known of Him Rom. 1.19 20 and that His eternal Power and Godhead invisible in themselves are yet visibly seen by the creation of the world they being considered in His works But the misery is that the Philosophers being carried away with that vanity and curiosity which was natural to them broke those bounds and would needs define things which are beyond that compass and about which Reason in the state we now are sees not one jot And here it is they necessarily fell into error and extravagancies as persons born blind would do should they intrude to discourse to us of colours Such are the Fancies of Plato and his Scholars concerning the estate of the souls of men departed from their bodies concerning the purifications he devised to convey us near the Supream Good concerning the interposition of Daemons is he calleth them that is Angels as the Scripture terms them to present our supplications to GOD and concerning the service which he ordained to be done them in consequence of this good office and a thousand other such like things Such also was the mistake of Aristotle when not content to understand the present establishment of the World he would know what it was in the beginning wherein he had no light at all concluding because in the state things now are of nothing nothing is made that therefore it was never otherwise and thereupon affirming for a certainty that the World is eternal As if we must needs judg of the first beginning of a thing by those Laws under which it lives after its settlement and should limit the power of a free Agent to the measure of the effect wrought that is as if because GOD in this frame of the World doth make now nothing without Matter therefore it followed that absolutely he could make nothing another way which is as impertinent a reasoning as if you should inferr that because a Painter hath wrought his pieces with three or four colours only it were impossible for him to draw or represent any thing any otherways In this particular Philosophy hath offended by excess undertaking more than it could compass It often erreth likewise by defect when it rejects the revelation of GOD as resolved to admit nothing that is above its own sense and reason as if a man that had never seen any other than the shining of our Fires and our Candles should contest there was no other light in the world Pride hath made the greatest part of the old Philosophers to fall into this impiety It seemed to them an abasing of their glory to acknowledg there was another School more knowing than theirs and that it was an injury to tell them GOD had discovered secrets to others which he had hid from them It was this vanity that spurr'd them on so violently against the Gospel of our LORD and Saviour at the beginning If Philosophy do modestly keep its rank if it be content with its bounds and not thrust away nor injure divine Revelation if it acknowledg it as its Mistris and be subject to it as Agar yerwhile was to Sarah welcom be it it may be received and may abide with us But if it usurp if it will needs be Mistris and command in a Family where it hath only the quality of a Bond-woman let it depart and be treated according to Sarah her speech to Abraham Drive out the bond-woman and her son GOD hath vouchsafed to reveal unto us by his Prophets and in the last times by his own Son all the Articles of Religion Philosophy ought to adore them with us It hath nothing to enjoin us in the matter From the mouth of GOD not from the mouth of Philosophy do we receive Religion As often therefore as Teachers of Error shall use the authority or artifice of the Philosophers to render their inventions plausible or probable in our eyes let us boldly despise all their subtilty Let not the names of Aristotle and Plato make us afraid let not their petty subtilties dazzle our sight We may hear them when question is only of men and of nature When GOD and his service is concern'd we ought to give ear to none but GOD and the Son of his love about whom he hath proclaimed from Heaven to us This is my beloved Son hear him It 's this the Apostle doth intend when he saith here Let no man make a prey of you by Philosophy But provided the Doctrine of our Lord and Saviour do remain sound and entire without diminution without augmentation or mixture we are not prohibited the service of Philosophy but may employ its Physicks and its Ethicks to confirm and illustrate as far as they can the truths of the Gospel its Logick to defend them against the Sophisms and Sleights of gain-sayers and in sum to adorn and embellish them we may use ought of worth that Philosophy doth afford as the Israelites heretofore adorned the Sanctuary of GOD with the Gold and Silver and Jewels of Egypt Whence you may see how in the disputes of Religion which we have with those of Rome they for their part do evidently abuse Philosophy whereas we duly employ it they abuse it For not to say that they make Aristotle reign in their Divinity-School regarding his Edicts and cherishing much jealousie of his reputation as if he were a Pillar of Religion they found Articles of their Faith upon the authority of the Sages of the world as when they prove their Purgatory by the testimony of Plato and the veneration of Images by the custom of Nations and Free-will by Philosophy and divers other things of like nature