it sets before our eyes though under a different resemblance that same mysterie of our union with the LORD which is represented and communicated to us at His holy Table For the Apostle to accomplish his design and fully shew us the infinite excellence and dignity of JESUS CHRIST our Saviour after He hath told us what He is in regard of the Father namely the image of the invisible GOD and what in regard of the works of the first Creation to wit the first-born that is the Prince and Master of all the Creatures as having created them all made and formed them from the very lowest to the highest of them the Apostle I say after this dispatched considers Him finally in regard of the new Creatures that be that is to say the Church and informs us that He is the head thereof and the Church His body and for the greater illustration of it adds moreover that He is the beginning and the first-born from the dead whence he deduceth this conclusion that so He hath the first place in all things These are the three points which we purpose the Grace of GOD assisting to treat of in this action for the exposition of this Text and your edification The first that JESVS CHRIST is the head of the body of the Church The second that He is the beginning and the first-born from the dead and the third and last that He hath the first place in all things As for the first of these three points it is not here alone that the Apostle calleth JESUS CHRIST the head of the Church He useth the same language in diverse other places of His Epistles as in that he writes to the Ephesians Eph. 1.22 23. where he saith that the Father hath set His Son above all things to be head of the Church which is His body the fulness of Him that filleth all in all and elsewhere again that CHRIST is the head from whom the whole body fitly joyned together Eph. 4.15 16. and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh encrease of the body unto the edifying of it self in love And a little after in this Chapter of our Text we shall find him repeating that the Church is the body of CHRIST and in the first to the Corinthians Col. 1.24 speaking to the faithful You are saith he the body of CHRIST and members each one on his part In truth it is a figure very common in all languages to call him the Head of a Society who guideth and governeth it or who at least possesseth the first place in it As you see that every one calls a King the Head of His Estate and a General the Head of the Army wherein he commandeth and those the Heads of their Regiments or Companies who have the leading of them Whence comes our vulgar word Captain which according to its derivation signifies nought else but the Head The master of an houshold is in like manner termed the Head of it and so in all other societies of what nature soever they be But this manner of speaking is exceedingly familiar with the Hebrews as you may see in very many places of the Old Testament where every thing that hath the first place whether iâ— be for its authority or for its excellency or even for its birth and meer precedency in time is called the head of other things of the same kind And the reason of this figure is evident For the head standing highest of all the parts of the body of man and having the conduct of it because it is the seat of the eyes and other senses upon which the directing of our life dependeth the name thereof is very justy used to signifie by way of similitude whatsoever holdeth the first place in any society and which consequently hath in this respect a manifest resemblance of the Head properly so called It need not therefore be thought strange that this holy Apostle makes use of this figure to express the superiority the dignity and imperial power which JESUS CHRIST hath over the Church saying that He is the Head thereof And sure if there be a superiour in the whole universe who may and ought to be called head of the society which is under him JESUS CHRIST doth merit it infinitely beyond any other there being none at all in whom the reasons and respects which are necessary for the founding of this appellation are so clearly found as in Him For all the qualities actions and functions proper to the head of the body of man which give it its name and dignity JESUS CHRIST hath and doth exercise them much more nobly and magnificently than any General in reference to His army or any Monarch in reference to His State The first and most known office which the head doth the members is that it directs and guides them in their operations and governs their motion and their rest by the light of its eyes and the perceptions of its other senses Now Princes and Captains have some shadow of this perfection in that they discover and observe and sent at distance the things that concern those bodies over which they preside watching and viewing all that respects their interests while their people mean time quietly labour each of them in his own employment But JESUS CHRIST doth these offices to His Church much better and more perfectly For it 's in Him that all the light of this mystical body doth reside He considereth not only its interests in general He knoweth all that concerneth the least of His members He never slumbereth nor sleepeth He hath eyes and senses alwayes open He seeth all the parts of this His State and discerneth the posture and disposition of all that is its friend or foe be it neerer hand or further off He charily preserves it by this Providence of His governing it so prudently that there is no danger from which He doth not deliver it nor any difficulty but He surmounteth it It is He that ordereth His people warrs and over-ruleth their fights and dispenseth their truces and will one day give them an entire and eternal peace The second duty the Head performs to the body is that it influxeth into all the members of it all the motion and sensation that they have by means of the animal spirits which from the head as from their spring do spread themselves through the whole body flowing in the nerves as in so many channels which nature hath cut out and laid forth for the maintaining of this communication And I acknowledge that the authority and powers which a Prince distributeth into all the parts of His State and which cause His subjects to act diversly each one according to the degree they receive thereof I acknowledge I say this is a very good resemblance of the way of the heads governing the body But it is far beneath what we find in the LORD JESUS His conduct
towards His Church For He enliveneth all the members of it from the greatest even to the least and gives them not the power and authority only as Princes give their subjects but the very strength and ability to act communicating to each of His faithful ones such a measure of His Spirit as is necessary for sensation and motion and all the other functions of heavenly life as St. Paul teacheth us in the Epistle to the Ephesians and more at large in the First to the Corinthians Eph. 4. 1 Cor. 12. Moreover the Head hath this advantage above the rest of the body that it is of a more exquisite constitution and temper than the other members according to the rule that nature prudently observes in general which is to frame those things best that are designed to the choiâ—est employments Kings and Captains do deserve also the name of Heads in this respect their dignity being very high-raised above their subjects But their advantage in this particular is nothing in comparison of that which JESUS CHRIST hath above His Church not only by His being incomparably more holy more wise and more powerful than any of all the faithful but especially in that He is GOD blessed for ever Finally as you see the Head is placed highest in the body of man this scituation being necessary for its commodious exercising the functions of its government a thing that Kings and Princes imitate dwelling ordinarily in Palaces and sitting on Thrones raised above the houses and seats of their subjects so JESUS CHRIST hath this advantage but in a far greater degree sitting on high in the Heavens upon the Throne of GOD above the whole Church both militant and triumphant And whereas He conversed sometime on earth that was only for a while and by dispensation for the good of His body which obliged Him to do it even as the head boweth down it self somtimes when the necessity of any of its members doth require it But the proper and natural place of JESUS CHRIST is that lofty Sanctuary of immortality where He now appears in highest glory from thence governing by His Spirit all the parts of this mystical body of the Church both those that are in Heaven and those that are yet on earth Thus My Brethren you see wherein this dignity of our LORD JESUS doth consist and with how much reason St. Paul expresseth it here and otherwhere by saying that He is the head of the Church Whence evidently follows what the Apostle also evidently says that the Church is the body of CHRIST For if JESUS CHRIST be call'd the Head thereof for having and exercising towards it all the functions and prerogatives of a natural Head towards its members it is clear that the Church must also be called His body since this whole Divine society depends on JESUS CHRIST and receives of Him all the light all the aptitude all the sense and motion that it hath Upon this doctrine of the Apostle we have divers things to consider before we pass any further First by fixing this position he timely fortifies the Colossians against that errour which we shall find Him expresly opposing hereafter the errour of those that would subject the faithful to Angels and to Moses introducing into the Church the worshipping of the one and the Pedagogy of the other For since the Son of GOD is the Head of this sacred society who seeth not that it ought to depend on Him alone that 't is to Him it oweth its obedience and service and of Him it ought to receive its discipline and guidance But it must also be observed that the Apostle giveth this title to JESUS CHRIST with a design to glorifie Him enroling it among the other praises of His Soveraign dignity Indeed since the Church is the most Divine society in the world since it is acompany of Kings of Priests and of Prophets the Assembly of the first-fruits and a new world much more excellent than the old a world immortal and incorruptible it is evident that to be the Head thereof is a quality more sublime then to have been the Creator and Prince of the Universe at first Whereby you see in the third place how unrighteous to say no more the rashness of those is who give this name to another beside JESUS CHRIST acknowledging a mortal man for the true Head of the universal Church Let them colour this usurpation how they will they shall not be able to justifie it This is evidently to despoil JESUS CHRIST of His royal robe and to take the Diadem from Him which none but He can bear They alledge that the Scripture verily communicates to others beside JESUS CHRIST the names of Pastor of Priest and of Teacher and of Light and such others It is true but it never gives that of Head of the Church to any but Him And the difference of these titles is evident the former signifying charges whereof the faithful do exercise some portion and some shadow whereas that of Head of the Church signifies the Supremacy which is incommunicable to any other but the Son of GOD. As you see that in a State the name of Prince and of Governour and Captain and others of like sort are not given to the King only they pertain to others also But no other may be called the Soveraign or the Head of the State besides Him without incurring the guilt of Sacriledge or Treason Yet they endeavour to excuse them and say they make the Pope but the ministerial and subordiate Head not an essential and soveraign one But this is nothing but words arising from their interest and not founded in the truth of things There is no Prince that would be satisfied with such language if any one of his subjects that had made himself the head and Monarch of His State should alledge for his excuse that he had no intention save to pass for a ministerial head In the nature of men whence this similitude is taken we see no bodies that have two heads of a different rank and if any such be found at any time they are accounted for monsters which cannot be said of the Church the most perfect master-piece of all the works of GOD. In a word it is not enough to say that the Pope is the ministerial head of the Church it must be proved We plainly read in Scripture that JESUS CHRIST is Head of the Church Let us believe it and adore Him under that quality But that there is another head in the Church be he visible or invisible be he ministerial or soveraign this we meet not with at all in the writings of the Apostles not to say that we meet with divers things in them wherewith such a doctrine is incompatible Faith is by hearing and hearing by the word of GOD. Let it therefore be permitted us to suspend our believing this other pretended head of the Church since we have heard nothing of it in the word of GOD. But that which the
fetter'd fast for ever You shall see not Arrows broken and Cuirasses batter'd and Arms cut in pieces but Sin abolish'd and Death destroy'd You shall see the spoils not of an Army or a Countrey but of the Lords of the world and of the Governours of the darkness of this Age. Lastly You shall behold in it not the image of some petty Fortress taken by assault or composition or of some River forced or some Province subdued but Hell finally beaten Heaven gained and an Eternal World brought under the power of our victorious LORD Let us apply our selves to the fruition of this magnificent spectacle and afford it all the sense and attention that we have To this end consider we First What these Principalities and Powers are which JESUS CHRIST hath spoiled And then see in the second place how he made a shew of them and triumph'd over them on the Cross These are the two Heads we will treat upon if the LORD please in this action The Apostle ordinarily makes use of the words Principalities Powers Dominions Thrones Col. 1.16 Rom. 8.37 Eph. 1.21 and Virtues to signifie the Angels as for instance in the first Chapter of this Epistle in the eighth of the Epistle to the Romans and in the first of that he wrote to the Ephesians He gives those spiritual beeings these names both because of the strength and power they are endowed with which mightily surpasseth the virtue of material and elementary things and also by reason of the divers orders into which GOD hath distinguish'd them according to the difference of their ministrations placing some of the Angels as it were Chiefs in a superiority to others And though the sin of Devils hath corrupted the perfections of their nature yet it doth appear by divers places of Scripture that it hath not quite destroyed this Order among them Satan being set forth to us as the Head of this black band and as having other evil Angels under him so as they may in this respect be still reâ—med Principalities and Powers Nevertheless there is another reason which the Apostle had his eye principally upon in giving them these names as he himself intimateth in the sixth Chapter to the Ephesians We wrestle not saith he against flesh and blood Eph. 6.12 but against principalities against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high-places Here you plainly see he calleth them Principalities and Powers by reason of that Imperiality they exercise in this world under its present state of subjection unto sin and vanity Not that such a superiority doth of right belong unto them for having rebelled against their Creator they have lost all true and lawful dignity But the sin of man having â—uslav'd him to those evil spirits hath withall made these elements subject to them whereof he was the true and natural Lord. And GOD hath permitted it so to be for the executing of his justice against sin For since that man shook off the yoke of GOD having wretchedly preferr'd the pernicious counsel of his Eneâ—y before the just commandment of his Master it is but reason he should be subject to him to whom he did betray his own liberty Such then is the order or rather the confusion of the world since the fall to wit that the Devil exerciseth an insupportable â—yranny in it governing it at his pleasure as if he were Lord of it For First He worketh upon all the ungodly with wonderful force swaying their souls unto brutal passions setting on fire their lusts and by that thick smoak which he raiseth from their hearts blinding their minds and depriving them of all the light that 's necessary for distinguishing of truth and falshood Eph 2.2 of good and evil as the Apostle doth elsewhere inform us saying that this unclean spirit doth work effectually in the children of disobedience and in another place 2 Tim. 2.26 he telleth us that he hath the wicked in his snares and makes them do his will Not that he compelleth them to evil by co-active force and how much soever they dislike it but their nature being corrupted as it is he never tempteth them without effect their souls voluntarily surrendring themselves to his pernicious perswasions Moreover he disposeth of material things turning and changing them at his pleasure raising tempests in the air seditions and warrs among men putting in commotion all that murtherous violence that makes havock of mankind and presiding over all the instruments of the creatures damage and death Heb. 2.14 By reason whereof the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews calleth Satan Him who hath the power of death And although he executeth none of his bad purposes without the permission of GOD as the Scripture clearly shews us in the History of Job where you see he toucheth neither the goods nor the children nor the person of that holy man until leave had of this Supream Majesty nevertheless because he worketh commonly in the world the greater part whereof is depraved and rebellious against GOD he seems Master of it and himself doth glory in it as when he said to our Saviour in temptation after he had shewed him all the Kingdoms of the Earth Luke 4.6 All the power and glory of these things will I give thee for to me it is delivered and I give it to whom I will And indeed for these reasons doth our Saviour stile the Devil John 12.31 and 14.30 2 Cor. 4.4 the Prince of this world as when he says Now the Prince of this world shall be cast out and so elsewhere and S. Paul calls him in the same sense the GOD of this world Represent unto your selves the world as it was under the darkness of its old Heathenism when GOD left all Nations to walk in their own ways In it the Devil absolutely domineered All those poor multitudes held he under his tyranny He had put out the eyes of their minds and in this blindness made them commit all kind of vileness and abominations He inspired into them hatred of the true GOD and of his Service and so effectually beguiled them by his fallacious illusions that he caused them to adore himself under the forms of divers Idols These same spirits are they that the Apostle intends here by those Principalities and Powers he speaks of For though the Scripture doth particularly mark out one of them whom it calleth Satan as the Head of this abominable Monarchy yet it rangeth under him a vast multitude of Spirits who all travelling upon the same design and setting on work in it all the might and industry they have do bear a part in his accursed Empire And there is great probability too that they are divided into certain bands each of which are drawn up under their particular Chiefs and do all of them depend upon Satan as their General For which reason it is that the Apostle calls them in the plural number Principalities
JESUS CHRIST here described by the Apostle And hence it appears how grievous the errour of those is who serve Angels there being not any thing in these words but does evince it First then the Apostle says they hold not the head 'T is true they do not make profession of letting it go For they affirm themselves Christians and do own JESUS CHRIST for the Prince and Author of their Religion But at the bottom and in effect they break the union which they should have with Him in quality of Head since they address themselves to Angels as their Mediators and Intercessors with GOD. For it 's a giving them the office of Head which pertains to one alone it being clear that this mediation which is the Source of our life is the office of our Head Again their impudence doth plainly appear in that JESUS CHRIST our Head doth furnish His body with all necessary graces For to what end should we go seek in Angels or Saints what we have abundantly in JESUS CHRIST Is there any grace any light any blessing which we may not have from Him Nay saith the Apostle it is he that furnisheth the whole body He is the fulness of grace an inexhaustible abyss of good Sure then it 's extream vanity to address our selves to any other and to seek the waters of life and of salvation in petty by-streams rather than in that so full so fresh and so abundant an only Source which the Father hath given us in this Divine Head Though the serving of Angels and Saints were permitted which yet it is not however 't is evident it would be unprofitable since we most assuredly have in JESUS CHRIST alone all the succour and assistance we can possibly pretend to from those creatures But that which the Apostle adds in the second place to wit that this Divine Head doth compact and knit together His whole body doth further potently oppose this error which divides the Church and brings a very manifest odd variety into its Services for that it multiplyeth the objects of its devotion causing some to serve one Angel or one Saint and others another some have a devotion for one and call themselves after him and others adhere to another as you plainly see by the example of those of Rome who are divided into divers bands and fraternities according to the Angels the Male and Female Saints to whom they engage their devotion not to say how each of them hath a particular service for his Angel guardian differing from the service of all others by reason of its object forasmuch as according to them every one hath his particular Angel different from those of others Whereas the true body of CHRIST is all knit together in a perfect union having but one only head JESUS CHRIST and one only religious service one and the same faith and one and the same Worship Lastly the Apostle yet again strikes at the Authors of this errour when he saith that the body of the Church being united guided and governed by its Head JESUS CHRIST increaseth with an increase of GOD. For these people are wont to vaunt of perfecting and increasing the Religion of Christians by the addition of such services as they invent But S. Paul informs us that this is not the increase that the Church receives which must be an increase of GOD an augmentation and advancement in things which He hath commanded an instituted whereas these people do grow only in the traditions of men and inventions of the flesh which add nothing to the true and legitimate magnitude of the body it becomes by them more blown up not fuller more deformed not greater They are like warts and wolfes and empostumes which disfigure and incommodate the body but are far from enriching or perfecting it Dear Brethren let us lay by all these strange doctrines Let us hold fast to this Holy and blessed Head JESUS the Son of GOD who hath vouchsafed to take us for His body Let us enjoy with awfullest respect the great honour He hath therein done us Be not we so ingrateful or so unadvised as to give that glory to any other which belongs to Him alone Let vain men submit to other heads let them profane this Divine quality of Head of the Church attributing it either to Angels or which is yet worse to a mortal man For our parts O LORD JESUS we neither have nor ever will have other head than Thee As it is Thou alone that hast redeemed us formed and associated us in the Communion of thy body So never will we address our Devotions our Religion our Services and invocations to any but to Thee It 's on Thee alone that we will live and of thy springs alone that we will draw Likewise with Thee are the words of Eternal life To what Saint besides should we go Without Thee we can do nothing and in Thee alone we can do all things Beloved Brethren this is the Vow which I now present to the LORD JESUS in the behalf of us all and I assure my self there is not one of you but heartily sayes Amen thereto It remaineth that we do faithfully acquit our selves of this great vow rendring up our selves to be guided and governed by the LORD JESUS CHRIST since He is our Head having no motion nor sentiment but what descends from Him and receiving into our Nerves and Arteries His Coelestial and divine Spirit sincerely renouncing the spirit of the Flesh and of the Earth which animates the world Remember that you are the body of CHRIST and live in such a pureness as may be worthy of so great a name Above all let us have those Sacred bonds between us which do fitly knit all the members of our LORD together that is to say the sentiments of a vigorus Charity communicating readily and chearfully to one another the graces which our common Head hath furnished us with for our mutual edification the rich their alms to those that are poor the knowing their instructions to the ignorant the strong their succour to the weak those that are in prosperity their Consolations to the afflicted encreasing all of us continually with an increase of GOD in Faith and Sanctification and advancing daily some paces towards the mark and prize of our supernal Calling This is the Discipline of the LORD JESUS This is that He hath commanded us His Apostles Preached and left in their Writings to us not the serving of Angels and other such inventions of superstition of which those holy men say not one Word except it be to refute and condemn them Rest we in their Doctrine and we shall have part in their bliss through the grace of JESUS CHRIST their Head and ours To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the only true GOD blessed for ever be honour praise and glory to Ages of Ages Amen THE XXX SERMON COL II. Vers XX. XXI XXII Verse XX. If then ye be dead with CHRIST as to the rudiments
