the heart to offend still a LORD so charitable so admirable How is it that His so divine beneficence doth not transport our spirits doth not win to His service all the thoughts and affections and motions that we have Christians all the acknowledgement He demands of you for so much good done you is but that you live holy Refuse Him not so just and so reasonable a due He hath made you to partake of the inheritance of Saints Be not ye so ingrateful as to mix with the profane Be ye separate from them and have no communion with the impurity and ordure of their vices Despise not as Esau the title you have to so precious an inheritance Let it be dearer to you than all the perishing provisions and delights of the earth none of which is better than that pittiful pottage of Lentils for which the profane man did truck away His birth-right This inheritance is in light Live then as children of light Let your conversation be all radiant with those divine and heavenly vertues which the Gospel of your Saviour recommendeth unto you The darkness is now passed The Sun of righteousness is at his full height Let that infamous power of darkness under which you sometime groaned have no more authority over you Open all your understanding that you may perceive the glory of the LORD and suffer no more abuse by the illusions of errour Labour to encrease your light being still at the Scriptures of GOD the living spring of all spiritual illumination the inexhaustible treasure of saving knowledge But let this light shine also in your manners For it 's to no purpose to renounce the darkness of superstition if you remain in that of vice 1 Joh. 2.11 He that hateth his Brother saith St. John is in darkness and walketh in darkness and knoweth not whither he goeth for darkness hath blinded his eyes Remember you are no longer in the School of Satan the Prince of darkness You are in the Kingdom of the Son of GOD. Have thoughts and do actions worthy of so glorious a condition Let it purifie your life of all stench and sordidness Let it elevate your hearts above mortal things and set them in Heaven the residence of this Divine royalty But Dear Brethren as this Text doth oblige us to a singular studious pursuit of Sanctification so openeth it to us a living source of consolation and joy For if we knew our blessings and that wonderful grace which the Father hath shewed us what were there more happy than we We have part in the heritage of Saints The kingdom of the beloved Son of GOD hath been given us O great and magnificent portion Let the world boast of and adore its gold its honours and its delights as much as it listeth we have that better part which alone is sufficient to make us eternally happy though we should be deprived of all the rest Christian if the world bereave you of what you have in its fee and jurisdiction consider it cannot take from you the inheritance of Saints If it deny you its Leeks and Onions and Flesh-pots it shall not be able to debarr you from that divine light which shineth on you and which in spight of all its attempts shall conduct you to your bliss-ful Canaan If it take from you its honours if it drive you even out of its earth it shall not be able to wrest the Kingdom of the Son of GOD from you nor sequester that dignity and glory which you possess in it This is not a corruptible Kingdom it 's not like those of the earth that are subject to a thousand and a thousand disgraces miseries and mutations It 's an immortal Kingdom firmer than the Heavens so abundant in glory and in goodness that it changeth all those who have part in it into Kings and Priests Faithful Brethren content we our selves with so advantageous a portion Let us enjoy it for the present by a lively and an establisht hope sweetly bearing the incommodities of this small journey we take to get to it and patiently expect that blessed day on which our Heavenly Father having finished the work of His grace will raise us all up into His glory and put on our heads the crownes of life and immortality which he hath promised us in the eternal Communion of His well-beloved Son To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD blessed for ever be all honour and praise to Ages of Ages Amen THE VI. SERMON COL I. Ver. XIV Vers XIV In whom we have redemption by His blood to wit the remission of sins DEar Brethren As the true and thorough knowledge of that great Redeemer whose remembrance we are at this day to celebrate is the only foundation of the piety and salvation of men in like manner on the contrary ignorance of His person of His offices and of His benefits is the source of those errors and abuses which have corrupted religion and consequently of that unhappiness into which the unbelieving the profane the superstitious and the heretical do fall We may say to all these people Joh. 4.10 as our LORD sometime did to the woman of Samaria If you knew who He is that speaks to you in our Gospel you would ask of Him the refreshment and consolation of your souls and He would give you living water 1 Cor. 2.8 springing up to everlasting life And as St. Paul said of the ancient Jews that if they had known the wisdom of GOD they would never have crucified the LORD of glory So may we say to all the enemies of Godliness in general that if they knew JESUS the Wisdom and Word of the Father they would not wrong either His truth or those that make profession of it JESUS rightly and throughly known believed and apprehended is enough to expell errour doubt superstition vice and death from our hearts and to establish truth peace joy holiness and salvation in them Accordingly you see that Paul the master of the whole world the Minister of truth the teacher of life and happiness for the executing of this high commission and opening the eyes of His gentiles and bringing them from the power of Satan unto GOD protesteth he determined to know nothing among them but JESUS CHRIST Crucified He findeth in this rich and inexhaustible subject all that was necessary for him to convert Infidels to confirm believers to comfort the afflicted to reduce the strayed and recover such as had erred He finds in it wherewith to confute the Philosophy of the Pagans wherewith to abase the presumption of the Jews wherewith to instruct the ignorant and to convince the intelligent It 's with the sole science of this JESUS that He plucketh men off from idolatry and sets them free from the slavery of vice It 's with the same again that he reformeth the abuses and cureth the wounds which errour hath caused in the Church It is his weapon against enemies without
avaricious by name for that among all vices these do particularly provoke the vengeance of GOD by reason of their vileness and enormity and also by reason of the disturbance they occasion in humane society the interest and conservation whereof doth often force the LORD to speed the execution of His judgements upon these kind of sinners and punish them exemplarily in this world that so by this severity of His He may cool the furiousnesse of those who giving up themselves to the passions of these two accursed pests would overthrow all order among mankind if their rage were not repressed by some notable chastisement As for the truth of this sentence that the wrath of GOD cometh for these sins upon the children of rebellion since it is the Apostle that is the mouth of Heaven the oracle of JESUS CHRIST that pronounceth it no Christian may doubt of it First though they should go on altogether unpunished in this world yet sure it is that in the next this burning wrath of the Almighty which shall there manifest its self once for all at the great and terrible day of the LORD shall separate them for ever from the society of the blessed and strike them down to Hell there to suffer eternally with devils the just punishments of their rebellion For besides this Text which is clear 1 Cor. 6.10 Eph. 5.5 Gal. 5.21 Heb. 13.4 1 Cor. 3.17 the Apostle doth in three other passages expresly enroll idolaters fornicators and adulterers among those that shall have no part in the Kingdom of Heaven And else-where he saith particularly of whoremongers and adulterers that GOD will judge them and else-where again that GOD will destroy those who shall have by such pollutions destroyed or violated His Temple that is their bodies In like manner St. John assigneth them their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone Rev. 21.8 1 Cor. 6.9 1 Tim. 6.9 which is the second death And as for the covetous it 's of them in particular St. Paul saies that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of GOD and elsewhere that covetous desires do drown men in perdition But besides this great and dreadful punishment which these vices will infallibly draw down at the last day upon the children of rebellion they involve them for the present in so many divers evils that if the worlds stupidity and passion did not blind it it might easily perceive the truth of what the Apostle doth affirm For first is not that bruitishnesse and that horrible eclipsing of good sense and right reason and that bestial abandonednesse to the vilest passions and actions into which almost all the slaves of these vices are seen to fall is not this I say an eminent and plain mark of the wrath of GOD upon them The debauched for their part the life they lead is nought else but a continual wandring out of the way Consider me Soloniâ—â—â— the sagest Prince that ever was in whom shone so glorious and so splendid a light of knowledge and of wisdom that he ravished his whole age and attracted a great Queen from the ends of the earth to come behold his glory After he yielded up himself to this infamous passion he so lost all that force of spirit and judgement that he became extravagant to such a degree as to give up himself to idolatry the utmost of all bruitalities in complacency to his Mistresses And the Heathen Poets themselves to represent what the ordinary sequel of this vice is do make one of their Heroes assume in their fables the habit and equipage of a woman after he had once fallen into the snares of this wretched passion It 's an image of what doth still betide those that let themselves be taken in the same putting off by little and little all vertue and shame they become effeminate and so utterly lose their senses that at length there is nothing so disgraceful nothing so contrary to order honour and decency but they readily do and suffer The same is signified again by another fable of the same Author's concerning some whom the potion of a sorceresse transformed into swine and other beasts The fable is pregnant of truth and under feigned names and persons containeth the history of the most part of those miserable men whom fornication and adultery hath bewitched They lose heart and judgement and humane sense and commit so many follies and extravagancies as it is very easie to perceive that it 's no longer the foul of a man but of a meer animal that guides them Whence then comes so strange a Metamorphosis even in a Solomon and in persons that otherwise seemed so advis'd and prudent Dear Brethren doubt not but that it comes from a secret judgement of GOD who deprives them of that spirit and judgement which they made such ill use of and who so to say degrading them of the quality of men whereof this vice hath rendred them unworthy Rom. 1.20 drives them out among animals delivering them up unto a mind disfurnished of judgement as the Apostle doth else-where describe this dreadful vengeance of GOD. But besides mind and reason who sees not that it also usually takes away their strength their beauty their vigour and health of body bringing on them diseases which gnaw their very bones diseases which rot them and incurvate them before the time and which creating sharpest pains in all the parts of their miserable flesh do make it pay dear for the dishonest pleasures they have given it Loss of goods is also one of the punishments which GOD commonly inflicteth for this sin permitting its very self to consume by the irregularity of its foolish expences the means that are necessary for the support of the life of man and reduce those that serve it to an incommodious and shameful poverty Whereto may be yet added infinite examples which the lives of men are full of of tragical miseries wherewith GOD doth visibly strike sins of this sort It was for them that He sent the first deluge of water on the earth and afterwards again a second of fire and brimstone upon the coasts of Sodom and Gomorrah The debauches of Israel with Moah were the cause of the death of four and twenty thousand men whom GOD consumed in His fury And the tribe of Benjamin so great and flourishing as it had been was reduced to six hundred men for the uncleanness of one of their Cities Who knows not that sometimes one man's adultery hath caused long wars and ruined great Estates And among the instances of it particularly lamentable is that of the Gothes Empire which having flourished in Spain a long time was destroyed and utterly overthrown for a fault of this kind committed by one of their Kings This occasion brought in the Saracens upon their hands who besides liberty and goods took Christian religion away too from the most part of those people introducing and maintaining Mahometism in those Countreys during many ages It is
