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
groaned repair this disorder Comfort her with your pious tears whom you have sadded by your vain pleasures Break with the world Have no more commerce but with the children of GOD. Remember you have the honour to be the body of JESUS CHRIST How is it that you have no horrour at defiling in the ordures of sin and vanity those members which are consecrated to the Son of GOD washed with His blood sanctified by His word and baptized with His Spirit The Church beside this purity of life which its edification requireth of you at all times doth particularly at the present demand of you the succour of your alms for the refreshment of its poor members Their number and their necessity encreaseth daily Let your charity be augmented after the same proportion Let it relieve the indigence of some let it allay the passions of others let it extinguish enmities and hatred among us all Let it seek not only to those whom you have wronged but even to them that have offended you without cause that henceforth you may truly be the body of the LORD His Church holy and unblamable having no spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing patient and generous in affliction humble and modest in prosperity crowned with good works and the fruits of righteousness to the glory of our great Saviour the edification of men and your own salvation Amen THE XIV SERMON COL I. Vers XXV XXVI XXVII Vers XXV Of which Church I have been made a Minister according to the dispensation of GOD which hath been given me towards you to fullfil the word of GOD. XXVI Even the secret which had been hid from all ages and generations but hath now been manifested to His Saints XXVII To whom GOD would give to know what are the riches of the glory of this secret among the Gentiles which is CHRIST in you the hope of glory THE Church of our LORD JESUS CHRIST is the fairest and most glorious State that ever existed in the world a State formed in the counsel of GOD before the creation of the heavens founded on the cross of His Son in the fulness of time governed by the Father of eternity enlivened by His Spirit the most prized of His Jewels the last end of His works and the only scope of all His marvels It 's a State not mortal and corruptible as those of the earth but firm and everlasting situate above the Sun and Moon and see all other things roul under its feet in continual change without being subject to their vanity It 's the only society against which neither the gates of hell nor the revolutions of time shall at all prevail It is the House of the living GOD the Temple of His holiness the Pillar of His truth the dwelling-place of His grace and glory Whence it comes that one of the Prophets long ago contemplating it in spirit cried out transported and in extasy Honourable are the things Psal 87.3 that are spoken of thee O City of GOD. But among its other glories this in my opinion is none of the least that GOD would employ the hands the sweat and the blood of His Apostles for the erecting of it It is for the Church that He made and formed these great men It 's for the same that He poured into their souls all the riches of Heaven And as they had received them for the Churches service so they laid them out faithfully and cheerfully in it yea to such a degree that they counted it a great honour to suffer on its occasion They blessed the reproaches that they received for edifying of it We lately heard S. Paul the most excellent of those divine men protesting that he rejoyced in his sufferings and afflictions for the Church and now in the Text we have read he goeth on and saith that he is the Minister of the Church What and how admirable must that happy Republique be whose Minister and servitor S. Paul was the greatest of men one of the master-pieces of Heaven and the wonder of the earth But beside his designing to justifie by these words the joy he had in suffering for the Church as Minister of it He would also found the liberty he took to make remonstrances to the Colossians and authorize his doctrine against the errors which Seducers were sowing among them For this cause he enlargeth on this matter and magnifieth his Ministry First he represents unto them the foundation of it namely the Call of GOD and the object of it that is those towards he ought to exercise it and the end of it in verse 25. in these words I have been made a Minister of the Church according to the dispensation of GOD which hath been given me towards you to fullfil the word of GOD. After this in the following verse he extolleth the subject about which the labour of this ministry was to be to wit the word of GOD saying that it is the mystery which had been hid from all ages and generations but which hath now saith he been manifested to the Saints Lastly he addeth in the last verse the efficacy of this Divine secret towards the Gentiles and declareth in one wherein it consisteth namely in JESVS CHRIST our LORD He is the whole matter and substance of this great mystery GOD saith he would give the Saints to know what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles which is CHRIST in you the hope of Glory These are the three points which we purpose to handle in this action if the LORD permit the ministry of Paul the mystery of the Gospel and the riches of its glory towards the Gentiles The subject is great the time short and our abilities small May it please GOD to supply our defects by the abundance of His Spirit so powerfully strengthning and multiplying the words of our mouth in your hearts that notwithstanding their scantiness and poverty they may yet administer food for your souls even as sometime by the vertue of His blessing seven loaves and a few little fishes as you heard not long ago sufficed to satiate a great multitude As for the first of these three points the Apostle speaking of the Church doth say Of which I have been made a Minister according to the dispensation of GOD which hath been given me towards you to fullfil the word of GOD. Upon which we have four things to consider First the quality of the Apostles office which he termeth the ministry of the Church Secondly the the title to this office founded on the dispensation GOD had given him Thirdly the object of the execution of this office which he expresseth by saying towards you that is towards you Gentiles as we shall shew anon and in the Fourth place the function and the proximate end of this office which he declareth to us in those words to fullfil the word of GOD. Observe then Brethren first of all how this holy Apostle to express the office to which GOD had
I am with you rejoycing and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith which you have in CHRIST This is the reason why he advertiseth them to take heed of the wiles of seducers and why he so carefully puts into their hands the means to preserve themselves For some might have thought it strange that being so far from them and in all likelihood ignorant of the state wherein they were he should yet give them such an advertisement He preventeth this surmise and answers that though at Rome he were nevertheless he minded what was a doing at Coloss the affection which he borâ— them obliging him to interess himself in all their concernments Wonder not saith he that I bespeak you in this manner and send you from so far off preservatives against seduction For though so many Seas and Hills do sever my body from you yet my spirit is with you taking part in all that doth betide you rejoycing in the prosperous estate of your piety but likewise fearing the attempts of those enemies which I see round about you ready to sow the tares of Schism and Error upon any the least overture they find for it Some referr his saying that he wasi n spirit with the Colossians to an extraordinary and miraculous operation of the Holy Ghost who replenishing his soul with light made him thereby see things that passed at the greatest distance as clearly as if he had been present after the same manner that GOD had afore-time shewed Elisha what his servant Gehazi did with Naaman a passage which accordingly the Prophet expresseth almost in the same manner 2 Kings 5.26 Went not my heart with thee saith he to Gehazi when the man turned again from his Chariot to meet thee I confess surely that GOD could easily have made known to Paul at Rome in the Prisons of Nero where he was all that pass'd in the Church of Coloss with as much yea more clearness than if he had been present there and have revealed also to him the whole state of other Churches further distant from Italy as he made Ezekiel while living in captivity at Babylon to see the most secret actions of the Jews in the City and the Temple of Jerusalem But because it is dangerous to argue from what GOD can do to what he doth and under colour of some sleight probabilities to resolve upon things which his word doth not at all affirm Moreover since we must not multiply Miracles without necessity I account it best and safest without having receourse to this extraordinary kind of presence to interpret these words of the Apostle simply as others do of a presence in respect of care and affection For nothing is more common in all Languages than to say that our mind is in such places and with such persons as we think upon and have affection to Whence comes the vulgar saying that the soul is where it loves because there it ordinarily keeps its desires its love and its cogitations And it is thus also that we must take what the Apostle saith to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 5. â— that though absent in body he was present with them in spirit He means simply that his bonds did not detain his spirit or shut it up in the Prisons of Rome nor hinder him from minding them every hour and having his affections and thoughts continually among them figuring to himself the estate which they were in in as lively a manner as if he had had them before his bodily eyes and drawing from this lively conception the same movings of joy contentment and fear as the sight of them would have wrought within him So as there need be no wonder if having