dying of CHRIST in His body and His brandings in His flesh Whence appears to note it by the way how absurd the belief of Purgatory is which makes the faithful to suffer not in the flesh but in the Spirit and extendeth their afflictions and pains beyon the days of their flesh in which nevertheless the Apostle teacheth us that their sufferings are compleated Thus you see what the sense of his words is and how much reason he had to rejoyce in his sufferings First because they were the afflictions of JESUS CHRIST the Prince of life and the author of our salvation Secondly Because they were dispensed by the order and the will of GOD. Thirdly because they made up the last part of the Apostles task being the going on and the remainder of the conflicts which he had to sustain And lastly because they contained an illustrious evidence of his gratitude towards the LORD and rendered him conform to His holy image in that as JESUS had suffered for his salvation he also suffered in his order for the glory of his gracious Master But he addeth yet another reason that sweetned likewise the bitterness of his sufferings to him and made him to find joy amid the horror of them It is that he suffered them for the body of the LORD which is His Church He had already said that he suffered for the Colossians as we have explained it Now he extendeth the fruit of his afflictions further saying that they are of use to the whole Church And to shew us how much weight this consideration should have to make his sufferings pleasant to him he gives the Church the highest and the most glorious appellation that can be attributed to any creatures calling it the body of CHRIST For what more illustrious and more precious subject can we suffer for than the body of the Son of GOD the King of ages the Father of eternity We have already treated of it at another time upon the eighteenth verse of this Chapter and shewed how and in what sense the Church is the body of CHRIST neither will we repeat ought of it for the present But his affirming that he fills up these afflictions for the Church is true and appeareth so to be in two respects First inasmuch as the Church was the occasion and indeed the cause of his sufferings For it was the service he did it in preaching the Gospel in instructing and comforting it in founding it and setling it in the faith that had provoked the Jews against him and involved him in the afflictions which did beset him As if a Princes servant zealous for his Masters glory and for the weal of his affairs should therethrough fall into some disaster he might say it was for him and his Estate that he shed his blood and lay a prisoner in his enemies hands Secondly S. Pauls afflictions were for the Church because he suffered them for the edification and consolation of the Church This was the scope of his patience and the design of His constancy It 's to the Church that all the fruit of these fair and illustrious examples of the Apostles vertue did redound He himself explains it to be thus elsewhere If we be afflicted saith he to the faithful it is for your consolation and salvation which is effected in enduring the same afflictions which we also suffer where you see that the fruit which the faithful reaped from these afflictions consisted in this that by the vertue of his example they were confirmed in the Gospel were rejoyced and comforted and fortified for the like combats And in the Epistle to the Philippians treating of the same bond Phil. 1.12 13 14. that he speaks of in this place I would ye should know saith he that the things which have betided me have fallen out rather to the greater furtherance of the Gospel So that my bonds in CHRIST have been noted in all the Palace and in all other places And many of the brethren in the LORD waxing confident by my bonds are much more bold to speak the word without fear Lo how his sufferings were for the Church in that they encouraged the Preachers and enkindled in the hearts of the faithful people the zeal of the house of GOD and in those without an inquisitiveness about the Gospel for which he was a prisoner This great man's preaching had never sparkled as it did it had never afforded the world and the Church so much edification and consolation if it had not been accompanied with sufferings sealed with his blood and confirmed by his wonderful patience amid the continual persecutions that were raised against him The conflicts of other servants of GOD have the same effect Their blood is the seed of the Church It 's from their sufferings that it springeth up It 's by them that it groweth and gathereth strength It 's the patience of these Divine Warriours that converted the world that conquered the nations unto JESUS CHRIST and planted His cross and His Gospel every where even in the most rebellious spirits Surely since the Church received so much profit from the Apostles afflictions it 's with good reason he affirms here that he filleth up the remainder of them for it And in this sence we must understand it when he saith elsewhere 2 Tim. 1.10 that he suffereth all things for the elects sake This may suffice for the proposal of the truth which is perspicuous and simple and obvious But the Error of our adversaries compelleth us to lengthen this discourse Not that they deny the exposition which we have produced For how could they do that without renouncing the doctrine of the Gospel and the confession of Christians in all ages But granting that the Apostles afflictions were for the Church in the sense we have expounded it they add that they were so further in another sense that is to say in that by undergoing them he