S. Paul teacheth constantly ev ry where that it was disannulled and abrogated by the death of the LORD JESUS to make room for the Gospel according to the Oracles of the Prophets that GOD would make a new Covenant with his people Here is then the second head of our intended matter upon which we are to consider how GOD hath abolished this obligation which was against us by the Cross of his Son He tells us two things concerning it the one That this obligation is made void the other That it 's by the Cross of CHRIST it was made so He expresseth the former of these with great elegancy as his manner is using three most significant terms all of them taken from the nature of civil promises and obligations in pursuance of the similitude he began with First he saith that this obligation hath been effaced For so 't is ordinary with men to do when they have a debt paid them up they efface the name of their debtor that was upon their Books and the sum which he owed them The Apostle saith that GOD hath done the same in reference to us that he hath effaced this obligation of our mystical debt which was written in his Law and signed in our particular Consciences And this term hath the greater elegancy in this place because there did intervene for our acquitting some such thing as men are wont to do For they strike out their debtors promises with some liquor as Ink or the like which they draw over the lines of their writings So was our obligation made null by the effusion of a liquor to wit the blood of JESUS CHRIST which was poured forth as may be said from the Cross upon that dismal Book of the Law for the effacing all the clauses of our condemnation in it For as to the writing of men Ink is enough to blot it out But there was nothing save the Blood of the Son of GOD that was able to efface this doleful writing of the Law wherein the sentence of our death was contained Now it seems that this should be sufficient to assure a debtor even the telling him that his obligation is effaced Yet the Apostle contents not himself he addeth that ours hath been taken out of the way or abolished Thus you know among men they that are exact and punctual do not only efface their debtors writings they tear them and reduce them to pieces that no sign of their debt may remain GOD hath done so towards us He hath not only effaced the obligation he had against us He would not have so much as the rasures of it to appear He hath disannull'd it and abolish'd it and rent it with the nails of his Son's Cross He hath saith the Apostle fastned it to the Cross It is not possible to say any thing that should be better or more elegant Those same nails and those same thorns that pierced the body of our LORD upon that fatal Tree whereon he dyed for us did by the same means tear and cut in pieces the obligation which was against us that evidence of our debt and instrument of our death that is to say in sum the Cross of JESUS CHRIST hath disarmed the Law and divested it of that killing-force which it had against us naturally and reduc'd it to such an estate that we being under the covert of his Cross it can no more harm us than if all the Letters of it were estaced and its Papers rent in sunder This divine crucified Person hath by dying himself made the Law dye and that which doth sometime fall out in the combats of men hath been the event here both the Combatants even CHRIST and the Law remained dead upon the place The Law slew our LORD who went unto this combat for us to the end he might take and bear the terrible blows the thundrings and lightnings of our principal enemy But he hath also bereav'd the Law of life and left it in the same estate it had reduced him to though indeed with huge disserence in the issue For our LORD raised up himself from that death which he receiv'd and suffer'd for us rising again the third day gloriously alive whereas the Law shall never resume the life or the strength which he hath depriv'd it of It shall remain for ever in that death he hath given it This is that the Apostle teacheth us very clearly elsewhere when he saith that JESVS CHRIST having been made a curse for us hath redeemed us from the curse of the law Gal. 3.13 His wounds have been our cure his death our life and his curse our bliss The blood which issued out of his sacred body did blot out the sentence of our condemnation and the blows which pierced him did break in pieces the instrument of our ruin Now this great and admirable effect which S. Paul attributeth to the Cross of CHRIST doth furnish us with a clear proof of his Satisfaction For if his death were nothing but an example of patience and humility to what purpose saith this holy Apostle that the obligation which was against us was abolished and fastned to his cross Who seeth not but that by this account the Cross of our LORD would have done the Law no harm at all That his Blood would have been so far from making void our obligation as it would not have made so much as the least rasure in it What doth his death contribute to my deliverance from that curse under which this fatal writing puts me if he dyed only to give me a noble pattern of constancy and not to discharge my debts The Saints have verily suffer'd for our example and their deaths are patterns of our patience Yet it cannot be found that the Prophets or Apostles ever said of them by reason of it that the obligation which was against us hath been made void by their death or that the evils which they suffered have redeemed us from the curse of the Law And besides the blasphemousness of it it would render a man evidently ridiculous to give such language of them or to say of them as the Scriptures speak of the LORD alone that they have born our sicknesses and carried our dolours and been pierced for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities and that the chastisement of our peace was upon them and by their stripes we are healed Conclude we therefore that he verily dyed in our stead and did satisfie on his Cross the Justice of the Father for us For this being presupposed as the Scripture teacheth there is no longer any difficulty and it is clear that his Cross did strike out and abolish the obligation that was kept in the Cabinet of GOD against us and which alone had the right and power to destroy us As when a Surety pays the sum which the man he hath given security for doth owe he voids the Obligation that had been made to the Creditor about it and by virtue whereof he was to
all the sentiments we have Let there appear nothing in our words in our affections or our works but what is His. But this lesson of the Apostles doth no less recommend to us charity towards our neighbour than submission towards JESUS CHRIST For since the Church is a body and even the body of CHRIST that is the fairest and most perfect body in the world judge ye what ought to be the union and the love of all the faithful that compose it Look upon the body of man from which this resemblance is taken how great is the zeal of all the parts for the conservation of the whole How do they love it and conspire for it's good how do they do and suffer all things and each in it's rank expose their life and being for it Such ye Faithful ought to be your affection for the Church this Divine body of the LORD whereof you are members It s peace its preservation and its glory should be the object of your highest and most urgent defires There is nothing that should not be cheerfully employed in so brave a design Wo to them that have no feeling of the wounds of this sacred body that are not affected with its bruises and look upon the breaches of it unmoved who are so far from groaning at them and endeavouring to repair them that themselves make more rending with extream impiety and inhumanity the most innocent body in the world and most beloved of GOD the body of His Son which He hath redeemed at the price of His own Blood But besides the affection we ought to have for the Church in general this similitude advertiseth us also to love ardently each of the faithful in particular St. Paul toucheth at and treateth of this advice expresly in another place There is no division in the body 1 Cor. 12.25 26. saith he the members have a mutual care one of another and if one of the members suffer any thing all the members suffer with it or if one of the members be honoured all the members rejoyce together in it Now ye are the body of CHRIST and His members each one on his part O GOD how great would be our happiness and our glory if the union and concord of our flock did answer this fair and rich picture if knit together by an holy and inviolable love and having but one heart and one soul as we have but one Head we did amiably converse together tenderly resenting the good and evil of each other and each of us putting forth his power to conserve and encrease the good of our brethren and to comfort and cure their evils But alas instead of this sweet and grateful spectacle which would ravish heaven and earth we behold nothing among us but quarrels and coldness and hatred and animofities The welfare of our brethren displeaseth us and their ill case toucheth us not at all The former raiseth our envy and the latter stirreth not our compassion Vanity and the love of our selves make us either disdain or hate all others There are no bonds which our fierceness doth not break it equally violates both those of nature and those of grace Is this that great name of the body of CHRIST which we glory to be called by CHRIST is nothing but sweetness and love He hath laid down His life for His enemies How are we His we that hate and persecute our brethren And how are we His body since we rend one another Were ever the members of the same body seen at war together the hand assaulting the foot and the teeth falling on the hand If any such thing appear is it not taken for the effect of an extream rage or for an horrible prodigy Oh! how ordinary is this rage and this prodigy among us who being members of the same body and which infinitely augmenteth our shame of the body of CHRIST the Saviour of the world have yet no horrour at the biting and consuming of one another as if we were an herd of Canibals and not the flock of the Lord JESUS I well know we do not want plausible reasons to palliate each of us our faults passion it self making us witty in the defence of this bad cause But let our own conscience be our judge let it remember it hath to do with JESUS CHRIST and not with men if it beguile us it cannot deceive GOD. Renounce we then unfeignedly all this kind of vices and cordially loving our Brethren succouring the afflicted assisting the poor comforting the sick and living in concord with all let us truly be as we say we are the body of our LORD JESUS CHRIST It 's this in particular that the bread and the wine of our LORD the sacred embleme of our mystical union do require of us they mind us that we are but one bread and one body as the Apostle represents it Chap. 10. in the first Epistle to the Corinthians Finally this doctrine further sheweth us with what purity and sanctity we ought to keep our own persons since all being the body of CHRIST we are each one members of Him Against every temptation that sin shall let fly at us let us take up this consideration for our succour say shall I take the members of CHRIST to make of them members of Satan Shall I defile that body in the ordure of incontinency or of drunkenness or any other debauches which the Son of GOD hath cleansed with His blood which He hath united and joyned to Himself and whereof He is become their Head Far be it from me to commit so vile a fact It 's thus My Brethren that we ought to regulate our whole life for the being truly the body of CHRIST And if we so be this Divine Head doubt it not will love us and tenderly preserve us For no one ever yet hated his own flesh He will feed us and set us at His own Table and give us the bread and wine of Heaven and after the combats and trials of this life will clothe us with His own glory and immortality as being the first-born from the dead To Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit the true GOD blessed for ever be honour and glory to ages of ages Amen THE X. SERMON COL I. Ver. XIX XX. Vers XIX For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell XX. And by Him to reconcile all things to Himself having made peace by the blood of His cross viz. as well the things that are in Earth as those that are in Heaven EVen as in the frame of Nature GOD hath set up one only principle of light namely the Sun and hath united in the body of this admirable luminary all the brightness that was spred through the universe that it might enlighten the Heavens and the earth and that from it as from a common source might stream forth into all things all the flame and warmth they do receive so likewise in the Kingdom of
an example of it in the Text which you even now heard For having said afore that the Colossians had heard of the hope which is laid up for us in the Heavens by the word of truth to wit the Gospel from thence he takes occasion to interpose in this verse something to its commendation representing to us the extention and efficacy of this Divine word of life The Gospel saith he which is come unto you as also it is into all the world and bringeth forth fruit as it doth also in you since the day that you heard and knew the Grace of God in truth In the two verses that follow he praiseth Epaphras who had by his Ministry converted the Colossians to the knowledge of the LORD giving him an excellent testimony of fidelity and goodness and mingling therewith some praises of the Colossians themselves As also saith he you have heard of Epaphras our dear fellow servant who is a faithful Minister of CHRIST for you who also hath declared unto us your Charity which you have in the Spirit This shall be if it please the LORD the matter of this action And to proceed upon it in order we will consider one after the other the two particulars that present themselves as you see in the Text of St. Paul to wit the praise of the Gospel in the former verse and that of Epaphras in the two next touching at also upon each what the Apostle intermixeth to the commendation of the Colossians As to the Gospel he toucheth at two points First its admirable progress and its great and sudden spread It is saith he come unto you as also into all the world and secondly its divine effectualness to convert men and change their manners and life And it bringeth forth fruit saith he as also it doth in you since the day that you heard and knew the Grace of GOD in truth He saith therefore first That the Gospel was come to the Colossians secondly That it is also come unto all the World About the first there is no difficulty For since there was a Church in the City of Colosse it is evident that the Gospel by which Christian Churches are founded and builded had been Preached to them Only we should observe in this event the marvels of the goodness of GOD towards the Colossians For they were a barbarous and an Idolatrous people very far off from the Countrey and the Religion of Israel a portion of Phrygia a Province infamous for its abominations from whence had issued the mysteries and infernal devotions of Cibele called by the Gentiles the mother of the GODs the most detestable of all Pagan Idols and in whose service were committed the most unclean and shamefullest horrours The Colossians as other inhabitants of Phrygia were plunged in this gulf of vileness when the LORD vouchsafed to visit them and make the light of His Gospel to arise upon them Whence appears that the knowledge He gives us of His word is a present from His meer grace and not the pay of our pretended merits For what had the Colossians in the condition they then were