having before represented to the Colossians the reconciliation of things on earth and things in heaven by means of the peace which was made through the blood of CHRIST according to the good pleasure of the Father he now descendeth from general things to particular cases and to excite in the hearts of these faithful persons a more lively feeling of this grace of GOD he puts them by name in mind of the part they had in it forasmuch as the efficacy of this goodness of His had been displayed upon them and drawn them out from perdition and advanced them to highest happiness And you saith he who were somtime estranged from him and who were His enemies in your understanding in wicked works Yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh by death to render you holy and without spot and unreproveable before Him In these words as you see to heighten the excellency of the benefit GOD had done them he first sets before their eyes the miserable estate they were naturally in before the Gospel was preached unto them You were saith he somtime estranged from GOD and His enemies in your understandings in wicked works Next he sets forth the favour GOD had shewed them in the sequel notwithstanding all their unworthiness And yet now saith he he hath reconciled you in the body of His flesh by death Finally to sway them unto the pursuance of an exquisit sanctification he represents unto them the purpose or end of their reconciliation with GOD. To render you holy saith he and without spot and unreproveable before Him These are the three points we will handle GOD willing in this action distinctly one after the other The first and natural estate of the Colossians before grace Their reconciliation with GOD made in the body of the flesh of CHRIST by His death And the end of this reconciliation to be holy and unreproveable before Him Certainly since the sin of Adam corrupted and infected our nature there are no men born into the world but their condition of it self is most wretched Yet their misery is no where so clearly discovered as in the Heathen who are born and live without the Covenant of GOD. For as to those whom He preventeth with His grace breeding them up in His Church from the beginning of their life His light and His goodness encompassing them from their nativity do hinder the discerning so fully in them the horrid corruption of our nature Whereas Heathens having no other guide but that nature in them its state and strength is to be manifestly seen The Colossians to whom St. Paul writeth were of this rank Gentiles by extraction by religion and in manners before JESUS CHRIST enlightned them Let us behold in them an image of the condition which we should be in if GOD had not separated us from the rest of men and timely drawn us out of our original misery The Apostle saith first that somtime that is before their conversion they were estranged alienated namely estranged from GOD from His covenant and from His people as he explaineth it more largely elsewhere Remember saith he to the Ephesians that at that time Eph. 2.12 ye were without CHRIST having no communion with the common-wealth of Israel being strangers from the covenants of promise having no hope and being without GOD in the world They had no communion with the true GOD were so far from adoring Him that they not so much as thought on Him and did deride the only nation in the world that knew Him and served Him This is clear by the Books of the ancient Heathens that have remained to our time as also by the ignorance and idolatry of the modern But the Apostle goes further yet and adds that at that time they were enemies of GOD which comprehends two things the one that they hated GOD and warred against Him the other that GOD accounted them and pursued them as His enemies For the first St. Paul speaks it expresly of the Heathen in the Epistle to the Romans where among other characters He giveth them He sets down this for one they are saith he full of envy murder debate Rom. 1.29 30. deceit malignity whisperers back-biters haters of GOD upon which a question ariseth how it is true that the heathen hated GOD For either they knew Him or they knew Him not If they knew Him not how did they hate Him since love and hatred are two passions which cannot be exercised but towards objects known it being no more possible to hate than it is to love what we know not And if they knew Him seeing He is the cheif good how is it possible they should hate Him since our will is not capable of hating good known To this I answer first that when the Scripture says the Heathen hated GOD it meaneth not that GOD was the proper and formal object of their hatred For it is certain that in this sense the Deity can neither be hated by them that are ignorant of it nor unloved by those that know it But the Holy GHOST thus speaketh for that these wretches do altogether as if they hated GOD It 's a manner of speaking familiar enough to say the cause for signifying the effect and the antecedent for expressing of the consequent Now these people in their blindness defaced the glory of GOD the most they could They battered down the most illustrious marks of His GOD-head They blasphemed His Providence They reviled His nature They robbed Him of the honour of creating and conserving the Universe and gave it to monsters They despised His Will and contraried all His orders They passionately loved what He most abhorred and abhorred what He is best pleased with Are not these ordinary and natural effects of hatred It 's therefore with much reason that the Scripture to set forth this impiety and fury of the Heathens saith that they hated GOD since they treated Him in the very same manner as if they had directly hated Him As when the Wise man saith somwhere Pov. 29.24 8.36 that the wicked hate their own soul or their own life it is not to signifie that their will hath properly in it any aversion for their own life on the contrary they but too much love it But to declare that they carry themselves just as if they expresly hated it affecting and practising with an extream vehemency the things that cause their ruine and neglecting and abhorring those that would lead them to salvation Secondly I say That though the Heathen have some knowledge of GOD yet because they phancy Him quite another then in effect He is they may be said in propriety of speech to hate Him For though it be not possible for us to hate good so far as it is good nevertheless it often happens that error representing things to us quite otherwise than they are in themselves we love what is indeed worthy of hatred and we hate what is in truth most worthy to be
may effectually further our edification and consolation The benefit of our redemption being very great and most admirable in all respects as we even now intimated it 's with great reason that the Apostle beginneth his discourse of it by giving of thanks unto GOD. And in his Epistles ordinarily he scarce ever speaks of it but praising withall or admiring the goodness of the LORD He directeth his thanksgiving to the Father as the first and supream author of this excellent work Think not that he denieth the Son or the Spirit their part in it or that he would deprive them of the glory due to them for it For since these three persons are but one only and the same GOD it is evident that the works of the Deity appertain to them all three But as they subsist in a certain order the Father of Himself the Son of the Father who generated Him the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son of whom He proceedeth from all eternity so likewise do they act in the same disposition And forasmuch as the Father is the first in this order of their subsistence and operation thence it comes that He addresseth His benedictions particularly to Him as the prime and the soveraign source of the Deity from whence originally hath streamed down upon us all the good and grace that we have received in our redemption But let us see how the Apostle describeth this work of our salvation for which he gives the LORD thanks He hath made us capable saith he to partake of the inheritance of Saints in light After that Sin had made a separation between GOD and us it was naturally impossible for us to have part in any of His blessings The LORD therefore designing to save us took care first of all to remove this obstacle of our communication with Him This He did satisfying His justice by the expiation of sin through the death of His Son JESUS CHRIST and by that means the liberty of that commerce between His goodness and our poor nature which our sin had interrupted was opened again so as henceforth nothing hindreth save on mans own part but he may make his approaches to GOD and partake of his Grace through faith and repentance Yet this is not the thing which the Apostle intendeth in this place when he saith that the Father hath made us capable of having part in His inheritance For this grace by which He hath opened the Throne of His beneficence through the expiation of sin doth generally respect all men nor is there any but access thither is free for him if he present himself with faith and repentance whereas the Grace whereof the Apostle speaketh here is appropriate to him and the Colossians and such as resemble them that is in a word it 's peculiar to true believers and not common to all men It must be observed therefore in the second place that besides this first impediment which did shut up the gate of the House of GOD against us to wit the inexorable severity of His avenging Justice there is yet another no less difficult to be surmounted than the former though it be of another kind and a different nature It is the naughtiness the hardness and the blindness of our corrupt nature For as the justice of GOD would not permit that a creature foul with sin should approach Him except its sin were expiated so His wisdom could not suffer it should finger any of His divine favours except it repented of having offended Him and believed His promises But in the estate we lye in since our fall our soul is so depraved by sin that it is not capable of its self either to consider GOD or to put affiance in His goodness and so this great Miracle of the love of GOD towards us I mean the expiation of sin by the death of His Son would remain without any saving effect in respect of us if leaving us in the condition we were born He did but simply present the declarations of His grace in external means to us For this cause therefore this kind and compassionate LORD not content to have opened the gate of His bounty by the Cross of His CHRIST doth also fetch us up from the grave of our impiety and gives us the will and the strength to come to Himself It is properly this second benefit peculiar to those that believe which the Apostle meaneth here when he saith that GOD hath made us capable to partake of His inheritance The first gift of the Father did capacitate His hand to communicate His treasures to us and the second doth capacitate us to handle them Without the death of His dear Son He might not give us life and without Hâ—s effectual calling we could not receive it of Him Faithful Sirs mark well this lesson of the Apostle Who giveth thanks to GOD for that He hath made us capable of partaking of His inheritance He first brings down thereby the pride of those that give this glory to free will boasting that they have made themselves capable of salvation either by some kind of pre-dispositions which oblige GOD at least by the way of decency to give them His grace or by the due using and menaging of afflictions the pride I say of all those in general who pretend that it is in a mans own power to prepare himself for the heavenly inheritance No saith the Apostle This wholy appertaineth unto GOD. It is He that hath made us capable 2 Cor. 3.5 Of our selves we cannot so much as think a good thought so he affirms elsewhere I confess that this impotency of man is voluntary and consequently criminal it proceeds from the extream badness of his heart and from no defect of any of those things which are necessary from without for this effect For what else besides his own rebelliousness doth hinder him from believing in GOD and embracing with repentance the exhibitions of His grace which are presented to him either in the course of nature or in the Law or by the Gospel Yet so it is that how voluntary soever this His naughtiness be it is invincible and altogether refractory It is no longer a weakness It 's a formed impotency which nature is not able to correct And the Scripture speaks of it every where in this sense 1 Cor. 2.14 Rom. 8.5 The carnal man saith the Apostle cannot understand the things of the Spirit of GOD because they are spiritually discerned And elsewhere The affection of the flesh is enmity against GOD. For it rendreth not its self subject to the Law of GOD Joh. 12.39 Jer. 6.10 13.23 nor indeed can And St. John speaking of the Jews They cannot believe saith he And Jeremiah of their Ancestours Their ear saith he is uncircumcised and they cannot hear Will the Ethiopian change his skin and the Leopard his spots so can you do any good who have learned to do only evil such is the miserable state of all men
and death of our LORD because He by dying sealed the truth of what He preached in His life this is evidently to mock the world His miracles also confirmed His doctrine and yet neither Scripture nor any wise man ever said that we have remission of sins by His miracles as St. Paul saith here and elsewhere often that we have it by His blood and by His death Besides if this reason must take place since the Martyrs suffered to seal the same doctrine it may be also said that we have redemption and remission of sins by their blood which is not read at all On the contrary the Apostle vehemently denies that either himself or any other was crucified for us but CHRIST alone These reasons do destroy another shift these people use to wit that we have salvation by the death of JESUS CHRIST because in dying He gave us example of patience and perfect obedience For by this account the Martyrs whose sufferings had in them the like patterns should have saved us as well as CHRIST We add that patience and obedience do constitute part of our sanctification whereas the Apostle saith we have in JESUS CHRIST by His blood the remission of sins and not simply sanctification What they say for a third evasion is no better that CHRIST hath acquired by His death the right of pardoning sins For either their meaning is that the LORD hath rendred sin remittable by the satisfaction He hath made for it or they simply intend that CHRIST obtained by His death the power of pardoning sins which He had not before If they answer the first they grant us the very thing that we demand If the second they do thwart the Gospel which testifies that our LORD often remitted sins unto men while He lived and said expresly that He had authority on earth to forgive them In fine that which despair of so bad a cause suggesteth to them in the last place is of no more validity namely that the remission of our sins is attributed to the death of CHRIST because it preceded His resurrection the glory whereof lighteth up faith and repentance in us the true causes of that remission But they cannot produce any one example of so strange a manner of speaking and to say that the blood of CHRIST washeth away our sins because the effusion thereof preceded His resurrection the cause of that faith by which we obtain the pardon of them this is as much or more absurd than if you should say that it 's by the darkness of the night we are enlightned by day because the light of the Sun which then shineth on us had the darkness of the night preceding it After this account the remission of our sins should be everywhere attributed to the resurrection of CHRIST JESUS to His ascension up to Heaven and to the miracles of His Apostles and not to His Death whereas quite contrary it is ever constantly referred to the death to the blood and to the Cross of the LORD as to its true cause and not ever to His resurrection For as to that which the Apostle somewhere saith viz. that CHRIST rose again for our justification his meaning is not that our sins obliged Him to rise as they had obliged Him to dye Rom. 4.25 according to what he had affirmed that He was delivered for our offences but that He might apply to men the fruit of His death in justifying them by the Vertue of His blood therefore was He raised from the grave and crowned with highest glory this being necessary for the production of those divine effects in the world Say we then that the LORD by pouring out His blood and His life on the Cross did truly satisfie the avenging Justice of the Father undergoing for us and in our room that death which we deserved and without this laid down there can be no rational asserting what the Apostle saith here and in divers other places to wit that we have remission of sins in JESUS CHRIST by His blood But from the same Apostolical assertion it is also very evident that none other but our LORD alone is capable of satisfying for us For since the remission of sins is our Redemption who seeth not but that if any one procure it for us he must be our Redeemer a title which by the unanimous consent of all Christians appertaineth singly to JESUS CHRIST Moreover it 's by the blood of our LORD that this remission hath been purchased so as neither Paul nor Cephas nor any other having been Crucified for us it likewise followeth that no one of them hath either satisfied GOD for us or merited the remission of sins â—eo Mag. Serm. 12. de Passion Though their death be precious in the sight of GOD said an Ancient long since yet there was none of them how innocent soever he might be whose suffering could be the propitiation of the world The just have received crowns not given them and from their constancy and stedfastness in the faith have grown up examples of patience not gifts of righteousness This glory is due to nothing but the blood of CHRIST And as He is the only victime that was offered up for our sins so is it sufficient to expiate them all Never man found favour but through this sacrifice Never did the sword of GOD spare any but for the sake of this blood St. Paul teacheth it us in this Text and it 's the last particular we have to observe upon it For when he saith We have redemption in JESVS CHRIST by His blood he intends not to speak singly of himself and the Colossians but of all the faithful that were on earth and even of those that had lived from the beginning of the world unto that time There neither was nor ever had been salvation in any other but in Him And as sin and death descended from Adam upon all men so the righteousness and life of all the faithful cometh from JESUS CHRIST Rev. 13.8 Heb. 9.15 He is the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world and His death intervened for a ransome of the transgressions that were under the Old Testament as well as of those that are committed under the New His blood is the remission of the sins both of the one and the other people It 's being to be shed in due time gave it the same efficacy for the generations that preceded His Cross as it had afterwards by its actual effusion in those that succeeded it GOD the Father appeased by this sacrifice ever present in His sight as well before as after its oblation did communicate the fruit and merit of it that is to say grace and remission to all those that believed in Him under the one and the other Testament Behold Beloved Brethren that which we had to say to you concerning the Redemption we have in JESUS CHRIST The Text of the Apostle teacheth it us and the table of the LORD representeth it to
the same infirmities and to the same necessity of dying and indeed they dyed after they had lived again awhile Their death was rather deferred than abolished Their bodies did corrupt and in the end return to that dust from which they were preserved for some years But with JESUS CHRIST it is not so He in coming forth from the dead retook not the life He had quitted that is the life of the first Adam that infirm natural and earthly life a life still subject unto death He left it in the Sepulchre where it must remain as in eternal oblivion He put on a new life and nature such as is spiritual and celestial as the Apostle elsewhere termeth it a life wholly full of strength and glory that is not subject either to the use of meat or sleep not subject to dolour or death a life appropriate to the second world and not to the first a nature peculiar to the future age not to the present Accordingly you see that being vested therewith he remained not on the earth This is the old Adam's element the habitation of corruption and death But having only sojourned there fourty days so long as was needful to assure His Apostles of the truth of His resurrection and to shew them in His own person the first-fruits of the mystical Canaan He ascended up above the Heavens to the true element of the new man and the Sanctuary of eternity Conclude we then that He is truly the beginning and the first-born from the dead since He is the first of all the dead that was born and raised again in incorruption But these titles signifie yet another thing namely that it shall be He who shall raise again all the members of the Church in like glory that He is the master and the Lord of the dead for the investing them one day in their order with a nature resembling His own according to what St. Paul elsewhere saith that He will make our vile body Phil. 3. like unto His own glorious body For He would not be the first-born from the dead if He did not communicate the priviledge and the possession of this second birth to all His brethren that is to say all the faithful The Apostle adds to the end that He might have the first place in all things Those that are well versed in the reading of these divine Books do know that the word to the end that is often put in them for so as that or in such a sort as even to signifie the event and consequence of an action rather than the intention or design of the agent I account that it must be so taken in this place For the intention of our LORD in being made Head of the Church and the beginning of the new life was rather to Save us and glorifie His Father then to obtain unto Himself the first place in all things Yet true it is that such was the success of this His undertaking as He actually hath the first place in all things For there are but two sorts of things one of those that pertâ—â—â—â—o the first world and its creation the other of those that are of the second world and of the regeneration CHRIST therefore being already the Master and Creator of the former it is evident that having been also established Head of the Church which is the State that consists of the latter and the beginning and first-born of the resurrection of the dead He doth obtain by this means the first place in all things that is to say both in those of the first creation whereof He is the author and in those of the second whereof He is the Head This is the conclusion which the Apostle deduceth from his whole precedent discourse there he said that the LORD is the image of the invisible GOD the first-born of every creature the Creator of the Elements and the Angels and moreover the Head of the Church the principle and the first-fruits of the new Creation now he addeth so as He hath the first place in all things This being as seems to me from hence clear enough there is no necessity we should make any longer stay upon the exposition of this Text. It remains that to conclude we do briefly touch at the duties to which the doctrine of the Apostle doth oblige us and the comforts which it doth afford us JESUS CHRIST saith he is the head of the body of the Church These few words if we meditate them as we ought will teach us all that we owe both of obedience to the LORD and of charity to our brethren and of care and respect to our selves As for the LORD since He hath vouchsafed to become our Head it is evident we ought to honour Him with utmost devotion and submit all the actions of our life to His conduct See with what promptitude the body obeyeth the head and with how absolute a submission it follows all its movings The body neither stirreth nor resteth but as the head ordereth It depends entirely on its guidance and never crosseth its orders or resisteth its commands The head hath no sooner conceived a thing but the spirits forthwith present themselves at the place it desireth and each of the members employeth all the vigor and strength it hath to execute its will This is an image of that obedience which the LORD our mystical Head demands of us and this is that which the Apostle meaneth elsewhere Eph. 5.24 when he saith that the Church is subject to Him It 's in vain therefore that they boast themselves to be the Church who do contrary to what the LORD ordaineth who are subject to another beside Him and instead of His orders follow the will of a mortal man owning another head adoring another oracle keeping what He hath forbidden Blessed be His Name for that He hath granted us to disclaim their errour and to hang all our religion upon His sacred lips believing only that truth which He hath revealed to us in His Gospel and engraven in our hearts by His Spirit But what will it profit us to follow Him in our faith if we resist in our manners How can he avouch for His Church a body subject to Mammon to pleasure to ambition and other idols of the world a body wholly bended down to the earth whereas this divine Head is lift up above the Heavens Dear Brethren let us not deceive our selves We cannot be the Church of CHRIST except we be His body and we cannot be His body except we depend absolutely on Him except we cast out of our members the spirit of the Flesh and of the world and take in His to follow it's light and obey it's movings Henceforth then let us so compose our life that it do not contradict our profession Let the LORD JESUS be truly our Head let Him be still above us let Him preside in all our designs let Him conduct our steps and govern all our motions and inspire into us
loved From such an illusion did the Pagans hatred of GOD arise For imagining Him as a Tyrant full of cruelty and injustice or as an idle King that hath no care of His State it need not be wondered at if their understanding falsly conceiving Him under so monstrous a likeness their will was swayed to hate Him rather than love Him And those among them that had a better opinion of Him yet for all that loved Him not For by an extream errour of mind placing their supream happiness in the enjoyment of pleasures and vices and being not ignorant that GOD hateth them and punisheth them they considered Him as an enemy to their contentment So the love of vice induced them to hate Him Whence it followed that GOD on His side as being soverainly good and just condemned their impiety and had a will to punish it which is the thing that the Scripture figuratively calls GOD's hatred This is that the Apostle meaneth that the Colossians in their Paganism were enemies of GOD. But to shew us how deeply this enmity was rooted in them having said that they were enemies he addeth in their understanding This is the principal and highest faculty of our soul that moveth and guideth our wills and our affections and is by consequent the regent of our whole life The Apostle saith therefore that rebellion and enmity against GOD have taken up their seat in the understanding seizing if we may so say on this grand Tower of our nature and thence continually making war against GOD. This war the Apostle intends when he adjoyneth in wicked works I should never have done if I would attempt now to represent all the horridness of the heathens lives St. Paul sheweth us an Epitome of it in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans he there lays forth the principal fruits of their impiety their injustice their uncleanness and their abominations vice being grown to such an height among them that they did not only commit it but also favour it and took no shame to adore the very persons whom they confessed to have been extreamly commaculated with it This dissoluteness and being given up to wicked works was a clear conviction of their enmity against GOD which renders them altogether inexcusable Rom. 1.32 because how great and universal soever their corruption was yet they were not ignorant that they that do such things are worthy of Death as the Apostle saith there a little after This doctrine of his touching the estate of Heathens deserves great consideration For it teacheth us two points of very much importance First the quality and Secondly the extent of the corruption of our nature by sin As for its quality you see it is so horrible that it sets us far from GOD and makes us strangers to Him and His enemies so deep that it hath soaked into all the faculties of our souls even the understanding it self the noblest of them all and finally so contagious that it infecteth all our works with its venome none issuing forth but wicked ones Whence appears first how false and pernicious the imagination of those is who place this corruption in the lower part of the soul only in the affections and sensual appetites and in their resistance of reason and will have it that the understanding hath remained in its integrity St. Paul doth loudly pronounce the contrary lodging enmity and rebellion against GOD in the heathens understanding and he elsewhere testifies the same truth in divers places as when he saith 1 Cor. 2.14 that the natural man comprehendeth not the things of the Spirit of GOD that they are foolishness unto him and he cannot comprehend them and otherwhere that the sense Rom. 8.7 Ephes 4.18 or wisdom of the flesh is enmity against GOD that it yields it self not subject to the Law nor indeed can And in the Epistle to the Ephesians that the Gentiles have their understanding darkned Confess we then that this evil is universal that it hath depraved our whole nature and left nothing sound or whole in us from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head It hath extinguished the light of the understanding and filled it with thickest darkness It hath made irregular the motions of the will and put a dreadful disorder into all the passions and affections And so palpable is this that the two Masters of Pagan Philosophy have in some sort perceived it and as it were felt it while they were groping in their darkness they have left in writing the one of them Plato in Soph. Aristotle Ethic. l. â— that the soul of man is sick of two maladies ignorance and naughtiness the other that there is in our nature I know not what that resisteth right reason From the same ground you may see again how vain the conceit of those is that ascribe I know not what merits of congruity as they call them to men out of the state of grace Would you know how the Colossians invited GOD to gratifie them with the light of His Gospel They were saith the Apostle estranged from GOD and enemies in their understanding in wicked works If a subject do merit the favour of his Soveraign by turning His back upon Him and departing from Him if rebellion and enmity do oblige to shew graciousness if wicked works do incline the goodness of GOD to communicate it self to men then I confess they that are out of His covenant may merit His grace But since it is quite contrary and every body well knoweth that such carriage is a plain provoking of justice and doth inforce punishment who seeth not that man while he is in the corruption of his nature doth merit nothing either by way of condignity or of congruity but the curse of GOD according to what the Apostle elsewhere saith even that by nature we are children of wrath Eph. 2â— I said in the second place that this Text discovers also to us the extent of this corruption For if any sort of men could be found exempted from it in all probability it should be the Greeks the most polite and best civilized of all people Nevertheless you see the Apostle involves them here in this universal misery Whence appears how much some of the ancientest writers of Christianity were mistaken whom the love of learning and secular erudition did so charm Clem. Alexand. Strom. 6. as they stuck not to say that the Gentils by means of their Philosophy might become acceptable to GOD and attain salvation I grant they had a very quick understanding as we see by their Books in which they have left us admirable marks of the acuteness of their minds Neither do I deny but GOD presented them both in the nature of this vast universe and in its government with very clear and most illustrious arguments of His power wisdom goodness and providence as St. Act. 14. Rom. 1.19 20. Paul elsewhere saith that this supream LORD never left