them so deeply engraven on his heart and still present to the eyes of his mind he become pained for them and at such distance prescribe them necessary precautions and preservatives against the pleasant but pernicious poysons of error And observe I beseech you this holy man's prudent and apt procedure For to justifie that care which he took of them he doth not urge the danger they were in their weakness or the bad inclinations which some of them had This discourse would have been offensive as shewing a distrust of their piety but on the contrary he here tells them of the prosperity of their spiritual estate the beauty of their order and the constancy of their faith Rejoycing saith he and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith Do not imagine saith he that I have an ill opinion of your piety because I do so earnestly advise you to stand fast I am very well satisfied concerning it and do find you in so good a posture that I have much consolation at it this matter being so pleasing to me that it fills my heart with joy notwithstanding the sad estate that I am in But from the same root whence springs my joy my ardent desire to see you go on from good to better doth also arise and with it the sollicitude and care I take to exhort it because it would be an extream regret and displeasure to see Error waste or wound so fair and flourishing a Church ever so little See how by praising them he doth oblige them to regard his advertisements and by the very consideration of their having so well begun doth more and more engage them to holy persevering to the end Thus he also treated the Philippians My beloved brethren said he to them and much desired Phil. 4.1 my joy and my crown so stand fast in the LORD my dearly beloved You perceive of your selves without my indication that when he says rejoycing and seeing your order the meaning is rejoycing to see or for that I see your order For in Scripture-language and even in our vulgar speech the particle and is often used in this sense and signifies because that or forasmuch as He praiseth and extolleth two things in these faithful persons wherein the happiness and the perfection of a Church doth consist to wit Order and a firm and constant Faith By the order of these Colossians he meaneth the good disposition of all the parts of their Church the vigilancy of the Pastors the submission and obedience of the Flock their joint-regard of Discipline each keeping themselves within the bounds of their vocation and both together living in concord and good intelligence honestly and without scandal For that order comprehendeth also purity and sanctity of behaviour the Apostle evidently sheweth in another place where 2 Thess 3.6 to signifie those that lead a scandalous life he saith that they walk disorderly He praiseth also the firmness of their faith in JESUS CHRIST signifying thereby both that full perswasion they had of the truth and divinity of his Gospel and their constancy to hold it fast notwithstanding the assaults and tentations of the Enemy It 's this Faith dear Brethren and this Order of the Colossians that was the matter of the Apostle's joy and the occasion
absurd and ridiculous The spirits in prison 1 Pet. 3 20. of whom S. Peter speaks cannot upon any better ground be taken for the souls of the faithful detâ—ined in Limbus since those spirits were sometimes rebellious or disobedient in the time of Noah and perished in their sin which cannot be said of the Patriarchs and the Faithful In fine the Apostle's saying that the way into the holy places was not manifested while the first Tabernacle was standing signifies indeed that the High-Priest of the Church our LORD JESUS CHRIST did not carry not introduce our nature into Heaven in soul and body nor discover and make manifest the way to our Mansion of Immortality until the veil of the first Tabernacle was rent which is very true But thence it follows not that the spirits of the faithful consecrated before our Saviour's coming did not feel the fruit of his death and much less that they were detain'd in Hell But besides that this Tradition hath no foundation in the Scripture it doth plainly cross the same For our LORD promised the good Thief Luke 23.43 that the very day he was crucified he should be with him in Paradice where yet according to our Adversaries supposition he should not have entred till the forty-third day after And the Parable of that bad rich man doth plainly shew us that at that time as the souls of impenitent sinners were cast into the torments of Hell-fire so the spirits of the faithful were carried up into the repose and felicity of Paradice For that bosome of Abraham wherein Lazarus rested Luke 16.22 25 26. was not a pit without water as the pretended Limbus is counted to have been but a place of refreshment and consolation not situate in the vicinity of Hell but severed from it by a great gulf set between them And in truth since the faithful did even then drink of the Mystical Rock as well as we were sprinkled with his blood did partake of his sufferings why would any one imagine that our Saviour's Sacrifice had less virtue to introduce them into Heaven after their death than it had to justifie and sanctifie and comfort them in the days of their life As they bore a part with us in the same faith and conflicts on the earth so had they share of our repose and joy in Heaven neither is there any reason for our being admitted if you will needs have them excluded Accordingly certain it is that those elder Christian Writers who did barr the souls of the faithful that deceased under the Old Testament out of Heaven did as well deny reception there to the souls of Christians not assenting that either the one or the other were admitted till after the resurrection so as our Adversaries rejecting as they have reason to do the one half of this error and confessing that Christian souls sufficiently purged are received into Heaven it is nothing but pure obstinacy in them to retain the other half thereof and pretend that the condition of the faithful departed under the Old Testament was otherwise than under the New Be it then concluded that all this pretended deliverance of souls brought out of Limbus is but the fiction of an human spirit not only beside but even against Scripture and Reason But I add in the second place that though it were as certain as it is dubious and as true as it is false yet it would not be possible to refer this passage of the Apostles unto it First The spirits of the faithful departed this life are not at all in the power of Satan but in the hands of GOD to whom they recommend them at their death so as though JESUS CHRIST had brought them out of Limbus yet it could not be said that he had therein spoiled the Devils since that to spoil them is to take from them what they were possess'd of and its clear that though the souls of the faithful had been in this imaginary Limbus yet they would have been there out of the Devil's possession Secondly The word here used which the French hath translated mener en montre that is lead about for a shew is always taken in an ill sense for a shameful and ignominious shew such as that of Malefactors is when they are led through the City and publickly executed that the sight of their shame and punishment may keep men in their duty Now if our LORD had delivered the souls of the faithful out of such a Limbus it could not be said that he had made a shew of them in this sense it being evident that in this case they would have accompanied his Triumph by way of honour and that it would not have been any ignominy but a glory for them to have followed his victorious Chariot Moreover the Apostle's words are so placed in the Original that the spoiling and making a shew of and triumphing over which he speaks of do necessarily respect the same persons that is those whom he spoiled are the same he made shew of and triumph'd over Now he spoiled not the spirits of the Fathers he on the contrary did enrich them sure then it is not them he made a shew of neither can the action which the verb importeth be referr'd to them without depraving the Apostle's whole Context This is all spoken of one and the same subject to wit those Powers and Principalities that is the Devils as we have demonstrated and as all do accord They are the Devils whom JESUS spoiled It is the same that he publickly made a shew of and it 's they again whom he triumphed over As for the Latin Interpreter his saying Zanchy the LORD triumphed of them in himself I acknowledg that divers Greek Copies do read the Text in that manner and some of our Writers have so expounded it conceiving that our Saviour upon his crucifixion did bring the Devils whom he had overcome out of their Hells and shew them to the Angels and the Spirits made perfect bound and chained up as a glorious token of the victory he had gotten over them and they add that this triumph did continue too until his ascension into Heaven But the Scripture telling us nothing of this matter I think it dangerous to affirm the same it being better and more safe to keep to that which GOD hath revealed in his word than to take liberty to follow our own imaginations how plausible soever they appear And the reason which seems to have moved those men to advance this conjecture is exceeding slender For they have been induc'd to do it only by conceiving it absurd to say that JESUS CHRIST triumphed over his Enemies on the Cross seeing that to speak properly he overcame them on the Cross but it seems he triumphed only at his resurrection and ascension But first though there were in this some inconvenience yet nothing would enforce us to assert what they propose It would be sufficient for the avoiding thereof to say that our Saviour