that might invite Him to communicate this rich treasure to them what had they on the contrary but might have diverted Him from it seeing all among them was full of a profound and inveterate Idolatrousness You see also the Apostle saith not that they were come to the Gospel but that the Gospel was come to them to shew us that it is GOD that cometh to us who preventeth us by His grace according to the determinate purpose of His good pleasure The sick do go or send to the Physician and sollicite the succour of his art Here quite contrary the supream Physitian of souls seeketh to the sick He comes to them in His benignity He sendeth them His Ministers and presenteth to them His remedies when they dream of nothing less Luk. 19.10 than of their malady and the cure necessary for them The Son of man came to seek and save that which was lost He dispatcheth His servants to Colosse and elsewhere to bear thither His salvation to people that thought not save of destroying themselves He makes Himself be found of them that sought Him not Isa 65.11 and saith unto a Nation that was not called by His Name Behold me behold me Let a man search as much as he pleaseth He shall never be able to find any reasonable cause of this dispensation of GOD communicating His Gospel at certain times and to certain places but His sole good pleasure And that we might the better note this truth He often directeth the light of His word to those that governed themselves worst in the state of nature and hideth it from them that seemed less defiled than others He imparteth His Gospel to the Colossians to the Ephesians to the Corinthians and such like the most lost men that were in all kind of superstitions and Vices He saith nothing to the Gymnosophists or the Brachmans or to divers others as well Barbarians as Greeks which were esteemed at that time the most innocent of all mankind as in effect there appeareth much more of justice and honesty in what is reported to us of their manners than in those of any other people Wherefore hath GOD taken this course Because if He had done otherwise if He had called only those in whose policy and life was seen some outward goodness to shine forth passing by those whose manners had nothing which was not damnable we should have believed without all doubt what some cannot yet forbear to say that it is the works of men that oblige GOD to call them and to impart His Gospel to them and that if in rigour they be not worthy of this favour they merit it at least in a seemliness of equity and in congruity as they speak of it in the Schools of Rome Therefore the LORD useth very often a clean contrary procedure to make us understand that those whom He calleth do not more than those he leaveth merit ought at all as in effect it is most true that all men in the corruption wherein they are born do nothing that is of value the most splendid of their pretended vertues in this estate being but a plaister and a deceitful dawbing which under a fair appearance hideth only deformity and filth and that if He vouchsafe to illuminate any with the light of his Gospel it is of the sole good pleasure of His grace He doth it and not at all for merit of theirs It was therefore a miracle of the Divine goodness that this saving Doctrine came to the Colossians who by their nature were so far from it and the Apostle remindeth them of it to animate them more and more in sincere gratitude towards the author of so great a benefit But that which he addeth is much more strange and incredible that the Gospel was come into all the world He testifieth it too elsewhere as here a little after where
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
which he grounded this assurance â— Tim 4 7. saith particularly That he had kept the faith Whence appears that there are two sorts of persons which shall be excluded from the salvation of GOD purchased by the merit of JESUS CHRIST First all the rebellious and unbelieving that give no faith to the Promises and Declarations of the bounty of GOD as our Saviour said He that shall not believe shall be condemned Mark 16.16 John 3.36 He that disobeyeth the Son shall not see life but the wrath of GOD abideth on him Secondly they that believe but it is for a time only such as abide not in the faith but having receiv'd it at the beginning afterwards quit and reject it Whether it be that the scorching heat of persecution doth dry up and consume the tender bud or the overflowing irruption of pleasures or of worldly affairs doth carry it away Whether it be that the cares of covetousness or ambition do suffocate it or the deceitfulness of error and the hand of false Teachers do pluck it up out of their heart The Apostle therefore requires of the Colossians that to the end they might partake of the salvation of GOD they not only have faith but do persevere in it If indeed saith he you continue in the faith Yet this is not all he willeth moreover That they be founded and firm I grant it seldom happens that this vain and feeble faith which consists only in a naked profession and some slight movings of heart doth endure to the end in those that have it Scandal or tentation most commonly plucketh off their mask and openly carrieth them out of the fellowship of the Church Yet it seemeth not impossible but they may continue even to the last in this estate As a little chaff may abide in the floor if the wind blow not So there is some probability that these same persons in like manner may remain mingled with the truly faithful even until death if persecution or offence do not fasten on them But suppose that this do happen for all that they shall not be saved because the faith they have and in which they will have persisted is a nullity to which GOD hath promis'd nothing it s the shadow and the Idol not the substance and reality of faith Whence it follows that as chaff though it remain in the floor yet is not lock'd up in the Granary with the Wheat but left out or burned as an useless thing So likewise these people that have but this vain faith suppose they do abide in GOD's floor that is in the external Communion of the Church unto the end yet shall not for all this enter into His heavenly Garner that is His Kingdom but be excluded thence and rejected as having no lot or portion with true Believers They will think it fair to alledge that they have lived in the Church of CHRIST that they have perhaps even prophesied and cast out Devils and done wonderful works in His Name the LORD will openly tell them I never knew you Depart from me ye that make a trade of iniquity Mat. 7.22.23 The Apostle therefore to shew that he speaks of perseverance not in this vain shadow of faith but in true faith doth not simply say If ye continue in the faith but addeth being founded and firm If the Hypocrite or the Temporary do continue in the Profession or in the rudiments of Piety it is not because they are founded but because they are not tempted as a woman that remaineth chaste only for not having been sollicited to evil They ow their perseverance to the enemies favourableness and not to their own firmness This false constancy may deceive a man who seeth but the outside and the event of things But it cannot deceive GOD who knoweth the inside of it and who soundeth hearts and judgeth of things by what they are not by what they appear or by the events they have The Apostle therefore willeth that for partaking of His salvation we have true perseverance and do continue in the faith not simply and in any sort whatever but through being founded in it and firm GOD doth save such only It is but for them that He hath prepared His Kingdom The former of these two words here used by the Apostle is taken from buildings which being founded deep in the earth upon a rock are firm and solid and of proof against time and storms whereas buildings which have no foundation or but on sand are feeble and unable to resist the shock The LORD made use of this same comparison in the Parable we touched at the beginning and He reâ—â—â—ects on it too in that famous promise which He made S. Peter of building His Church in such manner on the stone that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it The other word which the Apostle useth hath the same meaning and properly signifies in the Original a thing in such a settlement as 't is difficult to move and stagger it A thing that is fixedly seated and placed and neither branleth nor changeth This is the settlement of true Believers who shall have part in the salvation of GOD. Their faith founded on the Eternal Rock JESUS CHRIST their Lord seated and placed upon this immovable Basis abideth firm and not to be shaken The torrents and the winds do shock it in vain the tempests and the floods may beat upon it they cannot overthrow it Upon this Doctrine of the Apostle we shall raise two Observations The first is That the faith of those who persevere in the sense he intendeth doth differ from the faith of them who revolt not only in the event for that the one faileth and the other persisteth and abideth but also in the nature of the thing it self For the one are founded and firm and the others are not so Who sees not that there is a great difference between a house which is well founded and an house which is but built upon the sand JESUS CHRIST and His Apostle expresly declare that such as stand are founded and that such as fall are not Certainly then the faith of the former is quite different from the faith of the latter and this different success of the one and the others in that the one do fall and the others bear up doth indeed discover to us the difference which is between them but doth not make it It is the effect of it not the cause an argument of it not the original The same thing appears also from the comparing of the one elswhere to wheat and the others to chaff The wheat is not wheat because it abideth in the floor but clean contrary it abideth in the floor because it is wheat and in like manner the chaff becomes not chaff because it goeth out of the floor but on the contrary it goes out thence because it was chaff This diversity of events doth evidence the weightiness and firmness of the one and the levity of
render every man perfect in CHRIST JESVS For the first when he saith that he preacheth JESVS CHRIST his meaning is not simply that he speaks of JESUS CHRIST to those whom he instructed There never was an heretick but made some mention of Him and for the colouring of his dreams did mingle with them somewhat of the mystery of JESUS CHRIST even Mahomet himself the desperatest of all impostours that ever debauched men from the Gospel doth nevertheless speak of Him with honour and acknowledge in gross the truth of the call and doctrine of JESUS But the Apostle signiâ—ies that he declareth JESUS CHRIST alone preacheth none but Him that He is the only subject of His preaching and the filling up of his teachings according to the profession he expresly maketh elsewhere that he determined to know nothing among them 1 Cor. 2.2 whom he taught but JESUS CHRIST crucified His Epistles in which he hath left us a lively and a true picture of his preaching do sufficiently justifie his speech For such as have read those divine writings see that they are filled from the beginning to the end with JESUS CHRIST alone This adorable name shines out every where in them and there is no tract or chapter but it is engraven on it There are scarce two periods found together in which it doth not appear If he be to teach he proposeth no other secrets but those of the nature or the offices or the actions or the passions or the promises of JESUS CHRIST If he must combat error he wields no other weapons in it but the Cross of JESUS CHRIST If he aim to clear the obscurities either of nature or of the Law JESUS CHRIST alone is the light he useth to dissipate all kind of shadows and clouds From Him he fetcheth consolation for souls cast down either by the sense of their sins or by the heaviness of affliction In Him he finds all his motives and arguments for our sanctification JESUS CHRIST alone furnisheth him with all that 's necessary to pacifie our consciences to make glad our hearts to raise our hopes to confirm our faith to enflame our charity to inkindle our zeal to stiffen our constancy to encourage our patience to purifie our affections to loosen us from the earth and lift us up to heaven JESUS CHRIST is all his Logick and all his Rhetorick He is the rise of his arguments the magazin of his arms the great motive of his perswasions the soul of all his discourses In the determinations of this holy Doctor you no where meet with either Pope or Mass or devotions to Saints and Angels or Purgatory or auricular confessions or so much as one of those pretended mysteries that fill up the modern Theology He was fully content with JESUS CHRIST He believed it enough to preach Him and that he needed no more either to discharge his own duty or to advance our edification and truly he had reason For what is there I do not only say necessary and useful but any way good or great and excellent which is not in JESUS CHRIST Though other things which are recommended in religion were as true as they are false and as innocent as they are pernicious yet it is evident that in comparison of CHRIST JESUS they are miserably poor and childish In Him alone is found such true solidity as is able to content the soul in Him alone is wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption all the fulness of the Godhead all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge as S. Paul will tell us hereafter In this LORD alone is grace truth and life There is no salvation in any other Acts 4.12 No other name hath been given under Heaven unto men whereby they must be saved And yet alas though this be a truth so clear in it self and so authentically confirmed by the practice of our great Apostle there are people that professing to believe it do for all seek that elsewhere which is to be found in JESUS CHRIST only and having this living and overflowing spring of grace opened to all believers by the loving kindness of the Father yet go digging in the poor Cisterns of the creatures for the water of salvation They acknowledge that the merits of JESUS CHRIST are infinite His righteousness absolutely perfect His grace inexhaustible His power supereminent but they are not content with it however They adjoyn their satisfactions unto His the prayers of Angels and Saints to His intercession and do mingle the sufferings of men with the blood of the Son of GOD. But if the lusts of the world or the false blaze of error or the corrupt inclinations of the flesh do induce them to approve or to bear with so dangerous a mixture let us for our part Dear Brethren whom GOD hath delivered from such prepossessions adore the fulness of JESUS CHRIST Let us content our selves with his richness and never seek any true good any otherwhere than in Him Bless we GOD that from the Pulpits erected among us we hear no name sounded forth but His. Since S. Paul preacheth none but Him it is greatest reason that He alone should take up the mouth of Preachers and the faith of their hearers But the Apostle having declared the subject of His preaching addeth the matter of it We preach CHRIST saith he admonishing and teaching in all wisdom These are the two parts of the office of a good Preacher to wit admonition and instruction The first compriseth all the remonstrances that are made to sinners whether to reprehend their faults or to excite their diligence or to comfort their sorrows or to advertise them of any other part of their duty The second conteineth all the lessons of heavenly doctrine the exposition of each of the articles of the mystery of godliness Admonition reformeth manners teaching informs faith The one moveth the will and the affections the other instructeth the understanding The Apostle protesteth elsewhere Act. 20.21 31. that he carefully joyned these two offices together not contenting himself with teaching and testifying of faith in JESUS CHRIST but moreover incessantly admonishing every one with tears And you see these two wayes meeting thoughout his Epistles in which he not only expoundeth the mysteries of faith but ever and anon descendeth to the applying of those instructions to the carriage of those whom he instructeth reproving them chiding them comforting them encouraging them as they had need And as he practis'd thus himself so he gave order for the like procedure to others whom GOD had called to the holy ministry 2 Tim. 4.2 1 Tim. 3.2 2 Tim. 2.24 Tit. 1.9 2 Tim. 3.16 17. Preach the word saith he to Timothy be instant in season and out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all sweetness of spirit and doctrine And elsewhere he wills in general that every Pastor be not only apt to teach but also able to admonish by sound doctrine and to convince gainsayers Indeed these two offices are