resurrection of JESUS CHRIST that gives us all this assurance putting in our hand a firm proof of the satisfaction of Divine Justice from the deliverance of our Surety and of our immortality from his having taken possession of the same for himself and us so as our souls being certifi'd of the transcendent goodness of GOD and of their own happiness do ardently embrace his Discipline and the endeavouring of a new life Besides that faith which purifies our 〈◊〉 and by which as we shall hear anon we are risen again in JESUS CHRIST could not take place in us if he were not risen from the dead Rom. 1.4 1 Pet. 1.3 since it 's by that he was declar'd the Son of GOD with power according to the spirit of holiness Therefore S Peter saith it 's by the resurrection of JESUS CHRIST from the dead that GOD hath begotten us again unto a lively hope And S. Paul for this very reason 1 Cor. 15.17 protesteth that if CHRIST were not risen our faith would be vain and we should be still in our sins It must then be concluded that in rising again he raised up us also by the same means forasmuch as by rising he gave being and clearness to the principles and causes of our mystical resurrection Opening his own tomb he by that means opened ours He broke in pieces the doors and barâ—s of our Sepulchers by quitting his own and raising himself from the dust he drew us up out of the earth and brought us forth from the abode of death that glorious life also wherewith he then vested himself hath inspired into us all the spiritual life motions and sentiments that we have O holy and blessed Communion O divine and incorruptible fruits of the Sepulcher of JESUS CHRIST The death of the first man did kill us and the death of the second maketh us alive The one's Sepulcher is our prison the other our liberty In the former do appear horror and malediction the signs of our guilt and of the just wrath of GOD but from the latter peace and life do bud out glory and immortality shoot forth The grave of Adam did extinguish and shut up for ever in a state of exinanition all the beauty strength and life of our nature The Sepulcher of JESUS CHRIST hath destroyed nothing but our sin it hath shut up and kept in only our old man that is the loathsomness and misery of our lives and instead of this abominable body of sin and death whereof it hath divested us hath as it were teemed with and brought forth a celestial and immortal nature which it puts on us together with our Saviour And thus you see what are the fruits of our communion with JESUS CHRIST namely the destruction of our old man and the creation of the new signified by the Apostle in these words we are buried and risen again with him Let us now consider the two fold means here intimated by the Apostle by which GOD doth make us partakers of them The first is Baptism being buried saith he with CHRIST by baptism wherein also you are rais'd again together with him For so do I take these words rendring wherein not in whom and referring this term not to JESUS CHRIST but to Baptism as it it had been said In which Baptism you are also raised again together with the LORD this construction being more natural and more convenient than the other as they that understand the original Language wherein the Apostle wrose with easily perceive if they take the pâ—ns to consider this Text there though it the bottom it make no difference which of these two ways be taken the whole amounting to the same sense whether you say that we are risen again in Baptism or in JESUS CHRIST In truth all the means which GOD makes use of in Religion have no other tendency but to communicate JESUS CHRIST to us as dead buried and risen again for us to the destruction of our old man and the vivification of the new Nor do they ever fail to produce these two effects in any of those that receive them as they ought Therefore the holy Apostles frequently ascribe them to the word of the Gospel which is the first and principal means that GOD makes use of to save us Rom. 1.15 Heb. 4.12 by reason whereof it is called his power to salvation As for the destroying of the old man the Epistle to the Hebrews attributes to the Word the virtue that operateth and effecteth it in us saying that it is quick and powerful 2 Cor. 10.4 5 sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and S. Paul elsewhere calleth it a weapon mighty to the pulling down of strong holds to the overthrowing of imaginations and every heighth that exalteth it self against the knowledg of GOD and for the bringing of every thought into captivity to the obedience of CHRIST And as to the life of the new man 1 Pet. 1.23 25 you know S. Peter teacheth us that the Gospel which is preached us is the seed of this life telling us that it is thereby we are born again That holy Supper of which we have participated this morning hath also the same effects For since it communicateth to us the body of JESUS CHRIST dead and buried and risen again for us we need not doubt but iâ— gives us also the virtue which it hath and is insuparably adherent to it for the putting to death the old Adam and making the new to live in us by its be-dewing our Consciences with his blood and feeding our souls with his flesh But although these two effects be common to all the means which GOD hath instituted and 〈…〉 use of in Religion yet the Apostle speaks here but of Baptism 〈◊〉 Because 〈◊〉 the first seal we receive of our Saviour and the proper Sacrament of our regeâ—eration which containeth the initials and beginning of our spiritual 〈◊〉 in the House of God whence it comes that treating of the same subject elsewhere Rom. 6.3 4. he makes mention of Baptism in like manner Know you not saith he that we all who have been baptiz'd into JESVS CHRIST have been baptiz'd into his death Therefore we are buried with him by Baptism Secoudly He so doth that he might with so much the more clearness confute the erroâ— he here combareth even by opposing to that circumcision which the seducers did press that Baptism which we have receiv'd in JESUS CHRIST whereby hath been fully communicated to us all that these people pretended to draw from the use of circumcision Their folly was therefore so much the more insupportable for that they would not only retain a shadow whereof JESUS CHRIST hath given us the true body but also withstood one of the old Sacraments of Moses its giving place to one of those which JESUS instituted If question be of the substance and very effect of
the whole extent it hath for our edification and consolation without insisting precisely upon that particular use for which it was first written to the Colossians and that nothing in it may escape us we will examine if GOD permit the two heads which are proposed in it distinctly one after another The first is The estate we were in before the vocation of GOD in his Son Ye were dâ—ad saith the Apostle in offences and in the uncircumcision of your flesh The second is The grace that GOD hath shewed us in JESUS CHRIST He hath quickned you saith he together with Him having freely forgiven you all your offences Here is in sum the map of our whole Redemption The first part represents unto us our misery by Nature And the second our happiness under Grace That is the archrevement of the first and of the second Adam the death into which the one had sunk us and the life unto which the other hath raised us There 's none so ignorant but knows what life and death are As life is the sweetest and dearest of all our good things so death is the greatest and the last of all our evils Accordingly you see now prudent-Nature hath given Animals such an Instinct as to use all the strength and skill they have to preserve themselves alive and prevent their dying Other evils take from us each of them but some part of our comforts Death bereaves us of them all Bondage deprives us of Liberty Banishment of our Countrey Sickness afflicts our Bodies Shame or Infamy our Souls Pain troubleth our Senses Poverty incommodateth our life But there is no calamity so great as not to leave us the use or enjoyment of some good or at least of our selves Death extinguishing our life and by this means sapping and overthrowing the very foundation of our enjoyments doth at the same time despoil us of all other good things altogether Wherefore the holy Apostle and the other sacred Writers that they might represent the hideousness and misery of the condition of men that are without the grace of GOD do not call it simply a Bondage a Banishment a Sickness a Disgrace a Blindness a Poverty a Calamity a Nakedness They term it a Death to signifie that it is the utmost of all the evils that can betide our nature that it is a privation not of some good things only but generally of all so as nothing remains either in the spirit or in the senses or in the body of these miserable creatures that deserves to be called good It 's the term Isaiah makes use of to express the estate of people while they had no part in the Covenant of GOD Light hath shined saith he upon them that dwell in the region of the shadow of death Isa 9.1 And the LORD JESUS puts us all in the same condition before he hath called us Joh. 5.25 The hour cometh saith he and already is that the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of GOD and they that hear it shall live And without doubt it is to these kind of dead that he willed one of his Disciples to leave the care of burying their dead Matt. 8.22 1 Tim. 5.6 And you know what the Apostle says of that Widow who passeth her time in the pleasures of sin That she is dead while she liveth And our Saviour tells that person who led a wicked life under a false reputation of piety Rev. 3. â— Thou hast a name to live but art dead S. Paul following the stile of the Holy Ghost doth call them dead who abiding in the ignorance that is natural to all men do neither know GOD nor his will Ye were dead saith he to the Ephesians Eph. 2.1 â— speaking of the time they spent in the darkness of Paganism ye were dead in trespasses and sins And a little after putting himself in the same number though he was otherwise a Jew When we saith he were dead in our trespasses GOD quickned us together with CHRIST which are precisely the same terms that he here applies to the Colossians whose original condition was in effect the same with that of the Ephesians they being both the one and the other of them by birth Pagans I well know that the men of the world and generally they that have no part in the grace of GOD do live and are sensible and go to and fro they do desire and fear and hope and exercise in sum all the actions in which life is ordinarily made to consist Yea I confess that to measure things by appearances and the outside only there are none that seem to live but they filling the world with the noise of their actions and motions while the faithful for the most part groan in some corner or pass their days obscurely in the silence of retirement without appearing or making themselves seen so as it may be said of them in this respect as the Apostle somewhere doth in another 1 Cor. 1.28 that GOD hath chosen things that are not to bring to nought things that are the flesh no more accounting the faithful to be any thing than if they neither lived nor existed at all and considering none but men of the world when things that live and indeed are do come to be reckon'd up But S. Paul himself clearly shews us that he speaks not here of the privation of this kind of life in as much as he saith not simply that we were dead but that we were dead in offences and in the uncircumcision of our flesh We must know therefore that there are two kinds of life the one carnal and natural which consists in the exercise of natural actions and faculties such as are common to us partly with sensitive creatures as drinking eating sleeping and the like partly with evil spirits as sinning offending GOD and our Neighbour The other sort of life is spiritual and divine having for its principle the Image of GOD and his Grace and for its actions the exercising of piety towards GOD and charity towards our neighbour Such a life as Adam's would have been if he had persever'd in the innocence wherein he was created and such as is the life of the holy Angels now in Heaven To these two kinds of life do answer two kinds of death the one natural which is the separation of the soul from the body and an abolition of the actions and motions and sensations which the union of these two parts of our beeing doth produce in us The other spiritual which is nothing else but a privation of the Image of GOD and of those good and holy faculties and habitudes and actions wherewith it is accompanied It 's this second kind of death the Apostle intends here when he saith that we were dead in offences and in the uncircumcision of our flesh For the Holy Ghost the true Judg and Estimator of things doth count all those for dead which have not the life of GOD how full of
mystically and not literally for the internal corruption of our nature and as he express'd it afore for the body of the sins of the flesh not simply for the external condition and mark of Paganism Ye were dead in the uncircumcision of your flesh that is in the corruption of your flesh precisely in the same sense that Moses meant when he commanded the Israelites to circumcise the foreskin of their heart that is to cut off the vices and corruption of their hearts This mystical uncircumcision of the flesh is nothing else but the depravedness of our nature the vices and perverse habitudes and qualities which have seiz'd on all its faculties the blindness error and folly of the understanding the disorder of the will and its adherence unto vanity and false good things the rebelliousness of the appetites and lusts 〈◊〉 â—â—inted with gall and bitterest poyson This is properly the princip 〈…〉 wherewith we all were struck before the vocation of GOD. This is the cursed 〈◊〉 from which it springs up in us In the stirrings and motions of this hateful source which boils incessantly in us and casts up filth continually doth this spiritual death consist And I confess in this respect there is a difference between the condition of the dead commonly so called and the condition of these spiritually dead whom the Apostle speaks of For the former as they do no good so neither do they any evil Their faculties are equally disabled to the one and the other Whereas these spiritually dead men have lost sense and motion only in reference to that which is good They have both quick enough but it is only in reference to evil They understand they love they desire but altogether oppositely to good their thoughts and affections being full of error extravagancy and malignity As for true good they neither comprehend it nor discern it nor love it any more than 〈◊〉 they had neither understanding nor will at all Whence it follows that whereas the deadness the insensibility and unmovableness of other dead is an innocent misery deserving our pity and not our hate these mens on the contrary is an evil infinitely culpable and doth merit not compassion but abhorrence and execration from every reasonable creature For that they neither do nor can love GOD doth not proceed from their being destitute of natural faculties of understanding and loving but from a strong and obstinate rebelliousness of those faculties and from that invincible passion which carrieth them to evil John 5.44 as our Saviour shews us when he saith unto the Jews How can you believe seeing that you seek honour one of another and seek not the honour which comes of GOD alone An evident sign that these wretched people's impotency to believe did come from nothing but their impiety their stiff and inflexible aversion from the glory of GOD and that ardent and invincible affection they had for vanity and their own glory See then beloved Brethren what the condition of all men is before the LORD doth effectually call them unto the grace of his Son Where now are they that pretend they have the power of a free determination and a will equally capable of good and evil that do hereupon contest they can either convert them themselves unto GOD as said the Pelagians of old or at least prepare themselves for conversion and dispose themselves for grace as the greater part of the Doctors of Rome and with them some others also do maintain at this day The Apostle blasteth all this pride in one word when he saith that we were dead in our sins and in the uncircumcision of our flesh If a dead man be able to make himself alive or to prepare himself for the reception of life by any actions that come from him I will yeeld that the error of these men is not incompatible with the Doctrine of S. Paul But since common sense assureth us that the dead are depriv'd not of the actions alone but also of the power of life and that there is nothing but a supernatural action of GOD that is able to restore them to the society of the living so as they can contribute nothing thereto themselves we must needs either charge a falshâ—od upon the Apostle who saith that before Grace we are dead in our sins or confess in consequence of his Doctrine that men neither have nor can have of themselves any action or disposition unto spiritual life and that the power of the hand of GOD working supernaturally in them by his grace is the only strength that raiseth them up out of this miserable state If their will be free it is free to evil only which it embraceth and followeth most freely I confess that is most voluntarily and without any constraint taking all its delight therein If their understanding do act it is for error which it doth conceive and most obstinately embrace But as for the life of GOD they have not liberty or light for it any more John 6.44 and 8.36 than if they had neither will nor understanding at all according to that which our Saviour hath taught us saying No man can come to me except the Father who hath sent me draw him and again If the Son make you free you shall be free indeed Without this a man can have neither life nor liberty The Apostle clearly sheweth it when having represented the death wherein we were he adds in the second part of our Text that God hath quickned us together with CHRIST having freely pardoned us all our offences For there is no doubt but we must refer this action unto GOD of whom he just before was saying that He raised JESVS CHRIST from the dead It is therefore the same GOD who raised up the chief Shepherd from the dead that doth also make alive his faithful flock bringing them our of that spiritual and eternal death into which we are naturally sunk and putting them into a celestial and immortal life As there is none but He that could inspire and quicken that dust of which He formed us at first so there is again none but He that can expel out of our flesh that death which hath seized on it and restore that life which sin hath extinguish'd in us Both the one and the other vivification is the work of His hand alone Yet to say as truth is it is needful for Him to put forth more might in the second of them than He did in the first For if that handful of earth of which He created Adam had no disposition at all to that form and life which He put in it yet at least it had no repugnancy thereto whereas besides that He now findeth in us no disposition to an heavenly life He meets with over and above resistance and contrariety a spirit of rebellion aâ—â—mating the whole mass of our flesh which He must necessarily cast out that celestial life may be infused Now as that Death in which we lay doth comprehend
that was against us which lay in ordinances and was contrary to us and which he hath entirely abolished having fastned it upon the cross DEar Brethren That remission of sins which GOD giveth to all those who believe in his Gospel is in truth of it self a great and inestimable grace For who seeth not but that it was an effect of a transcendent goodness in GOD to be willing to pardon such persons as had mortally offended him and consent to their happiness who had obliged him by their feloniousness and ingratitude to make them eternally miserable But the manner in which he hath pardoned us and the price that our grace hath cost him doth infinitely heighten the wonder of this benefit of his For he hath not forgiven us our sins by a single act of his will as a Creditor remitteth a Debt to his Debtor because such a man having absolute power to dispose of his Estate in favour of whom he pleaseth it is sufficient for his doing of such a kindness that he will do it With GOD it was not so in the present affair His Justice and the majesty of his Laws were concern'd in the favour he would shew us and formed an opposition against it with-holding and staying the motion of his Clemency towards us so as his own sanctity permitting him not to despise the voice of Reason and the rights of Justice for any one's sake whosoever the will he had to pardon us was not sufficient alone to bring it to effect And here it was that his love to us did shew it self admirable and truly divine For seeing that sin could not be forgiven us without satisfying that Justice which we had violated and on the other hand that this inexorable Justice could not be satisfied but by the Cross of his only Son this good and merciful LORD did so affect our bliss that to take away the legal impediments which Justice laid in against it he resolved to deliver up his Son to that cruel and shameful death as our Saviour himself hath declared in the Gospel John 3.16 saying that God so loved the world as he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life Here then properly is the highest pitch of this wonder which doth justly ravish men and Angels that the pardon of our sins which GOD hath given us was bought at the price of the death of his only beloved Son And in truth our consciences could not have been assured of his grace without the same Nature having planted in our hearts so quick a sense of the right that GOD hath against sins as we could not put an entire confidence in his mercy until we might know that his Justice was contented and dis-interessed Therefore the holy Apostle having represented to the faithful at Coloss in the precedent Verse the great favour that GOD had shewed them in the free forgiving of their offences doth now adjoin the foundation of this remission and the means by which it had been obtained He hath forgiven you having effaced saith he the obligation which was against us that lay in ordinances and was contrary to us and which he hath entirely abolished having fastned it to the cross By this consideration he giveth them to see the greatness of this benefit of GOD and doth assure their consciences against all the doubts that the rigour of the Law might raise in them and particularly against the contendings of those false Teachers who would make them believe that the grace of JESUS CHRIST was not sufficient for their salvation except they did moreover submit to observe the ceremonies of Moses This shall be by the will of GOD the subject of this Exercise and for the giving you a full understanding of this Text we will consider two things in it First What this obligation is whereof he speaks that lay in Ordinances and was contrary to us And Secondly How GOD did efface it abolish it and fasten it to the Cross of His Son It 's a similitude very ordinary in Scripture to liken Sin unto a Debt whence comes that phrase which is so common in the language of GOD and of the Church of the remitting or acquitting of sin for the pardoning of it Our Saviour us'd it in the prayer he gave us where the petition for the pardon of our sins is conceiv'd in these words in the Gospel of S. Matthew Acquit us our debts Mat. 6.12 Luke 11.4 as we also acquit them to our debtors that is to say as S. Luke hath interpreted it Forgive us our sins as we forgive them that owe us or that have offended us This form of speech was so ordinary among the Chaldees and Syrians that they put the word Debtor for Sinner or a guilty person as appears by the ancient Chaldee-Paraphrase upon the Psalms which saith Psal 1.1 Blessed is the man that standeth not in the way of debtors instead of saying sinners as the Hebrew Text of the first Psalm doth import And our LORD used the same word in this sense when upon speech of certain Galileans whose blood Pilate had cruelly mingled with their sacrifices he saith Think you that they were more debtors than other Galileans that is more culpable Luke 13.4 as the French hath it Thus also must we take it in that tradition of the Scribes and Pharisees reported by S. Matthew He that hath sworn by the gift which is upon the altar he oweth or is a debtor that is he sinneth or is culpable The reason of this Metaphor is founded upon the resemblance of the things themselves debt and sin having some conformity For as the one obligeth the debtor unto payment the other obligeth the sinner unto punishment And as a debt doth give the Creditor a certain power over his Debtor in like manner doth sin give unto GOD or unto the Magistrate over the offendor For he hath a just power to punish the sinner as a Creditor hath to make his Debtor pay though otherways as we said not long since there be some difference between the powers of the one and the other publick Justice being concern'd in the punishing of an offender whereas in a debtor's making payment it is not so whence it comes that debts may remain unpaid if the private person to whom they are due be pleased to remit them whereas Justice doth not leave a sin unpunished though the offended party doth quit his interest to the offender And this difference is seen in human affairs where you know that for the exempting of a Criminal from punishment it is not enough he do content his Adversary except the Prince who is Guardian of the Law and the Conservator of publike Justice do give him an abolition of his crime But setting aside this difference there is in other respects such an analogy between a debt and sin as the name of the one is justly applied to signifie the other This similitude is the