case as none of Creatures do more need the offices of our Charity neither is there any object worthier of the affection and succour of a good and generous soul than innocence hated and oppressed unjustly therefore it is that the Apostle noteth here by name the Charity of the Colossians towards all the Saints He joyneth these two Vertues together Faith and Charity because in effect they are inseparable it being neither possible nor imaginable whatsoever error list to say of it that man should believe and truly embrace GOD as his Saviour in JESUS CHRIST without loving Him and His neighbours for His sake or that he should love Him sincerely without believing in Him He puts Faith before Charity not for that it is more excellent on the contrary he elsewhere openly giveth the advantage unto Charity but because it goes first in the order of things requisite to salvation It is the blessed root whence Charity springs forth 1 Cor. 13. and all other Christian Vertues It is the foundation of the spiritual building the Gate of the Kingdom of Heaven the first fruits of the workmanship of GOD and the beginning of the second Creation As in the old Creation Light was the first thing He created so in the new one Faith is the first thing He produceth which the Apostle divinely expresseth to us elsewhere 2 Cor. 4.6 GOD saith he who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of GOD in the face of JESVS CHRIST After the Faith and Charity of the Colossians the Apostle adds in the third place the Happiness that was kept for them in the Heavens For the hope saith He which is reserved in Heaven for you Some knit these words with what he had now said of the Faith and Charity of the Colossians and understand that these faithful people laboured with alacrity in the exercise of these Vertues for the hope they had of the celestial Crown and reward according to what the Apostle saith elsewhere of Moses that He chose rather to be afflicted with the People of GOD Hebr. than to enjoy for a little time the delights of sin and esteemed the reproach of CHRIST greater riches than the treasures of Aegypt because saith he he had respect to the recompence And he teacheth us in general of all those that come to GOD that they must believe that GOD is and that He is a rewarder of them that seek him Ibid. v. 6. And from hence it followeth not at all either that our works do merit the glory of Heaven or that our affection is mercenary If we should not hope but for what we merit our hopes would be very miserable But knowing that GOD is faithful and constant we hope with assurance for the bliss which He of His meer grace promiseth us and the less we merit it the more love we conceive towards GOD who giveth it to us and the more acknowledgement and service ought we to render Him for the same And for this gratuitous salary which He promiseth us we look not on it as a prey after which we hunt and without which we would have no love for the LORD but as an excellent evidence of His infinite goodness as a testimony of His admirable liberality that love of GOD which shines forth in it is the thing pleaseth and ravisheth us most of all and which enflameth our faith our zeal and our affection to the service of so good and amiable a LORD though then we should bind what the Apostle saith of the Charity of the Colossians with the hope they had of the heavenly glory there would be nothing in this but what were conform to Evangelical Truth Yet it seems to me more simple and fluent to refer it to the third Verse where he saith that He giveth thanks to GOD for the Colossians having understood their faith and charity for the hope He addeth now which is reserved in Heaven for you For to consider the condition of these believers on the earth it seems there was no great cause to congratulate them for their faith and charity the afflictions which they drew on them rendring them in appearance the most miserable of men But though the flesh make this judgement of it the Spirit that seeth above visible things the Crown of glory prepared for the faith and charity of the faithful holdeth them for the happiest of all Creatures congratulates them and rendreth thanks to GOD for the inestimable treasure he hath communicated to them I know saith the Apostle that your piety hath it's tryals and exercises in this world But I forbear not to bless the LORD affectionately for that He hath given it to you I know the bliss that is prepared for you on high in the Sanctuary of GOD. He takes the word Hope here as often elsewhere for the thing we hope for to wit the blessed immortality and glory of the world to come I confess we possess it not yet for hope is the expectation of a good to come Rom. 8.23 That we are saved saith the Apostle is in hope but hope that a man seeth is not hope for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for But this good though absent and to come is as assured to us as if we had it already in our hands The Apostle shews it when he addeth that this Hope is reserved in Heaven for you It is a treasure which GOD hath set apart having fully prepared it already keeping it faithfully for us in His own bosome Whence it is that we make an assured account thereof for He hath deposited it in the hands of JESUS CHRIST in whom is hid our life and immortality so as if we make an assured account of things which a man of probity and honour keepeth in trust for us how much more certain should we be of the life and glory to come seeing GOD hath put it for us in the keeping of so faithful and powerful a depositary The place where this rich treasure is kept deposited for us confirms yet more the hope and excellency of it to us for saith the Apostle it is reserved for us in the heavens Fear not ye Faithful Your bliss is not on earth where the Thief steals or infidelity and violence make spoil where time it self ruineth all things where Crowns the best establisht are subject to a thousand and a thousand accidents Yours is on high in the Heavens in the Sanctuary of eternity lifted up above all the odd variations and inconstancies of humane things where neither our changes nor the causes that produce them have any access But this same place sheweth you besides the excellency and perfection of the bliss you hope for inasmuch as all celestial things are great and magnificent Weakness poverty and imperfection lodge here below Heaven is the habitation of glory and felicity In fine the Apostle toucheth briefly in the
naturally Let us learn then in the second place to give the LORD alone the whole glory of all that we are in His Son as in reality it belongs to none but Him He hath not only given us this rich inheritance the purchase of the blood of His Son CHRIST He hath even given us the capacity to enter into it and possess our part of it Besides His making us the present He hath also given us the strength to receive it For it is not with the inheritance of GOD as with the honours of earthly Princes these fall often into the hands of persons most uncapable to possess them That Divine honour of the Heavenly inheritance is given to none but those that are capable of it that is who have the conditions requisite for having part in it to wit faith and repentance But the same GOD who hath prepared the heritage for us gives us also the preparation which is necessary for entring into it according to what the Apostle saith elsewhere 2 Cor. 3 5. Joh. 6 44. It is GOD who is our capacity or sufficiency and what our LORD Himself averreth in St. John No man can come unto me except the Father who hath sent me draw him This again is that which the Apostle intendeth Phil. 2.13 in the Epistle to the Philippians That it is GOD who produceth in us with efficacy the will and the deed according to His good pleasure 2 Cor. 5.5 Eph. 2.10 1 Cor. 3.9 And elsewhere he compriseth this whole work of the grace of GOD in one only word saying It is He that formeth us for the self same thing Therefore he calleth us in one place the workmanship of GOD and His Creation in JESVS CHRIST and in another His husbandry and His building Whence it doth appear that the offer of grace which is made to all by the Gospel if there be nothing else doth not give us part in the heavenly inheritance I grant it is sufficient in its self and would produce its effect in man if the badness of his heart had not blinded him But this deplorable blindness he hath obstructeth the effect which these offers of the divine Grace should produce Wherefore GOD himself maketh us capable of them by that inward operation of His Spirit wherewith He accompanieth the preaching of the Gospel in the hearts of His elect by reason whereof they are called the taught of GOD. Joh. 6.45 It 's this teaching which renders them capable of entring into the communion of His Son according to what He saith in St. John Whoever hath heard and learned of the Father Ibid. cometh unto me Thus He made Lydia capable of having part in his inheritance opening her heart to understand the things Paul spake as the sacred History doth report It 's without doubt in the same manner He also made both St. Paul and these Colessians and all the rest of the faithful capable of the same effect enlightning them within and leading captive their hearts into the yoke of the Gospel In fine we may again observe how contrary to Apostolick doctrine the presumption of those is who vaunt them of meriting salvation If there be any thing in us to which merit is attributed without doubt it is our capacity and sufficiency that we are meet to partake of the Kingdom of GOD. But this very thing is a present from GOD for which we owe Him most humble thanks How then and by what right can we in justice demand pay and wages for it Would it not be altogether as if a patient should enter action against his Physitian and compel him to recompence the being cured by his art Or a poor man demand wages of us for receiving our almes or a prisoner for having been redeemed with our money Let a man turn and transform things as much as he will it is clear that gratification and merit are incompatible and that He who is of right obliged to render thanks cannot without folly pretend to have merited by that very thing for which he renders thanks Our sufficiency and capacity is a gift of GOD or it is not If it be a gift of His why pretend you that it is meritorious If it be not why doth the Apostle thank our LORD for having made us capable to have part in His inheritance The word Inheritance which the Apostle employeth here evidently confirms the same truth as an ancient Doctor of the Church hath well observed Chrysostom it loc Why is it saith he that the Apostle useth the word Inheritance To shew us that no man obtaineth the Kingdom of Heaven by his own works or performances But as an Inheritance depends upon happiness and not upon merit so is it in this matter None can exhibit a form of life and conversation exquisite enough to be worthy of the Kingdom The whole proceedeth from the gift of GOD. To proceed I doubt not but St. Paul took this term from the Old Testament wherein the Land of Canaan destined and given to the Children of Israel for an inheritance according to the promises made to their Fathers was the figure of this blessed spiritual and divine life in possession whereof GOD putteth us by the Gospel of His Son beginning it here below by the consolation and sanctification of His Spirit and reserving to complete it on high one day in the Heavens by the communication of His immortal glory For as each Israelite had his portion in the Land of Canaan the same in substance with the rest but diversly qualified so each believer hath his share in celestial life yet after such a manner as though for the main they all possess the same life nevertheless it is diversly proportioned and relished to each of them Again as none but the Children of Abraham had right and title to that ancient inheritance So there are none but the Children of the promise which are born of the word of GOD and not of flesh or of blood that have part in the new For this cause the Apostle entitles it The inheritance of Saints Away ye unbelieving and profane It is not for you that GOD hath prepared this glorious inheritance Deceive not your selves 1 Cor. 6.10 Neither Fornicators nor Idolaters nor Adulterers nor the Effeminate nor Thieves nor Covetous persons nor Drunkards nor Revilers nor Extertioners shall have part in the Kingdom of GOD. It is designed for Saints alone The portion of the profane and ungodly is elsewhere during this generation in the world and in its wretched delights and when it shall pass away in the lake of fire and brimstone But the Apostle having stiled that salvation which GOD communicateth to us in His Son the Inheritance of Saints addeth further in light As light is in Scripture the symbole of two things knowledge and glory so it may be taken here two wayes either for the knowledge of those divine things which GOD revealeth in His Gospel or for that soveraign joy
last words of this Text whence it is that the Colossians had conceived so high an hope Of which saith he you have heard heretofore by the word of truth to wit the Gospel This Soveraign bliss which is reserved for us in the Heavens is so highly raised above nature that neither subtility of sense nor vivacity of reason nor even the light of the Law could discover it to us much less give us the hope thereof 2 Tim. 1.10 That same JESVS CHRIST who hath destroyed death hath brought to light life and immortality by the Gospel Before this they were either entirely unperceived or imperfectly known and hoped for It 's therefore precisely from the Gospel that we draw both the faith and the hope of them He calleth the Gospel the word of truth not as some will have it because it is the Word of JESUS CHRIST who is the Truth and the life for this exposition is more subtil than solid but because it is the most excellent of all Verities those that are learned in the School of Nature and of the Law being mean and unprofitable in comparison of those which the Gospel doth discover to us It may well be that the Apostle would also secretly oppose the doctrine of the Gospel to those of the seducers which still recommended shadows and figures as we shall hear in the following Chapter whereas the Gospel presenteth us the substance and the truth of things And it seems to be in this sense that St. John after he had said The Law was given by Moses addeth in form of opposition John 1.17 But grace and truth came by JESVS CHRIST because the Law had only dark lineaments and shadows whereas the LORD JESUS brought us the lively image the body and the truth of celestial things The Apostle remindeth the Colossians that they had already heretofore heard this Word of truth as it were to protest unto them that he would promote no novelty among them having no other design but to confirm them more and more in the holy doctrine they had already received with faith from Epaphras and other Ministers of the LORD See well beloved Brethren that we had to say to you for the exposition of this Text. It remaineth that we briefly touch at for you the principal points we should gather of it as well for the instruction of our Faith as the edification of our Charity and the consolation of our souls As for Faith 't is for it's security that St. Paul telleth us at the entrance He is an Apostle of JESVS CHRIST by the will of GOD advertising us by this quality He assumeth to receive no doctrine into our belief which hath not been annunciated by these great and highest Ministers of the LORD Let us examine the Spirits and admit only the word of the Apostles If any one Evangelize beyond what they have preached let us hold him for an Anathema We have their Scriptures Let us assuredly believe all that we read in them Let the doctrine which appears not there be suspected to us and praised be GOD that according to this rule we have banished from our Religion that which error and superstition had thrust into Christianity You know that the GOD the CHRIST the Heaven the Worship and Sacraments we preach have been given us by the Apostles of the LORD established by the Will of GOD and do appear throughout in their Gospels and in their Epistles Whereas