Coast soever counsels contrary to it do come whether from within or from without judge them impious and abominable And blessed be GOD who hitherto so settled you in the belief of His Word that neither the forcible attempts of open Enemies nor the fraud of false friends hath been able to remove you at all But dear Brethren it is not enough to have stood fast hitherto There must be preparing for more combats to come after those that are past For we have to do with Enemies with whom we must look for neither peace nor truce They will be still setting on work one Engine or other and if repulsed on one side will not fail to attaque us immediately on another Be we therefore in like manner still upon our guard Let us have no less zeal and constancy for our our preservation then they have rage and resoluteness for our ruine Fortifie we our faith daily Arm it with Armor of proof Found it on the Eternal Rock and so fasten it that nothing may be able to pluck it out of our hearts To this purpose let us continually read and meditate that heavenly Word whence we have drawn it Let us fill our souls with this Divine wisdom and render it familiar to us Let us instruct our youth in it Let us make it to abound on all hands among us Let it be the matter of our mutual entertainments and the most usual subject of our cogitations For as an ancient yer while said very prudently Chrys Hom. 〈◊〉 de Lazaro The reading of the holy Scriptures is an excellent and an assured Preservative to keep us from falling into sin and ignorance of the Scriptures is an huge Precipice a deep gulf of Perdition In the design of our perseverance let us particularly make use of the two means which S. Paul here furnisheth us withal The one that the Gospel which we have heard hath been preach'd in the whole world the other that it is the same which was committed to our Apostle It 's in the belief of this Gospel that he would have us abide firm It 's to this faith that he promiseth the peace of GOD His Favour and His Eternity GOD saith he hath reconciled you to Himself that He might present you holy without spot and unreproveable if indeed you continue firm in the faith and are not moved away from the hope of the Gospel From whence it follows that if we have this Gospel among us we may certainly assure our selves that by retaining it we shall obtain the peace and the Salvation of GOD. The only question therefore is Whether the Doctrine which we have embraced be truly this Gospel or no If it be I have no further search to make I am content to have found what is sufficient for me that I may appear before my GOD without confusion and receive of Him life everlasting But that the Doctrine whereof we make profession is the same Gospel that Paul preached the same that he and the other Apostles sowed in the world and which the world overcome by the force of its truth did in the end receive and adore This I say is so clear that I do not think the Devil himself as hardned in impudence as he is can deny it For the GOD whom we serve and the CHRIST whom we adore and His Merit in
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
slothfulness No no Christian excuse not your selves by such allegations The affairs of your Family and of your trade are altogether innocent of your faults To say true they rather invite you to honesty and innocency than sollicite you to vice It 's nothing but the rage of your ungoverned passions that causeth this disorder It is nothing but your ambition your covetousness your pride your effeminateness and delicacy that turneth you away from Christian perfection To tend to it there is no need you should retire into a Desert or a Cloister nor that your habits or your food should be different from those of the people among whom you live There needs for this but retiring from vice and sincere renouncing the practice of it plucking up the lusts of it out of your heart changing your life and not your dwelling your carriage and not your clothes And this is it my Beloved Brethren wherein we must labour and combat The design I call you to is great and painful and no less difficult than the conquest of the world the business of S. Paul's Apostleship For there is nothing that is either more harsh to us than to renounce our passions or more difficult than for us to overcome our selves It is much more easie to wear a Cowle or an hair-cloth and blacken the body with blows yea to kill ones self than to put off the desires of the flesh Labour then earnestly and assiduously since you have undertaken so difficult a task Employ all your time in it Let no day pass without putting it on watching and praying mortifying all the members of your old man with a true penitence reading and meditating the word of GOD embracing His promises exercising your selves in the study and practice of those good and holy works which he hath recommended unto us The design is great and you are weak But the LORD JESUS in whom you have believed is allmighty and allmerciful He hath still the same force which heretofore converted the world by the hand of S. Paul If you labour in his work with such zeal as His Apostle did He will also communicate His graces unto you He will display His vertue upon you He will work powerfully in you He will bruise Satan under your feet and crucifie your flesh by the efficacy of His own He will vivifie your spirit by the light of His. He will make you to triumph over your enemies He will comfort you in the afflictions which you shall suffer for so good a cause He will guide you in all your wayes And after the labour and the combat will crown you on high in the Heavens with such glory and immortality as all the pains of the present life are no way comparable to So be it and unto Him as also to the Father and