then do not we who know the vanity of our being the feebleness of our bodies the malignity of our hearts the ignorance and folly of our minds the perverseness of our affections the uncertainty and misery of our life the demerit of our sins and the eternal woe whereof they are worthy I say why do we not clothe our selves all over with a sincere and profound humility After these consideratons how can we have any puff of pride If you tell me it is true you were such by nature but that the grace of JESUS CHRIST hath made you otherwise I answer that herein you have cause indeed to acknowledge and glorifie His bounty but none to lift up your selves For you have nothing that is good but you received it of GOD and if you have received it why do ye boast of it The more He hath given you the more ought you to humble your selves as those branches bow most and hang down lowest which are most laden with fruit Thus you see that being nothing in your selves and having received of GOD all that you can have it is just that you be humble not to report here either the command for it which GOD gives us in a thousand places or the graces He promiseth unto humility or the pattern of it which He sets before us in His Son JESUS CHRIST or the ruine wherewith He menaceth the haughty After humility the Apostle lodgeth two of its daughters in our souls namely meekness and patience Meekness is properly that which we call gentleness the greatest grace of our behaviour and the amiablest ornament of our life It receives every one with an open heart and a pleasing countenance It is not easily provoked and as far as it can takes all things in good part It is assable and judgeth not with rigour It restrains the stirrings of choler and notwithstanding the occasions offered for it keeps and maintains it self in a sweet calm without becoming angry easily receiving as far as reason permitteth the excuses of those that have offended it and being much more readily appeased than irritated As this vertue is very grateful to others so is it exceedingly profitable and beneficial to our selves For living with men that is to say with weak and wretched creatures without gentleness that sweetneth all things we must needs be in a continual irritation and never have joy nor repose Patience is the sister of gentleness they do both of them bear vexations things without exasperation only with this difference that gentleness is exercised in reference to the fullenness the sottishness and the impertinency of those we converse with patience undergoeth other greater evils as outrages and affronts and those very afflictions which are sent us of GOD as sicknesses and losses and the like But for the better clearing of the nature of these two Vertues the Apostle particularly recommends unto us two eminent acts of them extremely necessary for Christians and of singular use in our whole life when he addeth bearing with one another and pardoning one another if one hath a quarrel against the other The first of these two acts pertaineth as well unto meekness as to patience For first if there be any defect either in the humour or in the person or even in the faith and piety of our brethren provided it be not a capital crime that tendeth to the overthrow of religion and salvation we ought not for this break with them nor reject or sadden them but bear with them with all sweetness remembring both the need we have that the like equity and condescendance be used towards us in many things wherein we are no more perfect than our brethren in the fore-mentioned and the example of our LORD and Saviour who according to the Prophet's prediction Mâ—â— 12.20 did not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax Then in the second place if our neighbours have offended us either by word or deed we must not forthwith betake our selves unto revenge as men of the world doâ— but endeavour to overcome them by sweetness bearing their wronging us with a Christian and generous resolution The other act that the Apostle commandeth us and which likewise respects those two vertues is our pardoning one another if one hath a quarrel against the other This is yet more than our bearing with one another which he first required of us For there are people found that bear with the fullenness or the infirmities of their neighbour yea with his offences whether it be that they have not the means to avenge themselves or that they count it not expedient to do it for the present who mean time keep and brood upon their resentments in the secret of their hearts waiting for an opportunity to shew them with advantage Wherefore the Apostle is not content to tell us that we should bear with one another he addeth further that we do pardon one another that is efface out of our souls all resentment of an offence received and eradicate all desire of revenge heartily remitting to our neighbours Mat. 18 35. the fault they have committed against us as our LORD enjoyns us when he saith that his Father will irremissibly punish us if we do not from our hearts forgive every one his Brother This duty reacheth universally to all the faithful and takes place in all kind of subjects as the Apostle signifies when he adds indefinitely if one that is any one of us hath a quarrel against another whatever the occasion of the quarrel be whether injurious speeches given or actions done either against our selves or any one of ours But because S. Paul was not ignorant how difficult this piece of Christian piety is our flesh having no passion stronger and more uneasie to be subdued than the resentment of offences and the desire of revenge to reduce us to this sweetness and divine patience and to beat down the fierceness of our hearts he proposeth unto us the example of the LORD JESUS the Prince of our discipline and Pattern of our life As CHRIST saith he hath pardoned you so likewise do ye He does the same also in the Epistle to the Ephesians Eph. 4.32 where he sets before us the example of GOD forgiving us all our sins for his Son's sake And what stronger reason than this could the Apostle alledge For JESUS CHRIST being our Head and our elder Brother unto whose image we ought to be conformed according to the predestinâ—tion of GOD how shall we be his members his Disciples and his living Pourtraits if we have nothing in us of that great and divine goodness he hath shewed us Though he had not exercised it but towards others yet we should be obliged to an imitation of Him But it 's our selves that he hath pardoned and not others only so that his example doth yet much the more strictly bind us For the inhumanity of that wretched servant in the Parable who when he himself had been gratifi'd by his
here to the Colossians opposing it to that of the Law the rudiments whereof some endeavoured to re-establish among them Secondly we must observe what is the object of this knowledge the knowledge saith he of the will of GOD. All men naturally desire to know and I avouch that every knowledge is beautiful and grateful and there is none truly such but addeth some ornament to our understanding Yet it must be confessed that they are for the most part incapable of giving us the perfection and happiness we desire and which is necessary for our nature Such are all mundane sciences found out and cultivated by the sages of the World not only their Philosophy about nature and the motions of the Heavens and the Elements and about the properties and effects of things animate and inanimate but also that part of their Doctrine which more neerly respecteth us and explaineth what our carriage should be both in particular and in respect of those that govern us or are governed of us either in the family or in the State For to say nothing of the variety and extream uncertainty of their opinions which change every day and float continually in infinite doubts after having passed an whole life in this study and made the greatest progresses that may be no man is by it either more content or more happy or more assured All the pretended light of their School will not be able to dissipate in us either the horrour of death or the fear of the Judgement of GOD. It is only the knowledge of the LORD that can free us of it and by consequence it alone is necessary for us the rest will not render us either more happy if we have them or more miserable if we have them not It 's then this alone which the Apostle wisheth unto the Colossians But we must yet consider in the Third place that He wisheth them the knowledge not of the nature or the Majesty or the other essential properties of GOD but of His will For as to the essence of this supream and incomprehensible LORD as to the infinite and immense greatness of His power as to the ineffable manner of His understanding and the marvels of His judgement it is not necessary for us to know them clearly It is sufficient for us to adore them and many have lost themselves in lusting to sound them It is His Will that we must know to attain salvation as the true rule of our duty and His judgement He hath fully declared it to us by the Ministry of His Heralds the Apostles and Prophets who have published it by word of mouth and configned it in writing in the Holy Books which they have left us There it is that we must seek it and not in the discourses of vain men There we shall find it manifested as far as is necessary for us to know and do it It hath two principal parts faith and obedience For the will of GOD as the Apostle understands it here is nothing else but that which GOD would have us believe Joh. 6.40 and do to be happy For faith His will is saith our LORD that whoever seeth the Son and believeth in Him have eternal life and be raised up at the last day 1 Thes 4.3 For action This is the will of GOD saith the Apostle even your sanctification These are the two first and principal heads of the will of GOD to which all other instructions in Scripture do referr It 's in the knowledge of these things that St. Paul prayeth GOD the Colossians might be perfect and accomplished He addeth in all wisdom and spiritual understanding We call them Wise men in the world that know how to compass their ends that use means fit for this purpose and skilfully avoid all that might put them from it so dextrously conducting their affairs that of two things the one follows either they finish that which they desire or if they prosper not in it it is some mishap and not their fault that is the cause of such ill success But because they propose unto themselves ends vain and evil and unprofitable to their happiness thence it comes that how wise soever they be esteemed by the world all their industry yet is to say true but folly and errour Those then on the contrary are wise after the Spirit who constantly hold the right course of piety guiding themselves in it with such skilfulness that they beware of scandals and all that might set them off from their mark avoiding what is contrary to it and practising what is useful And though the world commonly account them extravagant yet so it is that their conduct proves to be true wisdom since at the end and after all it will be found that none but they attain unto salvation It is then this skilfulness which the Apostle termeth here a spiritual wisdom both because it respecteth the things of the Spirit that appertain to a Celestial and spiritual life as also for that it is a gift of the Spirit of GOD coming from on high from the Father of lights neither the sense nor the reason of Nature being capable of giving it to any knowledge of the Divine will is as it were the matter and subject of wisdom Wisdom is as it were the use and employing of the knowledge of GOD. For to be wise after the Spirit it is not enough to know what is the will of GOD There must be use of this knowledge first by laying down for a certain and unmoveable maxime that it is in it our bliss consisteth and consequently that therein we must bound our desires Secondly by practising what we know of this Divine will aiming at the mark it sheweth us and employing to attain it the means it prescribeth us watching and labouring continually thereto For certainly that servant in the Parable who knew his Masters will and did it not was nothing less than wise As for the spiritual understanding which the Apostle wisheth in the last place to the Colossians it is a quick and exquisite prudence to judge aright of things that are presented and discern the good from the evil the true from the false and the real from the apparent and this gift as you see is also a fruit of the knowledge of GOD and consisteth only in an exact application of what we know of His will to the doctrines and counsels which the flesh and its Ministers set before us to turn us out of the way of salvation It 's this was wanting to Eve when she was seduced by the Serpent and to the Galathians when they were abused by those impostors the Apostle fearing lest the same should betide the Colossians to divert this fatal blow supplicates the LORD to give them understanding necessary for the happy severing the false colours the paintings and baits of untruth from the simplicity that is in CHRIST Therefore he demandeth not of Him only that they might be filled with the knowledge of His
only for the sitting us to do them Of the first sort is Astronomy which hath no design but to comprehend the motions of the heavenly bodies and the Mathematiques which are busied in the study of magnitude and number without having other end than to know the nature of them Of the second sort is Science Moral or the Ethiques which teach us but in order to action and shew us what each of the Vertues is to the end we may practise them and live according to the rules this Science gives us It 's disputed in the Schools to which of these two kinds of Sciences belongs Sacred Theologie that is the doctrine of Divine things revealed to us in the Gospel of our LORD JESUS CHRIST For on one hand it teacheth us divers things of the nature of GOD and of Angels and of the World to come and such other mysteries which seem to be objects of contemplation only and not of action On the other hand it gives us divers Rules for practice and this mixture hath induced some to think that it is a discipline not simple and uniform but miscellaneous and composed of the one and the other kind Our Apostle in my opinion clearly decides the question in this place For having afore wished the Colossians a rich and full knowledge of this divine doctrine in all wisdom and spiritual understanding he stayes not there but adds in the Text we have read the end it is subservient to To the end saith he ye may walk worthily as is beseeming the LORD unto the pleasing Him in all things fructifying in every good work Here you see he states it expresly that the end of knowledge is practice holy walking and fructifying in every good work being evidently doing Whence follows that it ought to be placed among the Active Sciences since their end is the Character of their nature and that which properly gives them the rank they are to hold I grant it treats of the Essence and Attributes of GOD but it 's with design to carry us thereby unto the love and service of His Majesty that is unto action Whence it comes that in Scripture to know GOD is almost alwayes taken for to serve Him according to that light of the knowledge of Himself which He hath given us But it is of no great importance for us to know what rank this heavenly discipline is of among the Sciences provided we hold fast this principle of the Apostle's that the end why we should be instructed in the knowledge of GOD is a godly life and not the soothing of our minds or the contenting our curiosity with a vain delight much less the being able to entertain with such high mysteries the company we chance to be in For as we call that man an Architect not who can handsomly discourse of buildings but that hath the art to erect them and as we give not the name and glory of a Captain to one that can elequently speak of War but to him that can manage it and is of capacity to conduct an army skilfully and can withstand and fight an enemy and acquit himself in all the functions of a military command so we must hold for a Christian not him who knoweth and can pertinently explain the duties of the faithful but him that performs them It 's in the life and not in talk that this Science doth consist in the heart and in the conversation not in the brain and in the tongue Let this then be effectually the end of this holy study Let us learn not simply to know or to speak but to do carefully reducing into practice all the prescriptions of this heavenly doctrine And that we may rightly comprehend this legitimate end of our knowledge let us meditate the lesson which the Apostle now gives us concerning it It contains two Heads First The very life and actions which we are to endeavour and Secondly The firmness and patience wherewith we should persevere in them These shall be GOD willing the two subjects we will treat of in the present action The Apostle explaineth us the former of them in the tenth Verse 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. In these words as you see he shews us first the end of the knowledge of the Gospel in general which is a walking worthily as is beseeming the LORD Next he sets before us the principal parts of this worthy walking The first respects the scope it proposeth to its self even the pleasing of GOD in all things The second the actions wherein it ought to be employed which are a fructifying in every good work The third its progress and advancement which is to increase in the knowledge of GOD. Here then Christian soul is the true and only end of that heavenly light which hath been communicated to you that you walk worthily as is beseeming the LORD You know the Scripture ordinarily compares the life of man unto a journey and the actions and designes and employments he passeth it in unto a path or way In effect after we are once entred the world we incessantly eloign us from the point of our Nativity as from the place whence we departed and advance towards death as a common habitation where all do meet alike some sooner others later As for other travellours they may stay if it seem them good or return unto the place from whence they came But we cannot possibly do the one or the other Time enwrapping us about from the first point of our life carryeth us away still forward whether we wake or sleep whether we consent to it or strive to the contrary without permitting us to turn back or to repose our selves one single moment just as he whom the Sea and the wind carry on in a Vessel so as his own particular motion serveth not at all either to stop or to slack his course But as the wayes and designes of travellors are very different so there is an huge diversity between the forms and manners of the life of men The way that the wicked follow is one and that of good men another The Pagan steereth one course the Jew and the Mahometan another and the Christian another wholly different This is that the Scripture calls The way of man understanding by this word the form and institution of life which every one doth follow And suitably to this dainty figure it often makes use of the word Walking to signifie directing forming and composing the life after some certain manner whether good or evil intending thereby the tenour of life we lead and the deportments and actions to which we addict our selves There is nothing more common in the Psalms and in the Proverbs than these forms of speech to walk in Integrity or on the contrary in Fraud and Iniquity and in the Writings of the New Testament to walk in Light or
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
grant likewise that JESUS the Son of GOD is the true and single Author of this second Creation But to this I adjoyn two things first That though this passage might be understood of this Reformation of the World yet it would of necessity infer That JESUS to whom it is attributed is the true Eternal GOD. For since this work is no less nay since it is greater than that of Creation it is evident that none but a true GOD could be the Author of it It being clear as we shall say anon that Creation is set before us in Scripture as an Argument of true and eternal Divinity And the thing speaks of it self For since a Divine and Infinite Vertue is requisite to regenerate men and destroy the servitude of Sin and Satan it must of necessity be acknowledged That JESUS the Author of this great work hath an infinite power that is to say is truly GOD no finite subject being capable of an Infinite power and none being infinite but GOD alone Thus you see it is in vain that the Hereticks do toil them their own Interpretation though it were admitted necessarily inferring the thing which they oppose to wit That JESUS is true GOD Infinite and Eternal and subsisting before all ages But I say in the second place that this Text cannot be understood of the Reparation or second Creation of the World First because the Apostle will by and by speak of that in the three Verses immediately following where He loftily describeth it saying That JESVS CHRIST is the head of the body the Church the beginning and the first-born from the dead By whom the Father hath reconciled all things to Himself as well Celestial as Terrestrial having made peace by the blood of His cross By means hereof unless we will render S. Paul guilty of vain babling and useless repetition we must confess that as in this second place he speaks of the Reparation and Renovation of things so in the former he spake of their first Creation Secondly this same appears again from his reckoning the Angels expresly among the things created by JESUS CHRIST yea he insisteth on them more than on the rest as we shall see hereafter saying That by Him were created things in heaven Thrones Dominions Principalities and Powers But the Angels were not renewed nor repaired by JESUS CHRIST since that sin neither ruined their nature nor made it wax old nor subjected it to vanity It must therefore be concluded that the Apostle speaks here not of the reparation of things but of the first creation of them it being most certain that the Angels were created their nature though holy yet being not for all that eternal and without beginning I grant that by the Salvation which we have receiv'd from JESUS CHRIST the Angels have been re-united to us and settled again in peace and good intelligence with us from whom our sin had separated and estranged them and this is that the Apostle meaneth when he saith here beneath Col. 1.20 Epâ—hs 1.10 That GOD hath reconciled things in heaven and things in earth by the death of JESVS CHRIST and elswhere that He hath recapitulated or gathered together again in CHRIST both that which is in heaven and that which is on earth But this is not to be called a creating of the Angels nor can any example of such extravagant language be produced that creating of persons was put to signifie a reconciling them with those they hated and whose communion they avoided Otherwise since JESUS CHRIST reconciled us also with GOD the Father incorporating us into His family so as He is thereby become our Father and we His children in the same manner that we are brethren with the Angels it might to express this be also said That JESUS CHRIST created GOD the Father which no ear I say not Christian but that is ever so little rational could possibly endure Finally the contexture it self of the Apostles words doth evidently shew that they must be understood necessarily of the first and not of the second creation of things I confess the Holy GHOST sometimes useth the word Create 〈◊〉 signifie the Production of the second work of GOD that is the work of His grace in JESUS CHRIST But He never doth it without some addition and restriction that evidently limitteth the word to such a sense as for example Isa 65.17.18 when He saith in Isaiah that he is about to create new heavens and a new earth and that he is about to create Jerusalem to be a joy and her people gladness The very form of this language ordered in the Future Tense as you see and those New Heavens and that Jerusalem which He saith he is about to create do evidently shew that it is not of the first creation of the world He intended to speak So when the Apostle saith that GOD hath created them both that is the Jews and the Gentiles in Himself into one new man This latter word New leaveth no place for doubt but that he meaneth here the second Operation of God by which Jews and Gentiles were united into one onely people and not of the first whereby they were brought forth into their natural existence And likewise when he saith in the same place Eph. 2.15 26. that we are created in JESVS CHRIST unto good works which GOD hath prepared that we should walk in them The persons of whom he speaketh Vs that is the faithful distinquish'd from other men and the end of this work of GOD to wit good works these do sufficiently clear it that the Creation there meant is the second and not the first Nor can any reasonable man doubt of it In these places and others like them if there be any the word Create is still limitted and circumstantiated Otherwhere when it is used simply and absolutely it is not to be taken but for the first Creation as when Isaiah saith Isa 42.5 Rev. 4.11 that GOD hath created the Heavens and S. John in the Revelations that the LORD created all things and in a multitude of the like places Neither can there be brought so much as one to the contrary For as to that which the Adversaries alledge out of the Epistle to the Ephesians where they pretend that the Apostle's saying Ephes 3.9 GOD created all things by JESVS CHRIST must be expounded of the second and not the first Creation in this they do not prove but presuppose the thing in question nothing obliging us to depart in this place more than in the others from the common signification of the Word Forasmuch then as in this Text upon which we are this term Create is used simply and indefinitely without any limitation or restriction the Apostle saying and twice repeating that all things were created by the Son of GOD nay adding to shew the extent of this subject more fully both things which are in heaven and things which are in earth visible and invisible Thrones Dominions Principalities