death he there suffered was the true and only cause of his triumphs 'T was the Tree of this Cross that bore the Palms and Laurels he hath been crowned with 'T is there that all the causes and originals of all his glory are found It is this Cross that opened his Sepulcher and brought him out from thence and raised him up in Immortality 'T is it also that a little after opened Heaven to him and seated him on the right hand of the Most High 'T is it that loosed the tongues of his Apostles and changed the world in a short time that defeated Paganism that is the greatest part of Satan's Empire that threw down Idols and drew all people to the service of that Divine crucified Person whom it bore It is the same likewise that will pluck us one day out of the hands of death and lift us up into the Sanctuary of Eternity Lastly 'T is it hath founded that glorious Throne whereon JESUS shall sit and both the one and the other his Subjects and his Enemies see him truly triumphing the one with eternal joy the other with a confusion that shall never end Since the Cross of our LORD and Saviour is the cause of so many triumphs who sees not that it is not only with truth but also a great deal of elegance that the Apostle here saith he triumphed on it over his Enemies Let us Dear Brethren adore the mystery of it and look upon it notwithstanding the sad appearances of its infirmity as the only cause of the glory of our Head and of the liberty of his people If the Jew do stumble at and the Greek deride it 't is an effect of their ignorance and infidelity For our part who know its virtue let us say with the Apostle GOD forbid that we should glory save in the Cross of our LORD JESVS CHRIST Gal. 6.14 It hath taken us out of the mortal bonds of the Devils and put us into the liberty of the sons of GOD. It hath spoiled our old Tyrants and broken their Iron yoke and overthrown those infernal principalities and powers Let us not fear them After the blow they have received from the Cross of CHRIST they are but back-broken Serpents that do but hiss and crawl along the dust I grant they yet stir and wind about us and do not cease to threaten us But they can no longer hurt us if we keep fast to the Cross of our Saviour by which the world is crucified unto us and we unto the world They are our Enemies they are no more our Masters We are to wrestle with them we are under their yoke no longer And if GOD do sometimes permit them to strike us in our goods or in our bodies and what we have on earth yet he preserveth our persons and doth not suffer them to take from us any thing that his Son hath purchased in Heaven for us And he so governeth these Combats that they ever turn unto our glory and their confusion as that of Job's yer while did GOD permits them to attaque us that we may overcome them or to say better that the Cross of JESUS may stand up once more victorious in each of us and bruise Satan under our feet Rom. 16.26 as it hath already bruised him under his Let us with good courage follow the victory of our Head and stoutly march on in his steps Let us pursue the vanquished Enemy and not quit him till we in this holy warr do bear away the Laurel and the honour of a Triumph Take heed he rally not his dissipated Forces and do us some affront For henceforth there is nothing but our wretchlesness that can give him the advantage Our Victory is as sure as may be if we have so much courage as not to destroy our selves For what can he do to us if we watch if we pray if we keep upon our guard and under the Ensign of the Cross of our LORD Will he accuse us GOD doth justifie us and his Son doth defend and intercede for us Will he batter us with the curse of the Law The Cross of CHRIST hath annulled that Will he stir up against us the hate and persecutions of the world In these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us and that can so turn and change them in favour of us as they shall all work together for our good Will he take hold of us on the other side by the baits of sin and pleasures and benefits of the present world Our Saviour's Cross hath extinguish'd and mortified the desire of them in our hearts shewing us that all this beauteous figure of the World is but a vanity that passeth away and endeth in eternal misery Will he menace us with death He may but the Cross of JESUS hath disarmed it of all its stings and so altered its whole nature that whereas it was of it self the wages of sin and an effect of our Judge's wrath and the beginning of Hell it is now a token to us of the grace of GOD the end of our Combats and the entry of our Paradice Let us therefore my beloved Brethren live in repose and take fruition with humble thankfulness of the good things which the LORD JESUS hath obtained for us by the merit of his Cross serving and religiously adoring him consecrating all our life to his glory as he gave his for our salvation and assuring our selves amid all the storms of this generation that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor heighth nor depth nor any other creature shall be ever able to separate us from the love of GOD which he hath shewed us in JESVS CHRIST our LORD So be it The Twenty-seventh SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER XVI XVII Ver. xvi Let no man condemn you in meat or in drink or in the distinction of a festival day or of a new moon or of sabbaths Ver. xvij Which things are shadows of those that were to come but the body of them is in CHRIST DEar Brethren Our LORD JESUS CHRIST doth excellently shew us the difference of that Evangelical service which he hath instituted in his Church from the Legal service which had place in Israel under the Old Testament when speaking of it to the Samaritan he saith Woman John 4.21 23 believe me the hour cometh that neither in this mountain nor at Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father But the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth Under the Law the service of GOD was affixed to certain places as the Temple at Jerusalem and the Land of Canaan to certain times as Sabbaths New Moons and those great Feasts of the Passover Pentecost and Tabernacles to certain corporeal things as Beasts and other Kinds which were offered upon a material Altar with divers ceremonies and to certain sorts of Meat it being not permitted at that time to eat of any
of our Brethren Be not asrighted Christians at the Apostle's telling you in the entrance that ye are dead This death which he attributeth unto you is gain and not loss a donative from GOD's grace and not an effect of His wrath or an execution of His justice I grant that every death is the privation of some life that was possessed But since there are miserable and execrable lives it must be confess'd that every death is not a calamity For to be rid of a thing that harms us is not a calamity but a comfort It 's an advantage and not a damage to be deprived of a poyson and devested of an habit of malediction The death of which the Apostle speaks is not the destroying of that happy life which the Creator gave us at the beginning to be led within Paradise in a continual execise of the original justice and rectitude of our nature and in the sweet and innocent fruition of the goods of the first world It 's the first Adam and not the second that outed us of this life and as we did receive it in his person so we have lost it by his crime being heirs of his misery as well as of his sin The life which is extinguished in us by the death here intended of the Apostle is that corrupted and sin-infected life which we have received from our first parents by carnal generation a life contrary to the will of GOD and meriting His wrath and obnoxious to His curse the operation of an empoysoned nature and the acting of a blind understanding a perverse will and an irregular affection the continual flux of an abominable pest which in the course of nature could not otherwise determine than in an eternal death It 's that which Scripture calleth the life of the old man that is of this altogether depraved and corrupted nature which we derive from Adam and which through error in its false wisdom placing its felicity in the enjoyment of earthly things adhereth to them with inordinate desire and doth not act or labour but to acquire the same pursuing them with such a violent ardour that there is not any thing so holy so just and so honest but it violates the same to attain its end This is the life that the LORD JESUS destroyeth in all His true members and in regard of which His holy Apostle saith and meaneth here that we are dead The death whereof he speaks is nothing else but the privation of this pernicious and accursed life the abolition of its principles and the destroying of the habitudes on which it doth depend We are dead because entring into the communion of JESUS CHRIST we have put off this first life which was natural carnal and terrene and consisted in a perverse and vitious re-search and fruition of the perishing things of this old world that goeth to perdition And this is it he teacheth us again in so many other places as when he saith 2 Cor. 5.14 15 16. Rom 6. that Old things are pass'd away that CHRIST having died for all all are also dead that they may not live henceforth unto themselves and again We are dead with CHRIST buried with Him by baptisme into His death made one and the same plant with Him by the likeness of His death that Our old man was crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed and else-where that they that are CHRIST's Gal. 5.24 have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts and it 's the same thing that he called afore the circumcision of CHRIST Col. 2.11 and the putting off the body of the flesh the same again that he represents other-where in His own person when he saith that he is crucified with CHRIST Gal. 2.19 20. 6.14 and that it is no more himself that liveth but CHRIST who liveth in him and that the world is crucified unto him and he unto the World And it 's the same too that St. Peter understands 1 Pet. 4.1 2. when he saith that we have suffered with CHRIST in the flesh that we should live the rest of our time in the flesh no more after the lusts of men Behold me that penitent woman whose history you have in the Gospel Before she had seen the LORD she was an harlot that liv'd in nothing but filth and had neither action nor thought but for the lusts of the flesh But after she had heard the word of JESUS and felt the efficacy of His Spirit she soon lost all that former life of hers She hath now no longer that wanton and wicked heart those unchaste looks those impure desires Psal 45.6 Acts 9.1 In vain seek you in her that debauched person that liv'd in infamy before That person is no more there but is dead The sharpned arrows of the King of glory have penetrated her heart and slain her Behold me our Paul before his conversion He was a furious wild boar inflam'd unto threatnings and slaughter breathing out nothing but blood and butcheries a murtherer animated by pride and cruelty Spake JESUS to him on the way to Damascus His word like a two-edged sword pierced this fierce and unruly persecutor He struck him dead or to say better destroyed and consumed him all in a moment Seek not Saul in him any longer that so fierce and cruel man He 's no more there He is dead and so throughly dead that you shall not find in him any print of what he was before Again take me a view of those Pagans of Colosse of Ephesus of Athens and of other places who were converted by his ministery Before they were idolaters breaking out into all kind of vices their life was nothing but a continual practise of superstition and impiety of avarice and ambition of envy cruelty and injustice Now when they have passed through the victorious hand of the LORD JESUS you see no more any such thing in them He hath extinguish'd in them all the life of this kind that they had Those idolaters and ungodly wretches those epicures and robbers which lived in their persons heretofore are all dead They are new men of another quality in whom none of that they were before remaineth any longer In sine there is not one of the truly faithful and living members of JESUS CHRIST but hath undergone this death the flesh hath been slain in him and the old man pierced nailed and crucified upon the cross of the Son of GOD. I acknowledge that so long as they are on earth they still resent the efforts and attempts of this old man and that combat of the flesh lusting against the spirit Gal. 5.17 which the Apostle else-where speaks of Yet I affirm that this hinders not but that true believers may be said even for the present to be dead in regard of the flesh and the flesh dead in them First because sentence of it is given in the judgement of GOD who hath in His eternal counsel determined
flesh for indeed it is the pattern of that life we live here below after our regeneration He sought not either the glory or the pleasures or the riches of the World He adhered not to any one of those things but used what was necessary for His food and raiment with great sobriety and frugality not tasting the fruition of it and so little fearing to be deprived of the fame that instead of the glory of the world He voluntarily suffered extreme ignominy poverty and nakedness instead of riches torments and the cross instead of pleasure And so you see my Brethren how the consideration of our being dead in CHRIST JESUS should turn us aside from the affecting and the seeking of earthly things But the life we also have in Him should no less set us at distance from the same and this is that the Apostle sets before us in the second place You are dead and your life saith he is hid with JESVS CHRIST in GOD. When CHRIST who is your life shall appear then shall you also appear with Him in glory It seems that the first words do tend to prevent an objection which might be made to the Apostle upon his saying that we are dead For how doth this consist with that which he asserted afore namely that we are risen again with CHRIST If we be risen we live and if we live it is not true that we are dead But this difficulty is easily resolv'd For first the life unto which we are dead is the life of sin and of the flesh as we have explicated it whereas the life unto which we be risen in JESUS CHRIST is the life of CHRIST and of His Spirit The one is the life of the old Adam and the other of the new Now it is not incompatible that one and the same person be deprived of the former and possessed of the latter Nay on the contrary it is not possible that such as live in the former manner should also live in the latter and as in nature the generation of one thing doth naturally presuppose the corruption of another so likewise in grace the life of the second Adam doth of necessity inferr the death of the first so that from our being risen again with CHRIST it is so far from following we are not dead to the flesh that quite on the contrary it thence necessarily follows we are dead to the flesh it not being possible to affirm the former without supposing the latter nor to place the life of CHRIST in us otherwise than by the death of Adam in us An inevitable necessity requires the one do dye that the other may live in us As for that life which we acquire by our resurrection with JESUS CHRIST the Apostle grants that it pertaineth to us and that in this behalf it may be said of us that we live as he doth say frequently both of other beleevers in general and of himself in particular Yet notwithstanding he shews us again that this life of CHRIST is not manifested and compleated in us that it is yet for the present hidden in GOD with JESUS CHRIST so as in this respect it might be said of us while we are on the earth that we live not and that we have not yet the life unto which CHRIST hath raised us after the same manner Rom. 8.22 23. as he spares not to say else-where that our being saved is in hope and we yet wait for the adoption as if we had not hitherto receiv'd the salvation and adoption of GOD. For the right understanding of this mysterie we must consider briefly what the Apostle here saith of it and first what that life is which he calleth ours Secondly how it is hid in GOD with JESUS CHRIST and then lastly what shall be that manifestation of this life which he promiseth us at the appearing of CHRIST The life of the faithful is that same which JESUS CHRIST doth give them instead of the life He taketh from them when He receiveth them into His communion This which he takes away was impure and vicious the other was pure and holy This was natural and earthly the other is spiritual and heavenly The principle of the former was a carnal mind and an irregular concupiscence the principle of the latter is a divine saith and a just and reasonable love The one consisted in a vicious fruition of the flesh and of the earth the other is a sweet and a legitimate possessing of the Spirit and of Heaven And as the former was mortal and perishing no less than the flesh and the earth from which it drew its nutriment so the other is incorruptible and eternal according to the nature of the Spirit that quickens it and of Heaven that maintains it The fruits of the former were sin and shame and damnation The fruits of the latter are righteousness honour joy and immortality That first life therefore to say true was a death rather than a life being such as after a short and feaverish agitation could not terminate but in eternal sufferings And this other on the contrary is alone truly worthy of the name of life which name also the Scripture does oft-times purely and absolutely give it â— Joh. 5. as when it saith that He that hath the Son hath life and He that hath not the Son hath not life and that He that believeth in the Son is passed from death to life But then you will say since we do believe how is it that the Apostle says our life is hid with CHRIST in GOD as if it were not in our selves Dear Brethren I answer it is very certain that the LORD JESUS doth even at present give all His true members the seminals and principles of this blessed life the which He casteth into their hearts by His Gospel and that He preserveth augmenteth and fortifyeth them there gradually by the vertue of His Spirit and by the usage of His Word His Sacraments and his Disciplines unto the making them bring forth the excellent fruits of charity and sanctity By reason of these beginnings and of the sure title they bring them to the plenitude and perfection of that life they are said in Scripture to live and to have eternal life at present even as we attribute to a plant the name and life of the kind which it is of when it hath once taken root and thrust forth some bud and verdure though it hath not yet its whole extent and perfection Yet it must be acknowledged too that the compleat form of this life which consists in perfect sanctity rob'd with glorious immortality resembling that which JESUS CHRIST our elder brother brought up out of His sâ—pulchre at His rising again and carried into Heaven with Him forty daies after will not be communicated to us but in the world to come For here below as you know both our knowledge is imperfect and our sanctity infirm as the Apostle saith else-where declaring that now we see but in
without His death we could not have had the pardon of our sins nor the grace of the Holy Spirit nor the hope of immortality all which are things absolutely necessary to the devesting us of the old man and to the revesting us with the new Whereas now JESUS CHRIST dying on the Cross hath there pierced through and fastned up our old man and by the vertue of His sufferings created and formed in us another new man as different from the old as Heaven from the Earth and Life from Death Therefore the Apostle doth elsewhere conclude from the death of JESUS CHRIST the death of the old man in us and the life of the new 2. Cor. 5.15.17 If one died for all saith he then are all dead and He died for them that they might live henceforth in Him and no more unto themselves If any man be in CHRIST he is a new creature And in another place he saith expresly Rom. 6.6 11. that our old man was crucified with CHRIST that the body of sin might be destroyed and that we being dead with Him might live to GOD in Him Thus the death of CHRIST is at once the destruction of the old man and the production of the new the one was abolish'd by it and the other created This flesh of the mystical Lamb which GOD to day presents us hath slain our flesh and enlivened our spirit and from that Divine blood of His wherein the old man is drown'd is issu'd forth the new created in righteousness and holiness like as heretofore the Israelite was seen to come alive and glorious out of that very gulf of the Red-sea wherein the Egyptian lay sunk and overwhelm'd But oh new wonder as our LORD's flesh and blood is the principle that gives being to our new man so is it his nutriment And as in nature things are sustained by the same means that they were set up so in grace the new man is conserved and increased and strengthened by the same blood of JESUS CHRIST out of which he was formed And that heavenly meat and divine drink which you shall anon receive from the hand of GOD are not given you but for the feeding and perfecting of your new man I go yet further and durst say that this new man whom the Apostle would at this time vest you with is none other rightly considered than the same JESUS CHRIST whom we have put on at Baptism and whom we receive in the Supper propagated if I may so speak and pourtrayed in us by His own vertue who transformeth us into the likeness of His death and resurrection by reason that entring into and dwelling in us He formeth in us a man like Himself that as He did dyeth unto the flesh and with him leaveth in his sepulchre all his old life as an infirm and useless offal and being enlivened with Him and adorned with His light and endowed with an heavenly nature leads thenceforth a spiritual and glorious life Thus you see that the body of CHRIST was crucified and His blood shed and that the one and the other are given us in the Supper to devest us of the old man and vest us with the new This is the end and fruit of all that mysterie unto the participation whereof you are this day called Make account then that the best preparation you can bring unto it is a serious meditating of what the Apostle doth here inform us He exhorted the Colossians afore to mortifie the vices of their flesh and all the infamous passions of that Pagan life they had sometime led in the darkness of their ignorance as fornication covetousness anger evil speaking impurity of language and lying Now to cut up these and other like vices by the root and to comprise all the parts of sanctification in few words he commandeth us to put off the old man with his deeds c. There are others that take these words for a reason of his precedent exhortation drawn from that estate which JESUS CHRIST had put them into by Baptism as if his meaning were that they are obliged to renounce the vices he had been forbidding them since in their Baptism they did put off the old man on which these vices depend and of which they make up a part and put on the new which is contrary to them and incompatible with them Whether you understand it thus or take the text simply for a prosecution of the precedent command shewing us that for the due execution of it we must perform what is here added all amounteth to well-nigh the same sense And for the right comprehending of it we will treat if GOD permit of the three points which offer themselves in the Apostle's words first of the old man which we must put off secondly of the new which we must put on and the form it consisteth in to wit a renewing in knowledge after the image of Him who created it and in fine of that indifferency of nations and ceremonies and conditions which the Apostle affirmeth in this matter requiring nothing in reference to it but CHRIST who is the all of it and in all May it please GOD so to inlighten our understandings for the right discerning of this saving truth and touch our hearts to love and practise it effectually sanctifying us by the vertue of His word and precious Sacrament that we may all go out hence new men conformed in purity and charity and every vertue to that LORD JESUS in whose name and communion we by His grace do glory The Scripture sets before us the person of Adam and of JESUS CHRIST as two different stocks of mankind or as it were two opposite heads or principles of this nature which we call humane They have this in common that both the one and the other hath a great number of children which are issued from them and do depend upon them and that each of them doth communicate to his own his being his form his life and his condition imprinting his image on them which every of them beareth according to the quality of his extraction They differ or to say better are opposite in that the one is earthy the other heavenly the one hath a carnal vicious infirm nature full of ignorance and error and subject to death and the curse The other hath a spiritual holy nature full of light and wisdom acceptable unto GOD immortal and inheriting eternity The one propagateth in his children sin and death The other communicates to his righteousness sanctity and life The one transmits his nature by a carnal generation the other imparteth his to his descendents by a spiritual generation and such an one as hath nothing in common with flesh and blood The nature of the one is deprav'd by the empoisoned breath of the old Serpent which creepeth on the ground and liveth on the dust thereof That of the other hath been formed and conserved by the Eternal and coelestial Spirit It 's for these reasons that
GOD is which we have by JESUS CHRIST It is Deliverance saith the Apostle The word he useth in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 particularly signifieth a deliverance effected by some ransom given for bringing the delivered out of the bast estate he was in and it is properly that which we call Redemption For a man may be delivered divers wayes either by being simply put out of the affliction he was in as when a master enfranchiseth his slave setting him at liberty of His good will or when a Creditor lets his Debtor out of prison forgiving him the debt or by exchange as when one prisoner of War goes for another or by forcible recovery as when Abraham delivered Lot by defeating his enemies and David his people that had been taken by the Amalekites The deliverance we have by JESUS CHRIST is not of this sort He hath procured it by the ransome He gave for us and it 's this that the word Redemption here used by the Apostle doth signifie But the same term informeth us also that the benefit which we have received of Him is not simply the gift of life It is a deliverance which brings us out of some misery GOD gave life and immortality to the Angels but He gave them no deliverance since they never were in sin or misery and before Adam's fall He promised Him life it 's true but not salvation and redemption because man was then in his integrity without sin and misery likewise The benefit we receive of Him by JESUS CHRIST is not simply life and immortality it is a deliverance a salvation a redemption that not only conferreth some good on us but taketh us out from sin and freeth us from misery The Apostle explains it us more particularly when he adds That this redemption which we have in JESVS CHRIST is the remission of sins True it is the word Redemption is general comprising under it deliverance from any evil whatsoever certain it is also that the number of our evils is great and that JESUS CHRIST hath delivered us not from one or two evils only but from all He hath delivered us from the ignorance into which we were naturally plunged He hath delivered us from the bondage of the Flesh the lusts whereof did exercise an horrible tyranny in our members He hath delivered us from that death which we were made subject unto and from the curse of the Eternal Father which we had deserved For which cause the Apostle elsewhere saith that JESUS CHRIST is made unto us not simply righteousness but also wisdom sanctification and redemption and in a multitude of places that He hath brought us out of darkness and delivered us from the tyrannous power of sin and death But though all this be very sure yet in this place he restraineth the Redemption we have in JESUS CHRIST to the remission of sins and that in my opinion for two reasons First because remission of sin is the first and the principal of His benefits the basis and foundation of all the rest which necessarily leads them on and without which it is not possible to reach any of them For sin as you know is expresly that which makes separation between GOD and us The cause why this most merciful and all-powerful Ruler of the world taketh from us the light of His knowledge and the communication of His goodness leaving us in the darkness of errour and in misery is neither hatred nor contempt nor disdain of His creatures It 's nothing but our Sin His justice and soveraign equity permitting Him not to crown with His blessings people that are criminal JESUS CHRIST therefore intervening and procuring for us the remission of our sins thereby bringeth us out of the ill case we were in and openeth the fountain of celestial good which was before shut up by Justice This obstacle being removed this sluice if I may so say opened Divine goodness recovering its natural course floweth forth upon us and poureth into us light peace holiness and life It is not then to exclude these other benefits of the Redemption which is by JESUS CHRIST that the Apostle defineth it hereby the remission of sins For it compriseth them all none having this remission but they have also upon it all the LORD 's other graces but to shew us the due order of all the parts of this deliverance of which remission of sin is the first and principal Secondly the Apostle doth this because the ransome which the word Redemption doth imply was not properly necessary save for obtaining the remission of sins Except for this there was no need that JESUS CHRIST should lay down His life for us For supposing that a pure and sinless creature should have lain in ignorance and misery and if you will even in death it self There would have been no necessity that the Son of God should have shed His blood or suffered death to bring it up thence It would have sufficed He had loved it His good will would have immediately moved His power to display it self in its behalf and fetch it out of its distress there being nothing to hinder this natural operation of His goodness and so the happiness of such a creature would have been simply a deliverance and not a redemption But forasmuch as we were sinners it was necessary for our recovery that JESUS CHRIST should make His soul an offering for sin and pay the ransome of our liberty Whence it follows that to speak properly and exactly there is nothing but the remission of sins that should be called redemption as the Apostle defineth it in this place the other deliverances which we obtain by our LORD being only fruits and consequents of the remission of sin This then is the grand atchievement of the Son of GOD the miracle of His goodness and love that He hath procured and obtained for us the remission of our sins This is our true redemption Without this redemption we should still be enemies of GOD. We should not have any part either in His grace or in His glory Be even what you can desire in other respects Have all the goods of the earth all perfections of body and mind Be Monark of the whole world Have if it were possible the lights of Angels and the riches of their knowledge If you have not the remission of your sins you are a bondman and a wretch a slave to Devils and vanity and death since true redemption is the remission of sins But as without it it is impossible to be otherwise than infinitly wretched so with it it is not possible to be otherwise than infinitely happy The repose of the conscience the illumination of the understanding the jewel of sanctification the Graces of the celestial spirit life and immortality do inseparably follow it Go in peace said the LORD JESUS to those whose sins He pardoned as if He had said thou hast nothing more to fear since thy sin is forgiven thee There is no