satisfied for the sins of other believers and by this means did contribute to the greatning and enriching of the Churches treasury of satisfactions out of which the Bishop of Rome to whom the custody of it is committed makes largess from time to time as he judgeth meet for the expiating of the sins of penitents and hence hath risen the use of indulgences which is become so common in our dayes But first what kind of proof is this To shew that the Saints have satisfied Divine justice for the sins of other believers they alledge that S. Paul writeth I fill up the rest of the afflictions of CHRIST for His Church I answer his meaning is for edifying and comforting of the Church They acknowledge what I answer and only add that the Apostles sufferings do serve also for the expiating the sins of the Church and to fill the exchequer of its pretended satisfactions In conscience is this disputing Is it not a pronouncing of dictates after their own phantasie Is not this a presupposing of their opinion and no proving it It
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
Such was the sad and dismal estate of the world the end whereof could be nothing else but ruine and eternal perdition Therefore GOD to restore its primitive beauty yea to raise it to a perfection higher than that of its first original reconciled all things by His CHRIST both Terrestrial and Celestial He took away the wars the hatreds and the aversions that divided them and reduced them all into that union which they ought to have for His glory and their own good As to things on earth you know what was the enmity and the separatedness of the Jews and Gentiles whom the Law as a partition wall did bar off from the fellowship of the people of GOD. CHRIST laid this enterclose even with the ground and recalling the Gentiles associated and rea-allyed them with the Jews to make them thenceforth one only and the same people He did as much to the distinctions that separated the more Polite Nations from the Barbarous the Latines from the Greeks the East from the West the North from the South He removed all these marks and differences and united all Nations Sects and conditions into one only people into one only body namely His Church It 's thus that things on earth were reconciled As for things in heaven it was the good pleasure of the Father to reconcile them also by His Son For the Angels the true Citizens of heaven were our foes after sin whereas they are henceforth our Friends and our Allies united with us under JESUS CHRIST our common Head Aforetime they were armed against us with flaming sword now they fight for us and encamp about us They did drive us off from the entrance into Paradise Now themselves do bear our souls thither at their departure out of this life They take part in our interests they are sad at our disasters and rejoyce at our amendment And to testifie how delightful this Reconciliation is to them they saluted the birth of our Lord who came to make it with their songs and melodies For it they glorified GOD and blessed and congratulated men But as the mischief of our sin communicated it self to all the parts of the Universe even those that are without life putting them all in disorder and subjecting them unto vanity so I account that this blessed Reconciliation must be extended even to them also The will of GOD was to comprehend them also in it re-uniting the heavens with our earth and all the Elements with us For heaven which had nothing but Lightnings and Thunder for us and that would rather have been reduc'd to nothing than receive us into its courts is now liberal towards us of its comfortable light and openeth to us the most secret Sanctuaries of its glory Life is at accord with us Immortality is in good intelligence with our flesh the Grave is no longer our enemy the Elements shall be serviceable to our welfare they shall work no more against us And so you see how the will of GOD was to reconcile things on earth and things in heaven by His Son and reduce all the parts of the Universe unto good terms each with other This great work is begun the foundations of it are laid the pledges of it are given us But it will not be perfectly accomplished until the latter day when the world freed from the bondage under which it yet groaneth shall appear entirely changed its new heavens and its new earth and its new elements with the Angels and the Saints and all its other parts conspiring together in an eternal concord and an inviolable correspondence to the glory of their common Creator who shall then be all in all 1 Cor. â—â— as the Apostle elsewhere saith And it 's this in my opinion which he meaneth in this place when he saith That the Father would reconcile all things in Himself as the Original precisely runneth For these words signifie not the term but the end and event of this Reconciliation that is to say that it shall be made not with GOD as the greater part of Expositors have understood it but for the glory of GOD. For it is plain that heavenly things were not reconciled with GOD for they never were at odds with Him But it is no less evident that their Reconciliation with us in the sense we have explained it will redound to the glory of GOD when this whole Universe shall return entirely to its true and due union It 's this therefore the Apostle intendeth when he saith That it is the good pleasure of the Father to reconcile all things in Himself that is for Himself It remains now that we speak of the means which GOD made use of to bring this great work of the Reconciliation of the world to its end S. Paul shews it us when he addeth Having made peace by the