the Mediators whom our Adversaries invocate the High Priest they acknowledge the Traditions they maintain the Purgatory they fear the greatest part of the Sacraments they celebrate the adoration of the Host the veneration of Images and the voluntary Worships which they practise are not found at all either in the Old or the New Testament Let us therefore firmly retain our Religion as instituted by the Will of GOD and constantly reject what is beyond it as come of man and not of the LORD from the Earth and not from Heaven But it is not enough to make profession of it we must plant this doctrine in our hearts by a lively belief in such sort as we may be able to say with truth That we have faith in JESUS CHRIST and charity towards all the Saints We render thanks to GOD with the Apostle for that of His great mercies He hath vouchsafed to communicate this treasure of His Gospel to us and not in vain since there are among us that have truly made their profit of these spiritual riches But the life of the greater part renders them unworthy of the praise which St. Paul here giveth the Colossians For is this to have Faith in JESUS CHRIST to serve Him so loosely as we do and testifie so little zeal for His glory so little respect to His Commandments so little belief of his documents and so little affection for the interests of His Kingdom As for Charity I am ashamed to speak of it so cooled is ours For if we loved all the faithful should we leave the life of some of them and the reputation of others without succour Should we injure them instead of defending them Should we take away their substance instead of communicating to them our own Should we black their honour instead of preserving it Would their prosperity offend us Would their miseries content us Faithful Sirs remember they are the Saints of GOD His Children and the Brethren of His CHRIST Respect those so sacred names and spare persons that have the honour to belong so nearly to your LORD He will judge you by the treatment you shall give them and write on his account the good and the evil which they shall receive from your hands recompensing it or punishing in the very same manner as if you had honoured or violated Him in His own person He will cut you off from His communion if you do not carefully regard and practise theirs and will never avouch you for His Children if you acknowledge them not for your Brethren And here alledge not to me I beseech you that you have faith I know well that this divine light cannot be in souls which are cold and destitute of Charity But suppose that this were possible I tell you and declare that all your pretended faith should you have the highest degree thereof that may be in the world without charity would be but a shadow an Idol and an illusion and as St. James saith a stinking carkass James 2.26 Do all you will Have as much faith and knowledge as you please if you have not charity you are not a Christian you are but a false and deceitful image of one Charity is absolutely necessary to the perfection of a Christian It is the badge of this holy Discipline it is the honour and the glory of it and the Apostle as you see sets it down here among it's essential parts Faith shall cease in Heaven when we shall see instead of believing But charity shall remain for ever Have then a
will in wisdom and understanding but in ALL wisdom and understanding that is to say very abundantly and in so great and 〈◊〉 a measure as none of the parts none of the operations of this divine ability be wanting to them after the same manner as when He saith elsewhere have all faith to signifie so high and raised a measure of it as no kind and no degree of faith is wanting Such is well-beloved Brethren the ardent and affectionate Prayer which the Apostle made continually for these Colossians That they might be filled with the knowledge of the will of GOD in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that is in such sort as this knowledge might form in them an exquisite sageness and spiritual prudence It Remaineth that to end we briefly touch at the principal lessons we are to take out of it for the instruction of our faith and the amendment of our manners First you see how far the judgement of the Apostle is from the doctrine and practice of Rome The Apostle willeth that the faithful do know the will of GOD that they be filled with this knowledge Rome teacheth that their faith is better defined by ignorance than by knowledge and that it is sufficient for them to have and I know not what implicite faith as they call it which without knowing ought its self referrs its self to the faith of another The Apostle willeth that the faithful be endowed with all wisdom and spiritual understanding Rome seareth nothing so much as this and desireth that without knowing or understanding ought themselves they leave this whole study to their Curates contenting themselves with saying they believe what the Church believes not knowing mean time what it believeth indeed Darkness is not more contrary to Light than this pretended faith to wisdom and understanding Their practice is conform to their doctrine For they hide the Scripture from their people the sacred and authentick evidence of the Will of GOD the living and teeming source of all wisdom and heavenly understanding and if in their service they repeat any passages of it they repeat them in a strange language that their people may hear it and not understand it Faithful sirs thank GOD for that He hath withdrawn you from this Kingdom of darkness Enjoy with gratitude the light He hath set up in the midst of you Learn in the brightness thereof what is the will of the LORD the head and the foundation of true wisdom Make account that this knowledge is the gate of Heaven the entrance of eternity the seed of the divine nature and the principle of Celestial life Without it how will you love GOD since none loves what he knows not Without it how will you obey GOD since to obey Him is no other thing but to do His will Without it how will you resist the enemy how will you free your selves from his wiles how will you discern his impostures from divine truth Judge what account the Apostle maketh of it since it 's the first thing he asks of GOD for these Colossians whom he so ardently affected If you will attain the salvation to which he directeth them have that which he with so much passion desireth in them Remember you are the people of the Sun of righteousness of the eternal wisdom and word the workmanship of His Comforter who is a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding Deut. 33. Isai 1. and that one of the greatest reproaches GOD ever made to His Israel is the calling them a foolish people and unwise that hath neither knowledge nor understanding And since you see that the Apostle demands of GOD this divine wisdom for the Colossians address your selves also to that Father of lights from whom cometh down hither every good gift Press Him importune Him quit Him not till He have revealed His mysteries to you till He have lightned your eyes and your hearts to make you see the wonders of His wisdom But unto prayer add also study Read and hear His word carefully meditate it both here and at home render it familiar to you commune of it with your neighbours and instruct your Children in it As I grant this labour is unprofitable without the grace of the LORD so I maintain that with it it is most efficacious Paul would Preach to Lydia in vain if GOD did not open her heart But if GOD set to His hand it is not in vain that Paul labours for it And to attract this saving hand of the LORD joyn unto prayer the Offerings of your alms the perfume of a good and holy life Make use of what you know Mannage these first fruits of light which you have received already Employ the Talent that hath been given you and the Master will give you on it others greater How would you He should communicate new graces to people that so vilely abuse the first You know His will and do that of the Devil and the Flesh He â—â—th made you a present of the Gospel and you drag it in the dirt He hath marked you with His seals and you foul them in the ordures of vice You impudently bear His Liveries into the debauches of the world and the Disciples of Heaven are as ardent as the Children of this Generation after the dissoluteness of the time GOD forbid that wisdom and spiritual understanding should lodge in hearts so profane It 's a jewell too precious to shine otherwhere than in Heaven that is in pure and holy souls So far will you be from encreasing your light if you change not manners that GOD will take away this little which remaineth and let you return into Aegypt to live once more in its miserable darkness But GOD keep us from so great an unhappiness my Brethren well-beloved and to prevent it let us in good earnest convert us unto Him renouncing the lusts of the world and the filth of the flesh living in an exemplary purity and honesty that the LORD may take pleasure in the midst of us that He may make the knowledge of His will abound in us in all wisdom and spiritual understanding and after the faith and hopes of this life receive us in the eternity of the other unto the Vision and fruition of His glory So be it and unto Him Father Son and Spirit the true GOD blessed for ever be all honour and praise Amen THE IV. SERMON COL I. Ver. X XI Vers X. That ye may walk worthily as is beseeming the LORD unto the pleasing of Him in all things fructifying in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of GOD. XI Being strengthned with all might according to the power of His glory unto all sufferance and patience of mind with joy PHilosophers both Pagan and Christian do commonly divide the Sciences into two sorts The Speculative which seek only the knowledge of their subject resting in it when they have once acquired it without pretending any further and the Practical which aim at action and consider things
and felicity whereof we shall be seized on high in the Heavens It is best in my opinion to joyn these two expositions together that we may so comprehend the entire state of the whole inheritance of Saints who after they are once united to JESUS CHRIST do alwayes live in light first in that of grace during their pilgrimage on earth afterwards in that of glory Rev. 21.23 when they shall be raised up to that blessed City which hath no need of the Sun nor of the Moon because the brightness of GOD hath illuminated it and the Lamb is the light thereof 1 Thes 5.5 Phil. 2.15 Mat. 5.14 For this cause all the divine denizons of this heavenly State are called Children of light and of the day which should shine as lights in the midst of a perverse generation and be the light of the world as persons born of the light of the Spirit and of the word of God who being led by the rayes of their Sun of Righteousness walk on straight towards the supream source of lights where arrived they shall eternally dwell in that shine which will transform them into the image of their LORD from glory to glory by the power of His Omnipotent Spirit But it is time to come to the other verse in which the Apostle addeth what the Father hath done to make us thus capable of partaking in the inheritance of Saints in light He hath delivered us saith he from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of His well-beloved Son By darkness the Scripture ordinarily understands ignorance and misery the two contraries of knowledge and joy which it signifies by light as we said even now For ignorance and error do hide the true and natural form of things from our understandings just as darkness doth wrap up visible objects from our bodily eyes And forasmuch as there is nothing more unpleasant to men nor more affrighting than the obscurity of darkness thence it comes that the term is also made use of to represent horrour trouble and misery So the power of darkness is nothing else but that tyranny which the Devil and sin do exercise over their slaves filling their spirits with deadly errours and brutish ignorances and their consciences either with affrightment or insensibility and training them on by little and little under this dismal yoke into the horrours of eternal death which our LORD often calleth outer-darkness where is weeping and gnashing of teeth For as knowledge and truth is a light necessary for the attainment of salvation so errour and ignorance infallibly lead to death Therefore the Devil the sworn enemy of our good blindeth men the most he possibly can spreading before them gross and thick mists which hide Heaven and its blessed brightness from them This is the summ of his craft and subtil operation The deep of his abyss doth ever vomit forth into our aire a black vapour for the rendring of our senses useless By this means he turned heretofore the Nations of the Earth from the service of their Creator obscuring and smothering by his illusions those sparkles of the knowledge of Him which they had and plunging them and holding them down in so deep ignorance that these miserable men were not ashamed Rom. 1.23 to adore the work of their own hands and change the glory of the incorruptible GOD into the resemblance and image of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed beasts and creeping things As for justice and honesty of life this impostor had so extinguished the lights which Providence had kindled for them in their hearts and so disordered all their knowledge by his seductions that the vilest abominations passed among them for indifferent things Walking on in so thick darkness it is no wonder if they were in continual fear they knew not where they went nor whither they should come and fell at last after having pittifully stumbled and staggered into the precipice of eternal perdition And would to GOD the Prince of errour did not yet still abuse the world in the same manner Certainly the darkness of the old Paganism was not more gross nor shameful than that which covers the greater part of the earth at this very day But whereas that errour wherein the Devil keepeth men is called by the Apostle the power of darkness and not simply darkness this teacheth us that that accursed one worketh effectually in them doing with their hearts what seemeth Him good and planting all deceit and ignorance in them at his will so as these wretches cannot defend themselves therefrom This is one thing the Apostle teacheth us elsewhere as when he saith that this evil Spirit now worketh with efficacy Eph. 2.3 in the children of rebellion Not that he hath naturally any just Dominion over the souls of men but their sin brings them under His Sceptre and their hearts being of themselves full of unclean and unjust affections it comes to pass through the excess of their corruption that he never tempteth them in vain And all this imperial force he hath upon them is founded meerly on imposture on errour and ignorance so as it is with a deal of truth and elegancy that St. Paul calleth it here the power of darkness This is Faithful Brethren the sad and pittiful estate in which naturally men lye Let not the paint and lustre of their pretended wisdom and justice dazle your eyes In the sight of GOD it is but darkness whence it comes Eph. 5.8 that the Scripture calleth them darkness it self Ye were sometime darkness saith the Apostle to the Ephesians Judge hereby how horrible the errour of those is who dogmatize that liberty is so very natural to man as they cannot conceive that they can be men without it Let them Philosophise upon this subject as they please They shall never be able to shew that a man can be all at once both at liberty and under the power of darkness He that is under the power of another is not free It 's GOD alone that can enfranchise men and take them from this miserable servitude and bind that strong Tyrant who did hold them Captive It is to this Soveraign LORD that the Apostle here giveth the glory both of his own liberty and of the Colossians theirs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He saith he hath delivered us from the power of darkness Yet the Greek word which he useth in the Original hath more Emphasis signifying that He delivered us by an exerting of power drawing us and if I may so speak plucking us out of the irons we were in whereby he representeth to us on the one hand how strong and strait the bonds of our slavery were and on the other hand how excellent and admirable the power is which GOD hath displayed to bring us out of this spiritual Egypt For we experiment it daily that though nothing be more sordid and shameful than the tyranny of error Yet we all naturally love it so