to the Holy Spirit the only true GOD blessed for ever be honour and glory to ages of ages Amen The End of the First Part. SERMONS OF Mr. John Daille UPON THE EPISTLE OF THE APOSTLE St. PAUL TO THE COLOSSIANS The Second Part Containing an Exposition of the second Chapter in sixteen SERMONS LONDON Printed for Thomas Parkhurst and are to be sold at his Shop at the Bible and three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chappel and at the Bible on London Bridge 1672. TO MONSIEUR Monsieur BIGOT LORD of LAHONVILLE Counsellour of the KING in His Counsels Intendant and Controller General of the Gabels of France SIR AMONG the advantages which the Reformation of the Church embraced by our Fathers in these latter ages hath afforded us we must without doubt ascribe the preheminence to the free use we have of the word of CHRIST which He of His abundant Grace hath recovered for us This Divine Taper lighted up from Heaven in the house of GOD to shine unto His people did remain hid a long time under a Bushel that I may express it Mat. 5.15 in the terms of the Gospel the negligence and fraud of men withholding it in this shameful-state It is now set anew on its Candlestick whence it diffuseth every way its enlivening and saving light among us and that in such abundance as we may truly say in this respect the word of CHRIST dwelleth richly in us Col. 3.6 It reigneth alone in our assemblies where its voice and not any other is continualy heard to resound the Fables and Legends of men being altogether banished thence It is read there in a familiar language which every one understands whereas if it be read elsewhere it 's in a tongue dead and barbarous and unknown to the people It is explained among us with all fidelity sincerity and diligence whereas amid the darkness of former ages it was so unworthily treated by Preachers that to consider their Sermons one would think they had designed to make it openly ridiculous I confess those persons that abide in the erroneous opinions of their Ancestors yet are somewhat ashamed of this gross and prophane licentious practice of theirs and they have reformed it after a sort Yet there remain but too many defects among them still and this one in particular that they explain in publick only some pieces and if it may be said shreads of Scripture sometimes taken from one book sometimes from another never shewing their hearers any complete body For it cannot be denied but that this manner of handling the word of GOD doth deprive the faithful of much edification it being evident that the view and the considering of an entire book giveth us a great deal more of knowledge in it and admiration at it than the view of any part of it alone and taken off from the whole can do This fault is so much the less pardonable in our adversaries for that besides reason it crosseth also the custom and authority of those antient Doctors of the first ages of Christianity whose true sons and legitimate successors these Gentlemen boast they are For it was frequent at that time for Pastors to expound in the Church whole books of Scripture throughout by Sermons continued on upon the chain of the holy Text from the beginning of a volume to the very end that remainder which we have of the writings of those days doth clearly evince so much There are extant still the Sermons of S. John Chrysostom upon Genesis upon the Gospels of S. Mathew and S. John upon the Acts of the Apostles and upon all the fourteen Epistles of S. Paul which were delivered by this great man part of them in the Church of Antioch and part in the Church of Constantinople the greatest and most populous Churches of all the East And among the Latines we have the Tractates of S. Augustin upon the whole Book of Psalms and upon the Gospel of S. John and upon His first Epistle which were in like manner made and delivered in the Assemblies of his people An evident sign that about the beginning of the fifth Century when these two excellent and famous personages did flourish
confess I have done wrong to accuse you of crossing the doctrine of S. Paul But who knows not that it is a devotion for dayes and not the profit of men that makes you observe them You believe you do GOD service in this very thing that you feast one day and fast another You give it to the dignity of the day and not to the necessity of order or to your edification neither do you esteem dayes alike Those which you observe you set up very high above others not only by reason of the Church's command but because they have the honour to represent and signify some mysterious thing Accordingly you hold that besides the use which Festivals may be of for your instruction and your having time for works of piety your very solemnizing of them is a Religious act such as makes up a part of Divine service and is as you say meritorious in the sight of GOD which is exactly the opinion and the practice of those whom the Apostle in this place doth oppose For they condemned Christians not for absence from the assembly of the Church on the day appointed for it or for having profaned such howers in the world as were destin'd unto the service of GOD or for having scandaliz'd their neighbour by this kind of fault but only and precisely as you do for not having celebrated a Festival-day What shall I say of the other point to wit the use of and abstinence from meats The Apostle saith Let no man judge you in eating In conscience dare you affirm that you judge none of the faithful in this behalf What mean then those so rigorous laws of yours against them that eat any flesh those laws of yours that deprive Christians of this liberty for more then one third of the year and condemn that man who during all this time shall tast one bit of Bief or Mutton to as heavy penalties as if he had committed a deadly sin You are come so far as you look not upon those who violate these fine laws as sinners You abhorr them as proâ—ne persons and Atheists and count them not for Christians Is not this a grave and holy discipline and well worthy of S. Paul and JESUS CHRIST to make the service of GOD consist in meat whereof neither abstinence Matth. 