blood of the cross of CHRIST The war that man had with GOD in consequence of his sin was as we said afore the true and only cause of the bad intelligence we were in with the Angels and the other parts of the World Whence it is clear that to make the latter cease there needed only an extinguishing of the former that is to reconcile us with the Creatures there needed only a recovering us to the favour of the Creator This is the means that the Father in His Soveraign Wisdom made use of And it 's this the Apostle meaneth when he saith That He made peace that is ours having pacified His own Justice and quenched all the burning of His wrath against us 'T is by the Sacrifice that JESUS CHRIST offer'd on His Cross that this miraculous change was wrought This precious blood contented the Justice of the Father and the odour of this Divine Burnt-offering sweetned His Spirit and of severe and inexorable as He was rendred Him propitious and favourable to us Instead of fulminating His avenges He tenders us the arms of His love and no man is so wretched but He is ready to receive him provided he accept the promise of His mercy with an humble faith It is not long since that upon one of the Texts foregoing we treated of the reality the worthiness and necessity of this Satisfaction by which the Lord JESUS made our peace with the Father through the shedding out of his blood on the Cross and the voluntary suffering there for us and in our room the curse which our sins deserved Therefore we will dispense with our selves for speaking more of it at this time and to conclude the Exercise will content our selves with the noting briefly upon each of the three Points explained the principal heads of Consolation and Edification which they contain And here dear Brethren which shall we most admire the goodness of the Father and the will He had to raise us up from our fall and to reconcile us with the whole Creation whose hatred and aversion we had incurred or His unspeakable wisdom in the ordering of this great work and in the means he
is clear that we read nothing in this text either of these satisfactions or of that treasury or of those indulgences whereof they tell us Certainly if they will draw these things from hence it behoveth them to shew us that they are here to discover them to us to constrain us by the force of their proofs to see it here But so far are they from binding us to this that they not so much as endeavour to do it and content themselves with telling us that though our exposition be good and true yet theirs also must be adjoyned Since they urge no other reason of it but their own dictate we may reject it with the same facility that they offer it Nevertheless for your greater edification I will insist a little further upon the illustration of this Text. First the Apostles words do no way oblige us to understand him of their satisfactions it being evident that it may be said of all useful things that they are for those who have the use of them as for example that it is for men the Sun shineth in the heavens that it is for them the clouds poure down the rain and the earth yieldeth its fruits That it is for the Church S. Paul wrote his Epistles that for the same he preached and published the Gospel and a thousand other such things 2 Cor. 12.15 in which never any man dreamt of any satisfaction And when S. Paul professeth to the Corinthians that he would most willingly spend Justinian on the place and be spent for them doth he mean for the satisfaction of their sins No saith a Jesuite but he speaks of his great pains in preaching and teaching which would not have failed of being very useful to the edification of the Church though of no value for the satisfaction of GOD Here therefore in the same manner when the Apostle saith his afflictions are for the Church It follows clearly that his sufferings were of use to the Church which I willingly confess but not that they were satisfactions for the sins of the Church which is precisely the thing we deny and which they should prove But if the words of this Text do not found their exposition the authority of the Fathers of which they are wont to make so great a noise doth not establish it any jot more there being not known any one of them that ever inferred their doctrine from the Text or that interprets it otherwise than we have done Lastly the thing it self doth as little favour their design And to demostrate it to you we must briefly touch at all the points of their pretended mystery It is composed of four propositions all which they advance upon their own credit without founding so much as one of them on Scripture For first they presuppose that when GOD pardoneth us the sins that are committed after Baptism He remitteth to us only the fault and the eternal punishment but not the temporal punishment of our trespasses this they count He obligeth us to expiate either here or in Purgatory Secondly they add that divers Saints as the Apostles and the Martyrs and others have done and suffered much more than themselves needed for the expiating of their own sins And as they are provident thrifty men lest these superfluous satisfactions for so they call them be unprofitably lost they hold that they go into the Churches common treasury where being mixed with the superabundant passions of CHRIST they are conserved for the necessities of penetents And finally after all the rest they give the custody of this treasury to the Bishop of Rome alone who dispenseth it as he judgeth expedient Here 's a chain of immaginations which have no foundation either in reason or in Scripture or any other where but in their own