Creature DEar Brethren As the salvation of mankind the true end of the coming of our LORD JESUS CHRIST into the world did oblige Him to expiate sin and destroy the Dominion of Satan so the performing of these great works did require an infinite dignity and power in His person For as it was not possible He should give us eternal life without voiding our guilt and satisfying the justice of the Father and delivering us from the hold of Devils so it was alike impossible that He should perfect these effects without an infinite merit and a divine strength that is to say without being GOD none but a true GOD being capable of having an infinite either dignity or power As then the streams conduct us to their spring branches to their stock and root the house to the foundation that sustaineth it So the salvation which is of the LORD JESUS leadeth us to the acts by which He obtained it for us and from thence to the quality that was necessary in His person for the executing of those acts Salvation is the fruit of this tree of life The infinite merit of His cross is as the branch that bore this noble fruit and His almighty most holy and most divine person is the stock or root that did shoot forth this beautiful and blessed branch This order the Apostle observes here in the consideration of our LORD JESUS CHRIST He sets forth to us first His fruit that is our salvation or redemption the last end of His whole mediation Next He represents the means by which He acquired this salvation for us to wit the effusion of His blood for the remission of our sins from thence He now ascendeth to the Quality of His person which he magnificently describeth in the Text that you have heard saying that He is the image of the invisible GOD the first born of every creature forasmuch as by Him all things were created Wonder not Faithful Brethren that JESUS should give us life and eternity Us I say poor sinners that had deserved death and the curse of GOD. For He purchased remission of our sins by His blood and did by the sweet savour of His sacrifice perfectly appease the wrath of GOD which alone withstood our entring into His heavenly Kingdom Neither account it any more strange that this JESUS so infirm cloathed with frail flesh subject to all our sufferings should be able to offer so great and so precious a sacrifice to GOD. For how weak and despicable soever that form was under which He appeared here below He is nevertheless in reality the true Son of GOD His wisdom His word and His power the perfect pourtrait of His person His living and essential image the soveraign Lord and Creator of the Universe In this description of the dignity and excellency of the LORD JESUS the Apostle compares Him first with GOD the Father saying that He is the image of the invisible GOD. In the second place with the Creatures saying that He is the first-born of them and adds the reason of it in the two following Verses which is taken from His having made and established them all as their Creatour their preserver their last and highest end Afterwards He finally proposeth the relation He hath to the Church saying in the eighteenth verse that He is the Head thereof the beginning and the first-born from the dead having the first place in all things In these three points the soveraign dignity and excellency of the Saviour of the world is as you see comprised But because it would be difficult to explain them all three in one only action the richness and profoundness of the matter constraineth us to fix for this time on the two first and remit the remainder to another season We shall then have to handle in this exercise the two heads that are contained in the verse which we have read One that JESUS CHRIST is the image of the invisible GOD the other that He is the first-born of every creature The same LORD who shall be by His grace the subject of our discourse please to be the direction and light thereof too inspiring us with conceptions and expressions worthy of Him illuminating our understandings with the knowledge of His high and supereminent Majesty and enflâ—ming our hearts with a fervent love to Himself for the glory of His own great Name and our salvation As for the first Head the Apostle telleth us two things in it the one that JESVS CHRIST is the image of GOD the other that the GOD whose image JESVS CHRIST is is invisible For understanding aright how the LORD JESUS is the image of GOD we must observe at the entrance that the word image is of great extent signifying generally every thing that represents another so as things being very variously represented it comes to pass that there is great variety and difference of images Some are perfect which have in them an entire an exact and adequate resemblance of the subjects which they represent others are imperfect and express but some particular nay that too with some defect having not properly in them the same features and same essence which is in their original I place in this second rank all artificial images whether drawn by Painters or engraven or cut by Carvers or fashioned by Founders or woven by Embroiderers and workers of Tapistry which represent nothing but the colour the figure and the lineaments of men and animals and plants and such like subjects and to say true have nothing in them of their life and nature To this same order must be reduced that which Moses writeth that Adam was made after the image of GOD. It 's not to be thought he had such an essence as that of GOD is but this is said because the conditions of His nature had some resemblance of the properties of GOD namely in that He was endowed with intellect and will and had the dominion over animals and earthly creatures In the same manner must we take what St. Paul saith when comparing the two sexes of our nature 1 Cor. 11.7 he termeth the man the image and the glory of GOD whereas the woman is the glory of the man He calleth the man the image of God because of the advantage and superiority he hath over the woman having nothing above himself but GOD who is His head whereas man is the head of the woman because she was created of him and for him as the Apostle teacheth But beside these kind of images which represent their originals but imperfectly there are others that have a perfect resemblance of them Thus we call a Child the image of His Father a Prince the image of His Predecessour For a Son hath not meerly the shadow or the colour or the figure of his father he hath his nature his qualities and properties and if we may so say the whole fulness of his being a soul a body a life the same with those his Father hath A Prince
in like manner hath not only the shadow or the appearance of the authority and power of his Predecessor He hath the whole substance and reality of it Gen. 5.3 Thus it is that Moses saith Adam begat Seth his son in his own likeness and after his image He signifies thereby that Seth had a nature the same in all things with Adam's own Now the question is in which of these two senses must we take the word Image when the Apostle saith here and also elsewhere that JESVS CHRIST is the image of GOD. 2 Cor. 4.4 The very quality of the subject in question sheweth us so clearly that we must apprehend it after the second way and not the former as even those that quarrel it dare not say that JESUS CHRIST is an imperfect image of His Father For where is the Christian ear that could suffer a blasphemy so horrible and so contrary to all the Scripture Sure when the Apostle saith of our LORD that He is the image of GOD he thereby meaneth quite another thing then what he signifies elsewhere when he saith that man is the image of GOD. For intending here to exalt the LORD JESUS and to demonstrate that His dignity is so high as capacitateth Him to save us He would ill suite this design if he attributed nothing to Him but what agreeth to any man whoever he be And yet if you do not understand it that JESUS CHRIST is a perfect image of GOD the Apostle will affirm no other thing of Him here then he asserts elsewhere of man when he saith he is the image of GOD. Beside the Apostle's end the thing it self he speaks of doth evidently shew it us also For our LORD informeth us that He who hath seen Him hath seen the Father and that Joh. 14.9 12.45 who beholdeth Him beholdeth Him that sent him Where is the pourtrait of which it may be said that he who hath seen it hath seen the subject which it representeth It 's clear this is not found but in such an image as is most perfect and containeth fully in it all the being of its original Whence it appears that it is in this sense that JESVS CHRIST is the image of GOD. And to make us conceive it the better the Apostle hath a passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews the scope the terms and sense whereof have very much resemblance with this here there he saith Heb. 1.3 that JESVS CHRIST is the resplendency of the glory of His Father and the Character or engraven Stamp of His person Terms exceeding elegant and expressive and such as clearly decide this case that the LORD is the image of GOD in another manner than man and that the same glory which shineth in the Father is respendent also in the Son and that the same nature which is in the person of the one is likewise in the person of the other Say we therefore according to the Analogie of this Doctrine and the reason of the thing it self That JESUS CHRIST is the image of GOD His Father but a perfect one yea the most perfect that an image may be An image which exhibiteth unto us and representeth not the colour or the shadow but the truth and substance of the Deity The Scripture our only guide in these high mysteries teacheth it clearly And to aid you in the comprehending of it though the GOD-head be most simple in it self exempt from all mixture and composition yet speaking of it according to the weakness of our understanding to which GOD hath not disdained to accommodate Himself in His word we will consider three things of Him the nature the properties or qualities which Divines commonly call His Attributes and His works As for His Nature it is most perfectly represented in JESUS CHRIST forasmuch as He hath really and veritably the same being and same substance with GOD the Father As a child whom we call the image of His Father hath the same nature with Him being truly of mankind as He. The Scripture teacheth us this truth in very many places where it saith Joh. 1.5 Tit. 2.13 Rom. 9.5 1 Cor. 10.9 Joh. 12.41 that JESUS CHRIST is GOD that He is the true GOD. Our great GOD and Saviour GOD blessed above all Jehovah yerst tempted by the Israelites in the desart He whose glory Isaiah saw in the vision described at the sixth Chapter of His Prophecy It layeth down the same thing also as often as it represents Him to us a due object of our adoration saying that all ought to honour Him as they honour the Father Joh. 5.23 Heb. 1.6 and that the very Angels worship Him it being evident that according to Scripture there is nothing but a nature truly divine to whom adoration may be lawfully given But the LORD JESUS no less perfectly represents the Father in His Properties then in His Nature The Father is eternal so is the Son and Isaiah calleth Him upon this account The Father of eternity Before Abraham was He is Joh. 8.58 He was from the beginning with GOD and before the world was created even then He was in the bosome of the Father His love and His delight The Heavens shall perish but He is permanent The Heavens shall wax old as a garment and be folded up as a Vesture and be changed But JESUS is the same Heb 1.11 12. and His years shall not fail The Father is immutable without ever receiving any alteration or change Heb. 13.8 either in His being or in His will The Son is the same both yesterday and to day and for ever The Father is infinite filling Heaven and earth neither is there any thing within or without the world that boundeth the presence of His being Joh. 3.13 The Son is in like manner infinite He is in Heaven whiles He speaketh to Nicodemus on earth He is here below on earth in our hearts and in our assemblies the same instant that He is fitting at the right hand of the Father in the highest room of the Universe and though the Heavens contain that body and humane nature which He did assume yet they do not enclose His Majesty and all-present Divinity The Father hath a soveraign understanding knowing all things present past and to come The Son is Wisdom it self He knoweth all things and if He say somewhere that He knoweth not the day of Judgement this is not to be understood but in respect of His humane nature and not in respect of His divine intelligency Rev. 2.23 He soundeth the reins and knoweth the heart of man a quality which the Scripture noteth to us as the character and specifique mark of the knowledge of GOD asserting that there is none but He only who knoweth the hearts of men The Father knoweth Himself and no man or Angel to speak properly ever saw Him The Son so perfectly knoweth Him that He hath even declared and revealed Him unto men The Father is almighty and