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
us This is the mysterie of the bread we there break and of the cup we there bless in remembrance and for the communicating of that sacred body which was broken for us and of that divine blood which was shed for the remission of our sins Let us carefully improve a doctrine so necessary and which is so diligently inculcated on us in the word and in the Sacraments of our LORD referring it to our edification and comfort Learn we from it first the horrour of sin a spot so black as could not be washed out but by the blood of JESUS CHRIST That remission of it might be given us it was necessary the Father should deliver up His dear Son to dye and the Son give His blood the preciousest jewel of the universe a thousand times more worth than heaven and earth and all the glory of them From this meditation conceive a just hatred against Sin since it is so abominable in the eyes of this Soveraign LORD on whose communion alone depends all your bliss shun it and pluck it out of your Consciences and your hearts As for sins already committed seek the remission of them in the blood of CHRIST Give your selves no rest till you have found it till you have obtained grace till it be exemplified in your souls by the hand and seal of the Holy Ghost Lay by the pretended satisfactions and merits of men Have no recourse but to the righteousness of JESUS CHRIST which alone is able to cover our shame and render us acceptable to GOD. But having once obtained pardon for the time passed return not into it for the future When sin shall present it self to you repell it couragiously opposing to all its temptations this holy and healthsome consideration It 's my Master 's the murtherer of the LORD of glory It 's the accursed Serpent that separated man from GOD that put enmity between Heaven and earth that sowed misery and death in the world and obliged the Father to deliver up His Son to the sufferings of the Cross GOD forbid I should take into my bosome so cruel so deadly an enemy But from this same source we may also draw unspeakable consolation against the gnawing guilt of sin and the troubles of Conscience For since it 's by the blood of the Son of GOD that we have been redeemed what cause is there to doubt but that our remission is assured The superstitious hath reason to be in continual affright since man in whom he puts his confidence is but vanity The propitiatory I present you Faithful soul is not the blood of a man or of an Angel creatures finite and incapable of sustaining the eternal burnings of the wrath of the Almighty It is the blood of GOD's own Son who also is Himself GOD blessed for ever It 's a blood of infinite value and truly capable of counter-poising and bearing down the infinite demerit of your crimes Come then sinner whoever you be Come with assurance How foul soever your transgessions be this blood will cleanse them away How ardent soever the displeasure of GOD against you be this blood will quench it Only bedew your soul with it Make an aspersion of it on your hearts with a lively faith and you shall no more need to fear the word of the executioner of the avenges of GOD. But Faithful Brethren having thus assured your Conscience by the meditation of this divine blood of our LORD admire ye also His infinite love which He so clearly sheweth us and confirmeth to us This King of Glory hath so loved you that when your sins could not be pardoned without the effusion of His blood He would dye upon a Cross rather than see you perish in Hell He poured out His blood to keep in yours and did undergo the curse of GOD that you might partake in His blessings O great and incomprehensible love the singular miracle of Heaven which ravishest men and Angels What should we fear henceforth since this great GOD hath so loved us Who shall condemn us since He is our surety Who shall accuse us since He is our Advocate He hath given us His own blood What can He any longer refuse to bestow on us He hath laid down His soul for us how much more will He grant us all other things that may be necessary for our salvation But as this thought doth comfort us so ought it to sanctifie us Of what Hells shall not we be worthy if we love not a LORD who hath so passionately loved us If we obey not His commandments who hath blotted out our sins If for this precious blood which He hath given us we do not render to Him ours and consecrate to His glory a life which He hath redeemed by the offering up of His own in sacrifice for our salvation And after an example of so ravishing goodness how can we be ill affected to any man Christians GOD hath forgiven you a thousand and a thousand most-enormous sins how have you the heart to deny your neighbour the pardon of one slight offence He hath given you His blood you that were His enemy How can you refuse a small almes to him that is your Brother and that upon the account both of nature and grace Let the goodness of the LORD JESUS mollifie the hardness of your heart let the vertue of His blood melt your bowels into sweetness into charity and into love both toward Him and towards His members Discharge you this very day at His table of all the bitter passions of your flesh Put off there pride hatred and envy and clothe you there with His humility and His gentleness Do him new homage and give Him oath to be never any others but His alone presenting your selves with deepest respect before this Throne of His grace Remember both at this time and ever after that blood by which He hath obtained Redemption for you that is the remission of your sins This blood is the peace of Heaven and of earth This blood hath brought us out of Hell and opened Paradise unto us It hath delivered us from death and given us life This blood hath blotted out the sentence of our curse that stood registred in the Law of GOD it hath stopped the mouth of our accusers and pacified our Judge This blood hath effected a renovation of the world It hath quickned the dead and animated the dust and changed our mortal flesh into a celestial and divine nature Dear Brethren GOD forbid we should tread under foot a thing so holy or account such precious blood profane or common Let us reverence it and receive it into our hearts with an ardent devotion And may it display its admirable efficacy in them causing the royal image of GOD even holiness and righteousness to flourish there to the glory of the LORD and our own consolation and salvation Amen THE VII SERMON COL I. Ver. XV. Vers XV. Who is the image of the invisible GOD the first-born of every
Creature DEar Brethren As the salvation of mankind the true end of the coming of our LORD JESUS CHRIST into the world did oblige Him to expiate sin and destroy the Dominion of Satan so the performing of these great works did require an infinite dignity and power in His person For as it was not possible He should give us eternal life without voiding our guilt and satisfying the justice of the Father and delivering us from the hold of Devils so it was alike impossible that He should perfect these effects without an infinite merit and a divine strength that is to say without being GOD none but a true GOD being capable of having an infinite either dignity or power As then the streams conduct us to their spring branches to their stock and root the house to the foundation that sustaineth it So the salvation which is of the LORD JESUS leadeth us to the acts by which He obtained it for us and from thence to the quality that was necessary in His person for the executing of those acts Salvation is the fruit of this tree of life The infinite merit of His cross is as the branch that bore this noble fruit and His almighty most holy and most divine person is the stock or root that did shoot forth this beautiful and blessed branch This order the Apostle observes here in the consideration of our LORD JESUS CHRIST He sets forth to us first His fruit that is our salvation or redemption the last end of His whole mediation Next He represents the means by which He acquired this salvation for us to wit the effusion of His blood for the remission of our sins from thence He now ascendeth to the Quality of His person which he magnificently describeth in the Text that you have heard saying that He is the image of the invisible GOD the first born of every creature forasmuch as by Him all things were created Wonder not Faithful Brethren that JESUS should give us life and eternity Us I say poor sinners that had deserved death and the curse of GOD. For He purchased remission of our sins by His blood and did by the sweet savour of His sacrifice perfectly appease the wrath of GOD which alone withstood our entring into His heavenly Kingdom Neither account it any more strange that this JESUS so infirm cloathed with frail flesh subject to all our sufferings should be able to offer so great and so precious a sacrifice to GOD. For how weak and despicable soever that form was under which He appeared here below He is nevertheless in reality the true Son of GOD His wisdom His word and His power the perfect pourtrait of His person His living and essential image the soveraign Lord and Creator of the Universe In this description of the dignity and excellency of the LORD JESUS the Apostle compares Him first with GOD the Father saying that He is the image of the invisible GOD. In the second place with the Creatures saying that He is the first-born of them and adds the reason of it in the two following Verses which is taken from His having made and established them all as their Creatour their preserver their last and highest end Afterwards He finally proposeth the relation He hath to the Church saying in the eighteenth verse that He is the Head thereof the beginning and the first-born from the dead having the first place in all things In these three points the soveraign dignity and excellency of the Saviour of the world is as you see comprised But because it would be difficult to explain them all three in one only action the richness and profoundness of the matter constraineth us to fix for this time on the two first and remit the remainder to another season We shall then have to handle in this exercise the two heads that are contained in the verse which we have read One that JESUS CHRIST is the image of the invisible GOD the other that He is the first-born of every creature The same LORD who shall be by His grace the subject of our discourse please to be the direction and light thereof too inspiring us with conceptions and expressions worthy of Him illuminating our understandings with the knowledge of His high and supereminent Majesty and enflâ—ming our hearts with a fervent love to Himself for the glory of His own great Name and our salvation As for the first Head the Apostle telleth us two things in it the one that JESVS CHRIST is the image of GOD the other that the GOD whose image JESVS CHRIST is is invisible For understanding aright how the LORD JESUS is the image of GOD we must observe at the entrance that the word image is of great extent signifying generally every thing that represents another so as things being very variously represented it comes to pass that there is great variety and difference of images Some are perfect which have in them an entire an exact and adequate resemblance of the subjects which they represent others are imperfect and express but some particular nay that too with some defect having not properly in them the same features and same essence which is in their original I place in this second rank all artificial images whether drawn by Painters or engraven or cut by Carvers or fashioned by Founders or woven by Embroiderers and workers of Tapistry which represent nothing but the colour the figure and the lineaments of men and animals and plants and such like subjects and to say true have nothing in them of their life and nature To this same order must be reduced that which Moses writeth that Adam was made after the image of GOD. It 's not to be thought he had such an essence as that of GOD is but this is said because the conditions of His nature had some resemblance of the properties of GOD namely in that He was endowed with intellect and will and had the dominion over animals and earthly creatures In the same manner must we take what St. Paul saith when comparing the two sexes of our nature 1 Cor. 11.7 he termeth the man the image and the glory of GOD whereas the woman is the glory of the man He calleth the man the image of God because of the advantage and superiority he hath over the woman having nothing above himself but GOD who is His head whereas man is the head of the woman because she was created of him and for him as the Apostle teacheth But beside these kind of images which represent their originals but imperfectly there are others that have a perfect resemblance of them Thus we call a Child the image of His Father a Prince the image of His Predecessour For a Son hath not meerly the shadow or the colour or the figure of his father he hath his nature his qualities and properties and if we may so say the whole fulness of his being a soul a body a life the same with those his Father hath A Prince
doth whatsoever He will The Son hath all power in Heaven and in Earth and there is nothing but is facile to Him The Father is super-eminently good hating evil and loving rectitude and justice The Son is the Saint of Saints entirely separate from sinners goodness and justice it self The Father is merciful and inclined to pity The Son is the bottom of His compassions The Father maketh His Sun to shine on and His Rain to bedew even the men that blaspheme Him The Son dyed for His enemies and prayed for those that crucified Him In short the Father hath not any other essential quality but the Son hath it likewise and in the same measure with the Father I come to His Works Certainly the Son Himself informeth us how perfectly He represents the Father in this respect Joh. 5.19 saying in general that what thing soever the Father doth the same doth the Son likewise The Father created the Universe The Son founded the Earth Heb. 1.10 Joh. 1.3 and the Heavens are the work of His hands All things were made by Him and without Him nothing was made of all that was made The Father conserveth the world by His providence the Son sustaineth all things by His mighty word The Father hath set up the Princes and Magistrates who govern mankind Prov. 8.15 and there is no power but of Him It 's by the Son that Kings Reign and Princes decree justice The Father saved and redeemed the Church the Son is our righteousness our wisdom and our redemption The Father loved us and delivered up His Son to death for us the Son gave Himself a ransome for our sins If the Father raised up the Son the Son also raised again His own Temple when the fury of the Jews had beaten it down If the Father quicken the dead the Son quickneth them likewise and the last judgment the punishing of the wicked in Hell the glory of the Faithful in Heaven and all that refers to it is the work both of the one and the other The Father hath elected us so likewise hath the Son Joh. 13.18 I know saith He whom I have chosen It is the same in all the other actions and operations of the divine nature If you read the Scriptures exactly you shall not see any of them attributed to the Father but is likewise attributed to the Son And as for that right and soveraign authority which accreweth unto GOD over all things from these great and high qualities and operations this glory shineth in the person of the Son as it doth in the person of the Father If the Father be Judge of the earth King of ages and Monarch of the world the Son is in like manner the LORD of glory the head of the Armies of Heaven the Prince of men and Angels the Judge of all flesh If the Name of the Father be great and dreadful that of the Son is above every name which is named in this world or in the world to come If all creatures both superiour intermedial and inferiour do owe a soveraign homage to the Father and cast down themselves before Him adoring His Majesty with the profoundest respect they are capable of so it is clear that before JESUS every knee doth bow both of things in Heaven and things on earth and things under the Earth the Father Himself proclaiming when He bringeth Him into the world Let all the Angels of GOD worship Him So you see Dear Brethren that the LORD JESUS is truly the image of His Father since He hath and discovereth perfectly in Himself the Nature the Properties and the Works of the Father An admirable a singular and a truly Divine image which possesseth the whole form of its original without any variation and faithfully and naturally representeth all the features of it in their true and just greatness measure and nature I confess there are among men sons that resemble in some sort their Fathers but there are none in whom such resemblance is comparable with that of the Son of GOD to His Eternal Father If our Sons represent our nature and manners it is always with some difference which a piercing and a clear-sighted eye may easily observe and after all there are none that in their life do express the lives of their fathers totally entire with every one of their actions and operations Whereas the Son of GOD is a most complete image both of the nature and the life of His Father if we may speak in this manner of these mysteries all the works of the one whether small or great being also the works of the other This sacred Verity taught here by the Apostle overthroweth two heresies which though contrary and opposite to one another did sometime equally trouble the Church of GOD. I mean that of the Sabellians and that of the Arians The former confounded the Son with the Father the latter rent them on sunder Those took from the Son His person these His nature For the Sabellians did dogmatize that the Father and the Son were but one and the self-same person who according to the divers wayes and ends of his manifestations did assume sometimes the name of Father sometimes the name of Son So as in their account it is the Father who suffered on the Cross and it 's the Son who sent Him that suffered St. Paul breaketh their errour by saying that JESVS CHRIST is the image of the Father For no one is the image of himself and how great and exact soever the image's resemblance of its original be it 's of necessity that it be another subsistence than its original A child hath the same nature with the Father whose image it is said to be but nevertheless the person of the Father is one and that of the child another Since then the Apostle declareth here and elsewhere that JESVS CHRIST is the image of GOD that is to say of the Father we must either desert His doctrine or acknowledge that JESUS CHRIST is another person than the Father But if you distinguish their persons it doth not follow that you must divide their nature as did the Arians who made it their position that the nature of the Father is another than that of the Son the one increated and infinite the other created and finite These are two shelves which we must equally avoid steering our course straight in the midst shunning on one side the confusion of Sabellius and on the other the division of Arius JESVS CHRIST saith the Apostle is the image of GOD His Father He could not be the image of Him if He were one same person with Him He could not be His Perfect image if He had a nature differing from the nature of the Father How should He represent His eternity if He had been created in time How His immensity if He had a limited essence How His Majesty and glory if He were but a creature Let us then hold fast this truth full and entire
enmity to the end that being purified by the vertue of the Sacrifice of His Son and clothed with His righteousness by faith we might appear before the Tribunal of His grace without condemnation and without confusion But nothing compelleth us to pitch on this It is much better in my judgment to understand it of our sanctification than of our Justification First because the words themselves agree much better with it the Scripture as you know ordinarily expressing the gift of Regeneration by the word Holiness whereas it useth the word Justifie or pardon of our sins and not imputing them unto us when it would signifie the first benefit of GOD which we obtain by the imputation of the righteousness of CHRIST Secondly because the Apostle having already represented it unto us in those words that GOD hath reconciled us by the body of the flesh of His Son by death which do signifie that He hath received us into favour pardoning us all our sins as we have explained them it seems needless to repeat the same thing again In fine because both St. Paul and the other sacred writers are wont to joyn those two gifts of GOD our Justification and our Sanctification together as two graces that are inseparable and never go one without the other so as having spoken to us of the one it was not only convenient but also in some sort necessary 1 Cor. 1.30 1 Cor. 6.11 he should annex the other just as elsewhere having said that CHRIST is made unto us righteousness he immediately adds and sanctification and again in another place where having touched the filthiness of the former life of the Corinthians as here that of the Colossians he saith But ye are washed but ye are sanctified Here the Apostle doth not only knit these two graces together but moreover sheweth us the order and relation which they have the one to the other that the second to wit Sanctification is the end of the former that is of Justification He hath reconciled us saith he by the death of His Son to render us holy without spot and unrebukable before Him The Scripture teacheth us the same thing in divers other places as in St. Luke where Zachary saith that GOD sheweth us mercy and delivereth us out of the hand of our enemies that we might serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him And St. Peter in his first Epistle Luk. 1.74 75. 1 Pet. 2.24 CHRIST saith he hath born our sins in His own body on the tree that we being dead to sin might live unto righteousness And our St. Paul that JESVS CHRIST dyed for all that they which live 1 Cor. 5.15 might not henceforth live unto themselves but unto Him who dyed and was raised again for them and elsewhere again that CHRIST gave Himself for us Tit. 2.14 that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie us to be unto Him a peculiar people addicted to good works and in another passage altogether like that which we are upon Eph. 4.5 He loved the Church saith he and gave Himself for it that he might sanctifie it have cleansed it by the washing of water by the word and might present it to Himself a glorious Church having neither spot nor wrinkle nor other such thing but that it might be holy and unreprovable I insist upon this point because it is of exceeding great importance First you see by it what the dignity of Holiness is For since the end of necessity is always more excellent than the means which are used to compass it it is clear than sanctification being the last end of all the things that the LORD employs for our salvation is the greatest and most excellent of all His graces And so you know St. Paul positively declares that Charity which is for substance no other thing but sanctity is more excellent than either faith or hope and he proves it because neither the one nor the other of these two vertues shall have any place in Heaven as being but means and helps for our conducting thither whereas Charity as the last and highest perfection of our being shall eternally remain Secondly from hence appears how much carnal Christians do deceive themselves who pretend to salvation without sanctification Wretched men what do you Your pretention is a vain Chimera You pursue an impossibility For that salvation which you do desire is nothing for the main but that very holiness which you do refuse Both that faith and those other qualities which as you say you have serve only to sanctifie men Without this they are unprofitable things Suppose then that you have them if they do not change you if they do not fill your heart with love to GOD and with charity towards your neighbour in a word if they render you not holy they will advantage you nothing So far will they be from giving you immortality that they will aggravate your misery and sink you deeper into the abyss of death Never believe that GOD gave us His own Son clothed Him with a body of flesh delivered Him up to the death of the Cross that He reconciled us by such precious blood and wrought all these grand wonders which ravish Heaven and Earth that He might acquire us the priviledge to sin freely For far be it from so wise and so holy a Deity to be thought to have ever had such an extravagant and infamous a design He hath laid forth all the marvels of grace and love upon us that He might restore His own image in our nature that He might abolish sin out of it and transform us into new creatures pure and holy and in some sort like Himself and His Son in this respect I confess the description which the Apostle here giveth us of this grace of GOD in us is high and magnifique and that it seems to surmount the reach of believers while they are in the present life For of which of them can it be truly said while he remains in this world that he is Holy and without spot and unreprovable before GOD But to this I answer first that neither doth the Apostle affirm that this great work of the LORD 's in us is compleated in this life He sheweth us only what His purpose is and what the end of His grace and how good and glorious that holiness is wherewith He will cloath us For if we be truly His He will not leave us till He hath made us such as the Apostle's Text importeth even holy without spot and unreprovable Secondly I say that though the highest degree of sanctification in this life be much beneath that which shall adorn us in the next and that in comparison of it the same is defective yet it fails not of being true and of having all its parts though in a weak degree It is sincere and without hypocrisie and such in summ as the words of the Apostle in some sort agree to For true believers while
yea a glorious light that is to say great and sparkling Why then saith he that the treasures of wisdom are hid in Him whereas it seemeth he should say on the contrary that they are manifested in Him that they shine out and appear clearly in Him I answer that the one and the other may be said in divers respects For if you consider the thing in its self the treasures of wisdom are manifested to us in JESUS CHRIST and there is no purifyed Soul but sees them in Him and acknowledgeth them immediately when it views Him as the Gospel represents Him But if you have respect to the eyes and perceptions of men as they naturally are even obscured and corrupted by Sin I confess it 's hard for them to discern in JESUS CHRIST the riches of wisdom and knowledg which the Father hath put in Him and that this proceeds in part from that veil of meanness and infirmity wherewith He is as it were covered all over And this makes S. Paul say elswhere that CHRIST crucified whom He preached was to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness though to the faithful who were called He was the Power and the Wisdom of GOD. Therefore it being necessary for our Salvation that He should be born and live poorly on earth and there suffer in the end the death of the Cross which surpassed all others for cruelty and ignominy the Father who sent Him in this form cloath'd with this sad and shameful mantle that assrighteth men hath both manifested and hidden His treasures in Him He hath manifested them in Him since it is in Him and by Him that He exhibiteth to us whatsoever we ought to know for the attainment of Salvation He hath hidden them in Hun since He hath covered this treasure with such a veil as by its poor and contemptible look discourageth men and makes them say as Isaiah prophecyed He hath no form nor comeliness in Him and when we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him But they which have their eyes purified by light from on high do discern under this appearing simplicity and humility all coelestial riches in their stateliest and most glorious form This is the Apostle's meaning here when he saith that these treasures are hid in CHRIST He advertiseth us that we must not stop at that infirmity and emptiness which appeareth at first sight in Him and disgusteth vain and earthly spirits but look within and contemplate the great wonders which GOD hath there manifested for our compleat instruction and consolation Hitherto we have examin'd the words of this Text. It remaineth that we now consider the truth in it We shall do it but summarily For the prosecution of this rich subject in its whole extent is above the ability of Man or Angel to be worthily performed so great is the heighth and depth of it But we will briefly touch its chief heads Mans true wisdom in his present state is to know His misery with the means to escape it and his felicity with the way that he must take to attain it As for our misery nature indeed hath given us some perception of it there being scarce a man in the world who sees not some depravation and irregularity in himself and whose conscience doth not reproach him with his faults and threaten the judgment of a supream justice The Law hath taught us much more of it representing GOD unto us as armed with inexorable severity against sinners and fulminating his curse upon them But beside that these knowledges are weak and are easily smothered in security there is this sorrow with them that having shewed us our misery they do not inform us of the remedy so as if they be necessary to draw us out of that folly wherein the most are plunged who confidently sleep amid the tempest and presume they are well while they have a mortal impostume in their brain or in their bowels yet it cannot be said that they suffice to make us wise seeing that for the just possession of this title a man must know not only his malady but also the means to cure it And yet though we knew it too nevertheless this would not be sufficient because besides deliverance from evil we desire also the fruition of good yea the chief Good But neither the light of nature nor even the light of the Law does reveal to us what this supream felicity is which without distinct knowing it we do desire so far are they from shewing us the way to it But in JESUS CHRIST as proposed to us in the Gospel these Verities that are necessary to render us wise are found clearly and fully all of them For as to our misery He declareth it exactly to us not by some surd and inarticulate sounds as nature doth nor by circuitions and essaies as the Law did but by the fullest and most moving way of information that ever was in the world even crying aloud to us from that Cross to which our sins had nailed Him Behold ye sons of men how horrid your crimes are since that it was necessary for the washing them away that I should come down from the Heavens shed forth my blood Behold how great irreparable your fall was since there was none in heaven or earth that could raise you up again but my self As much as the life of the Son of GOD is more precious than the life of all mankind so much clearer is the proof which his death giveth us of the horror of sin than that which we might take from the death of all that ever sinned though we should we see them stricken down together and punished by the avenging justice of GOD. But if this great Saviour do make us so feelingly perceive the horridness of our misery his end is only to make us the more ardently desire and embrace the remedy which he offereth us fully prepared from that same Cross to which he He was fastned for us I grant that the forbearance and kindness of GOD in his conduct of men though sinful might give them some sparkle of hope and his promises under the old Covenant had highly confirm'd it betimes But the Sword of his Justice dreadfully flaming in the hand of the Law perplexed them not a little and it was very difficult for them to accord His inflexible righteousness with the mercy that was necessary for them JESUS CHRIST hath removed all these difficulties and exhibiteth unto us in his Cross the solution of all our doubts Fear nothing sinner I saith he have contented the Justice of God and satisfied his Law Boldly trust his promises and approach his Throne with full assurance This blood which hath opened to you the entrance thither is not the blood of a beast nor an earthly ransome it is the blood of GOD a ransome of infinite value more than sufficient to take away your sins how infinite soever the demerit of them be But you will say This
