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
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
grant likewise that JESUS the Son of GOD is the true and single Author of this second Creation But to this I adjoyn two things first That though this passage might be understood of this Reformation of the World yet it would of necessity infer That JESUS to whom it is attributed is the true Eternal GOD. For since this work is no less nay since it is greater than that of Creation it is evident that none but a true GOD could be the Author of it It being clear as we shall say anon that Creation is set before us in Scripture as an Argument of true and eternal Divinity And the thing speaks of it self For since a Divine and Infinite Vertue is requisite to regenerate men and destroy the servitude of Sin and Satan it must of necessity be acknowledged That JESUS the Author of this great work hath an infinite power that is to say is truly GOD no finite subject being capable of an Infinite power and none being infinite but GOD alone Thus you see it is in vain that the Hereticks do toil them their own Interpretation though it were admitted necessarily inferring the thing which they oppose to wit That JESUS is true GOD Infinite and Eternal and subsisting before all ages But I say in the second place that this Text cannot be understood of the Reparation or second Creation of the World First because the Apostle will by and by speak of that in the three Verses immediately following where He loftily describeth it saying That JESVS CHRIST is the head of the body the Church the beginning and the first-born from the dead By whom the Father hath reconciled all things to Himself as well Celestial as Terrestrial having made peace by the blood of His cross By means hereof unless we will render S. Paul guilty of vain babling and useless repetition we must confess that as in this second place he speaks of the Reparation and Renovation of things so in the former he spake of their first Creation Secondly this same appears again from his reckoning the Angels expresly among the things created by JESUS CHRIST yea he insisteth on them more than on the rest as we shall see hereafter saying That by Him were created things in heaven Thrones Dominions Principalities and Powers But the Angels were not renewed nor repaired by JESUS CHRIST since that sin neither ruined their nature nor made it wax old nor subjected it to vanity It must therefore be concluded that the Apostle speaks here not of the reparation of things but of the first creation of them it being most certain that the Angels were created their nature though holy yet being not for all that eternal and without beginning I grant that by the Salvation which we have receiv'd from JESUS CHRIST the Angels have been re-united to us and settled again in peace and good intelligence with us from whom our sin had separated and estranged them and this is that the Apostle meaneth when he saith here beneath Col. 1.20 Epâ—hs 1.10 That GOD hath reconciled things in heaven and things in earth by the death of JESVS CHRIST and elswhere that He hath recapitulated or gathered together again in CHRIST both that which is in heaven and that which is on earth But this is not to be called a creating of the Angels nor can any example of such extravagant language be produced that creating of persons was put to signifie a reconciling them with those they hated and whose communion they avoided Otherwise since JESUS CHRIST reconciled us also with GOD the Father incorporating us into His family so as He is thereby become our Father and we His children in the same manner that we are brethren with the Angels it might to express this be also said That JESUS CHRIST created GOD the Father which no ear I say not Christian but that is ever so little rational could possibly endure Finally the contexture it self of the Apostles words doth evidently shew that they must be understood necessarily of the first and not of the second creation of things I confess the Holy GHOST sometimes useth the word Create 〈◊〉 signifie the Production of the second work of GOD that is the work of His grace in JESUS CHRIST But He never doth it without some addition and restriction that evidently limitteth the word to such a sense as for example Isa 65.17.18 when He saith in Isaiah that he is about to create new heavens and a new earth and that he is about to create Jerusalem to be a joy and her people gladness The very form of this language ordered in the Future Tense as you see and those New Heavens and that Jerusalem which He saith he is about to create do evidently shew that it is not of the first creation of the world He intended to speak So when the Apostle saith that GOD hath created them both that is the Jews and the Gentiles in Himself into one new man This latter word New leaveth no place for doubt but that he meaneth here the second Operation of God by which Jews and Gentiles were united into one onely people and not of the first whereby they were brought forth into their natural existence And likewise when he saith in the same place Eph. 2.15 26. that we are created in JESVS CHRIST unto good works which GOD hath prepared that we should walk in them The persons of whom he speaketh Vs that is the faithful distinquish'd from other men and the end of this work of GOD to wit good works these do sufficiently clear it that the Creation there meant is the second and not the first Nor can any reasonable man doubt of it In these places and others like them if there be any the word Create is still limitted and circumstantiated Otherwhere when it is used simply and absolutely it is not to be taken but for the first Creation as when Isaiah saith Isa 42.5 Rev. 4.11 that GOD hath created the Heavens and S. John in the Revelations that the LORD created all things and in a multitude of the like places Neither can there be brought so much as one to the contrary For as to that which the Adversaries alledge out of the Epistle to the Ephesians where they pretend that the Apostle's saying Ephes 3.9 GOD created all things by JESVS CHRIST must be expounded of the second and not the first Creation in this they do not prove but presuppose the thing in question nothing obliging us to depart in this place more than in the others from the common signification of the Word Forasmuch then as in this Text upon which we are this term Create is used simply and indefinitely without any limitation or restriction the Apostle saying and twice repeating that all things were created by the Son of GOD nay adding to shew the extent of this subject more fully both things which are in heaven and things which are in earth visible and invisible Thrones Dominions Principalities
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
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
to come But at the bottom and in themselves they contained no such thing in effect On the contrary they were so many obligations upon a sinner openly testifying that he stood obnoxious to the Justice of GOD. For the aspersions and purifications that were made by washing or pouring water upon men did evidently shew that such as receiv'd them were defiled and unclean And Circumcision was a publick confession of the impurity of our nature which did declare that it needed to be cut or retrenched And they that offer'd Beasts to be slain for sacrifices did by that very act acknowledg they had deserved death Those that observ'd the Fasts and other mortifications of the Law did protest they were unworthy to use the Creatures of GOD. And thus it was in the rest of their Ceremonies All their devotions of this nature were either images of the punishment they deserved or an avouchment of their guiltiness and so many proofs and convictions of their sin For to imagine that these carnal Ceremonies did truly expiate their offences was not possible for them to do both by reason of the absurdity and extravagancy of the thing it self and also for that GOD had a thousand times advertised them of the contrary by the mouth of his Prophets So you see in my opinion clearly how all the Law of Moses was no other than an obligation against us an instrument of our condemnation an evidence of our sin and a justification of our punishment Wherefore the Apostle elsewhere calleth it in the same sense and for the same reason the ministration of death 2 Cor. 3.7 9. and of condemnation because in effect it did properly serve only to form and prosecute and finish the sinners arraignment as affording full demonstration both of his guilt and of the penalty due to him giving in evidence concerning his crimes and making known the Justice of GOD in judging and punishing him And hereto must be refer'd what he elsewhere notifies namely Rom. 3 7. Gd. 3 1â— Rom. 7. â— that by the law was given the knowledg of sin and that it was added because of transgression and again that without the law he had not known sin As for what the Apostle addeth here in the second place That this obligation of which he speaks doth lye in Ordinances we have touched at it already and referred it to that large multitude of Commandments wherein it consisteth For I do not see that any thing doth oblige us to restrain this clause to the Ordinâ—â—â—â—s of the Ceremonial Law as some do It comprehendeth generally all that the Law Ordains of what kind or rank soever it be And it seems to me that the Apostle's scope and aim doth so require For he urgeth GOD's having â—bolish'd that obligation which consisted in Ordinances to prove that he hath freely pâ—â—doned our offences which he had been saying Why and how 〈◊〉 Because saith heâ— or inasmuch as he hath cancell'd by the cross of his Son the obligation that was against us Verily it seemeth that this reason will be beside the purpose if the obligation that was made void were not that of the whole Law as the offences which have been forgiven us in consequence of the abolishing of this obligation are generally all sins committed against any part of the Law whichsoever and not only transgrâ—ssions of the Ceremonial Ordinances And whereas the Apostle in the following Verses doth argue from this Doctrine against the Ceremonies only who knoweth not that it is ordinary to reason from the whole unto one of the parts As when elsewhere in the Epistle to the Galatians having laid it down in general that the Law of Mâ—ses cannot at all justifie us he thence inferreth against the seducers that by câ—nsequence neither circumcision nor the other ceremonies can have this virtue just as in this place having setled this principle that the Mosaick Law was abolish'd by the Cross of our Saviour he afterwards doth with reason thence conclude that we are no longer obliged to its ancient Ceremoniâ—s But the Apostle saith in the third place that this obligation whereof he speaks was contrary to us This as you see doth also suit well with the Law Of it self I confess it is good and holy and prontable and salutiferous unto man as that that would lead him unto â—e But it is become contrary to us through cause of sin whereof we are all guilty For it serves to convict us of it as an Obligation which being produc'd in judgment stops the mouth of an unfaithful Debtor It is as it were our Adversary that impleadeth us and lays open our crimes and brings upon us that condemnation to which we have submitted in accepting and signing it And as for its Ceremonies besides that they witnessed the sin of those who practis'd them as we have said they were also contrary to us in another kind even as putting a new yoak upon us which through their vast multitude and diversity was heavy and unsupportable Yâ—t it must be observed that this seems not to be properâ—y the thing which the Apostle intends here the word he makes use of in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying that this obligation was not simply contrary to us but contrary in some sort I think then that by this word he prevents an Objection that might be made him For though the Law might some one say be an obligation against us yet is it nevertheless useful since it sheweth us our sin and misery and by that means forceth us to have recourse to the mercy of GOD that we may seek our salvation in his Grace alone which was in effect the true end for which GOD gave it to the Israelites The Apostle granting this as a truth doth affirm That this obligation was notwithstanding in some fort contrary to us For first It telling us only of obeying or being punished and thundering out on all hands that dreadful voice Cursed is every one that continuâ—th not in all things written in the law to do them did darken the clearness of the grace of GOD and perplex poor sinners filling them with affrightments and hindâ—ing them from full discerning of the clemency and mercy of the LORD Thenâ—â—g in it aggravated their pains by its ceremonies the true scope of which it was at that time very difficult to comprehend aright And lastly It shut the gate of the House of GOD against the Gentiles of whose number the Colossians were it being as an enterclose that separated them from his people and consequently cloigned them from his grace and pâ—rdon which he giveth not to any but such as are in his Covenant If therefore it were not absolutely contrary to us yet it cannot however be denied but that it was so in some sort In fine the Apostle saith that this obligation which was against us hath been effaced and entirely abolished and fastned to the Cross which also agreeth very pâ—â—per'y to the Law of Moses of which
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