by the Letter which he wrote thereupon registred in the said Book it doth appear that there was much loosness and coldness and many defects in this flock whether such corruption had got footing there so early as S Paul's own time or whether as I judg more probable it were slipt in afterwards through carelesness of the faithful and the craft of foes However it be there is great likelihood that Laodicea was troubled at this time with the same evils that the Colossians were and that these Seducers who endeavour'd to infect the one apply'd themselves also to the other Therefore the Apostle would have this Epistle which is as a preservative against the venom of these false teachers to be communicated to those of Laodicea an evident sign that since they had need of the same remedies they were threatned with the same maladies But to the Colossians and the Laodiceans whom he here expresly nameth he further adds indefinitely all those which had not seen his presence in the flesh His name was so very famous among Christians that there could hardly be any one of that number but had heard speak of him knew him by reputation and consequently had seen him in heart and in spirit But he speaks of those only that had not seen him present in body whether he by these words do understand all the faithful in general that had not at all enjoy'd his presence in what coast or country soever they were for we know that the care of this eminent Apostle extended to them all Or whether he speak here of the faithful in Phrygia or in Asia only which in my opinion is more likely For there being no possibility that S. Paul and the other Apostles should present themselves every where they often sent Evangelists who were as their assistants and coadjutors hither and thither to divers places to travel for the Conversion of Souls And so though the Apostle had traversed the greatest part of Asia the less and honoured with his presence and preaching many of the principal Cities in it and in special the Province of Phrygia Act. 16.6 18.2 3. as may be gathered from the Book of the Acts Yet it may not be doubted but that there remained still many Cities to which he had not been able to go in person Expositors both ancient and modern for the most part do conclude from these words of S. Paul that he had not been yet in the City of Colosse nor in the City of Laodicea when he wrote this Epistle and they suppose that he had converted those people and founded Churches among them by the Ministry of Epaphras without conveying himself in person thither Nor can it be denyed but that the words do give us some apparent ground so to conceive For saying That he hath a great conflict for the Colossians and the Laodiceans and for all those that had not seen his presence in the flesh he seems to enroll the Colossians and the Laodiceans among those that had never seen him Theodoret. in his Preface to this Epist on the place it self Nevertheless there are Authors found among the Ancients and they of as great repute as any for height of Learning as well as for choiceness of Wit and solidity of Judgment who are otherwise minded and do hold that S. Paul had been both at Colosse and at Laodicea accounting it improbable that he should have gone through Phrygia twice as S. Luke expresly testifies and not have seen these two Cities the principal ones of that Country And for these words and all those which have not seen my presence in the flesh they conceive them added not to rank the Colossians and the Laodiceans with such as had not seen the Apostle but quite contrary to distinguish and separate them from them as if S. Paul had said that he had a great combat not only for them but even for those who never saw his presence in the flesh But this disterence being of no great importance at the bottom and means necessary for an exact decision of it also failing there is no need we should stay to solve it but may leave every one at liberty to take either way of the two neither of them endamaging the truth of faith or holiness of life And thus we have seen who they were for whom the Apostle sustained this great combat which he speaks of Consider we now the combat it self what it was I doubt not but he means thereby first and principally that care and sollicitousness and thoughtfulness which the consideration of these Churches drew upon him For though their faith and constancy afforded him much contentment and encouraged his hope yet when he cast his eyes upon the great tentations that surrounded them the hate and persecutions of the world the seducements and artifices of the false teachers and reflected on the weakness of humane nature he could not but fear left so many things and those of so much force should debauch them from piety Love is not without apprehension no not in the greatest safety how much less in the midst of so many dangers The Apostle assureth us elswhere that the affection he bore to the faithful was so great that he sympathiz'd in all their miseries and was as if he had suffered them himself The care which I have of all the Churches Cor. 11.29 saith he keeps me besieged from day to day Who is weakned but I am weakned also who is offended but I also burn And in the same place he represents unto us the pain he was in for the Corinthians in particular 2 Cor. 11.3 I fear saith he lest as the Serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty so by any means your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in CHRIST Just the same did he apprehend for the Colossians and Laodiceans and other Christians in Asia even lest the cheats and crafts of Seducers should disorder their faith and make a like spoil among them as they made in the Church of the Galatians as appears by the Epistle he wrote them upon this occasion Yet these just fears wherewith the thoughts of the Apostle were incumbred were not his whole combat For under this word he compriseth also all that he did to divert the danger which he apprehended First he was perpetually in prayer for the safety of these dear Churches and as Moses in elder time upon the mountain ceas'd not lifting up his hands to the Almighty for the Victory of his Israel that was in fight the while with Amalek So this great Apostle from that high station where JESUS CHRIST had set him in His Church did continually present his supplications and sighs to Heaven for the good success of the Combats which his Master's troops were engaged in 2 Thes 1.12 Phil. 1.4 Colos 1.9 We pray always for you saith he I still make request for you all in all my prayers We cease not to pray for you and to
is not yet enough for my consolation CHRIST I confess sufficiently assureth me of the pardon of my sins What assurance doth he give me against so many enemies the world the evil Angels flesh and blood in midst of whom my way doth lye But Christian doth not the same Cross which hath merited your pardon give you also clear and undoubted evidence of your safety during the whole course of your life For since you understand by it that GOD hath delivered up his only Son to death for you how can you fear that he will with-hold any of the cares of his Providence from you Yet this is not all CHRIST JESUS who sheweth us these excellent and sacred verities in his death as it were engraven in great Letters on his Cross holds up others before our eyes of no less importance in his Resurrection Believers neither the pardon of your sin nor the assistance of GOD during your life would be sufficient for you for as much as after all death will swallow you up as well as unbelievers See then further in your JESUS the truth that is necessary to compleat your consolation By committing his spirit at the point of death into the Father's hands he teacheth you that GOD will receive your soul when you depart out of the world And by rising again the third day after he assureth you that your bodies shall one day be rais'd out of the dust And ascending into Heaven he assureth you that you shall be transported thither both soul and body to live and reign there with him in eternal glory As for the way which you must take to arrive at this high happiness his whole life and his death have clearly mark'd it out to you and he still shews it you from that lofty Throne whereon he is set Tread in my steps saith he if you will be exalted to my glory Follow the example of my innocence and of my charity if you desire to have part in the Crown of my Kingdom I have born injuries with calmness and patience I have constantly obeyed my Father even unto my death on the Cross and you see the honour wherewith he hath crowned me Imitate my obedience and you shall receive my recompence This is the lesson which the LORD JESUS giveth us shewing us incomparably more clearly than either the frame or government of the World or the Mosaical dispensation ever did both the Justice of GOD that we may dread him and the Power and Wisdom of God that we may reverence him and his mercy that we may love and serve him with all the strength of our souls serve him I say not with the sacrifices of old Judaism nor with the feeble and childish devotions of Superstition but with a pure and holy heart with works worthy of him with an ardent zeal a sincere charity a constant integrity and honesty a profound patience and humility an immovable hope and confidence These are the Verities which do constitute true Wisdom all of them as you see high and sublime but in like degree useful and salutiferous Here is not question of the nature of Elements of Animals of Plants or of Meteors nor of the motions of the Sun or of the Moon or of the other Planets but of the Beeing and the Counsels and the Conduct of that Great and Most High God who made and formed all those things and in comparison of whom Heaven and Earth are but a Mite of dust Question is not of numbers and figures which can neither diminish your mseries nor make your souls happy but of your peace with GOD of your consolation in this life and of your glory and immortality in the next It 's this which JESUS CHRIST teacheth us that Divine crucified Person who dyed and rose again for us It s this he shews us represented in high and splendid colours through all the pieces of his Mystery However Nature and the Law might discover the brims and first lineaments of this Celestial Wisdom it 's he alone who hath exhibited to us the whole body and shewed us the entire frame and structure of it Conclude we then that it is verily in him that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg are hidden as the Apostle saith Embrace we this Conclusion with firm belief and upon it bless we GOD first for that he hath vouchsafed to give his CHRIST unto Mankind and particularly for that he hath communicated him unto us mercifully presenting him to us both in his Word and in his Sacraments Next pray him to open our eyes more and more that we may discern these rich and precious treasures of wisdom and knowledg which he hath hid in him Let not the vileness of his Cross nor the veil of his Infirmity nor the simplicity of his Gospel and these Sacraments wherein he is offer'd to us offend us This very thing if we consider it as we ought makes up one principal part of the wonder and that we may rightly know and value this treasure let us cleanse our minds from the clay and mire of the earth let us purifie our understandings and rid them of the sentiments and opinions of the world which being fastned to its own dung doth prize nothing but the luster of its false honours and the vanity of its perishing riches and the delight of its unseemly pleasures Let us once set free our souls from these fordid and servile passions and acknowledg as is clear and visible and justified by experience that it 's an extream error and folly to seek one's happiness in such wretched things Lift we up our eyes unto Wisdom and desire the possession and embrace the study of it It is the jewel and ornament of our nature its whole dignity stands in it Without it man is little or nothing different from beasts nay in some sort in worse case than they as sinking beneath himself and falling into utmost misery But give we good heed lest we take a shadow for substance and a phantasm for true wisdom Be not deceived This wisdom is only in CHRIST JESUS All that pretended wisdom which hath the acclamations and applauses of people whether in the Courts or in the Schools of the world is but masked folly a disguised extravagance and a painted error which passeth by the principal and necessary part and amuseth its self about that which is of no profit nor any way provides for its own welfare which is the true end of wisdom Seek it therefore in JESUS CHRIST alone It is in him that you shall find the true substance of it And as those that have any treasure are wont to visit it often and have their hearts always in the place where it is so think you night and day upon this Divine Saviour in whom are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledg Consider him pry into him and diligently sound him He is an Abyss of good things Have your hand ever there and draw thence by faith study and meditation all