which being not to be found in the Scriptures of GOD they go seek them in the Writings of men As for us it is evident we have no positive Article in our Faith but what is in the Gospel Only when our Adversaries urge their Transubstantiation upon us having shewed that GOD hath no where revealed it to us in his word but even clearly contradicted it we call in Philosophy its self to our succour to evidence the absurdity thereof We produce its testimony in a case which clearly is of its cognizance namely the nature of an human body the place it takes up the quantity to which it is extended the quality of substantial mutations of which kind they pretend this is Whether a body made and formed Sixteen hundred years ago may still be every day substantially produced But it is high time to come to the two other Sources of the deceits of false Teachers The second is the Tradition of men as the Apostle calls it Take heed saith he that none do make prey of you by Philosophy and vain deceit after the traditions of men The Scripture commonly gives the name of Traditions to those instructions which we receive from some other And it frequently useth the word deliver whence in the Latin Tongue that of Tradition is derived for to instruct or teach I received of the LORD saith the Apostle that
that are necessary to salvation And it 's to this the Apostle reduceth it when he restraineth the perfection he speaks of to JESUS CHRIST that we may render every man perfect in JESVS CHRIST saith he It 's to His abundance that we owe our perfection forasmuch as He giveth us what we have of it by His Spirit and supplyeth what we want of it by the riches of His merit The Apostle considers the Believer's perfection here in its whole extent that is in regard both of faith and of holiness I confess he doth particularly intend the first of these For it seems to me evident that he hath an eye to the errour of the Seducers who added the observation of the Mosaical Law the worshipping of Angels and such other Traditions to the instructions of the Gospel as if the faith of Christians were imperfect without them S. Paul to overthrow this pernicious dotage doth seasonably lay firm that the Preaching of the Gospel is enough to render every man perfect who receiveth it with saith that there is no need either of Moses or of Angels no need of the Ceremonies of the one or of the services of the other that JESUS CHRIST in whom we are abundantly sufficeth without the adjunction of any other But though this be the Apostles direct aim yet in that perfection which he speaks of together with entireness of faith he doth comprise pureness of manners and of worship which inseparably depends on it and without which that faith cannot possibly be perfect Such is the sense of these words of S. Paul from which we may learn two things before we go further on The first is the perfection and sufficiency of the doctrine Preached by the Apostles For since the end to which it tended was to make the hearer of it perfect it is evident that it had in it all that was necessary to convey this perfection there being no likelyhood that GOD would have put a means into the hands of His servants which was not sufficient to reach their end such a fault being incompatible with His infinite wisdom and power But it is evident that the Apostles Preaching would not have been able to make the faith of their hearers perfect if they had omitted in Preaching any one of those particulars the believing whereof is necessary to salvation It must be concluded therefore that they omitted not any one of them Whence it is clear by the same argument that all the traditions which men advance at this day are unprofitable For what service can they do us since we may be perfect in JESUS CHRIST without them It cannot be said that they were a part of the things which the Apostles Preached First the very men that defend them dare not affirm it of the most of them it being notoriously known that they rose up by little and little very long after the Apostles times Secondly because S. Paul himself describeth to us the matter of his Preaching We Preach CHRIST saith he confining it wholly as you see to the mysterie of our Saviour with which these Traditions have no more alliance than those of the Seducers had which he will afterward refute who sought to mingle divers Ceremonies and the worshipping of Angels with the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST And lastly because the Apostle elsewhere gives to Scripture the same sufficiency which he here ascribeth to his Preaching saying 2 Tim 3.16 17. that All Scripture is by the inspiration of GOD and is profitable for doctrine c. that the man of GOD may be perfect But it is clear that these pretended traditions do appear no where at all in Scripture Sure then it is also manifest that they are no way necessary to make our faith perfect But by the same grounds it is apparent again how contrary to S. Paul the doctrine of Rome is For whereas he saith that the design of his Preaching was to make every man perfect in JESVS CHRIST Rome on the contrary alloweth this perfection only to Clerks in the first place and next unto Monks not reckoning that the people whom by an odious name which S Paul never gives but to Pagans or the profane they call Seculars and men of the world in