if the Heavens and the Elements and the Winds and the Meteors and the Plants things deaf and dumb and inanimate do preach and celebrate the wonders of their LORD all of them obeying His voyce and faithfully serving His designs what will our ingratitude be if with these senses and this excellent reason He hath given us we alone of all His creatures should cross His counsels and dishonor His Name instead of glorifying it The glory He requireth of us is only that we walk in His Commandments that we abound in good and holy works that we depart from all evil and live in such manner as may oblige our neighbours to acknowledge that this JESUS whom we serve is truly a great GOD. Acquit we us then faithfully of these duties and assure our selves that if we advance His glory He will provide for our bliss and guard us from all that opposeth the same For since all things Celestial and Terrestrial visible and invisible were created and do still subsist by Him there is nothing in the whole world that should make us afraid All the Armies of Heaven of the Elements and of Nature are in our Masters pay and neither war nor work but for His interests and by His order These very Thrones these Principalities these Powers and these Dominions which He hath exalted above all His other creatures do not employ the mightiness and the glory of their nature but for Him and for those that fear Him They are ministring Spirits sent forth to serve for their sakes that shall receive the inheritance of Salvation They keep us in all our ways They defend us in life they assist us at death and convey us up into the bosom of our true Abraham Let us live in assurance under the protection of so good and so great a LORD that we may one day receive at His hand blissful Immortality the great and last Donative His Benignity conferreth To Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit the true GOD blessed over all things be for ever Honor Glory and Praise Amen THE IX SERMON COL I. Ver. XVIII Vers XVIII And it is He who is the head of the body of the Church and who is the beginning and the first-born from the dead to the end He might have the first place in all things IT is not without just cause Beloved Brethren that the Apostle St. Paul speaking of the union of JESUS CHRIST and His Church which was represented at the beginning of the world Eph. 5.32 by the marriage of Adam and Eve doth pronounce it aloud to be a great secret For in effect there is nothing in this mysterie which way soever you take it but is very great and worthy the admiration of men and Angels First if you weigh the thing it self is it not wonderful strange and unheard of in the world that the Creator should unite Himself with the creature The LORD of glory with worms The King of Heaven with dust and ashes The Saint of Saints with sinners Then again if you consider the foundation of this Union what can be conceived of a more ravishing nature than the birth and the death of the Son of GOD upon which this Divine alliaâ—â—e was contracted this mystical Spouse having had so vehement a passion for the Church that to make her His He made Himself a man like us and shed out all His blood upon a Cross If you contemplate the form and manner of this Union it is so strict and intimate that it perfectly mingleth together the parties whom it doth unite and makes them one only body one flesh and one Spirit joyning both their persons and their affairs and in such manner confounding their interests that JESUS CHRIST is wholly His Churches and the Church wholly Her CHRIST's The firmness of this Union is no less admirable being such as all the powers of the Earth of Hell or of Heaven are not able to dissolve it and whereas Nature hath bound nothing in the whole Universe but time doth lose it in the end the sacred clasps of this the Churches eternal Union with her LORD shall never be undone either in this world or in that which is to come by any of those innumerable ages that shall roul forth Finally if you respect the effects of it what can be mentioned of more glorious and saving import than the fruits this Union doth produce It filleth our understanding with light it purifies our affections it sanctifies our hearts it keepeth the peace of GOD in them it changeth slaves of Devils into Children of the most High it transformeth Earth into Heaven and instead of that death and curse which we deserved it giveth us eternity and glory For 't is from it alone that all those Divine graces do flow down which we enjoy in this world and all the advantages and felicities we hope for in the other It need be no wonder therefore that the Scripture doth make use of so many different resemblances to figure out to us so excellent and so rich a subject there being to be found no one so accomplished as might singly suffice to represent us all the marveils of it For this cause it borroweth to express this same one all the unions that nature or art or humane society doth afford us comparing it sometimes to the Union of a Vine with its branches or of an Olive with the graffs that are set into its slock sometimes to the knitting of a Foundation with the building which it beareth or of a corner stone with the two walls which it binds together sometimes to the conjunction of a Prince with His subjects or of an elder brother with the younger or of an husband with his wife But among all these sacred pictures of our union with the LORD there is hardly any more proper or more genuine than the two similitudes which the LORD my Brethren now sets before you the one in those words of His Apostle which we have read to you and the other on that sacred Table whither you are invited to the feast of His Lamb. The first is drawn from the natural union of the head with its members and the second from the union of bread and drink with the bodies which are nourished thereby By reason of the one CHRIST is our head and we His body By reason of the other He is called our bread our meat and our drink and we the creatures whom He feedeth and quickneth And though in other respects these two images be very different yet in this particular they agree that they excellently represent to us both our union with the LORD and the life which is thence derived to us it being clear that as well the head as the food doth each of them give life to the bodies with which they are united This hath induced me to believe that the meditation of this Text will be useful for the Sacrament of the LORD's Supper for which we prepare our selves since for the main
Apostle addeth namely that the Church is the body of CHRIST this further clearly sheweth that none but CHRIST is the Head of it For if the Pope for example were head of it the universal Church should be the Popes body as it is the LORD's But where is the Christian ear that doth not tingle at so strange so unheard of and so profane language And so we see how vehement and inordinate soever the passion of men hath been for this title of Head of the Church no man hath ever hitherto called the Church His body every one confessing that it is no ones body but JESUS CHRIST's alone They should then grant in like manner that none is its Head but He only Since it cannot have any for Head but Him whose body it is In the next place note I pray in opposition to another error of the same adversaries of ours that CHRIST His being Head of the Church doth not at all infer that the Church toucheth Him corporeally or that the bodies of the faithful are properly and substantially joyned to Him as the members of a natural body are joyned to their head Every one confesseth that this must be understood figuratively and mystically and after the same manner all men take the other expressions for the most part by which our union with the LORD is represented as when He is called the Foundation of the Church the corner stone the vine-stock of the Faithful and their raiment No one concludeth that it is necessary for the verifying of these passages our bodies should really touch His substance Why then will they infer it from other places where to set forth the same mysterie it is said that He is our bread our meat and our drink If He be our Head if He be our Raiment if He govern and clothe us without touching our bodies with His why may not He be our bread and nourish us without real entring into our bodily throat and stomach If the one be mystically and figuratively understood why will you force me to take the other corporally and literally I say the same upon the Apostles express declaring that the Church is the body of CHRIST Our adversaries do conclude no Transubstantion from hence and they confess that for salving the truth of these words there is no need that either the Church should lose its own substance and nature or be really changed into the substance of the body of CHRIST Nevertheless they will by all means have it that the same words when the Gospel saith of the bread which our LORD took that it is the body of CHRIST As if it were not rational and easie to say that the bread as well as the Church is the body of CHRIST figuratively and in a mystical way If they admit this sense in one of these places why do they reject it in the other where the nature of things themselves and the truth of heavenly doctrine doth no less necessarily require it In fine not to make any longer stay here St. Paul cleareth up to us in two words another question which the passion of Rome hath so horribly embroyled in these latter times namely what is the nature and the true definition of the Church The Church is saith he the body of CHRIST These two words overthrow all the Philosophizing of our adversaries about this subject in order either to the straitning or enlarging the Communion of the Church beyond what ought to be I say the straitning For they admit to the possessing of this name those only that acknowledge the Bishop of Rome whereas St. Paul alloweth it to all those that belong to JESUS CHRIST and that have His Spirit no one of these but being of His body and by consequent of His Church in whatever place and under whatever Pastors he live I say also the enlarging it For these Doctors who are so severe on one hand as that they give the name of the Church only to the Roman Communion are so loose and so very indulgent on the other hand as they yield it up to the most desperate and prophane Hypocrites that are provided they addict themselves to their Pope not requiring as they affirm Bellarm. 3. de Eccl 〈…〉 2. as any interiour vertue in them to be members of the true Church but only an exteriour profession of the Roman belief and Communion But St. Paul fulminates down this no less impious then extravagant doctrine by saying that the Church is the body of CHRIST For no one can be of His body without being quickned by His Spirit Rom. 8.9 He that hath not the Spirit of CHRIST saith the same Apostle elsewhere is none of His. Certainly then it is not true that the prophane or hypocritical are parts of the Church There is no communion between CHRIST and Belial The body and the members of the one cannot be the body and members of the other Forasmuch as the Church is the body of CHRIST it must of necessity be concluded that these people of whom our adversaries compose their Church which have not as they say any piety or internal vertue and by consequence are members of Belial may well be since they will have it so true members of the Roman but assuredly not of the Christian Church And if the Pope do own them for his sheep we are very certain that the LORD JESUS will never avouch them for His. But it is time to come to the two other titles which the Apostle here giveth in the next place to our LORD JESUS CHRIST adding that He is the beginning or the principle and this first-born from the dead Even as when he had said before that JESVS CHRIST is the first-born that is the Lord of every creature he presently brought the reason of it taken from thence that all things were created by Him In like manner now having said that He is the Head of the Church he foundeth this truth upon His being the author of the Church He that formed and constituted it and the Prince of this new generation He that will give it the true and utmost perfection of its being For the word which we have rendred the beginning signifies also the principle that is to say the cause and origine of a thing and first-born denoteth likewise both Him who is born before the rest and him who is the Master or the Prince of the rest he saith therefore first that the LORD JESVS is the beginning or the principle Certainly this appertaineth unto Him upon the account of the first creation inasmuch as He is the Author of it the word and wisdom which did produce the Universe and it may be 't is in this sense that He calleth Himself in the Apocalypse Rev. 3.14 1.8 21.6 22.13 the beginning of the creation of GOD and elsewhere in the same Book Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end But speech here being of the Church and the resurrection the word beginning must
the same infirmities and to the same necessity of dying and indeed they dyed after they had lived again awhile Their death was rather deferred than abolished Their bodies did corrupt and in the end return to that dust from which they were preserved for some years But with JESUS CHRIST it is not so He in coming forth from the dead retook not the life He had quitted that is the life of the first Adam that infirm natural and earthly life a life still subject unto death He left it in the Sepulchre where it must remain as in eternal oblivion He put on a new life and nature such as is spiritual and celestial as the Apostle elsewhere termeth it a life wholly full of strength and glory that is not subject either to the use of meat or sleep not subject to dolour or death a life appropriate to the second world and not to the first a nature peculiar to the future age not to the present Accordingly you see that being vested therewith he remained not on the earth This is the old Adam's element the habitation of corruption and death But having only sojourned there fourty days so long as was needful to assure His Apostles of the truth of His resurrection and to shew them in His own person the first-fruits of the mystical Canaan He ascended up above the Heavens to the true element of the new man and the Sanctuary of eternity Conclude we then that He is truly the beginning and the first-born from the dead since He is the first of all the dead that was born and raised again in incorruption But these titles signifie yet another thing namely that it shall be He who shall raise again all the members of the Church in like glory that He is the master and the Lord of the dead for the investing them one day in their order with a nature resembling His own according to what St. Paul elsewhere saith that He will make our vile body Phil. 3. like unto His own glorious body For He would not be the first-born from the dead if He did not communicate the priviledge and the possession of this second birth to all His brethren that is to say all the faithful The Apostle adds to the end that He might have the first place in all things Those that are well versed in the reading of these divine Books do know that the word to the end that is often put in them for so as that or in such a sort as even to signifie the event and consequence of an action rather than the intention or design of the agent I account that it must be so taken in this place For the intention of our LORD in being made Head of the Church and the beginning of the new life was rather to Save us and glorifie His Father then to obtain unto Himself the first place in all things Yet true it is that such was the success of this His undertaking as He actually hath the first place in all things For there are but two sorts of things one of those that pertâ—â—â—â—o the first world and its creation the other of those that are of the second world and of the regeneration CHRIST therefore being already the Master and Creator of the former it is evident that having been also established Head of the Church which is the State that consists of the latter and the beginning and first-born of the resurrection of the dead He doth obtain by this means the first place in all things that is to say both in those of the first creation whereof He is the author and in those of the second whereof He is the Head This is the conclusion which the Apostle deduceth from his whole precedent discourse there he said that the LORD is the image of the invisible GOD the first-born of every creature the Creator of the Elements and the Angels and moreover the Head of the Church the principle and the first-fruits of the new Creation now he addeth so as He hath the first place in all things This being as seems to me from hence clear enough there is no necessity we should make any longer stay upon the exposition of this Text. It remains that to conclude we do briefly touch at the duties to which the doctrine of the Apostle doth oblige us and the comforts which it doth afford us JESUS CHRIST saith he is the head of the body of the Church These few words if we meditate them as we ought will teach us all that we owe both of obedience to the LORD and of charity to our brethren and of care and respect to our selves As for the LORD since He hath vouchsafed to become our Head it is evident we ought to honour Him with utmost devotion and submit all the actions of our life to His conduct See with what promptitude the body obeyeth the head and with how absolute a submission it follows all its movings The body neither stirreth nor resteth but as the head ordereth It depends entirely on its guidance and never crosseth its orders or resisteth its commands The head hath no sooner conceived a thing but the spirits forthwith present themselves at the place it desireth and each of the members employeth all the vigor and strength it hath to execute its will This is an image of that obedience which the LORD our mystical Head demands of us and this is that which the Apostle meaneth elsewhere Eph. 5.24 when he saith that the Church is subject to Him It 's in vain therefore that they boast themselves to be the Church who do contrary to what the LORD ordaineth who are subject to another beside Him and instead of His orders follow the will of a mortal man owning another head adoring another oracle keeping what He hath forbidden Blessed be His Name for that He hath granted us to disclaim their errour and to hang all our religion upon His sacred lips believing only that truth which He hath revealed to us in His Gospel and engraven in our hearts by His Spirit But what will it profit us to follow Him in our faith if we resist in our manners How can he avouch for His Church a body subject to Mammon to pleasure to ambition and other idols of the world a body wholly bended down to the earth whereas this divine Head is lift up above the Heavens Dear Brethren let us not deceive our selves We cannot be the Church of CHRIST except we be His body and we cannot be His body except we depend absolutely on Him except we cast out of our members the spirit of the Flesh and of the world and take in His to follow it's light and obey it's movings Henceforth then let us so compose our life that it do not contradict our profession Let the LORD JESUS be truly our Head let Him be still above us let Him preside in all our designs let Him conduct our steps and govern all our motions and inspire into us
we now behold upon it It s in this sence that the Apostle St. John gives the name of the Fulness of CHRIST to that total abundance of perfections and divine graces which dwelt in Him His wisdom His justice His sanctification and His redemption when he saith that of His fulness we all have received Joh. 1.16 And it is after the same manner that S. Paul hereafter by the fulness of the Godhead meaneth all the qualities or properties of the Divine Nature its Understanding its Wisdom its Omnipotency it 's Goodness and Infinite Justice saying That in JESVS CHRIST dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Col. 2.9 It is therefore in this sense also as seems to me that we must take the word Fulness in this Text referring it to the things whereof the Apostle had even now spoken when he affirmed That JESVS CHRIST is the Image of the invisible GOD the First-born of every creature by whom all things were created and do subsist the Head of the Church the Beginning and the First-born from the dead holding the first place in all things For these qualities as you see are the perfections and excellencies partly of the Divine Nature and partly of the Humane the former namely His being the Image of GOD and the Master and Author of the Creatures pertaining to the Divine the latter to wit His being the Head of the Church and the First-born from the dead to the Humane so as when the Apostle after these things addeth now For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell it is as much as if He had said For it was the Fathers will that there should appear in His CHRIST a rich and a compleat abundance of all Divine and Humane perfections all the beauty dignity and excellency that replenisheth heaven and earth that adorneth the nature of GOD and of men And so the question which Interpreters debate whether this Fulness should be referred to the Divinity or to the Humanity of our LORD is cleared for this Exposition comprizeth them both the eternal Wisdom and Power of the one with all its attributes the Sanctity and Charity of the other with all the graces which have been given it without measure This is the All-fulness that dwelleth in JESUS CHRIST And the word Dwelleth hath here a great deal of Emphasis For in the stile of Scripture it signifies an abode not transient and for a time only but such as is firm constant and durable So that the Apostle saying That all fulness dwelleth in CHRIST doth thereby shew us that this rich abundance of all Divine and Humane perfections shall eternally be in Him not as the Divine Glory and Majestie erewhile was in the Tabernacle of Moses and in the Temple of Solomon where it lodg'd but for a space not as the irradiations of the Deity in the souls of the Prophets which they fill'd but for some hours finally not as the graces and perfections that do for some years only enrich the bodies and spirits of mortal men old age and a thousand other accidents and in the end death it self quickly despoiling them of the same which makes the sacred Writers say that the comliness of flesh and the fashion of this world passeth away and that it is like to flowers and herbs in whom beauty tarrieth but a few days time without delay plucking it from them and defacing all the lineaments of it Our CHRIST is an eternal Temple which the Glory of GOD filleth both continually and for ever It doth not meerly lodge there it dwelleth there as in its true and incorruptible Sanctuary Never shall the same be void of it This Fulness shall abide eternally in Him But the Apostle saith That it was the good pleasure of the Father that this fulness should dwell in Him By the good pleasure of the Father he meaneth according to the ordinary stile of Scripture the determination and order of the Eternal wisdom of GOD. For CHRIST did not violently snatch up this glory nor did He assume it to Him of Himself He receiv'd it by the will of the Father who gave Him and sent Him into the world pouring into Him all the treasures of His graces that we might draw from His fulness all the good we need for our happiness But further it must be remembred that the Apostle considereth the LORD JESUS here as CHRIST and Mediator and not simply as the Son of GOD he considereth Him in regard of His Office and not in respect to His first and original nature for if you look upon Him this second way it is clear that being GOD Eternal with the Father He receiv'd of Him His Divine Essence with all its fulness not by any Decree of His will or of His good pleasure but by a natural communication that is to say by an Eternal Ineffable and Incomprehensible generation The Creation of the world is a work of the good pleasure of GOD the Generation of the Son is a natural act of the Person of the Father The first was done in time the other is before all time The world which is the effect of Creation had a beginning of being the Son who is the fruit of the foresaid Generation is Eternal without beginning as well as without end of days But this Son who is GOD by nature is CHRIST by the will of the Father for the name CHRIST signifies an Office and not strictly an Essence or a Nature Originally this Office was not fastned to the Person of the Son He might have been the Son without being our Mediator and had subsisted so indeed if the sin of man had not intervened or if the Justice of GOD had left us in the misery whereinto sin had precipitated us But this good and gracious LORD having had compassion on us and resolved thereupon to bring us up from those deeps of death in which we lay did ordain a Mediator who might effect this great work and invested Him with all the qualities and perfections that were necessary for this end It 's therefore precisely under this respect that the Apostle considers JESUS CHRIST here when he saith It was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell He thereby meaneth it was the Fathers will that in this Sacred Person of the Mediator who was established and destinated for our salvation all perfection richness grace and excellency should meet together Divinity and Humanity filled with the infinite aboundance of all the qualities and properties that pertain to them concur Such being His good pleasure He chose His Son GOD co-eternal and co-essential with Himself who uniting all the riches of His Deity with the Humane nature He assumed constituteth one only person in the bosom of which dwelleth all this fulness that is necessary for the charge of Mediator Whence it appears how vain the cavil of Hereticks is who conclude from this passage that the Deity of the