all this fulness As little could any man be to seek who this JESUS was of whom the Apostle speaks All knew him at least confusedly and in gross and did conceive him a man born of Mary in Judea who having liv'd some years among the Jews had been at length crucified by the sentence of Pontius Pilate and who being risen from the grave to a new life had sent forth his Apostles to preach his Gospel and afterwards afcended up into Heaven And though all did not believe that he was risen again and glorisi'd yet all well knew that this was said of him so that both the one and the other hearing JESUS CHRIST named did presently conceive in their mind the Idea of this Person born and dying in Judea at such times and at such places with some retinue of Disciples during his life and after his death This then is the subject of which S. Paul speaks even JESUS CHRIST considered under this form of a man in which he manifested himself to the world and in which he was conceiv'd and figured in the minds of those that heard him named In this man whose appearance was like that of other men who was born and bred on earth sustained during his life with our common food subject to our infirmities who passed through the differences of our ages suffer'd our griefs felt our inconveniences and experimented the rigour of death yea the cruellest that was in this man I say whose body was nailed to a Cross and deprived of its soul and buried in a Sepulcher in this man under so mean and contemptible a form dwelleth faith the Apostle all the fulness of the Godhead It is ordinary in the Hebrew Language to signifie by the fulness of any thing that which the thing containeth as by the fulness of the earth Men and other living creatures Psal 24. which do fill it and by the fulness of the Sea the Isles which the Sea containeth After this manner of expression the qualities and perfections of any one nature may be call'd its fulness because they are the things that fill it and with them it is as it were furnished and adorned as the movables and ornaments of a room or an house are the fulness of it Therefore as if I should say that in Adam as he was at first created was found all the fulness of Manhood every one would easily perceive that my intention were to say the perfections of human nature the faculties and properties and beauties which it is full of and without which it cannot sustain the dignity of that name were all in Adam â—an immortal soul a vigorous understanding a free-will a body of excellent 〈◊〉 acute senses and in sum all the other faculties that have any place among the perfections of the nature of man So here when we hear the Apostle saying that the fulness of the Godhead is in JESUS CHRIST let us account that by this clause he meaneth those perfections and qualities which fill up the Divine nature in which this great and soveraign Beeing doth consist and which Theologues commonly call the Attributes of GOD. You know what the word Godhead doth signifie even the Nature and Essence of GOD. The fulness of the Godhead then is that rich and incomprehensible abundance of perfections whereof the supream and adorable Nature is full as His Life His Power His Wisdom his Justice His Goodness His Immensity His Eternity His Holiness and all the other Properties which it hath in an ineffable manner and which our understandings according to their mean capacity do conceive in it as the form of the Deity that is necessary for its having that Name a nature that wanteth it being incapable of being called GOD otherwise than falsly and improperly I grant some resemblances or rather some touches and lineaments of these Perfections of the Godhead do appear in the noblest of the Creatures as in the Angels for instance who are immortal and endowed with an admirable sanctity vertue and power But the fulness of them is not in any Creature at all neither can it be found that ever the Scripture spake in this manner of Angels and said that the fulness of the Godhead was in them Besides these blessed Spirits and other Creatures how excellent soever you can imagine them to be do participate of these divine perfections but in a very little measure Whereas the LORD JESUS hath them wholly And to make this evident to us the Apostle thought it not enough to say that the fulness of the Godhead is in Him but hath expresly declared that ALL this fulness dwelleth in Him that we might be assured there is not at all any Perfection or Excellency or Accomplishment in the Divine Nature but is found in Him Thus in these two or three words he hath comprised all that the Scripture teacheth us in divers places of the richness of the Perfections of our LORD and Saviour For instance it tells us That he is full of grace and truth that he is the Wisdom and the Power of the Father that he hath the words of life that he is the Way the Truth and the Life that in him are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledg that he hath that might and strength which sustaineth all things now and which created them at first that he is the Everlasting Father and hath immortality and incorruption hath an infinite understanding whereby he soundeth the reins and discerneth all the thoughts of the hearts of men that he hath a super-eminent Glory to which all Creatures ought to do homage yea the Angels themselves who indeed adore Him the Empire and dominion over all the world the right and authority to judg all men and a multitude of such things as these Verily S. Paul hath comprised it all in one word saying here that all the fulness of the Godhead is in JESUS CHRIST it being evident that if he wanted any of these Names Rights and Attributes He could not have all the fulness of the Godhead which is ascribed here unto Him But let us now see in what manner he possesseth these things the Apostle expresseth it very briefly saying that all this fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily First the term dwelleth is illustrious signifying that all this copious abundance of perfections doth not reside in JESUS CHRIST for some time only appearing a little while and then withdrawing again so making some transient stay in Him a few moments and no more but that it abideth in Him constantly and for ever for so the word dwell in Scripture-use doth import The Word and the glory of GOD appeared in Moses and the Prophets when being moved by the power of his Spirit they uttered and acted Divine things but it dwelt not in them It only rested on them some hours space for the LORD 's recommending those Servants of His and for the setling their authority by these marks of his Providence and of his communicating with
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
circumcision we have that truth and fulness in JESUS CHRIST whereof it had but some part shadow'd out by its figure If the matter be the Sacrament it self the LORD hath given us one highly excelling to wit Baptism So as which way soever it be taken there is no reason at all that any man should desire still to retain circumcision But to proceed it is not here only that the Apostle attributes so great an effect unto Baptism He speaks thus of it constantly as for example when he saith that CHRIST sanctifieth the Church Eph. 5.26 Gal. 3.7 cleansing it with the washing of water by the word and elsewhere that we all who were baptized have put on CHRIST and in another place again 1 Cor. 12.13 that we have all been baptized into one spirit to be one body For the Sacraments of CHRIST are not vain and hollow pictures wherein the benefits of his death and resurrection are nakedly pourtray'd as in a piece of Art that feeds us barely with an unprofitable view of what it represents They are effectual means which He accompanieth with his virtue and filleth with his grace effectively accomplishing those things in us by his heavenly power which are set before us in the Sacrament when we receive it as we ought He inwardly nourisheth by the virtue of his flesh and blood the soul of him that duly takes his Bread and his Cup. He washeth and regenerateth that man within who is rightly consecrated by Baptism And if the infirmity of age do hinder that the effect does not at the instant appear in Infants baptized yet his virtue doth not fail to accompany his institution and conserve its self in them and bring forth its fruits upon them in their season when their nature is capable of the operations of understanding and will Heretofore in the primitive Church this double effect of Baptism was more clearly represented in the external action of the Sacrament than it is at this day For the greater part of those that were baptized being persons of age who came over to Christianity from Judaism or Paganism they were uncloth'd and then plunged into the water whence they immediately came forth and so were baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost whereby they testifi'd that they did put off the body of sin the habit of the first Adam and buried it in the saving-waters of JESUS CHRIST as in its mystical grave and came forth thence risen up to a new life for a symbol whereof they took up a white habit and wore it an whole week Now though the water wherewith we baptize doth not carry so express a figure of this mystical Sepul cher and Resurrection as that of the Ancients did since this ceremony cannot be practis'd towards Infants without very great inconvenience and even danger of their lives in so tender an age and especially in such cold Countreys as ours nevertheless the virtue of holy Baptism is still the same that JESUS whom in it we did put on communicating to us by the virtue of his Spirit the mystical image of his Burial and Resurrection that is as we have shewed the annihilation of the old man and creation of the new If we meet with any baptized persons as there are but too many such in whom the old man is so far from being buried that he lives and reigns with absolute power and the new man hath neither life nor action at all it may not be imputed unto JESUS CHRIST who always accompanieth his Sacraments with his saving virtue but unto the persons own unbelief who doth wretchedly repell the operationof the grace of CHRIST and deprive it of all the effect which it would have assurâ—dly produced in them if their unworthiness had not frustrated its efficacy towards them For I acknowledg that neither Baptism nor the Word do work in any but such as receive them with faith And in this as in all other things the admirable wisdom of our LORD doth appear For the subject being Man a reasonable Creature he dealeth with him in a way proper and suitable to his nature The means he useth for his salvation do not operate in him as drugs and simples by a Physical action and such as takes its effect whatever otherwise be the mind of the man that takes them But the operation of the Word and Sacraments doth depend upon the preparation of their hearts to whom they are administred They work when they are receiv'd with faith they produce nothing when they are receiv'd with unbelief And thus it is meet that the understanding which is the Guide and Ruler of all our moral actions be first perswaded of the truth of GOD and then our wills and affections take impression and be changed by the efficacy of his power This very thing the Apostle here doth shew us with much clearness by adding besides Baptism that we are buried and raised again with CHRIST by faith an evident token that the Sacrament doth mortifie sin in us and raise us up unto sanctity according to the faith it meets with in us It left the heart of Simon Magus in the bonds of iniquity and in the gall of bitterness because it found in it no faith at all but a naughtiness hardned in unbelief and full of Hypocrisie But as for Lydia and all those that have a true faith it doth assuredly mortifie sin in them and makes the new man live in them unto righteousness and holiness For it is not possible but that the person who is firmly perswaded of the truth of the Gospel should renounce sin the venom and horror whereof this Divine Doctrine doth so clearly discover and on the contrary embrace that holiness whose beauty and blessedness it doth so magnificently set before us man naturally flying from what he believes mortal and pernicioâ—s to him and adâ—ering with like necessity to what he judgeth healthful and advantageous But the Apostle who does every where exalt the grace of GOD and cast down the 〈◊〉 of man lest any one should imagine that this â—â—â—th upon which 〈…〉 doth depend were a production of our own will doth by the way advertise us that it is a gift of our LORD's when he nameth it the faith of the efficacy or of the operation of GOD that is to say which the efficacy of his hand produceth in us Whereby their error is refuted who hold that GOD for the producing of faith in us doth meerly set before us either outwardly by his Word or inwardly by his Spirit the object of truth leaving it to the liberty of our will to believe it or reject it By this account faith should not be the faith of the efficacy of GOD since that according to this supposition he should exert none at all upon us But the Apostle stileth it the faith of the efficacy or operation of GOD. We must conclude therefore that for the giving of us faith he operateth in
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
heretofore took the care to make those draughts is Author of the verities they represented and that the body doth descend from the same Heaven that at first did make the shadows of it to be seen I pass by for this time the Lamb and the Sacrifices and the aspersions and expiations and all the Levitical Priesthood a true delineation of our grand Victime offer'd for the salvation of the world and of that eternal righteousness which His bloud hath procured for us and other like things which cannot but with extreme difficulty be mainteined nor accorded with the ways of the ordinary wisdom of GOD save by acknowledging and receiving as veritable what the Apostle doth here teach us and is evident enough of it self namely that all this was heretofore ordained for the prefiguring of CHRIST I will only speak a few words of the distinction of meats and dayes The Apostle opens the mystery of it elsewhere For as to observance of meats giving us order in the Epistle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 5.8 to keep the feast of our Passoever not with the old leaven of naughtines and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth doth he not clearly shew us that abstinence from leavened bread observ'd by the first people was a Picture of the Innocence and sanctity of the second and that by consequence it 's to the same we must referr the distinction of other legal meats the beasts which were forbidden them representing by the characters of their natural qualities those moral imperfections that is those vices and corrupt affections from which our lives ought to be exempted As for example abstinence from Swines flesh which was an abomination to them did signifie that the people of the Messiah should have no commerce with those uncleannesses and ordures of deportment wherein men of the world notably represented by the genius of this animal do wallow And when the same Apostle telleth us that we should keep our feast in truth and sincerity and in another place Hebr. 4 9. that there remaineth unto us a Sabbath or a rest doth he not shew us again that the old feasts of Israel were shadows of ours even of that feast which the Messiah hath procured and appointed for the faithful and which doth consist in two things the one that they do absteine from the works of sin and of the flesh the common works of men and the other that they do celebrate a rest in GOD with eternal joy Now that the body of these shadows is in JESUS CHRIST is evident For innocency sanctity abstinence from sin joy and immortality do well in Him fully There it is and no other where that the truth the example and pattern the doctrine and all the cause of them are to be found together with an almighty Spirit of light which alone is capable of producing these divine things in every one of us Whereby you see it is so far from being consequent upon these distinctions having been heretofore ordeined of GOD that we ought now to observe them still that on the contrary it is to be concluded we may insist no longer on them For since they were appointed in the quality of shadows until CHRIST should be revealed who sees not but that now when CHRIST hath been fully manifested it would be meer folly in us to adhere unto them still even as if seeing and having in hand the very body of a thing we should busy our selves in following after and embracing the shadow of it Precisely such was the extravagancy of these false Teachers who are here noted by S. Saul and such also is the errour of all those who upon the like pretences intermedle with the imposing of laws upon Christians concerning usage of or abstinence from such things as are in their nature indifferent And it is in this matter for one that our adversaries of Rome are infinitly to blame who notwithstanding the reason of the things themselves and the so clear doctrine of this great Apostle both in this place and in many other have made and constituted a no less number of laws about the