opposition to men of the Church can or should seek to arrive at persection And the presumption of Monks is grown so high that there are no longer any but persons hooded and cloathed in their mode that are called Religious men or Religious women as if every man who is a true Christian were not also truly religious and again they call their condition only the state of perfection as if all the rest of the faithful were but abortives and imperfect productions And though this vanity be so out of measure injurious to all other Christians yet their Partisans do suffer it and seem for the most part of them well pleased with it imagining under this pretence that there are none but Monks obliged to be perfect and that as for themselves who are in the world it is not their part to aspire so high and in effect the greater number do so freely dispense with themselves in the case that truly there is reason to call them Seculars indeed But the holy Apostle here overthrows in two words the arrogance of the one and the security of the other As for the former when he telleth us he Preacheth the Gospel that he might render his hearers perfect he clearly shews us that for our guidance to perfection we have no need of the Rules either of Francis or Dominie or Bruno or Loyola or the other many pretended Regulars who as it were outvying one another daily set forth some new discipline to the World The LORD JESUS hath provided long ago for our perfection giving us a most compleat and very easie rule to attain it after which it is an exorbitant rashness to resolve the establishing of another Follow that rule Christian embrace that and proceed constantly in the way of holiness which it hath prescribed you and be confident that so doing you shall not fail of being perfect though you wear not Francis's Frock and Hood or Loyola's little Band. But the Apostle here no less condemneth the security of those that are called Seculars than the vanity of such as stile themselves Religious For he saith expresly and universally that his design is to render every man perfect in CHRIST JESVS He will have no other Disciples He owneth none for his Schollers but such as aim at perfection such as vow it and labour after it daily If you remain Secular and in state of imperfection his Preaching hath not wrought it's effect in you and as you have not part in that perfection to which he would form you in this life no more shall you have part in that to which he desireth to conduct you in the next life There is but one sort of Christians even such as having believed the Gospel do mortifie the deeds of the body and
its tincture to the words of his mouth and that great personage indeed felt how it was who hearing him speak was press'd with the force of his discourse and said aloud Thou almost perswadest me to be a Christian All my aim is Acts 26.28 that since error oftentimes abuseth eloquence and acuteness against the truth as evil men do other gifts of God to evil ends we should not judg of the main of any cause by this advantage nor hastily embrace that party that defends it self with the best and most perswafive words nor reject that which hath least of these ornaments in view As Innocence is not always the best clothed so Truth frequently is not the most decked And though of it self it be always more probable more likely and more easily maintainable than falshood Arist. Rhetor. l. 1. c. 6. as one of the ancient Sages well observed yet sometimes it comes to pass through the sleight of seducers by the false light they set it in and the colours they shadow it with that it looks worse in the eyes of the ignorant than a lye doth Take we heed then of their surprising us and so well fortifie our minds against their illusions that they may never make us reject the truth how foul and ugly soever they paint it out nor receive a delusion how specious and plausible soever they do render it Remember that that Babylon the Mother of Error who is pourtrayed before us in the Apocalyps Rev. 17.4 doth present its abominations unto men in a golden Cup that is she gives her poysons in a pleasing Vessel and shuts up and hides the horridness of her impostures under very fair and specious words it 's this that those seducers yerwhile did who sollicited the Colossians their errors were attended with perswasive words for the beguiling of them This is the danger from which S. Paul would here preserve them Let us now consider the means he puts into their hands for their safe guarding themselves from it This I say unto you saith he that no one may deceive you with enticing words Since he thus speaks it 's evident that what he saith is able if we improve it as we ought to keep us from falling into the misleadings of seducement and to frustrate all the charms of its good and perswasive words What then is it that he saith and what at last is that so holy and so efficacious a speech which can dissipate the illusions and enchantments of error Dear Brethren you heard it in the exposition of the precedent Text where this holy man told us that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg are hid in JESVS CHRIST It 's that he understandeth here This is that Celestial Oracle to which he attributes this great vertue This is the remedy which he giveth us against all the poysons and all the charms of seduction