passion and interest For first who taught them to cut in pieces thus the benefits of GOD and to suppose that He remits the guilt without the punishment as if to remit a sin were ought else than not to punish it and that He again remits a part of the punishment to wit the eternal and holds us bound to satisfie for the other How doth this accord with that full and entire grace which He promiseth to repenting sinners and how with His declaring that He will forget their sins that He will do away their iniquities that He will remember them no more and that there is no condemnation to them that are in JESVS CHRIST Would not it be a mocking of men if after all this He should exact of them the punishment of their faults to the utmost farthing And as for the pretended satisfactions of the Saints whence have they drawn them from what Prophets from what Apostles seeing both the one and the others do declare that none of them were justified by their doings or their sufferings that they all had need of grace for the expiation of their sins So far were they from having suffered more than was necessary to expiate them and that all their sufferings are not able to counterpoise the glory wherewith GOD will crown them And if we be indebted unto them for any part of the expiation of our sins what will become of the Apostles assertion that CHRST purged our sins by Himself Heb. 1 3â— and that he did consummate or make perfect them that believe by that one sole oblation which He made on the Cross If S. Paul who is in question did in suffering satisfie for us how doth he protest elsewhere that He was not crucified for us Sure according to our adversaries supposition 1 Cor. 1.13 he could not in truth deny it For if his sufferings do serve not only to the edification of our lives but also to the satisfying for our sins as they pretend there remains no longer any sense in which it may be said that CHRIST alone did suffer for us These two propositions that the Apostle did suffer and did not suffer for us will be irreconcilable whereas in our doctrine it is easie to accord them by saying he suffered for us that is for our edification and suffered not for us that is not to satisfie for our sins this kind of suffering appertaining to the LORD JESUS only Beside if the afflictions which the Apostle speaks of here were satisfactory for the Church as our adversaries will have it S. Paul would not have suffered them with joy it being evident that pains of this nature do necessarily seize those that suffer them with an extream horror and heaviness because they are accompanied with the apprehension of the wrath of GOD against sin as it appears both by the Cross of our LORD which he bore constantly and patiently it is true but without any moving of joy and also by the confession of our adversaries themselves who represent to us the souls that suffer for their sins in their imaginary Purgatory all astonied with horror and full of an excessive sadness In fine how doth this fixtion accord with the
perpetual voice of the Church that though the faithful dye for their brethren Aug. 〈◊〉 tract in Joaâ— l. q. ad Bonif. de pecc mer. remiss yet Martyrs did not shed one drop of their blood for the remission of their sins And that none but CHRIST hath done this for us and that He herein gave us not what to immitate but what to thank Him for that He alone took on Him our punishment without our sin to the end that we by Him without merit might obtain the grace which is not due to us This foundation being overturned their pretended treasury and the dispensing of it which they forge doth fall to ground I confess the Church hath a treasure or rather a living spring of graces and of propitiation for its sins but it is full and whole in JESUS CHRIST her eternal High priest who was ordained of GOD from all time to be a propitiation through faith in His blood and to have possession of the same the sinner needeth but to present Him an heart full of faith and of repentance according to the direction of S. John 1 Joh. 1.9 If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to pardon them and to cleanse us from all iniquity As for the patience and the sufferings of Saints though they have not the vertue to satisfie for our sins yet notwithstanding they are not unprofitable to us Wherefore the LORD would have them put up and kept not in the pretended enchequer of the Pope but in the treasury of the Scriptures out of which every faithful person hath the liberty to fetch them at all times for his use to the edifying of his life and for the gathering from such fair examples that excellent fruit of piety which they do contain he admiring and imitating them the best he can This is that we ought to practise upon the sufferings of the Apostle in particular which are represented to us in this Text that we may in good earnest make our profit of them to the glory of GOD and our own edification Learn we from them first not to be ashamed of affliction for the Gospel S. Paul shews us that it is matter of joy Mat. 5.11 12. I rejoyce saith he in my sufferings and our LORD Himself commands us to have this sentiment of it Rejoyce saith He and be exceeding glad when men shall revile you and persâ—cute you for great is your reward in Heaven For so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you CHRIST was treated thus Himself and His Apostles went to heaven the same way Blush not at the bearing of their marks If they be ignominious before men they are glorious before GOD Fortify your selves in this resolution particularly ye to whom GOD hath committed the ministry of His word If the world do thwart your