maintaineth its flatulency But it is time to come to the third point which containeth the worst and most pernicious effect of this serving of Angels here condemned by the Apostle namely that they that promote it or stick in and practise is do not hold the head from which the whâ—le body being furnished and fitly knit together by joynts and bands encreaseth with encrease of GOD. You know this head he speaks of is our LORD JESUS CHRIST Eternal and true GOD made man who dyed and râ—se again for the salvation of the world and that the body of this head is the Church the whole multitude of the faithful This compâ—rison is so frequent in Scripture and the reasons upon which it is founded are so clear and so known that there is no need I should stand upon deducing them We have to observe only the operation of this divine head upon the body and the benefits it communicates thereto both which the Apostle toucheth at He saith first that this Head furnisheth the body of His Church Then in the second place that â—â—â—tly knits the same together by joynts and bands And lastly that by this means He makes it to encrease with an encrease of GOD. All this is taken from the resemblance of natural bodies whence this comparison is drawn For you see that in nature the head does first distribute to all the parts of the body such strength as is necessary for the exercising of their motions and sensations it being as it were the common Source whence the animal spirits as they are called the principles of motion and sensation are by the nerves as by so many Channels shed forth into all the parts of the whole frame as well higher as lower the farthest off as well as the nearest and when this influence and communication of the head happens to cease you see the members which are deprived of it to be presently paralytick and insensible Then further the head does the body this office that it binds and keeps decently fastned to each other by means of the same nerves all the parts whereof it is made up both the harder ones as the Bones and Cartilages and likewise the softer as the Muscles and other substances Finally the Head by means of this continual influence doth give its body the ability to grow and extend its self and rise up by little and little to the measure of its due magnitude The Apostle therefore makes use of this natural image for the representing unto us of those spiritual benefits which we receive from the communion of the LORD JESUS our mystical Head and sayes First that He furnisheth His body that is gives it abundantly spiritual sense and motion and in a word all graces necessary for the exercise of an Heavenly life diffusing them into all His mystical members that is into all the faithful by means of his not animal as that of nature is but Divine and Eternal Spirit This Spirit which He distributes to all and every of His members doth replenish our eyes and senses with that light and vigour which is requisite for the seeing feeling and tasting of Divine things It sheds abroad peace and joy into our hearts and curing our benummed limbs and opening our hands which vice had locked up doth give us the operations and motions of the life of GOD and in fine formeth in us all the conceptions and vertues of the new man But he saith in the second place continuing this excellent Metaphor that this Divine Head doth fitly knit together His body by joints and bands expressing by these words that spiritual Union which bindeth and joyneth the faithful all of them to their Head and each of them to the other For as every member of the body hath its particular temperature and qualities very different from the rest one being hard another soft one cold another hot one dry another moist and yet being linked by those secret and unperceptible bands which descending from the head do fasten them all together do make up but one only and the same body so is it with the Church The faithful of whom it is composed are upon the account both of nature and of grace infinitely different one from another In nature for some are of one Nation of one Age of one Sex of one condition and others of another one rich another poor one learned another ignorant one noble another of low extraction In grace likewise for who can utter all the differences of their gifts in this respect But JESUS CHRIST their mystical Head notwithstanding this diversity reduceth them all into one and the same body as S. Paul saith elsewhere We being many are one body in CHRIST He sets us together and uniteth us aptly one with another by these mystical joynts and bands of which the Apostle here speaks that is the gifts and graces of His Spirit and first of all Charity the univeral bond of all the faithful which ties them inseparably together by the sentiments of a sincere and ardent love and by all the motions offices services and assistances which depend upon it It 's this Spirit of Charity that mixeth all their souls into one that renders them sensible of each others weal and wo that inspires into them the same Prayers and wishes and so governs their actions that though different they yet all aim at the same mark the glory of their Head and the common edification of His members Among these joynts and ligaments of the LORD's body I also place the divers graces wherewith He doth invest them giving to this man one Talent and to that man another different to one zeal to another knowledge to one utterance to another judgement To the same too must be referred the divers offices which He hath instituted in His Church Pastors Teachers Elders and Deacons this various distribution approximating them to one another the need they have of their Brethren and the succour they may afford them admirably knitting and keeping up the commerce of their common Charity Eph. 4.12 as S. Paul expresly noteth in the Epistle to the Ephesians where speaking of the divers Ministries which the LORD JESUS formed and erected among His people he saith that He made them for the coaptation or setting together of the Saints for the edification of His body In fine he addeth here a third benefit of CHRIST's which is as the sequel and fruit of the two former that His body thus furnished and compacted by its Head doth encrease with an increase of GOD that is with a Divine and spiritual increase arising from the efficacy of GOD and tending to His glory in as much as the Church thus united to its Head and filled with the influences of His grace is established is strengthened and compleated by little and little in faith in hope in charity in light and in sanctity untill it attain unto the measure of its perfect stature in CHRIST Such is the Communion of the Church with its Head
man is worthy of our pity The devil that set him on work does properly deserve our hate It 's with this murtherer that we should be angry There it is that passion would be just But if by all these remedies we cannot prevent our being sometimes incensed against our neighbours at least let us stop when our perturbation boileth up Eph. 4.26 Let us not add sin to our emotion neither let the Sun as the Apostle speaks go down upon our wrath but hold we for certain that the shortest angers are the best Now if we can once devest our selves of this wretched passion we shall by the same means eradicate together with it that other of detraction or evil speaking which St. Paul here annexeth in the sequel For wrath is commonly the root from which the same doth spring that at least which the Apostle means who useth a word that signifies a man's reviling of his neighbour a thing scarce ever done but in choler But all evil-speaking whatever origine it hath is an accursed and a deadly plant the production and workmanship of the devil the father of evil-speakers For his trade you know is to calumniate to detract and say evil They that do the same are his disciples and it is from his suggestion and infusion they derive the poison of their tongue And as they have now part in his exercise so shall they have one day in his torments according to that which the Apostle teacheth us elsewhere namely that revilers shall not inherit the kingdom of GOD. Indeed since Heaven is the inheritance of charity 1 Cor. 6.10 and sanctity what portion in it can detraction pretend to which is so contrary to those two Vertues and gives them at once three deadly wounds goring and outraging by the same blow both the person of whom it speaketh evil and the person to whom and a man 's own It wounds the reputation of the person of whom it speaketh evil and as much as in it lies deprives him of his honour the greatest of our external goods and such as no riches can equal the value of It pollutes the ear of him that hears it and makes such a poison glide there-through into his heart as is apt to extinguish neighbourly charity and fill him with suspitions with aversion and hatred against his neighbour even to the raising sometimes of scandalous and mortal enmities and quarrels between them In fine the detractor doth not spare himself but profaneth his own tongue and abuseth it to the rending and scandalizing of his neighbour whereas it was given him by his Creator to be an instrument of benediction and edification And this seems to be properly the consideration which the Apostle here had in his eye Having cleansed our hearts from the ordures of wrath and malignity he also purifieth our mouths Eph. 5.3 4. taking out of them what is contrary to their sanctification Put away saith he wrath anger maliciousness evil speaking dishonest words out of your mouth And this is the reason why unto detraction he addeth dishonest speech because it defiles our mouths and corrupteth speech one of the most precious presents that Divine bounty hath made us and made that our mind might use it for the communicating of its good and holy conceptions unto others for their consolation and edification Whereas quite contrary he that makes unhonest discourses to them fills their ears with dung and fouls the purity of their hearts and shews the infection of his own out of the abundance of which his mouth speaks as our Saviour saith For as an ill breath doth signifie some inward indisposition and corruption so filthy and dishonest talk discovers impurity and unchastity in his soul who makes it Hence it is that the Apostle in another place expresly puts this among other parts of Christian sanctity that our discourses be pure and chast and honest Fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness let it not be once named among you saith he as becometh