the senses or the reason of men yet the truth of them is so evident so beautiful and so well marked that as soon as the clouds of those passions and prejudices which hide it from us are removed from before the eyes of our understanding by the hand of the holy Spirit â—t beams forth and shines into our hearts with exceeding brightness and makes it self to be believed and embraced for what it is indeed Thus must it be known with certainty and not with doubting that we henceforth be no more children Ephes 4.14 wavering and carried to and fro with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and by their cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive as the Apostle speaks elswhere Whereby you see how false the opinion of Rome is which makes the belief of Christianity to depend upon the authority and testimony of her Prelates I pass by the extream weakness and vanity of this pretended foundation which hath been verify'd by a thousand experiments Whatever it be in other respects this is manifest that since they fasten the people's knowledg there they must of necessity confess that their faith ought to change if any change do happen in the doctrine of their Prelates whence it follows that then it is not certain nor assured nor such a knowledg as the Apostle requireth in us whose property is such that though Paul himself or Angels from heaven should come and preach the contrary it would abide not withstanding even under such a supposal still firm and unmoved and rather anathematize Apostles and Angels from heaven than let go that Divine verity which it hath believed and known so strong is the sense it hath of its excellency But the Apostle having thus described the nature of true faith or a Christian's understanding doth lastly confine it within the bounds of its true subject when he adds the knowledg of the Secret of our God and Father and of Christ This restriction is necessary because seducers do boast of their traditions too as if they were a piece of wisdom worthy of our faith and it may not be doubted but that the false teachers against whom the Apostle intends to dispute did deal in such manner To arm us against their vanity he declares expresly that the understanding he requireth of us is a knowledg not of what Philosophers do talk in their Schools about the nature of the world nor of what Seducers do bring forth from their vain imaginations but only of the Gospel of our LORD JESUS CHRIST without which there is nothing but error and folly He calls it a Secret or a Mystery because it was a verity hidden with GOD and incomprehensible to our minds as we have said otherwhere He saith that it is the Secret of GOD our Father both because He is the Author of it who hath reveal'd it to us of His Grace and because He hath manifested Himself therein discovering to us in the Gospel all that we need to know of His nature and will for attaining to Salvation He adds in the end and of CHRIST for the same reasons it being evident that it is the LORD JESUS who brought this holy doctrine from the bosom of the Father and set it in our view by the Ministry of His Servants and that also it is He who is the principal Subject of it as our only Mediator without whose conduct and merit it is impossible to have any part in true happiness It s of this mystery of CHRIST JESUS that the Apostle desired the Colossians might have a full firm and distinct knowledg for to abide knit together by charity and by this means enjoy a true and solid consolation This is the treasure which he is afraid least they should lose It 's to preserve it to them that he undergoâ—th so much pain and so many combats Dear Brethren his desire teacheth us our duty Since we aspire to the same happiness that the Colossians afore us have done since we serve the same Master and live under the same Discipline let us labour to get and keep for ever the same good things which the Apostle wisheth them GOD of His great mercy offereth them liberally to us and the fault will be ours if we do not partake of them â— for the Knowledg of his Mystery He presenteth us the treasury of it in His hoâ— Scriptures This source of light is not shut up and inaccessible unto you as it to a great part of the world and even to many that call themselves Christians but opened and made obvious Draw out of it the wisdom of heaven reading studying and searching those Divine books night and day We do not envy you this sweet and happy communication as the Pastors of our adver saries dea with their flocks We could wish as yerwhile Moses did that all GOD's people werâ— Prophets It 's a science that admitteth all ages all sexes and all conditions of men the Author of this holy doctrine having so temper'd it as it is accommodated to the capacity of every sort of persons There are in it deeps to exercise and humble the greatest Spirits there are facilities to instruct and content the least It is an abyss where Elephants may swim and a shallow where Lambs may wade But as all are capable of this science so there is no person but it is necessary for It 's the key of the Kingdom of heaven the spring of piety the root of sanctity the seed of true life Study it carefully Hearken to the teaching of it here meditate on it at home with deep intentiveness beseeching GOD with prayers and tears to open your hearts and write His doctrine in them Content not your selves with having learned some points of it Take no rest till you know all its wonders till you have attained not simply understanding but all riches of understanding as the Apostle here speaketh Urge not to me that vain and cold excuse which is in the mouths of many that you are not Ministers and therefore need not be so knowing These Colossians were Ministers no more than you and yet you see what the Apostle doth desire for them and afterwards he will enjoyn that the word of CHRIST do dwell plenteously in them in all wisdom Why are you less exposed to temptations for your not being Ministers are the Devil and the World less ardent or less obstinate in setting upon you We are all engaged in the same war and have all need of the same arms Is it Captains only and Officers that ought to be armed Is it not necessary for private Soldiers The knowledg of the Mysteries of the Gospel is the armor of all Christians and the Scripture is the publick Magazine whence both one and the others should fetch it But that it may do you service at your need this knowledg must be also deeply radicated in your hearts you must have it with a full assurance as the Apostle saith It should not sleightly
float in your head to be pluckt away by an enemy on the first occasion It must be engraven on your heart with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond that is you should be so firmly perswaded of it as nothing may be able to efface it and enfeeble your belief of it I know well every one boasteth to be so But there is a great difference between words and things themselves Shew it me by your lives and I will credit it If you be fully perswaded of the truth of the Gospel How is it that you have not the charity which it so necessarily commandeth us How do you hate men whom it commandeth you to love and love the vices which it enjoyneth you to hate Let us lay by words and possess in deed that full certainty of understanding which the Apostle wisheth us This is the true way for us to abide all joyned together in charity to conflict with and overcome our enemies to edifie and preserve our friends to attract those that are without to retain those that are within to enjoy much consolation in all the trials of this world and to obtain in the end the Salvation and the glory of the other through the grace of our LORD and Saviour JESUS CHRIST To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD be all honour praise and glory to ages of ages Amen The SEVENTEENTH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER III. Vers III. In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and Knowledg IGnorance of the natures and qualities of the LORD JESUS is the source of all the errors and heresies which have exercis'd the Christian Church from its beginning down to this day 1 Cor. 2.9 And as S. Paul said of the rulers of the Jews that if they had known the true wisdom they would never have crucify'd the LORD of Glory So may we say of the authors of all the false and pernicious Doctrines which men have lusted to introduce into Religion that if they had duly known JESUS CHRIST they would not have ever troubled the Church I pass by the scourges of the first ages the impiety of the Arrians and the Dokites the extravagancy of the Nestorians and the Eutychians together with the numberless branches of the one and the others they all evidently sprung from ignorance of the true being of our LORD JESUS CHRIST and strike directly at Him ruining either His natures by attributing to Him the one a created and imperfect Divinity the others an imaginary and phantastique Humanity or His Person some of them dividing others confounding the natures which are united in it From the same original its clear have come those abuses and disorders which had the vogue in the following ages and which raising themselves by little and little from weak and obscure beginnings have at last got a superiority and suffocated the genuine simplicity and verity of the Gospel Hence proceeded that invocation of Saints which is at this day practised throughout all the Roman Communion Hence hath issued that second sacrifice which they call of the Altar and wherein the heart of Religion is made to consist If men had rightly known the excellency of our LORD's mediation and the effectual extent of His Cross they would never have address'd them to any other Intercessor never have had recourse to any other oblation From the said ignorance also as from a common spring of error have flowed in among people satisfactions and merits of condignity and congruity and indulgences and the rules and odly various Disciplines of Monks and in summ all Superstitions If people had well known what an one JESUS CHRIST is they would have been assuredly content with His Satisfaction and with his infinite merit and with that eternal indulgence which He hath purchas'd for all that believe and with the perfection of His Gospel Hence again hath come the setting up of another Head in the militant Church to be there as the Vicar and coadjutor of JESUS CHRIST If this JESUS whom the Father hath given over all things for an Head to the Church if the fulness of His power and of His wisdom and His infinite love had been well known never had this second Monarchy been erected in His Kingdom In fine we may say to these and to all others that err in Religion Joh. 4.10 as sometime our LORD Himself said to the Samaritan If you knew the gift of GOD and who this JESUS is that speaketh to you in His Scriptures you would seek all your Salvation in Him alone and demand of none besides Him any of the things that are necessary for the refreshment and consolation of your Souls Judg faithful Brethren how much it concerneth us to know Him well and to have Him still before our eyes Since this knowledg sufficeth to secure us from error Accordingly you see with what care the Apostle S. Paul represents Him to us and with what affection he lays out before us all the marvels of this great and divine Subject He described Him before to the Colâ—ssians in a sublime manner and to fasten their hearts to Him alone shewed them that in Him is found all fulness But he contents not himself with this He now informes them further in the Text which you have heard that in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg In these few words there is a great deal of sense and truth Therefore we will employ this whole exercise in the explaining of them to you if GOD permit noting in order all that shall seem to us necessary both for the understanding of the Text and for the instruction and edification of your Souls I know well that the relative word whom is in the Original indifferently whom or which and may be referred either to JESUS CHRIST or to the Mystery of GOD whereof he spake just before if referred to the latter it is as if he had said that in this Mystery are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and I deny not but the words so construed do make a veritable sense it being certain that our LORD's Gospel here called His mystery is an inexhaustible treasury of all saving wisdom and knowledg But it is not needful to come to this and in my mind it s more pertinent and more fluent to refer this word to the Name of CHRIST which immediately preceded and to account the Apostle's meaning is that in JESUS CHRIST are hid these treasures which he doth intend Yet at the bottom as you shall see the sense is the same which way soever of the two you understand it And for a right conceiving of it we must first refute the exposition which some do give of this Text and then assert the true meaning There are some that take these words as if Paul would say that JESUS CHRIST knoweth all things and hath so rich and so abundant a knowledg that He is ignorant of nothing It 's a mistaking of the Apostle's
the importance of this duty Beware saith he lest any man make prey of you He could not more to the life or with greater elegancy express the danger of such as stand not on their guard than by this word which signifies properly to carry away the booty that a man hath taken It is not without cause saith he that I give you order to use all your abilities and to defend your selves against Error with utmost vigilancy For no small matter depends upon it It is as much as your souls your selves and the noblest part of your beeing your understandings your affections your heart comes to The Wolves and the Thieves against whom men watch with so much care do aim only at their Sheep or their Purse Those against whom I animate you aim at your Persons An Enemy against whom Cities and States do set guards doth threaten only their Goods or their Lives at most He against whom I require your watching seeketh your souls and the share they have in eternity You are the Workmanship and the Jewel of the LORD of Glory You will be a prey to Satan and his Ministers if you fall into their snares They will not be content with having taken you they will bring you into bondage and the redeemed of JESUS CHRIST whose liberty he hath bought at the price of his Divine Blood will become slaves of men and which is worse of Devils Good GOD how piercing was the eye of that Heavenly Spirit which guided the Pen of this Apostle How clearly did it see the nature and the qualities of all the things whereof he speaketh Observe how Error â—iumpheth over those whom it infecteth See the Trophies it sets up of their spoils the Fâ—tters wherewith it loadeth those whom it seduceth the yoke which it puts upon their neeks and the captivity into which it brings them and you with confess that the eâ—lects of its false and damnable conquests could not pâ—ssibly be more truly and more naturally represented to us than by saying as S. Paul doth here that it makes a prey of Christians or carries them away as booty For Error is ever insolent and whereas Preachers of the Truth do serve those whom they teach and stile themselves their Ministers as this Apostle heretofore did the Teachers of Falshood usurp dominion over those whom they have corrupted and vaunt that they are their Judges their Masters and their Lords S Paul noted it long since of the seducers of the Corinthians who as he saith 2 Cor. 11.20 enslaved them devoured them and exalted themselves over them and smote them on the face that is did put all kind of indignities upon them And the false Teachers among the Galatians Gal. 6.13 he saith did glory in the flesh of their miserable discriples They are blind that do not at this day observe the self-same thing in the carriage of those men that reign over all the multitude whom they have deceived and rear up lofty Trophies of every poor soul that they have made prey of Dear Brethren if you love the liberty which the LORD JESUS hath purchased for you if you abhor the servitude of men if you desire the fruit of the one which is immortality and detest perdition the inevitable sequel of the other in the name of GOD take heed that no man make prey of you The Doctrine of truth is enclosed within the LORD's sheepfold Abide there if you would be in safety Stray you thence but ever so little and you will fall into the hands of Wolves and Robbers Hearken not unto their babble Be not taken with their countenance Let any thing among them that may promise fair be suspected of you since their seeking only is to withdraw you from the simplicity of the Gospel Now the Apostle points at three things here which he adviseth us to take heed of in particular namely The vain deceit of Philosophy The traditions of men and The rudiments of the world Because these were the three sources from which those false Apostles that then attempted the Colossians drew all the heads of their Doctrine and the means which they used to colour it and give it that vain lustre which was needful for the beguiling of the simple and unlearned For Col. 2.23 as we shall see more particularly in the sequel of this Chapter they enjoined the worshipping of Angels a matter they had taken in all likelihood out of the Sinks of the Platonick Philosophers who storied divers things of these higher spirits and of their interposition and mediation between GOD and us for the purifying of us and the rendring us capable of supream happiness as we see even at this day in those remains which we have of their Writings Again Col. 2.23 they introduced divers voluntary devotions which did not spare the flesh and seem'd full of humility but were indeed only traditions of men without any foundation in the word of GOD. Finally it is also evident that they pressed the observation of days and the distinction of meats according to the ordinances of the Mosaical Law which are likewise stiled Elements of the World Now though these three points do particularly respect the false Teachers at Coloss yet they are common well-nigh to all such as ever set themselves to alter and sophisticate the Gospel the most part of their impostures having issued from one of these three springs We will consider them therefore briefly and distinctly by the will of God and after them the character or mark which S. Paul giveth them to wit that these things are not after CHRIST Among these things of which we are to beware he gives the first place to Philosophy It 's name is very honourable Philosophy if you weigh the word signifying the love and pursuit of wisdom But the corruptness of those men that gave their Profession this name among the Grecians did disgrace so worthy a term and made it to be the name of a Tool of Error and Imposture rather than of an Instrument of Science and Truth For the common sort of those that stiled themselves Philosophers amused themselves altogether in vain Speculations in a trade of subtilty and syllogizing and in endless disputes that yeelded men no true profit They thought they had attained the End of their profession when they had got a faculty to speak of all matters with some colour and probability so as to dazle the eyes of the ignorant and win the admiration of the half-witted This vanity rendred them odious first among the Pagans themselves where they went among the people for extravagant persons and were in little better esteem among the greater part of the better sort And for as much as of all Professions scarce any did more fiercely oppose the Gospel of our Saviour thence it came to pass that the first Christians also conceiv'd a very ill opinion of them which encreas'd when it did appear that Hereticks did ordinanarily fetch from these mens Forges the Arms
all the Perfections of the Godhead In the one GOD hath set forth and put together only the works of his hand which are effects and as it were shadows of his greatness in the other he hath poured out all the abundance of his own nature and as the Apostle told us in the precedent Verse In CHRIST dwelleth all the fulness of the Deity bodily whereas in the world dwelleth only the fulness of the Creature As much then as the Operator is greater than his Work and the Creator than the Creature so much more excellent and admirable is the gift that GOD hath made us of his Son in the oeconomy of grace than that of the World in the administration of Nature The difference of the fruit that we gather from the one and the other of these gifts of GOD is suitable to this disproportion which we see between the things themselves For first the enjoying of the world could but continue life to man who before had it it could not restore it to any that had lost it whereas JESUS CHRIST gives life to the dead and perpetuates it to the living Again that life which the due usage of the world could sustain was terrene carnal and obnoxious to perishing whereas the life we have from JESUS CHRIST is celestial spiritual and immutable The holy Apostle having represented in few words the infinite greatness of CHRIST in himself as having all the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily comes now to discover that admirable abundance of fruit which we draw from him the whole as we have often told you with an aim to confure the ingratitude and vanity of certain seducers who not content with that inexhaustible source of blessings which GOD hath opened for us in his Son would needs conjoin with it Philosophical inventions and legal ceremonies The Apostle prosecuteth this intention down to the fifteenth Verse and beginning it at the Text which you have heard he telleth the faithful Colossians at first that they are made compleat in JESUS CHRIST who is the head of all principality and power Afterwards entring upon a particular deduction of this compleatness which we have in CHRIST he adds in the following verse That we are circumcised in him with a circumcision made without hand by the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh to wit by the circumcision of CHRIST Then in the sequel 〈◊〉 forth other graces and benefits which we derive from the fulness of our LORD But we for the present will content our selves with the two verses we have 〈◊〉 And for the giving of you a full understanding of them to your edification and consolation we will peruse the two points that offer themselves in them the favourable assistance of GOD interposing First in general The compleatness which the Apostle saith we have in JESUS CHRIST Secondly in particular The circumcision made without hand which he addeth we have in Him The perfections and riches of any thing are no advantage unto us if they be not communicated A Spring how fair and fresh soever does us no service if it be sealed up and a Garden-plot walled in rather paineth than pleaseth our desires neither doth an inaccessible Treasure lessen our need The Tree of life and the other wonders of the Paradice of Eden did indeed enrich that delicious place but afforded our first Parents no refreshing when entrance into them was prohibited For this cause the Apostle counts it not enough to have told us that all the fulness of the Deity dwelleth bodily in JESUS CHRIST Perhaps the false Teachers themselves contested not this abundance with him but confessing that he had all in himself did only deny that he would communicate it entirely to us as having it only for the perfecting of his own Person and not for the happiness of ours To banish this false conceit out of our hearts the Apostle addeth that we are made compleat in him that is to say His fulness is communicative the Father hath pour'd forth into him those good things and graces which fill him that each of us might draw out as much as we need He is the true Tree of Life loaden with fruit that we might gather set open before our eyes and to our hands not shut up as the other was after the fall in a place inaccessible He hath receiv'd to give unto us He is rich to enrich us He is full to replenish us His abundance is our bliss and his treasures the relief of our necessity The Father gave him unto the world and in him life and immortality Neither suppose ye that he will impart some of his benefits only As he hath an all-fulness of them in himself so he communicateth them all to us He leaves no part of our nature empty He fills up all with his graces We derive from him all that is necessary to compleat us This is that which the Apostle signifies by these words and they may be taken two ways Either as importing that we are filled or as our Bibles have it rendred that we are made compleat in JESUS CHRIST but both amount to one and the same sense the difference being only in the manner of signification and not in the thing signified For the one and the other doth mean that we receive of JESUS CHRIST our Lord all things requisite to the perfection and happiness of our persons the same residing most abundantly in him to wit the grace of GOD and righteousness wisdom consolation and sanctification If you read that we have been filled in JESUS CHRIST it will be a similitude taken from empty vessels which are fill'd with substances that were extrinsique to them For our Nature being of its self empty and destitute of the glory of GOD and of its necessary perfections our LORD JESUS CHRIST filleth it from his own abundance and furnisheth it with all perfective Graces He clothes it with his righteousness that it may appear with freedom before the Throne of the Father He illuminates it by his Spirit unto saving-knowledg He comforteth it with his peace and decketh it with sanctity and love and in his treasury on high keepeth for it that blessed life and immortality wherewith he will enrich it at the day of Resurrection This sense as you see hath a very clear coherence with the Apostle's saying of our LORD that in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily and is exactly parallel to that of S. John in his Gospel John 1.16 that we have all received of his fulness and grace for grace As in Nature the Sun hath not only in its self a fulness of that resplendent light which renders it so beautiful and so admirable but diffuseth it abroad also from its self and replenisheth with it all the Luminous bodies which circulate about it as the Moon and the other Planets and this Earth whereon we dwell all which have no other brightness but what this great Starr doth shed
upon them So in Grace if we may take leave to compare the mysteries thereof with natural things JESUS CHRIST the true Sun of righteousness hath not only in himself all the fulness of the Deity dwelling there bodily He also communicateth his fulness to all the souls of men that look on him and do move and live in his communion He filleth them with his abundance and clotheth them with his light changing them into his Image and of dim and dark lumps as they were originally in themselves making them so many Starrs and lightsome bodies Now if you take the Apostle's word here in another manner as importing that we have been made compleat in JESUS CHRIST the sense will still be very pertinent For besides that we being naked of all perfections meet for our nature the saying that we have been made compleat in CHRIST will excellently well express his Grace as signifying that it is he who hath fill'd up our breaches and repaired in us what the other Adam had ruined by giving us all that we wanted Besides this I say this term will also very aptly answer to that title which the Apostle gave a little before to the Ceremonies of Moses's Law where he called them the rudiments of the world that is the beginnings the first and plainest Lessons of Piety Heb. 7.19 Gal. 4. such as consequently were unable to bring to perfection as he saith expresly in another place by reason whereof he stileth the time of the Law the infancy of the Church that is the age of its imperfection Opposing therefore JESUS CHRIST unto the Law in this respect he now saith that we are compleat in Him and that for good reason in as much as He hath the body whereas the Law had but the shadow He hath fulness whereas the Law had but some small parcel of the requisites of our salvation For the same cause he elsewhere calleth the Ceremonies of it weak and poor or beggarly elements Gal. 4 9. As for the Law saith he it did but begin with us and only draw some slight and dark lineament upon us of that true form which GOD did purpose to imprint whereas JESUS CHRIST hath finish'd us In Him it is we have that perfection that entire body that truth and fulness whereof the Law had but the beginning the shadow and figure Hereby now this holy man deals those seducers whom he hath undertaken an handsom blow discovering the foolishness of their design who would still oblige persons to the Ceremonies of the Law that were made compleat in JESUS CHRIST an attempt no less ridiculous than if one should put a man to his ABC again who had received the last tincture of highest erudition in the University pretending that he could not be throughly intelligent and accomplish'd except he still daily studied the rudiments and plainest lessons of Children But that which follows in the Apostle's words namely that JESUS CHRIST is the Head of all principality and power is adjoined to prevent another error of those men's who as we shall hereafter hear did teach the worshipping and serving of Angels pretending it necessary we should address our selves to them as to Spirits capable of interceding with GOD for us and of obtaining by their interposal with that Supreamest Majesty those graces and perfections which we need S. Paul doth shew in these few words the vanity of this false doctrine For since the LORD JESUS is the Head of Angels who sees not but that we have most abundantly in Him whatsoever these people could expect from them and that possessing JESUS CHRIST as we do by faith in His Gospel we have no need to run to Angels who depend upon Him and have nought but what is found much more richly in their Head As if a man that doth possess a Prince's Son would yet needs make use of the favour and interpositions of his servants with him Members have neither motion nor sensation nor life but the same is much more abundantly in their Head Subjects and Servants possess nothing but the Prince can far better and far more easily communicate it to us than any one of them Since JESUS CHRIST is the Head and Prince of Angels it is clear that having Him we want nothing of all that which the Angels can give us From the same ground appeareth further the impiety of the error of these Seducers For since the Angels are subject unto JESUS CHRIST it is evident by the light of Scripture that no one can give them that religious worship which these people attribute to them without becoming guilty of idolatry the greatest and sensiblest outrage that man can do to his Creator For no Christian can be ignorant but that GOD throughout his whole word doth forbid us to serve any creature how high and excellent soever it be religious worship being an homage which belongs to the Divine Nature and cannot be performed without sacriledg to any other As for other things I presume you all know that they are the Angels whom the Apostle means by these principalities and powers of which he speaks as we formerly explained it Col. 1.16 upon the precedent Chapter He saith that JESUS CHRIST is their Head that is their Lord. And this quality belongeth to Him not only as He is the Eternal Son of the Father of the same essence and power with Him who having created them at the beginning and continuing to preserve them by His Goodness and Might is by all kind of right their true Master and natural Lord but also as He is the CHRIST and Mediator For since He in this relation and under this quality hath been constituted the Lord of all things both superior Phil. 2.10 inferior and intermediate having in consequence of His humiliation receiv'd such a Name as is above every name and unto which every knee boweth both of those that are in Heaven and that are on Earth and that are under the Earth it is evident that in this sense He hath dominion and empire over Angels 1 Pet. 3.22 as well as others And thus also S. Peter expresly teacheth us saying that Angels and Authorities and Powers have been made subject to Him For this cause these Spirits are often called the Angels of CHRIST as in S. Matthew Matt. 13.41 24.31 Rev. 1.1 and 22.16 The Son of Man shall send his Angels and in the Apocalypse where S. John saith that JESUS CHRIST sent him by his Angel the things that were revealed to him and in the same Book I JESVS saith the LORD have sent mine Angel Only we must observe that the L. JESUS is not called Head of the Angels in the same manner and sense as He is stiled Head of His Church The former Title signifieth only the Empire and Lordship which he hath over the Angels The second signifieth further the union He hath with His faithful ones who were saved and redeemed by the merit of His Death and are animated