distinction of dayes and meats then were among the Jews themselves They have marked more then half of the dayes of the year some with black and others with white I call marked with black those which they have devoted to the sadness of fasts and abstinences as all the Fridayes and Saturdayes of the year the Ember weeks the Rogation-dayes the Advent the Eves and Lent I mean by marked with white those which they consecrate to joy as that great throng of Holy-dayes which they disperse through all the fower seasons JESUS CHRIST the Father of eternity hath made His Disciples free from the laws of time raising them up above the Heavens which do make and measure it But these men put them in subjection to dayes and months and reduce them under the yoke of the Jews and make their piety depend upon the Almanack If they do not exactly observe all the dayes of the year if they fast not one day if they eat not on another if on one they don't do penance if they make not mirth on another though upon the former they should have cause to rejoyce in GOD and upon the latter to afflict themselves for their sins or their sufferings they commit a mortal sin though they did it without contempt or scandal Was there ever a discipline less reasonable or more contrary to the doctrine of S. Paul who would not have Christians condemned for the distinction of a Festival-day of a new Moon or of the Sabbaths who reprehends the Galatians for their observing-dayes and months and times and years Gal. 4.11 Rom. 14 6. and counts it for a weakness in faith to esteem one day above another Neither may it be replyed here that we also do discriminate Sundayes and Easter and Christmas and Pentecoste We observe them for orders sake not for Religion for the Polity of the Church and not upon scruples of devotion For what a confusion would there be if we had no dayes appointed for the assembling of the faithful It 's for our mutual edification and not for the worth and value of the dayes themselves that we observe them and as an Ancient said not that the day on which we do assemble is more holy or more glorious S. Hieâ—ome l. 2. Comment in Ep. ad Gal. To. 9. p 314. then another but because what day soever we assemble it 's a consolation to us to behold our selves all jointly employed in holy exercises For the main to us all dayes are equal as uniform parts of the same time which flow on by the order of one and the same LORD all of them and are all employable to His glory but the necessity and infirmity of this poor life doth constrain us of force to divide and part them out for divers uses If it be thus O adversaries that you discriminate-dayes I shall
saith he ye be dead with CHRIST as to the rudiments of the world why are ye burthened with ordinances as if ye lived in the world Afterwards he reports and expresly specifies some of those ordinances which men would impose upon the faithful namely Eat not Touch not Taste not The force and the coherence of his argumentation is evident 'T is an injustice saith he and a tyranny still to burthen those with worldly ordinances who are dead to the world You are dead to its rudiments by the benefit of CHRIST who hath by His death abolished all this kind of carnal disciplines and services and nailed up and torn upon His Cross the obligation to them By His grace you live no longer in the world in the School of Figures and terrene Ceremonies You live henceforth in Heaven in the light and liberty of the Spirit For S. Paul doth sometimes apply the word world to the state of GOD's people within their land of Canaan heretofore in the school of their Moses and the performance of a terrene and carnal service And therefore it is that he elsewhere terms the Levitical Sanctuary Heb. 9.1 a worldly Sanctuary The faithful then being without this Mosaique world it is clear that no man justly can impose upon them in matter of religion any laws or ordinances of this nature and that such as attempt it do outrage Him that freed them and oppress the liberty of His people and that every one may justly reject their yoke and oppose their tyranny Neither may it be alledged that the ordinances promoted are none of Moses's but others quite different For what ones soever they be a yoke they are and every yoke of what matter and form soever deprives us of our liberty Besides very probable it is that the Apostle does as we have expounded it by the rudiments of the world intend not particularly the Mosaical service alone but generally all such service as is bodily and of the same nature that that of Moses was And in fine though you should take it simply for the Mosaique laws yet would S. Pauls argument be good and conclusive from the greater to the less as who should say If you be set free from the yoke of Moses which was framed and put upon the necks of the antient people by the express appointment of GOD how much more from one of men If CHRIST hath delivered you from such ordinances as it cannot be denyed but GOD was author of how intolerable is the headiness of those men who burthen you with their laws Indeed who can believe that GOD should have freed us from commands of His own to put us under those of others and that His Son should have delivered us from a yoke of GOD's to load us with one of mortal mens and that He should have exempted us from the rod of Moses to yeeld us up unto the scourges of these new Rehoboams As to these ordinances which the Apostle here produceth doubtless they were the Seducers and not his own as the Author of the Comment on S. Paul that goes under the name of S. Ambrose some one of the Ancients against all semblance of truth and reason did imagine S. Paul's saying afore Let no man condemn you in meat or in drink doth sufficiently shew that they were the magisterial ordinances of these pretended Legislators who did very severely command their people not only to forbear the eating but even the tasting and touching of such meats as they prohibited The first of those three words that the Apostle useth does in the Greek language properly signifie to touch and the Latin Interpreter as also many others have taken it in that sense here translating Touch not tast not handle not And our adversaries of Rome do understand it of the prohibitions in the Mosaique Law of touching or handling a dead body for instance or such other things as the Jews might not touch without being counted unclean In like manner they referr what is said of tasting to the prohibition of eating Swines-flesh and the Hare and other meats the use whereof was not permitted in the Law as if the false Teachers at whom the Apostle aimes would have introduced among Christians no other ordinances then those of the Mosaique Law But this whole exposition is incommodious and crosseth the Apostle's meaning If he had had that thought it would have sufficed to say once Touch not without superadding a third word of the same signification to wit touching or handling Not to urge that this cannot accord with that which follows where he saith that these things were set up after the commandments and doctrines of men it being evident that the prohibitions in the Mosaique Law were made by the authority not of men but of GOD so as if the Seducers had press'd no other thing it had been harsh that I may not say false to accuse them of making ordinances after the doctrines of men and they would without doubt have answer'd that they were founded upon the commandment of GOD. In fine the Apostle's saying that the things an abstinence from which the Seducers ordered were all such as did perish in the using doth subvert this exposition and evidently shew that the things forbidden by those false Teachers were only meat and drink and not dead bodies or other substances the touching whereof was prohibited by the Law For since the things he speaks of are consumed are destroyed and do all perish by the using and on the other hand it is most evident that the things which the Jews were forbid to touch are not at all of that nature that is such as perish in the using it must of necessity be concluded that it is not of them S. Paul speaks but of those only that serve for the food of man which are all consum'd by the use that is made of them in eating or drinking the same And in the end we must come back to the interpretation that our Bibles do exhibit which have very rightly rendred this passage in these words Eat not taste not touch not For though the first of these three words does frequently and commonly signifie to touch yet such as understand the Greek doe know that it is sometimes taken for to eat As our Expositors have produced instances of from good and irrefragable Authors Now in these three words thus ranked as they are the Apostle represents unto us by the way both the order of the scrupulous devotions of superstition and the progress of the tyrannie of these Legislators At first they forbid the eating of certain meats that is the using them at your ordinary meals If they win this ground they proceed further and will debarr you even from tasting them At last they possess you with scruple to touch them as if the mere contact of such things were apt to pollute you There is no end in the scruples of superstition nor any measure in it's devotions and observances It heaps them up daily
But they set at this rate none of those who without Frock and without little band and without particular rule do lead an honest and irreprehensible life in a secular habit The reason of this difference is that the former do exercise themselves in such Voluntary services as Francis and Dominick and Bruno and Loiola have prescribed them whereas the latter do addict themselves to that which GOD hath commanded them though indeed no man can deny but that to oblige men right the oppressed succour the needy assist the Widow and the Fatherless the things that GOD hath commanded be incomparably better and more excellent then to put on a Capouche or go with bare feet and shaven crown or scourge ones self twice or thrice a week which are things that men ordein In like manner you see that in that communion none are commonly canonized which is the highest point of honour they do to piety but such as have regularly fasted and Disciplin'd themselves and liv'd in coelibat and as they say done Miracles things all which GOD hath not at all commanded in His Word As for those who content themselves with the Religion and vertues which GOD hath ordeined nor do affect Voluntary services they must not pretend to be ranked among the Saints of Rome But I think there is yet another secret reason which hath as much or more efficacy then all the rest in making Voluntary services to be so well receiv'd by men namely that great aversion which they naturally have for those things that are commanded of GOD from obligation whereunto they hope to redeem themselves either in whole or in part at least by means of humane Services For what countenance soever they make of finding the obedience of GOD's commandments very easie yet in reality there is nothing to which they submit so unwillingly and with greater pain so as all the austerity of Voluntary service is pleasant in comparison of it Being then pâ—ssess'd with this false prejudice that by absteining from what GOD permits or by submitting to what He doth not command they shall in reason oblige Him to dispence with for what He doth command upon hope of this exchange they gladly take up Voluntary service which also you know they do indeed hold to be satisfactions that is a kind of ransom at the price whereof they are delivered from the punishment they did incurr for not having served GOD as He commandeth Thus you see Dear Brethren that Voluntary service gives a lustre and a vain shew of wisdome to humane doctrines and traditions The second head of things that contributes to this effect and that renders the same hugely recommendable is humility of Spirit the Apostle hath already noted heretofore the affectation and shew of this pretended humility in one of the doctrines of these Seducers particularly to wit their teaching the Service of Angels which they did with pretence that the putting of the faithful in subjection to those blessed Spirits was to humble them Here he speaks of it more generally For besides that all the outside of false Teachers is commonly painted over with the colours of a great and deep humility their discourse and all their procedure being full of submissions and of an high profession of renouncing the advantages of vain glory besides this I say their institutions and Disciplines themselves do also promise humility and seem to be so many exercises of it And this is the thing in my opinion which the Apostle does particularly consider in this place Look back I pray on the Disciplines of those Seducers whom he opposeth I mean on those abstinencies from certain meats and the observations of certain dayes doth it not seem that this was an exercising of men unto humility since it was a bounding of their liberty and a degrading them from the power they had to dispose of these things at their pleasure Adding withal that in general whoever subjecteth man to a law of his doth humble and abase him putting a new yoke upon his neck whatever the thing that he commandeth in other respects be The same mark of humility does appear in the greatest part of the Voluntary devotions that are in vogue whether it be among Pagans or among Turks or among Christians themselves For they all in a manner do reduce the habit and feeding of their Devoto's to a low and an abject form and such as is of small esteem among men and oblige them to things that seem to vilify and in some sort disgrace our nature Homer Idad II. v. 235. For the most part they give them nastiness and filth for trimming as the ancientest of the Heathen Poets sayes expressly of certain very devout Priests called Selli or Sellians that they alwayes had foul feet and slept on the bare ground They cast down their countenances and make them of a sad look Mat. 6.16 as our Saviour sayes expressly of the Hypocrites of His time that they disfigured their faces And as for habits who can recount all the diversities of them It may suffice to observe in general that both for the matter and also for the form and fashion these Zealots have alwayes in a manner chosen those which are not only course and of small account but such as have also somewhat unusual and ridiculous in them Their food doth wear the same livery and you know there is at this day an infinit number who to descend unto the lowest degree of meanness do bind themselves by an express vow to mendicity or beggery though GOD by express order forbad it his people Deut. 19. â— these men desiring rather to violate His command then deprive themselves of so rare an humility It 's sufficient for their design that this strickes the eye For there being nothing more natural unto man than the desire of honour and the passion of braving and appearing and of shewing every way both in person and in cloathing and in dyet the marks of some eminency and advantage above others one can hardly look without admiration upon people who seem to renounce all this especially when they are persons born and bred in such conditions as afforded them the means of possessing all these advantages at their desire This without doubt Creates a great prejudice for their Doctrine and makes it to be favourably received it seeming not possible either that persons who so voluntarily devest themselves of what others most earnestly seek after should not be moved by a good Spirit or that Doctrines which tend to humble our haughty and proud nature should be other than holy and salutiferous The remains the last of those three colours that enter the composition of the paint of humane Doctrines which is in a manner the deepest and gives them the greatest gloss namely that as the Apostle saith they do not at all spare the body and have not any regard to the satisfying of the flesh It is clear and confessed on all hands that he speaks of the