Saints Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient And again else-where Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers Behold Beloved Brethren the divine doctrine of this great Apostle Conform we our whole life unto the same serving GOD in body and Spirit and sanctifying our hearts and mouths unto His glory and the edification of our neighbours eradicating first out of our souls all asperity and bitterness anger wrath and malignity and planting them with kindness and sweetness and patience towards all men then purging our tongues also from the poisons of detraction and from the filth of all dishonest speech consecrating them as precious vessels to the praise of GOD and the spiritual utility of men to the end there be nothing in our carriage but what is worthy of the discipline of our LORD JESUS CHRIST and that after we shall have so walked in His fear in all piety and honesty He may one day receive us into His Kingdom of glory where without holiness none shall enter Unto Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all honour and praise to ages of ages Amen THE THIRTY SEVENTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER VIII IX Verse VIII Put away also all these things c. Evil speaking dishonest talk out of your mouth IX Lye not one to another AMong the advantages which raise our nature above that of animals speech doth undoubtedly hold one of the first ranks being as it is the interpreter of the mind the image of thought the instrument of communication the bond of society the instruction of ignorance the consolation of grief the parent and nurse of friendship and the sweetness of life If you consider it in its self what can be imagin'd more marvellous than this faculty which doth represent by a certain number of sounds not very different from one another the infinite variety of all those things that come into our minds and bringing them out of that inaccessible and impenetrable recess where our soul conceives and forms them within its self makes them appear abroad rendring that in some sort visible which was altogether invisible and that corporeal which was purely spiritual I well know that animals do discover the passions and movings of their souls joy grief fear desire by certain cries which they utter as often as they are surprized with the same But there is nothing in this that comes near speech For the voices of animals do proceed from nature it self whereas words of speech are an effect and an institution of reason Those are confused and inarticulate these distinct and formed with excellent art Those express nothing but the passions of a sensitive faculty these do represent the conceptions of the understanding But the utility of speech is no less than the wonder Without it assemblies of men would be but so many herds of cattle and
His last breath with a spirit clear and a soul calm speaking to us of His approaching happiness and of the present grace of His LORD with so much efficacy as it stopped Your tears and in such manner forced the resentments of your grief that how just soever they were You had nevertheless a secret shame to make them appear in the presence and on the occasion of so vertuous a person as if Laments and Plaints should have in some sort offended His piety and dishonored the victory of his faith The same GOD that loosed Him so miraculously from earth to raise him up to heaven granted You to support the affection of His departure with a patience worthy Your vocation After so rude a blow He hath yet sustained You and conducted You to an honourable old age that few persons do attain And now I doubt not but Your principal consolation and the agitations of the present world and the infirmities of this age is the assured hope you have of arriving also one day at the port of that blessed immortality where contrary to the ordinary course of nature You have seen this dear Son enter before You. If in the holy exercises of Piety by which You daily prepare You for it the reading of these Sermons may find place and be of any use for Your consolation I shall therein have extream satisfaction at least I can well assure You it is one of my most ardent desires who pray GOD to preserve you with all your Family in perfect prosperity and remain inviolably From Paris April 1. 1648. SIR Your most humble and most obedient Servant DAILLE Imprimatur Tho. Tomkins Ex. AEd. Lambeth May 15. 1671. SERMONS ON THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS THE FIRST SERMON On the I II III IV V. VERSES Verse I. Paul an Apostle of JESVS CHRIST by the Will of GOD and the Brother Timothy II. To the Saints and faithful Brethren in CHRIST which are at Colosse Grace be unto you and Peace from GOD our Father and from the LORD JESVS CHRIST III. We give thanks for you unto GOD who is the Father of our LORD JESVS CHRIST praying alway for you IV. Having heard speak of your faith in JESVS CHRIST and of the love you have to all the Saints V. For the hope which is reserved in Heaven for you whereof you have heretofore heard by the Word of Truth to wit the Gospel THE Apostle St. Paul's Assertion is verified in the afflictions of the faithful by constant experience Rom. 8.27 and they ever work together for good to them that love GOD. Beside the excellent fruit which the afflicted themselves receive from them such as they sooner or later acknowledge with the Psalmist That it was good for them to have been afflicted Psal 119.71 they are also serviceable to the edification of others For as Roses the fairest and sweetest of Flowers do grow on a rough and thorny stock so from the afflictions of the faithful rugged and piercing to the flesh spring forth examples of their Vertue and instances of their Piety sweetest and most salubrious productions See what a rich store of benefits the tryals of Job and of David have yielded us It 's to them we owe that admirable Book of the Patience of the former and a good part of the Divine Hymns of the latter Had it not been for their afflictions we should not now enjoy after so many Ages that inestimable treasure of Instructions and Consolations What shall I say of the sufferings of St. Paul which did spead the Gospel all abroad and convert the world unto knowledge of the true GOD. His imprisonment at Rome alone under the Empire of Nero hath done the Church more good than the peace and prosperity of all the rest of the faithful that then were It gave reputation to the Gospel and made it gloriously enter into the stateliest Court in the world It inspired an heroick courage into Preachers of the truth It awakened the curiosity of some and inflamed the charity of others and filled all that great City with the Name and Odor of JESUS CHRIST Nor was it of use unto the Romans only It imparted its celestial fruit unto the remotest Regions and Generations For it was in this very confinement that this holy man wrote several of his Divine Epistles which we read with so much edification to this day as those to Philemon to Timothy to the Ephesians and that directed to the Philippians the Exposition whereof we last finished and the following to the Colossians which we have chosen to explain henceforth unto you if GOD permit Paul's Prison was a common receptacle whence have issued out those living Springs which water and rejoyce the City of GOD and will furnish it even to the end of the world with the streams it needs for its refreshment Having then already drawn from the one of these sweet Springs that Divine Liquor wherewith we have endeavoured according to the Ministry committed to us of GOD to irrorate the heavenly plants of your faith and love we now turn us my Brethren to the other a no less quick and plentiful one than the former Bring ye to it as the Lord requires souls thirsting for His grace and He will give you as He hath promised living water which shall quench your drougth for ever and become in each of you a Well springing up to eternal life The Church of the Colossians to whom this Epistle is addressed having been happily planted by Epaphras a faithful Minister of CHRIST the enemy failed not to sow forthwith his Tares within it by the hands of some Seducers these men would mingle Moses with our Saviour and together with the Gospel of the one retain and observe the Ceremonies of the other To make their error the more pleasing they painted it over with colours of Philosophy subtility of Discourse curiosity of Speculations and other such like Artifices Epaphras seeing the danger whereinto this prophane medly did cast the faith and salvation of his dear Colossians advertiseth St. Paul of it then Prisoner at Rome The Apostle to withdraw them from so pernicious an error taketh Pen in hand and writeth them this Letter wherein he sheweth them that in JESUS CHRIST alone is all the fulness of our salvation in such manner as that we should deeply injure Him to seek ought of it out of Him since in His Gospel we have abundantly wherewith to inform our Faith and form our manners without adding thereto either the shadows of Moses or the vanities of Philosophy At the entrance He saluteth them and congratulates them for the Communion they had with GOD in His Son Next he draweth them a lively pourtrait of the Lord JESUS wherein shine forth the dignity of His person and the inexhaustible abundance of His benefits Upon that he undertaketh the Seducers and refutes the unprofitable additions wherewith they sophisticated the simplicity of the Gospel Afterwards from dispute he