to extinguish and abolish in all the members of His Son that first life which they inherited from old Adam Secondly because the execution of this decree of GOD is begun and advanced in them for the present The mortal blow thereof the flesh receives in this life from the hand of JESUS CHRIST and cannot possibly recover it again Then in the third place because this execution already begun in them will not be long a finishing natural death which considering the few daies we spend here below is not far from either of them devesting first their souls of all terrene and carnal reliques and then the resurrection being finally to refine their bodies also at the last day when earthly life shall be entirely and quite and clean dissolved and destroyed It 's for these three reasons that the Apostle saith here and else-where that the faithful are dead in regard of the life of sin and of the flesh not that they have not in them yet some remainders of them but for that this death is ordained by the decree of GOD and already begun in them and will soon be infallibly finished Even as we reckon among the dead a malefactor whom a supream Court and a sick person whom a prudent and able Physitian have condemn'd to dye neither do we stick to say that he is gone he is dead because his death is inevitable and all the life that remains for him is no longâ—r any thing So when a man hath been mortally wounded we immediately rank him with the dead because his vitals are struck and all the movings and perceivings he yet hath are but his last gaspings and the last combat his life makes before it doth end It 's in the same manner with true believers The flesh in them is wounded to death and if it does yet stir if it struggle if it give them any blow this at most is a small matter in comparison of that life it other-while exercised in them At that time it reigned in them Now if it do fight yet it rules no longer It finds a spirit in them which resists it which makes head against it and in this unto-it-fatal conflict it loseth by little and little all the blood and life it hath yet left it Wherefore the LORD JESUS whose death as we have said is both the cause and the pattern of ours did not dye in an instant but a lingring death having continued five or six hours in an agony before He gave up the ghost It is thus that the old man dyeth in the faithful He is already pierced with the nails of our Saviour and fastned to His cross and in a dying estate and without hope of recovery Nevertheless he strugleth still and will be a-while in this estate losing blood and strength and motion and life not all at once but by little and little This same is the condition of true believers Whence appears the pernicious error of those men who having the old man not bound not pierced not wounded to death in them but living and reigning at full liberty and with his whole vigour do yet imagine that they pertain to JESUS CHRIST and are of the number of His true members It 's a mortal mistake JESUS owneth none for His but such as are dead with Him whose flesh is either already laid down and destroyed in the grave as theirs who live in Heaven or at least nailed to His cross as theirs who yet combat on earth I confess the presumption of those who vaunt they sin no more and feel no longer in themselves any motion or contradiction of the flesh is extremely vain But your errour worldling is no whit less who having sin reigning and the flesh living in you do not forbear to perswade your self that you are a true Christian If the flesh doth still breath in a true Christian if it hath still some motion and some feeling in him yet it hath dominion in him no longer It lives in him no longer it languisheth in him and is so weak as it plainly appears to be at the pangs of death Put it into this estate if you will be truly Christian Fasten it to the cross of JESUS Pierce it through with His nails and with His thorns Make it drink of His vinegar Take from it its pleasures draw out its blood and strength Again since this is our condition since we by the beneficence of our Saviour are dead in such sort as we even now explained you clearly see Christian that what the Apostle concludes upon it doth evidently and necessarily follow from it to wit that we should not seek any more the things which are on earth For since we have in JESUS CHRIST put off that carnal and vitious life for the maintaining and welfare whereof earthly things are subordinate who is there but comprehends that it would be an insufferable extravagancy for us to amuse our selves still about them It would be an errour as ridiculous as if one went an hunting after game or a buying precious stones and stuffs for a person either already dead or at least in the agony of death Such a person hath no more need of those things they being good only to feed or fashion that liâ—e which he no longer hath It 's just so that you Christian do who labour so ardently in the seeking after and acquiring of riches honours and other goods of the present World All this is the equipage of a life that you no longer have The flesh for whose delight and adornment those goods do serve is dead or at least death-struck in you It is crucified with the LORD and a crucified one hath nothing to do with meat nor jewels nor other things of the earth Luke 12.20 Thou fool said our Saviour to the rich worldling in the Gospel-parable this very night shall thy soul be required of thee and then whose shall those things be which thou hast laid up As if he had said that being once dead he could no more enjoy them Christian how is it you do not consider not only your dying e're long but that you are to say truth dead already that there is no carnal life for you any longer so as to conclude thereupon that you have therefore no need of all this earthly pelf which with such a deal of pain you scrape together I confess that while we are on earth we cannot altogether be without it But neither can you deny that for a living Christianly here we need but a little of it and for a little time because we have little left us of that life for which it is necessary Let us proportionably have little affection and adherence to it Let us use it but for necessity and not for delight Let us look upon the world with the eyes of pilgrims taking but so much of it as is requisite for our passing on Set we before us the example of the life of our LORD led on earth during the daies of His
is the only source thereof to render Him thanks for it This is the just and reasonable Tribute this liberal LORD demandeth of us for so many benefits as he communicateth daily to our Brethren and our selves If our lowness and poverty render us incapable of other acknowledgement let us at least faithfully acquit us of this so easie an one and so rightful and say with the Prophet Psalm 116.12 13. What shall I render to the LORD All his benefits are upon me I will take the cup of deliverances and call upon the Name of the Eternal One. Let us study with so much the more care to render this sacred due to the LORD by how much more black and detestable the ingratitude of men is in this behalf Far from blessing Him for the benefits he doth their neighbours they scarce give Him thanks for those they receive of Him themselves They impute them to their own industry or fortune and as saith the Prophet Sacrifice to their Drag for the good successes that betide them yea some so insensible there are as it is not godliness it self but they give the glory of it to their own will and the strength of their free determination But it is not enough to render thanks to GOD for our Brethren there must be also prayer for them For as it is He that gives them all the good things they possess So there is none but himself that can preserve or augment them to them and thus our thanksgivings should be ever followed or accompanied with Petitions as the Apostle sheweth in saying that be giveth thanks to GOD for the Colossians praying alwayes for them The Title He giveth to GOD calling Him the Father of our LORD JESVS CHRIST is not put here in vain but to distinguish and specifie the object of our prayers and thanksgivings The appellation of GOD under the Old Testament was The GOD of Abraham of Isaac and of Jacob the Patriarchs with whom He contracted the Old Covenant and to whom He promised the New Now His Name is the Father of JESVS CHRIST by whom He hath abolished the Old Testament and accomplished the New Besides hereby St. Paul remindeth us of that we can never enough meditate that it is by the mean of this sweet and charitable Saviour GOD hath communicated Himself to us and if we have the honour to be His children 't is by JESUS CHRIST of whom He is properly the Father having not adopted Him as us but begotten Him from all eternity of His own substance by reason whereof that also which He assumed to Himself in the Womb of the Virgin hath the same glory according to what the Angel said The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee said he to the Holy Virgin and the Vertue of the Highest shall overshadow thee Luke 1 35. whence also that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of GOD. But the Apostle addeth in his process what were those blessings of the Colossians for which himself and Timothy so assiduously rendred their thanks to GOD the Father of our Saviour Having heard speak of your faith in JESVS CHRIST saith he and of the charity you have towards all the Saints He had never been among them as He will say hereafter putting them after the opinion of most Interpreters Col. 2.1 in the number of those Who had not seen his presence in the flesh Therefore he saith it was by hearing that he understood of their faith and charity Here is faithful Sirs the true matter of our joyings and thanksgivings for our neighbours not that GOD hath given them vigour of health abundance of riches the favour of the great the glory of fame the knowledge of Sciences and such other worldly good things which to say the truth are but figures dreams and shadows that secure no person as we daily see either from diseases of the body or death or from trouble and disquiet of conscience or true misery But indeed for that Heaven hath revealed JESUS CHRIST to them and shed into their souls that holiness without which none shall see GOD. For these two Graces Faith and Charity comprize within their compass the whole Kingdom of GOD. Faith is the entrance thereof and charity the accomplishment The one cleareth our understandings the other sanctifieth our affections The one is the light of the soul the other is the heat thereof The one believeth and the other loveth The one beginneth and the other finisheth the happiness of our life Now Faith respects indeed generally the whole doctrine of GOD revealed in His Word believing it undoubtedly true but yet it fixeth particularly on the Promise He hath made us to give us Eternal Life in JESUS CHRIST His Son 'T is this properly that renders Faith saving and vivifying Without this it would not differ at all from the faith of Devils who believe there is a GOD and tremble at it But this love of GOD which it apprehendeth and embraceth giveth it salvation and enables it to produce in us all that 's necessary for getting in to the celestial Kingdom according to the assertions of JESUS CHRIST and His Apostles in divers places of the Scripture that whosoever believeth in the LORD is already passed from death to life That there is no condemnation for him and that being justified by faith we have peace with GOD. Hence St. Paul to describe here true faith addeth expresly these words Faith in JEVS CHRIST He sheweth us in like manner the object of Charity by saying The Charity you have towards all the Saints that is as we have intimated afore towards all Christians all the faithful I confess that Charity extendeth it self to all men generally there being none to whom we owe not love and on occasion the offices which a true and sincere affection is apt to produce since all men are the Works and Images of GOD since in Adam they all have one common nature with us and all are called to the participation of faith and of eternity in JESUS CHRIST by the Gospel which without distinction or exception inviteth all Nations and persons to repentance and grace But so it is notwithstanding that Charity embraceth not all men equally It hath divers degrees in it's affections and loveth it's neighbours more or less as it perceiveth more or less in them the marks of the hand of GOD and the tokens of His CHRIST and Spirit Seeing therefore they appear no where more clearly than in the Saints that is in true believers it is evident these make the first and principal part of the object of Charity Gal. 6.10 according to what the Apostle saith elsewhere Let us do good to all but principally to the houshold of faith Besides that Union we have with them a much more strict and intimate one than with any others their necessity also doth particularly oblige us thereto the hatred and persecution of the world putting them for the most part in such
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
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
Son is not Eternal and co-essential with the * As the whose Church believeâ— Fathers but created and made by the will and good pleasure of the Father For the Apostle doth not speak here of the original of the perfections that are found in CHRIST but of their being united and met together in one and the same subject I acknowledge it is by the good pleasure of the Father and by the order of His will that the Godhead of the Son dwelleth in the Mediator But it thence follows that this Godhead of His is an effect of the Fathers will It was before it filled the Mediator The same Father who by His will united it to our flesh for the making up together with that flesh the person of CHRIST had communicated it to His Son from all Eternity by a natural act of His Eternal understanding that is to say by a Divine Generation Now it is not in vain that the Apostle here advanceth this assertion That it was the good pleasure of the Father all fulness should dwell in HIS CHRIST But he doth it with design to * Or settle confirm our Consciences in the Religion of the LORD JESUS only For these Colossians as we shall see hereafter were tamper'd with by Seducers who mingled the Mosaical Ceremonies with the Gospel and the worshipping of Angels with the service of the LORD the Apostle therefore doth here timely fortifie these Believers against this error and that by two excellent Reasons the first taken from the dwelling of all fulness in JESVS CHRIST Poor men saith he what seek you for either in Moses or in Angels we have all in JESUS CHRIST There is no good no perfection nor excellency either in GOD or in the Creature but dwelleth in this Soveraign LORD Having Him we have no need at all to go unto others since in Him we find all The other Reason is taken from the Will of GOD the supreme rule of Religion the only thing that is sufficient to settle the agitation and natural distrust of our Consciences As for JESUS CHRIST saith he it was the good pleasure of GOD that in Him should all fulness dwell The Father hath set up Him to be the spring of our salvation But as for Moses and Angels we do not see that ever it was the will of the Father to give them such a dignity Dear Brethren now that our faith is fought against with the like errors let us arm it also with the same reasons If the Adversary send us to Angels and Saints let us answer him that the LORD JESUS sufficeth us that having Him we can want nothing since all fulness dwelleth in Him I will not enquire for the present what these Angels and Saints are whom you recommend to me whether they have indeed that merit and that righteousness and that authority which I need for the expiation of my sin and for opening the house of GOD to me How rich and how abounding soever you represent them to me I may let pass their store this CHRIST whom I embrace having all fulness dwelling in Him Let them be all that you please they will want however some part of that infinite plentifulness which overfloweth in our CHRIST And how zealous soever you be for their glory yet you durst not presume to say that all fulness dwelleth in them How great is your imprudence to go hither and thither a groping in pits and cisterns while you have near you such a living and inexhaustible fountain Grant that the worshipping of Saints is not criminal which yet it evidently is it is notwithstanding superfluous forasmuch as it hath nothing in it but we find the same better in the fulness of JESUS CHRIST But the other consideration which the Apostle sets before us here is of no less force That it was the good pleasure of the Father all fulness should dwell in His CHRIST My Faith yea our Adversaries attends on the will of GOD. This will is its object and its rule I cannot rellish either Doctrine or Service that is not conform thereto Tell me how you know it is the good pleasure of GOD that this fulness of merit and power which you ascribe somtimes to Saints departed somtimes to your Pope and his Ministers doth indeed dwell in them As for the LORD JESUS whom I adore and in whom I seek all my bliss the Father hath proclaimed from Heaven That He is His welbeloved Son His Scriptures declare That He hath committed all judgment to Him and That all fulness dwelleth in Him But as for those others whom you have taken for objects of your Devotion and to whom you have recourse for your salvation you cannot shew me any thing semblable of them Certainly then it must be vouched that all your Devotion in this behalf is but a Will-worship founded only on your own passion and the fancy of your Leaders not upon the good pleasure of the Father It is strange fire that hath issued out of the earth and not been kindled from Heaven Such as cannot without crime either enter into or be used in the Sanctuary of GOD. But I return to the Apostle who having said That it was the good pleasure of the Father all fulness should dwell in CHRIST doth add And by Him to reconcile all things in Himself both those that are in Heaven and those that are in the earth This is the great Master-piece of the good pleasure of GOD the end for which His will was that the fulness of all Divine and Humane perfections should be seated in CHRIST And this is that which the particle and used by the Apostle doth signifie It doth not meerly connect the two parts of his discourse but importeth moreover the consecution and the dependance of the latter on the former as if He had said It was the good pleasure of the Father that in JESUS CHRIST should all fulness dwell and so reconcile or to the end that He might reconcile all things by Him For all this fulness which the Father would that His CHRIST should have dwelling in Him was necessary for His effecting this Reconciliation There needed he should have the power and the holiness and the wisdom of the Divinity and together with it the humility and the obedience and the meritorious sufferings of the Humanity that he might finish this design He could not have been able to re-unite Heaven and Earth with less preparations Let us see then what this work is this Reconciling the Apostle speaks of of all things Terrestrial and Celestial in GOD by JESVS CHRIST It is clear by the Scriptures that JESUS CHEIST hath by His death reconciled men unto GOD so as He hath appeased His wrath and opened to us the Throne of His grace as the Apostle teacheth us in divers places and particularly in the Epistle to the Romans Rom. 5.10 11. 2 Cor. 5.18 where he saith That we have been reconciled to GOD by the death of His Son and