is not yet enough for my consolation CHRIST I confess sufficiently assureth me of the pardon of my sins What assurance doth he give me against so many enemies the world the evil Angels flesh and blood in midst of whom my way doth lye But Christian doth not the same Cross which hath merited your pardon give you also clear and undoubted evidence of your safety during the whole course of your life For since you understand by it that GOD hath delivered up his only Son to death for you how can you fear that he will with-hold any of the cares of his Providence from you Yet this is not all CHRIST JESUS who sheweth us these excellent and sacred verities in his death as it were engraven in great Letters on his Cross holds up others before our eyes of no less importance in his Resurrection Believers neither the pardon of your sin nor the assistance of GOD during your life would be sufficient for you for as much as after all death will swallow you up as well as unbelievers See then further in your JESUS the truth that is necessary to compleat your consolation By committing his spirit at the point of death into the Father's hands he teacheth you that GOD will receive your soul when you depart out of the world And by rising again the third day after he assureth you that your bodies shall one day be rais'd out of the dust And ascending into Heaven he assureth you that you shall be transported thither both soul and body to live and reign there with him in eternal glory As for the way which you must take to arrive at this high happiness his whole life and his death have clearly mark'd it out to you and he still shews it you from that lofty Throne whereon he is set Tread in my steps saith he if you will be exalted to my glory Follow the example of my innocence and of my charity if you desire to have part in the Crown of my Kingdom I have born injuries with calmness and patience I have constantly obeyed my Father even unto my death on the Cross and you see the honour wherewith he hath crowned me Imitate my obedience and you shall receive my recompence This is the lesson which the LORD JESUS giveth us shewing us incomparably more clearly than either the frame or government of the World or the Mosaical dispensation ever did both the Justice of GOD that we may dread him and the Power and Wisdom of God that we may reverence him and his mercy that we may love and serve him with all the strength of our souls serve him I say not with the sacrifices of old Judaism nor with the feeble and childish devotions of Superstition but with a pure and holy heart with works worthy of him with an ardent zeal a sincere charity a constant integrity and honesty a profound patience and humility an immovable hope and confidence These are the Verities which do constitute true Wisdom all of them as you see high and sublime but in like degree useful and salutiferous Here is not question of the nature of Elements of Animals of Plants or of Meteors nor of the motions of the Sun or of the Moon or of the other Planets but of the Beeing and the Counsels and the Conduct of that Great and Most High God who made and formed all those things and in comparison of whom Heaven and Earth are but a Mite of dust Question is not of numbers and figures which can neither diminish your mseries nor make your souls happy but of your peace with GOD of your consolation in this life and of your glory and immortality in the next It 's this which JESUS CHRIST teacheth us that Divine crucified Person who dyed and rose again for us It s this he shews us represented in high and splendid colours through all the pieces of his Mystery However Nature and the Law might discover the brims and first lineaments of this Celestial Wisdom it 's he alone who hath exhibited to us the whole body and shewed us the entire frame and structure of it Conclude we then that it is verily in him that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg are hidden as the Apostle saith Embrace we this Conclusion with firm belief and upon it bless we GOD first for that he hath vouchsafed to give his CHRIST unto Mankind and particularly for that he hath communicated him unto us mercifully presenting him to us both in his Word and in his Sacraments Next pray him to open our eyes more and more that we may discern these rich and precious treasures of wisdom and knowledg which he hath hid in him Let not the vileness of his Cross nor the veil of his Infirmity nor the simplicity of his Gospel and these Sacraments wherein he is offer'd to us offend us This very thing if we consider it as we ought makes up one principal part of the wonder and that we may rightly know and value this treasure let us cleanse our minds from the clay and mire of the earth let us purifie our understandings and rid them of the sentiments and opinions of the world which being fastned to its own dung doth prize nothing but the luster of its false honours and the vanity of its perishing riches and the delight of its unseemly pleasures Let us once set free our souls from these fordid and servile passions and acknowledg as is clear and visible and justified by experience that it 's an extream error and folly to seek one's happiness in such wretched things Lift we up our eyes unto Wisdom and desire the possession and embrace the study of it It is the jewel and ornament of our nature its whole dignity stands in it Without it man is little or nothing different from beasts nay in some sort in worse case than they as sinking beneath himself and falling into utmost misery But give we good heed lest we take a shadow for substance and a phantasm for true wisdom Be not deceived This wisdom is only in CHRIST JESUS All that pretended wisdom which hath the acclamations and applauses of people whether in the Courts or in the Schools of the world is but masked folly a disguised extravagance and a painted error which passeth by the principal and necessary part and amuseth its self about that which is of no profit nor any way provides for its own welfare which is the true end of wisdom Seek it therefore in JESUS CHRIST alone It is in him that you shall find the true substance of it And as those that have any treasure are wont to visit it often and have their hearts always in the place where it is so think you night and day upon this Divine Saviour in whom are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledg Consider him pry into him and diligently sound him He is an Abyss of good things Have your hand ever there and draw thence by faith study and meditation all
and quickned by the Spirit of His Resurrection For He doth indeed command the Angels as their true and legitimate Master but He hath not assumed them nor wash'd them from their sins these holy and blessed Natures having never committed any Nor hath He by His merit obtain'd for them that life and bliss which they enjoy these all being benefits pertaining unto none but men Accordingly you shall not find that the Angels are called His Body or His Members This quality is peculiar to the faithful consonantly to what the Apostle elsewhere saith to wit Eph. 5.23 that CHRIST is the Saviour of His Body and every one knows that He is not the Saviour of Angels since they having not fallen from their original purity and felicity have had no need of being saved But come we now to the second point of our Text which the Apostle layeth before us in these words In whom also saith he you are circumcised c. He beginneth here to discover in particular and by as retail what he but now spake of in general namely our having been made compleat in JESUS CHRIST specifying one by one the perfections which those false Teachers sought for otherwhere than in JESUS CHRIST and shewing that they are to be sound plentifully in him so as there is no need to have recourse to any besides him or to add any thing to his Gospel for the acquiring of them Among all those things that these Seducers sought to shuffle into Religion there was none they pressed more than Circumcision which as you know was one of the Sacraments of the old Covenant wherein by cutting off the fore-skin was figured and exhibited to the Israelites the purifying of their nature by the abolishing of their sins and excision of their vices as also their entrance into the communion of GOD. In effect this Ceremony was of infinite importance For it was the seal of all the old Covenant the person who receiv'd it being by means of it consecrated and initiated to the Discipline of Moses and solemnly obliged to observe the same as the Apostle remonstrates to the Galatians Gal. 5.3 I protest saith he to every man who is circumcised that he is bound to fulfil the whole Law For this cause he begins with it in this place well knowing of what consequence this error was which annihilated the Cross of CHRIST and overthrew the whole mystery of his Grace Let none object saith he against this compleatness which you have in JESUS CHRIST that having not been circumcised you want the first and the principal 〈◊〉 sanctification This part of your perfection is not wanting any more than 〈…〉 and if you carefully consider what JESUS CHRIST hath given you throuâ—â— his Gospel you will find that though Moses's knife hath not touched you yet 〈◊〉 miss not of having a Circumcision through the goodness of our LORD yea such a one as is not only equally excellent with the other but even much more perfect Whence you see to how little purpose these men endeavour to make you subject to this ancient incision of the Law it being altogether superfluous to such as have pass'd through the hands of JESUS CHRIST The Apostle sets this consideration before the Philippians in a dispute of his against the same seducers We saith he are the Circumcision who worship GOD in the spirit Phil. 3.3 and glory in CHRIST JESVS and have no confidence in the flesh But here he explaineth in what follows this admirable circumcision which we have received in JESUS CHRIST and saith first that it is not made with hands next he adds in what it consisteth to wit in putting off the body of sins and lastly he termeth it the Circumcision of CHRIST He saith then first that this circumcision which we have in our LORD and Saviour is not made with hand whereby he affirmeth that it is not formally and precisely that circumcision which Moses gave the Jews the hand of man effecting that in their flesh This here is made by the operation not of a man but of GOD with the knife not of Moses but of CHRIST that is by that word of his accompanied by his Spirit Heb. 4.12 which is sharper than any two-edged sword In which respect alone it hath a great advantage above the circumcision of the Jews it being evident that the works of GOD are more excellent beyond compare than the works of men And as the Apostle telling us in another place that the building which we look for 2 Cor. 5.1 after the dissolution of this earthly tabernacle is not made with hand doth by that very reason demonstrate the excellency of it even that it is a work not of human art or nature but of the wisdom and power of GOD In like manner he here discovereth the worth and value of our circumcision in JESUS CHRIST by saying that it is not made with hand But the thing it self doth no less demonstrate the same than the quality of that operation by which we receive it For this circumcision made without hand which we have in JESUS CHRIST is as the Apostle here defines it the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh You know what he and the other holy Writers do understand by the flesh to wit this not only infirm and mortal but moreover defiled and corrupted nature which we all bring into the world comprehending not only the body and the senses but also the soul and it tainted and infected with the ordures of sin and in some sort transformed into flesh by the carnal qualities and habitudes wherewith it is invested its understanding being wholly dull and sensual its will earthly and brutish and its affections rebellious against the Law of Heaven and all of them set on the flesh This nature of man thus framed is that which S. Paul both here and frequently elsewhere calleth flesh The sins of this flesh are the habits of those divers vices that cover it and invelop it on all hands not those only that properly relate to the body and the satiating of its irregular appetites such as are they that refer either to gluttony and drunkenness or to luxury but also all others whatsoever which cross the Law of GOD and overthrow that order of righteousness and holiness which he appointed for all the faculties and motions and sentiments of our nature Gal. 5.19 20. as we are taught by the Apostle in many places and particularly in the Epistle to the Galatians where he placeth among the works of the flesh not only adultery and fornication and drunkenness but also idolatry and heresie and enmity and clamours and envyings and wrath and murthers and such like The mass of all these vices is that which he here calleth the body of the sins of the flesh Rom. 6.6 and he useth this manner of speaking again elsewhere as when he saith that the body of sin is destroyed our old man having been crucified with the
Burial is nothing else but a consequent of death It 's the sad and dismal state to which it reduceth men ever since they became guilty that is to say it makes up a part of the punishment of sin As indeed it 's a hideous thing and full of horror to see so noble and excellent a Creature in whom the Image of GOD did shine forth and who had been formed for immortal glory to be brought down to the grave under the power of Worms and putrefaction JESUS CHRIST therefore having undergone this ignominious Infirmity for us and for our Salvation that he might leave none of our penalties unsatisfied for it 's evident that when he was buried we were buried in him and with him since it was properly for us that he did descend into the Sepulcher He bore us upon the Cross He bore us in the grave We all were in him forasmuch as he in all this work acted but for us We did and suffered these things since we are the cause that he did and suffered them We were buried in him forasmuch as His being buried hath discharged this part of our punishment and so changed the nature of our graves that instead of being prisons and places of execution they are now so many beds and dormitories wherein our bodies do repose until the resurrection Thus his burial hath freed ours from the curse which is naturally upon it and this benefit makes up a part of that justification which he hath merited for us it comprehending an exemption from all the penalties that are due to our sins But it is not in this sense that the Apostle saith we have been buried with JESUS CHRIST For he speaks here of the first part of our sanctification which is nothing else but the mortifying of the body of sin or old man in us and its burial that is the bringing it to nought It 's therefore properly in this respect S. Paul says that we have been buried with JESUS CHRIST even in as much as by the virtue of his death and burial our old man hath been destroy'd and suffer'd a death and burial semblable and analogical to JESUS CHRIST's For as his flesh after it was depriv'd of life was laid in a grave in like manner the old man of true believers having been stain is interred and brought to nought And as the LORD JESUS left in the Sepulcher his Funeral linnen clothes together with all the infirmity and mortality he had and came forth vested with a nature and a life fully refined from all that weakness of the first Adam which appeared in him during the days of his flesh even so the faithful do put off for ever that body of sin wherewith their first Parent had enwrapped them and leave it in their mystical Sepulcher to be resum'd no more but that they may henceforth lead a life free and exempt from all its filthiness and turpitude Lastly As the burial of our Saviour was properly but a progression and continuation of his death so likewise that of our old man is but a prosecuting of his destruction 't is the estate this puts him in and under it he abides for ever without rising any more S. Paul does else where clearly shew us that it is thus we must understand his words as when he saith in the sixth to the Romans that we are buried with CHRIST by baptism into his death Rom. 6.4 5. that as he was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father so we should likewise walk in newness of life and immediately after he saith that we have been made one self-same plant with him by the conformity of his death and resurrection To which must be also added that it is in him and with him we have been buried in this sort for that in his death and burial the principles and causes of ours were contained His death hath destroyed our old man and his burial hath interred him it being evident that if our LORD had not suffered both the one and the other for our salvation sin would still live and reign in us For it is the love of GOD and his peace and the hope of glory the true effect of our Saviour's death and burial that gives the deaths-wound to our old man and that doth abolish and bury his whole life See then how we are buried with him not that to speak properly our bodies do really enter into the grave in Joseph of Arimathea's garden where his abode three days away with so childish a conceit but for that the virtue of his death and holy Sepulcher doth derive into us an image and a copy of his burial destroying and burying our old man by his efficacy and bringing on him a mystical death and burial conform to his own real and mystical one This now which the Apostle addeth that we are also risen again together with him must also be understood after the same manner As our death and burial with him is mystical and spiritual so is likewise our resurrection these words signifying no other thing but that he by the virtue of his resurrection doth work and produce one in us which hath resemblance and analogy with his own And this resurrection of the faithful in consequence and by the efficacy of JESUS CHRIST's is their being renewed unto an holy spiritual and Evangelical life For even as the LORD having put off on the Cross and left in the grave that earthy infirm and natural life which he had led here below during the days of his flesh did put on a new one that was glorious spiritual and immortal rising from the grave a man heavenly and living to eternity by the sole strength of a quickning spirit so likewise all his true members having quitted their old man as destroyed and abolished by the virtue of his death do put on the new which is formed in righteousness and holiness and instead of that vile and wretched life which they led aforetime in the turpitude and fifth of sin they take up another wholly new one which is quickned by the Spirit from on high upheld by his power and shineth all over with the glorious lights of his sanctity charity and purity But besides this conform â—y between the new nature which we receive in JESUS CHRIST and that same which he put on at his coming forth of the grave we are said to rise again with him because it is the virtue of his resurrection that produceth all this change in us His resurrection is the cause of ours without it we should lye dead still and in bondage to sin This will appear if you afford ever so little attention to consider it For that which formeth the new man in us and gives us the courage to renounce the world that we may live pure and holy is as every one knows the perswasion of the love of GOD and of the remission of our sins and the hope of blissful and glorious immortality Now it is the
henceforth any track of him in your whole course And instead of that infernal vigorousness wherewith he inspired heretofore and disturbed your whole life put on that new man whom JESUS hath on this day made to come forth out of his Sepulcher Drink in his Spirit fill your veins with his Blood and your arteries with his fire Receive his Sentiments and deck your selves with his Lights Lead henceforth a life worthy of his Resurrection and of his Baptism and of that immortal Food which you have taken at his Table Let your actions aim at nothing but Heaven 'T is there your Treasure is Christian what do you yet seek on Earth Your LORD is no longer here This day saw him come up thence to go fit down on high at the right hand of GOD and carry up your hearts with him giving them all his motions that where he is ye may be also And if his will do oblige you to tarry yet a while on earth spend the whole time in the same manner that he spent his forty days after his resurrection in a continual meditation of heavenly things in the company of Apostles in the entertainment of Saints in the exercise of an ardent charity in the preparatives of your ascension to his â—ingdom wholly managing this short space to his glory and to the instruction and edification of men This is that we owe dear Bretthren to the Burial and Resurrection of our LORD There is no need to run to Palestine nor to go up Mount Calvary for to enter into his Sâ—pulcher You are entred into it and buried with him if you by the faith of his Gospel do mortifie and destroy sin according to the intention of your Baptism Nor is it a whit more necessary for the having of part in his resurrection to go and kiss the last print of his seet upon Mount Olivet You are risen again with him if affected with the glory he brought out of his Tomb and perswaded of the truth of the discoveries he made of blessed immortality you live according to the form of his Gospel in purity and sanctification GOD who raiseth the dead by his glorious power please to reveal the same might upon our hearts and form so lively a faith in them as may be the true workmanship of his hand and the faith of his efficacy that we may thereby be buried and raised up with CHRIST and after these first-fruits of his holiness be one day transform'd into a perfect resemblance of his glory for the eternal possessing of that great and blessed Heavenly Kingdom with Him which he hath purchas'd for us by the merit of his death and ensured to us by the virtue of his resurrection So be it The Twenty-fourth SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER XIII Ver. XIII And when ye were dead in offences and in the uncircumcision of your flesh He quickned you together with Him having freely forgiven you all your offences DEar Brethren The Philosophers do with good reason commonly say That contraries illustrate one another For nothing makes us better understand the excellence of liberty than consideration of the misâ—râ—es of bondage and nothing doth more discover the nature and advantages of Vertue than the deformity and wretchedness of its oppositâ— Vices The beauty and usefulness of light is perceiv'd by the hideousness of black obscurity and the sweetness of health by the incommodities of sickness For this cause the Ministers of God to teach us the true worth of his benefits do frequently represent to us the misery of that estate out of which he deliver'd us Thus you â—ee the Prophets of the Old Testament did continually put the Israelites in mind of their once sad and pitiful estate in Egypt under the tyranny of Pharaâ—h They would have them keep it in their eye that so they might duly relish the redâ—mption of GOD and the sweetness of that liberty he had given them Under the New Testament the Apostles are no less intentive to represent at every turn the extream hideousness of our original condition for to make us acknowledg so much the more the grace that GOD hath shew'd us in his Son by translating us out of the Kingdom of darkness into his marvellous light Thus S. Paul doth in the Text we have read wherein that the Colossians might be brought to a fuller comprehension of the inestimable excellency of the benefit they had receiv'd from GOD in JESUS CHRIST when they were raised again with him in Baptism by the faith of his efficacy as he expressed in the foregoing Verse He now lays before them the misery they were before engult'd in When ye were dead in offences saith he and in the uncircumcision of your flesh c. Now this discourse does also hit the mark he principally aim'd at in the whole dispute which is as you have often heard to refute the pernicious error of those who accounted the observing of circumcision and other Ceremonies of Moses necessary for Christians Sure all the profit they could pretend to by them was either the remission of our sins or the sanctification of our lives But the Apostle doth here shew us in few words that we have both the one and the other of these two graces in JESUS CHRIST The first Since GOD hath freely forgiven us all our offences in Him The second Since of being dead as we were in our selves He hath made us alive with him whereby it is evident that the Ceremonies of the Law are henceforth wholly useless to us There is no need of the knife of Moses any longer GOD by the sole Gospel of his CHRIST dying and risen again for us the true Sword of Heaven infinitely sharper than any of the Metals of Nature hath cut off all the corruption of our flesh He hath done much more yet By the alone vertue of the same CHRIST he hath rescued us from death and animated and made us alive And as for the sins whereof we were guilty he hath pardon'd us them all His pure grace in JESUS CHRIST hath effectually fulfill'd whatsoever Moses's Law did promise or figure You have had experience of it saith the Apostle to the faithful at Coloss you have seen and felt the efficacy of JESVS CHRIST in your selves Remember what you were when you believed on him and consider what you are since you passed through his hands Ye were dead and ye are alive ye were covered with crimes and are fully absolv'd of them Do not so assront your Deliverer as to think that having wrought so great Miracles by his own power alone he does need the Elements of the Law to finish his work in you and that he cannot compleat without Moses what he so magnificently began and advanced without him This my Brethren is the Apostle's express design in these words We who through the grace of GOD are not troubled with the error of these false Teachers which dyed and was buried long ago will consider this Text more generally and view