good works so the exercise of good works cleanseth the eyes of our understandings and encreaseth true wisdom on the contrary the neglect of sanctification diminisheth this divine clearness in us and bringeth back by little and little the darkness of ignorance upon us For as the LORD giveth new graces to him that faithfully manageth His first presents so takes He away His Talent from Him that abuseth it Those that cast away a good conscience make shipwrack also of Faith and they that withhold the truth in unrighteousness are given up to a mind disfurnished of all judgement and GOD sendeth the efficacy of errour to those that receive not his Holy doctrine with love On the contrary He revealeth His secret and augmenteth His light to them that seek His commandments and are bent to do His will Let us hold fast therefore these two precious gifts of the LORD knowledge and good works Faith and Charity and studiously apply us to encrease the one by the other meditating and learning the mysteries of GOD that we may obey His will and obey His will that we may confirm our selves more and more in the knowledge of His mysteries Dear Brethren That which the Apostle hath desired for His Colossians is very much an accomplished knowledge of the Divine will a life worthy of the LORD a spiritual secondity fructifying in every good work and a continual advancement in heavenly wisdom Yet this is not all For how great and excellent soever these things be they suffice not without perseverance to conduct us to salvation and it 's impossible to persevere in them without a supernatural strength and firmness Therefore St. Paul wisheth again in the last place for these faithful people that they may be strengthened in all might according to the power of His glory in all suffering and patience of mind with joy This succour is necessary for us as well because of our own infirmities as for the multitude violence and obstinacy of our enemies For as to our selves though that celestial spirit wherewith GOD baptizeth us at the beginning of our vocation doth invest us with a new vigour yet so it is that there remaineth much weakness in us while we live on earth our inward man being yet but in its infancy a weak age and which easily lets it self sink if it be not sustained And as for our enemies we have a vast multitude of them that watch night and day to destroy us and ranged in diverse bands under the ensignes of the Devil the world and the flesh the principal heads of this black Army conjured to our ruine cease not to trouble us leaving nor wile nor forcible attempt nor malice nor violence nor threatning nor promise un-employed against us If we have repulsed one of them 〈◊〉 return again upon us diverse others which essay us on all sides espy where 〈…〉 weak and oftentimes turn our own weapons against us If we have overthrown avarice voluptuousness sets its self on foot If we defeat it also ambition enters in its place Hatred unites with it Desire of revenge pusheth us on Wrath provoketh us Envy seizeth us Persecution troubleth us Prosperity pusseth us up the success of our own combats tickleth us Oftentimes that which helps us on one hand hurts us on another as in a complicated disease in which the remedies cross one another or that which is good for the liver is dangerous for the Stomach Who seeth not that to preserve our selves in such a mingled Combate and against so many charges so confused and so obstinate for they last as long as our lives we have need of an extraordinary might we who of our selves have so little that we are insufficient even for one good thought But GOD armeth us with the power of His Spirit as with an impenetrable buckler under which we stand in covert amid that thick hail of blows that falls continually about us It 's this Divine power the Apostle wisheth here to the Colossians when he prayeth that they might be strengthened in all might that their souls might be confirmed their hearts hardned as a Diamond to resist all assaults their courages vested with an heroick ardour and firmness which all the rages of Hell or earth may never be able to overcome He prayeth they may be strengthened in all might because as we have to do with divers enemies and are sick of divers infirmities we have need to receive not one or two kinds of strength only but many different ones For even as in nature you see the strength of bodies is different one resisting one thing and yielding to another one having the vertue to repulse the force of one element but not to gard it self from another So in a manner is it in the souls of men Such a man will bravely free himself from the tentation of one Vice that will not be able to defend himself from another Such a man shall resist the violences of the world as will yield to the charms of its caresses Since that to lose a Victory it is enough to be overcome though by but one of their enemies 't is with great reason that the Apostle for preserving to these Colossians the honour of their Crown and Triumph wisheth them all strength that is a perfect strength which may be of proof against all the strokes of the enemy which may boldly undertake good and holy actions how high and difficult soever they be which may valiantly combate vices resolutely despise earthly things vigorously repell tentations and generously suffer afflictions He sheweth us also by the way the source of this heavenly might when after having wished that the Colossians might be strengthned in all might he addeth according to the power of the glory of GOD that is according to His glorious power by a manner of speaking ordinary in the style of the Hebrews Whence is it that these faithful people do receive this admirable strength necessary for their salvation From the glorious power of the LORD saith the Apostle that is from that immense and efficacious puissance of GOD which nothing can resist The Holy Spirit is so named in St. Luke Lâ—k 24.49 where the LORD commandeth His Apostles to tarry at Jerusalem untill they be indued with power from on high that is the Spirit he had promised them And St. Paul elsewhere making for the Ephesians a petition altogether like this which he here presents to GOD for the Colossians clearly termeth that the Spirit of GOD Ephes 3.16 which in this passage he calleth the Vertue or Power of His glory GOD grant you saith he that you may be powerfully strengthned by His Spirit in the inner man He calleth this Vertue of the Spirit of God glorious to express its admirable and unsurmountable force which triumpheth magnificently over all that opposeth its action which with the weakest means accomplisheth the greatest things which changeth when it will Shepheards into Law-givers and Kings Cow-heards into Prophets and Persecutors
into Apostles which beats down the proudest fierceness and preserves invincible the most despicable weakness which hardneth the bodies of it's humble Warriours as Steel maintaineth them in the flames and confounds with their lowness the fury of Elements of Men and of Devils For this is that the Sacred Writers ordinarily call glory even an abundance of beauty of power and perfection so rich as it over-bears our senses and makes to bend under it all the vigour of our Spirits reducing them to admiration and astonishment And St. Paul somewhat frequently useth this word in this sense as when he saith that CHRIST was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father that is by His great and unspeakable power Whence it appeareth that the Vertue which converteth us to GOD and that which conserveth us in His grace is not a common and ordinary might but an invincible efficacy which nothing can resist Seek it not in your own nature Christian soul seek it in GOD and acknowledging your weakness ask of Him the remedy of it If it betide you to resist the enemy and to remain victorious in any combate render all the glory of it to this Soveraign LORD without attributing ought of it to your self But the Apostle sheweth us in what follows what is the use and effect of the succour which the glorious power of the LORD giveth us who strengthneth us unto all suffering saith he and patience of mind with joy These are the two productions of the Spirit of GOD in a faithful soul patience and long waiting in which principally our strength consisteth These are as the two hands of Heaven that sustain us in perils and keep us from sinking under the weight of those evils wherewith we often find our selves surcharged And though both the two are of a very like nature yet they have each of them something particular Sufferance beareth the evil without bending submitting to it at its inflicting humbly and standing firm under this rude load The Spirit patient or long-waiting for so the term used here in the Original doth properly signifie lends it the hand afterward and attendeth without murmuring for deliverance from the evil it suffers and for enjoyment of the good it hopeth Sufferance respecteth the very weight and heaviness of the affliction The long-waiting of the patient Spirit respects the duration of it These two vertues are absolutely necessary for a Christian For without them how should he support either the chastisements of GOD or the persecutions of the world How should he be firm in the exercise of other vertues to discharge the Offices of them against the impediments that thwart them every hour Tertull. de patient Patience saith an Ancient is the Superintendant of all the affairs of GOD and without it it is not possible to execute His commands or to wait for His promises 'T is it that defeateth all its enemies without toil It s repose is more efficacious than the motion and action of others 'T is it that makes healthful to us things of their own nature most pernicious It changeth for us poisons into remedies and defeats into victories It rejoyceth the Angels it confoundeth Devils it overcometh the world It mollifieth the hardest courages and converteth the most obstinate hearts It is the strength and the triumph of the Church according to the saying of the ancient Oracle By keeping you quiet and by rest you shall be delivered your strength shall be in silence and in hope But the Apostle to shew us what this patience is to which the Spirit of GOD formeth His children saith that it is with joy This is the true Character of Christian patience The Hypocrite suffers sometimes but it is murmuring And the Philosophers yere while made a great shew of their patience but it was only an effect either of their stiffness or of their stupidity which was no wayes accompanied with the joy which the Holy GHOST sheds into the souls of those that suffer for the name of GOD. Not that they are insensible or that they receive the evil on them without grief But if the evil they suffer do sad them this very thing rejoyceth them that by the grace of their LORD