preaching if it threaten you if it come so far as to imprisonments and to banishing and further yet remember that S. Paul had no better usage and that it was out of a prison that he wrote this excellent Epistle As your cause is the same so let your courage be like his Conclude as he did that these bonds are an honour to you that these sufferings are the afflictions of CHRIT Let this sacred Name and the communion you have with Him sweeten all the bitterness of your troubles But Faithful Brethren think ye not to be exempted from these trials because you are not Ministers of the Gospel You also have part in them each one according to his calling and the measure of the grace of GOD. He hath no children whom he consecrateth not by afflictions But if you suffer with JESUS CHRIST you shall raign with Him If you have part now in his Cross you shall have so one day in His glory And to assure you of it He calleth your sufferings His afflictions He protesteth that you receive never a blow but He feeleth it Doubt not but he doth take great notice of the confflicts which He vouchsafes to call His. Think also upon what He hath sustained for you and you will confess it is reasonable that you should suffer something for His Glory who hath undergone so much for your salvatition He hath taken up for you the whole curse of GOD Will not you bear the reproaches and wrongs of men for Him He hath born and expiated the penalty of your sins on the cross Will you have horror at the remainder of His afflictions He hath accomplished what was most difficult that which none but He could discharge having drank for us the dreadful cup of GOD's indignation against our sins Accomplish ye stoutly the trials that remain for us It 's He Himself that dispenseth them to us It 's not either the phancy of men or the rage of Devils God hath cut out our task for us It 's from His hand we must receive all the afflictions we shall suffer But beside that we owe this respect and subjection to GOD let us learn of the Apostle that we owe such examples also to the Church It is not for JESUS CHRIST alone that we suffer It is for His body also As our afflictions advance the glory of the Master so do they serve likewise for the edification of the Family Judge ye thereby Faithful Brethren what our affection for the Church should be The consideration of it made up a good part of the Apostles joy He accounted himself happy that by his sufferings he could testify the love he bore to this sacred body of His Master He blessed his Chain how hard soever it was because it did the Church some service Dear Brethren let us imitate this divine charity Love we our LORD's Church above all things Let us make it the chief object of our delight Consecrate we to its edification all the actions and sufferings of our lives Embrace we all its members with brotherly kindness and take good heed we despise no man that hath the honour to be incorporate in so august and so divine a society The Apostles example sheweth us that we owe them even our blood and our life And we have heard him besides at another time Phil. 2.17 professing to the Philippians that if he might serve for an aspersion upon the sacrifice 1 Joh. 3.16 and service of their faith he should joy in it And S. John saith expresly that as CHRIST hath laid down His life for us so we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren If the LORD spare our infirmity and call us not to so high trials let us at least testifie our charity towards the Church by all the offices and services whereof our condition and the present occasion is capable We owe it our blood Let us give it at least our tears our almes our good examples You that have had the heart to plunge your selves in the vain pastimes of the world while the Church was in mourning that have laught and sported while she suffered and
that was against us which lay in ordinances and was contrary to us and which he hath entirely abolished having fastned it upon the cross DEar Brethren That remission of sins which GOD giveth to all those who believe in his Gospel is in truth of it self a great and inestimable grace For who seeth not but that it was an effect of a transcendent goodness in GOD to be willing to pardon such persons as had mortally offended him and consent to their happiness who had obliged him by their feloniousness and ingratitude to make them eternally miserable But the manner in which he hath pardoned us and the price that our grace hath cost him doth infinitely heighten the wonder of this benefit of his For he hath not forgiven us our sins by a single act of his will as a Creditor remitteth a Debt to his Debtor because such a man having absolute power to dispose of his Estate in favour of whom he pleaseth it is sufficient for his doing of such a kindness that he will do it With GOD it was not so in the present affair His Justice and the majesty of his Laws were concern'd in the favour he would shew us and formed an opposition against it with-holding and staying the motion of his Clemency towards us so as his own sanctity permitting him not to despise the voice of Reason and the rights of Justice for any one's sake whosoever the will he had to pardon us was not sufficient alone to bring it to effect And here it was that his love to us did shew it self admirable and truly divine For seeing that sin could not be forgiven us without satisfying that Justice which we had violated and on the other hand that this inexorable Justice could not be satisfied but by the Cross of his only Son this good and merciful LORD did so affect our bliss that to take away the legal impediments which