life soever they be in respect of earth and flesh And truly for just cause For if we consider the thing in the light of true reason we shall find that what men call life in them is unworthy of that name it being to speak properly meer death For living is right acting and exercising of faculties suitable to one's nature with such satisfaction and pleasure as he is capable of So as the true life of man for of him we speak is nothing else but a continual exercise of good and holy and just actions suitable to his true nature and worthy of that immortal soul which was given him at the beginning with such high contentment as must needs accompany the same Now it is evident that those that are in the flesh do do nothing like this Instead of those excellent and noble actions for which they were created they do none but base and bad ones Instead of meditating on GOD their Creator and on heavenly and divine things they dream on nothing but the flesh and the earth unworthily weltring in these bogs with all the sense and understanding they have Instead of loving GOD above all of adoring and serving him with all the strength of their soul their whole will is set on creatures and vanity And their Appetites instead of being subject to right reason do drag it into corruption and unrighteousness Sure this universal disorder in actions and motions is not to say true the life of a man it 's a depravation and an overthrow of it which deserves the name of Death rather than of Life As when a Clock is marr'd and all its motions put awry and confus'd there 's no longer the going of a Clock though it still have the parts it no longer doth the office it hath only the name of a Clock not the truth So is it with Man he hath still the broken remainders and ruins of his primitive nature but the pieces being confus'd and the wheels crush'd together and all motions disorderly he hath no longer the true life thereof he hath but a false and deceivable image of it Again acting in this horrible confusion it cannot be that he should have that pure and calm contentment without which his life is not life He must of necessity be always in doubt in distrust in fear and disquietness and at last fall under those just executions which this disorder doth deserve that is into that eternal death which is the wages of sin And though he doth not yet suffer this final infelicity while he is on earth nevertheless because it is infallibly his portion and will eftsoons assuredly betide him we are to count him even at present a dead man and look on him as on a Malefactor that is on the point of being condemned and executed For though he in the mean time doth live and breathe yet we stick not to say that such a one is a lost man because his punishment is certain Thus you see it is very justly that the Apostle reckons all those to be dead who are without the grace of GOD forasmuch as they do none of the actions of true life and eternal death is unavoidable to them while they are in this estate But the Apostle's words do signifie somewhat more yet For to be dead is not simply to be without exercising the actions of life it is an having lost the principles of life and a being incapable of doing the actions thereof You call him a dead man not who is simply without action and doth not exercise sensation or motion for they that are asleep or in a swoon are verily in that condition yet are not dead but him who cannot any longer act nor feel nor move and with action hath lost the faculty or power of it Sure then since the Apostle saith that carnal men are dead he means not only that they are without the operations and motions and sentiments of true life but that moreover they lye destitute of the faculty and power to act them Himself teacheth it us expresly elsewhere For as to their understanding which is the foremost and the ruling guide of all actions properly humane he saith not simply that it doth not comprehend the things of GOD but moreover that it cannot discern them The natural man saith he comprehends not the things of the Spirit of GOD 1 Cor. 2.14 for they are foolishness unto him neither can he understand them forasmuch as they are spiritually discerned And as for the Affections which are another principle of human actions he affirms likewise somewhere that the affection of the flesh is enmity against GOD Rom. 8.7 John 5.44 that it is not subject to the law of GOD nor indeed can be Our Saviour also saith of such as are in this miserable estate that they cannot believe and one of his Prophets had said long before Jer. 6.10 13.23 that the ear of that people was uncircumcised and that they could not understand and in general that they could no more do any good than the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots But the Apostle here doth further shew us the quality and the cause of this death under which we lay before the LORD did call us Ye were dead saith he in offences that is Eph. 2.1 in your sins as he expresly adds in the Epistle to the Ephesians and in the uncircumcision of your flesh I acknowledg this word is sometimes taken in the Scripture for the external condition of the Gentiles and circumcision on the contrary for the state of the Jews whence it comes that these two terms are used to signifie one of them the Gentiles and the other the Jews as when the Apostle saith elsewhere that the preaching of the Gospel to the uncircumcision was committed unto him and the circumcision unto Peter that is he receiv'd the charge of publishing the Gospel to the Gentiles and S. Peter to the Jews I confess also that these Colessians to whom he writes were by birth Gentiles so as it may be said of them that they were dead in that miserable heathenish estate they were sometime in Yet I do not think that this is intended by the Apostle in this place For in that case it would have been sufficient to say simply when ye were dead in uncircumcision i. e. in Paganism and there would have been no need to add as he doth in the uncircumcision of your flesh Besides it is evident it seems that he maketh here a secret opposition between that uncircumcision whereof he speaks and that circumcision which the Colossians had received from the hand of JESUS CHRIST whereof he spake immediately before saying that in JESVS CHRIST they had been circumcised with a circumcision not made with hand by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh Therefore as by circumcision in that passage a spiritual and mystical cutting off was signified so in the Text the Apostle takes the word uncircumcision
two things namely first the corruption of a nature destitute of all just and rational apprehensions and motions and secondly the guilt of sin and an obligâ—tion to eternal punishment In like manner that life to which GOD calleth us by his grace doth consist in two particulars first a restauration of His Image in us by the infusion of principles and faculties of true life and secondly the remission of our sins The Apostle here doth briefly speak of them both of the first in saying that GOD hath quickned us together with CHRIST of the second in adding that he hath freely pardoned us all our sins For the first GOD hath quickned us in that delivering us from the death we were under he hath put into us by the grace of his Spirit the principles of an heavenly life and formed in our breasts new hearts hearts illuminated with a new light to wit the good knowledg of his Truth and of the mysteries of his will Then in the second place by the virtue of this Divine flame he enkindleth in our souls the love of his most excellent Majesty charity towards our neighbour uâ—â—ection for just and honest things zeal for his glory abhorrence and hatred of sin and in a word sanctification and all the virtues which it comprehendeth that are the sproutings and productions of this second celestial and happy life which in his great mercy he conferreth on us From this new nature as from a blessed root do issue good and holy actions prayer worshipping of GOD frequent meditation and reading of his word extasies of love to him travels for his glory sufferings for his Name sake relieving instructing assisting of our Neighbour and such others that are as it were the flowers and fruits in the production whereof that life which GOD hath given us in his Son doth properly consist It 's the same thing that the Apostle elsewhere compriseth in few words saying Eph. 2.10 and 4.24 that we are the workmanship of GOD being created in JESVS CHRIST unto good works which GOD hath prepared that we should walk in them And again in another place that our new man that is the second nature which he formeth in us when he quickneth us by his grace is created after GOD in true righteousness and holiness The holy Spirit being rich and magnificent in its expressions doth explain this admirable and blessed operation of the grace of GOD in us by divers terms taken from different resemblances but all amounting to the same sense For to set it forth it saith not only as here that GOD hath quickned us but also Eph. 2.10 1 Pet. 1.3 Ezek. 36.26 Jer. 31.33 Rom. 11 23. Col. 1.13 1 Cor 3.6 Acts 16.4 Phil. 2.13 that He hath created us and in another place that He hath begotten us again the same is meant when it saith that GOD taketh out of us our hearts of stone and gives us hearts of flesh in which he writes his laws that He reneweth us and formeth us into new creatures or new men that He graffeth us by his power into the true olive that He translateth us out of the kingdom of darkness into his marvellous light that it 's He who giveth encrease the Ministers of the Word being nothing that He openeth our hearts and worketh in us effectually both to will and to do of his good pleasure and other like phrases which are found here and there in the Scriptures But the Apostle addeth here that GOD hath thus quickned us together with CHRIST shewing us by these words the cause and the manner of our vivisication namely that it was effected in JESUS CHRIST and with Him and by Him For as that death which we heretofore bore in our selves doth come from Adam the stock and original of our carnal beeing who by destroying himself destroyed us also with him and corrupting his own nature corrupted ours likewise so as it is in him and from him that we inherit this misery in like manner on the contrary that life which we have now receiv'd from GOD doth come from JESUS CHRIST the stock and root of the new nature who raising up himself unto life raised us up also according to what the Apostle saith elsewhere viz. that as all dye in Adam so likewise in JESVS CHRIST are all made alive But this assertion of his here that GOD hath quickned us together with CHRIST 1 Cor. 15.22 doth particularly refer to his resurrection as if GOD in restoring him to that glorious life which he receiv'd at his issuing out of the Sepulcher had at the same time given us also part therein And he speaks in this manner for two reasons principally The first is because it was then that JESUS CHRIST brought to light that blessed life whereof we have been made partakers and from him as from its source hath it been derived unto us so as that same time was the day of our new birth as well as his For if he had not been made alive no more should we have ever been Not but that the Father all had the might and power that was necessary to give us life again But his Justice could not have suffer'd him to give life to any of the sons of men if their Surety and Mediator had abode under death The second reason is That he being our Head and we his Members he our Pattern and we Copies drawn if I may so say from his Original when GOD raised him he re-enliven'd us also by the same means since by this action he obliged himself to vivifie us likewise it being evident that without this we should not have that conformity with our Head to which he predestinated us Not to mention for the present the efficacy this Resurrection hath to form in us faith and hope and love of glorious immortality which are the principles of that new life that GOD doth put into us by his Spirit as we intimated in the exposition of the precedent Verse There remains now the other part of this blessed life which GOD giveth us in his Son namely the remission of our sins S. Paul sets it before us here when he saith that GOD hath freely pardoned us all our sins For the Spirit of Sanctification which is as the soul of that new life he createth in our hearts doth indeed turn away our affections from vice and obstruct our committing of unjust ungodly and impure actions wherein we wallowed afore Yet this respecteth only the present and the future and if there were no more the guilt of sins committed in time past during our spiritual deadness would nevertheless remain in its strength it being clear that though the act of sin be past the faultiness wherewith it commaculates him who committeth it goes not off so soon It subsists still both in the conscience of the sinner if he have any and in the registers of the Justice of the Supream Judg of the World binding over the sinner unto punishment Whence it follows
that supposing a man be perfectly cured of vicious habits and inclinations yet would he nevertheless be faulty by reason of his fore-passed sins and consequently liable upon this account unto the curse with which and the terrors that precede it true life is so incompatible that it is not imaginable a man in such a state could ever resolve to serve GOD freely and sincerely Therefore GOD that he may throughly quicken us doth not only deliver us from the tyranny of vice and of the flesh by that Princely Spirit which he poureth into our inward parts but moreover pardoneth us all the sins whereof we are guilty and it seems in very deed if we do accurately observe the moments of his action in us that it 's there he does begin first remitting our former offences to the end that the sense of this goodness of His may cause us to love him and encline us to obey him and conform our selves with all our might unto his holy will The Apostle attributeth unto this remission two remarkable qualities One that GOD forgiveth us all our offences that is doth not impute to us any of our sins either in whole or in part but treateth us as if we had committed none at all Another is that he doth it freely and of meer grace for so doth the word giving used here in the Original properly signifie as our Translation hath well express'd by rendring He hath freely forgiven us The Scripture tells us not of any other kind of pardon For as to that which our Adversaries do assert to wit whereby the fault is remitted but the punishment exacted either in whole or in part or is bought out with the payment of our own satisfactions or the satisfactions of others it's a figment of their own Schools of which the Holy Ghost says nothing any where but represents unto us all that remission which GOD gives the faithful either at the beginning or in the progress of their regeneration as an entire pardon and purely gratuitous As for that satisfaction by which our LORD and Saviour obtained it for us it is so far from any way diminishing that it does infinitely exalt the bounty of GOD towards us since that he so loved us as that he might pardon our faults with the consent of his Justice he would have his only Son to shed his precious blood for the contenting thereof This is that we had to deliver upon this Text of the Apostle's Dear Brethren Let us hold fast what it hath taught us of the condition that all men are naturally in before GOD calleth them to his grace Let not their outward appearance deceive you nor the pleasures of their flesh nor the splendor of their pretended virtues either civil or moral All this is but a false image of life covering a carkass that 's stinking and abominable before GOD. Make account that they are dead and that if they walk it is not a true principle of life but sin the poyson of life which doth animate them and set them on working The issue will one day clear it to us all when the just judgment of GOD having stript them of that fallacious disguise which now hideth the hideousness of their nature shall shew it before Heaven and Earth and make us plainly see that they were but Sepulchers whited without and full of filth and infection within and cast them thereupon into that wretched and eternal death which is prepared for them with the Devil and his Angels Bless we GOD who hath deliver'd us from this perdition by his great mercy and hate we sin and the corruption of the flesh which had involv'd us in it Look we on them as pests and poysons that destroy our life and reckon we that we have liv'd no more time than what hath been exempted from our serving of them You deceive your self Worldling who count the days of your unclean pleasures or your vain honours the best part of your life To say plainly it was the time of your being dead and not of your being alive After so many years as you have tumbled up and down the earth you have not yet liv'd a moment You have all along been in a state of death And they that write upon your Tombs that you liv'd so many years and died such a day do grosly err You did not live when you offended GOD and your Neighbour or lost your time in the filth of your infamous delights And on the day that you shall quit the earth you will not cease to live for to say true you never liv'd but from one kind of death you will pass into another from the death of sin to a death of torment Christians if you love life and hate horror at death renounce sin and mortifie your flesh You cannot live except it dye Put in exercise that noble life which the LORD hath given you in his Son Act according to the Principles which he hath put into you by his Spirit and lay forth continually in good and holy works the Graces wherewith he hath vested you Faithfully love and serve him Let your minds meditate on nothing beside him your hearts desire none but him your tongues speak only of him Let the contemplation of the wonders of his love and the hopes of his glory be the whole food of your souls Respect those men in whom you see his Image shine Affect them and serve them for his sake looking upon their lives their estates their honour their bodies and souls as sacred and inviolable things Endeavour to enrich them by communicating of your prosperities unto them Offend no man Do good to all Let your charity and your innocence be conspicuous in the sight of GOD and Man Faithful Brethren This is that life truly worthy to be called life which GOD doth reward for the present with a joy and contentment of Conscience that 's a thousand times more sweet and savoury than any of the vain delights of the world and which he will crown one day with that glorious Immortality he hath promised It 's for this that he hath vouchsafed to forgive us freely all our offences all those so many horrible Crimes which had merited Hell-fire and is still ready to pardon all the sins we have committed since This so great and admirable loving-kindness of his tendeth only to withdraw us from sin and oblige us to love and revere so good a GOD. It 's for the self-same end that he hath raised up his Son from the dead and enliven'd us with him giving us faith hope and charity the principles of a new life even that henceforth renouncing sin and the flesh and turning our hearts towards Heaven where our treasure and our glory is we might live soberly righteously and godly in the present world looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great GOD and Saviour JESUS CHRIST Amen The Twenty-fifth SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER XIV Ver. xiv Having effaced the obligation
be put in prison of all the force it had to endamage him He effaceth it cancels it and makes it null He renders useless all the preparatives of Justice against his friend He puts the Adversary and all his Advocates to silence He stops the mouth of the Judg that was even open to decree against him He stays the Serjâ—ants and secures his liberty from their outrages This is just the thing our LORD and Saviour hath done for us But what say I he hath done thus for us He hath done for us infinitely more than all that this comes to Death and the Curse were due to us as the wages of our sins The sentence of it was written in â—he obligation of the Law which we our selves had signed and wherein we had submitted to this penalty The Judg was ready and Execution could not be avoided The LORD JESUS moved with compassion and sent by the goodness of the Father puts himself in our room as Surety and Mediator for us He pays what we did owe. He suffers on the Cross the punishment we deserv'd His Cross therefore hath struck out that redoubtable obligation which was against us He hath abolish'd and made it of no effect He hath broken all the forces it was going to raise against us He hath pacified our Judg coufounded our Accusers staid the Officers and Ministers of Justice and sav'd our persons from the fetters and torments which were prepared for us But hence again appears how vain the error of those is who pretend that GOD doth but half-pardon our sins that having remitted unto us the fault he doth exact of us part of the punishment and make us suffer it either in this life here or after death in a certain partition of Hell which they call Purgatory How could they more rudely clash with the Apostle's Doctrine He saith that GOD hath effaced cancelled and abolished the obligation which was against us These men affirm that he still makes us pay some part of our debt Sure then our obligation is not yet torn It 's a thing unheard-of in the course of Justice to bring an Action against that Debtor whose Obligation you have effaced If it be torn if it be made void and of no effect you have no longer any right to draw him before the Judg much less to get him condemned to pay If GOD who doth nothing but according to Justice should make us pay any part of the penalties of our sins which he hath forgiven us the Obligation by virtue whereof he condemneth us is still in its full force But the Apostle protesteth that it hath been effaced and remains blotted and nailed to the Cross of CHRIST for ever The Obligation which was against us imported all the punishments both temporal and eternal that we were obnoxious unto It is voided and nulled We therefore do no longer owe any of them Fear not Christian you have to do with a faithful Creditor Having remitted to you your debt yea cancell'd the evidence of it and torn the Obligation he hath no intent at all after all this to demand any part of it of you I confess that the payment JESUS CHRIST hath made is of no use to such as remain in unbelief and though he hath in point of right nulled the Obligation which was against us yet their ingratitude and infidelity is a cause that they have no benefit from this kindness of his Even as the unthankfulness and obdurateness of that servant of whom we are told in that Parable in the Gospel did deprive him of the favour his Master had shewed him in forgiving the ten Talents he owed For GOD hath affixed this reasonable condition to the Covenant of Grace which he hath made with Mankind that the payment of our Debts made by our Surety should not be allowed to any but those that believe so as they that obstinately abide in incredulity have no share in that impunity or in those other benefits which this great Mediator hath obtained for us But as to the man that believeth and by a true faith applieth applieth to himself the death and blood and merit of the LORD JESUS there is no more any condemnation for him Rom. 8.1 as the Apostle elsewhere saith nor by consequence any punishment the obligation by virtue whereof alone he could be condemned at the Tribunal of GOD having been effaced abolished and fastned to the Cross of his Saviour Thus you see Beloved Brethren what that grace of GOD is which the Apostle hath here made known and by what means we may get part in it Sinners you that groan under the heavy load of your crimes that feel your misery and perceive the cords of that damnation in which the Law doth entangle you come unto the Cross of CHRIST and you shall find rest to your souls Your consciences accuse you and compel you to subscribe your own condemnation acknowledging the justness thereof But how just soever it be the Cross of JESUS freeth you from it forasmuch as it hath fully fatish'd for you Beware of the error both of the ancient and the modern Pharisees who pretend ability to pay what they owe and even more than they owe and to justifie themselves by their works that is by the Law The Law is the instrument of our condemnation and the ministration of our death and a man that would be justified by the Law commits no less an extravagance than he that to prove he owes nothing should produce in Judgment the Bills and Bonds he hath given his Creditors Confess you your debts Divest your selves of all presuming upon your own righteousness Declare that of your selves you are bound over to eternal malediction that you have deserv'd it and do present your selves naked before GOD who justifies the ungodly He will clothe you with the righteousness of his Son And you Faithful Brethren who are already entred into this blessed Covenant Live ye in peace and quietly wait for the fruit of your faith according to the promises of GOD. Let not the thundrings and lightnings of the Law make you afraid Let not that death with which it so severely menaceth the sons of men terrifie you at all Let not World or Devils the Executioners of its Justice astonish you JESUS CHRIST hath brought to nought all their strength by effacing the obligation that was against us Satan thou cruel enemy of our repose object not to us our sins We confess they are greater and yet more grievous than thou canst express Lay not before us that clause of our old Covenant which puts all that have sinned under the curse We confess we have merited this curse But know Satan if we have deserv'd death JESUS CHRIST hath suffer'd it for us and if we have committed sins worthy of thine Hell the Blood of the Son of GOD hath blotted them out His Cross hath made void that old piece upon which thou makest such a clamour that rough obligation with which thou incessantly
triumphed of his enemies in himself or by himself that is according to the ordinary stile of Scripture by his own strength and virtue he being raised from the dead and gloriously lifted up to Heaven by the potency of his own arm But I say in the second place that there is no absurdity at all in attributing these things to the very death of our LORD understanding them as we ought spiritually and mystically And without doubt it is much more fluent and clear to refer the last words of this verse to the Cross of our Saviour of which the Apostle had spoken immediately before he fastned the obligation to the Cross having spoiled Principalities and Powers over whom he triumphed on it that is on the Cross than to take it of our LORD himself and say that he triumphed over his enemies in himself which is frigid and harsh and obscure Say we then with the greater part of the Modern and with the more knowing and illustrious of the ancient Expositors that it is on the Cross our Saviour spoiled Principalities and Powers and that it was there also he publickly made a shew of them and triumphed of them I confess if we look upon him as suffering on that execrable tree amid the scoffs and sarcasms of the Jews in the lowest degree of his exinanition Flesh will find in him nothing less than victories and triumphs But you know likewise that this mystery must not be judged of by the senses of the flesh 'T is faith alone that 's able to discover and contemplate the wonders that are in it Now if you open the eyes of Faith you will easily perceive that JESUS hath spoiled all hostile powers on the Cross and that it is with this weapon properly that he surmounted those strong and potent Tyrants and took from them all the instruments of their violence and made a prey of all their riches For to say true that harsh and cruel dominion which the Devil exerciseth in the world is not founded upon any thing but sin If this pest had not infected us all the forces of Hell though they were a thousand times greater than they are could not have hurted us It 's upon our sin that this fierce Tyrant hath built all his power and it 's upon our ruins that he hath raised his grandeur For first if we were not culpable by reason of the sins we have committed the Justice of GOD would never have suffer'd this Executioner of his Judgments to trouble and prosecute us as he hath done It would not permit him so much as to open his mouth against us to accuse us But sin having provoked the wrath of GOD and his Law prohibiting access unto his Throne and pronouncing a curse upon us it 's evident that the same delivered up our persons to the evil Angels and gave them power to execute its judgment on us Again beside these evils which are termed penal and which could not terminate at last but in an eternal death the Devil did annoy men in another kind even by pushing them on to vice by his temptations and making them commit a multitude of sins some by means of avarice and others by the furies of ambition casting some into the excesses of luxury others into the disorders of drunkenness and glutny But it is sin also that gives him this power upon men to wit that Concupiscence which reigneth in them and which the Scripture calls the old man because it is the inheritance and succession and image of the first Adam It 's by this as by an handle that the Devil seizeth on them and trains them into such sins as he pleaseth Were it not for this he would have no hold upon them and each of them if he were exempted from it might say as our LORD did The Prince of this world cometh but hath nothing in me Now JESUS CHRIST hath abolish'd by his Cross both the guilt and the vices of men the guilt in that he bore the punishment thereof and satisfi'd Divine Justice for them and extinguish'd all the flamings of the Law and opened the Throne of Grace to every impenitent sinner Their vices in that he crucifi'd and destroy'd our old man on the Cross and mortifi'd all its lusts and discover'd its impostures Sure then it s by his Cross that he divested the Devils of the dominion they exercised over mankind having sapped and demolish'd all the foundations thereof by his admirable sufferings As for that which the Apostle addeth in the second place viz. that he publickly made a shew of those hostile powers this doth excellently well agree with his Cross For this shew signifieth nothing else but an extream confusion and ignominy as we have already intimated and who is there but knows that the evil Angels never receiv'd a greater than that was wherewith the Cross of our LORD and Saviour did cover them They thought to have overcome him and found themselves overcome instead of ruining his Dominion as they imagined they saw their own utterly overthrown And this was publickly done in the view of Heaven and Earth our Saviour having been crucified in the greatest City of the Orient by broad day and at the solemnity of the most sacred Festival the Jews had The Angels look'd on it from on high and never beheld any thing with more attention and astonishment Jews and Gentiles were spectators of it and Nature it self however mute and insensible sufficiently shew'd that it took part in it shutting if we may so say its eye through the horror it had to see its Creator suffer But fear not poor Creatures The shame and confusion will wholly remain to our Enemies Our Sun will soon come out of this Eclipse and his suffering is the salvation not the ruin or damage of the Universe In fine the Apostle's further assertion in the last place that our LORD triumphed over these hostile powers on the Cross is easily verifi'd also For Origen as an Ancient said There were two crucified persons on that Cross the one JESUS CHRIST who was nailed to it visibly voluntarily and for a short time only the other the Devil invisibly fastned to the same Cross and to his great regret and for ever in as much as this Cross of our Saviour hath destroy'd his life and power having given him that deadly blow whereof he will never recover Faith seeth upon the Cross above the Son of GOD combating and conquering for us and it sees beneath all the bad Angels put in chains vanquished and in vain raging under his feet Yet do I ingenuously confess that to speak properly the resurrection and ascension of our LORD have more analogy with a triumph than his death which doth rather resemble a conflict But it 's a very common manner of speech to attribute the name of an effect to the cause which produced it It 's in my opinion principally in this sense that our Saviour triumphed of his enemies on the Cross because the