they have the strength and the courage to suffer it and do know that their suffering shall turn to their good and that from these thornes they shall one day reap the flowers and fruits of blessed immortality To which may be added the sweetness which is then shed into their heart by the vive and profound impression of that only Comforter who communicates himself to them on such occasions more freely than ever and can by the ineffable Vertue of His balm their most bitter wounds This is that Dear Brethren which we had to say to you on this Text of the holy Apostle Let us receive his doctrine with faith and religiously obey his voice He sheweth us what our task is here below Let us acquit our selves in it with care GOD of His Grace hath raised up among 〈◊〉 a great light of knowledge let us employ it to its true use and walk with it in such a sort as may be worthy of so holy and merciful a LORD whose name we bear Let this great Name awaken our sences and affections let it pluck them off from the Earth and elevate them to Heaven where He reigneth who hath given it to us Let this Name put into our hearts a secret shame to do or think ought that may be unworthy thereof Faithful Sirs remember you are Christians as oft as flesh or earth sollicits you to evil Put the world by 'T is not to please it that you have been regenerated by the Spirit from on high The World is so unjust so humorous and so changing that 't is impossible to content it See in what pain and torment they continually live that attempt it And though you should compass it the success would cost you dear By pleasing the world you would displease your own Conscience the contenting whereof is infinitely more important to you than any thing else But with GOD it is quite otherwise His will is constant and still the same without any variation or change Nothing is pleasing to Him but what is just and reasonable Your Conscience will find in it its entire satisfaction and never reproach you for having served so good a Master Not to alledge to you that the World after you shall have killed your self to serve it will pay you only with ingratitude and contempt as experience daily shews us whereas the LORD will magnificently reward the care you shall have taken to do His will comforting and blessing you in this world Crowning and glorifying you in the other If you demand what must be done to please Him the Apostle shews you in a word Fructifie saith he in every good work As often as the LORD shall cast His eyes on this Vineyard let Him see it still laden with good fruits Let Him never
and felicity whereof we shall be seized on high in the Heavens It is best in my opinion to joyn these two expositions together that we may so comprehend the entire state of the whole inheritance of Saints who after they are once united to JESUS CHRIST do alwayes live in light first in that of grace during their pilgrimage on earth afterwards in that of glory Rev. 21.23 when they shall be raised up to that blessed City which hath no need of the Sun nor of the Moon because the brightness of GOD hath illuminated it and the Lamb is the light thereof 1 Thes 5.5 Phil. 2.15 Mat. 5.14 For this cause all the divine denizons of this heavenly State are called Children of light and of the day which should shine as lights in the midst of a perverse generation and be the light of the world as persons born of the light of the Spirit and of the word of God who being led by the rayes of their Sun of Righteousness walk on straight towards the supream source of lights where arrived they shall eternally dwell in that shine which will transform them into the image of their LORD from glory to glory by the power of His Omnipotent Spirit But it is time to come to the other verse in which the Apostle addeth what the Father hath done to make us thus capable of partaking in the inheritance of Saints in light He hath delivered us saith he from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of His well-beloved Son By darkness the Scripture ordinarily understands ignorance and misery the two contraries of knowledge and joy which it signifies by light as we said even now For ignorance and error do hide the true and natural form of things from our understandings just as darkness doth wrap up visible objects from our bodily eyes And forasmuch as there is nothing more unpleasant to men nor more affrighting than the obscurity of darkness thence it comes that the term is also made use of to represent horrour trouble and misery So the power of darkness is nothing else but that tyranny which the Devil and sin do exercise over their slaves filling their spirits with deadly errours and brutish ignorances and their consciences either with affrightment or insensibility and training them on by little and little under this dismal yoke into the horrours of eternal death which our LORD often calleth outer-darkness where is weeping and gnashing of teeth For as knowledge and truth is a light necessary for the attainment of salvation so errour and ignorance infallibly lead to death Therefore the Devil the sworn enemy of our good blindeth men the most he possibly can spreading before them gross and thick mists which hide Heaven and its blessed brightness from them This is the summ of his craft and subtil operation The deep of his abyss doth ever vomit forth into our aire a black vapour for the rendring of our senses useless By this means he turned heretofore the Nations of the Earth from the service of their Creator obscuring and smothering by his illusions those sparkles of the knowledge of Him which they had and plunging them and holding them down in so deep ignorance that these miserable men were not ashamed Rom. 1.23 to adore the work of their own hands and change the glory of the incorruptible GOD into the resemblance and image of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed beasts and creeping things As for justice and honesty of life this impostor had so extinguished the lights which Providence had kindled for them in their hearts and so disordered all their knowledge by his seductions that the vilest abominations passed among them for indifferent things Walking on in so thick darkness it is no wonder if they were in continual fear they knew not where they went nor whither they should come and fell at last after having pittifully stumbled and staggered into the precipice of eternal perdition And would to GOD the Prince of errour did not yet still abuse the world in the same manner Certainly the darkness of the old Paganism was not more gross nor shameful than that which covers the greater part of the earth at this very day But whereas that errour wherein the Devil keepeth men is called by the Apostle the power of darkness and not simply darkness this teacheth us that that accursed one worketh effectually in them doing with their hearts what seemeth Him good and planting all deceit and ignorance in them at his will so as these wretches cannot defend themselves therefrom This is one thing the Apostle teacheth us elsewhere as when he saith that this evil Spirit now worketh with efficacy Eph. 2.3 in the children of rebellion Not that he hath naturally any just Dominion over the souls of men but their sin brings them under His Sceptre and their hearts being of themselves full of unclean and unjust affections it comes to pass through the excess of their corruption that he never tempteth them in vain And all this imperial force he hath upon them is founded meerly on imposture on errour and ignorance so as it is with a deal of truth and elegancy that St. Paul calleth it here the power of darkness This is Faithful Brethren the sad and pittiful estate in which naturally men lye Let not the paint and lustre of their pretended wisdom and justice dazle your eyes In the sight of GOD it is but darkness whence it comes Eph. 5.8 that the Scripture calleth them darkness it self Ye were sometime darkness saith the Apostle to the Ephesians Judge hereby how horrible the errour of those is who dogmatize that liberty is so very natural to man as they cannot conceive that they can be men without it Let them Philosophise upon this subject as they please They shall never be able to shew that a man can be all at once both at liberty and under the power of darkness He that is under the power of another is not free It 's GOD alone that can enfranchise men and take them from this miserable servitude and bind that strong Tyrant who did hold them Captive It is to this Soveraign LORD that the Apostle here giveth the glory both of his own liberty and of the Colossians theirs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He saith he hath delivered us from the power of darkness Yet the Greek word which he useth in the Original hath more Emphasis signifying that He delivered us by an exerting of power drawing us and if I may so speak plucking us out of the irons we were in whereby he representeth to us on the one hand how strong and strait the bonds of our slavery were and on the other hand how excellent and admirable the power is which GOD hath displayed to bring us out of this spiritual Egypt For we experiment it daily that though nothing be more sordid and shameful than the tyranny of error Yet we all naturally love it so