doth whatsoever He will The Son hath all power in Heaven and in Earth and there is nothing but is facile to Him The Father is super-eminently good hating evil and loving rectitude and justice The Son is the Saint of Saints entirely separate from sinners goodness and justice it self The Father is merciful and inclined to pity The Son is the bottom of His compassions The Father maketh His Sun to shine on and His Rain to bedew even the men that blaspheme Him The Son dyed for His enemies and prayed for those that crucified Him In short the Father hath not any other essential quality but the Son hath it likewise and in the same measure with the Father I come to His Works Certainly the Son Himself informeth us how perfectly He represents the Father in this respect Joh. 5.19 saying in general that what thing soever the Father doth the same doth the Son likewise The Father created the Universe The Son founded the Earth Heb. 1.10 Joh. 1.3 and the Heavens are the work of His hands All things were made by Him and without Him nothing was made of all that was made The Father conserveth the world by His providence the Son sustaineth all things by His mighty word The Father hath set up the Princes and Magistrates who govern mankind Prov. 8.15 and there is no power but of Him It 's by the Son that Kings Reign and Princes decree justice The Father saved and redeemed the Church the Son is our righteousness our wisdom and our redemption The Father loved us and delivered up His Son to death for us the Son gave Himself a ransome for our sins If the Father raised up the Son the Son also raised again His own Temple when the fury of the Jews had beaten it down If the Father quicken the dead the Son quickneth them likewise and the last judgment the punishing of the wicked in Hell the glory of the Faithful in Heaven and all that refers to it is the work both of the one and the other The Father hath elected us so likewise hath the Son Joh. 13.18 I know saith He whom I have chosen It is the same in all the other actions and operations of the divine nature If you read the Scriptures exactly you shall not see any of them attributed to the Father but is likewise attributed to the Son And as for that right and soveraign authority which accreweth unto GOD over all things from these great and high qualities and operations this glory shineth in the person of the Son as it doth in the person of the Father If the Father be Judge of the earth King of ages and Monarch of the world the Son is in like manner the LORD of glory the head of the Armies of Heaven the Prince of men and Angels the Judge of all flesh If the Name of the Father be great and dreadful that of the Son is above every name which is named in this world or in the world to come If all creatures both superiour intermedial and inferiour do owe a soveraign homage to the Father and cast down themselves before Him adoring His Majesty with the profoundest respect they are capable of so it is clear that before JESUS every knee doth bow both of things in Heaven and things on earth and things under the Earth the Father Himself proclaiming when He bringeth Him into the world Let all the Angels of GOD worship Him So you see Dear Brethren that the LORD JESUS is truly the image of His Father since He hath and discovereth perfectly in Himself the Nature the Properties and the Works of the Father An admirable a singular and a truly Divine image which possesseth the whole form of its original without any variation and faithfully and naturally representeth all the features of it in their true and just greatness measure and nature I confess there are among men sons that resemble in some sort their Fathers but there are none in whom such resemblance is comparable with that of the Son of GOD to His Eternal Father If our Sons represent our nature and manners it is always with some difference which a piercing and a clear-sighted eye may easily observe and after all there are none that in their life do express the lives of their fathers totally entire with every one of their actions and operations Whereas the Son of GOD is a most complete image both of the nature and the life of His Father if we may speak in this manner of these mysteries all the works of the one whether small or great being also the works of the other This sacred Verity taught here by the Apostle overthroweth two heresies which though contrary and opposite to one another did sometime equally trouble the Church of GOD. I mean that of the Sabellians and that of the Arians The former confounded the Son with the Father the latter rent them on sunder Those took from the Son His person these His nature For the Sabellians did dogmatize that the Father and the Son were but one and the self-same person who according to the divers wayes and ends of his manifestations did assume sometimes the name of Father sometimes the name of Son So as in their account it is the Father who suffered on the Cross and it 's the Son who sent Him that suffered St. Paul breaketh their errour by saying that JESVS CHRIST is the image of the Father For no one is the image of himself and how great and exact soever the image's resemblance of its original be it 's of necessity that it be another subsistence than its original A child hath the same nature with the Father whose image it is said to be but nevertheless the person of the Father is one and that of the child another Since then the Apostle declareth here and elsewhere that JESVS CHRIST is the image of GOD that is to say of the Father we must either desert His doctrine or acknowledge that JESUS CHRIST is another person than the Father But if you distinguish their persons it doth not follow that you must divide their nature as did the Arians who made it their position that the nature of the Father is another than that of the Son the one increated and infinite the other created and finite These are two shelves which we must equally avoid steering our course straight in the midst shunning on one side the confusion of Sabellius and on the other the division of Arius JESVS CHRIST saith the Apostle is the image of GOD His Father He could not be the image of Him if He were one same person with Him He could not be His Perfect image if He had a nature differing from the nature of the Father How should He represent His eternity if He had been created in time How His immensity if He had a limited essence How His Majesty and glory if He were but a creature Let us then hold fast this truth full and entire
this blessed light He would have objected the interest of these last generations that they were too far removed from this Sun-shine to make their profit of it Unbelief doth never want pretences It findeth somewhat to reply against all the LORD's procedures And not desiring that they should be just doth easily forge apparences to it self to believe they are not so Let us suffer Him to be wiser than our selves and instead of arguing about the order He hath taken receive it with respect and make our profit of it Let it satisfie us that by His grace we find our selves within the compass of that blessed time in which He hath manifested His secret and make we use with thankfulness of the advantage He hath pleased to give our age above those that have preceded But if you ask me why GOD communicated His Gospel to the Church no sooner tell me also why He giveth not to men and other living creatures the perfection of their kind at the instant of their nativity why lets He them lose so much time in the weaknesses of infancy which might be better employed in more noble actions if they had their vigor and maturity at the beginning of their days Tell me again why He maketh not the plants to grow up to blossom and to bear fruit in a moment and why He formeth families and States so slowly among mankind GOD doth nothing suddainly and would have us understand the maturity of His counsels by the gravity of His motions He hath formed the Church in the same method He would that she should begin to pronounce before she spake distinctly pass through childhood before coming to full age He would that she should learn her rudiments before she heard the highest lessons of His wisdom And haue in one of her times Moses for her School-master in the other JESUS CHRIST for her Doctor as the Apostle sheweth us in the Epistle to the Galatians Since the Gospel is the highest of Her lessons C. 3 4. it was justly reserved for her ripest age But if you press me still and ask me why GOD ordained such a difference between the ages of the Church I will answer you as before with S. Paul that thus He would do You cannot break over this bound without unsetling the whole nature and bringing the justice of all His progresses into contestation it being evident that it was neither more difficult for GOD nor less apparently reasonable to give animals and vegetables their strength and perfection in the first moments of their life then to give the Church the knowledge of His mysteries in the first centuries of her time The other point in this dispensation of GOD which offends our curiosity respecteth the persons to whom He hath manifested His mysterie and sanctified them by this Divine light Why to these hath He done this rather than to those Why to poor Galileans rather than to the Scribes and Priests of Israel The Apostle cutteth the knots of all these questions with one only word saying that He would make it known to them It 's the reason which the LORD Himself alledged for this diversity when having given thanks to the Father for that He had hid these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes Mat. 11.26 He addeth Even so Father for thus it hath pleased thee And our Apostle treating elsewhere expresly of this matter concludeth that GOD hath mercy on whom He will have mercy Rom. 9.18 and whom He will He hardeneth It 's at this Will that we must stop and not go on vainly seeking for reasons in the persons themselves of the favour GOD hath shewed them it being clear that we shall never find in them any which may give us satisfaction And again hereto must we reduce all the diversities which may be observed in the dispensation of the Gospel as that GOD maketh it to abound in one country and among one people while another is deprived of it that He maketh it to shine upon one generation after having denyed it to another that He communicates it here more liberally and there more sparingly All this dependeth meerly on His good pleasure nor can the things themselves afford us any valuable reason of it But I return to the Apostle who saith that by the revelation of His Gospel GOD hath made known what are the riches of the glory of this mysterie among the Gentiles They that are versed in the reading of this holy man's writings do know that he often useth the word riches Rom. 11.33 to set forth abundance As when he cryeth out Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge and when he speaketh elsewhere of the riches of the grace of the LORD Ephes 1.7 Rom. 2.4 and when he demands of the impenitent if he despise the riches of the goodness of GOD of His patience and long-suffering and so in a multitude of other places It 's in this sense that we must here understand the expression of riches of glory that is to say a great abundance of glory or which amounts to as much a very great and most abundant glory Whereby you see the zeal of this holy man for the praise of the Gospel Inasmuch as he cannot satisfie himself about this subject but heapeth up the most magnifick terms he can think of to represent the excellency of it He calleth it a mysterie and a mysterie of GOD and a mysterie hidden during all the ages that rolled on from the foundation of the world and at length discovered from Heaven in the last time to the Saints of GOD. This is very much and there is no other doctrine either humane or indeed Divine of which so much can be said But it is not enough for S. Paul He adds that it is a glorious mysterie yea contents not himself with this He ascribes to it not glory simply but riches and an abundance of glory And it is not here alone that he doth so He speaks of it every other-where in the same manner as when he saith that unto him this grace was given Eph. 3.7 8. to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of CHRIST and to make all men see what is the communication of the mysterie which from the beginning had been hid in GOD and elsewhere he calls it the glorious ministration of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.8.18 and the mirrour wherein the face of the LORD is openly beheld And in truth he had good reason For it is particularly in the Gospel that GOD hath made all the beams of His glory to shine out There He manifesteth and communicateth unto men all the marvels of His Power of His Wisdom of His Justice and of His merciful goodness in their greatest altitude and in their richest abundance which are as the substance and essence of this glory The Gospel is His treasury wherein He presents us His most glorious and His Divinest benefits His grace