a as glass darkly 1 Cor. 13 1â— Phil. 3.12 and that we have not yet apprehended nor are already perfect By reason whereof he compares our condition here below to childhood during which there is imperfection in our thoughts words and judgements Whereas in that other blessed world 1 Cor. 13.11 we shall see face to face and know as we have been known and all that is in part being done away we shall be at the highest pitch of perfection and in the full vigour of a truly mature age Withal this body which makes up a part of our being is yet subject to the laws of natural life nor can it be sustained but by the use of terrene and corruptible elements and by the low and vile functions of eating and drinking and sleeping Whereas that divine life which we have in JESUS CHRIST is freed from all these infirmities requiring a coelestial and in some sort spiritual body which is conserved by the sole vertue of the quickening spirit without needing the commerce of any earthy and perishing things Whence it does appear that to speak properly and exactly we shall not have this blessed life till after the last resurrection We now have but title to it and the first buddings the rudiments and initials of it which is the thing the Apostle excellently signifies when speaking of Himself and of all the faithful he saith that we have the first-fruits of the Spirit Rom. 8.22 that is as it were the first lineaments of this divine and spiritual nature whereof the LORD hath made us partakers to use St. Peter's words 2 Pet. 1.4 Wherefore St. Paul here doth at once very truly and very admirably well say that our life that is the life we have by JESUS CHRIST is for the present hid with CHRIST in GOD because the Father doth yet keep it in His hand reserving the full displaying of it in us unto the time He hath fore-ordained in His counsel Untill then it doth not appear but abideth hidden in GOD as a sure and certain effect in its true and immutable cause The world sees it not in us and the first-fruits of it we already have are to it so unknown that far from believing we have any life more excellent than its own it accounts us on the contrary the miserablest and despicablest creatures of the earth and doth think our life to be foolishness and meer frensie and judgeth that the end thereof will be without honour as the Author of the Book of Wisdom well saith And in truth Wisd 5 3 GOD doth most frequently put this heavenly treasure in earthen vessels and chooseth for this blessed life persons weak and contemptible and such as are of no consideration among the men of the World as St. Paul expresly observes neither is there in them 1 Cor. 1.26 27. Isa 53.2 any more than was sometime in their head either form or comelyness or any thing that should induce those that see them to desire them Whereto may be added the afflictions that do extremely disfigure them and darken that little lustre which they have Aimd these meanesses and infirmities it is hard to discern any one ray of that glory they are destinated to Themselves in their great tentations enter into doubt of it And when the spirit that quickens them doth for their consolation discover the perfections and wonders of their future life most clearly and with the greatest evidence so it is that notwithstanding this that which they see and taste of it is so small a matter in comparison of what they shall have in the end that it might well be said their life is hidden in reference to themselves And thus St. 1 Joh. 3.2 John informeth us Beloved saith he we are now children of GOD but it doth not yet appear what we shall be But we may not forget what the Apostle here adds to wit that our life is hid in GOD with CHRIST whereby he signifies two things first that CHRIST is yet at present in some sort and in some sense hidden to wit in regard of the glory of His person For though His Salvation and His dominion have been discovered by His Gospel unto every creature both Jews and Gentiles yet having withdrawn His up-risen and glorified humane nature up to Heaven into the Sanctuary and He from thence governing His kingdom by the secret motions of His spirit His person remaineth hidden from the eyes of the World this great veil of the Heavens which on all sides environeth the Sanctuary into which He is entred hindring us from seeing His glory how sparkling and radiant soever it be Secondly the Apostle signifieth by these words that our life is properly and directly in CHRIST that he is the source and the cause of it and that two manner of waies the one in that He merited it for us by His sufferings the other in that He produced and formed it in us by His Spirit by reason whereof He is called the Author and the Prince of life and St. John saith Joh. 1.4 that life is in Him Then again our life is in CHRIST as in its original pattern wherein at present doth exist the true and perfect form of that sanctity glory perfection and immortality in which the life we shall be invested with consisteth Wherefore He is termed our elder brother our principle or beginning and our first-fruits as we have said at the entrance of this discourse From whence there redoundeth unto us a great and a firm consolation against all the tempests of the present World when we consider that how sad and frightful soever at times our undoing is yet we live in GOD and in His CHRIST CHRIST is the sacred and inviolable stock that beareth us in which the sap of our life is perfectly safe above the rigors of winter and ardors of summer and all other perils that menace us GOD is faithful and CHRIST is living and it is not possible that either the one should deny Himself or the other dye Since then the Father is the depositary and the Son the stock of our life let us make sure account that though we feel it but feebly and faintly in our selves yet we have it and possess it and shall eternally have it so as nothing shall be ever able to extinguish it Let this sweet hope sustain us and cause us to wait patiently for the term of that full and entire manifestation which the Apostle in the sequel promiseth us When CHRIST your life shall appear then saith he you also shall appear in glory His calling CHRIST our life is a brave expression full of force and emphasis sutable to that we read in Jeremy where speaking of the LORD 's anointed Lam. 4.20 he calleth him the breath of our nostrils to signifie that it is upon him our whole life dependeth and that if we may so say it is by his sacred mouth we draw our breath Thus the Apostle's saying
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
charity hath by much a greater extent than any of the fore-mentioned vertues For whereas Mercy does but succour the miserable Kindness but help them that have need or us Sweetness but caress those with whom we converse and Patience but bear with those that offend us charity embraceth them altogether and is affectionate towards our neighbours generally both those that are in adversity and such as are in prosperity persons accommodated as well as those that are necessitous friends and foes the perfect and the infirm those that oblige us and those that offend us and those likewise that look upon us as indifferent Secondly as that last piece of our clothing which also covers all the rest and is most in sight is commonly fairest and the richest so likewise is Charity without doubt more excellent than all the other Vertues which make up a Christian's clothing Lastly as the one doth mark out and distinguish men being usually the character of their rank and of their quality in the Town or in the State so the other is the Christians livery and a mark of the honour they have to be the children of GOD and disciples of his Son Joh. 13.35 as our Saviour said By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another These considerations are pretty and pleasing But I doubt whether they be not over-sine and something too far fetch'd I should rather say that the Apostle by those words of his And above all these things put on Charity doth purely and plainly mean that above all that is principally we be owners of Charity signifying to us thereby as he else-where teacheth us at large that it 's the excellentest of all Christian Vertues to that degree that all the rest do remain useless without it being but so many vain and fallacious pictures which have nothing of sirnmesse or solidity in them For instance Mercy without Charity is but a weaknesse of nature Without it kindness or benignity is but indiscreet profusion Courteousnesse but deceitful tattle Humility low spiritednesse and Patience a stupidity It 's the Divine sire of Charity that animateth all these Vertues and maketh them perfect and gives them all the noblenesse and acceptablenesse to GOD they have It 's with good reason therefore that after the Apostle had recommended them to us he adds that above all we have charity as that which is of all the richest and most excellent 1 Cor. 23. Not to speak here of the advantage he else-where gives it above all other parts of Christianity even to the preferring it not only before the gift of tongues and miracles before the grace of prophesie and all the other mervails where-with JESUS CHRIST adorned the beginnings of His Church but even before Faith and Hope as that which will endure for ever and flourish in the very sanctuary of immortality whereas all those other gifts of GOD which have their exercise only here beneath shall cease whence he concludes that Charity is greater than all those other graces The other Exposition which interprets these words of St. Paul And for all these things put on Charity is also very pertinent and what we have been saying doth sufficiently explain the sense of it For since Charity is the soul and the perfection of all the sore-named Vertues which gives them all the valuableness and worth they have the acts of them being vain without Charity as the Apostle says it is clear that for the having possession of them Charity must be had Beside 't is it that exciteth and settâ—th them on work as also that with a kind of necessity produceth and formeth them in our souls For it is not postible but that the man that truly loves his neighbour should be sensible of his distresses if he be afflicted gratifie him with his beneficence if he needs it stoop to his necessities and humble himself about him bear with his defects if he discover any treat him kindly condescend to his infirmities and seek to him if he withdraw from his friendship and patiently take his offences if he so far forget himself as to do him any according to the Apostle's saying that Charity is patient and kind not envious nor insolent 1 Cor. 13.4 5 7. Rom. 13.9 10. that it is not puffed up that it endureth all things believeth all things beareth all things Wherefore he affirms else-where that He that loveth others hath fulfilled the law and that this command Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self doth comprehend in it and sammarily re-capitulate all the duties injoyned in the rest of the Commandments and concludes that Charity is the fulnesse of the Law that is the thing that filleth up all the articles of it Hence it comes that St. John the LORD JESUS His beloved disciple as we read in the Church-history in his extreme old age having no longer the strength as afore-time to make large Sermons in the assemblies of the faithful contented himself to say thâ—se sew words Little children love one another judging and that rightly that he had compris'd in this short sentence all the true duties of Christians Since then the nature and secondity and efficacy of Charity is such you see how great reason the Apostle had to recommend unto us the putting of it on for our having and exercising that mercy benignity humility meekness and patience he told us of afore His adding that Charity is the bond of perfection hath the same tendency But here it comes into question what that perfection is which Charity is the bond of and Expositors do labour to explain it to us Some understand it of the perfection of all vertues which this one doth bind and put together comprehending and embracing them all as we said even now and the Romanists do thence draw an argument to consirm their doctrine of justification by works For say they those that perfectly fulfill the law are justified by the works of the law Now since Charity is in this sense the bond of perfection it is evident that such as have true Charity do perfectly fulfill the law whence it follows that they are justified by the works of the law But letting pass for the present that which they presuppose namely that Charity is here called the bond of perfection because it bindeth together and comprehendeth in it the observation of all the commandments of the law it is clear however that that which they pretend will not follow First because it is not sufficient for a mans being justified by the works of the law that he fulfills it after some certain time unto his life's end 'T is necessary he should have fulfill'd it from the beginning and been exempt of sin not only from his childhood and youth as that justiciary says in the Gospel but even from his nativity supposing then but not granting that he that hath Charity doth perfectly fulfill the Law without failing in so much as one point this as you see