if the Heavens and the Elements and the Winds and the Meteors and the Plants things deaf and dumb and inanimate do preach and celebrate the wonders of their LORD all of them obeying His voyce and faithfully serving His designs what will our ingratitude be if with these senses and this excellent reason He hath given us we alone of all His creatures should cross His counsels and dishonor His Name instead of glorifying it The glory He requireth of us is only that we walk in His Commandments that we abound in good and holy works that we depart from all evil and live in such manner as may oblige our neighbours to acknowledge that this JESUS whom we serve is truly a great GOD. Acquit we us then faithfully of these duties and assure our selves that if we advance His glory He will provide for our bliss and guard us from all that opposeth the same For since all things Celestial and Terrestrial visible and invisible were created and do still subsist by Him there is nothing in the whole world that should make us afraid All the Armies of Heaven of the Elements and of Nature are in our Masters pay and neither war nor work but for His interests and by His order These very Thrones these Principalities these Powers and these Dominions which He hath exalted above all His other creatures do not employ the mightiness and the glory of their nature but for Him and for those that fear Him They are ministring Spirits sent forth to serve for their sakes that shall receive the inheritance of Salvation They keep us in all our ways They defend us in life they assist us at death and convey us up into the bosom of our true Abraham Let us live in assurance under the protection of so good and so great a LORD that we may one day receive at His hand blissful Immortality the great and last Donative His Benignity conferreth To Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit the true GOD blessed over all things be for ever Honor Glory and Praise Amen THE IX SERMON COL I. Ver. XVIII Vers XVIII And it is He who is the head of the body of the Church and who is the beginning and the first-born from the dead to the end He might have the first place in all things IT is not without just cause Beloved Brethren that the Apostle St. Paul speaking of the union of JESUS CHRIST and His Church which was represented at the beginning of the world Eph. 5.32 by the marriage of Adam and Eve doth pronounce it aloud to be a great secret For in effect there is nothing in this mysterie which way soever you take it but is very great and worthy the admiration of men and Angels First if you weigh the thing it self is it not wonderful strange and unheard of in the world that the Creator should unite Himself with the creature The LORD of glory with worms The King of Heaven with dust and ashes The Saint of Saints with sinners Then again if you consider the foundation of this Union what can be conceived of a more ravishing nature than the birth and the death of the Son of GOD upon which this Divine alliaâ—â—e was contracted this mystical Spouse having had so vehement a passion for the Church that to make her His He made Himself a man like us and shed out all His blood upon a Cross If you contemplate the form and manner of this Union it is so strict and intimate that it perfectly mingleth together the parties whom it doth unite and makes them one only body one flesh and one Spirit joyning both their persons and their affairs and in such manner confounding their interests that JESUS CHRIST is wholly His Churches and the Church wholly Her CHRIST's The firmness of this Union is no less admirable being such as all the powers of the Earth of Hell or of Heaven are not able to dissolve it and whereas Nature hath bound nothing in the whole Universe but time doth lose it in the end the sacred clasps of this the Churches eternal Union with her LORD shall never be undone either in this world or in that which is to come by any of those innumerable ages that shall roul forth Finally if you respect the effects of it what can be mentioned of more glorious and saving import than the fruits this Union doth produce It filleth our understanding with light it purifies our affections it sanctifies our hearts it keepeth the peace of GOD in them it changeth slaves of Devils into Children of the most High it transformeth Earth into Heaven and instead of that death and curse which we deserved it giveth us eternity and glory For 't is from it alone that all those Divine graces do flow down which we enjoy in this world and all the advantages and felicities we hope for in the other It need be no wonder therefore that the Scripture doth make use of so many different resemblances to figure out to us so excellent and so rich a subject there being to be found no one so accomplished as might singly suffice to represent us all the marveils of it For this cause it borroweth to express this same one all the unions that nature or art or humane society doth afford us comparing it sometimes to the Union of a Vine with its branches or of an Olive with the graffs that are set into its slock sometimes to the knitting of a Foundation with the building which it beareth or of a corner stone with the two walls which it binds together sometimes to the conjunction of a Prince with His subjects or of an elder brother with the younger or of an husband with his wife But among all these sacred pictures of our union with the LORD there is hardly any more proper or more genuine than the two similitudes which the LORD my Brethren now sets before you the one in those words of His Apostle which we have read to you and the other on that sacred Table whither you are invited to the feast of His Lamb. The first is drawn from the natural union of the head with its members and the second from the union of bread and drink with the bodies which are nourished thereby By reason of the one CHRIST is our head and we His body By reason of the other He is called our bread our meat and our drink and we the creatures whom He feedeth and quickneth And though in other respects these two images be very different yet in this particular they agree that they excellently represent to us both our union with the LORD and the life which is thence derived to us it being clear that as well the head as the food doth each of them give life to the bodies with which they are united This hath induced me to believe that the meditation of this Text will be useful for the Sacrament of the LORD's Supper for which we prepare our selves since for the main
it sets before our eyes though under a different resemblance that same mysterie of our union with the LORD which is represented and communicated to us at His holy Table For the Apostle to accomplish his design and fully shew us the infinite excellence and dignity of JESUS CHRIST our Saviour after He hath told us what He is in regard of the Father namely the image of the invisible GOD and what in regard of the works of the first Creation to wit the first-born that is the Prince and Master of all the Creatures as having created them all made and formed them from the very lowest to the highest of them the Apostle I say after this dispatched considers Him finally in regard of the new Creatures that be that is to say the Church and informs us that He is the head thereof and the Church His body and for the greater illustration of it adds moreover that He is the beginning and the first-born from the dead whence he deduceth this conclusion that so He hath the first place in all things These are the three points which we purpose the Grace of GOD assisting to treat of in this action for the exposition of this Text and your edification The first that JESVS CHRIST is the head of the body of the Church The second that He is the beginning and the first-born from the dead and the third and last that He hath the first place in all things As for the first of these three points it is not here alone that the Apostle calleth JESUS CHRIST the head of the Church He useth the same language in diverse other places of His Epistles as in that he writes to the Ephesians Eph. 1.22 23. where he saith that the Father hath set His Son above all things to be head of the Church which is His body the fulness of Him that filleth all in all and elsewhere again that CHRIST is the head from whom the whole body fitly joyned together Eph. 4.15 16. and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh encrease of the body unto the edifying of it self in love And a little after in this Chapter of our Text we shall find him repeating that the Church is the body of CHRIST and in the first to the Corinthians Col. 1.24 speaking to the faithful You are saith he the body of CHRIST and members each one on his part In truth it is a figure very common in all languages to call him the Head of a Society who guideth and governeth it or who at least possesseth the first place in it As you see that every one calls a King the Head of His Estate and a General the Head of the Army wherein he commandeth and those the Heads of their Regiments or Companies who have the leading of them Whence comes our vulgar word Captain which according to its derivation signifies nought else but the Head The master of an houshold is in like manner termed the Head of it and so in all other societies of what nature soever they be But this manner of speaking is exceedingly familiar with the Hebrews as you may see in very many places of the Old Testament where every thing that hath the first place whether iâ— be for its authority or for its excellency or even for its birth and meer precedency in time is called the head of other things of the same kind And the reason of this figure is evident For the head standing highest of all the parts of the body of man and having the conduct of it because it is the seat of the eyes and other senses upon which the directing of our life dependeth the name thereof is very justy used to signifie by way of similitude whatsoever holdeth the first place in any society and which consequently hath in this respect a manifest resemblance of the Head properly so called It need not therefore be thought strange that this holy Apostle makes use of this figure to express the superiority the dignity and imperial power which JESUS CHRIST hath over the Church saying that He is the Head thereof And sure if there be a superiour in the whole universe who may and ought to be called head of the society which is under him JESUS CHRIST doth merit it infinitely beyond any other there being none at all in whom the reasons and respects which are necessary for the founding of this appellation are so clearly found as in Him For all the qualities actions and functions proper to the head of the body of man which give it its name and dignity JESUS CHRIST hath and doth exercise them much more nobly and magnificently than any General in reference to His army or any Monarch in reference to His State The first and most known office which the head doth the members is that it directs and guides them in their