His peace His Spirit His Holiness His consolation His life and His immortality But the Apostle doth not speak here of the riches of the glory of the Gospel in general and towards all He addeth particularly among the Gentiles Sure there is no sort of men whether Jews or Greeks but the Gospel sheweth forth riches of glory in them if they receive it Yet we must acknowledge that never-did its glory break forth with so much splendor as when it was preached to the Gentiles First that exceeding great and inexhaustible abundance of goodness and grace which the Gospel goeth fill'd up with did pour forth it self and if I may so speak overflowed all bounds in saving the Gentiles the most hopeless of all men when it raised them from this grave or rather from that abyss of misery wherein they had lain not four dayes as Lazarus in his Sepulchre but for four thousand years For this cause the holy Apostle comparing the grace of GOD in His Son 〈◊〉 15.8.9 shewed to the Jew with that shewed to the Gentile at His calling of each of them doth name the former Truth for that it was promised and the second simply and altogether Mercy Then again how very admirable was the vertue of the Gospel which effected that in a few dayes that the Law had not been able to do in so many ages The Ministers of the Law did compass Sea and Land and after all found it very hard to make one proselyte and with all their diligence for two thousand years that they toiled had not reduced so much as one Nation to the Service of GOD though they employed even sword and strength to that end when they could But the Gospel quite naked and without other weapons then its Cross brought unto GOD many a people converted from Paganism They were a sort of men that worshipped stocks and stones they lay plunged in a bruitish ignorance and in the most infamous vices there was a mixture in them of the stupidity of beasts and the wickedness of Devils Certainly to make so much as one of these a Christian to bring him out of this infernal pit 〈◊〉 and place him in the Church to make him of a slave of Satan a child of GOD was as an Ancient writing on this passage rightly says no less a miracle than if some one should suddenly change an unclean and deformed dog into a man and from the dunghil whereon he lay cause him to sit upon a royal throne It was truly therefore a great and an ineffable richness and abundance of glory for the Gospel to transform so speedily not a small number but hundreds and thousands of Pagans into so many believers And in this the Apostle secretly strikes at the false Teachers who would mix such a noble and glorious mystery with their feeble traditions as if it had not strength and vertue enough of it self to subsist without the succour of their inventions Finally he intimates in two words the ground of all this richness of glory that the Gospel hath which is saith he CHRIST in you that is to say that CHRIST whom they possessed and who dwelt in them by faith 1 Tim. 1.1 And he addeth that He is the hope of glory after the same manner that elsewhere he calleth CHRIST our hope that is He of whom we hope for highest glory and in whom we do infallibly find all the blessedness that we can either defire or expect It is not without design that he advertiseth them that JESUS CHRIST is all the fullness of the mystery of the Gospel He lays a foundation hereby for what he will more clearly tell them hereafter namely that it is in vain that the seducers would mingle the Ceremonies of Moses and the service of Angels with it All this great mystery begins and ends in JESUS CHRIST since it is no other thing 1 Tim. 4.16 as himself defineth it elsewhere than GOD manifested in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world and received up into Glory that is JESUS CHRIST our LORD born put to death raised again glorified and set forth in the Gospel for us Such is the mystery whereof the holy Apostle hath spoken to us Judge now Beloved Brethren what grace GOD hath shewed us in communicating so rich and so admirable a secret to us Many Kings and Prophets have desired to see and hear it and not at all had the happiness Heaven and earth did sigh four thousand years after the blessing we possess But in the end only the last ages did obtain it The Jews saw the wonders of GOD but obscurely and through veils and shadows The Gentiles saw them not at all being covered with a disinal night living without GOD and without hope This divine mystery appearing at once in the end of times as a great light that shines forth sudainly from Heaven did dissipate the shadows of the one and dispel the darkness of the other changing by its vertue the whole face of the universe in a moment It hath particularly shewed the riches of its glory among us having brought our Fathers out of the horrours of Paganism which did once cover this whole Land Let us embrace therefore with all the affections of our souls this great and inestimable favour of the LORD's Let us keep it pure and uncorupted without immixing in it ought that 's alien to it It is not only sufficient for our happiness It is even rich and abundant in glory They that would stuff it out with Ceremonies and services whether of Moses's teaching or mans inventing as false Teachers heretofore did and our adversaries at this day do they understand not aright the inexhaustible opulency wherewith it overslows They obscure the resplendency of its heavenly glory by their additions they hide it and cover it again with the veil which JESUS CHRIST hath rent in sunder Let us say to such as propose them unto us We are contented with the mystery which GOD hath vouchsafed to manifest unto His Saints It sufficed for their bliss It will well suffice for ours We do not desire any other riches than those which it aboundeth with or any other glory than that which it shines withall It is enough that this JESUS CHRIST who fills it up is in us the hope of true glory There is no need to associate with Him either Moses or Angels or Saints But Faithful Brethren the securing of this mystery from the errors of superstition is not all For the conversing of it pure among us and placing it in that glory which is due to it there must be a putting far away the filth of vices and of carnal and earthly passions GOD hath not lighted up this great Sun among you that ye should continue to live ill and do the same works in such a blessed light as are done in darkness Far be it from Him He hath discovered to you the mysteries hidden
bind what He hath loosed If GOD will save us without belief of the Mass or of Purgatory the Church would do well to will the contrary would she not GOD will judge us by His own will and word and not by the fantastical conceits or imaginations of men But I return to the Apostle who sheweth us also in this Text and it 's that which we are to consider in the third place what the object of this his Preaching is when he saith that he admonisheth every man and teacheth every man It 's very probable that the false Teachers who would seduce the Colossians for the colouring of that observation of the Law which they recommended did alledge that the Apostles themselves left the Jews the use of Circumcision and the practice of legal abstinences and that if S. Paul did otherwise it was but towards some only I account it is to this properly that we must referr and oppose his saying here three times that he admonisheth every man that he teacheth every man and that he might render every man perfect in CHRIST He thus repeats this word to them to shew that his Preaching was the same and uniform throughout that he declared to all men but one sole JESUS CHRIST and that he Preached Him indifferently both to Jews and Gentiles Greeks and Barbarians GOD having given for them all but one and the same Gospel as He hath set up but one Sun in the Universe to shine on all mankind I declare saith he the same CHRIST unto all as Saviour and Redeemer of the world There is no man to whom I Preach any other thing Whereby he gives a secret blow to the doctrine of these Seducers which was particular and not Preached either by the holy Apostle or by any of his fellows It may well be also that he aimed to shew here in his way the extent of his charge which enclosed all men on earth within its compass there being no one of them to whom he had not authority to Preach the Gospel and to admonish and teach him According to his saying elsewhere that he is debter Rom. 1.14 both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians both to the wise and to the unwise for the seasonable establishing of the power he will use anon to admonish the Colossians and condemn the Seducers For he shews thereby that there is no person how knowing soever he may be otherwayes but is his Scholler for this Heavenly wisdom and ought in this respect to be subject to his instructions and to learn of Him the mysteries of the same As if he had said that GOD hath raised him to the Doctoral Chair of the universe and made him His publick and universal Herauld who should be hearkened to by all the men of the world Whence it follows that these pretended Masters of the Colossians who would intrude to teach them after their mode did thwart the institution of GOD and that before they did put themselves upon the instructing of others they should first have learned of the Apostle the true mysteries of the wisdom of GOD. I acknowledge there is not any one of the Ministers of GOD who hath now this great extent of Authority that the Apostle here ascribeth and with truth to himself Nevertheless each of them ought to do in his district what the Apostle did in his even admonish and teach every man whoever he be in all wisdom have but one and the same Gospel for all not pleasing doctrine and as is commonly said a Velvet Gospel for the rich and another quite different for the poor but treat them all without respect of persons not conceal ought from the one which hath been discovered to the others each one ought to teach the small as well as the great to admonish the great as well as the small to edifie them all in common without despising the littleness of the one without fearing the greatness of the other But let us now see what the end of this Preaching JESUS CHRIST is We declare Him saith the Apostle admonishing and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may render every man perfect in JESVS CHRIST This was the Apostle's aim this was the design of his labours even to present all those that heard him holy and unreprovable unto JESVS CHRIST to put them into such an estate by his Preaching as that they might appear before the Throne of Grace without confusion He expresseth it elsewhere in other terms namely when he saith to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 11.2 in particular that he had appropriated them or knit them or as it were espoused them to one husband that I might present you saith he as a chaste Virgin unto CHRIST where he useth precisely the same word which he placeth here and which we French have translated in the one of these places rendre render and presenter present in the other You know there are two sorts of perfection one of a believer's minority the other of his full age according as the Apostle distinguisheth our times in the first Epistle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 13.11 The one that which we have here below during the course of our Pilgrimage The other that which we shall not have but in Heaven our true Countrey This latter is a perfection every way compleat such as comprehendeth all the degrees of knowledge holiness and glory which our nature is capable of The former is a perfection begun having all the parts of sanctification and consolation that are necessary in our present frailty but not yet brought up to the top and highest degrees The one is simply and absolutely called Perfection the other is so named but in some respect and in comparison either of the estate which we were and other men not regenerate are still in or of the condition of our age The Apostle means the first Phil. 3.12 15. when he confesseth that he is not already perfect He speaks of the second when he faith Let us all that are perfect be thus minded The one and the other is the end of the Preaching of the Gospel For the design of Paul and of all true Ministers of the LORD is to guide the faithful to eternal salvation that is to the last and highest of these two kinds of perfection by means of the first And so the nearer effect of their Preaching and which immediatly follows it is the believer's perfection on earth The further and more remote effect of it which necessarily and infallibly results from the first is his perfection in Heaven Moreover this first perfection to which Preaching immediately tendeth consisteth of two parts chiefly Knowledge and Sanctification Faith and Charity And though there be many defects both in the one and the other if you compare them with the vision and glory of Heaven yet the one and the other are even at present perfect in some sort to wit in as much as the true believer wanteth not any of the knowledges and habitudes
in the matter before us as well as worth I deny not but that some of these precious Verities are hid in the world and in man himself and that by attention and meditation they may be thence drawn out as appears by what the Pagans had learned who read no other book I grant moreover that the ancient Tabernacle of Mâ—ses afforded a yet greater store But what is all this in comparison of that abundance of them which JESUS CHRIST presenteth us Certainly there 's none but He to say true in whom this Divine treasure is found And for the fuller discovery of the unmeasurable abundance of His inexhaustible riches to us the Apostle contents not himself with calling it a treasure He sayes treasures in the plural so great and vast is the opulency of this Divine subject Yea he saith not simply treasures but all the treasures to shew us that there is nothing fair or exquisite or precious but is found in Him Now S Paul subjoineth in the progress of His speech what those treasures be which are in CHRIST The treasures saith he of wisdom and knowledg Away ye covetous who never hear speak of treasures but do fancy those of the world which to say the truth are but piles of dung heaps of clods of earth a little otherwise formed and coloured than other parts of this vile and low element be The jewâ—â— which the treasury of JESUS CHRIST is full of is of an infinitely more precious nature than the metals you adore It is saith the Apostle wisdom and knowledg The term wisdom is honourable among men and though they are ignorant of the thing nevertheless they respect the name of it confessing that it properly agreeth only to such knowledges as are at once both sublime and useful divine and salutiferous Surely to stick in this definition which themselves give of it it is clear that not one of all the Sciences that they have learned in the world by the strength of their own spirit doth deserve to be call'd wisdom For either they are low and of things of small elevation as the skill of their trades which have no employment but on the earth or at least they are vain and unprofitable as that which they tell us of the Heavens and their motions of nature and its mutations of numbers and figures and the measuring of bodies For what service doth that science do them whereof they vaunt with so much insolence Are they any whit the happier for it or ought the more assured by it Themselves do vilifie it when they are in a good mood and confess that all of it yields those that excell most in it but a very slender profit Will you call an useless industry Sapience and count him a wise man that busieth himself to no purpose On the contrary is it not the character of a fool to amuse himself in things of nought and toil about that which affords him no benefit as children that run after their shadow and course butter-flies What is the wisdom then which is truly worthy of so glorious a name Dear Brethren it is evidently the knowledg of Verities necessary to our Salvation those Verities that can make us happy and conserve peace and consolation in our Souls and conduct us through the accidents of this life to the possession of that supream felicity which all men naturally desire It 's this kind of