the LORD JESUS giving thanks by Him unto our GOD and Father DEAR Brethren The love that the LORD JESUS hath born us is so great and the benefits He hath conferr'd upon us are so various and so precious that we are evidently obliged to give our selves entirely to Him and we cannot substract from Him without ingratitude any part of what we are or have He hath laid down His life for us It is just therefore that we again do consecrate ours unto Him He hath redeemed us at the price of His blood and by this admirable ransom deliver'd from death and hell not only our Souls but also our Bodies and our whole Nature We are therefore wholly His and have no more any other Master but Him neither is there any justice in the world but will adjudge Him the propriety and possession of what costeth Him so dear But though of right we be his Vassals yet it hath pleas'd His love that we should belong to Him under another much more glorious title For He hath made us His brethren having obtained of His Father that He should adopt us for His children and accumulated this grace with all the highest favours that creatures can be exalted to I mean He hath made us partakers of His inheritance and communicated to us His Nature and His Spirit and crowned us with His immortality and with His glory Though he had not shed His Blood for us as He did who seeth not but that this His great and divine liberality should have purchas'd Him all the life and being and motion we can have and that to divert any part of it from His service would be a robbing of Him and a bereaving Him with abominable Sacriledge of a thing belonging to Him so legitimatly and for many so just and weighty reasons If we be not the most unjust and ingrateful persons in the world we ought all to have such sentiments and consequently look upon our nature and our life as things no longer ours but JESUS CHRIST's and dispose of them not after our own phansie and for our own interest but at His pleasure and for His glory And as you see that the servants of a Prince above all those whom he hath particularly obliged and favoured do set up his arms through all their houses and adorn their Halls and Chambers with his Picture and have his praises alwayes in their mouth and fill up their whole life with his name and glory so should we do to JESUS CHRIST and with so much the more zeal for that He is a LORD infinitely more rich more clement more liberal and more beneficent than any Monarch of the Earth Let our Souls and Bodies therefore bear His badges let His glory appear exalted in all our actions let the words of our mouths be dedicated to Him and our whole lives full of His Name breathing throughout nothing but His honour and service without ever swerving from His Will from His interests This Beloved Brethren is the Lesson which the Apostle S. Paul now gives us in the words that you have heard And whatever ye do saith he whether in word or work do it all in the name of the LORD JESVS giving thanks by Him unto our GOD and Father By these words he concludeth that excellent exhortation which he makes to all Christians in general of what sex or age or condition soever He began it at the first Verse of this Chapter and continues it on to our Text pointing out in it briefly but divinely as you have heard in the precedent exercises our principal duties on one hand the mortifying of the flesh with its lusts as fornication covetousness wrath and the like on the other hand the studying and exercising of all Christian vertues as humility kindness patience gentleness charity and peace To all these he addeth our knowing and continual meditating of the Word of GOD with Psalms and spiritual Hymns And here it was we made stay in our last action upon this Subject Now that he might not stand to treat severally of all a Christians other duties which would be prolix and even infinite and a Discourse of too great extent for an Epistle before he passeth to that particular exhortation which he addresseth in the following Verses to some certain ranks of believers as to Married persons to Fathers to Children to Servants and Masters he closeth up his first matter with the precept he here gives us A precept verily excellent and well worthy to Crown his exhortation since it comprehends in few words all the duties of a Christian both those which the Apostle hath expresly pointed at and those which his design of brevity caused him to pass over in silence without speaking of them by name To the end we may give you an exposition of it we will endeavour by the grace of our LORD to explain one after another the two parts that offer themselves in it First that whatever we do either in word or work we do it all in the name of the LORD JESVS Secondly that we give thanks by Him to our GOD and Father When the Apostle pronounceth that all we do in work or word be done in the name of the LORD JESVS he clearly gives Him our whole life For these two sorts of things which he subjecteth unto Him words and works do comprehend all the other parts of our life it being evident that nothing issues from us but what may be referred to the one or the other of these two kinds They are either words or works Words are the fruits of our mouths works are the effects or actions of our other parts and faculties I acknowledge that beside this our spirit also does act within us when it knows or considers things and desireth or rejecteth them But besides that these internal actions might be put into the rank of our works by extending the word a little beyond its ordinary signification as in effect some interpreters do give it such a meaning here beside this I say it is evident that most of the conceptions and affections and resolutions of the Soul do refer to words and external works as being the principles and motives of them For it is not possible that our words and works should be in the name of our LORD and Saviour except our understandings and wills do so address them and it 's properly this action of the Soul the Apostle signifies when he orders that we do in the name of CHRIST all we do The tongue indeed pronounceth the words and the hands and other parts of our bodies do execute those actions of ours which are called works But it 's the Spirit that moves them all and that directeth and guideth on their functions to that end or design it hath proposed to its self and draws them from such motives as it hath conceiv'd and form'd within its self And it is properly upon this that the difference of mens actions doth depend It 's this Character that gives them
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
equally children Nay the weakness of maids is so far from diminishing that it strengthens their obligation in that it renders the conduct of those who brought them into the world so much the more necessary for them as they are of themselves more infirm and the fitter young mens strength makes them to serve their Fathers and their Mothers so much the more do they owe them obedience Tell me not that time or fortune as they call it hath freed you from this subjection whatever years you have attained to and whatever degree or honour ye possess you remain unalterably your Fathers and your Mothers children so that since it is unto this name the Apostle affixeth the obligation you have to obey them it 's evident that there is neither age nor Office that can or should give you a dispensation for it The Scripture sets before us an eminent example of it in Joseph who though of ripe years and the father of a family and a great LORD in Egypt where he was the second person in the State yet all this made him not forget that he was Jacob's son Gen. 46 2â— and when he knew him to be come into the Countrey he went presently to meet him his dignity withheld him not from rendring this honour to his Father He bowed down his purple before him and notwithstanding the extreme inequality of their conditions in the world respected him alwaies as his Father But let us see what that duty is which the Apostle here commandeth children to perform Obey saith he your Fathers and your Mothers in all things The Law of GOD useth the term honour Honour thy Father and thy Mother But all comes to one For sure it is that under this honour which the Legislator injoyneth just obedience also is comprised and in like manner under the obedience which St. Paul commandeth is that respect which is one of the principal sources of it understood and presupposed Only it may be noted that perhaps he chose the word obey the more effectually to shew us what that honour is which we owe our Fathers and our Mothers that it is not a vain respect which consisteth meerly in countenances and in ceremonies but a true and real reverence accompanied with obedience so as to execute readily and chearfully what they order us to do learn what they teach us correct what they dislike and forbear what they forbid us And hereby is condemned the hypocrisie of those who give their parents respects and civilities enough as to words and gestures but at the bottom take no pain to do any thing they desire of them Mat. 21.30 Like that mocker in the parable who having promised his Father to go and labour in his Vineyard yet went not But the Apostle to anticipate the vain pretexts which impiety does inspire ill natures with ordereth children not simply to obey their parents but to obey them in all things extending their authority to an infinity nor shutting up within any bounds that power which GOD and nature have given them to comand the persons they have brought into the world Why then you will say is it true indeed that Fathers and Mothers have so vast and immense an Authority and that their Children whom GOD hath created reasonable are obliged notwithstanding this advantage to obey all their commands how harsh soever and contrary to the light of their judgment they be Dear Brethren if you consider the thing in its self according to its own nature and the terms of its first institution it is very true that the authority of Parents is so great as Children are indeed obliged to obey them generally and without exception in all things they command them Nor doth this disagree with that advantage of reason wherewith GOD hath honoured children For if things had continued in their due order Fathers would command their children nothing that were contrary to right reason Now I confess sin hath disturb'd this order and it oft happens that such as are Fathers do command their children unjust things yet neither can it be deny'd but that in this case they decline from the quality of Fathers and become Tyrants For the name of Father involving in it an unfeigned love of the child a love desirous of his good and most remote from all that 's contrary to his welfare it is evidently a renouncing of this quality when a man would oblige him to things that are evil and incompatible with the duties of a reasonable creature It 's therefore this abuse and this corruption of our nature brought in by sin that hath bounded the paternal power which of its self continuing in its right use would be absolute it 's this that hath obliged both Divine and Humane Laws to annex unto it certain just and reasonable exceptions which the Apostle in another place where he treats of the same subject hath comprised all in one word Eph. 6.1 Children saith he obey your Parents in the LORD that is as far as you may without disobeying the Soveraign LORD both theirs and yours as far as their commands thwart not GOD's orders and the words he addeth in the Text it self do necessarily lead us thereto Obey them saith he in all things for this is pleasing to the LORD an addition that evidently restraineth the obedience of children to that which is pleasing unto GOD so as if the Father happen to command what displeaseth GOD the child is obliged by all kind of rights to regard more the will of GOD than the will of man This maxim remaining firm and immoveable that whatever we owe to an inferiour and subalternate power the rights of the superiour and soveraign must still remain entire For since it is GOD who gave the father himself all the authority he hath it is clear that he hath none against GOD but that as the child ought to obey him so he ought to obey GOD. When he doth it not but by an unsufferable felony casts off the yoke of this heavenly Father to whom both he and we do owe infinitely more obedience than to all the men on earth it is just to deny him that obedience which he gives not to GOD it is just that of two contrary commands the one of GOD the other of a man we do prefer the Divine before that which is humane As if a Father should command his Son to be an Idolater or to kill or to hate his Neighbour or should forbid him to embrace the service of GOD or to make profession of the Gospel of His CHRIST in these cases and other such as these disobedience would be just and obsequiousness criminal And hereto properly doth that saying of our LORD and Saviour refer Luke 14.26 If any man come unto me and hateth not his Father and his Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters and even his life it self that is as another Evangelist expounds it Mat. 10.37 if he love these more than me he
For seeing themselves still put back by their own Fathers what can they hope for from other hands Some which is yet worse are by this means hardened and together with sensibility and nature do lose all shame and modesty and fall at last by little and little into desperate impiety no longer making any account of GOD or men which is the utmost and horrid'st degree of viciousness Consider if the fear of so great a mischief do not oblige all fathers who have any remainder I will not say of piety but even of judgement and good sense to take heed that they provoke not their children Brethren I beseech you improve now this instruction of the Apostles Children to whom first he addresseth his discourse render ye to your Fathers and Mothers in all things the obedience he commands you Remember the life they gave you the pains they have taken to preserve it to you the cares they have had to adorn and enrich it both with necessary knowledges and with conveniences requisite for the happy passing of it the fears and tears they have been and at every turn are still in for you their patience in bearing with the weaknesses of your infancy and the extravagancies of your youth the tenderness and constancy of the love they bear you a love so great so ardent that you are the principal object of their desires that they preferr your contentment before their own and toil not but for you and have you night and day in their hearts the vows wherewith they follow you every where craving nothing of GOD more instantly than your advancement and happiness and looking on you as the principal subject of their hopes and of their joy Have not so unnatural a soul as not to resent all these strict obobligations which you have to love and serve and honour them Pay their love with your respects and their pains with your obedience and be not so wretched as to render them trouble and affliction for so many benefits as you have received of them nor so ingrateful as to frustrate the just hopes they have conceived of you Certainly you would owe them this obedience though no other consideration did oblige you than what is founded in themselves But there is more than so The Apostle assures you that in performing your duty unto men you will please GOD the Father of Spirits and Ruler of the World This saith he is plaesing unto Him He will reckon it to you as a part of the piety you owe Him and charge Himself with the services you shall render unto those whom He hath given you for authors of your life It 's the best and the most pleasing devotion you can offer Him Miserable Superstition that goest to seek in cloysters for exercises pleasing unto GOD There was no need to go out of the Fathers house for this Thou hast enough at home wherewith to please the LORD As for the particular exercises about which Monks are busied in their cloysters we know not whether they please GOD who never commanded them But for the services which our Parents demand of us for their consolation and the easing of their lives we cannot doubt but that they are most pleasing to Him since He commands them and His Apostle assureth us here expresly of it Consider I pray the imprudence of these people They say they would please GOD and that it 's their whole aim to content Him Mean time to attain thereto they renounce the obeying of their Parents which is pleasing to him and subject themselves unto the fansies and the rugged rules of certain men of which they neither have nor can have any assurance that they please GOD Is not this to quit a certainty for an uncertainty and to do the wrong way what one pretends and go further off from what one seeks and cast one's self upon what he would eschew But ye Brethren better instructed by the word of the LORD seek to please Him in doing what He orders you and in employing that time and labour to the serving of and obeying your Parents which superstition loseth in its painful but vain and fruitless exercises This is the way to be pleasing unto GOD and to assure unto your selves that crown of blessednesse which He hath promised to such children as faithfully discharge this duty As for you Believing Parents nature it self and the interest of your own happiness so forcibly impelleth you to love your children and to treat them well that if the Apostle had forborn to give such an express advertisement against provoking them I think there would not have been much need to say any thing of it We offend much more on the other hand I mean in excess of affection and in the softnesses of indulgence not heeding that to treat them so laxely is in truth to hate and not to love them to destroy and not to breed them up The Apostle forbids you to provoke them but hinders not your correcting your reproving your chastening them if they deserve it He willeth only that your conduct be just and temperate that it keep a mean between the two extremes the roughness of severity and the remisnesse of indulgence The care you owe them is to form them unto true Vertue unto the knowledge and the fear of GOD unto charity and justice and honesty towards men to give them examples hereof in your lives and inculcate the lessons of them with your lips Whereas we our selves ruine their manners and form them early to our Vices almost before they know them Our greatest care is to keep their courage high and instruct them unto pride and inure them unto vanity as if nature had not given them enough of it And hereto they that have the means fail not to add Ball and Dance and Comedy And that they may the better learn these brave lessons Fathers and Mothers give them examples of ' em We need not wonder if under such education we see our youth to speed so ill if it become insolent if it hath little sentiment of true piety if it treat those so much amiss to whom it oweth most respect Brethren if you have children remember that beside the interest you have in their vertue and their vices you shall render an account for them unto GOD who hath given them to you to breed them for His glory and for the edification of His Church and not to content the world or to serve vanity But Dear Brethren of whatever state or condition we are let us further take out two lessons here which the Apostle gives us The one is to render all of us unto GOD an exact and humble obedience in all things since we have the honour to be His children It 's this that the child owes his Father We are not His if we obey Him not We falsly vaunt our selves in that glorious title if we neglect the duty to which it obligeth us The other lesson is that the Will of GOD should be