Justice laid in against it he resolved to deliver up his Son to that cruel and shameful death as our Saviour himself hath declared in the Gospel John 3.16 saying that God so loved the world as he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life Here then properly is the highest pitch of this wonder which doth justly ravish men and Angels that the pardon of our sins which GOD hath given us was bought at the price of the death of his only beloved Son And in truth our consciences could not have been assured of his grace without the same Nature having planted in our hearts so quick a sense of the right that GOD hath against sins as we could not put an entire confidence in his mercy until we might know that his Justice was contented and dis-interessed Therefore the holy Apostle having represented to the faithful at Coloss in the precedent Verse the great favour that GOD had shewed them in the free forgiving of their offences doth now adjoin the foundation of this remission and the means by which it had been obtained He hath forgiven you having effaced saith he the obligation which was against us that lay in ordinances and was contrary to us and which he hath entirely abolished having fastned it to the cross By this consideration he giveth them to see the greatness of this benefit of GOD and doth assure their consciences against all the doubts that the rigour of the Law might raise in them and particularly against the contendings of those false Teachers who would make them believe that the grace of JESUS CHRIST was not sufficient for their salvation except they did moreover submit to observe the ceremonies of Moses This shall be by the will of GOD the subject of this Exercise and for the giving you a full understanding of this Text we will consider two things in it First What this obligation is whereof he speaks that lay in Ordinances and was contrary to us And Secondly How GOD did efface it abolish it and fasten it to the Cross of His Son It 's a similitude very ordinary in Scripture to liken Sin unto a Debt whence comes that phrase which is so common in the language of GOD and of the Church of the remitting or acquitting of sin for the pardoning of it Our Saviour us'd it in the prayer he gave us where the petition for the pardon of our sins is conceiv'd in these words in the Gospel of S. Matthew Acquit us our debts Mat. 6.12 Luke 11.4 as we also acquit them to our debtors that is to say as S. Luke hath interpreted it Forgive us our sins as we forgive them that owe us or that have offended us This form of speech was so ordinary among the Chaldees and Syrians that they put the word Debtor for Sinner or a guilty person as appears by the ancient Chaldee-Paraphrase upon the Psalms which saith Psal 1.1 Blessed is the man that standeth not in the way of debtors instead of saying sinners as the Hebrew Text of the first Psalm doth import And our LORD used the same word in this sense when upon speech of certain Galileans whose blood Pilate had cruelly mingled with their sacrifices he saith Think you that they were more debtors than other Galileans that is more culpable Luke 13.4 as the French hath it Thus also must we take it in that tradition of the Scribes and Pharisees reported by S. Matthew He that hath sworn by the gift which is upon the altar he oweth or is a debtor that is he sinneth or is culpable The reason of this Metaphor is founded upon the resemblance of the things themselves debt and sin having some conformity For as the one obligeth the debtor unto payment the other obligeth the sinner unto punishment And as a debt doth give the Creditor a certain power over his Debtor in like manner doth sin give unto GOD or unto the Magistrate over the offendor For he hath a just power to punish the sinner as a Creditor hath to make his Debtor pay though otherways as we said not long since there be some difference between the powers of the one and the other publick Justice being concern'd in the punishing of an offender whereas in a debtor's making payment it is not so whence it comes that debts may remain unpaid if the private person to whom they are due be pleased to remit them whereas Justice doth not leave a sin unpunished though the offended party doth quit his interest to the offender And this difference is seen in human affairs where you know that for the exempting of a Criminal from punishment it is not enough he do content his Adversary except the Prince who is Guardian of the Law and the Conservator of publike Justice do give him an abolition of his crime But setting aside this difference there is in other respects such an analogy between a debt and sin as the name of the one is justly applied to signifie the other This similitude is the
not to be doubted but that the precipitaâ—ed deaths and ruines of so many great ones whom the world hath seen and still doth see perish with astonishment are for the most part from the same source even the debauches they have been carried into The accidents of particular houses and persons infected with this leaprousie are less marked yet are they nevertheless very remarkable And he that shall look narrowly into them shall find in them admirable examples of the justice of GOD upon these kind of sins and this in special that He commonly takes away His covenant from houses where such disorders reign I might easily let you see like foot-steps of the wrath of GOD upon the covetous whose unrighteousnesse He often punisheth with loss of senses of health of honour and of that very wealth which they love much better than their bodies and their souls themselves not to speak of the infamy which GOD sometimes