None of the weapons or of the wiles of error can bear up before this sacred word It alone is sufficient if we use it as we ought to confound and annihilate all the pretended wonders of the eloquence and subtilty of false Teachers as heretofore the Rod of Moses swallowed up all the Rods of the Egyptian Magicians For whosoever shall hold fast this principle in his heart that all true wisdom and knowledg is in JESUS CHRIST he will receive nothing out of CHRIST Being content with this treasure he will despise all other things how specious and plausible soever they may be Seduction will do well to display its arts and to gild and paint over its inventions with the fair colours either of ratiocination or of eloquence It will get no ground upon such a one since after all the thing it doth so carefully polish is not in JESUS CHRIST out of whom he will know nothing He will not so much as hear the babling of error so far will he be from being affected with it He will shut his car against its fine words so far is he from being seduced by them Or if he please to cast his eye upon the works of its subtilty and its eloquence he will look upon them as Spiders webs or as jugling and Gipsies feats which amuse us and beguile our senses but make no impression on our hearts We well know they do deceive us though we cannot tell how So the faithful man will hold that for a deceit and an illusion that leads him out of JESUS CHRIST though otherways he do not see wherein the sophism of the error doth consist nor is able clearly to unty the knots thereof This dear Brethren is the sure and infallible means to exclude and to expel all error from among us Seducement winneth nothing but upon those that betray this gate and yeild it that there may something be of good and saving importance out of JESUS CHRIST and his Scriptures When once it hath this ground given it never wanteth paint and pretences to colour its delusions and render even those plausible and likely which are otherways grossest and most extravagant Thus those Traditions and Ceremonies which have still the vogue among our Adversaries were by little and little obtruded upon Christians The invocation of Angels and of Saints departed the Sacrifice of the Altar and the veneration of Reliques and of Images the visible Head and the Hierarchy and the infallibility of the Church Satisfactions and the merit of works Prayers and Services in a language not understood the adoration of the Host Communion in one kind only Purgatory Suffrages for the dead and many other such like things A thousand and a thousand colours are found to paint them out and recommend either the belief or the practise of them to poor people There are huge Books made about them full of wit and eloquence that drive the matter so far as to make these things pass for the principal and most useful part of Christian devotion But this short Saying of S. Paul's is enough to ruin all their labours and to secure us from all their snares In JESVS CHRIST are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg It sufficeth me to have Him since having Him I have all appertaineth to true wisdom How well disputed and how eloquently soever pleaded all your traditions be I am not concerned in them seeing I have the treasure of all Science in CHRIST JESUS And it is not here alone that the Apostle giveth us this lesson for the freeing our selves from the intanglements and snares of error Elsewhere instructing the Hebrews and exhorting them that they would not be carried to and fro with divers and strange doctrines he lays before them at the entrance this divine principle That JESVS CHRIST is the same both yesterday and to day and for ever But it 's now time to come to the second part of our Text in which the Apostle declares to the Colossians the cognizance he took of the state of their Church For saith he though I be absent in body yet in spirit
worship was gross and terrene and in some sort worldly in comparison of that of the new Isreal whom the LORD formed to worship GOD in spirit and in truth Whence it comes that he calls all the knowledg of the Jewish Rabbies 1 Cor. 2.6 8. the wisdom of this generation and those Rabbies themselves the Princes of this generation that is of this world Thus how hoary-headed and venerable soever the age of these rudiments of the world was the Apostle would not that the faithful should susser themselves to be taken under that pretence by those seducers that advanced the observation of them Behold what were those three colours wherewith these men be-painted their Doctrine The vain speculations of Philosophy The antiquity of Tradition and The authority of the Mosaical Ceremonies To which the Apostle adds and not after CHRIST By these very few words as with one blow he beateth down all the speciousness of these strange Doctrines Let men trick them up saith he as much as they will let them colour them with the subtilities of Philosophy let the practise of them be authorized by Tradition let them be recommended under the name of Moses and by the respect we owe to the rudiments of the former world all this hinders not but that we ought to despise them not only as unprofitable but even as dangerous since they are not after CHRIST He saith they are not after CHRIST First Because the LORD JESUS hath told us nothing of them in