15. 1 Cor 8 8. Rom. 14.17 nor use as reason sheweth every one and as our Saviour and His Apostle do teach doth pollute or sanctify doth bring loss or gain it being a thing purely indifferent in it's self good or evil only as it hurts or helps the interests of temperance and charity But we shall have shortly a fitter occasion to speak unto you of this subject more at large For the present Beloved Brethren make your profit I beseech you of S. Pauls instruction Use the liberty which the LORD JESUS hath obtained for you as His Apostle doth declare It is not reasonable that men should take from you what GOD hath given you and bought with the precious bloud of His Son Only see Gal. 5.13 that you take not this liberty for an occasion to live after the flesh Lay by shadows since you are no longer children But embrace the body which is in JESUS CHRIST His Kingdom is neither meat nor drink and no one will He condemn for having eaten any of the things which he hath created for the faithful to use with thanksgiving If He otherwhile prohibited some of them it was to deliâ—â—ate and figure out by this fleshly abstinence that which is mystical and spiritual whereunto He hath shaped you by His cross Your abstinence Christian is to renounce the meat that perisheth to loath the passions and productions of vice whereon the world doth feed It nourisheth it's self with the works of sin Avarice and ambitions and injustice and luxury and the ordures of wantoness and the infamous sweets of revenge are the aliments it runs after and cannot live without This is O ye faithful that flesh the usage whereof is forbidden you This is the Lent which JESUS CHRIST and His Apostles have in truth enjoyned a Lent to be observed not fourty dayes only but all the year long even that we abhorr what is evil that we eschew vice as poison that our lives be pure and innocent and clean from all the filthines of the flesh This is in truth that abstinence that makes a Christian and without which no man can have place among the members of CHRIST Gal. 5.24 6.14 For they that are His have crucify'd the flesh with the affections and lusts therefore The world is crucify'd to them It 's provisions it's pleasures it's allurements are had in execration of them Whoever he be that fasteth this Lent exactly he shall have part in the resurrection of CHRIST JESUS Not a man shall attain thereto otherwayes Prosecute it in good earnest Christian Souls and powerfully mortify in your selves all the lusts of this accursed flesh which perisheth it's self and will make all those perish too that desire it's delights and cannot wean themselves from it's deadly dainties See what JESUS CHRIST hath done and suffer'd for the destroying of it See the excellency of that other divine food on which He would have you live Your true food is to fulfil the will of His Father This is the food of the Prince of glory and of all His Angels food that is holy and immortal which will leave in your Souls a divine relish and contentment much better then all the feasts on earth and after the consolations wherewith it will solidly strengthen your consciences in this life eternally repast you in the Heavens with the delights of blissful immortality Brethren this is the body whereof the abstinence of the Jews was the shadow and delineation only As for their festivals they were also figures verily not of those in Rome which to say true are meer shadows and weak repesentations themselves no less then these of the Jews only they are instituted by men whereas the Jewish were ordeined of GOD they were I say figures of the resting and spiritual contentment of the faithful Origen against Cels s. l. 8. p. 404. Our festival as one of the ancients heretofore answered a Pagan that reproached Christians for their having none our festival is to do our duty to worship GOD and offer Him the unbloudy sacrifices of our holy supplications to rest from our own works and entirely sequester our selves to the work of GOD to exterminate from among us that really servile and mechanick labour of vitious actions and spend our lives in the truly noble and divine exercise of Sanctification Our Passeover is to eat the flesh of the Lambe to make use of His bloud to pass out of Egypt unto Canaan out of the world unto GOD and from Earth to Heaven leaving the things that are behind and advancing daily towards the mark and prize of our calling Our Pentecost is to converse with CHRIST in heavenly places
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
subject and do entitle themselves Monarchs of not forbearing to put even greatest Princes and Emperors under the yoke of their domination and to exact of them as a mark of lowest servitude the kissing of their feet But this holy and admirable humility of the Apostle appears further still in his speaking as he does of Onesimus whom he sent with Tychicus unto the Colossians He is saith he our faithful Brother c. For who think you was this Onesimus to whom he does so much honour as to call him his faithful and beloved brother Dear Brethren it was a poor fugitive bond-servant that is a person of the meanest and most despicable condition of any at that time as St. Paul himself gives us to understand in the Epistle which he wrote in favour of this at-length-happy fugitive unto Philemon the Colossian his Master where he plainly intimates that this poor man stealing from