and the same kind of terrene and material things and tend to one and the same end to wit the purifying and sanctifying of men and the rendring the Deity propitious and favourable to them by such exercises This whole sort of service is carnal tyed up to certain corporeal things and actions in which it consisteth as is meat and drink in watchings and cloathing in mens washing and discipling themselves going in procession or on pilgrimage repeating certain words and forms of prayer it also dependeth upon times having its years its months its days its festivals and its very hours all regulated This was the very form of the carnal or ceremonial service of the Jews which was directly opposite to that other kind of service that JESUS CHRIST gave us in His Gospel which without being bound up to these childish scruples of times of places and of things doth wholly consist in a pure and genuine worshiping of GOD in loving and fearing Him and tenderly affecting our neighbour in honesty and justice and in a true and lively sanctity Accordingly you know that whereas the former service is termed carnal the latter is stiled spiritual The one is a serving in shadow the other in truth the one in flesh the other in spirit 'T is then in my opinion all that first sort of carnal services from what Source soever they flow either the institution of Moses or the invention of any other man that the Apostle doth here call the rudiments of the world declaring that we have been freed from it by our LORD JESUS CHRIST remaining no longer subject to all this childish and infantile pedagogy nor bound up to houres or times or elements or other parts of the world but being raised above all these things so as we may make use of them with full liberty according to the interests of Piety and charity and not be any more imbondaged to them or depend upon them But because JESUS CHRIST hath procured us this great benefit by His death and does put us in possession of it by the communion we have with Him in respect thereof thence it comes that S. Paul sets forth this grace of His freeing us from subjection to the rudiments of the world in terms that referr thereto saying not singly that we are delivered from such kind of services by JESUS CHRIST but that we are dead with Him as to the rudiments of the world An expression exceeding graceful and elegant It signifies first that we are no longer subject to these rudiments of the world For the dead are out of all servitude The Laws demand nothing of them any more Neither their Lords nor their masters have any power to require ought of them any longer Death breaks all the bonds that tyed them to any subjection whatever The Apostle saith therefore we are dead to the rudiments of the world to signifie that we are freed from them that we are no more subject to them as he tells us elsewhere to the same sense that we are dead to the Law and again in another place Rom. 7. â— Gal. 2. â—9 Rom. 6. â— I am saith he dead to the Law that I might live to GOD. And thus too it is that we must take his affirming elsewhere that we are dead to sin that is to say delivered from its tyranny And because death puts an end to and abolisheth the power and authority of the master as well as the servitude and subjection of the vassal thence it comes S. Paul saith indifferently that sin and the commandment of the old Law are dead to us and that we are dead to them signifying by the one and the other that we are Subjects of theirs no more But S. Paul saying here that we are dead with CHRIST as to the rudiments of the world doth shew us in the second place both the cause of our liberty JESUS CHRIST and the means by which He acquired it for us to wit His death We are dead to all ceremonial services for that our LORD hath disolved and abolished them in dying for us For His death hath satisfied all the reasons upon which these rudiments of the world were for a time appointed It hath procured that righteousness which they represented and exhibited that salvation which they promised and brought in the substance whereof they were but shadows It hath opened the house of GOD unto the Gentiles whom they barred from it and put an end to the Old Testament to which they pertained and founded the new an eternal and immutable one which they prefigured Wherefore the Veil of the Temple was rent from the top to the bottom at the time that JESUS suffered death for a token that the antient worship whereof this Veil was a symbole became thenceforth abrogated and annulled In fine these words of the Apostle do discover to us further an apt resemblance that is found to be between the LORD's death on the Cross and our freedom from the yoke of Ceremonies For as JESUS in dying did divest Himself of the former life He led here below during the days of His flesh in infirmity and in subjection to the elements of Moses to take up a new one by His resurrection which was to be free divine and coelestial so we conformly by vertue of the communion we have with Him and particularly in His death do lay down that former manner of life that consisteth in the childish exercises of some carnal abstinences and devotions to live henceforth in the liberty of children of GOD serving Him no more in shadow and in figure but in spirit and in truth with a conscience pure and an heart not bound up to the places things and times of the old world but continually elevated to that new incorruptible and eternal one above the heavens where JESUS CHRIST the author and prince of our religion and salvation is Such is this Evangelical verity here laid down by S. Paul at the beginning of the Text that we are dead with CHRIST as to the rudiments of the world Whereby to mention it by the way you may see how much out in their reckoning they are who place the perfection of the faithful in the practising of these carnal disciplines and devotions accounting those for perfect who do use them S. Paul on the contrary terms them here the rudiments of the world so as the subjecting of Christians to such disciplines is so farr from being a perfectâ—â—◠〈◊〉 completing them as these men pretend that it is clean contrary a putâ—ing them back to their ABC and a reducing them from the highest Classis of the School of GOD down to the lowest there to become children again and lead a childish life with the disciples of Moses in an apprentiship to his rudiments and under the Ferule of his pedagogie The Apostle from this principle thus asserted concludes against the false teachers that all their ordinances touching abstinence from certain meats were vain unjust and tyrannical If therefore
resurrection with our Saviour He had touched it already in the twelfth verse of the precedent Chapter and 't is from thence he resumes it and reminds us of it here saying If then ye be risen again with CHRIST that is to say since you are risen again with the LORD as I have said and shewed a-fore For the particle if is used here as often else-where by way of illation and concluding not in way of doubting and imports as much as if the Apostle had said since that or seeing that For the rest you plainly see that the Resurrection he speaks of is not that of our bodies which shall not be till the last day but another mystical and spiritual one already accomplished in us by the virtue of our LORD'S resurrection and the efficacy of His Spirit Eph. 2.5.6 He spake of it a-fore at the place we noted and in the Epistle to the Ephesians where he saith that GOD hath quickened us together with CHRIST and raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Him He explains us the mysterie of it else-where in these words Rom. 6. We are saith he buried with Him by Baptisme into His death that as CHRIST is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father so we in like manner should walk in newness of life Every resurrection presupposeth a death preceding For to rise again is nothing else but for one to be restored to life who before was dead Now the estate that men are in under the dominion of sin the Scripture calleth Death because therein they have no sense nor motion in respect of piety and sanctity no more than the dead that rest in the grave have any for the actions of this life Eph. 2.1 Ye were dead in your sins and offences saith the Apostle to the Ephesians speaking of the time of their ignorance Whence is that which our Saviour saith in the Gospel Let the dead bury their dead and which St. Paul sayes 1 Tim. 5.6 the widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth When therefore by the efficacy of the vocation of the Spirit and Gospel of the LORD a man comes to pass out of this miserable condition into the estate of grace receiving the light of Faith into his understanding and Charity and Sanctification into his heart the Scripture to express this wonderful change saith that he is risen again This is precisely the resurrection that St. Paul intendeth in this place He saith that we are risen again with CHRIST First because this blessed change that 's brought to pass in us by His grace is like that change which betided Him when from the grave where He had lain for the space of three daies He was raised unto life by virtue from on high For as He then received the faculties of moving and sensation of which He was deprived in the Sepulchre so we in our regeneration do receive a spirit and a principle of life which we had not before Again as the LORD was restored unto life by the glory of the Father as the Apostle speaks that is by virtue of the exceeding great and glorious power of GOD in like manner are we renew'd and put into the state of grace by the efficacy of the might of GOD and not by the arm of man or the operation of flesh and blood In fine as the LORD upon His rising again did recover not simply that life which He laid down in His dying but another much more excellent and glorious a spiritual a coelestial and an immortal life in like manner we resume in our regeneration not the life of the first Adam before sin from which we were fallen and which how excellent so-ever was nevertheless animal and mortal that is capable of being lost as appeared by the issue but another much more exquisite and perfect a life eternal immutable and like that the blessed Angels live Thus you see the Resurrection of the LORD CHRIST is the idea and pattern of ours But I add in the second place that we are said to be risen again with CHRIST because it is in Him and from Him that we have this grace it being evident that Faith which is the first faculty of the new life doth ingraff and incorporate us into JESUS CHRIST and as the vine-branch doth not live but in its stock so man cannot live that divine life but in his Saviour In fine we are risen again with CHRIST because His resurrection is the cause of ours in such sort as if He had not risen from the dead we should have remained lying in the darkness of our spiritual death CHRIST coming forth out of His grave hath opened and enlightened ours and hath administred out of His own store all things necessary to deliver us out of the miserable estate wherein we were and to put us in possession of the life of Heaven His resurrection hath founded our Faith shewing us clearly that He is the Son of GOD and that His Gospel is true His resurrection hath assured our souls giving us full proof that His death did fully satisfie and content the judge of the World It hath strengthened our hopes making us to see by example of our Head that death the dreadfullest of our enemies cannot impede our happiness Hereupon it hath kindled love of GOD and desire of so great glory in our hearts and finally produced in them the principles the habitudes and dispositions of the new life which are necessary for our attaining unto blissful immortality Since therefore JESUS CHRIST in rising again did thereby raise up our life which had been ingulfed in hell and the curse and brought to light the causes of Faith Hope and Charity the principal faculties of that new life we now have it 's evident that we are risen again in Him and with Him From whence that which the Apostle infers upon it doth no less clearly follow to wit that we ought to mind henceforth the things which are on high and seek them with all our affection For the life unto which we are raised up with our LORD is heavenly and not earthly divine and not natural eternal and not corruptible Since therefore every creature employeth all the sense and affection it hath about things suitable to its life who sees not that the faithful are obliged by the honour they have to be risen again with the LORD neither to breath after nor embrace other things but those that are on high in which their new life doth properly consist And such is the example He hath given us For being risen he abode but a very little time here below only so long as the work of our salvation did require and forthwith ascended into Heaven to draw up our thoughts and affections thither untill our bodies also follow one day being raised up thither as His was unto highest glory And this is the second consideration that the Apostle here lays before us to perswade
people do not reject the word either of the Gospel or the Law which is neither the one nor the other addressed to them yet can they not be excused of contemning that other voice of GOD which makes it self be heard from Heaven throughout all the earth and soundeth secretly in every man's heart and privily calleth them to repentance for their sins to piety to honesty to justice and rectitude They profanely reject this sacred declaration of the Deity without which GOD never left a man among the nations no not the most forlorn or most desperately plunged in idolatry and viciousnesse as the Apostle teacheth us in the Acts. They despise those admirable directions He gives them in the governing of the world to seek Him feel Him and find Him Acts 14.17 17.26 27. They make light of the evidences He offers them in His administration of the universe of His eternal power and Godhead and finally do abuse the riches of His mercy of His patience Rom. 1.20 2.4 and of His long-suffering by which His goodness inviteth and solliciteth all men to repentance Whence appears the wonderfulnesse not only of the justice but even of the gentleness and benignity of GOD who having right to punish men upon the first sin they are sound guilty of yet doth it not but calleth and inviteth them to repentance and waiteth for them and causeth not His wrath to come upon them untill to the crime of their sin they have added that of rebellion against that second way of salvation which He in His loving kindness offers them to wit the way of repentance For that which the Apostle saith here of fornicators and the avaricious in particular is true of all vices in general the wrath of Heaven cometh not upon them that are guilty but when by their unbelieving and obduration they have made themselves children of rebellion and there is not a sinner in the world how great and enormous soever his crimes may be but this good and all-merciful Majesty receives most readily to mercy providâ— only he repent according to the Prophet's saying that God willeth not the death of a sinner Ezek. 33. but that he be converted and live so as henceforth it is not simply sin that damneth men but impenitency and unbelief And the goodnesse of GOD doth so much the more gloriously appear in this procedure of His towards them for that to have the liberty of treating thus with them He bought it if I may so speak at the price of the blood of His only Son whom He such is His goodnesse to us deliver'd up to the death of the Cross to salve the interests of His justice which opposed this way of mercy that He inclined to open unto men after their falling into sin But this very thing shews us on the other hand how great the corruption of men is and how untractable the furiousnesse of the passion they have for vice in that not content to be debauched from the service of their Soveraign which is of it self an horrible attentat and worthy of a thousand penalties they are so desperately in love with sin that to continue in it they despise and even reject with an enraged insolency all this holy and sacred mysterie of the kindnesse of GOD and are so inchanted and bestialized by the poisons of sin that they preferr its short its vain and wretched pleasures before Divine grace and salvation and do less dread the wrath of their Soveraign and the society of Devils and the torments of Hell than the loss of that unworthy and shameful delight which the practise of sin and the fulfilling of its lusts doth give them for a few daies But we may further observe here the Apostle's holy art who aiming to divert the Colossians from avarice and the pollution of carnal pleasures doth not tell them that GOD will punish them heavily if they do not avoid them this language would have in some sort offended them as implying that they had some inclination or disposition to such a faultinesse On the contrary presupposing that this would not betide them to give them horror at these crimes he shews them the just punishments of them in the person of the unbelieving and rebellious like a tender and a prudent father who to imprint an hatred of vice and debauch in the heart of his child chastiseth the slaves in his presence that the example of those vile and wretched persons may teach him what punishments he will deserve if he come to fall into any such disorder he who is the son of his house the heir of his freedom and estate For we must not fancy that because we have the honour to be of the alliance of GOD we may therefore commit with impunity those sins which the LORD punisheth so severely in those that are without Far from us be so fottish and so pernicious a conceit It 's vice that GOD hateth and not persons and whoever hardens himself therein live he in any profession Pagan or Christian reformed or otherwise he is a child of rebellion and the advantage and excellency of the profession he makes is so far from exempting him from that it will aggravate his punishment it being most just as our Saviour teacheth us Luke 12.47 that he who knew the will of his Master and doth it not should receive more stripes than he that offends ignorantly And when a true believer salleth through infirmity into some one of these disorders as alas happens but too often GOD plainly shews how much it doth displease Him never failing to rebuke and chasten it except a prompt repentance do prevent such chastening of His. 1 Pet. 4.17 1 Cor. 11.32 Judgment saith St. Peter beginneth at the house of GOD. And He judgeth us saith St. Paul and teacheth us that we may not be condemned with the world as we shall assuredly be if we persevere in sin without repentance and amendment Hence the Apostle fearing lest some such imagination should abuse the Ephesians he gives them the same intimation with express advice that they suffer not themselves to be beguiled with a false hope of impunity Eph. 5.6 Let none saith he deceive you with vain words For for these things the wrath of GOD cometh upon the children of rebellion But further his threatning here particularly fornication uncleannesse inordinate appetite evil concupiscence and covetousnesse in saying that it is for these things the wrath of GOD cometh upon the children of rebellion is not to signifie that other excesses of such rebellions ones as their cruelties their murthers their ambitions and the like exorbitances should remain unpunished on the contrary Rom. 1.18 Rom. 2.9 he else-where expresly declareth that the wrath of GOD is revealed peremptorily upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness and again that there shall be tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil But he hath denounced this wrath of GOD upon the luxurious and
their reason do them little more service than if they had none at all Whereas now speech brings it forth and renders it useful to us communicating unto many and almost infinitely multiplying what was at first but in one soul alone For as a seal imprinteth the form that 's cut on it upon all the drops of wax to which you apply it so Speech gliding through the ear into the hearts of all that hear it engraveth on them that image which it carries with it of the mind and will of the speaker It guideth and keeps up the negotiations the treaties the alliances the arts the sciences and the disciplines of men and is the soul of their commerce and of their conversation and in a word of all their humanity 'T is by it that superiors make themselves to be obeyed and inferiors obtain the assistances they need since 't is it that makes both the wills of the one and the necessities of the other to be understood 'T is it that unites the souls of equals and discovers to the one and the other what each hath of reason and wisdom in himself or of sympathie and aversion for others It transfuseth the souls of the one into the others pouring into them their sentiments their reasonings their inventions and their affections But as the abuse of the excellentest things is much more dangerous than that of things mean and common so it is plain that the efficacy of speech is not less pernicious when applied to evil than useful and beneficial when employ'd to good It is as powerful to destroy as to edifie to infect as to cure and is equally capable of communicating unto men health and sickness life and death as the springs and intentions be from which it is dispensed Speech being of so great importance in the life of men it 's with great reson that the Apostle hath taken care in the rule he here gives us for our deportment to cleanse it of the vices which sin hath sowl'd it with You may remember that in the precedent text he purged it of the poisons of detraction and of pollutions contrary to honesty commanding us to put away evil-speaking and dishonest talk out of our mouth Now to the end it may be throughly pure and legitimate and truly worthy of a Christian mouth he taketh out of it lying also the most shameful of its defilements and that which is most directly contrary to its natural constitution Lie not saith he one to another And because in the precedent action shortness of time permitted us not to say all that we desired upon the two former vices of speech we will resume that discourse now with your permission and treat if the Lord please of all those three sins of the tongue which the holy Apostle hath here forbidden us first evil-speaking then in the second place filthiness contrary to honesty and thirdly lying May it please GOD to guide us in this discourse and so purifie our lips with the Divine fire of that heavenly coal wherewith He sometime touched those of a Prophet of His that henceforth our mouths may be so many living sources of benediction and edification from whence shall issue none but good and innocent pure and honest sincere and veritable speeches unto His glory and our neighbours benefit and our own salvation Amen The Apostle in the original of this text makes use of the word blasphemy to signifie that which we have rendred evil-speaking For though that term in our vulgar tongue doth import words spoken to the offence of GOD when things unworthy of His greatness and His holiness and truth are attributed unto Him or those that belong unto Him are denied of Him or when that which is proper to His Divinity is communicated to creatures yet so it is that in Greek that is in the language the Apostle speaks the word blasphemy doth generally signifie any offensive injurious speech whomsoever it concerns whether GOD or Angels or men The truth is this word if we respect its origination or etymologie doth simply denote an hurting of the reputation an offending of some one's honour as the Greek Grammarians have observed Whence it comes that St. Paul useth it not here only but also else-where to signifie such revilings and detractions as are directed properly unto men and not unto GOD as when he saith in the first Epistle to the Corinthians We are blamed and do intreat it is in the original 1 Cor. 4.13 we are blasphemed And when he enjoyns Titus to admonish the faithful that they speak evil of no man It is word for word in the Greek that they blaspheme no man Tit. 3.2 That evil speaking which he doth in this place so severely banish from all Christians mouths is a vice so common that no one can be ignorant of it The world is full of it and the Church it self beholds but too many examples of it in those that make profession of her communion But that no man may deceive himself it will not be impertinent to represent the principal kinds of it For as the pestilence is not all of a sort but great diversity is found in the poisons it comprehends and in the manner after which they seize on humane bodies so is it with evil-speaking It 's a poison that hath under it many different species a mischief that puts forth divers branches from one and the same root of bitterness If you regard the form of it one smites uncovered another deals its blows in secret the former revileth openly and rends the honour of a neighbour in his presence the latter manageth its self subtilly and blackens his reputation in private with so much the more effect for that it is in a place where no person appears to ward off its blows If you consider the causes and occasions of the thing some are push'd on to it by choler others by hatred some by a close envy the most by a secret malignity of nature In fine if you respect their design some do it to avenge themselves of offences which they believe they have receiv'd others to satisfie their naughty humour and a third sort meerly to pass away the time It may well be that the Apostle here did particularly aim at open evil-speaking which being pressed by the violence of anger breaks out into revilings since it is of this passion expresly that He spake in the precedent words Yet we may not imagin that he permitteth us any one of the kinds of this evil For what difference soever there be in other respects this is common to them all that they offend our neighbour and deprive him either in whole or in part of the preciousest of his goods that is his reputation If it be then a mortal sin to rob a man of his money or his movables or his lands how much more grievous is his crime who attempts to bereave him of his honour which is more to be esteemed than life it self To