elsewhere That GOD hath reconciled us to Himself by JESVS CHRIST But it seems that this is not precisely that Reconciliation which S. Paul meaneth here First because the things in heaven which he expresly puts among the parties reconciled have no part therein the Angels that dwell in the Heavens pure and holy as they are having never fallen into any alienation from GOD. Secondly because of that Reconciliation the Apostle will speak instantly in the words immediately following in which he saith Having made peace by the blood of His cross so as the former words must of necessity be referred to some other Reconciliation except we will render the language of this Divine Writer culpable of a vain and fruitless repetition The truth is they that understand these words of Reconciliation with GOD do find themselves much intangled in the matter and have recourse to divers means for clearing them of this difficulty Some affirm that though the Angels be holy and blessed yet they were not exempt from needing the death of JESUS CHRIST to merit and obtain their confirmation and perseverance in the estate they had a bold Doctrine and such as it is hard to find any foundation for in the Scripture For by this reckoning JESUS CHRIST should also be the Mediator of Angels a thing that seems to cross the end and the true nature of this Office First because a Mediator should partake of the nature of the parties whom he reconcileth as you see that JESUS CHRIST the Mediator between GOD and men is GOD and man whereas He took not the nature of Angels Secondly because every Mediator interveneth between parties that are at difference whereas the Angels are and ever were at perfect accord with GOD holily obeying His will Lastly because the blood of JESUS CHRIST was shed only to wash away sin and the Scripture every where represents the people of GOD's Covenant His redeemed ones and those whom He hath saved as justified and cleansed from their filth for which there was no place in the nature of Angels they being pure and clean from all sin For as to that of Job That GOD putteth no trust in His servants Job 4.18 and doth set light by his Angels it is evident and acknowledged by all Christians that this is not said to accuse those blessed Spirits or to suggest that if they were tried by the ordinary and legal justice of GOD they would be found guilty and have need of pardon but rather to signifie either that the Authority of GOD over His creatures is so great and so absolute as He oweth nothing to the Angels themselves how exquisite soever their Sanctity be the light of glory wherewith He crowns them being a gift from His own bounty and not the due reward of their merit or else that the infinite purity of this Supreme Majestie is so splendid and so glorious that the light of the most holy Spirits fadeth before Him and is found dusky and defective in comparison of Him as the shining of our lights and of the Stars themselves doth disappear at the brightness of the Sun Others therefore not able to savour and for just cause I think this Doctrine that the Angels were reconciled to GOD by JESUS CHRIST to exclude them from this passage do restrain the Apostle's words to men only understanding by the things that are in Heaven the already hallowed spirits of the faithful which death had taken out of this world and by the things that are on earth the faithful that yet live here beneath in flesh But not to dissemble this Exposition seemeth both forced and frigid Forced because the Scripture by things in heaven ordinarily meaneth the Angels whose element and natural habitation as you know the heavens are whereas souls separated from their bodies are receiv'd in and lodged there by a Supernatural grace and dispensation Frigid because the sense it attributeth to the Apostle no way answers the sublimity and dignity of his words For if his aim were to express nothing but that the faithful are reconciled to GOD what need was there to divide them into two ranks some that are on the earth others that are in the heavens Who doubts but He reconciled these as well as those But without question he purposed to magnifie this work of GOD by JESUS CHRIST and to this end saith that it extendeth not to men alone that are reconciled to the Father by the efficacy of the cross of the LORD but that it hath effect in heaven it self re-uniting and reconciling the things that are there What shall we say then to these difficulties and in what sense shall we take the Apostle's words That GOD hath reconciled all things in Himself both those that are on earth and those that are in heaven Dear Brethren we will leave them in their genuine and ordinary sense and say that these expressions do signifie the recomposing and re-uniting of the creatures both Terrestrial and Celestial not with GOD but among themselves with each other For as in a State the Subjects have a twofold union one with their Prince on whom thy all depend another among themselves being as members of the same Political Body joyned together by the bond of mutual concord amity and correspondence In like manner is it with things Celestial and Terrestrial the two principal parties of this great State of GOD's which we cal the Universe Besides the union they have with GOD as their Soveraign Monarch from whose bounty they receive the being and the life they enjoy they have another alliance and conjunction one with the other as parts of one Corporation having been formed and qualified for mutual commerce It 's in this relation and in this union that the beauty and perfection of the Universe doth consist when Heaven and earth have amicable entercourse and conspire to one and the same end with an holy and a reciprocal affection Sin having broken the first union and separated man from his Creator by the same means dissolved the second loosning us from the creatures For as again in a state when one part of the Subjects riseth against the Sovereign the rest that remain in their duty presently break with the Rebels and instead of the commerce they held before with them do make cruel and implacable war upon them while they continue in their disobedience Such hath the event proved in the world Man had no sooner rebell'd against GOD but heaven and all that remained in His obedience brake with man Whole Nature took up arms against this Rebel and would have even then utterly ruin'd him if the Counsel of GOD who would not destroy us had not hindred it And as from one disorder there never fail to spring up divers others this first rupture of man with GOD and the good Creatures brought forth divers others indeed rending mankind it self into several pieces the one divided from the other by diversity of Religions and the aversions and animosities that attend it
Himself without witness and that He hath made manifest in His works what may be known of Him But all this light doth only shew us the greatness of their corruption For they with all the vivacity of their spirits made no proficiency in the School of Providence unto the fearing of GOD and serving Him but became vain in their reasonings and miserably abused the gifts of Heaven so as the whole success of this dispensation was nought else on their part but that they were thereby rendred inexcusable Conclude we then that all men generally not one excepted are of their own nature such as the Apostle here describes the Colossians strangers and enemies to GOD in their understanding in wicked works There is nothing but the word of the LORD alone which is able to bring them out of this estate by the saving grace of His Spirit wherewith GOD accompanies it And this the Apostle representeth here to the Colossians in the second place For having minded them of their former condition he addeth Yet now hath GOD reconciled you by the body of His flesh that is the flesh of JESUS CHRIST by His death The condition they were in before was very miserable For what can be imagined more wretched than men far from and strangers to GOD in whose communion alone all their welfare consisteth men enemies to Him without whose love they can have no true good yet besides misery there was horrour also in their case Misery doth ordinarily stir up pity their 's was worthy of abhorring and hatred For what is there in the world that less deserves the compassion of GOD and men or is more worthy of the execration of Heaven and Earth than a Subject that withdraweth from His Soveraign that hates Him and Warrs against Him that insolently violates all His Laws and abandons himself to all the crimes He hath forbidden especially if the Soveraign be gracious and beneficent as the LORD is the only Author of all the being life and motion that we have Nevertheless Oh inestimable and incomprehensible goodness GOD for all this forbore not to have pity on the Colossians He sought to them when they were alienated from Him He offered them peace when they made War upon Him He took them for His friends and chose them for His Children when they shewed Him the greatest hatred and enmity Their wicked works deserved His curse and He bestowed on them His grace Their rebellion deserved His direful flashes and He sent them His comfortable light This opposition the Apostle indicateth here when he saith And yet you hath God reconciled A like opposition he expresseth elsewhere Rom. 5.8 in the same matter saying GOD altogether commendeth His love to us-ward in that while we were but sinners CHRIST dyed for us For the setting forth of this great grace of GOD towards these faithful people he saith that GOD hath reconciled them Having spoken of their estrangement and of their enmity with GOD He doth with good reason make use of the word Reconcile to signifie the setting of them again in His good liking and favour It happens somtimes in the misunderstandings of men that the averseness and hatred is but on one side one of the parties seeking the favour of the other Here as we have yerst intimated the aversion was mutual For we hated GOD and He because of our sins hated us It was necessary therefore for the restoring of us that both the one and the other of these two passions should be remedied that is that the wrath of GOD against us should be appeased and our hatred and enmity against Him extinguished The word Reconcile doth of its self comprehend both the one and the other But in the Apostle's writings it referreth principally to the first that is the mitigation and appeasing of the wrath of GOD. As indeed this is the principal point of our reconciliation For GOD being our soveraign LORD it would not benefit us at all to change our will towards Him if His did not operate otherwise towards us as the repentance and tears of a subject are vain if his Prince reject them and remain still angry with Him Furthermore the word Reconcile as also the most part of other words of like form and nature is taken two manner of ways For either it signifies simply the action that hath such vertue as is necessary to make reconciliation or it compriseth the effect of it also It 's in the first sense that the Apostle used it afore where he said that GOD hath reconciled all things celestial and terrestrial in Himself or for Himself having made peace by the blood of the cross of CHRIST For he meaneth simply that GOD hath taken away the causes of hatred and enmity and opened the way of reconciliation not that all things are already actually reconciled It 's thus again that we must take 2 Cor. 5.19 what he saith elsewhere that GOD was in CHRIST reconciling the world unto Himself not imputing unto them their trespasses But the Apostle takes the word Reconcile in the second sense when he saith that we have obtained reconciliation by CHRIST and when he beseecheth us to be reconciled to GOD it being evident that in these places he intendeth not the right and power only but the very effect and actual having of reconciliation It 's after this second way that we must take the word reconcile in the Text. For again this Reconciation may be considered two ways first in general as made by JESUS CHRIST on the Cross and secondly in particular as applyed to each of us by Faith In the first consideration it is presented to all men as sufficient for their salvation according to that doctrine of the Apostle Tit. 2.11 1 Joh. 2.2 that the Grace of GOD is saving to all men and that also of St. John that JESVS CHRIST is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world Under the second consideration it appertaineth only to the faithful according to that clause of the covenant which declareth That the only Son was given to the world that whosoever believeth in Him Joh. 3.16 should have eternal life It 's precisely in this sense the Apostle saith here that GOD had reconciled the Colossians he meaneth not simply that GOD had given them through the cross of His Son that they might be reconciled to Him by believing but also that He had effectively reconciled them to Himself and put them in real possession of the benefits that were purchased for us by the merit of CHRIST embracing them as His children pardoning them all their sins and obliviating all His wrath and the aversion their offences had given Him towards them But the Apostle mentions to them yet again here the means by which this reconciliation was effected as being a thing of infinite importance both to the glory of GOD and their edification He hath reconciled you saith he by the body of His