death he there suffered was the true and only cause of his triumphs 'T was the Tree of this Cross that bore the Palms and Laurels he hath been crowned with 'T is there that all the causes and originals of all his glory are found It is this Cross that opened his Sepulcher and brought him out from thence and raised him up in Immortality 'T is it also that a little after opened Heaven to him and seated him on the right hand of the Most High 'T is it that loosed the tongues of his Apostles and changed the world in a short time that defeated Paganism that is the greatest part of Satan's Empire that threw down Idols and drew all people to the service of that Divine crucified Person whom it bore It is the same likewise that will pluck us one day out of the hands of death and lift us up into the Sanctuary of Eternity Lastly 'T is it hath founded that glorious Throne whereon JESUS shall sit and both the one and the other his Subjects and his Enemies see him truly triumphing the one with eternal joy the other with a confusion that shall never end Since the Cross of our LORD and Saviour is the cause of so many triumphs who sees not that it is not only with truth but also a great deal of elegance that the Apostle here saith he triumphed on it over his Enemies Let us Dear Brethren adore the mystery of it and look upon it notwithstanding the sad appearances of its infirmity as the only cause of the glory of our Head and of the liberty of his people If the Jew do stumble at and the Greek deride it 't is an effect of their ignorance and infidelity For our part who know its virtue let us say with the Apostle GOD forbid that we should glory save in the Cross of our LORD JESVS CHRIST Gal. 6.14 It hath taken us out of the mortal bonds of the Devils and put us into the liberty of the sons of GOD. It hath spoiled our old Tyrants and broken their Iron yoke and overthrown those infernal principalities and powers Let us not fear them After the blow they have received from the Cross of CHRIST they are but back-broken Serpents that do but hiss and crawl along the dust I grant they yet stir and wind about us and do not cease to threaten us But they can no longer hurt us if we keep fast to the Cross of our Saviour by which the world is crucified unto us and we unto the world They are our Enemies they are no more our Masters We are to wrestle with them we are under their yoke no longer And if GOD do sometimes permit them to strike us in our goods or in our bodies and what we have on earth yet he preserveth our persons and doth not suffer them to take from us any thing that his Son hath purchased in Heaven for us And he so governeth these Combats that they ever turn unto our glory and their confusion as that of Job's yer while did GOD permits them to attaque us that we may overcome them or to say better that the Cross of JESUS may stand up once more victorious in each of us and bruise Satan under our feet Rom. 16.26 as it hath already bruised him under his Let us with good courage follow the victory of our Head and stoutly march on in his steps Let us pursue the vanquished Enemy and not quit him till we in this holy warr do bear away the Laurel and the honour of a Triumph Take heed he rally not his dissipated Forces and do us some affront For henceforth there is nothing but our wretchlesness that can give him the advantage Our Victory is as sure as may be if we have so much courage as not to destroy our selves For what can he do to us if we watch if we pray if we keep upon our guard and under the Ensign of the Cross of our LORD Will he accuse us GOD doth justifie us and his Son doth defend and intercede for us Will he batter us with the curse of the Law The Cross of CHRIST hath annulled that Will he stir up against us the hate and persecutions of the world In these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us and that can so turn and change them in favour of us as they shall all work together for our good Will he take hold of us on the other side by the baits of sin and pleasures and benefits of the present world Our Saviour's Cross hath extinguish'd and mortified the desire of them in our hearts shewing us that all this beauteous figure of the World is but a vanity that passeth away and endeth in eternal misery Will he menace us with death He may but the Cross of JESUS hath disarmed it of all its stings and so altered its whole nature that whereas it was of it self the wages of sin and an effect of our Judge's wrath and the beginning of Hell it is now a token to us of the grace of GOD the end of our Combats and the entry of our Paradice Let us therefore my beloved Brethren live in repose and take fruition with humble thankfulness of the good things which the LORD JESUS hath obtained for us by the merit of his Cross serving and religiously adoring him consecrating all our life to his glory as he gave his for our salvation and assuring our selves amid all the storms of this generation that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor heighth nor depth nor any other creature shall be ever able to separate us from the love of GOD which he hath shewed us in JESVS CHRIST our LORD So be it The Twenty-seventh SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER XVI XVII Ver. xvi Let no man condemn you in meat or in drink or in the distinction of a festival day or of a new moon or of sabbaths Ver. xvij Which things are shadows of those that were to come but the body of them is in CHRIST DEar Brethren Our LORD JESUS CHRIST doth excellently shew us the difference of that Evangelical service which he hath instituted in his Church from the Legal service which had place in Israel under the Old Testament when speaking of it to the Samaritan he saith Woman John 4.21 23 believe me the hour cometh that neither in this mountain nor at Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father But the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth Under the Law the service of GOD was affixed to certain places as the Temple at Jerusalem and the Land of Canaan to certain times as Sabbaths New Moons and those great Feasts of the Passover Pentecost and Tabernacles to certain corporeal things as Beasts and other Kinds which were offered upon a material Altar with divers ceremonies and to certain sorts of Meat it being not permitted at that time to eat of any
time there was a certain Sect which some call the Judaique Sect and others otherwise consisting of people who neither served GOD nor JESUS CHRIST but Angels under the quality of Chiefs and supream Patrons and Protectors of their Religion that it is at these S. Paul aimeth here and not at them who its true do serve Angels but do also serve GOD the Father and His Son JESUS CHRIST First all this Sect is an Idol which never had subsistence other-where than in their fond conceit neither could it indeed be any other where For if they were Jews who can believe that they served not GOD whose service the whole Judaical Law and Religion did expresly command throughout in the beginning in the middle and at the end Again if they were Christians how served they not JESUS CHRIST And if they were either Jews or Christians how did they own no other chief of their Relgiion then the Angels All this is nothing but a meer fiction of our Adversaries who endeavour to put a Changling upon us and do set up this chymera that it may take the blow which the Apostle dealeth them It is not lawful for us to forge Sects at our pleasure There must be proof of them produced from good and creditable witnesses if we would be believed about them But so far are they from having any warrant of this fine story in Antiquity that on the contrary the ancient Interpreters of the Apostle such as Theodoret Photius and Theophylact do overthrow it affirming that those whom S. Paul aimeth at alledged that GOD is great and incomprehensible and that it 's a thing unworthy of the Majesty of the Son to conduct so mean Creatures unto Him as men are whereupon they added that application must be made to Angels for our having access by their means and for the gaining of the favour and good-will of GOD. How did not they serve GOD since it was for access to Him and for the becoming gracious with Him that they employed the Angels interceding and how did they not adore JESUS CHRIST seeing they accounted themselves unworthy to go immediately to Him In fine how did they own the Angels for the supream Heads of their Religion seeing they made use of their intervention only for to come to GOD thereby 〈…〉 This very thing was the motive of their erring practice And of the fore-named Ancients adds expresly that the service they did to Angels was Praying to them as also this abuse reigned a long time in Phrygia and Pisidia and that â—ven in his dayes there were Oratories found Dedicated to S. Michael A relation 〈◊〉 which hath so stung one of the great Cardinals of Rome that all in Choler against this Author who lived almost twelve hundred years ago and was besides one of the greatest and most knowing spirits of Antiquities He saith with his leave he hath had ill luck in this particular Whence you may see the respect that these Gentlemen do bear the ancient Fathers whom they have perpetually in their mouth When they favour them they are Oracles If they speak otherwise their antiquity doth not sâ—ve them from being treated as ignorant and unlearned Now whereas they alledge the Apostle's saying of those he speaks of that they held not the head that is CHRIST JESUS I grant it But I affirm that this doth not interr they made profession of acknowledging Him not as from his saying that they were puffed up with the sense of their flesh and did intrude into things they had not seen it follows not that they did acknowledge either the one or the other of these things So far were they from it that they made profession of humility and it was under this very pretext that they would serve Angels and boast without doubt they did of knowing well the things that they divulged But the Apostle speaketh here of that which follows truly and ligitimatly from their doctrine and not of what they avowed For doubtless they made profession of JESUS CHRIST and of His Gospel and S. Paul doth clearly presuppose it through his whole discourse But by the addition of their errours they denyed in effect what they confessed with the mouth and by this serving of Angels took away from CHRIST the quality of being Head of the Church which in word they gave Him It 's this the Apostle here chargeth them withall and thereby foundeth evidently this maxime That whosoever takes the Angels or any other such whom you will for His Mediators and Intercessors with GOD he doth in effect renounce the Mediation of JESUS CHRIST and taketh from Him the glory He hath to be the Head of the Church This dignity no more admitting an associate then that of His Regality and being such as cannot be possessed by any one alone But why do I stand considering what the opinions of these false Teachers in other respects were Let them have believed whatever else you please sure it is they worshipped Angels and that S. Paul accuseth them of it and reprehends them for it and will not have the faithful follow them in this particular He doth not say that they were Sorcerers or Atheists that they did not serve or not invocate GOD and His Son JESUS CHRIST He saith they served Angels and takes them up for it extream sharply You do the same Judge then whether the Apostle's Thunder does not fall on you But you will say I do adore GOD and JESUS CHRIST In Conscience do you not mock the world in defending your self after that manner As if you were accused of not acknowledging the Divinity of the Father or of the Son and not of Worshipping Angels But it is alwayes the custome of these Masters to substitute one or other of the Ancients in their place when they are taken with transgressing the Ordinances of GOD and His Apostles The LORD forbids the bowing down ones self before Images They avow they do it but for all that do pretend that the Law Thundereth against the Heathen of former times and not against them S. Paul condemneth with heinous words such as enjoyn abstinence from meats They confess it is their practice but do add that it is the old Encratites and Montanists and Manichees whom the Apostle means and not they In like manner here being accused of worshipping Angels they franckly confess it yea boast of Worshipping them and Excommunicate us for that we do it not with them And whereas S. Paul protesteth so clearly that we must not serve them they pay us off with this brave excuse that it is not of them he speaks but of I know not what old race of Jewish Hereticks as if it were not manifest that he speaks in general of all those who at any time and in any place whatever do take upon them to serve Angels forbidding us under an heavy penalty to let them master it over us upon any pretext As for us Dear Brethren who do know that the Laws of GOD are
the service or Religious worship of Angels We are now to consider by the assistance of GOD that which the shortness of time hindered us from explicating then to wit the marks of these false Teachers and the pernicious consequence of their errour For though the Apostles intimation of the thing it self be sufficient His authority in the Church being such as it is not lawful for any man whoever he be to teach or believe any thing in Christian Religion contrary to the sentiment of this great servant of GOD Yet not content with injoyning the Colossians that they should not let themselves be master'd over by these pretended Doctors who would cause them to serve Angels for the adding of more weight to his exhortation he discovers to them those Seducers their true motives and the cause of their errour and remonstrates also the dismal issue in which it did engage them For as you have heard he noteth first their audaciousness and ignorance when he saith that they intrude into things they have not seen Next he shews the source of them to wit their foolish presumption when he adds that they are rashly puffed up with the sense of their flesh And lastly he represents us the pernicious consequence of their doctrine the fruit and success wherein all their striving did terminate which was that in effect by their glorious services they debauched and disunited men from JESUS CHRIST the true and only Head of believers and so depriv'd them of that life that light and salvation which this Divine Head influxeth into the members of His mystical body For this is in substance the sense of the latter part of the Text in which the Apostle saith that these people did not hold the head from which the whole body being furnished and fitly knit together by joints and bands encreaseth with the encrease of GOD. In these three heads the whole meaning of this Text seems to me to consist Wherefore if it please GOD we will examin them distinctly one after another and in the Apostles order treat first of these Seducers boldness secondly of their presumption and lastly of the consequence of their doctrine which tendeth to the disuniting of men from JESUS CHRIST the Head of the whole body of the Church As for the first point this temerity to intrude into things one hath not seen is ordinary enough with all sorts of men ever since the venom of pride impoisoned their hearts and in special with all hereticks But it is remarkable particularly in those that teach the service of Angels it being manifest that those blessed Spirits whose worship they erect are of a nature much superior to us the order and operations whereof are open to no sense of ours But when the Apostle saith they have not seen the things into which they intrude his meaning is not simply that the eyes either of their body or of their natural reason never received the Species of these objects nor apprehended or conceived the consequences and conduct of their being but moreover that they neither had nor could have by the word or revelation of GOD any certainty of the things they affirmed For though the greater part of the matters of Religion be above our senses yet when GOD hath discover'd them to us and as it were rendered them visible in His word it becomes easie for us to know them by this means and the Scripture too doth call the knowledge that we have of them this way a sight of them Ezek. 13.3 Thus Ezekiel means when he reprocheth the false Prophets with following their own hearts when they had seen nothing that is they predicted and assured things for true which the foolish imagination of their own Spirit suggested to them though in truth GOD had shewed them no such matter in the light of His revelation It is just so that those Seducers did whom the Apostle taxeth in this place They dogmatized and affirmed it as a clear case that Angels were to be serv'd and invocated and to perswade men of it they delivered many things concerning their nature and their intervention between GOD and us Yet the truth is that of all this they neither had nor could have any certainty as being things which they had never seen either in the School of nature or the revelation of GOD. All our knowledge and assurance necessarily comes from one of these three sources namely either from sense and such is the knowlege we have of the things we see hear smell touch and taste or from reason and so doth humane science which is acquired or formed by discourse and natural reasoning or lastly from the revelation of GOD who discovereth to us by the light of His word divers objects and divers verities which neither our sense nor our reason could perceive in nature Now though reason doth cause men by the consideration of things that are or are done in the world to discern some principles and verities of Religion yet the whole of this is so small a matter and withal so confused and imperfect by reason of the corruption of our understandings that the Word of GOD ought to be held for the sole assured foundation of Religion according to that which the Apostle signifies to us elsewhere Rom. 10.17.1 even that faith cometh by hearing and hearing from the word of GOD. When therefore he saith here that the Seducers do intrude into things they have not seen he doth it 's true respect in general all those Sources of our knowledge and absolutely deny that these men had by them any of the things they dogmatized but he does particularly referr to the third that is the revelation of GOD. And his meaning is that the LORD had not shewed them nor made them see by His Word any of the things they preached and would set up in the Religion of Christians And though indeed they neither had nor could have any certain knowledge of them nevertheless they discours'd of them blindfold and did divulge their phantasies the visions of their brain and dreams of their own Spirit for indubitable necessary and wholesome truths A carriage which the Apostle doth excellently well set forth by that word of his which we have translated intruding a word that properly signifies entring into setting foot on and marching forth in some quarter as in ground we have title to Whereby he noteth out the vanity of these false Teachers who did not meerly busie themselves in a research of things above their capacity which is in it self a vain and ridiculous labour but also dared to speak of them and make peremptory decisions about them so going above ground and walking as may be said in the vacuum of their own imaginations mounting their thoughts unto a Region far above them like that poor Phrenetick of whom the Poets speak who having presumed to enter upon a strange Element and fly there soon found his rashness punished with his ruine The Prophet makes use of a like phrase
maintaineth its flatulency But it is time to come to the third point which containeth the worst and most pernicious effect of this serving of Angels here condemned by the Apostle namely that they that promote it or stick in and practise is do not hold the head from which the whâ—le body being furnished and fitly knit together by joynts and bands encreaseth with encrease of GOD. You know this head he speaks of is our LORD JESUS CHRIST Eternal and true GOD made man who dyed and râ—se again for the salvation of the world and that the body of this head is the Church the whole multitude of the faithful This compâ—rison is so frequent in Scripture and the reasons upon which it is founded are so clear and so known that there is no need I should stand upon deducing them We have to observe only the operation of this divine head upon the body and the benefits it communicates thereto both which the Apostle toucheth at He saith first that this Head furnisheth the body of His Church Then in the second place that â—â—â—tly knits the same together by joynts and bands And lastly that by this means He makes it to encrease with an encrease of GOD. All this is taken from the resemblance of natural bodies whence this comparison is drawn For you see that in nature the head does first distribute to all the parts of the body such strength as is necessary for the exercising of their motions and sensations it being as it were the common Source whence the animal spirits as they are called the principles of motion and sensation are by the nerves as by so many Channels shed forth into all the parts of the whole frame as well higher as lower the farthest off as well as the nearest and when this influence and communication of the head happens to cease you see the members which are deprived of it to be presently paralytick and insensible Then further the head does the body this office that it binds and keeps decently fastned to each other by means of the same nerves all the parts whereof it is made up both the harder ones as the Bones and Cartilages and likewise the softer as the Muscles and other substances Finally the Head by means of this continual influence doth give its body the ability to grow and extend its self and rise up by little and little to the measure of its due magnitude The Apostle therefore makes use of this natural image for the representing unto us of those spiritual benefits which we receive from the communion of the LORD JESUS our mystical Head and sayes First that He furnisheth His body that is gives it abundantly spiritual sense and motion and in a word all graces necessary for the exercise of an Heavenly life diffusing them into all His mystical members that is into all the faithful by means of his not animal as that of nature is but Divine and Eternal Spirit This Spirit which He distributes to all and every of His members doth replenish our eyes and senses with that light and vigour which is requisite for the seeing feeling and tasting of Divine things It sheds abroad peace and joy into our hearts and curing our benummed limbs and opening our hands which vice had locked up doth give us the operations and motions of the life of GOD and in fine formeth in us all the conceptions and vertues of the new man But he saith in the second place continuing this excellent Metaphor that this Divine Head doth fitly knit together His body by joints and bands expressing by these words that spiritual Union which bindeth and joyneth the faithful all of them to their Head and each of them to the other For as every member of the body hath its particular temperature and qualities very different from the rest one being hard another soft one cold another hot one dry another moist and yet being linked by those secret and unperceptible bands which descending from the head do fasten them all together do make up but one only and the same body so is it with the Church The faithful of whom it is composed are upon the account both of nature and of grace infinitely different one from another In nature for some are of one Nation of one Age of one Sex of one condition and others of another one rich another poor one learned another ignorant one noble another of low extraction In grace likewise for who can utter all the differences of their gifts in this respect But JESUS CHRIST their mystical Head notwithstanding this diversity reduceth them all into one and the same body as S. Paul saith elsewhere We being many are one body in CHRIST He sets us together and uniteth us aptly one with another by these mystical joynts and bands of which the Apostle here speaks that is the gifts and graces of His Spirit and first of all Charity the univeral bond of all the faithful which ties them inseparably together by the sentiments of a sincere and ardent love and by all the motions offices services and assistances which depend upon it It 's this Spirit of Charity that mixeth all their souls into one that renders them sensible of each others weal and wo that inspires into them the same Prayers and wishes and so governs their actions that though different they yet all aim at the same mark the glory of their Head and the common edification of His members Among these joynts and ligaments of the LORD's body I also place the divers graces wherewith He doth invest them giving to this man one Talent and to that man another different to one zeal to another knowledge to one utterance to another judgement To the same too must be referred the divers offices which He hath instituted in His Church Pastors Teachers Elders and Deacons this various distribution approximating them to one another the need they have of their Brethren and the succour they may afford them admirably knitting and keeping up the commerce of their common Charity Eph. 4.12 as S. Paul expresly noteth in the Epistle to the Ephesians where speaking of the divers Ministries which the LORD JESUS formed and erected among His people he saith that He made them for the coaptation or setting together of the Saints for the edification of His body In fine he addeth here a third benefit of CHRIST's which is as the sequel and fruit of the two former that His body thus furnished and compacted by its Head doth encrease with an increase of GOD that is with a Divine and spiritual increase arising from the efficacy of GOD and tending to His glory in as much as the Church thus united to its Head and filled with the influences of His grace is established is strengthened and compleated by little and little in faith in hope in charity in light and in sanctity untill it attain unto the measure of its perfect stature in CHRIST Such is the Communion of the Church with its Head