knowledg that the Apostle meaneth here It s this which by way of excellence he calleth wisdom as alone deserving the name while all other kinds of knowledg do lie far beneath it As for Science which he doth adjoin I think we need not strive to sever it from Sapience as if they must necessarily be two different things I know well there are they that subtilly distinguish them some affirming that Sapience is the knowledg of GOD and of things divine Science the knowledg of Man and of things humane Others resolving that Sapience signifies the knowledg of things to be believed and Science of things to be done But not to dissemble I much doubt whether the Apostle ever thought upon these petty subtilities For the word Science in the Original generally signifies all knowledg and there is no reason to restrain it to the knowledg of things either humane or moral I judg it therefore more accordant with the simplicity of these Divine Authors to take the words Sapience and Science in well nigh the same sense and to say that the latter was added only to enlarge and enrich one and the same conception as if the Apostle had said that there is neither Sapience nor Science nor any true and Saving knowledg but it is in our Lord JESUS CHRIST In fine it must be observed that he saith These treasures are hid in CHRIST This is a very apt prosecution of his metaphor For treasures are not exposed to every one's view They are lockt up in some close cabinet and many times those that have them hide them in remote places or lay them under ground to keep off the eyes and hands of men from them Forasmuch as this is usually done the Apostle hath very gracefully used this word in the matter before him and the more gracefully for that something semblable may be observ'd in the dispensation of JESUS CHRIST Not that GOD hath any such design as avaricious men have or that He fearing lest people should see and seize His treasure hath directly hid it from them to prevent their sharing it Far be it from us to entertain a thought so injurious to the goodness and liberality of this Soveraign LORD who sent not His Son into the world but to save the world and delights in nothing more than in seeing us search into His treasuries and enrich our selves with His good things Who likewise hath clearly and magnificently laid forth in His CHRIST all His heavenly wealth by reason whereof that Son of His is called the Sun of Righteousness that is the most visible and most remarkable object in the Universe He hath sent His Servants every way to discover Him unto Mankind and from the tops of the highest places to call all men to a participation of this treasure of light Now both His brightness and their voice hath spread abroad so gloriously that it may be justly said Light hath been in the world Joh. 1.10 but the world perceived it not Wherefore our Apostle saith elswhere That if his Gospel be yet hid it is hid to them that are lost 2 Cor. 4.3 4. and whose understandings the GOD of this world hath blinded to wit the unbelieving that the light of the Gospel of the glory of CHRIST might not shine into them Where you see he attributes all the fault of worldlings not discerning the excellency of this treasure to their own blindness caused by the darknings and malice of Satan and not to the obscurity or hiddenness of the treasure it self which he gives a quite contrary name to calling it light
two things namely first the corruption of a nature destitute of all just and rational apprehensions and motions and secondly the guilt of sin and an obligâ—tion to eternal punishment In like manner that life to which GOD calleth us by his grace doth consist in two particulars first a restauration of His Image in us by the infusion of principles and faculties of true life and secondly the remission of our sins The Apostle here doth briefly speak of them both of the first in saying that GOD hath quickned us together with CHRIST of the second in adding that he hath freely pardoned us all our sins For the first GOD hath quickned us in that delivering us from the death we were under he hath put into us by the grace of his Spirit the principles of an heavenly life and formed in our breasts new hearts hearts illuminated with a new light to wit the good knowledg of his Truth and of the mysteries of his will Then in the second place by the virtue of this Divine flame he enkindleth in our souls the love of his most excellent Majesty charity towards our neighbour uâ—â—ection for just and honest things zeal for his glory abhorrence and hatred of sin and in a word sanctification and all the virtues which it comprehendeth that are the sproutings and productions of this second celestial and happy life which in his great mercy he conferreth on us From this new nature as from a blessed root do issue good and holy actions prayer worshipping of GOD frequent meditation and reading of his word extasies of love to him travels for his glory sufferings for his Name sake relieving instructing assisting of our Neighbour and such others that are as it were the flowers and fruits in the production whereof that life which GOD hath given us in his Son doth properly consist It 's the same thing that the Apostle elsewhere compriseth in few words saying Eph. 2.10 and 4.24 that we are the workmanship of GOD being created in JESVS CHRIST unto good works which GOD hath prepared that we should walk in them And again in another place that our new man that is the second nature which he formeth in us when he quickneth us by his grace is created after GOD in true righteousness and holiness The holy Spirit being rich and magnificent in its expressions doth explain this admirable and blessed operation of the grace of GOD in us by divers terms taken from different resemblances but all amounting to the same sense For to set it forth it saith not only as here that GOD hath quickned us but also Eph. 2.10 1 Pet. 1.3 Ezek. 36.26 Jer. 31.33 Rom. 11 23. Col. 1.13 1 Cor 3.6 Acts 16.4 Phil. 2.13 that He hath created us and in another place that He hath begotten us again the same is meant when it saith that GOD taketh out of us our hearts of stone and gives us hearts of flesh in which he writes his laws that He reneweth us and formeth us into new creatures or new men that He graffeth us by his power into the true olive that He translateth us out of the kingdom of darkness into his marvellous light that it 's He who giveth encrease the Ministers of the Word being nothing that He openeth our hearts and worketh in us effectually both to will and to do of his good pleasure and other like phrases which are found here and there in the Scriptures But the Apostle addeth here that GOD hath thus quickned us together with CHRIST shewing us by these words the cause and the manner of our vivisication namely that it was effected in JESUS CHRIST and with Him and by Him For as that death which we heretofore bore in our selves doth come from Adam the stock and original of our carnal beeing who by destroying himself destroyed us also with him and corrupting his own nature corrupted ours likewise so as it is in him and from him that we inherit this misery in like manner on the contrary that life which we have now receiv'd from GOD doth come from JESUS CHRIST the stock and root of the new nature who raising up himself unto life raised us up also according to what the Apostle saith elsewhere viz. that as all dye in Adam so likewise in JESVS CHRIST are all made alive But this assertion of his here that GOD hath quickned us together with CHRIST 1 Cor. 15.22 doth particularly refer to his resurrection as if GOD in restoring him to that glorious life which he receiv'd at his issuing out of the Sepulcher had at the same time given us also part therein And he speaks in this manner for two reasons principally The first is because it was then that JESUS CHRIST brought to light that blessed life whereof we have been made partakers and from him as from its source hath it been derived unto us so as that same time was the day of our new birth as well as his For if he had not been made alive no more should we have ever been Not but that the Father all had the might and power that was necessary to give us life again But his Justice could not have suffer'd him to give life to any of the sons of men if their Surety and Mediator had abode under death The second reason is That he being our Head and we his Members he our Pattern and we Copies drawn if I may so say from his Original when GOD raised him he re-enliven'd us also by the same means since by this action he obliged himself to vivifie us likewise it being evident that without this we should not have that conformity with our Head to which he predestinated us Not to mention for the present the efficacy this Resurrection hath to form in us faith and hope and love of glorious immortality which are the principles of that new life that GOD doth put into us by his Spirit as we intimated in the exposition of the precedent Verse There remains now the other part of this blessed life which GOD giveth us in his Son namely the remission of our sins S. Paul sets it before us here when he saith that GOD hath freely pardoned us all our sins For the Spirit of Sanctification which is as the soul of that new life he createth in our hearts doth indeed turn away our affections from vice and obstruct our committing of unjust ungodly and impure actions wherein we wallowed afore Yet this respecteth only the present and the future and if there were no more the guilt of sins committed in time past during our spiritual deadness would nevertheless remain in its strength it being clear that though the act of sin be past the faultiness wherewith it commaculates him who committeth it goes not off so soon It subsists still both in the conscience of the sinner if he have any and in the registers of the Justice of the Supream Judg of the World binding over the sinner unto punishment Whence it follows
that supposing a man be perfectly cured of vicious habits and inclinations yet would he nevertheless be faulty by reason of his fore-passed sins and consequently liable upon this account unto the curse with which and the terrors that precede it true life is so incompatible that it is not imaginable a man in such a state could ever resolve to serve GOD freely and sincerely Therefore GOD that he may throughly quicken us doth not only deliver us from the tyranny of vice and of the flesh by that Princely Spirit which he poureth into our inward parts but moreover pardoneth us all the sins whereof we are guilty and it seems in very deed if we do accurately observe the moments of his action in us that it 's there he does begin first remitting our former offences to the end that the sense of this goodness of His may cause us to love him and encline us to obey him and conform our selves with all our might unto his holy will The Apostle attributeth unto this remission two remarkable qualities One that GOD forgiveth us all our offences that is doth not impute to us any of our sins either in whole or in part but treateth us as if we had committed none at all Another is that he doth it freely and of meer grace for so doth the word giving used here in the Original properly signifie as our Translation hath well express'd by rendring He hath freely forgiven us The Scripture tells us not of any other kind of pardon For as to that which our Adversaries do assert to wit whereby the fault is remitted but the punishment exacted either in whole or in part or is bought out with the payment of our own satisfactions or the satisfactions of others it's a figment of their own Schools of which the Holy Ghost says nothing any where but represents unto us all that remission which GOD gives the faithful either at the beginning or in the progress of their regeneration as an entire pardon and purely gratuitous As for that satisfaction by which our LORD and Saviour obtained it for us it is so far from any way diminishing that it does infinitely exalt the bounty of GOD towards us since that he so loved us as that he might pardon our faults with the consent of his Justice he would have his only Son to shed his precious blood for the contenting thereof This is that we had to deliver upon this Text of the Apostle's Dear Brethren Let us hold fast what it hath taught us of the condition that all men are naturally in before GOD calleth them to his grace Let not their outward appearance deceive you nor the pleasures of their flesh nor the splendor of their pretended virtues either civil or moral All this is but a false image of life covering a carkass that 's stinking and abominable before GOD. Make account that they are dead and that if they walk it is not a true principle of life but sin the poyson of life which doth animate them and set them on working The issue will one day clear it to us all when the just judgment of GOD having stript them of that fallacious disguise which now hideth the hideousness of their nature shall shew it before Heaven and Earth and make us plainly see that they were but Sepulchers whited without and full of filth and infection within and cast them thereupon into that wretched and eternal death which is prepared for them with the Devil and his Angels Bless we GOD who hath deliver'd us from this perdition by his great mercy and hate we sin and the corruption of the flesh which had involv'd us in it Look we on them as pests and poysons that destroy our life and reckon we that we have liv'd no more time than what hath been exempted from our serving of them You deceive your self Worldling who count the days of your unclean pleasures or your vain honours the best part of your life To say plainly it was the time of your being dead and not of your being alive After so many years as you have tumbled up and down the earth you have not yet liv'd a moment You have all along been in a state of death And they that write upon your Tombs that you liv'd so many years and died such a day do grosly err You did not live when you offended GOD and your Neighbour or lost your time in the filth of your infamous delights And on the day that you shall quit the earth you will not cease to live for to say true you never liv'd but from one kind of death you will pass into another from the death of sin to a death of torment Christians if you love life and hate horror at death renounce sin and mortifie your flesh You cannot live except it dye Put in exercise that noble life which the LORD hath given you in his Son Act according to the Principles which he hath put into you by his Spirit and lay forth continually in good and holy works the Graces wherewith he hath vested you Faithfully love and serve him Let your minds meditate on nothing beside him your hearts desire none but him your tongues speak only of him Let the contemplation of the wonders of his love and the hopes of his glory be the whole food of your souls Respect those men in whom you see his Image shine Affect them and serve them for his sake looking upon their lives their estates their honour their bodies and souls as sacred and inviolable things Endeavour to enrich them by communicating of your prosperities unto them Offend no man Do good to all Let your charity and your innocence be conspicuous in the sight of GOD and Man Faithful Brethren This is that life truly worthy to be called life which GOD doth reward for the present with a joy and contentment of Conscience that 's a thousand times more sweet and savoury than any of the vain delights of the world and which he will crown one day with that glorious Immortality he hath promised It 's for this that he hath vouchsafed to forgive us freely all our offences all those so many horrible Crimes which had merited Hell-fire and is still ready to pardon all the sins we have committed since This so great and admirable loving-kindness of his tendeth only to withdraw us from sin and oblige us to love and revere so good a GOD. It 's for the self-same end that he hath raised up his Son from the dead and enliven'd us with him giving us faith hope and charity the principles of a new life even that henceforth renouncing sin and the flesh and turning our hearts towards Heaven where our treasure and our glory is we might live soberly righteously and godly in the present world looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great GOD and Saviour JESUS CHRIST Amen The Twenty-fifth SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER XIV Ver. xiv Having effaced the obligation