flesh that is to say of the flesh of His CHRIST by His death There is no one of these words but is of very great weight First mentioning here the body of our LORD he intimateth to us the mysterie of His Incarnation As if he had said that GOD loved us to such a degree as He would have His own Son become man to re-unite and reconcile us with Himself He would have this Divine person whose essence is spiritual and infinite assume a visible and finite body He shews us also by this word the sacrifice by which the wrath of GOD was appeased and our crimes expiated For it is properly for this that the Son of GOD had a body as the Apostle teacheth us when opposing this body of the LORD to sacrifices of living creatures that were unprofitable and incapable of satisfying the Justice of the Father he brings Him in saying Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou wouldst not have Heb. 10.5 10. but a body hast thou prepared me and adjoyneth that it is by the once offering up of this body we have been sanctified But the Apostle doth not say simply the body of CHRIST he addeth the body of His flesh that is according to the stile of the Hebrews His fleshy body His body of flesh At first blush you may seem that this addition is needless and to no purpose But it 's much otherwise For in the language of Scripture every Body is not flesh It gives this name only to an infirm a passible and mortal body He means therefore that the LORD to reconcile us not only assumed a body which yet is very marvelous but that He took a feeble and mortal body a body sustaining it self by meat and drink a body like ours and subject to all their meannesses and infirmities A consideration that as you see exceedingly heightens both the excellency of His love towards us and the value of the means by which He reconciled us it so being that the King of glory who is the Author and Mediator of this work vested Himself with poor Flesh to compass His design And this is the reason why the sacred writers so often use this word to signifie our LORD's humane nature as when they say 1 Tim. 3. Joh. 2. Heb. 2.14 that GOD was manifested in the flesh that the word was made flesh that the Son did partake of flesh and blood Indeed this qualification of the body of CHRIST was necessary for the expiating of our sins since this could not be effected but by sufferings of which only a fleshy body is capable Whence it comes that in the sixth Chapter of St. John where Himself speaketh of the vertue He hath to quicken us He also useth these very words saying that His flesh is meat indeed and His blood drink indeed and that He will give His flesh for the life of the world This word is the cause that I understand this passage of the natural body of CHRIST and not of His mystical body to which it seems some do refer it I acknowledge that the LORD receiveth into the union of His mystical body that is of His Church all those that applying to themselves the promises of His Gospel by Faith are effectually reconciled to GOD. Yet this is not the body the Apostle meaneth here since the body he speaks of is the body of the Flesh of the LORD which cannot be affirmed of His mystical body His saying therefore that GOD hath reconciled us in His body must be taken as if he had said by His body For as we have often informed you 't is ordinary in the stile of Scripture to put in for by And hence appears how extravagant the imagination of some ancient hereticks was who did dogmatize that JESUS CHRIST had but a vain and false appearance of a body and not a real solid and true body as also the errour of those who confessed He had a true body but held it to be celestial and of a quite other matter and substance than ours are The Apostle confounds these foolish phancies by terming the body of our LORD the body of His flesh In fine having said that we were reconciled by the body of His Flesh the Apostle addeth in the last place by His death It was not enough oh faithful brethren that the King of glory the Prince of life assumed to Himself a body and even a body of flesh vile and infirm as yours To reconcile you unto GOD it was necessary He should dye His flesh would have profited you nothing if it had not suffered that death which you deserved But of this death of the LORD and of its necessity and of its efficacy we have spoken largely upon the Texts foregoing Here we will only remark two things before we go further The first is that CHRIST did satisfie the Justice of His Father for us since it is by His death that He reconciled us For except this be asserted it is evident His death will have contributed nothing to our reconciliation in respect of that he would have dyed for nought Grant that there was need He should dye for the confirming of His doctrine and to give us an example of patience though to say true this reason if there were no other seemeth not so necessary that it should have obliged the Son of GOD to dye Yet still after this account His death will have contributed nothing to our reconciliation with the Father Him His own mercy alone and not any consideration of this death would have appeased towards us And nevertheless the Apostle saith expresly we were reconciled by that death which the LORD suffered in the body of His flesh Sure then it must be acknowledged that it quenced the wrath of the Father that is to say satisfied His justice for us The other particular which I would remark here is that the body of the LORD made propitiation of our sins only as it was infirm flesh that suffered death Every one confesseth that now He dyeth no more yea that He is invested with a soveraign glory having for ever put off the infirmity and mortality of the flesh Certainly then it is vainly and without reason that some do imagine His body is offered still to this day for the reconciling of sinners unto GOD. It 's by death Rom 6.9 that He hath reconciled us saith St. Paul And being now raised from the dead He dyeth no more saith he elsewhere But I come to the third and last article of our Text wherein the Apostle saith that it is to make us holy and without spot and unreprovable before Him that GOD hath reconciled us by the death of His Son It is strictly in the original to present us or to make us stand and appear before Him holy without spot and unreprovable which hath given occasion to some of our Expositors to referr these words also to our Justification before GOD as if the Apostle meant that He made our peace and abolished the
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
the New Testament were then but fore-told and promised not fully and clearly revealed as now by their accomplishment they have been by means whereof it was meet that during all that time they should be exercis'd in the observing of these typical rites and held in and kept under the Pedagogie of Moses until the fulness of time according to the Apostle's Doctrine in the Epistle to the Galatians Now that JESUS CHRIST hath openly exhibited the very body of truth and fully brought to light all the causes and motives of true sanctification these exercises of the Church's infancy are no longer seasonable and they that still stick to them are no less ridiculous than he that would still keep up the centries of a vault or the models of a building even after the Fabrick is finish'd and brought to its perfection or retain under a School-master's Ferule and in the restraints of childhood a man grown up and come to ripeness of years This is that we had to say for the exposition of this Text. It remaineth for a conclusion that we extract those instructions and consolations which if we meditate on it attentively it will afford us First Since the Apostle assureth us that we are compleat in CHRIST you see how vain those mens pretensions are who set forth certain rules of perfection as they call them beyond the Gospel Let us content our selves with our LORD's fulness and seek our perfection in him alone And instead of amusing our selves about the inventions of men embrace and practise CHRIST's Discipline advancing daily towards the utmost degree of perfectness For we may not flatter our selves with an imagination that a man may nevertheless appertain to him though he lead an wholly vicious and corrupt life S. Paul here protesteth plainly to us that all such as are in him are made compleat Whence it necessarily follows that such as are not compleat are without his communion and by consequence should not promise themselves any share in his salvation it being prepared for those only that are in him If this Doctrine do trouble us let us impute it to our vices and our loosness and taking once this truth to heart with all our might endeavour after that perfection which is in JESUS CHRIST accounting that without it we cannot possess either his grace in this world or his glory in the world to come I well know that to speak absolutely no one is perfect and that if we compare our condition on earth with that in heaven all our perfections are but weaknesses Yet it is true that JESUS CHRIST doth even in this life in some sense compleat his faithful ones and this perfection which he giveth them is not a vain name or an imagination It 's a thing and a most real truth it is a piety and charity sincere and free and without hypocrisie which though it sometimes fail doth notwithstanding produce true fruits and works quite different from those of Worldlings and Hypocrites according to what our LORD said even that if your righteousness do not exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven Object not that you are yet on earth and that perfection is not to be found but in heaven and that to live as an Angel one should be without a body It is not the perfection of Heaven that we demand of you The LORD will not reject you for having not had in this life the transcendent brightness of the next But though a child be not obliged to conduct his life with as much prudence and reason as a man of years it doth not follow that he hath licence to live without rule and in the debanches and disorders of slaves Every Age hath its bounds and its measures and its perfection Our childhood here below must not be without discipline under the pretence that it is not come to full growth Christians I complain not that there are defects in your knowledg and practice which have no place in Heaven but that there are in you vices which ought to have no place on earth I blame you not for that there is a great difference between you and Angels but that there is none between you and worldly men I require not what is above the strength of your age but what is worthy of your profession and doth not at all exceed your light I beseech you only to labour as much for JESUS CHRIST as the children of this generation do for the interests of their lusts This doth not exceed the capacity of our nature since you see what the servants of sin do and it s necessarily your duty except you imagine that we owe less to JESUS CHRIST than Worldlings do to their foolish and vain passions The first piece of that compleatness which we have in him is this Divine Circumcision which is not made with hand but by the efficacy of his Spirit Without it we can have neither place in the communion of his people nor right to his Inheritance It 's a Circumcision of which we may truly say that every soul that shall not have receiv'd it shall be cut off from his people The Apostle shews us wherein it consists to wit in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh JESUS CHRIST hath put the sword in our hand that 's necessary to cut away this wretched flesh namely his sacred word wherein he discovers the horridness of sin and infernal venom of vices and the vanity and iniquity of all the lusts of the flesh He hath shew'd us the perdition which they that serve it fall into and hath put it to death on his Cross and buried it in his Sepulcher He hath spread before our eyes the wonders of GOD's love and the eternity of the Kingdom appointed for faithful servants He hath given us rules and examples of this part of our sanctification in his Gospel and in his life and offereth us the lights and consolations of his Spirit to lead us in this work Grasp we then this Divine Knife of his Gospel Thrust it hardily in to our hearts and cut out thence all the impurity of the vices that are there Let us rid our selves of them and cast them behind us Exterminate all the productions of the flesh as execrable things Leave not one of them in our selves Having subdued Avarice combat Ambition Pluck out Luxury and all its passions from our inward parts Root up Hatred and Wrath and Cruelty and spare the life of none of these Monsters Let us not rest until we have cleansed our hearts of all this cursed brood For it is not enough to have cut off some of them One sole Enemy abiding in our bosome is able to destroy us The body of the sins of the flesh must be put off saith the Apostle and not one or two of its sins only I confess the labour is hard but it is necessary and that at all times for it is 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
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
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
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
S. Paul teacheth constantly ev ry where that it was disannulled and abrogated by the death of the LORD JESUS to make room for the Gospel according to the Oracles of the Prophets that GOD would make a new Covenant with his people Here is then the second head of our intended matter upon which we are to consider how GOD hath abolished this obligation which was against us by the Cross of his Son He tells us two things concerning it the one That this obligation is made void the other That it 's by the Cross of CHRIST it was made so He expresseth the former of these with great elegancy as his manner is using three most significant terms all of them taken from the nature of civil promises and obligations in pursuance of the similitude he began with First he saith that this obligation hath been effaced For so 't is ordinary with men to do when they have a debt paid them up they efface the name of their debtor that was upon their Books and the sum which he owed them The Apostle saith that GOD hath done the same in reference to us that he hath effaced this obligation of our mystical debt which was written in his Law and signed in our particular Consciences And this term hath the greater elegancy in this place because there did intervene for our acquitting some such thing as men are wont to do For they strike out their debtors promises with some liquor as Ink or the like which they draw over the lines of their writings So was our obligation made null by the effusion of a liquor to wit the blood of JESUS CHRIST which was poured forth as may be said from the Cross upon that dismal Book of the Law for the effacing all the clauses of our condemnation in it For as to the writing of men Ink is enough to blot it out But there was nothing save the Blood of the Son of GOD that was able to efface this doleful writing of the Law wherein the sentence of our death was contained Now it seems that this should be sufficient to assure a debtor even the telling him that his obligation is effaced Yet the Apostle contents not himself he addeth that ours hath been taken out of the way or abolished Thus you know among men they that are exact and punctual do not only efface their debtors writings they tear them and reduce them to pieces that no sign of their debt may remain GOD hath done so towards us He hath not only effaced the obligation he had against us He would not have so much as the rasures of it to appear He hath disannull'd it and abolish'd it and rent it with the nails of his Son's Cross He hath saith the Apostle fastned it to the Cross It is not possible to say any thing that should be better or more elegant Those same nails and those same thorns that pierced the body of our LORD upon that fatal Tree whereon he dyed for us did by the same means tear and cut in pieces the obligation which was against us that evidence of our debt and instrument of our death that is to say in sum the Cross