his Gospel whence it appears that we have good ground to reject from our belief all that is not found in the Scriptures of the New-Testament Secondly Because the Doctrine of JESUS CHRIST is wholly spiritual and celestial whereas those traditions and legal observations were gross and carnal And lastly Because besides their having no correspondency with the nature of the Gospel they do turn men aside from the LORD JESUS causing them to seek some part of their salvation otherwhere than in Him in whom it is so entirely seated as not the least drop of it is to be had in any other And what shew soever such as follow these Traditions do make of being resolv'd to retain JESUS CHRIST experience lets us see that they do but very slightly stick to him busying themselves wholly in the performance of their own devotions and placing the greatest part of their confidence in the same which comes from hence even that these are more grateful to them both for their novelty and for their being voluntary and indeed of less difficulty it being much easier to the flesh to acquit it self of some external and corporeal observances than to embrace JESUS CHRIST with a lively faith dying to the world and living unto him alone Thus you see what we had to say to you upon this advertisement of the Apostle's It is addressed to you also dear Brethren since you have adversaries who sollicite your belief in the same manner as those men did at first combat the faith of the Colossians They propose unto you the same errors and paint and gild them over after the same method with the vain colours of Philosophy with the plausible name of Tradition with the authority of Moses They are either Doctrines drawn forth from the speculations of Philosophers as the invocation of Angels and of Saints departed the veneration of Images the estate of souls in Purgatory and such like or humane Traditions as prayer for the dead Quadragesimal observances the Hierarchy the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome Monkery Single-life and others all crected by men without any foundation in the word of GOD. Or lastly they are Elements of the world ceremonial observances sometime instituted by Moses but abolished by JESUS CHRIST as the distinction of Meats Festivals Unctions Consecrations Sacrifice Fixation unto certain places and of all that we reject in our Doctrine there is not a particular but referrs to one of these three heads Remember therefore when they set upon you that the Apostle still to this day calls aloud from Heaven to you Take heed that none do make booty of you by Philosophy and vain deception after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after CHRIST Under these fair appearances there is hidden a pernicious design Men would take you away from JESUS CHRIST and make you a prey to and the Vassals of men Oppose to all their Artifices this one saying of the Apostle's That whatever the things which are enjoined you may be they are not after CHRIST they are not found in that Testament wherein he hath declar'd his whole will they have no conformity with the nature of his Gospel and do turn away the minds of men from that Soveraign LORD in whom alone is our wisdom and our righteousness our sanctification and redemption But Faithful Brethren as the Apostle's lesson should defend you from error so should it preserve you from vice Let that JESUS whom he so assiduously preacheth to you sill up your manners as well as your faith Love none but him as you believe in none but him Renounce the customs and vices of the world as well as its Religion Let the leaven of Philosophy have no more place in your actions than in your belief Receive the manners of men into your communion no more than the traditions of men If you be above the rudiments of the world be also above its infancy and its low and childish passions and affections they were sometimes pardonable in that childhood but are inexcusable in persons whom JESUS CHRIST hath advanced unto perfect men and such as by his illumination he hath brought unâ—â—fulness and maturity of age Let your souls henceforth have thoughts and aâ—â—ctions noble and heavenly and worthy of those high instructions which JESUS CHRIST hath given you Let your whole life be referr'd to him passing by the world and its elements this present generation and its lusts and idols with which the LORD JESUS doth not participate in any thing He hath crucified all those things for us and displayed before our eyes a new world brought forth out of the bosome of Eternity a world incorruptible and radiant with such glory as can neither be sullied or made to fade 'T is hither Faithful Brethren that you should elevate your desires This same is true Christian Discipline to dye with JESUS to this old world having no more sentiment or passion for its perishing-benefits and to live again with the same JESUS in that new world whereinto he is entred for us to breathe after nothing but its glory to think of nothing but its purity to rejoyce in nothing but in its peace and in the hope of its eternal pleasures To forgo for ever that which is passed and to tend with all our might towards the mark and price of our supernal calling justifying the verity of our Religion by the sanctity of our conversation so as there appear no more among us either ambition or hatred