poureth out upon them and the horrible miseries into which He lets them fall in their persons and in their posterity But I must pass to the other part of this Text and speak a few words of it and conclude For the Apostle after this wrath of GOD which he hath represented as falling from Heaven upon the children of rebellion because of their pollutions and avarices reminds the Colossians that themselves had sometime been in the same condition in which saith he you also walked other-while when ye lived in these things To live in these sins is to have the principles of our life infected with the venome of them To walk in them is to produce the actions of them The one is the power and faculty of life the other is the exercise and function of it For the having in ones self the principles and faculties of life this the Apostle termeth living and by walking he understands a putting forth the actions of the same as appears plainly by his saying elsewhere If we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit For a man that Gal. 5.25 for instance is asleep does nevertheless live and hath life though he performeth not the actions of it As therefore to live in the Spirit is no other thing but to have the faculties and powers of our nature renewed and as it were new-east and regenerated by the vertue of the Spirit of JESUS CHRIST so on the contrary to live in sin is in like manner to have our understanding and will and the other powers of our nature putrified and corrupted and as it were empoisoned with Adam's sin by the contagion of his flesh And again as those do walk in the Spirit who exercise piety and sanctity and do conduct all the actions and motions of their lives according to the will of the Spirit so they on the contrary walk in sin who follow and fulfill the lusts thereof and employ themselves in no other exercise but the serving it and doing those evil works which naturally flow from the habitudes of it But we have spoken largely heretofore if you remember of this first life of old Adam which the grace of the LORD JESUS hath destroyed and mortified in us We have only to observe in our way that since the exercise of man in his state of nature before grace is to walk in vices and in grossest pollutions it must be an huge error to imagine that he should be able in such a state to produce works either meritorious as some say or preparatory to grace as others do pretend All he doth for this time if you believe the Apostle in the case is not good but to prepare for Hell and merit the wrath of GOD and to have any other opinion of it will be a diminution of the greatnesse of the grace of GOD towards us Let us think then Beloved Brethren on that shameful and miserable estate in which we naturally were and should have continued for ever with the children of rebellion living and walking in sins the wages and fruit whereof could be no other than eternal death if the LORD through His abundant grace had not delivered us from such a condemnation And resenting as we ought the greatness of the benefit He hath conferr'd upon us let us incessantly bless His mercy and goodness Thanks be ever rendred unto thee O holy and merciful LORD for that we being servants of sin thou hast made us free by Thy Son and given us by thy Spirit Rom. 6.17 to obey that express form of doctrine which hath been delivered us by thy servants But as heretofore the vices in which we lived did continually produce all kind of pollutions and sins and henceforth since the cross and grace of our LORD hath dried up this source of impurity let there no more appear any track of them in our manners Let the holyness of that new man whose name and blood we boast of shine forth in all the actions of our lives Above all let us banish thence those two capital and accursed pests of luxury and avarices for which you have heard here before all the mouths of Heaven opened to fulminate against the rebellious that serve them the curses of this world and of that which is to come And if the ignorance of such as lived in error withheld not the wrath of GOD heretofore from coming on them for these two kinds of sins what must those expect now who commit the same crimes in the light of JESUS CHRIST Sure as much as the disobedience and the rebellion of the one is more grievous and more enormous than that of others so much more terrible will be the wrath that shall pour from Heaven upon them than all the judgements of GOD the world hath seen in time past Your ingratitude Christian who so ill brook your name and your disobedience surpasseth in horridnesse all the unbelief both of the first world and of ancient Israel they rejected but the preaching of Noah and the ministry of Mâ—ses whereas you outrage the Gospel of the Son of GOD and as much is in you is make Him a lyer Yet you know how they were punished you know the deluges which the fault of the one brought upon all the earth You know the abysse opened its mouth to swallow up the others alive Heaven and earth and the elements were armed against them If their punishment makes you tremble why do you imitate their faults yea why commit you such as are more hainous and blacker than theirs GOD is good and merciful I acknowledge but to sinners repenting To those that mock at His instruction and make a jest of His menaces He is severe and inexorable And if they amend not they shall know sooner or later to their cost that it 's a fearful thing to fall into His hands But the LORD JESUS whom we invocate please to give us better things so reforming this Church by the power of His Spirit and of His voice that henceforth these crying sins be no more seen