of JESUS CHRIST hath disarmed the Law and divested it of that killing-force which it had against us naturally and reduc'd it to such an estate that we being under the covert of his Cross it can no more harm us than if all the Letters of it were estaced and its Papers rent in sunder This divine crucified Person hath by dying himself made the Law dye and that which doth sometime fall out in the combats of men hath been the event here both the Combatants even CHRIST and the Law remained dead upon the place The Law slew our LORD who went unto this combat for us to the end he might take and bear the terrible blows the thundrings and lightnings of our principal enemy But he hath also bereav'd the Law of life and left it in the same estate it had reduced him to though indeed with huge disserence in the issue For our LORD raised up himself from that death which he receiv'd and suffer'd for us rising again the third day gloriously alive whereas the Law shall never resume the life or the strength which he hath depriv'd it of It shall remain for ever in that death he hath given it This is that the Apostle teacheth us very clearly elsewhere when he saith that JESVS CHRIST having been made a curse for us hath redeemed us from the curse of the law Gal. 3.13 His wounds have been our cure his death our life and his curse our bliss The blood which issued out of his sacred body did blot out the sentence of our condemnation and the blows which pierced him did break in pieces the instrument of our ruin Now this great and admirable effect which S. Paul attributeth to the Cross of CHRIST doth furnish us with a clear proof of his Satisfaction For if his death were nothing but an example of patience and humility to what purpose saith this holy Apostle that the obligation which was against us was abolished and fastned to his cross Who seeth not but that by this account the Cross of our LORD would have done the Law no harm at all That his Blood would have been so far from making void our obligation as it would not have made so much as the least rasure in it What doth his death contribute to my deliverance from that curse under which this fatal writing puts me if he dyed only to give me a noble pattern of constancy and not to discharge my debts The Saints have verily suffer'd for our example and their deaths are patterns of our patience Yet it cannot be found that the Prophets or Apostles ever said of them by reason of it that the obligation which was against us hath been made void by their death or that the evils which they suffered have redeemed us from the curse of the Law And besides the blasphemousness of it it would render a man evidently ridiculous to give such language of them or to say of them as the Scriptures speak of the LORD alone that they have born our sicknesses and carried our dolours and been pierced for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities and that the chastisement of our peace was upon them and by their stripes we are healed Conclude we therefore that he verily dyed in our stead and did satisfie on his Cross the Justice of the Father for us For this being presupposed as the Scripture teacheth there is no longer any difficulty and it is clear that his Cross did strike out and abolish the obligation that was kept in the Cabinet of GOD against us and which alone had the right and power to destroy us As when a Surety pays the sum which the man he hath given security for doth owe he voids the Obligation that had been made to the Creditor about it and by virtue whereof he was to
fetter'd fast for ever You shall see not Arrows broken and Cuirasses batter'd and Arms cut in pieces but Sin abolish'd and Death destroy'd You shall see the spoils not of an Army or a Countrey but of the Lords of the world and of the Governours of the darkness of this Age. Lastly You shall behold in it not the image of some petty Fortress taken by assault or composition or of some River forced or some Province subdued but Hell finally beaten Heaven gained and an Eternal World brought under the power of our victorious LORD Let us apply our selves to the fruition of this magnificent spectacle and afford it all the sense and attention that we have To this end consider we First What these Principalities and Powers are which JESUS CHRIST hath spoiled And then see in the second place how he made a shew of them and triumph'd over them on the Cross These are the two Heads we will treat upon if the LORD please in this action The Apostle ordinarily makes use of the words Principalities Powers Dominions Thrones Col. 1.16 Rom. 8.37 Eph. 1.21 and Virtues to signifie the Angels as for instance in the first Chapter of this Epistle in the eighth of the Epistle to the Romans and in the first of that he wrote to the Ephesians He gives those spiritual beeings these names both because of the strength and power they are endowed with which mightily surpasseth the virtue of material and elementary things and also by reason of the divers orders into which GOD hath distinguish'd them according to the difference of their ministrations placing some of the Angels as it were Chiefs in a superiority to others And though the sin of Devils hath corrupted the perfections of their nature yet it doth appear by divers places of Scripture that it hath not quite destroyed this Order among them Satan being set forth to us as the Head of this black band and as having other evil Angels under him so as they may in this respect be still reâ—med Principalities and Powers Nevertheless there is another reason which the Apostle had his eye principally upon in giving them these names as he himself intimateth in the sixth Chapter to the Ephesians We wrestle not saith he against flesh and blood Eph. 6.12 but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high-places Here you plainly see he calleth them Principalities and Powers by reason of that Imperiality they exercise in this world under its present state of subjection unto sin and vanity Not that such a superiority doth of right belong unto them for having rebelled against their Creator they have lost all true and lawful dignity But the sin of man having â—uslav'd him to those evil spirits hath withall made these elements subject to them whereof he was the true and natural Lord. And GOD hath permitted it so to be for the executing of his justice against sin For since that man shook off the yoke of GOD having wretchedly preferr'd the pernicious counsel of his Eneâ—y before the just commandment of his Master it is but reason he should be subject to him to whom he did betray his own liberty Such then is the order or rather the confusion of the world since the fall to wit that the Devil exerciseth an insupportable â—yranny in it governing it at his pleasure as if he were Lord of it For First He worketh upon all the ungodly with wonderful force swaying their souls unto brutal passions setting on fire their lusts and by that thick smoak which he raiseth from their hearts blinding their minds and depriving them of all the light that 's necessary for distinguishing of truth and falshood Eph 2.2 of good and evil as the Apostle doth elsewhere inform us saying that this unclean spirit doth work effectually in the children of disobedience and in another place 2 Tim. 2.26 he telleth us that he hath the wicked in his snares and makes them do his will Not that he compelleth them to evil by co-active force and how much soever they dislike it but their nature being corrupted as it is he never tempteth them without effect their souls voluntarily surrendring themselves to his pernicious perswasions Moreover he disposeth of material things turning and changing them at his pleasure raising tempests in the air seditions and warrs among men putting in commotion all that murtherous violence that makes havock of mankind and presiding over all the instruments of the creatures damage and death Heb. 2.14 By reason whereof the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews calleth Satan Him who hath the power of death And although he executeth none of his bad purposes without the permission of GOD as the Scripture clearly shews us in the History of Job where you see he toucheth neither the goods nor the children nor the person of that holy man until leave had of this Supream Majesty nevertheless because he worketh commonly in the world the greater part whereof is depraved and rebellious against GOD he seems Master of it and himself doth glory in it as when he said to our Saviour in temptation after he had shewed him all the Kingdoms of the Earth Luke 4.6 All the power and glory of these things will I give thee for to me it is delivered and I give it to whom I will And indeed for these reasons doth our Saviour stile the Devil John 12.31 and 14.30 2 Cor. 4.4 the Prince of this world as when he says Now the Prince of this world shall be cast out and so elsewhere and S. Paul calls him in the same sense the GOD of this world Represent unto your selves the world as it was under the darkness of its old Heathenism when GOD left all Nations to walk in their own ways In it the Devil absolutely domineered All those poor multitudes held he under his tyranny He had put out the eyes of their minds and in this blindness made them commit all kind of vileness and abominations He inspired into them hatred of the true GOD and of his Service and so effectually beguiled them by his fallacious illusions that he caused them to adore himself under the forms of divers Idols These same spirits are they that the Apostle intends here by those Principalities and Powers he speaks of For though the Scripture doth particularly mark out one of them whom it calleth Satan as the Head of this abominable Monarchy yet it rangeth under him a vast multitude of Spirits who all travelling upon the same design and setting on work in it all the might and industry they have do bear a part in his accursed Empire And there is great probability too that they are divided into certain bands each of which are drawn up under their particular Chiefs and do all of them depend upon Satan as their General For which reason it is that the Apostle calls them in the plural number Principalities
absurd and ridiculous The spirits in prison 1 Pet. 3 20. of whom S. Peter speaks cannot upon any better ground be taken for the souls of the faithful detâ—ined in Limbus since those spirits were sometimes rebellious or disobedient in the time of Noah and perished in their sin which cannot be said of the Patriarchs and the Faithful In fine the Apostle's saying that the way into the holy places was not manifested while the first Tabernacle was standing signifies indeed that the High-Priest of the Church our LORD JESUS CHRIST did not carry not introduce our nature into Heaven in soul and body nor discover and make manifest the way to our Mansion of Immortality until the veil of the first Tabernacle was rent which is very true But thence it follows not that the spirits of the faithful consecrated before our Saviour's coming did not feel the fruit of his death and much less that they were detain'd in Hell But besides that this Tradition hath no foundation in the Scripture it doth plainly cross the same For our LORD promised the good Thief Luke 23.43 that the very day he was crucified he should be with him in Paradice where yet according to our Adversaries supposition he should not have entred till the forty-third day after And the Parable of that bad rich man doth plainly shew us that at that time as the souls of impenitent sinners were cast into the torments of Hell-fire so the spirits of the faithful were carried up into the repose and felicity of Paradice For that bosome of Abraham wherein Lazarus rested Luke 16.22 25 26. was not a pit without water as the pretended Limbus is counted to have been but a place of refreshment and consolation not situate in the vicinity of Hell but severed from it by a great gulf set between them And in truth since the faithful did even then drink of the Mystical Rock as well as we were sprinkled with his blood did partake of his sufferings why would any one imagine that our Saviour's Sacrifice had less virtue to introduce them into Heaven after their death than it had to justifie and sanctifie and comfort them in the days of their life As they bore a part with us in the same faith and conflicts on the earth so had they share of our repose and joy in Heaven neither is there any reason for our being admitted if you will needs have them excluded Accordingly certain it is that those elder Christian Writers who did barr the souls of the faithful that deceased under the Old Testament out of Heaven did as well deny reception there to the souls of Christians not assenting that either the one or the other were admitted till after the resurrection so as our Adversaries rejecting as they have reason to do the one half of this error and confessing that Christian souls sufficiently purged are received into Heaven it is nothing but pure obstinacy in them to retain the other half thereof and pretend that the condition of the faithful departed under the Old Testament was otherwise than under the New Be it then concluded that all this pretended deliverance of souls brought out of Limbus is but the fiction of an human spirit not only beside but even against Scripture and Reason But I add in the second place that though it were as certain as it is dubious and as true as it is false yet it would not be possible to refer this passage of the Apostles unto it First The spirits of the faithful departed this life are not at all in the power of Satan but in the hands of GOD to whom they recommend them at their death so as though JESUS CHRIST had brought them out of Limbus yet it could not be said that he had therein spoiled the Devils since that to spoil them is to take from them what they were possess'd of and its clear that though the souls of the faithful had been in this imaginary Limbus yet they would have been there out of the Devil's possession Secondly The word here used which the French hath translated mener en montre that is lead about for a shew is always taken in an ill sense for a shameful and ignominious shew such as that of Malefactors is when they are led through the City and publickly executed that the sight of their shame and punishment may keep men in their duty Now if our LORD had delivered the souls of the faithful out of such a Limbus it could not be said that he had made a shew of them in this sense it being evident that in this case they would have accompanied his Triumph by way of honour and that it would not have been any ignominy but a glory for them to have followed his victorious Chariot Moreover the Apostle's words are so placed in the Original that the spoiling and making a shew of and triumphing over which he speaks of do necessarily respect the same persons that is those whom he spoiled are the same he made shew of and triumph'd over Now he spoiled not the spirits of the Fathers he on the contrary did enrich them sure then it is not them he made a shew of neither can the action which the verb importeth be referr'd to them without depraving the Apostle's whole Context This is all spoken of one and the same subject to wit those Powers and Principalities that is the Devils as we have demonstrated and as all do accord They are the Devils whom JESUS spoiled It is the same that he publickly made a shew of and it 's they again whom he triumphed over As for the Latin Interpreter his saying Zanchy the LORD triumphed of them in himself I acknowledg that divers Greek Copies do read the Text in that manner and some of our Writers have so expounded it conceiving that our Saviour upon his crucifixion did bring the Devils whom he had overcome out of their Hells and shew them to the Angels and the Spirits made perfect bound and chained up as a glorious token of the victory he had gotten over them and they add that this triumph did continue too until his ascension into Heaven But the Scripture telling us nothing of this matter I think it dangerous to affirm the same it being better and more safe to keep to that which GOD hath revealed in his word than to take liberty to follow our own imaginations how plausible soever they appear And the reason which seems to have moved those men to advance this conjecture is exceeding slender For they have been induc'd to do it only by conceiving it absurd to say that JESUS CHRIST triumphed over his Enemies on the Cross seeing that to speak properly he overcame them on the Cross but it seems he triumphed only at his resurrection and ascension But first though there were in this some inconvenience yet nothing would enforce us to assert what they propose It would be sufficient for the avoiding thereof to say that our Saviour