of the world why doth any one burthen you with ordinances as if ye lived in the world XXI To wit eat not taste not touch not XXII Which all are things that perish in the using being instituted after the commandments and doctrines of men DEar Brethren Seeing the Apostle plainly sheweth in diverse places that the use of meats is a thing indifferent and that if we eat 1 Cor. 8.8 we have not thereby the more nor the less if we eat not and even injoyneth us somewhere to accommodate our selves to the infirmity of our brethren Rom. 14.21 declaring that it is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine nor to do any thing whereby our brother stumbleth or is offended or made weak it may seem strange to some that in this Epistle and in the first to Timothy and elsewhere he doth so earnestly insist upon this point and employ so many words and reasons against those who did prohibit certain sorts of meats to Christians But if you throughly consider this holy man his whole procedure and the motives of his taking such order you will find it full in all the parts thereof of reason and profound discretion For first there is a great difference between such as he bears with and those whom he rejects The one were infirm and the other insolent The former through want of knowledge could hardly count those things permitted which the School of Moses whence they were but newly come forth had prohibited The latter did in their headiness enterprise the bringing of Christians under the yoke again The errour of those reached no further than their own persons These would dogmatize and give the Church new Laws Wherefore the Apostle is sweet towards the one and severe against the others according to the difference of their faults And as to the thing it self though it be no more a crime to abstain from than it is to eat any of the meats which GOD hath created for our use yet to make this abstinence pass for a matter of necessity is a penicious attempt First it 's an overthrowing or a diminishing of our liberty which having been purchased by the blood of CHRIST ought to be very precious to us for since He would buy it us at so high a price it is not just that the fancy or the tyrannicall humour of men should bereave us of a thing that cost him so dear Moreover such injunctions do make that to be thought necessary which is indifferent and that to pass for a part of the service of GOD which is not so An opinion which hath dangerous consequences For men once possessed with this imagination do in such exercises loose a good part of their time which should be wholy spent in the study and practice of the true commandments of our LORD JESUS But which is yet worse they easily imagine that they get a licence to commit things prohited without danger by such abstaining from things permitted and the priviledge of being dispensed with for obedience to GOD by that they render unto men a conceit which as you see does undermine the foundations of that true and real sanctification without which no man shall see GOD. The Apostle well-knowing therefore the venom of these doctrines and seeing on the other hand the strong inclination that men have to them being likewise not ignorant as experience hath but too much verified that there would be alwaies people sound to set them on foot among Christians did account it necessary for the securing of our faith to give us in diverse places of His divine Epistles strong Preservatives against the Contagion of this pernicious error You have heard already heretofore how he said concerning it Let no man condemn you in cating or in drinking irrecoverably overbearing by those few words the temerity of all those who for such things bring the faithful to the Bar and condemn them to the fire of Hell for having but tasted of meats which they prohibit He now resumes the same discourse and having in the two precedent verses refuted the serving of Angels which the Seducers did set up in religion he comes to their other Ordinances which concerned certain abstinences and devotions that they imposed on Christians as salutiferous and of necessary use for humbling the spirit and mortifying the flesh and first he refutes them by three excellent reasons which he urgeth against them next he rejects the vain and specious pretexts under colour of of which they were recommended The first of those three reasons which he advanceth against these pretended devotions is taken from the liberty which JESUS CHRIST hath purchased for us by His death freeing us from all carnal and ceremonial services If therefore ye be dead with CHRIST saith he why doth any one burthen you with ordinances as if you lived in the world to wit Eat not Tast not Touch not The second is drawn from the nature of those things themselves from which an abstaining was ordered they all are things saith the Apostle that perish in the using And the third from the rise of such ordinances instituted not by the authority of GOD but after the commandments and doctrines of men These are the three points we purpose to treat of in this action by the assistance of GOD beseeching Him to grant that we may meditate them to our common Edification and Consolation The Apostles last words were concerning the communion of the Church with JESUS CHRIST its head who furnisheth His whole body and fitly knitteth it together by joynts and bands causing it to increase with an increase of GOD. Hereupon he takes occasion to set before us again that enfranchisement from the yoke of Ceremonies which we have by this holy and mystical communion with our LORD That is his meaning in these words we are dead with CHRIST as to the rudiments of the world For as we have shewed afore the Apostle does usually call the Ceremonial ordinances of Moses's Law the elements or rudiments of the world because they were the first and lowest lessons of GOD's people standing all of them in material and worldly things and in the usage of or in an abstinence from either elements or plants and animals and other fruits and productions of the world But he seems in this place to signifie by these words generally all services of this nature whether those that Moses sometime instituted for the exercise of the childhood and minority of Israel or those that other men erected afterward of which sort were the devotions and ceremonies which the Elders of the Jews and the Pharisees added to the Law and made to pass for traditions of antiquity as we understand by the Gospel where our Saviour notes them and very sharply reproves them in diverse places Such again were the disciplines and devotions of those Seducers whom the Apostle here opposeth and all other like them which though set up by diverse authors and at different times yet joyntly consist in one
resurrection with our Saviour He had touched it already in the twelfth verse of the precedent Chapter and 't is from thence he resumes it and reminds us of it here saying If then ye be risen again with CHRIST that is to say since you are risen again with the LORD as I have said and shewed a-fore For the particle if is used here as often else-where by way of illation and concluding not in way of doubting and imports as much as if the Apostle had said since that or seeing that For the rest you plainly see that the Resurrection he speaks of is not that of our bodies which shall not be till the last day but another mystical and spiritual one already accomplished in us by the virtue of our LORD'S resurrection and the efficacy of His Spirit Eph. 2.5.6 He spake of it a-fore at the place we noted and in the Epistle to the Ephesians where he saith that GOD hath quickened us together with CHRIST and raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Him He explains us the mysterie of it else-where in these words Rom. 6. We are saith he buried with Him by Baptisme into His death that as CHRIST is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father so we in like manner should walk in newness of life Every resurrection presupposeth a death preceding For to rise again is nothing else but for one to be restored to life who before was dead Now the estate that men are in under the dominion of sin the Scripture calleth Death because therein they have no sense nor motion in respect of piety and sanctity no more than the dead that rest in the grave have any for the actions of this life Eph. 2.1 Ye were dead in your sins and offences saith the Apostle to the Ephesians speaking of the time of their ignorance Whence is that which our Saviour saith in the Gospel Let the dead bury their dead and which St. Paul sayes 1 Tim. 5.6 the widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth When therefore by the efficacy of the vocation of the Spirit and Gospel of the LORD a man comes to pass out of this miserable condition into the estate of grace receiving the light of Faith into his understanding and Charity and Sanctification into his heart the Scripture to express this wonderful change saith that he is risen again This is precisely the resurrection that St. Paul intendeth in this place He saith that we are risen again with CHRIST First because this blessed change that 's brought to pass in us by His grace is like that change which betided Him when from the grave where He had lain for the space of three daies He was raised unto life by virtue from on high For as He then received the faculties of moving and sensation of which He was deprived in the Sepulchre so we in our regeneration do receive a spirit and a principle of life which we had not before Again as the LORD was restored unto life by the glory of the Father as the Apostle speaks that is by virtue of the exceeding great and glorious power of GOD in like manner are we renew'd and put into the state of grace by the efficacy of the might of GOD and not by the arm of man or the operation of flesh and blood In fine as the LORD upon His rising again did recover not simply that life which He laid down in His dying but another much more excellent and glorious a spiritual a coelestial and an immortal life in like manner we resume in our regeneration not the life of the first Adam before sin from which we were fallen and which how excellent so-ever was nevertheless animal and mortal that is capable of being lost as appeared by the issue but another much more exquisite and perfect a life eternal immutable and like that the blessed Angels live Thus you see the Resurrection of the LORD CHRIST is the idea and pattern of ours But I add in the second place that we are said to be risen again with CHRIST because it is in Him and from Him that we have this grace it being evident that Faith which is the first faculty of the new life doth ingraff and incorporate us into JESUS CHRIST and as the vine-branch doth not live but in its stock so man cannot live that divine life but in his Saviour In fine we are risen again with CHRIST because His resurrection is the cause of ours in such sort as if He had not risen from the dead we should have remained lying in the darkness of our spiritual death CHRIST coming forth out of His grave hath opened and enlightened ours and hath administred out of His own store all things necessary to deliver us out of the miserable estate wherein we were and to put us in possession of the life of Heaven His resurrection hath founded our Faith shewing us clearly that He is the Son of GOD and that His Gospel is true His resurrection hath assured our souls giving us full proof that His death did fully satisfie and content the judge of the World It hath strengthened our hopes making us to see by example of our Head that death the dreadfullest of our enemies cannot impede our happiness Hereupon it hath kindled love of GOD and desire of so great glory in our hearts and finally produced in them the principles the habitudes and dispositions of the new life which are necessary for our attaining unto blissful immortality Since therefore JESUS CHRIST in rising again did thereby raise up our life which had been ingulfed in hell and the curse and brought to light the causes of Faith Hope and Charity the principal faculties of that new life we now have it 's evident that we are risen again in Him and with Him From whence that which the Apostle infers upon it doth no less clearly follow to wit that we ought to mind henceforth the things which are on high and seek them with all our affection For the life unto which we are raised up with our LORD is heavenly and not earthly divine and not natural eternal and not corruptible Since therefore every creature employeth all the sense and affection it hath about things suitable to its life who sees not that the faithful are obliged by the honour they have to be risen again with the LORD neither to breath after nor embrace other things but those that are on high in which their new life doth properly consist And such is the example He hath given us For being risen he abode but a very little time here below only so long as the work of our salvation did require and forthwith ascended into Heaven to draw up our thoughts and affections thither untill our bodies also follow one day being raised up thither as His was unto highest glory And this is the second consideration that the Apostle here lays before us to perswade
old man are left sound and whole to stretch out the one upon the ground and lye in ashes while the others are in pleasure It is not by an hair-cloth nor a whip that vices are subdued These things incommodate the body but do not sure amend the soul They humble the out-side they hurt not within But leave the old man there at full liberty with his thoughts and lusts And it is not without reason the Apostle advertiseth us else-where that bodily exercise profits little 1 Tim. 4.8 Experience hath justified his words the lives of those that addict themselves to such exercises being no better yea sometimes worse than the lives of others And it is not long ago The Jesuit Tetavius l. 5 c. 3. de la penit publique since Truth drew this confession from the penn of one of our greatest adversaries that such exercises do many times much hurt even mens spiritual advancement because of a secret opinionativeness and pride which they beget and feed in some spirits who become arrogant and haughty upon them and take occasion from them to contemn those that lead a more moderated life The Apostle therefore would have us instead of these childish and poorly profitable exercises to lay our our labour upon the mortifying of the members of the old man that is our 〈◊〉 And it is to the same intention of his that I referr what he addeth namely that these members are upon the heart which is a thing excellently noted what way soever you consider it For first these vices are all upon the earth if you respect either their rise or their business or lastly their end and desires It 's clear they all spring up out of the earth from admiration and coveting of earthly things they all creep on the earth in its excrements or in its fruits and rise no higher than its fumes and vapours wretchedly cleaveing to these sordid vanities which they feel to fleet away and perish between their hands while they gripe them and are enjoying them Where is covetousness Where is luxury Where is gluttony and ambition What seek they for What desire they For what do they toil themselves Sure you plainly see that the earth is their only element that the metal which the one desires and the flesh which the other longeth for and the messes that the third breaths after and the vanities that are the passion of the latter I say you plainly see that all this is but earth or fruits and productions of the earth They are then to say true these members of the old man that fasten us to the earth and not the members of this body it is sin and not simply this flesh For as to our body it needs but a little for its conversation during that little time we pass here below whereas the desires of vice are infinite Whence it follows according to the Apostle's conception that it is vice we are to mortifie and not the body the members of the old man and not those of the body Then again if you consider the place destinated to be the abode of the one and the other nature you will further see that the members of the old man that is vices are not but upon the earth It 's there they make their spoyl and exercise all their tyranny there they live there they dye there they rot unprofitably consuming themselves in their own wretched filthinesse They have no place in Heaven where enters nothing but what is pure where perfect sanctity liveth and reigneth eternally crowned with immortal glory But the members of our bodies which superstition fastens ou◠and ridiculously afflicts though they also be for present on the earth and have need of its elements yet they shall not remain there alwaies They shall be one day lifted up into the Heavens and enter into the Sanctuary of GOD and live on His manna and partake of the fruits of the coelestial tree of life Knowing now the meaning of this exhortation of the Apostle's you may easily of your selves without my saying any thing of it comprehend the connexion it hath with the precedent words which imported that we are dead and that our life is hid with CHRIST in GOD and that we shall one day appear with Him in glory For since we be dead to the world and called to the hope and the fruition of an heavenly life which is hidden on high in JESUS CHRIST and shall be one day manifested and given to each one of us who sees not that all this doth most strictly oblige us to draw off all our affections from the earth and to cut all the ties that fasten us unto it that is to mortifie our members which are on the earth all the vices that engage us and ensnare us in the things of the earth It remaineth that we consider the vices or members of the old man which the Apostle does particularly name and expresly injoyn us to mortifie He nameth five in all fornication uncleanness inordinate appetite evil concupiscence and covetousness I conceive that the four first are related to one and the same head and be but divers branches of one and the same stock to wit luxury or sensuality Fornication is the principal species of them the disorders whereof are so evident and so well known that no one can be ignorant of the nature of it Uncleannesse comprehendeth all the other ordures and pollutions that are contrary to the chastity and honesty of our bodies as incests violations and those other abominable furies of carnal passions which transgress even the laws of nature as corrupt as it is The word which we have translated inordinate appetite doth signifie literally perturbation or passion in the original tongue But it is frequently used to express the passion of lubrieity and the filthy disposition of a voluptuous and esseminate heart that easily receives the impression of all lascivious objects and abandons its self to these kind of pleasures and runs out and pours forth its self in a sort entirely to them Evil concupiscence which the Apostle addeth in the fourth place is the source or the root of all the vices of this sort For though concupiscence be often taken in general for all irregular appetites and desires whatever the objects are to which they are unduly carried yet it sometimes signifies those in particular which respect the pleasures of the flesh and we often use the word concupiscence in this sense in our vulgar language Nevertheless I grant that in this place it may be taken in a larger extent as importing inordinate coveting either of pleasures or of profits and riches because the Apostle speaks here of covetousness also and not of sensuality alone He calls this concupiscence evil to distinguish it from that which keeping within its just bounds desireth things lawful in a due manner and measure The last of the vices here touched by the Apostle is Covetousnesse a vice no less known than the fore-going Only
without His death we could not have had the pardon of our sins nor the grace of the Holy Spirit nor the hope of immortality all which are things absolutely necessary to the devesting us of the old man and to the revesting us with the new Whereas now JESUS CHRIST dying on the Cross hath there pierced through and fastned up our old man and by the vertue of His sufferings created and formed in us another new man as different from the old as Heaven from the Earth and Life from Death Therefore the Apostle doth elsewhere conclude from the death of JESUS CHRIST the death of the old man in us and the life of the new 2. Cor. 5.15.17 If one died for all saith he then are all dead and He died for them that they might live henceforth in Him and no more unto themselves If any man be in CHRIST he is a new creature And in another place he saith expresly Rom. 6.6 11. that our old man was crucified with CHRIST that the body of sin might be destroyed and that we being dead with Him might live to GOD in Him Thus the death of CHRIST is at once the destruction of the old man and the production of the new the one was abolish'd by it and the other created This flesh of the mystical Lamb which GOD to day presents us hath slain our flesh and enlivened our spirit and from that Divine blood of His wherein the old man is drown'd is issu'd forth the new created in righteousness and holiness like as heretofore the Israelite was seen to come alive and glorious out of that very gulf of the Red-sea wherein the Egyptian lay sunk and overwhelm'd But oh new wonder as our LORD's flesh and blood is the principle that gives being to our new man so is it his nutriment And as in nature things are sustained by the same means that they were set up so in grace the new man is conserved and increased and strengthened by the same blood of JESUS CHRIST out of which he was formed And that heavenly meat and divine drink which you shall anon receive from the hand of GOD are not given you but for the feeding and perfecting of your new man I go yet further and durst say that this new man whom the Apostle would at this time vest you with is none other rightly considered than the same JESUS CHRIST whom we have put on at Baptism and whom we receive in the Supper propagated if I may so speak and pourtrayed in us by His own vertue who transformeth us into the likeness of His death and resurrection by reason that entring into and dwelling in us He formeth in us a man like Himself that as He did dyeth unto the flesh and with him leaveth in his sepulchre all his old life as an infirm and useless offal and being enlivened with Him and adorned with His light and endowed with an heavenly nature leads thenceforth a spiritual and glorious life Thus you see that the body of CHRIST was crucified and His blood shed and that the one and the other are given us in the Supper to devest us of the old man and vest us with the new This is the end and fruit of all that mysterie unto the participation whereof you are this day called Make account then that the best preparation you can bring unto it is a serious meditating of what the Apostle doth here inform us He exhorted the Colossians afore to mortifie the vices of their flesh and all the infamous passions of that Pagan life they had sometime led in the darkness of their ignorance as fornication covetousness anger evil speaking impurity of language and lying Now to cut up these and other like vices by the root and to comprise all the parts of sanctification in few words he commandeth us to put off the old man with his deeds c. There are others that take these words for a reason of his precedent exhortation drawn from that estate which JESUS CHRIST had put them into by Baptism as if his meaning were that they are obliged to renounce the vices he had been forbidding them since in their Baptism they did put off the old man on which these vices depend and of which they make up a part and put on the new which is contrary to them and incompatible with them Whether you understand it thus or take the text simply for a prosecution of the precedent command shewing us that for the due execution of it we must perform what is here added all amounteth to well-nigh the same sense And for the right comprehending of it we will treat if GOD permit of the three points which offer themselves in the Apostle's words first of the old man which we must put off secondly of the new which we must put on and the form it consisteth in to wit a renewing in knowledge after the image of Him who created it and in fine of that indifferency of nations and ceremonies and conditions which the Apostle affirmeth in this matter requiring nothing in reference to it but CHRIST who is the all of it and in all May it please GOD so to inlighten our understandings for the right discerning of this saving truth and touch our hearts to love and practise it effectually sanctifying us by the vertue of His word and precious Sacrament that we may all go out hence new men conformed in purity and charity and every vertue to that LORD JESUS in whose name and communion we by His grace do glory The Scripture sets before us the person of Adam and of JESUS CHRIST as two different stocks of mankind or as it were two opposite heads or principles of this nature which we call humane They have this in common that both the one and the other hath a great number of children which are issued from them and do depend upon them and that each of them doth communicate to his own his being his form his life and his condition imprinting his image on them which every of them beareth according to the quality of his extraction They differ or to say better are opposite in that the one is earthy the other heavenly the one hath a carnal vicious infirm nature full of ignorance and error and subject to death and the curse The other hath a spiritual holy nature full of light and wisdom acceptable unto GOD immortal and inheriting eternity The one propagateth in his children sin and death The other communicates to his righteousness sanctity and life The one transmits his nature by a carnal generation the other imparteth his to his descendents by a spiritual generation and such an one as hath nothing in common with flesh and blood The nature of the one is deprav'd by the empoisoned breath of the old Serpent which creepeth on the ground and liveth on the dust thereof That of the other hath been formed and conserved by the Eternal and coelestial Spirit It 's for these reasons that