of them So is it with our LORD JESUS He is equally both necessary and approachable for all He offers Himself to the great He disdaineth not the least He gives Himself to the one and to the others and saves them all indifferently Come ye thâ—n all unto Him what-ever in other respects your condition or extraction be Lift up your eyes on Him and behold Him stretched out for you upon Moses's pole crucified for your sins and wounded for your iniquities His flesh pierced with nails His blood spilt on the ground presenting to you in this scandalous but salutiferous infirmity the treasure of life and happiness Bring unto Him souls full of faith respect and love and prepare for the receiving of Him not your bodily mouth or stomach places what-ever superstition say unworthy to lodge Him but your hearts your minds your understandings and affections that is the nobler part of your being There it is that He takes pleasure there it is that He would dwell Accordingly it's there that He should operate and display His vertue unto the extinguishing of the old man and the engraving of His own image As the body is not the object of this operation of His so neither is it the seat of His presence nor the throne of His Majesty But you plainly see My Brethren that this incomparable favour He placeth on you in being willing to come and dwell in your hearts doth oblige you to put off His enemie the old man and clear your selves of all His pollutions eradicate the habitudes of all his vices smother all his desires and cleanse your whole life from all his deeds This old man is the disgrace of your nature the poison of your soul the death of your life the cause of your unhappiness It 's he that destroyed you that banish'd you out of Paradise that bereav'd you of your true delights that made you subject unto vanity and the wrath of GOD and the hatred of His Angels and the tyrannie of Devils Devest your selves of this accursed and funestous habit Give your selves no rest till you be rid of it Tell me not that he holds too fast that you feel him sticking in your inward parts and in your marrow Where eternal salvation is concerned there 〈…〉 is to be taken If you cannot rid your selves of him other 〈…〉 better to pluck out your very bowels than spare them and pe 〈…〉 the truth is we slatter our selves and that to keep this pleasing enemie with us we makes our selves believe he is part of us as if we could not be mâ—n without fouling our selves in the dung of his vices Be not afraid of hurting oâ— outraging your selves by driving him from you It 's but the pâ—st and poison of your nature as we said afore Your life will be not as you imagine incommodated but discharged more free and more happy by it thâ—n it was Besides after the victory over him which CHRIST hath won upon the Cross it ill becomes us to complain of the strength of this enemie All his strength consisteth only in our cowardice in our feebleness and effeminacy JESUS CHRIST hath taken from him all the true strength he had He hath crucified him and overthrown all the foundations of his tyrannie and of his life discovering to us the horridness thereof and opening us the way to liberty and the gate of the house of GOD. Instead of this wretched and fordid and shameful form of life let us put on that new man who now presents and gives Himself unto us Let us have Him night and day before our eyes as the only exemplar of our true nature Let us copy Him all out and faithfully engrave upon our souls all the features of His Divine and glorious form Let the image of this new Adam shine forth in our whole life in our souls and in our carriages Dear Brethren it must be acknowledged that hitherto we have greatly failed in this duty For what is more unlike than we and this JESUS CHRIST to whose image we should be conformed He is humble and meek and pâ—tient as a lamb We are fierce and proud and cholerick as Lions He did good to His enemies and we hardly spare our friends He lov'd the greatest strangers and we hate our neerest neighbours He was most pure and holy and we are polluted with the ordures of intemperance He sought only His Father's glory and the salvation of men We muse upon nothing but earth and consider only our own interests With this dissimilitude or to say better contrariety how can we pretend to have put on the new man which is created after the image of JESUS CHRIST And how can it be thought but that we rather bear the image of His enemie Yet you are not ignorant what depends upon it and do well know that it is not possible to have part on high in the glory of the new man except we put him on here below In the name of GOD Beloved Brethren and as your own salvation is dear to you travel on this great and necessary design Repair the negligences of the time pass'd and discharging for the future with good fidelity what the Apostle's word and the Sacrament of this mystical table do equally require of you put off the old man who hath destroyed you Put on the new man who hath sav'd you renewing you in the knowledge and unto the likeness of this sweet and merciful LORD who died and is risen again for you that after you have born on earth the image of His holiness and charity you may bear it eternally in the Heavens together with that of His glory and immortality Amen THE THIRTY NINTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER XII XIII Verse XII Put on therefore as * Elected of Gods Saints c. chosen of GOD holy and beloved bowels of mercy kindness humility meekness patience XIII Bearing with one another and pardoning one another if one hath a quarrel against the other even as CHRIST pardoned you so also do ye DEAR Brethren That which the Sacrament of the LORD 's holy Supper requireth of us and which it effecteth and produceth in us when we duly receive it is the very thing which the Apostle commands us in this Text and unto which he formeth us by these words of his He willeth that we be merciful kind humble meek patient and facile to pardon one another And the end and effect of the Sacrament is to make us so For it communicateth the LORD JESUS CHRIST unto us not that the substance of his Body may enter into ours nor that his flesh may be touched by our mouths and stomacks a thing both prodigious and impossible and which is moreover unprofitable and superfluous but indeed to transforms us into his Image and render us like him that is humble meek patient kind and merciful as he is forming these divine vertues in us by the essicacy of his Death which is celebrated in this Mysterie Whereby you see a
the honour to be elected of GOD our selves This as doth not compare us with others but with our selves and impoâ—ts as much as if S. Paul had said seeing that or since that you be elected of GOD containing in it this reasoning Such as have the honour to be elected of GOD his Saints and his Beloved ought to be cloathed with humility benignity and meekness Since then you have in JESUS CHRIST the honour to be the Elect the Saints and the Beloved of GOD judge if you 〈◊〉 not obliged to put on all these Vertues We use the word as to the same sense often in our common speech As for example when we say of a good man that he liv'd and dy'd religiously as a Christian that is so as was meet for that quality of Christian which he had and when we advise a young man of good rank to be â—onest in all his conversation as born of a good house and issu'd from a noble and a vertuous Father Of these three qualities which the Apostle here gives the faithful the first is that they are elected of GOD. The election of God is the choice He makes according to his good pleasure of certain persons to call them unto the knowledge of himself and unto the glory of his salvation And this term Election signifies sometimes the resolution he hath taken in his eternal counsel to choose and call them which the Scripture elsewhere calls Eph. 1.11 The determinate purpose of GOD sometimes the execution of this eternal determination when GOD doth in time touch the men of his good pleasure by the efficacy of his Word and Spirit converting them to the faith of his Gospel and separating them by this means from the rest of men who continue in the miserable estate of their nature through their impenitence and unbelief The Apostle in my opinion does comprehend both the one and the other of these two senses when he saith here That we are elected of GOD that is such as he hath chosen and effectively separated from the world according to his determinate purpose calling us unto himself to serve him according to the discipline of his Gospel Now that this quality doth oblige us to put on all the vertues which he recommends unto us in the words following is evident For this very thing is the aim and end of his Election as the Apostle elsewhere informs us when he saith That GOD hath elected us in CHRIST Eph. 1.4 that we might be holy and blameless before him in love And it 's that that Moses yerwhile represented to ancient Israel the type of the new Deut. 26.18 The Lord saith he hath set thee on high this day that is hath raised thee above other Nations by his election that thou might'st be to him a peculiar people and keep his commandments Whence appears how false their calumny is who accuse the doctrine of Election of favouring vice and impenitency If it were so what could have less of reason in it than the Apostles discourse who alledgeth our election to incite us unto the studious pursuance of holiness But it is quite otherwise than these men pretend As GOD's election is the source of sanctification and good works so the asserting and teaching of it is an establishing and a founding of them And they that make their boast of their being elected of GOD but mean time lead a licentious and profane life do mock GOD and men and shall infallibly perish in this false and vain error if they amend not For since GOD's election is never executed without converting a man and sanctifying him and it is not possible on the other hand that any one should know himself elected otherwise than by feeling the real execution of his election it is evidently rashness and a palpable error to imagine that one is elected except he be truly converted unto GOD and indu'd with piety and charity Another quality which the Apostle here gives us is that we are Saints For he is not of the opinion of Rome who calls none Saints but those whom she hath canonized Saint Paul acknowledgeth none for believers who are not Saints Accordingly you know that in the Creed the Church which is the body of all true Christians and not of the canonized only is called holy and the communion of Saints Indeed since there is not a Christian but hath been baptized into JESUS CHRIST and receiv'd the holy Ghost according to the Apostles saying elsewhere Rom. 8. That if any man have not the Spirit of CHRIST he is none of his How can he be a Christian who is not a Saint Seeing both Baptism and the Spirit of CHRIST do sanctifie all those to whom they are truly communicated Now that this quality of Saints or holy Ones doth also oblige us to all the vertues that the Apostle gives us in charge in the following Verses is as clear as the Sun at noon-day For what else is sanctity it self but a piety and an exquisite charity compleat in all its parts and adorned with every vertue Besides by sanctification we are dedicated and consecrated unto GOD so as henceforth we ought not to dispose of our selves but for his service and according to his will which is no other but that we live in all purity honesty and vertue And this is that the LORD signifieth when he so often chargeth his people to be holy You shall he holy unto me saith he for I am holy Lev. 11.44 20.26 and have separated you from other people to be mine The third quality the Apostle gives us here is That we are the Beloved of GOD that is to say those of all men whom he most loveth and dearly respecteth in his Son JESUS CHRIST Since then the love wherewith God honoureth us does oblige us to love him and that we cannot fail of this reciprocal love without herrible ingratitude it is evident that our being the beloved of GOD doth necessarily require of us that we put on all these vertues which the Apostle is about to give us in charge First because it is a necessary and infallible effect of the love we bear to GOD to do what he commands us and he commands us nothing else Joh. 14.15 but the exercising of every vertue If you love me saith he keep my commandments Secondly because true love transformeth him that loveth into the image of the thing loved so as GOD being charity justice and holiness it self it is not possible if we love him truly but that we put on all these divine Vertues Thus you see Believers that the honour we have to be elected of GOD Saints and Beloved doth most strictly oblige us to do what the Apostle commands us that is to embrace all the vertues he is about to represent unto us which he expresseth in one word bidding us put them on that is that we seat them in our hearts and shew them in our lives that we deck our souls with