the Scripture calleth simply the one and the other of these two persons man because of their advantage and their holding the first and principal rank each of them in his kind For the same reason again it gives the one and the other of these two persons the name Adam because they are each of them the Adam that is to say the Father and author of his order the one of sin and death the other of righteousness and life But to distinguish them it cals the one 1 Cor. 15.47 the first man and the first Adam the other the second man and the last Adam The former him who having corrupted himself by his disobedience hath also infected us leaving us vice and the curse for an inheritance The latter Him who having repaired our sault by His obedience hath given us righteousness sanctity and immortality Adam is stiled the first man and JESUS CHRIST the second for that the one's corrupting preceded the other's repairing and reforming Adam first defiled and poisoned his nature by sin and then JESUS CHRIST manifested His full of grace and truth It 's upon the same consideration that Adam is called the old man and JESUS CHRIST then ne Taking in withal that the first Adam shall be destroyed whereas the second remains for ever For its the custome of Scripture to call that old which is ready to be done away and that new which is firm and lasting But because each of these two men doth communicate to those that are his the form and condition of his nature according to that Scripture-principle that what is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the Spirit is Spirit thence it comes that St. Paul giving the effect the name of its cause by a figure ordinary in all languages calls that form and condition of nature which each of us receives from the first Adam by carnal birth the old man and likewise that form and condition which the faithful receive from JESUS CHRIST by spiritual regeneration the new man This is that he means here when he speaks of putting off the old man and putting on the new and else where in a passage like to this the truth saith he which we have learnt in JESVS is that we put off the old man concerning the former conversation who is corrupted by the lusts that seduce him and that we put on the new man created after GOD in righteousness and true holiness Now as to that form of nature which we all receive from the first Adam by our carnal birth every one well knoweth what it is and in what it consisteth For the Scripture declareth and all mens experience also teacheth that the nature of the children of Adam is extremely corrupt and vicious smitten in the understanding with an horrible ignorance and blindness and full of errors and false and pernicious maxims infected in the will with violent and enraged love of a man's self of the flesh and of the earth with bruitish affections and passions This nature is nothing but pride ambition injustice avarice luxury envy hatred malignity imprudence furiousness cruelty and inhumanity Such are all Adam's progeny while without the communion of JESUS CHRIST There are no others born upon the earth and whatever difference is between men in regard of climate and colour and external appearance of life the blood they come of imprinteth this wretched form upon them all in common which seizing them at their birth groweth up and is augmented with age and exercise rooting its self in them and thrusting forth the habitudes of divers sins which in the end render them unsufferable unto GOD and their neighbours And if the providence of Heaven for the conservation of mankind did not represss the cursed secondity of this evil the disorder and the waste it makes would be much greater than it is and proceed to infinite It is then this mass of corruption this Hydra of vices that the Apostle calls the old man because it is the production of Adam our old and first stock in every one of us Hence it is easie to understand on the other hand what the new man is that is to say the form which JESUS CHRIST the principle of the second creation doth put upon each of them that are His. For it 's directly contrary to that of the first Adam and comprehends in it all graces and vertues in opposition to the other's vices as faith wisdom piety charity justice sweetness honesty temperance and in one word a sanctity like that of JESUS CHRIST the image of which it is also called It 's this that St. Paul here stiles the new man because it is the work and likewise the pourtraict of the LORD JESUS our new Adam And he describes it thus himself in this place For as to the old man he only names it without saying any more of it But as for the new he occasionally explains us the nature of it saying that it is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created it In which few words he teacheth us first that it is created in us that is produced by the operation of a Divine power by reason whereof we are called the workmanship and the creatures of GOD and the Apostle saith else-where Eph. 2. â—â— that we were created in JESVS CHRIST whereas the production of the old man in us is not a creation but a natural operation For as it is indeed in our power to kill a man but there is none save GOD alone that can raise him up again so it was easie for Adam to destroy himself and us all with him but to recover and re-establish us belongs to GOD alone Adam could corrupt and deform our nature But neither he nor any of his 〈…〉 to repair or reform it into a new man This appertaineth to none but the Creator It 's the work of a Divine power Then again the Apostle shews us here who it is that createth this new man in us saying that it 's the same person after whose image it is created For it is clear that the new man is after the image of JESUS CHRIST It is then JESUS CHRIST that createth it in us Vain man give not the glory to your pretended free-will It appertaineth wholly to the LORD And we may truly say of this second generation what the Psalmist singeth of the first that it is the LORD the eternal word of the Father Psal 100. â— who hath made us and not we our selves But the Apostle in saying that this new man is renewed doth teach us a further very considerable thing to wit that this piece of our regeneration or the production of the new man is polish'd and perfected by little and little in us the Spirit of CHRIST working upon it during the whole course of our life on earth and adorning this its own creature by divers reiterated operations with the graces and spiritual beauties it ought to have until it attain to the
Mat. 18.30 that is for His cause and unto His honour and with confidence in Him It 's in this sense the Apostle takes these words in our Text. Do all things in the name of the LORD JESVS He means first that we refer all we do unto His glory and take His honour for the end of all our actions and secondly that we act according to His will and order and lastly with an entire confidence in Him not presuming ought of our selves as if we were able to do any thing considerable by our own strength nor expecting any success but only from His favour and benediction Such is the rule which the Apostle here gives us By it you see First that he banisheth out of our lives all the unfruitful works of darkness that is all vitious actions actions contrary to justice to charity and to other Christian vertues it being evident that if we do nothing but in the name of the LORD JESUS we shall do none of these things since they all are opposite to His will to His commands and to His glory Secondly by the same means he perfecteth and enliveneth all those works of ours which of themselves and in their kind are good and commanded of God engrafting them by this rule upon the true motive from which they ought to proceed and directing them to the true end unto which they ought to tend which is without doubt the name of CHRIST and clensing them from all that impurity and viciousness which vanity or self-love might taint them with Good will be truly good if we do it in the name of JESUS CHRIST that is for His sake upon consideration of Him alone without seeking the approbation and acceptance or the interest and service of any other Lastly by the same rule the Apostle sanctifies those of our words and actions which are in their own nature indifferent purifying them by the name of the LORD from the filth and abuse wherewith the viciousness of men doth pollute them and elevating them to a degree of moral goodness which they had not of themselves in that he consecrates them to the name of the LORD and makes them to serve grace whereas of themselves they were instituted only for the uses of nature For instance if you observe this rule of the Apostle in your eating and drinking actions as every one knows indifferent of their own nature first this sacred name of the LORD JESUS will purge the exercise of them of the excesses of intemperance and drunkenness on one hand and of the vain and foolish scruples of superstition on another Secondly being referred to the honour of GOD and accompanied with invocation of His grace and thankful acknowledgement of His bounty of indifferent as they were in themselves they become good and holy and acceptable unto GOD. However I willingly grant that we must not so take the Apostles precept as if we were obliged in every act even to the least word we utter to raise our thoughts actually to the name of JESUS CHRIST and expresly implore His assistance by a particular prayer and formally eye His glory It sufficeth that we frequently and ordinarily make this application of mind to the name to the command to the help and to the glory of our LORD But necessary it is that we have the habit of this holy disposition so formed and radicated in our hearts that even when time or place or some other necessity surprizeth us and gives us not the leisure to think actually on the name of the LORD our souls yet do bend that way as of themselves being so habituated to it as without other discourse or consideration they may as to the substance discharge this duty and never do nor say any thing that tendeth not to the glory of our Saviour and is not conform to His will and consistent with the resolution we all ought to have of relying on JESUS CHRIST alone and referring none of our actions to any other end than His honour But I come to the other part of our Text wherein the Apostle adds that we give thanks by JESUS CHRIST unto our GOD and Father These words may be taken two wayes either for another precept apart added to the former or for some part and dependance of it In the first relation it 's a new order the Apostle gives us to thank GOD for the benefits He hath vouchsafed us in His Son He gives the same order to the faithful at Ephesus in welnigh the same words Giving thanks alwayes saith he for all things in the name of our LORD JESVS CHRIST unto our GOD and Father Under the second consideration the words are a reason of what he recommended afore and the title under which we ought to do all things in the name of the LORD JESUS namely for the rendring unto GOD the Father by His Son the thanks we owe him so as our whole life may be but homage and a perpetual act of gratitude to GOD by JESUS CHRIST His Son our LORD For it is not to be doubted but that the best and most proper means of thanking GOD the Father for those infinite benefits He hath confer'd upon us by the communion of His Son is so to frame our lives that we neither do nor say any thing but in the name of that Son of His that is as we have explained it according to His will and for His glory Now though it import not much which of these two expositions we follow since at the bottom the thing is still the same yet it seems to me the latter is more pertinent because it doth better and more clearly connect the Apostles words Thanksgiving is one of the most necessary and most universal offices of a Christian For if it be ingratitude to receive a kindness from any one without resenting it and giving him thanks for it what moment of our lives is there wherein we are not obliged to perform this duty unto GOD First of all this being of ours this life this body this soul and all the faculties of our nature are largesses of His which for all they be common to us with other men are not to be despised but ought to be consider'd as effects of an infinite goodness Then again what remerciments doth not the sending of His Son into the world and the death He suffered for us by the will of His Father oblige us to What shall I say as to those infinite blessings He hath obtained for us the remission of our sins our adoption to the number of His children the glory and immortality we hope for Add hereto His continual providence both over His Church in general and over each of us in particular His favourable bearing with us however great be not only our infirmities and imperfections but even infidelities and ingratitudes the admirable constancy of His Divine grace which our indignities can neither overcome nor put off and imperfections but even infidelities and ingratitudes the admirable
upon them So in Grace if we may take leave to compare the mysteries thereof with natural things JESUS CHRIST the true Sun of righteousness hath not only in himself all the fulness of the Deity dwelling there bodily He also communicateth his fulness to all the souls of men that look on him and do move and live in his communion He filleth them with his abundance and clotheth them with his light changing them into his Image and of dim and dark lumps as they were originally in themselves making them so many Starrs and lightsome bodies Now if you take the Apostle's word here in another manner as importing that we have been made compleat in JESUS CHRIST the sense will still be very pertinent For besides that we being naked of all perfections meet for our nature the saying that we have been made compleat in CHRIST will excellently well express his Grace as signifying that it is he who hath fill'd up our breaches and repaired in us what the other Adam had ruined by giving us all that we wanted Besides this I say this term will also very aptly answer to that title which the Apostle gave a little before to the Ceremonies of Moses's Law where he called them the rudiments of the world that is the beginnings the first and plainest Lessons of Piety Heb. 7.19 Gal. 4. such as consequently were unable to bring to perfection as he saith expresly in another place by reason whereof he stileth the time of the Law the infancy of the Church that is the age of its imperfection Opposing therefore JESUS CHRIST unto the Law in this respect he now saith that we are compleat in Him and that for good reason in as much as He hath the body whereas the Law had but the shadow He hath fulness whereas the Law had but some small parcel of the requisites of our salvation For the same cause he elsewhere calleth the Ceremonies of it weak and poor or beggarly elements Gal. 4 9. As for the Law saith he it did but begin with us and only draw some slight and dark lineament upon us of that true form which GOD did purpose to imprint whereas JESUS CHRIST hath finish'd us In Him it is we have that perfection that entire body that truth and fulness whereof the Law had but the beginning the shadow and figure Hereby now this holy man deals those seducers whom he hath undertaken an handsom blow discovering the foolishness of their design who would still oblige persons to the Ceremonies of the Law that were made compleat in JESUS CHRIST an attempt no less ridiculous than if one should put a man to his ABC again who had received the last tincture of highest erudition in the University pretending that he could not be throughly intelligent and accomplish'd except he still daily studied the rudiments and plainest lessons of Children But that which follows in the Apostle's words namely that JESUS CHRIST is the Head of all principality and power is adjoined to prevent another error of those men's who as we shall hereafter hear did teach the worshipping and serving of Angels pretending it necessary we should address our selves to them as to Spirits capable of interceding with GOD for us and of obtaining by their interposal with that Supreamest Majesty those graces and perfections which we need S. Paul doth shew in these few words the vanity of this false doctrine For since the LORD JESUS is the Head of Angels who sees not but that we have most abundantly in Him whatsoever these people could expect from them and that possessing JESUS CHRIST as we do by faith in His Gospel we have no need to run to Angels who depend upon Him and have nought but what is found much more richly in their Head As if a man that doth possess a Prince's Son would yet needs make use of the favour and interpositions of his servants with him Members have neither motion nor sensation nor life but the same is much more abundantly in their Head Subjects and Servants possess nothing but the Prince can far better and far more easily communicate it to us than any one of them Since JESUS CHRIST is the Head and Prince of Angels it is clear that having Him we want nothing of all that which the Angels can give us From the same ground appeareth further the impiety of the error of these Seducers For since the Angels are subject unto JESUS CHRIST it is evident by the light of Scripture that no one can give them that religious worship which these people attribute to them without becoming guilty of idolatry the greatest and sensiblest outrage that man can do to his Creator For no Christian can be ignorant but that GOD throughout his whole word doth forbid us to serve any creature how high and excellent soever it be religious worship being an homage which belongs to the Divine Nature and cannot be performed without sacriledg to any other As for other things I presume you all know that they are the Angels whom the Apostle means by these principalities and powers of which he speaks as we formerly explained it Col. 1.16 upon the precedent Chapter He saith that JESUS CHRIST is their Head that is their Lord. And this quality belongeth to Him not only as He is the Eternal Son of the Father of the same essence and power with Him who having created them at the beginning and continuing to preserve them by His Goodness and Might is by all kind of right their true Master and natural Lord but also as He is the CHRIST and Mediator For since He in this relation and under this quality hath been constituted the Lord of all things both superior Phil. 2.10 inferior and intermediate having in consequence of His humiliation receiv'd such a Name as is above every name and unto which every knee boweth both of those that are in Heaven and that are on Earth and that are under the Earth it is evident that in this sense He hath dominion and empire over Angels 1 Pet. 3.22 as well as others And thus also S. Peter expresly teacheth us saying that Angels and Authorities and Powers have been made subject to Him For this cause these Spirits are often called the Angels of CHRIST as in S. Matthew Matt. 13.41 24.31 Rev. 1.1 and 22.16 The Son of Man shall send his Angels and in the Apocalypse where S. John saith that JESUS CHRIST sent him by his Angel the things that were revealed to him and in the same Book I JESVS saith the LORD have sent mine Angel Only we must observe that the L. JESUS is not called Head of the Angels in the same manner and sense as He is stiled Head of His Church The former Title signifieth only the Empire and Lordship which he hath over the Angels The second signifieth further the union He hath with His faithful ones who were saved and redeemed by the merit of His Death and are animated
task of our whole life in especial manner at present now that the death of our LORD and Saviour and his resurrection and his holy Supper do call us to extraordinary efforts of piety and sanctity And if the labour be great the felicity and the glory that follows it is infinite Let us employ our selves in it well-beloved Brethren with ardency and generosity put off the body of all our sins that having truly crucified our old man with the LORD JESUS we may also rise again with Him to be enliven'd by his Celestial food and have part for ever after the short trials of this life in His blessed immortality Amen The Twenty-third SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER XII XII Being buried with Him through baptism in which also you are raised again together through the faith of the efficacy of GOD who hath raised Him from the dead DEar Brethren It is very true that the solemnity of this great day which hath been consecrated by all Christians to the resurrection of the LORD JESUS and sanctifi'd by the Mysteries of his Table at which we have communicated doth require more than ordinary devotion and meditations of us Yet I have not needed to seek a subject for the present exercise any other where than in the series of the ordinary Texts which I do in this place expound to you the words I have read which immediately succeed those you heard last LORD's Day excellently suiting each of those duties to which this day is particularly dedicated For they treat of our LORD's resurrection and of the fruits that redound to us thereby as also of Baptism wherein they are communicated to us and which was wont for this reason to be solemnly administred heretofore in the ancient Church on the night before Easter and of that faith by which we become possess'd of this Divine Resurgent Lastly They speak of the interest we have in his burial that sequel of his precious death the blessed commemoration whereof we have celebrated this morning Subjects these which are as is plain to all eminently meet for the devotion of this day This then shall be by the will of GOD the matter of this action Faithful Souls afford it a vigorous and a deep attention elevating your thoughts to JESUS CHRIST the Prince of our salvation and Author of our immortality whiles we shall endeavour to represent to you what his Apostle here teacheth us about our communion in his burial and resurrection You may remember that to confound the impiety of certain Seducers who would oblige Christians to Mosaical Circumcision this holy man alledg'd in the precedent Text that we have in JESUS CHRIST that substance and truth whereof the Judaical Circumcision was but the shadow and model having in him put off the body of the sins of the flesh so as having receiv'd through the grace of JESUS this mystical and divine circumcision the other carnal and typical one is altogether useless to us and cannot be desired or practis'd by Christians without wronging their Saviour He still prosecutes that same intention and to shew how rich that sanctifying-grace is which we have in JESUS CHRIST he adds that besides our being circumcised by the virtue of his word and divested of the body of the sins of the flesh we have moreover been buried with him through Baptism and further that we are therein risen again with him through the faith of the efficiency of GOD who raised him from the dead For a right understanding of these words we are to consider First The communion we have both in the burial and resurrection of our LORD JESUS CHRIST And secondly The twofold means by which this communion is given us to wit Baptism and the Faith of the efficiency of GOD who hath raised our LORD from the dead The Apostle expresseth the first point in these words Being buried with him in which also you are risen again together As for our burial with the LORD you know that having suffer'd on the Cross that dolorous and accursed death which we had merited his sacred body loosned from that mournful tree and wrap'd up in a sheet was by Joseph of Arimathea laid in a new Sepulcher where it remained three days without motion without respiration and without life in this sad state the last of our infirmities until the beginning of the third day when he gloriously rose again The transcendent wisdom of the Father which ordered all the parts of this great work proceeded thus here very fitly to justifie the truth of his Son's death by his stay in the grave For if he had resum'd his life immediately after he laid it down and descended from the Cross alive again I confess such a Miracle might have astonish'd and transported the minds of the Spectators and demonstrated that this Divine crucified Person was more than man But on the other hand it would have rendred his death suspicious and without doubt made men imagine that it had been but a feigned and false appearance and no real separation of his soul from his body which opinion would evidently have shaken and overthrown our salvation it being entirely founded on the death of the LORD JESUS Whereas therefore it so highly concerns us to believe the same GOD hath in such sort assured and certifi'd the truth that we have not any shew of reason to call it in question For this cause it was his will that the LORD JESUS having commended his spirit into his hands should be laid in the Sepulcher and continue there three days there remaining after this no more cause to doubt but that he was truly dead since he was so long a time in the state of the dead Moreover our consolation required that he should enter into our Sepulchers to take away for us the horror of them and to assure us by His example that they have not force enough to detain our bodies for ever or to hinder them from rising one day again It 's for these reasons and other such that JESUS CHRIST would go down into this death's last entrenchment The Apostle saith then that true believers have been buried with him How so you will say seeing that they being living persons were never laid in the grave and surely not in our LORD's that was situate on Mount Calvary nigh to Jerusalem places very far distant from our abode Dear Brethren there is no man so gross but doth plainly see that these words are not to be taken according to the letter but figuratively and that they signifie not a natural but a mystical Sepulcher And in such a sense it may be said two manner of ways That we have been buried in CHRIST or with CHRIST First in regard of our justification that is the remission of our sins And secondly in regard of our sanctification and the mortifying of the old man For as concerning the first it is evident that JESUS CHRIST was not buried as neither was he crucified and put to death but for us only
the duty which the Apostle requireth of us here As indeed we must acknowledge that through the weakness of our apprehensions and understanding and amid that infinity of false appearances which things or men continually present us with it would be very difficult not to say impossible to preserve our selves from all error and never be deceiv'd in common life The Apostle demands of us a very easie and just thing even that we never speak any thing but what we believe to be true and that in the commerce we have with men our language be sincere and faithful without fraud and without fallacy naturally representing without what we conceive within and that it never betide us to say one thing and think the contrary The Scripture teacheth us in a multitude of places that GOD hateth lying more than any other Vice Prov. 12.22 and the Wise man saith expresly That false lips are an abomination to him the Psalmist also among other marks he gives the Inhabitants of the Hill of GOD Psal 15.2 puts this for the very first That they walk uprightly and work righteousness and speak the truth as it is in their heart and elsewhere he speaketh peremptorily Psal 5.7 That GOD will destroy them that speak leasing In sum S. Rev. 21.8 John proclaimeth in his Revelation That the portion of all lyers shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone Whence you see that question here is not of a matter of decency but of a necessary duty which we may not fail of without incurring perdition The justice of it is so evident that the Sages of the Pagans themselves have acknowledg'd it leaving us in their Books a thousand notable intimations of that roundness and simplicity and truth which a man of honour and probity should inviolably observe in his whole life For speech having been given us by nature or to say better by the God of nature to the end we might signifie and declare unto our neighbours what we have in our hearts it 's clear that an abusing it to signifie what we do not think is a violation of the Law and institution of Nature And all true and generous courages have this sentiment so imprinted on their souls that they cannot endure double persons whence it comes that the Prince of Heathen Poets makes his Heroe say He hates no less than the gates of Hell the man that says one thing and hides in his heart another Lying is a slavish Vice that proceeds either from baseness of spirit or from badness of conscience or from vanity Accordingly you see that it 's extreamly odious among all noble and civilized Nations and particularly in ours of the French where you know there is no outrage that 's accounted more grievous and more sensible than to charge a man with lying He that hath suffer'd it without justifying himself is held to be a man lost in honour not among Gentlemen only but even among people of meaner birth this generous and veritable sentiment having been left us from hand to hand by our Ancestors that lying is an infamous thing and the mark of a soul either wicked or witless and that he who is not asham'd of it will make conscience of nothing as on the contrary truth is the foundation of all vertue and honesty But the Scripture sheweth us in two clauses what we should think of it when on one hand it nameth the Devil the Father of lyes and on the other calls the LORD the GOD of truth and his eternal Son the truth it self A consideration that renders the temerity of those so much the more unsufferable who stiling themselves the companions of JESUS have not shamed to favour lying by that Doctrine of Equivocations and mental reservations as they call them Eph. 4.20 which they have published and practised in these last times But ye have not so learned CHRIST if so be ye have heard and been taught by him as the truth is in JESVS He hates all lying and obliquity in what manner soever they be disguised and would not have his truth dishonoured by begging from its enemies hand the help it needeth that is he would no ways have fraud and fallacy employ'd on his behalf his providence is potent enough to defend it without such infamous succour It 's a maxim of his Apostles that we must not do evil that good may come thereof Lying is an evil contrary to the Law of God and the Ordinances of nature There cannot therefore be any reason that gives us a dispensation to commit it Thus you see beloved Brethren that which we had to say unto you concerning these three Vices which the Apostle does here banish from the mouths of Christians Evil-speaking Impurity and Lying Let us obey his holy Doctrine and remembring that according to S. James He that offendeth not in word the same is a perfect man let us diligently purge ours from all these ordures and so govern our tongue that it may not speak but of wisdom nor pronounce but of judgment and that all our discourses may be full of goodness and of honesty and of truth so as our LORD and Saviour who is charity purity and soveraign truth may own us for his and after the combats and tryals of this life give us part one day in the peace and triumphs of the next receiving us into the society of those pure and holy Spirits who live on high in the Heavens with him to bless him for ever as unto him with the Father and the holy Spirit the only true GOD belongeth all honour and glory Amen THE THIRTY EIGHTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER IX X XI Verse IX Having put off the old man with his deeds X. And having put on the new man which is renew'd in knowledge after the image of Him who created him XI Where there is neither Greek nor Jew neither circumcision nor uncircumcision neither Barbarian nor Scythian nor bond nor free but CHRIST is all and in all DEAR Brethren I know and freely confess that being called this day through the goodness of GOD to celebrate the memory of the death and passion of our LORD JESUS CHRIST this sacred chair is obliged for the fitting you to so important an action to entertain you with things that relate to this great and divine mysterie But as I acknowledge that this is properly the service in which I should employ this hour so I conceive that these words of the Apostle S. Paul which you have heard and which occur in the chain of our ordinary Text are very sutable to that principal subject of our exhortation For this putting off of the old man and this putting on of the new of which they tell us are both the one and the other the true effect of this death of our LORD the remembrance whereof we solemnize If JESUS had not dyed we should never have put off the old man nor put on the new since that