constancy of His Divine grace which our indignities can neither overcome nor put off and though often refused or ill receiv'd yet ceaseth not to follow us but He comes again towards us every morning and dispatcheth daily some new Herald to sollicit us to repentance this Sun that shines about us this air with which he refresheth us so many various fruits of the earth with which He feedeth us the Word of His Gospel by which He instructeth us His Sacraments at which He feasteth us the voice of His Spirit either to comfort us or awaken us in our evils the strokes of His paternal discipline which he so aptly administreth tempering them in such sort that it is easie to see He scourgeth us for our amendment to win us not to destroy us And if we love our Neighbours as we ought what ample matter of thanksgiving doth GOD's dealing with them afford us His forbearance to some waiting for and inviting them to repentance the grace He exerciseth towards others either in bringing them to or conserving them in His Son the admirable gifts so richly and so wisely diversified which He imparteth to one and the prosperous success wherewith He favours the employment of others there being not a person in the Church how unfurnish'd and inconsiderable soever in our seeming but this good Master hath given one or other of His talents to Though we had the tongues and voices of all the Angels of Heaven yet could we not worthily acknowledge or repay with thanks enough a goodness so inestimable and so every way infinite But observe that it is to our GOD and Father the Apostle ordereth us to make our thanksgivings and reasonable it is that the glory of it should be given Him since He is the first and head spring of all Not but that we may rightly address our retributions as well as our petitions unto the Son also and the Holy Spirit according to the examples the Apostles themselves have left us of it in divers places of Scripture But both in the creation and also in the restauration of the world the Father is still represented unto us as the first principle of the action the Son and the Holy Spirit acting next as persons who subsist in such order that the Father is the first the Son the second and the Holy Ghost the third though setting aside this order and the distinction of their persons their nature be in all things and every way the same in respect both of essence and of properties or attributes and of all essential operations In fine the Apostle prescribes yet further that it be by JESUS Christ we render thanks to GOD the Father First for that He is as it were the first and the chiefest channel by which all this goodness of GOD is poured forth upon us For it 's He alone that hath acquired all the graces which mankind possess by reason whereof He is called the Sun of righteousness the light and the Saviour of the world the Prince and the author of life in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily And Secondly because our thanks themselves cannot be grateful to the Father nor come into His presence before the throne of His grace except they be addressed and presented by JESUS CHRIST who alone is able to perfume both our persons and our poor performances with that odour which is necessary for all that would appear without confusion before this Supreme Majesty This is that Beloved Brethren which we had to deliver to you for the expounding of these words of S. Paul There remaineth now the chiefest point of all even that you engrave them deeply on your hearts and take them for the rule of your whole lives applying them to each one of your actions and making those wholsome uses of them which this great Apostle gave them for I will point at some of them at present beseeching GOD to bless them unto your edification and remit the rest to your own pious meditation Observe then first for the confirmation of your faith that excellent proof the Apostle gives us here of the Divinity of the LORD JESUS For as the Epistle to the Hebrews concludeth it from the Father's naming Him His Son Hebr. 1.5 6. and treating Him quite otherwise than he doth the Angels the highest of all creatures so may we reason in like manner from this passage of S. Paul and say as that Epistle saith of the Angels of which of the Prophets or the Martyrs or the Apostles oâ— of all the Angels of Heaven was it ever said unto the Faithful Do all things in his Name Sure the faithful both in the Old Testament and in the New neither believe nor hope nor rejoyce nor speak nor act but in the Name of GOD and there is not one to be found in the Divine records whose piety and the exercises that depend upon it are address'd to a meer creature Here as you see the Apostle requires that not only some part of our faith but that our whole life and all our sanctification be referred to the Name of the LORD JESUS It must be therefore necessarily concluded that He is not a meer creature but very GOD of an infinite goodness power and wisdom eternally blessed with the Father It is not possible that an inferiour nature should be the support and the foundation and the last and highest end of all the works and words of all the faithful Either all the Scriptures of GOD are to be effaced and new ones made after the fantasie of Heretiques or it must be confess'd that this JESUS is GOD to whom they give a Name capable of being both the beginning and the end of all parts of the lives of all the faithful that are or ever shall be in the world conformably to their own asserting elsewhere that He is the Father of eternity the Prince of peace our great GOD and Saviour Judge again My Brethren if it be not an outrage unto Him and an investing of creatures with some part of this glory of His to require as those of the Communion of Rome do that part of the piety of the good works and of the very faith of Christians be in the Name of Saints of one and the other Sex who how sublime and excellent a dignity soever you give them cannot after all be set above the rank of creatures We daily hear them repeat their Orisons say their Beads ask and give Alms one of the choicest Sacrifices of Christian Religion make their pilgrimages for devotion build their temples consecrate their images and their holy places and their preciousest possessions and in fine their own persons to the name of the Blessed Virgin of S. Peter of S. Denis and a multitude of other creatures ancient and modern Adversaries where find you the institution of these Devotions In what Prophet or in what Apostle have you read a command for them In what Gospel or in what Acts and in what Divine Histories
degree of society either civil or domestick or religious they be placed And though this part being once well comprehended hath in it a great and almost sufficient light to direct and govern all the rest yet they forbear not upon it to descend unto the particular duties of each of those estates and conditions which the faithful live in in humane society Thus the Apostle S. Paul hath done in this Epistle for after having formed us all in general unto piety and sanctity and charity which belong to all Christians equally as you have heard in the precedent exercises he now addresseth himself in particular to each of those three orders of which an houshold is composed the first whereof is the Husband and the Wife the second the Father and the Children the third Master and Servants giving each of them a good lesson for their conduct in the condition to which GOD hath called them Elsewhere he regulateth the duties of Subjects in reference to the civil Powers under which they live of the faithful in reference to their Pastors and reciprocally of Pastors in reference to their flocks not omitting Deacons the other part of Ecclesiastick Ministry and this not in one place alone but many In consideration hereof before we proceed any further permit me I beseech you to make here at the entrance one general reflection upon this the Holy Apostles way of treating thus Whence comes it that having been so careful to instruct and to direct in particular each of those different ranks of persons which then were and still are in the Church they never drop'd one word of the duties of three kinds of conditions in which now a dayes Rome makes the main and in a manner the all of the Christian Commonweal to consist I mean the Pope Sacrificers or Priests and Monks The Apostles do instruct the lowest Masters how they ought to treat their attendants and the simplest Presbyters or Bishops that is Pastors how they ought to feed their flocks They never tell the Pope in what manner he ought to deport himself in that great government of all Christendom which as is said hath been given him of GOD. The Apostles do advertise the most abject slaves of the servitude they owe their Masters and every flock of the diference and respect it owes its Pastors They never speak a word either to single believers or their guides of that infinite subjection which they are obliged to profess unto the Pope or of kiâ—â—ing his feet or of submitting the conscience or any other such like thing The Apostles do exactly inform Bishops or Pastors of the duties of their charge of preaching exhorting instructing of watching of correcting of censuring of excluding the scandalous from communion They never order any Sacrificers to offer a propitiatory hoast unto GOD for the sins of quick and dead nor tell them of the preparations ceremonies and observances necessary thereto nor of purifying by means of an auricular confession the consciences of such as are to participate of such a sacrifice nor of the precautions and subtilties that are necessary for the right administration of it In fine the Apostles verity vouchsafe to take the pains to enter into Families and there regulate the demeanour of Husbands and Wives of Virgins and Widows of Fathers and Children of Masters and Servants Why say they nothing unto Monks neither to the solitary as Hermits and Anachorets nor to those that live associated in separated dwellings Why do they not somewhere instruct the Guardians the Abbots the Superiours and Generals of these orders Why do they not exhort their inferiors to yield them a blind obedience Why say they nothing of their three vows and of the means of well observing them And why give they no instructions to Religious women who imitating the zeal of men shut themselves up in Convents But what say I that they no where regulate the carriage and particular duties of these three sorts of conditions More than so they make no mention of them at all neither expresly nor implicitly And if you read the Books of the New Testament you will find that there is no more speech in them of the Pope and the Sacrificers and the Monks of Rome than of the Bramines of India or the Bonzians of Japan or the Muphti of the Musulmen Whence comes so strange a silence so universal an obliviousness Is it that the thing was not worthy of the Apostles care and quill But how can that be imagin'd since if you believe those of Rome it 's upon these three orders that Christianity depends For as to the Pope he is the head of the Church and exerciseth so necessary an imperial power that out of his communion there is no salvation And as for Priests or Sacrificers it 's they alone that purifie the souls of men both by the absolution they give those whom they confess and by that Deity which they deliver unto such as they communicate Lastly as for Monks their order is the state of perfection They are the Angels of the earth the glory and the rampart of the Church the sole patterns of Evangelick piety and sanctity wherefore they call their fraternities Religions and disdaining their old name of Monks each sex of them stiles themselves Religious as if the piety of other Christians did not deserve to be called Religion in comparison of theirs Whence comes it then that the Apostles have so forgotten these three sorts of people which are as highly or more necessary in the Church than the four elements in the world Dear Brethren you plainly see the reason and if passion did not blind our adversaries they might see it too as well as we The Apostles have said nothing to these three sorts of people because there were none such among Christians in their time Had there been then a Pope and Sacrificers in the Church the Apostles without doubt would have told them their duty as well as Bishops and Elders that is Pastors And if there had been Monks and Religiouses they would undoubtedly have spoken unto them as well as unto men and women that live in wedlock Since they did it not be we certainly assured that neither of these three plants was sown or set by JESUS CHRIST or His Apostles but they have all sprung up since their dayes partly from the imprudence partly from the superstition and corruptness of men who also affording them cultivation have raised them by little and little to that prodigious greatness which now for divers ages they have had And this be spoken at the entrance upon occasion of the care the Apostles in general had to form and regulate the duties of the divers conditions of persons which are found in the Church As for S. Paul's particular in this place he speaks here first unto Husbands and Wives next unto Fathers and Children and last of all unto Masters and Servants following therein the natural order of the things themselves For if you consider the
of their sex Moreover the interest of their Religion requires this performance at their hands though law and reason had not impos'd subjection on them to the end it might appear by their obedience that JESUS CHRIST doth not disturb the just order of humane societies but on the contrary form both men and women to all kind of righteousness and honesty much more exactly and effectually than other Religions do Lastly the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST having in divers places taken Marriage for a symbole of the union which is between Him and His Church he hath by that usage authorized and confirmed the duties of both the two Married parties and particularly the subjection of the wife since she is the image of the Church which ought to be subject unto CHRIST a matter which the Apostle hath elsewhere excellently made use of in this subject Eph. 5 23.24 The Husband saith he is the bead of the Wife even as CHRIST is the head of the Church Therefore as the Church is subject unto CHRIST so let wives be to their own husbands in all things Thus you see with how much truth and wisdom the Apostle here alledgeth unto Christian women that it is meet in the LORD that is in JESUS CHRIST they should be subject to their husbands it being clear by all we have been saying that all the considerations of the discipline of this same LORD and of the communion they have with Him do so strictly oblige them to this duty that if they fail of performance beside the fault and the disorder which they commit against the Law and institution of GOD and nature they also particularly offend the LORD JESUS and outrage the mysteries of His Gospel and scandalize His people But I have said that the Apostle does also by these words regulate and limit that subjection which the wife oweth her Husband For adding to the rest that in the LORD or according to the LORD he evidently sheweth that it reacheth no further than to such things as do not offend JESUS CHRIST She is subject to her husband I acknowledge but in things wherein she is not rebellious against GOD. She ought to please him but on condition she displease not their common LORD She owes him her obedience and her assistance and her service in adversity and in all the troubles of houshold affairs but not in sin The will of JESUS CHRIST is the true boundary of her subjection and complacency She ought to put on so far but further she may not pass without perrishing Whatever tye we have to any creature it still leaves the rights of GOD entire because our obligation unto Him is the first and most ancient the strictest and most necessary of all that we are under And if the Husband pretend to oblige his Wife or the Father his Child or the Prince his Subject unto any violation of the commands of GOD that is either to do what He forbids or not to do what He injoyns Acts 5.29 Luke 14.26 Matt. 10.37 in this case the faithful soul is to remember that we ought to obey GOD rather than men and that if we love father or mother husband or wife children or brethren or sisters or even our own lives more than CHRIST we are not worthy of Him nor can be His disciples But having thus heard the lesson which the Apostle gives the wife let us now hearken unto that he gives the husband Husbands saith he love your Wives and be not bitter against them He commands 'em to love them and forbids 'em to be bitter against them and in these few words compriseth all their duty This duty is no whit less just but indeed more sweet and pleasing than that which he prescribed the wives And observe I pray the Apostles prudence For when he had allotted the woman subjection for her share consequence seemed to require that he should give the man command and government for his But he doth it not He established the man's authority sufficiently by putting the woman in subjection to him and for the most part his strength and the other advantages of his sex do cause him to assume but too much Wherefore in stead of saying Husbands govern your wives or command them or of using some such word importing authority he saith unto them Love your wives to sweeten on one hand the subjection of the wife and to temper on the other hand the authority of the husband Wife let not your subjection fright you the Apostle subjects you not but to a person who loves you Husband let not your authority make you insolent If the Apostle subject your wife unto you it 's only to the end you love her Derive no vanity either the one or the other of you from the advantages he gives you If the love which the husband owes his wife make her haughty let her remember that withall she is subject unto him that loves her And if the authority which GOD giveth the husband flatter him let him not forget that the wife is not submitted to him but for the obliging him to love her the more Further this love which the Apostle would have husbands bear their wives is a sacred and sincere affection produced in their hearts not simply by that pleasing form and that grace and sweetness which naturally makes men love and seek unto this sex and which how perfect and charming soever it may be is at most but a flower of a very short and uncertain duration but principally by the will of GOD who hath joyned them with 'em who hath given them to them for companions in their good and bad fortunes for helps in all the parts of their life for a perpetuating of their name and lineage for the diminishing of their troubles and the augmenting of their joyes This perpetual and indivisible union which bindeth them together and which of two persons hath changed them into one flesh which hath mingled together all their interests and in their dear Children inseparably combined and confounded their blood and very nature all this I say must kindle in the foul of husbands a pure and an inviolable love unto their wives then again this love must flow forth from the heart into the external actions discovering and evidencing its self by such continual effects as may be truly worthy of it For love is not a dead picture nor a vain phantasie nor an idol without life and action It 's the liveliest and most active of all our sentiments It 's a will that affecteth and sets all the power one hath on work to procure some good to the person whom it loveth The first effect of this love is to be pleased in the presence of that which a man loves and not be able to suffer the absence of it long without disquiet The second to communicate to it all a man possesseth that is good and the third to guard and preserve it from all incommodity and molestation It 's thus the
Apostle would have husbands love their wives even First that they live ordinarily with them as far as the necessity of their affairs permits not finding sweeter divertisement nor more pleasing company any other where Then next that they carefully make them partakers of the graces GOD hath given them and principally in all that concerns the salvation of their souls which is the greatest good of all faithfully directing them about it both by good and holy speech and also by pure and vertuous deportment It 's in this they ought to exercise that advantage which nature and the Apostle gives them shewing themselves to be truly the heads and guides of their wives in the matters of GOD's service and of holiness of life for this end making provision of all necessary knowledge that if they at any time consult them in their doubts 1 Cor. 14.35 as S. Paul commands they may be able to instruct them least in defect of it it might be said of them as a Prophet sometime said of Idols Hab. 2.18 that they are teachers of nothing but vanity But unto these cares for the soul the husband ought to add those also which respect the present life labouring in his vocation and imparting to his wife a share of all the substance he possesseth or acquireth proportionably to her need of it either for her own necessary food and raiment or for the maintaining her children and family as befits her condition It 's this the Apostle means when he commandeth husbands to love their wives But he forbids them in the following words to be bitter against them that is to be â—roward to them requiring that all their conversation with them be full of sweetness and amity The Pagans themselves have observ'd the justness of this duty as what we read of one piece of their devotions beareth witness For when they sacrificed unto that idol of theirs whom they call'd Nuptial Juno because they gave her the superintendency of Marriage they were wont to take the gall out of the victim and cast it behind the altar signifying thereby as say the interpreters of their Ceremonies that there ought to be no gall nor bitterness in marriage The Apostles meaning then is that the husband do first purge his heart of all this sowrness and bitterness that he never suffer hatred nor malevolence nor anger nor provocation nor fretting nor disgust to enter there against a person whom he ought to love as himself Next he would have the husband clense all his words and actions from the same poison For if he who is angry with his neighbour without cause and gives him the least reviling word doth deserve torment as our Saviour declareth of what hells is not he worthy who outrageth his own flesh Her whom he ought to cherish and tenderly affect as CHRIST doth His Church But if the Apostle command a Christian to use no offensive or opprobrious speech against his wife he doth as little permit him to shew bitterness of spirit by an angry sad and obstinate silence which is no less provocative nor less sharp to say truth than the most outragious reproaches In conclusion by this clause the Apostle does further and with greater force of reason banish out of conjugal converse the cruelty and rigour and tyrannie of those boysterous barbarous husbands who treat their wives as bond-servants denying them that share which the laws of GOD and man do give them in the government and administration of the houshold And the utmost degree of this inhumanity is when unto revilings and contempt they add blows and excesses of hand an outrage which the authors of the Roman Civil Law thought so unworthy of the conjugal alliance that they permit the wife so exceeded against to break with her husband approving and authorizing her divorce if she can prove he struck her Thus Dear Brethren you have heard what we had to deliver for the exposition of this Text. It teacheth us all in general first that all sorts of people may and ought to read St. Paul's Epistles and by consequent all the holy Scriptures For why should this holy man address his speech here to wives and their husbands to children and their fathers to servants and their masters if he meant not that all these persons should have the reading of this letter Christians fear not to read what the Apostle hath vouchsafed to write you It 's in vain that some forbid you the reading which it is his mind you should practise None can know better than he how those Epistles must be used which he wrote Then again he shews us further here how unjust the indiscretion of those is who have so ill treated the worthiness of marriage that by their manner of speaking of it you would say they held it incompatible with Christian purity St. Paul doth every where maintain the honour of this holy order and never prohibit or disparage it at all Also as the precepts which he gives to Masters to Pastors and others do clearly authorize the right and the dignity of those conditions so is marriage established by the lesson he writes here and often else-where unto married persons But the Devil knowing well that this holy institution of GOD is infinitely profitable unto men both to preserve them from tentations to incontinence one of the broadest waies to Hell and also to sweeten the harshness of their natures by the tenderness of conjugal and paternal affections and for divers other ends of great importance unto civil life and unto piety it self the enemie I say not ignorant hereof hath subtilly made hatred or contempt of marriage to insinuate its self into the spirits of a sort of men under divers plausible pretexts so as in conclusion Christians who would think it have asserted it a piece of sanctification to abstain from it and in the sequel prohibited to the Ministers of Religion For our parts Beloved Brâ—thren we constrain none to marry If any have received this grace of GOD that they can contain and live pure out of this estate let them forbear it if it seem them good Only we say two things first that the making use of it is free to all there being no dignity nor profession in the Church excluded from Divine permission of it Secondly that to such as have not the gift of continency marriage is not only permitted but even necessary and of whatever rank they be their marrying is so far from offending GOD that they offend Him much if they marry not Hereto for a conclusion we adjoyn a serious exhortation to all who are in this estate that they sedulously put in practise the lesson which St. Paul hath now given them Even that wives be subject to their husbands as is meet in the LORD that Husbands love their wives and not be bitter against them Many complain of finding thorns in this condition instead of the roses they hoped for Men charge it upon the pride the levity the vanity the