his Master's house had fled into Italy and got to the City of Rome for safety But oh the admirable providence of GOD who knoweth how to carry on the salvation of His elect by waies that we cannot comprehend the Apostle hapning to be prisoner there and Onesimus led by his curiosity or some other such occasion having heard him was so affected at his preaching as that of a Pagan he became a Christian of a servant of Philemon a free-man of JESUS CHRIST and instead of that temporal impunity for the crime committed against his Master which he fought at Rome he there found the eternal remission of his sins and the salvation of his soul This is that which St. Paul elsewhere means when he saith that he begat him in his bonds Phil. 10. Now the Apostle having shewed him the fault he had committed in deserting his Master he resolves to return home to him and voluntarily render up himself unto his yoke again And that Philemon might pardon his offence he makes him the bearer of a letter which he writes him on this subject a letter so full of all the expressest testimonies of a tender and ardent affection which may be given as does sufficiently prove he did in truth account him as he here terms him his beloved Brother But some of the ancient Writers of the Church do further intimate that Onesimus profited so well in the knowledge of GOD and in piety as notwithstanding the meanness of his condition after the flesh he was advanced to the sacred ministery of the Gospel and executed it in the Church of Ephesus And truly the employment the Apostle gives him here in reference to this whole Church and the company of Tychicus whom he associates him with and the honourable title he gives him stiling him not only his beloved brother which every Christian is capable of but moreover faithful seems to shew that he had some office upon the account whereof for his conscionable acquitting himself in it this testimonial of faithfulness is given him And herein I conceive the Apostle doth also make a secret opposition between the good conscience with which he demeaned himself in this employment and the unfaithfulness he had afore-time shewed to his Master during the time of his ignorance if he hath been otherwhile unfaithful saith he he is now faithful after well-nigh the same manner as the Apostle elsewhere alluding to the word Onesimus which was his name and in Greek signifies profitable says of him to Philemon his Master He was in time past to thee unprofitable Philem. 11. but now profitable to thee and to me This is that Dear Brethren which the first part of the Text doth contain Come we now to the second In it the Apostle presents to the Colossians the salutations of three faithful persons all the three joyntly Ministers of the Gospel and by nation Jews who were then at Rome to serve and assist and refresh him in his imprisonment Aristarchus saith he saluteth you and so the rest in order Whence we may observe first in general what was the zeal and what the charity of those primitive Christians that the hatred and rage of the World was not able to keep them from rendring their devoirs and services to the Confessors and Martyrs of JESUS CHRIST even in Prisons nor from hastning to them out of places ever so far off to succour and comfort them it being evident that of the eight persons mentioned here and in the following Text some came from Greece others from Asia and some again from Syria and Palestine that is many hundred leagues to visit and serve St. Paul And by these Salutations which for their part they send the Colossians you see how these holy and charitable souls were affectionate to flocks as well as Pastors and those that were absent as well as them that were present In fine the Apostles vouchsafing to be as their Secretary on such an occasion shews us that he approves these offices of civility that is salutations of such as are present and by Letter of such as are absent In truth a Christian whose Charity and unfeigned cordial love of men is the principal vertue and as it were the soul and one of the prime principles of his life ought to acquit himself sedulously in all due offices of humanity and if there be in the deportments of other men any thing humane and praise-worthy he should practice it and sanctifie it to his LORDS use As for these three persons in particular the Apostle gives each of them his Elogium The first is Aristarchus a native of Thessalonica in Macedonia Act. 19.20 27.19 20 27. a person noted in the History of the Acts where you see him all along inseparably fastened to S. Paul a companion in his travels and in his tryals running the danger of his life with him in the sedition at Ephesus at his departure thence following him into Greece into Macedonia into Asia and Judea and at last embarking with him when he was carried Prisoner to Rome For this cause the holy Apostle in acknowledgment of so admirable a zeal makes him a sharer with him in his Crown terming him a Captive or Prisoner with him inasmuch as though those unjust Judges had not condemned him yet he took as great a part in the Captivity of St. Paul as if sentence had been given against his own person The second is Mark whom he signalizeth by the honour he had to be Barnabas his cousin german one of the most excellent Disciples of our LORD and that laboured in his work with greatest zeal and fervour as you see in the History of the Acts and some of the Ancients have even attributed to him the divine Epistle to the Hebrews The glory of this holy man being very great in all the Church of GOD the Apostle conceiv'd it a sufficient recommendation of Mark to say he was his Sisters Son He addeth only concerning whom you have received order I am much of their mind who understand these words of some letter that