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
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
a perpetual disorder which displaceth every thing and overturns all yet all hath its certain causes It 's therefore with a great deal of reason and elegance that the Apostle compares this strange convention of so many evils which are so divers and do all work with some sequel and dependance unto a body and each of those vices of which it is composed as covetousness fornication and the like unto the members of a body He calleth them our members because that old man which is made up of them is wholly ours and does invest all the principles of our life from their root and invelope them and mingle so deeply with them that it all in a sort is nothing but corruption and malady this venome infecting all the actions and all the motions of our nature its understanding its affections and passions together with the thoughts words and actions which flow from them so that as our animal and natural life consisteth in the exercising of our members and in their actions in like manner our moral life is all of it nothing but a continual exercising of these vices and of the sins they produce as is to be clearly seen if you consider the lives of profane and unregenerate persons For they are nought else but a continual exercise of vices of ambition of vanity of covetousness of luxury and sensuality as they are addicted more or less to the one or the other of these sins the perpetual running of a foul and muddy stream which a corrupted spring doth daily thrust forth that you cannot observe so much as one of its swellings or rollings exempt from its filthiness And this may suffice for comprehending the reason why the Apostle calls these parts of the old man our members For as to that consideration which some do propose in this matter namely that the members of our bodies having been created of GOD they are not ours but in regard of use and not in regard of their original whereas the members of the old man are ours all manner of waies having been made and formed in us by our own fault and naughtiness and not by the hand of GOD who created man upright and pure man distorting and depraving himself this conceit I say seems to me more subtil than solid For though the matter of it be very true yet it is so wide from the Apostles design in this place that there is little likelyhood he thought upon it when he called the vices here of our corrupt nature our members Without doubt he so doth only because it is in the exercising and acting of these vices that the carnal life of men doth consist For the rest if you remember what we said upon the precedent Text of the death of the old man in us you will not think it strange that the Apostle after having said that we are dead does not yet forbear to exhort us to mortifie the members of this same life which we have put off in JESUS CHRIST For our being dead in this respect doth not import that the life of the flesh is entirely and absolutely extinct in us this will not be effected untill we shall quit it at our leaving of the earth and put on coelestial and spiritual bodies at the day of the resurrection but the Scripture doth thus speak first because JESUS CHRIST hath by His death His resurrection and His ascension into Heaven destroyed and abolished all the causes that gave nutriment and sustenance to the life of the old man and secondly because the old man 〈◊〉 receiv'd his deaths wound in each of us by the faith that ingrafted and incorporated us into JESUS CHRIST so as if we persevere it is not possible that he should recover But this death of His as we said doth not arrive all at once It 's executed by little and little and the exercise of a believer during his stay here below is to busie himself incessantly about it daily to weaken and wound that flesh of his which is already nailed to the cross of his LORD to entinguish by little and little all the life it hath remaining that is to mortifie his members as the Apostle here speaks In this sense you see these two conceptions are so far from having ought that 's contrary or incompatible in them that quite otherwise the one doth evidently and necessarily follow from the other For since we are dead in JESUS CHRIST since the arrest of the death of our old man is past since JESUS CHRIST hath done on His part all that was necessary to execute it since this flesh condemn'd is already fastened to His cross it is evident that it ought to live no longer and that by consequent each of us should incessantly bestirr our selves to put it to death by mortifying its members beating down and weakening their vigour driving deep into them our Saviour's nails and thorns untill they be effectually reduced unto that state of death unto which they were condemned having no more either motion or sentiment or force or life at all in us Lo My Brethren the thing the Apostle means by these words mortifie your members To say it in a word he would have us weaken and extinguish the vices of our old man and put them in such a state of death as hath no more strength nor vigour nor stirring But as this holy man's whole language is full of profound wisdome I am of opinion he thus speaks to give a further blow to those seducers whose error he had been refuting in the fore-going chapter These men to recommend their disciplines gave out that they did not at all spare the body that they had no regard to the satiating of the flesh that they oppos'd its pleasures and humbled and mortified it And you know that this is at this very day the language of those votaries who place Christianity in such exercises They speak of nothing but their mortifications St. Paul therefore doth here correct the vain conceits of this error and sheweth us what true mortification is and that that is worthy of the study and exercise of the faithful It is saith he the members of the old man we are to mortifie and not those of the body It is vices It 's fornication and covetousness and pride that we must quell and kill with blows and not our body And as one of the Prophets sometime said to the superstitious of his age who fasted and afflicted themselves and rent their clothes Rend your hearts and not your garments Joel 2.13 in like manner the Apostle here opposeth the internal mortification of sins as only necessary and truly worthy of a Christian unto the external mortification of the body unto which error did and still doth tye up its self For in truth to what purpose is it to beat a man's breast and rend his back while sin mean time reigneth in his heart To what purpose is it to afflict the members of this body while the members of the
any other of the Ministers of JESUS CHRIST doth any where injoyn us to wear hair-cloth or to disfigure our countenances with a multitude of fasts and watchings or to go barefoot or to put on a cowl or renounce the usage of any of the meats which GOD hath created for our service much less to cover our selves with dung and filth or to gore our selves all over with disciplines Isa 1.12 God will one day say to those that amuse themselves in such mortifications Who hath required this at your hands and why have ye suffered so much in vain Gal. 3.4 The only mortification he demands of us is that of the old man that we beat down our vices and not that we rend our bodies that we deface our passions and not our countenances that we renounce our lusts and not His gifts That we give the discipline to our manners and not our shoulders As for our selves My Brethren I acknowledge that we have renounced the mortification of the superstitious the misery is we do not practise that which is our Saviours though without it no man can have part in Him or His kingdom as the Apostle intimates plainly enough here where he doth not own any person for a member of CHRIST risen who is not dead and else-where he affirms in expresse terms that they that are CHRIST's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts We amuse not our selves in bodily exercise No but neither do we more heed that of the spirit We spare our hearts no less than our bodies and do not treat the vices of the one any whit more roughly than the skin of the other Men see sufficiently by the actions of our lives that the members of this old man whom the cross of CHRIST hath condemned unto death remaining very far from being dead are scarce wounded in us that they are not so much as scratch'd that they live in us in their full strength and vigour and no more feel our Saviour's nails and thorns than if He had not died or we not believed in Him at all Our adversaries are nor to seek how to charge it home upon us and it is the only one of their arguments that puts us to confusion We easily answer all their other reproaches There 's none but this wherein our consciences enforce us to separate the cause of JESUS CHRIST and of His Gospel from our own For if His truth were to be judged of by the quality of our deportments who could defend it seeing the horrible disorder that generally appeareth in our lives Let us consider only the two articles here touched by the Apostle unchastity and avarice In conscience is the one and the other of these two passions dead among us Have they not as great a vogue as among the men of the World Is the modesty of youth the honesty of marriage is chastity and temperance better practised here than other-where Doth the fordidnesse and eagernesse of avarice less appear Verily I am extremely asham'd to say it all is alike except that those without do confess and discipline themselves and macerate their flesh with some kind of fasts and say their chappelet whereby at least they shew some sense of their faultinesse though they apply ineffectual and ridiculous remedies of it Whereas we after committing the same faults and dabling in the same filth come to present our selves impudently here without fearing GOD or having shame of men And if the voice of the LORD that resoundeth in this place do draw some sigh from us at our going hence we return every one to our vices as pleasant and as obstinate as ever GOD is so good that He hath hitherto attended our repenting But let us beware lest our obduratenesse do change His patience into fury and constrain Him in the end to punish such a refractory contempt of His word and His favours and avenge the affront we do His Gospel by living so ill in so fair and so divine a light Let us all descend into our selves Let us examine our carriage and our consciences Let each one interrogate himself Come my soul after so many moneths and years that JESUS CHRIST hath so carefully instructed thee what pains hast thou taken to conform thy self to Him and to imprint the image of His death and of His life upon thy behaviour Hast thou nailed thine old man to His cross Hast thou mortified his members Hast thou deprived them of that wretched vigour which they display with so much efficacy in the children of disobedience Do they leave thee at rest Or when they begin to trouble thee hast thou the courage to resist them Doth not avarice stretch out thine hand upon the goods of others or doth it not with-hold the same from imparting of thine own unto the poor Hast thou not felt its vain sollicitudes and fruitless melancholies it's insatiable cupidity and unbridled eagerness and that impudence it hath to despise and violate honesty laws and decency for the satisfying its inordinate desires But if avarice hath not importun'd thee tell me my soul hath not the lust of the eyes and the vanity of the flesh at one time or other insnared thee Hath not this traiterous Dalila lulled thee asleep Hast thou guarded the glory of that Nazareat to which GOD hath consecrated thee from her ambushments Brethren let us thus catechize our souls daily and about our other duties as well as these Let us not pardon them any thing Judge we them righteously and with inexorable severity Chastise them for all their faults and bringing them down at the feet of GOD make them weep and grone in His presence Let us reproach them with their ingratitudes and set before their eyes the benefits of GOD and the offences with which they have recompensed Him Denounce we also His judgements on them and the horror of His dreadful vengeance and not give them over untill they have taken a full and firm resolution to return no more to their ingratitudes Above all Dear Brethren let us make them hate and detest those two pests which the Apostle hath to day so solemnly condemned to dye to wit luxury and covetousnesse Let us execute his just sentence upon these two passions and cause them to suffer that death which they so many waies deserve For as to the first it impudently profaneth a body which belongs to JESUS CHRIST was redeemed by His blood washed with His heavenly water fed with His flesh and consecrated by His spirit Rends it from the communion of that divine body of which it is become a member to change it into one of the members of Satan Bereaves it of its glory and despoils it of the greatest honour it had and drawing it out of Heaven whither GOD had called it drags it into Hell I know well that men of the world flatter themselves and extenuate this sin And I am not ignorant that there are people among our selves who suffer themselves to be
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