Him His Spirit and His peace and the assured hope of everlasting life That this dutifulness of children towards their Parents is well-pleasing unto Him beside that the Apostle whose authority is irrefragable does expresly assert it here the LORD Himself doth evidence divers waies First by His commandment engraven by His own hand at the head of the second table of the Law Honour thy Father and thy Mother Secondly by the promise He annexeth thereunto to prolong your daies upon the earth if ye be diligent to discharge this duty In the third place by the punishments He threatens unto children disobeying their Father and Mother ordaining in the political laws of Israel Deut 21.18 Exod. 21.17 Lev. 20.9 that they should be publickly stoned by all the people of the City where they dwelt and else-where that they should irremissibly put to death him who cursed his Father or his Mother In another place He pronounceth by the mouth of sage Solomon Prov. 20.20 30.17 that the lamp of such a man shall be put out into blackest darkness and that the ravens of the valley shall pluck out and the young eagles eat the eye of him that mocketh his Father and despiseth the instruction of his Mother In fine the LORD 's calling Himself our Father and honouring us with the name of His children that He might oblige us to serve Him doth sufficiently shew of what kind and how holy and inviolable that obedience is which we owe to parents Mal. 1.6 If I be a Father saith He where is my Honour Not so much as Pagans but have acknowledged that the performance of this duty is well-pleasing to the Deity witness some of their Poets confidently promising a long and happy life to such as shall honour their Fathers and their Mothers and pay those just diligences to their old age which are due unto it But it is time to come to the other head of the Text wherein the Apostle after his having reduced children to their duty turns him unto Fathers and adviseth them to use the power he hath given them moderately and in such manner as their conduct may not tend but to their childrens benefit and their own contentment Fathers saith he provoke not your children lest they be discouraged This provocation which he forbids is an ill effect which the abuse of paternal authority produceth in the hearts of children when fathers exceed in rigour and treat them too roughly which comes to pass a great many waies First when they deny them a just allowance and what is necessary to accommodate them according to their birth The Apostle hath judged this so enormous a sin 1 Tim. 5.8 that he sticks not to say that he that commits it hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel Secondly Fathers provoke their children when they give them unrighteous and inhumane commands 1 Sam. 20.30 as when Saul would needs oblige Jonathan his son to hate and persecute David a very virtuous and innocent person whereupon ensued that this generous son most unworthy of so bad a Father was vexed and inflamed with despight and anger If the daughter of Herodias had had any sparkle of this good nature she would have been in like manner offended at that cruel and barbarous command her mother made her Mat. 14.8 to ask of King Herod the head of John the Baptist in a Charger 'T is also the provoking of a child when he shall without any necessity be compelled unto sordid and servile actions and such as are beneath his birth In this rank too I put those who without cause do beat their childrens ears with contumelious words whether present passion does inspire them or an ill-favoured custome hath habituated their tongues to so venomous a stile For we see some that cannot speak unto their children nor reprove them nor so much as call them to 'em in any other dialect but discharge at every turn an hail-shower of maledictions and opprobrious terms upon them A kind of carriage as abject and odious as may be extremely unworthy of any honest and ingenious man especially of a Christian whose mouth ought to be a source of blessing and have nothing issue from it but what is grave and holy and proper to edifie But neither is there any person with whom a wise man should less deal in that manner than his child whom such indiscretion doth deject and infinitely dismay if he hath ever so little spirit and sensibility It was with this black and piquant salt that Saul did season the remonstrances he made to his Jonathan Thou son saith he to him of a perverse 1 Sam. 20.30 rebellious woman do I not know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion and to the confusion of thy Mothers nakedness Are these the words of a Father and not rather of an Enemy yea of a barbarous enemy that hath neither honour nor civility As indeed it was choler that spake and not reason And he suffered himself to be so transported by the fury of his passion that after such a tempest of rude words he failed not to throw his lightning casting a javelin at him as the Scripture relateth it to smite him And this is the height of those excesses which the Apostle intends here by that provoking which he forbids when fathers chastise their children either without cause or without measure and beyond what they deserve For if justice oblige us to keep our minds free and composed in punishing the greatest strangers and the heynousest malefactors that we may exactly proportion the penalty to their faults Den as the LORD expresly commanded the Judges of His people how much more should a Father whose name breaths nothing but benignity and sweetness observe the same moderation when his business is to chasten his child GOD gives us example of it in His treatment of His children chastising them in very deed but as Himself says with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men 2 Sam. 7 1â— that is moderately and with an humane rod a rod tempered with gentleness and benignity The Apostle to take off Fathers from this fault shews them the evil that comes of it Provoke not your children saith he lest they be discouraged For there is nothing that doth more deject the heart of a child especially if ingenious than this rigour and roughness of a Father First it saddens him when in the countenance and actions of that person to whom of all men in the world he should in reason be dearest he sees nothing but anger and aversion This grief doth often cast him into languishings and mortal maladies which make Fathers regret and execrate though vainly and too late their unhappy and imprudent severity Then again this kind of carriage intimidateth children and depriveth them of all courage for any good and honest undertaking and smothereth in them all the fire and vivacity they had
GOD. Let us eschew at once these peoples miscarriage and their misery and according to the Apostle's prudent and divine injunction whatever we do whether the action be addressed unto GOD or respect our neighbour do it all as unto GOD and not as unto man Let us seek for neither other spectator nor other remunerator than Him alone Be we content with his approbation and with the testimony of our own consciences whatever censure men do pass upon us being assured as St. Paul here adds that if we serve the LORD if it be Him we obey if it be to His will and glory that we consecrate and direct the course of our lives we shall infallibly receive from His bountiful hand the reward of the inheritance and on the contrary that they that do unjustly and despising His truth are injurious either to His Majesty or His creatures shall receive what they have unjustly done without respect of persons Looking for so great and dreadful a judgement at which the least of our actions whether they be good or evil shall be examined in presence of the assembly of the whole universe what manner of persons 2 Pet. 3.11 I beseech you ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness Let us search our hearts and make inspection into all the parts of our life let us cleanse our souls and bodies from all filthiness and impurity and timely judge our selves wounding and cutting off with the righteous sword of a lively and serious repentance all the evil we find in our selves and living henceforth justly soberly and religiously without scandal before men and with all good conscience in the sight of GOD that we may next week present our selves at His holy Table to our edification and comfort and appear at the last day before His sacred and dreadful tribunal without confusion to the glory of JESUS CHRIST who hath redeemed us and our own eternal salvation Amen THE FORTY SIXTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. IV. VER II III IV. Verse II. Persevere in Prayer watching in it with thanksgiving III. Praying together also for us that GOD do open us the door of the word to publish the mysterie of CHRIST for which also I am prisoner IV. That I may manifest it as I ought to speak DEAR Brethren Prayer is the Christian's sacrifice the holiest exercise of his devotion his consolation in troubles his stay in weaknesses the principal weapon he useth in combats his oracle in doubts and perplexities his safety in perils the sweetning of his bitternesses the balm of his wounds his help in adversity the support and ornament of his prosperity and in a word the key of the treasury of GOD which opens it to him and puts in his hand all the good things that are necessary for the one and the other life this of the earth and that of heaven Hence it is that the holy Apostles give it us in charge with so much affection and diligence in all those divine instructions of theirs which are come to our hands Not to seek further off for instances of it you see how St. Paul being upon the point to conclude this excellent Epistle to the Colossians after he had informed their faith and regulated their manners and explained their duty both in general towards all men and towards certain sorts of men in particular within the societies in which they live sets an exhortation to prayer at the head of some other documents which he addeth before he makes an end Persevere in prayer saith he watching therein with thanksgiving And in truth it 's with a great deal of reason that he reminds us of so important and so necessary a duty For since GOD is the Father of lights from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift how can we without His favour and benediction either acquire or conserve the faculties and habits of this divine life unto which the holy Apostle would form us together with the vertues that relate to it Since then prayer hath the promise of obtaining from His liberality whatsoever it shall ask of him in faith it 's upon good ground that the Apostle wills the Colossians to address themselves continually to GOD by prayer for the meet and faithful discharging of those duties he prescribed them After this he further adds two advertisements more the one of conversing wisely with those that are without and the other to season their speech the principal instrument of conversation with the salt of grace Whereupon he concludes this Epistle with the praises of Tychicus and Onesimus who were the bearers of it and with salutations he makes them on the behalf of some then with him adjoyning his own to the Colossians themselves and likewise to the faithful of Laodicea This is the summ of this last Chapter of his letter as you shall here more particularly by the will of GOD in the following actions At present we purpose His grace assisting to entertain you with what he saith of prayer in those three Verses we have read and to do it in order we will treat one after another of the two points that offer themselves in the same first of prayer in general Persevere in prayer watching therein with thanksgiving Secondly of their praying particularly and expresly for him which he requireth of them Praying together also for us c. Man being in some sort secretly conscious of his own weakness and knowing how little succour second causes can afford him for the conservation and the happiness of his life is in a manner naturally inclin'd to call unto his aid by prayer that veiled and invisible Deity whose Providence he scenteth in every thing though he perceiveth not its form All religions in the world do give clear and very express testimony to this truth there never having been any known but that had its prayers and letanies addressed to GOD and greatest idolaters and the deplorablest wicked men are wont to cry out when a danger surpriseth them O LORD help me O GOD deliver me lifting up their eyes at that time to Heaven as if nature in that case did its self compell them to do homage to that Majesty which they outrage or blaspheme through the rest of their lives But what Nature doth too too imperfectly teach us we learn plainly and fully from the Scripture where we have both express commands to call on GOD and promises of favourable audience and examples of all holy men under the one and the other Covenant whose orisons the Holy Spirit hath taken care to keep up for us in these sacred registers of the Church St. Paul presupposing therefore here that the Faithful he wrote to had this exercise of prayer familiar among them according to that common principle of nature and of Scripture does only regulate them in the manner of performing it advising them to persevere in it to watch in it and to accompany it with thanksgiving As for perseverance in prayer 't is not without reason that
up the whole universe In a peculiar manner the Colossians to whom he writes this Epistle they dwelt in a City and a Province of which the people were much addicted to the most infamous of heathenish superstitions He commands them first in general to walk wisely towards those that are without and redeem the time Next he orders them in particular to have care of their speech one of the principal and most important pieces of the commerce we have with men Let your speech saith he be alway with grace seasoned with salt that ye may know how to answer every one This exhortation My Brethren doth well fit our selves and is proper for the condition we are in as who live under powers and among countreymen of a religion different from ours Let us consider it therefore and practise it with care To help you for a right understanding of it we shall if GOD will treat in the presentation of the two parts it containeth First our conversation with those that are without in general Secondly the qualities in particular which our speech ought to have in that converse noting to you upon each of 'em what we shall judge proper for your edification and comfort The Apostle's general exhortation consisteth in two heads the first is that we walk wisely towards those that are without the second that we redeem the time As to the first I presume you all know without my advertizing it that the Apostle here do's signifie by the word walking according to the ordinary stile of Scripture living and conversing and again that he means by those that are without such as are not of our communion but do in point of religion follow other sentiments and services then we profess to embrace in conformity to the Gospel of Jesus Christ He gives them the same denomination in another Epistle also where after his ordering us to shun the commerce and frequentation of some that are called brethren that is who make profession of our communion 1 Cor. 5.12 but mean while lead an ill and scandalous life he addeth For what have I to do to judge of them that are without He willeth then that we converse wisely with them that is that in all negotiation and conversing with them we exercise a great deal of prudence and circumspection Not that he permits us foolish and indiscreet deportment towards the faithful that are of the same body with us GOD forbid A Christian's whole life ought to be prudent and advised and whomsoever he converseth with he ought to govern his actions with judgment and do nothing without reason remembring the rule his Master gave him for the forming of all his carriage Be ye wise as serpents saith He and simple as doves But because they without are usually enemies to our religion and do detest or at least are ignorant of or despise its mysteries there 's none but sees that it concerns us in treating with them to use much more restraint and consideration then when question is of our brethren As when a Souldier is in an enemy's countrey he stands much more upon his guard and marcheth as they say with bridle in hand Besides you know if persons be but strangers we treat them with more care and if I may say it with more ceremony then our acquaintances A brother lives with us without design a stranger is a spy The one bears with even those actions of ours in which a severe Judge would find something to reprehend The other doth not pardon us any thing nay is offended sometimes at the innocentest actions Being perswaded of the charity of the former we live securely with him nor doth his person put us in pain because he approves all that accords with our rule With a stranger it is not so Besides the care we ought to have that in all transactions with him we do well we must also be further heedful that we so do all as may be to his gust It 's then with a great deal of reason that the Apostle advertiseth us as to those that are without to live and converse wisely with them in a particular manner that is to exercise in all our deportment towards them more attention prudence and consideration then in the other ordinary passages of our lives The first point of Christian wisdom in this deportment towards them is to observe the end it ought to be directed to The second to discern the persons And the third to chuse such means as are proper for our design As to the end whether an accidental encounter do cast us upon treating with such as are without or whether some design doth lead us to it we ought alway to aim in it either at the edifying and winning them to CHRIST or at the least to hinder their taking any offence or disgust at our religion In the commerce which the subjects of a civil state have with foreiners it is enough that they keep sound and entire the fidelity they owe their Prince and the love and respect they have for their Laws and Government of their own Countrey It is not necessary nor will it be suffered that they should attempt to withdraw a stranger from his subjection to that power under whose Scepter he was born because it 's a lawful subjection and whoever would unfix it do's intrench upon anothers right which cannot be done without injustice But in the matters of religion it is not so It 's not enough that you preserve your selves from theirs who are without you must endeavour if you can to draw them from it and bring them over unto yours For in this you do no one wrong you hurt nothing but errour nor diminish any's right but superstition's impiety's and Satan's the common enemy of Mankind who inspireth them You do not acquire any thing to JESUS CHRIST but what did lawfully pertain unto him since He of right is LORD of all men both by reason that He did create them and also for that he hath redeemed them You do an act of justice in reducing bond-servants under their true and lawful Master's yoke whom errour had debauched from it Thus as often as you treat with those that are without you ought to propose unto your selves the edifying of them in reference to religion and to have a will and a desire in your hearts like to St. Paul's wish for Agrippa and for the rest that heard him Act. 26.29 I would to God saith he that not only thou but also all that hear me this day were both almost and altogether such as I am except these bonds But it 's not enough to have a good end there must be an application of proper and fit means and for this effect the diversity of the persons with whom we have to do is to be heedfully considered For the same things do not suit with all Wisdom therefore being obliged to diversifie its conduct according to the difference of those with whom it treateth a Christian must
such as have had the curiosity to enquire what this letter might be have faln upon different opinions as in a matter both obscure and besides of no great necessity Some of the Ancients say that it is the first Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy written from Laodicea as is expresly reported by an old tradition which is read still to this day at the end of that Epistle And the truth is it cannot be deny'd but this Epistle containeth divers instructions fit to edifie the Colossians about the business of those seducers whom St. Paul here opposeth they dogmatised a discrimination of dayes and meats and this is there expresly condemned And whereas it is alledged against these Authors that the Apostle had not been in the City of Laodicea by means whereof he could not have thence written any letters either to Timothy or any other they perhaps would answer with an Ancient Author Theodoret by name that the History of the Acts assuring us St. Paul had traversed Phrygia it is not very probable but that he pass'd through Laodicea the capital City of the Province And whereas he saith in the 2. chap. to the Colossians that he hath a great conflict for them and for those at Laodicea and for all such as had not seen his presence in the flesh this shews indeed that the Apostle had care even of those of the faithful whom he had not seen but not that they of Laidicea or of Coloss were of the number and that the sense of these words is he was in pain not only for them whom he had seen and known but even for the Christians he never saw Yet because this exposition may seem a little forced it is better and more easie to stick to the common opinion follow'd by the greater part of Expositors both Ancient and Modern even that the Epistle from Laedicea here mention'd by the Apostle was a letter written by the Church of Laodicea to St. Paul which letter he desireth the Colossians should read in their Assembly because it contained things which he judged helpful to their edification perhaps concerning the persons or the errours or the procedures of those very seducers whom he combateth in this Epistle This in my opinion is that which may be said in the matter with greatest probability There remaineth the third and last order he gives them say to Archippus Take heed to the Ministry thou hast received in the LORD that thou fulfill it We learn from the Epistle to Philemon that Archippus was a fellow-souldier of the Apostle's that is a Minister of the holy Gospel The meaning then is that the Church do advertise him on St. Paul's behalf to mind both the quality of that excellent Ministry and the Authority and Divinity of the LORD in whose name he had been called to it that he might acquit himself worthily in it and diligently fulfill all the functions of it leaving no part of them unperformed It is thought that some negligence or other defect of this Pastor might oblige the Apostle to cause this advise to be given him But for my part I would not without a more pressing reason suspect such a thing of a person whom the Apostle had so much honoured as to call him his fellow-souldier in the Epistle he wrote at the same time to Philemon and should rather beleeve that Archippus having been newly receiv'd into this sacred charge the Apostle would encourage him by this advertisement to a good discharge of his duty in it However it were you see he gives the body of the Church a power to address some remonstrances sometinâ—es to it 's own Pastors An evident sign that they are not the Masters and Lords of it as those of Rome pretend but Ministers and Officers only In fine he adds for a conclusion The salutation by the own hand of me Paul The rest of the Epistle had been dictated by the Apostle and written by another hand He writeth these and the following words himself with his own hand 1 Thes 3.17 and it was his ordinary use so to do as he declareth elsewhere 2 Thes 2.2 to assure his letters by this mark against the fraud of falsifiers who even then impudently dispersed forged letters under his name as himself in another place intimates unto us Yet before he shuts up he conjures them to remember his bonds as an excellent seal of the truth of his Gospel and an irrefragable testimony of the affection he bore to them and to the rest of the Gentiles for whose sake he suffered these things which consequently obliged them to love him and to pray the LORD ardently for him and above all to imitate his constancy and his patience on the like occasions if they should be called to them After this he gives them his blessing in these words Grace be with you Amen He means the Grace of GOD in JESUS CHRIST His Son our LORD and it was not possible to crown this divine Letter with a fairer and a fitter close Bless we GOD my Beloved Brethren who hath vouchsafed us the grace to read and to explain it throughout in these holy Assemblies and pray Him that he would please to continue the same liberty and tranquility still unto us causing His word to fructifie among us At present let us particularly meditate the remarkable Lessons which this conclusion doth contain to the end we may sedulously practise them each of us according to our Vocation Let Ministers mind the advertisement given to Archippus and imitate the example of Epaphras in loving cordially their flocks in striving for them both by prayer and by word and by deed fulfilling their Ministry and so demeaning themselves in it as may be worthy both of the excellency of the charge and of the respect and love they owe to the son of GOD who hath honoured them with it Let Flocks have reverence and amity for their Pastors and live an good intelligence with their neighbours as Coloss and Laâ—dicea mutually communicating all things that tend to their common edification Let the Epistles of St. Paul and the Books of his fellow-brethen the Prophets and Apostles of the LORD resound eternally in our Assemblies Let their Voice alone be there heard and their Doctrine alone receiv'd and every tradition not marked with their zeal be banish'd thence Let heads of Families imitate the zeal of Nymphas so conscionably forming their children and their people unto piety and so regularly establishing the exercises of it among them that it may be truly said of them they each have a Church in their house And all of us together of what order or condition soever let us study to be perfect and compleat in all the will of GOD and persevere unto the end in this holy profession remembring also the bonds of St. Paul and the sufferings of the faithful by which GOD hath confirmed the truth of His Gospel and so walk in the steps of these blessed ones enjoying the favours of