your children and servants in the same devotion That there may not be a person within your doors but understands and exerciseth himself in this divine liturgie of all Christians Then take heed to acquit your selves in this duty as you ought that is to perform it with fervency attention vigilancy and perseverance to wash your hands in innocence to purifie your souls and bodies for the presenting them unto this supreme and most holy Divinity without offending His sight Ye know what the Prophets say of those whose hands are full of blood even that they are an abomination to the LORD that He is weary to bear them that He abhorreth their devotions and disdaineth their vain oblations that He hides His face from them when they dare stretch out their polluted hands unto Him and will not hear their prayers though they should multiply them to the utmost Wash you saith he make you clean Isa 1.11 seq take away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well seek judgement relieve the oppressed do right to the orphan debate the ease of the widow This Christians is the incense wherewith the LORD would have you persume your offerings of prayer that they may be pleasing to Him Hearken to His voice if you desire He should hear yours Obey the word of His Gospel if you would have Him receive the words of your supplications We complain that we have long prayed in vain But let us not disparage His veracity rather confess we have not prayed as we ought that is with such faith such repentance and amendment of life as necessarily should have accompanied these sacrifices Henceforth then for it is yet time turn ye unto Him with all your heart and lift up pure hands without wrath and doubting and vigorously persevere in this holy exercise with assurance that He will hear you But Dear Brethren among other things which you shall crave of GOD pray Him also for us that He would open us the door of the word to the end we may declare the mysterie of CHRIST and manifest it to you as we ought For if Paul a chosen vessel made and formed immediately by the hand of Heaven consecrated by CHRIST's own voice and fill'd with the treasures of His Spirit in all abundance did notwithstanding require the assistance of the Colossians prayers in the administration of this charge how much more is the succour of yours necessary for us for us I say who in comparison of him are but children We conjure you therefore both by the glory of our common Master and by the interest you have in His work that you never fail to remember us in your sacrifices of prayer but alwaies beseech this supreme LORD to perfect His strength in our weakness to give us a mouth fit to declare His mysteries and to purifie our lips as He sometime did His Prophets and untye our tongue as He did Moses's and fill our souls with that Divine fire which heretofore did in a moment form His Apostles clearing up our minds unto a distinct knowledge of His Gospel wisdom inflaming our hearts with the zeal of His house and cleansing them from the filth of all humane passions Now if the LORD inclined by the ardency and constancy of your prayers do vouchsafe to conferr upon us some small portion of His grace look ye on it as a thing that pertains to you a thing given to your prayer and for your edification Use it and make advantage of it Let it not be said that this great mysterie of CHRIST was declared unto you in vain and that it being manifested to you as it ought ye received it not as you should GOD keep you from such an unhappiness For how weak soever our preaching be it is notwithstanding sufficient My Brethren to render every one inexcusable who shall not have received it with faith neither your ears nor consciences being able to deny but that we declare unto you all the counsel of GOD in His Son JESUS CHRIST Let us all in common beseech Him to deal so graciously with the one and the others of us that all may rightly discharge their duty we speak unto you ye hearken unto us as is meet and that being knit together by a firm and indissoluble Charity we may prosperously advance His work in all sanctity innocence patience and constancy to the glory of His Name the edification of those among whom we live and our own salvation Amen THE FORTY SEVENTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. IV. VER V VI. Verse V. Walk wisely towards those that are without redeeming the time VI. Let your speech be alwaies with grace throughly tempered with salt that ye may koow how ye ought to answer every one DEAR Brethren while the Church of CHRIST is here on earth it 's condition is to sojourn for the most part amid people of another profession For though the merit of our LORD and Saviour be sufficient to bring all mankind unto the communion of GOD and though his salvation be tender'd by His own will and order to all those that have His Gospel preached to them yet so horrible is the obduration and blindness of our nature that the most of men abide out of the covenant of GOD wickedly and foolishly rejecting the great honour He offers them Divers whole Nations there are that irritated with the same fury have utterly shut the door against JESUS CHRIST refusing to suffer any of His servants within their coasts And even of those in which He hath some reception it is commonly but a little part that doth acknowledge Him the greatest and most considerable in the world persecuting Him or deriding His mysteries Not so much as private families but the Gospel sometimes makes this partition in The same roof often covereth persons of different religions 'T is a division which JESUS CHRIST hath raised in the world not that He positively willed and design'd it or that such is the nature of His doctrine neither of those doth properly tend but to unite all things and recombine Earth with Heaven in an eternal peace but it grows from the naughty and the cruel disposition of men who despise His counsel and disdain their own salvation Once by this means it com's to pass that the Kingdom of CHRIST remains as it were inlock'd with forcin States and His faithful ones mingled among persons of a contrary religion with whom this commune habitation doth of necessity oblige them to have much commerce This is the reason why the Apostle having regulated afore most of the duties of our life do's here in a few words point out in what manner we should converse with these aliens as to faith among whom we are dispersed And this advertisement was at that time the more necessary for that Christians in those beginnings which were as the nativity of the Church saw themselves environed on all sides with Jews and Pagans the two religions which then took
GOD with thankfulness and undergoing his chastisements and trials with patience that His grace may be with us for ever both in this world and in the world to come Amen FINIS Books to be Sold by Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel A Commentary on the Hebrews By John Owen D. D. Folio An Exposition of Temptation on Mat. 4. verse 1. to the end of the Eleventh By Dr. Thomas Taylor fol. A Learned Commentary or Exposition on the first Chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians By Richard Sibbs D. D. fol. A practical Exposition on the third Chapter of the first Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians with the Godly Man's Choice on Psal 4. vers 6 7 8. By Anthony Burgess fol. The dead Saint speaking to Saints and Sinners living in several Treatises The first on 2 Sam. 24.10 The second on Cant. 4.9 The third on John 1.50 The fourth on Isa 58.2 The fifth on Exod. 15.11 By Samuel Bolton D. D. fol. The view of the Holy Scriptures By Thomas Broughton fol. Christianographia or a Description of the Multitude and sundry sorts of Christians in the world not subject to the Pope By Eph. Pagit Fol. These Six Treatises next following are written by Mr. George Swinnock 1. The Christian Man's Calling or a Treatise of making Religion ones business in Religious Duties Natural Actions his Particular Vocation his Family Directions and his own Recreation to be read in Families for their Instruction and Edification The first Part. 2. Likewise a second Part wherein Christians are directed to perform their Duties as Husbands and Wives Parents and Children Masters and Servants in the conditions of Prosperity and Adversity The second Part. 3. The third and last part of the Christian Man's Calling wherein the Christian is directed how to make Religion his business in his dealings with all Men in the Choice of his Companions in his carriage in good Company in bad Company in solitariness or when he is alone on a week day from morning to night in visiting the sick on a Dying-bed as also the means how a Christian may do this and some motives to it 4. The Door of Salvation opened by the Key of Regeneration 5. Heaven and Hell Epitomized And the true Christian Characteriz'd 6. The Fading of the Flesh and the flourishing of Faith Or One cast for Eternity with the only way to throw it well All these by George Swinnock M. A. Quarto's A Learned Commentary on the fourth Chapter of the second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians to which is added First A Conference between Christ and Mary Second the Spiritual Man's Aim Third Emanuel or Miracle of Miracles By Richard Sibbs D. D. 4to An Exposition on the five first Chapters of Ezekiel with useful observations thereupon By Will. Greenhil 4to The Gospel-Covenant or the Covenant of Grace opened Preached in New-England By Peter Bulkley 4to Gods Holy Mind touching Matters Moral which himself uttered in ten words or ten Commandments Also an Exposition on the Lords Prayer By Edward Elton B. D. 4to Fiery Jesuite or an Historical Collection of the Rise Increase Doctrines and Deeds of the Jesuites Exposed to view for the sake of London 4to Horologiographia Optica Dialling Universal and Particular Speculative and Practical together with the Description of the Court of Arts by a new Method By Silvanus Morgan 4to Praxis Medicinae or the Physicians Practise wherein are contained all inward diseases from the head to the foot By Walter Bruel Regimen Sanitatis Salerni or the School of Salerns Regiment of Health containing Directions and Instructions for the guide and Government of Mans Life 4to Heart-Treasure Or a Treatise tending to fill and furnish the head and heart of every Christian with soul-inriching treasure of truths graces experiences and comforts to help him in Meditation Conference Religious Performances Spiritual Actions Enduring Afflictions and to fit him for all conditions that he may live holily dye happily and go to Heaven triumphantly By O. H. with an Epistle prefixed by John Chester Large Octavo Closet-prayer a Christians Duty The sure Mercies of David Both by the same Author The Conversion of a Sinner explained and applyed from Ezek. 33.11 The Day of Grace Discovered from Luke 19.41 42. Worthy walking pressed upon all those that have heard the Call of the Gospel All three by Nath. Vincent The Duty of Parents A Little Book for Little Children Method and Instruction for the Art of Divine Meditation All three by Thomas White The Childs delight together with an English Grammar By Tho. Lye The Life and Death of Dr. Sam. Winter The inseparable Union between Christ and a Beleever which death it self cannot sever or the Bond that can never be broken Opened in a Sermon at the Funeral of Mrs. Dorothy Freeborn By Tho. Peck An Antitode against Quakerisme By Stephen Scandret 4to A Glimpse of Eternity By A. Caley A practical Discourse of Prayer wherein is handled the Nature and Duty of Prayer By Tho. Cobbet Of Quenching the Spirit the evil of it in respect both of its causes and effects discovered By Theophilus Polwheile Wells of Salvation opened or Words whereby we may be saved With advise to young Men By Tho. Vincent The re-building of London encouraged and improved in several Meditations By Samuel Rolles The sure way to Salvation or a Treatise of the Saints Mystical Union with Christ wherein that great Mystery and Priviledge is opened in the nature properties and the necessities of it By R. Steedman M. A. The greatest Loss upon Matth. 16.26 By James Livesey Small Octavo Moses unvailed By William Guild The Protestants Triumph being an exact Answer to all the sophistical Arguments of Papists By Ch. Drelincourt A Defence against the fear of Death By Zach. Crofton Gods Soveraignty displayed By Will. Geering A sober Discourse concerning the interest of words in Prayer The Godly Mans Ark or City of Refuge in the day of his distress in five Sermons with Mrs. Moor's Evidences for Heaven By Edm. Calamy The Almost Christian discovered or the false Professor tryed and cast By Mr. Mead. Spiritual Wisdom improved against Temptation By Mr. Mead. 1. A Divine Cordial 2. The Doctrine of Repentance 3. Heaven taken by Storm 4. The Holy Eucharist or The Sacrament of the Lords Supper briefly opened 5. The mischief of Sin it brings a person Low All five by Tho. Watson The True bounds of Christian Freedom or a Discourse shewing the extents and restraints of Christian Liberty wherein the truth is settled many errours confuted out of John 8. verse 36. The Lords Day enlivened or a Treatise of the Sabbath By Philip Goodwin The sinfulness of Sin and the Fulness of Christ two Sermons By W. Bridge A serious Exhortation to a Holy Life By Tho. Wadsworth Comfortable Crumbs of Refreshment by Prayers Meditation Consolation and Ejaculations with a Confession of Faith and sum of the Bible Aurifodina Linguae Gallicae or the Golden Mine of the French Language opened By Edw. Costlin Gen. Four Centuries of Select Hymns collected out of Scripture By Will. Barton Sins Sinfulness By Ralph Venning Sober Singularity By R. Steedman The Parable of the great Supper By John Crump of Maidstone in Kent The Christians dayly Monitour By Joseph Church A Memento to young men and old By J. Maynard The History of Moderation or the Life Death Resurrection of Moderation None-such Wonder in Martha Taylors Life who hath been supported above a year without use of Meat or Drink FINIS