They forbid all Christians to read the Bible without the Bishops or the Inquisitors permission But they presently declare that no Bishop nor Inquisitor hath power to give any Thus there shall no person be permitted it Is not this an evident mocking of the world But these gallants do so hugely dread the Scripture that they had rather become guilty of thus shamefully and openly deluding Christendom than suffer any one to have or read so dangerous a Book They would rather salve their interest than their honour And in very deed such the practice is in Spain and Italy and in the Territories of the Inquisition where this permission to read the Bible is not given to any man whoever he be and where it 's held for a capital crime and a sure mark of Heresie to have in house but a volume of the Old or New Testament in the vulgar tongue So as it must of necessity be that those who do in these parts permit this reading unto some are either guilty of violating the general ordinances of that Church they profess themselves members of or have some particular and extraordinary power from the Pope to do as they do which yet doth not appear This crime would be less strange if it did clash only with this passage of the Apostle But it also overturneth divers other most expresse instructions Deut. 17.18 19. which occur in the holy Scriptures For GOD commands the King of Israel who was a Laick noâ— a Clerk to write a copy of His law and to have it by him Deut. 11.18 19. 6.7 8 9. and read it diligently and generally all His people to lay up all His words in their hearts and in their minds to bind them for signs upon their hands and for frontlets between their eyes that is to have them as familiar as their own hands and eyes to teach them their children and discourse of them at home and abroad lying down and rising up and write them on the posts of their houses and on their gates which is just the same thing St. Paul here calls in short an having the word of GOD to dwell in them In effect St. Luke praiseth the Ethiopian Eunuch Acts 8.28 17.11 for that he read the Scriptures and the men of Berea for that they consulted them daily to know if the things which Paul and Silas preached to them were so Yet we no where read Psal 1.2 that they had leave of any Papal Bishops or Inquisitors And David pronounceth that man blessed who meditateth day and night in the law of GOD. Again Joh. 20.31 the word of GOD being written that we might believe that JESVS is the CHRIST and that believing we might have life through His Name as saith St. John Rom. 15.4 and for our learning as saith St. Paul that we through patience and comfort might have hope It must of necessity be concluded that the forbidding of Christians to read the Scriptures evidently is either a frustrating the LORD of His intention or an accusing Him of having been unable to give us Scriptures proper for His aim and our aid I say as much and that more positively of the Apostolical Epistles which being directed to the faithful Clergie and Laity indifferently there is no reason to bar any of them from reading what the first Ministers of GOD wrote to them all In fine the fault of our adversaries is so much the more inexcusable for that the ancient Doctors of whom they make so great account Homil. 9. on Levitie are directly contrary to them in this particular As Origen for one who would have Christians not only hear the word of GOD in the Church but exercise themselves in reading it at home and in meditating on it night and day St. Hierom for another Hierom. Ep. 14. 30. August lib. de Catech. rud c. 6.8 Gregor in his Epistles lib. 4. Ep. 40. who would have women and maids themselves to learn the Scriptures by heart St. Augustine for a third who does most earnestly recommend the reading of the word of GOD to the very Catechumeni that is Christians of the lowest form such as had not yet received holy Baptism St. Gregory the Great that famous Bishop of Rome for a fourth who gravely reproves a Physician of the Court for that he took not the pains to read the words of our Redeemer every day For what is holy Scripture saith he but a letter from GOD to His creature If you were in a far Countrey and there received letters from the Emperor your Master you would not be at rest nor sleep at your case till you had read them and perceiv'd what your earthly Prince should have vouchsafed to write you The Monarch of Heaven the LORD of men and Angels hath sent and conveyed to your hands His letters about the concernments of your life And yet my Son you deign not to read them Apply to them I beseech you and meditate daily your Creator's sayings Thus Gregory more than a thousand years a-go Judge how far the language of later Popes is from his spirit and from his principles I pass by other Doctors of antiquity who are no less contrary to this modern abuse and will only mention further John of Antioch Bishop of Constantinople to whom the Church hath given the name of Chrysostome that is Golden mouth because of the richness and sweetnesse of his incomparable eloquence he alone would furnish a man with enough to make a small volume if any would put together all the passages of his works in which he exhorteth all the faithful and in special those of the people to an assiduous reading of the Holy Scripture and particularly in the Sermon he made upon this very Text of the Apostle which we are expounding Hear Chrysost Homil 9. in Ep. ad Coloss saith he you that live in the World and have wife and children hear how he orders you yea you principally to read the Scriptures not slightly and heedlesly but with great care and diligence He would have them heed no other master You have saith he to them the oracles of GOD and no one can teach you so well as these divine books And a little after Have saith he the books of the Bible the true medicines of the soul Get at least the New Testament the Acts of the Apostles the Gospels Let these be your perpetual Masters and Teachers If any affliction befall you loss of goods of children or of friends if death it self present its self unto you make search forthwith in this book as in the store-house of coelestial medicaments and fetch out of it the remedies that are necessary for the mitigating of your miseries Or rather that you may not be put to the trouble of such search lay them all up in your soul and have them ready upon all occasions Ignorance of the Scriptures is the cause of all our evils Thus far Chrysostome And truly as you
he never setting about them but when he may do them in the name of CHRIST For though the nature of them be indifferent the usage of them is not so but must be governed by the good and the evil that may thence redound either to or against the glory of GOD and the edification of men as the Apostle sayes elsewhere All things are lawful for me but all things are not expedient All things are lawful for me but all things edifie not Whence you see 1 Cor. â—0 2â— how vain the pretext of those is who excuse the excess of their habits of their tables and of their houses by the liberty which they pretend the LORD hath left them to clothe and feed and lodge themselves as they think good alledging that He hath not forbidden them Velvet or Silks or Gold or Silver or precious Stones or Tapistry or any sort of Furniture nor excluded from their Tables any kind of Meats or Services they being taken with thanksgiving I grant the use of these things to speak in general is free they all being created of GOD for man Yet this hinders not but each of you ought to observe certain rules about them and this one in particular namely that ye consider whether the thing be such as ye may do it in the name of JESUS CHRIST whether the money you waste in it might not be better employed in the service of His poor or of His Sanctuary whether your making men believe that you are vain glorious or intemperate or voluptuous by clothing or lodging or treating your selves more richly and more magnificently than beseems your condition whether this opinion I say which you give your Neighbours of you does not scandalize them and be not prejudicial unto the name and interests of our Saviour Hence again appears how inexcusable they are that marry with persons of a contrary Religion I confess that Marriage is honourable and that it is not prohibited to any But this action as well as all a Christians others must be done in the name of the LORD JESVS 1 Cor. 7.9 and so much the rather for that it is more important and continues as long as our lives Wherefore the Apostle doth expresly modifie the liberty he gives the believing widow by this exception She is at liberty saith he to marry again only so as it be in the LORD Now judge if it be a marrying in the LORD when you make alliance with a person allienate from your communion who will be a snare to pervert you from it will pluck the name of CHRIST out of your house and consecrate your blood to error and be so far from helping you in the exercises of your piety that the person will disturb them In fine this saying of the Apostle's shews us also what we are to think of Dances and Balls and such other vain pomps of the world If you can truly say that it is in the name of CHRIST you Masque and Dance I will accord that you fail not of your duty in it But if it be clear and manifestly known as it is that the LORD JESUS hath no part in these follies that in them His name is blasphem'd rather than glorified that His Spirit breaths not in them but indeed the Spirit of Satan and the world that scandal is given in them but no edification received confess it a thing contrary to your duty Add not impudence to guilt acknowledge if you be a Christian that it 's a violation of the Apostle's order to participate in such things which neither are nor can be done in the name of our LORD JESUS CHRIST I advertise you particularly of it because we are entring on the season in which the world is won't to give it self the greatest licence for such debauches Dear Brethren let not it's ill examples seduce you Let not the custome of the age nor the pleasing of men induce you to forget the respect you owe to the Apostles voice and the Churches consolation Seek your joys in the service of your LORD and Saviour and in the meditation and expressing of His life and having always before your eyes the love He beareth you the death He suffered for you and the Heaven to which He calleth you love Him with all your heart and whatever you do whether in word or work do it all in the name of this sweet and merciful Saviour rendring thanks by Him to our GOD and Father unto His glory and the edification of your Neighbours and your own Salvation Amen THE FORTY THIRD SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER XVIII XIX Verse XVIII VVives be subject unto your own Husbands as is meet in the LORD XIX Husbands love your VVives and be not bitter against them DEAR Brethren As man is subject to a twofold consideration first in regard of his nature simply as he is a reasonable creature secondly in reference to his condition or the rank he holds in humane society that is as either a Master or a Servant a Magistrate or a Subject or the like so he is obliged according to these two different respects to two divers sorts of duties those of the first sort are general and common universally to all men the others of the second do relate but to some certain order of persons only I place in the first rank piety towards GOD honesty temperance justice and charity and such other vertues for which neither sex nor age nor condition doth dispense with any because every man whatever he is otherwayes being a reasonable creature is bound upon that account to practice all those vertues as a perfection and ornament meet for such a nature I reckon among the duties of the second sort the service that bondmen owe their masters the obedience of children to their fathers the dependance of wives in relation to their husbands and the like which pertain as you see only to persons in such conditions and not to all men generally This difference hath produc'd in the Schools of Heathen Sages the distinguishing of active Philosophy into divers parts the first whereof which they call Moral Philosophy or the Ethiques do's explain that first sort of common and general duties the others do treat of the second to wit the Economicks which regulate and form the several different conditions that constitute a family namely husband and wife parents and children master and servants and the Politicks whose task is to expound the devoirs of all the divers orders that compose an Estate as the Prince and the Subject the Magistrate and the Citizen men of the long Robe and of the Sword and the like The Apostles of our LORD in those writings which they have left us where they have unfolded to us the Divine Philosophy of their Master have also followed the same order though their difference otherwayes be very great For they set before us in like manner some general duties which oblige all Christians of what quality soever and in whatever
us to the obedience of GOD and after Him to the obedience of our Parents If we have chanced through imprudence or other-waies to tye up our selves else-where we must speedily break the bond and make no scruple nor conscience to break it but to observe it Beside evident reason for it and the confession of all wise men who hold that vows made against moral duty do not oblige the word of GOD expresly maketh this decision If a woman saith the Law shall vow a vow unto the LORD Numb 30.4.6 and bind her self by a bond in her youth being in her Father's house if her Father disallow her in the day he heareth it not one of all her vows nor of the bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand Here you see that vows though in other respects good and lawful yet oblige not if made by children of the family without their fathers allowance And this is yet more forcibly concluded from the Lawgiver's adding Num. 30.7 8 9. that the vows of a married wife disallowed by her husband are null and void it being evident that the authority of a Father over his child is much greater and more strict than that of an husband over his wife And hither must that censure be referred which our LORD and Saviour pass'd upon the Pharisees who under colour of the religion of vows did also annul the honouring of parents by their children so expresly commanded in the Law Saith He Matt 15.4 5 6. GOD hath commanded saying Honour thy Father and thy Mother And again He that curseth his Father or Mother shall dye the death But ye say whosoever shall say to his Father or his Mother All that whereof thou mightest have profit by me is a gift or Corban though he honour not his Father or his Mother shall be free Thus have ye made the commandment of GOD of none effect through your tradition For the right understanding of this discourse of our Saviour's and of that tradition of the Pharisees he opposeth we are to know that the Jewish Rabbies as we learn by their own books did and still do make a very great account of vows holding the religion of them absolutely inviolable Moreover they listed in the rank of vows not those only which were legitimate and conceiv'd in solemn manner with terms of a full extent as when one said I make a vow unto GOD not to taste wine or strong drink during the space of forty daies and the like but also all other words in what form soever conceiv'd and uttered whether upon deliberation or in choler or otherwise by which one devoted any thing whatever were it expresly or covertly as for instance if a man in a fit of choler or in the trouble of a quarrel with his neighbour came to say through indignation Let me dye if ever I do thee any service the Rabbines took this for a true vow and accounted such a man obliged in conscience never to do that person any service against whom he had uttered such words Now because the Corban that is the sacred gifts given to the Temple were a thing which they esteemed most inviolable and the offerings there kept might not be employed to any profane use nor any private person put his hand into the treasury for that end upon pain of death hence it comes that to signifie the use of a thing was totally interdicted unto any one they said it was to him corban that is he was no more permitted to make use of it than of the sacred gifts which in their language were called by that name When therefore it fell out that a son through distaste or anger at his Father once came to say All that of which you might have profit by me is a gift or corban that is you shall never be the better for me or you shall never draw service or profit from me no more than from the corban the Pharisees and other Rabbies held that such a man was obliged by this vow of his to do his Father no service any more and they judged him innocent and blameless though he never did him any how pressing soever the Father's necessity might be alledging that the religion of a vow was above the natural obligation of children towards their fathers and their mothers which was in very deed to annull the Law of GOD by their tradition as our Saviour charged them Judge if those of Rome do not the same thing dispensing with children for the obedience due to Parents upon pretence of monastick vows in like manner and if by consequent we have not all the reasons in the world to apply unto them what our LORD said of the Pharisees even that they make the commandment of GOD of none effect by their tradition Let us then lay aside since the LORD doth so injoyn it us all humane inventions and simply and faithfully keep to the will of our Soveraign Master as He hath declar'd it to us in His word As also you see that in the Text it 's the only reason the Apostle doth alledge to oblige children to this duty He might have urged the justice of the thing it self it being evident that we owe respect and honour unto those who gave us both life and education and if not all at least the greatest part of whatsoever help and honour we possess and understand He might have argued from Nature which hath engraven this law in the heart of animals themselves whom we see especially while they are little to be subject to those that brought them forth He might have produced the custome of all nations even the least civilized not excepted who by their usage and some of them by their laws have authorized the veneration of parents as of sacred persons and have noted as is indeed very notable that the Pagan both Greeks and Romans made so great an account of this duty as to give it the same name they gave unto the fearing and worshipping of GOD calling not only devout and religious persons but those also pious who were industrious to honour and to serve their Fathers and Mothers whence it came they held that excesses committed against Parents Val. Maâ— were to be punished as violations of the honour of the Deity were The Apostle might have produced all these things and divers others But he doth it not He alledgeth nothing but the sole will of GOD as the best and the strongest and the most considerable of all reasons Children obey your Fathers and your Mothers in all things Why Because this saith he is well-pleasing to the LORD If you be a Christian this is sufficient to perswade you to render to your Parents that obedience which the Apostle commands you For how can you neglect what is pleasing to that LORD upon whom depends all your Salvation who hath been so good to you as to redeem you from eternal perdition by the death of His only Son and to give you in
Scripture is wont to attribute two hearts or a double heart unto a feigning person because he maketh shew of one intention and yet hath another quite different so he that serves to the eye To see him you would say that he loves his master and desires his profit yet under this deceitful masque he hides quite different thoughts and affections heeding nothing less than the interests of him whom he serves But the servant whom the Apostle formeth here hath but one affection and one thought and having learned in the School of CHRIST that it is just and reasonable the servant should obey his master he serves his to fulfill this piece of righteousness and acquit himself of his duty which he would think himself deficient in if he did otherwise so that bearing about every where this sentiment with him engraven in his conscience there is neither place nor time wherein he doth not faithfully serve his master whether he be absent or present seen or unseen Hereto the Apostle further addeth that he do fear GOD. Whereas others totally referr the condition of servants only unto man he would have a Christian know that GOD is the author of it that it 's He who hath appointed it and would have us approve our fidelity in it when His providence hath called us to it Think not saith he that you have to do with none but men It 's GOD who hath put you in this estate Do not imagine it sufficient to respect and content the eye of your master You must reverence and satisfie the eye of GOD whom you cannot deceive nor content at any lower rate than the doing of your duty exactly and sincerely But the Apostle would not have a Christian simply to do all his Master commands him He would also have him do it chearfully and with the heart Whatever ye do saith he do it all with courage that is first not by constraint and with murmurring but voluntarily and secondly with affection for those who command you Verily you will say an hard law For if the Master be froward if he command as often happens things that are difficult and harsh and inhumane how is it possible a servant should fall to work about them with any cheerfulness I answer that our flesh finds it uneasie to relish such obedience and cannot suffer so hard a bit without reluctance and recalcitration But the fear of GOD inclines us to account those things sweet which are of their own nature very harsh If you look upon man only I acknowledge you have some ground to think it hard that one who is at the bottom but a man as you are should have you in such subjection to his will But if you lift up your eyes higher and consider that it is GOD who hath instituted this order that it 's He who hath called you to this condition that the master whom you serve is His Minister and Officer then the roughest of his commands will become supportable to you And it 's to this the Apostle reduceth you when to bend you unto this sweet and willing obedience he adviseth you to do all things as unto the LORD and not as unto men Make account saith he that it is to JESVS CHRIST and not to a mortal man that you render your services Respect this soveraign LORD in the person of your masters and think that it 's He who orders you to do all that they command you For He likewise it is who hath given you them by His providence for Masters Withal He declares expresly in His word that it is His will you should obey them Admire now Christian I pray the vertue of the Gospel which as sometime the tree of Moses doth sweeten the bitterest things and so changeth their nature that of distasteful and forced it makes them pleasing and voluntary What is there harder or more abject than the servitude of a slave The Gospel changeth it into a devotion into a religious service that is into the noblest and most voluntary of all humane actions The beleever directeth that obedience unto JESUS CHRIST which an infidel gives only to his master He doth that for his GOD which the other doth but for a man Wherefore he doth it chearfully and heartily while the other doth it not but by constraint and with regret Hence the Apostle saith else-where that a servant called in the LORD 1 Cor. 7.22 is the LORD's free-man Not that he ceaseth to do his former master the service he was wont This he is so far from that he now becomes much more faithful Philem. 10. and much more profitable to him than he ' erst was as Onesimus the servant of Philemon who after he once knew JESUS CHRIST went voluntarily to put himself again under his old Master's yoke which during the darkness of his unbelief he had cast off All the difference is that whereas in the time of his ignorance he had respect meerly to his master's will and authority now he hath little regard thereto considering principally his LORD and Saviour's so that to say the truth 't is Him he serves and not a man CHRIST hath freed him from man's yoke and put him under his own since henceforth his aim in all he doth for man is chiefly to please not man but JESUS CHRIST For the forming of the spirits of Christian servants to this holy disposition the Apostle represents unto them in the two last verses of this Chapter that the LORD JESUS is indeed the true Master and super-intendent of their whole lives who sets them their task and looks on their labours whatever condition they are in and will not fail when His day is come to make up a true and faithful accompt with them largely recompencing such of them as shall be found to have honestly discharged their duty and severely punishing the negligent Do all things as to the LORD and not as unto men knowing saith he that you shall receive of the LORD the reward of the inheritance for ye serve the LORD CHRIST But he that doth unjustly shall receive what he hath unjustly done and there is no respect of persons First he would have them take for certain that their servitude shall not be in vain nor unfruitful if they acquit themselves in it as he hath prescribed and if their masters according to the flesh have no regard to it their soveraign LORD will not fail to give them their pay and recompence Next he shews them what this recompence is which they are to expect from the LORD It is saith he the reward of the inheritance Thers 's no one in the School of CHRIST but well knows that this inheritance which the Apostle speaks of is that blessed and glorious immortality which JESUS CHRIST hath purchas'd for us by the merit of His death and calls us all to the possession of by His Gospel Now see how prudently the holy Apostle hath ballanced his expressions of it He calleth it a reward or guerdon
either by defect or excess do not render to their servants what is right as for instance those that overbear them with toil or strokes and they that quite contrary let them live idle and in debauches those that diet them ill or too well and lastly they that defraud them of their wages which is one of the most horrid and cruel acts of injustice that can be committed But besides right the Apostle would have Masters render also to their servants equity The word he makes use of in the original properly signifies a certain equality and correspondence that should appear between the offices of the one of them and the deportment of the other so that as the servant obeyeth in singleness of heart and in the fear of GOD the Master likewise do command holily and religiously and that as the one serveth with joy and respect in like manner the other do govern with mildness and affection In a word right comprehends all that refers to justice and equity all that pertains to Christian Charity and gentleness For the reducing of the faithful unto this holy moderation he orders them to remember that they also have a LORD in the Heavens His meaning is that the dominion they have over their servants is not absolute but dependant on GOD and by consequence such as ought to be regulated by His word and will If they have people beneath them they have a Master and a Soveraign above them who is the common LORD of them all and unto whom they are to give account of the treatment which their servants shall receive at their hands He says particularly that this LORD is in the Heavens to hold them the better to their duty by the consideration of so redoutable a Majesty who is not here beneath on earth the place of misery and vanity but on high in Heaven sitting on an eternal throne and from that glorious habitation of light and immortality doth consider and govern all things at His pleasure nothing coming to pass in His whole Empire but He plainly perceives and most justly judgeth of This great LORD is above all and there is neither Master nor Prince of such elevation among men but is under His feet He is superlatively holy just and good He loveth all His creatures and concerns Himself in the wrongs of the meanest and most contemptible ones hating nothing more than injustice and insolence outrage and cruelty possessing withal an infinite wisdome and an almighty power which none is able to resist Sure then consideration of the Empire and soveraign dominion that He hath over us is very proper to keep us within bounds and to restrain us from abusing the power He hath given us over persons subject to us nor could the Apostle put those that have servants in mind of any thing more pertinently that should oblige 'em to render them right and equity Thus we have explained his instructions It 's now for you Beloved Brethren to make your profit of them and to gather the fruits he offers you in them for the amendment of your lives and the consolation of your souls First Ye Christians whom the meanness of your birth or as they call it of your fortune hath reduc'd to the condition of serving rejoyce ye at the the honour done you by this great Minister of CHRIST who disdaineth not to address his holy voice unto you Set the care he hath of you against the contempt that men cast upon you Let his speaking to you comfort you and raise your hopes of the inheritance of GOD. Think well upon the report he makes you that the persons to whom ye are subject are not your Masters but in reference to the flesh Your servitude will not be eternal Nay it will not be very long nor extend further at most then to the end of that carnal life which ye lead upon the earth When this earthly tabernacle is once dissolved you shall enter into the glorious liberty of the children of GOD and then there will no more be any difference between you and your Masters For the present your better part is already in possession of this liberty namely that spirit which GOD hath formed in you after his own image and which maugre all the outrages of men will ever remain master of it self if you give it to JESUS CHRIST the great freer of mankind who doth faithfully and speedily enfranchise every one that receiveth and embraceth His truth Only take heed that ye abuse not His grace as if the spiritual liberty He hath gratify'd you with did discharge you from doing faithful service to your Masters after the flesh The more He hath illuminated you in the knowledge of Himself the more fidelity and love do you owe. For besides other reasons the fear of GOD and the will of JESUS CHRIST doth now oblige you to obey them so that the serving them makes up a part of your piety According to your acquitting your selves therein well or ill GOD will give you or deny you his inheritance But besides your own interest the glory also of the Gospel is concerned in the case For your faults defame our religion and make it believ'd to be a licentious discipline whereas your fidelity will produce us praise Every one will be constrained to acknowledge the sanctity of our doctrine when they shall see it reform the deportment even of man and maid-servants And this the Apostle doth expresly represent unto you elsewere Tit. 2.9 10. Let servants saith he be obedient to their masters pleasing them well in all things not answering again not purloyning but shewing all good fidelity that they may adorn the doctrine of GOD our Saviour in all things Object me not the ill humour and rigour of your Masters Remember the words of St. Peter 1 Pet. 2.18 who obligeth you to serve not only such as are good and equitable but also the froward Take their ill treatment for an occasion by which GOD would exercise and refine your faith Receive those strokes of the rod from His hand and not from theirs making them matter for your patience and a tryal of your faith Let the eye of JESUS CHRIST who looketh on you let His favour and benediction which always accompany conscionable sufferings let the hope of his inheritance for your Salary sweeten all the pains of your servitude How ingrateful soever men be to you your patience shall not be left unrewarded if ye persevere in it constantly for CHRIST'S sake And you Masters who so much desire to have faithful and obedient servants render ye to them that right and equity which the Apostle commands you Though your extraction or estates set you above them in humane society yet your nature is no other then theirs Ye are subject to the like infirmities with them One and the same death will consume you both nor will there be any difference between your dust and theirs You shall appear before the same Judge and the tribunal