operations and governs their motion and their rest by the light of its eyes and the perceptions of its other senses Now Princes and Captains have some shadow of this perfection in that they discover and observe and sent at distance the things that concern those bodies over which they preside watching and viewing all that respects their interests while their people mean time quietly labour each of them in his own employment But JESUS CHRIST doth these offices to His Church much better and more perfectly For it 's in Him that all the light of this mystical body doth reside He considereth not only its interests in general He knoweth all that concerneth the least of His members He never slumbereth nor sleepeth He hath eyes and senses alwayes open He seeth all the parts of this His State and discerneth the posture and disposition of all that is its friend or foe be it neerer hand or further off He charily preserves it by this Providence of His governing it so prudently that there is no danger from which He doth not deliver it nor any difficulty but He surmounteth it It is He that ordereth His people warrs and over-ruleth their fights and dispenseth their truces and will one day give them an entire and eternal peace The second duty the Head performs to the body is that it influxeth into all the members of it all the motion and sensation that they have by means of the animal spirits which from the head as from their spring do spread themselves through the whole body flowing in the nerves as in so many channels which nature hath cut out and laid forth for the maintaining of this communication And I acknowledge that the authority and powers which a Prince distributeth into all the parts of His State and which cause His subjects to act diversly each one according to the degree they receive thereof I acknowledge I say this is a very good resemblance of the way of the heads governing the body But it is far beneath what we find in the LORD JESUS His conduct
Apostle addeth namely that the Church is the body of CHRIST this further clearly sheweth that none but CHRIST is the Head of it For if the Pope for example were head of it the universal Church should be the Popes body as it is the LORD's But where is the Christian ear that doth not tingle at so strange so unheard of and so profane language And so we see how vehement and inordinate soever the passion of men hath been for this title of Head of the Church no man hath ever hitherto called the Church His body every one confessing that it is no ones body but JESUS CHRIST's alone They should then grant in like manner that none is its Head but He only Since it cannot have any for Head but Him whose body it is In the next place note I pray in opposition to another error of the same adversaries of ours that CHRIST His being Head of the Church doth not at all infer that the Church toucheth Him corporeally or that the bodies of the faithful are properly and substantially joyned to Him as the members of a natural body are joyned to their head Every one confesseth that this must be understood figuratively and mystically and after the same manner all men take the other expressions for the most part by which our union with the LORD is represented as when He is called the Foundation of the Church the corner stone the vine-stock of the Faithful and their raiment No one concludeth that it is necessary for the verifying of these passages our bodies should really touch His substance Why then will they infer it from other places where to set forth the same mysterie it is said that He is our bread our meat and our drink If He be our Head if He be our Raiment if He govern and clothe us without touching our bodies with His why may not He be our bread and nourish us without real entring into our bodily throat and stomach If the one be mystically and figuratively understood why will you force me to take the other corporally and literally I say the same upon the Apostles express declaring that the Church is the body of CHRIST Our adversaries do conclude no Transubstantion from hence and they confess that for salving the truth of these words there is no need that either the Church should lose its own substance and nature or be really changed into the substance of the body of CHRIST Nevertheless they will by all means have it that the same words when the Gospel saith of the bread which our LORD took that it is the body of CHRIST As if it were not rational and easie to say that the bread as well as the Church is the body of CHRIST figuratively and in a mystical way If they admit this sense in one of these places why do they reject it in the other where the nature of things themselves and the truth of heavenly doctrine doth no less necessarily require it In fine not to make any longer stay here St. Paul cleareth up to us in two words another question which the passion of Rome hath so horribly embroyled in these latter times namely what is the nature and the true definition of the Church The Church is saith he the body of CHRIST These two words overthrow all the Philosophizing of our adversaries about this subject in order either to the straitning or enlarging the Communion of the Church beyond what ought to be I say the straitning For they admit to the possessing of this name those only that acknowledge the Bishop of Rome whereas St. Paul alloweth it to all those that belong to JESUS CHRIST and that have His Spirit no one of these but being of His body and by consequent of His Church in whatever place and under whatever Pastors he live I say also the enlarging it For these Doctors who are so severe on one hand as that they give the name of the Church only to the Roman Communion are so loose and so very indulgent on the other hand as they yield it up to the most desperate and prophane Hypocrites that are provided they addict themselves to their Pope not requiring as they affirm Bellarm. 3. de Eccl 〈…〉 2. as any interiour vertue in them to be members of the true Church but only an exteriour profession of the Roman belief and Communion But St. Paul fulminates down this no less impious then extravagant doctrine by saying that the Church is the body of CHRIST For no one can be of His body without being quickned by His Spirit Rom. 8.9 He that hath not the Spirit of CHRIST saith the same Apostle elsewhere is none of His. Certainly then it is not true that the prophane or hypocritical are parts of the Church There is no communion between CHRIST and Belial The body and the members of the one cannot be the body and members of the other Forasmuch as the Church is the body of CHRIST it must of necessity be concluded that these people of whom our adversaries compose their Church which have not as they say any piety or internal vertue and by consequence are members of Belial may well be since they will have it so true members of the Roman but assuredly not of the Christian Church And if the Pope do own them for his sheep we are very certain that the LORD JESUS will never avouch them for His. But it is time to come to the two other titles which the Apostle here giveth in the next place to our LORD JESUS CHRIST adding that He is the beginning or the principle and this first-born from the dead Even as when he had said before that JESVS CHRIST is the first-born that is the Lord of every creature he presently brought the reason of it taken from thence that all things were created by Him In like manner now having said that He is the Head of the Church he foundeth this truth upon His being the author of the Church He that formed and constituted it and the Prince of this new generation He that will give it the true and utmost perfection of its being For the word which we have rendred the beginning signifies also the principle that is to say the cause and origine of a thing and first-born denoteth likewise both Him who is born before the rest and him who is the Master or the Prince of the rest he saith therefore first that the LORD JESVS is the beginning or the principle Certainly this appertaineth unto Him upon the account of the first creation inasmuch as He is the Author of it the word and wisdom which did produce the Universe and it may be 't is in this sense that He calleth Himself in the Apocalypse Rev. 3.14 1.8 21.6 22.13 the beginning of the creation of GOD and elsewhere in the same Book Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end But speech here being of the Church and the resurrection the word beginning must
the same infirmities and to the same necessity of dying and indeed they dyed after they had lived again awhile Their death was rather deferred than abolished Their bodies did corrupt and in the end return to that dust from which they were preserved for some years But with JESUS CHRIST it is not so He in coming forth from the dead retook not the life He had quitted that is the life of the first Adam that infirm natural and earthly life a life still subject unto death He left it in the Sepulchre where it must remain as in eternal oblivion He put on a new life and nature such as is spiritual and celestial as the Apostle elsewhere termeth it a life wholly full of strength and glory that is not subject either to the use of meat or sleep not subject to dolour or death a life appropriate to the second world and not to the first a nature peculiar to the future age not to the present Accordingly you see that being vested therewith he remained not on the earth This is the old Adam's element the habitation of corruption and death But having only sojourned there fourty days so long as was needful to assure His Apostles of the truth of His resurrection and to shew them in His own person the first-fruits of the mystical Canaan He ascended up above the Heavens to the true element of the new man and the Sanctuary of eternity Conclude we then that He is truly the beginning and the first-born from the dead since He is the first of all the dead that was born and raised again in incorruption But these titles signifie yet another thing namely that it shall be He who shall raise again all the members of the Church in like glory that He is the master and the Lord of the dead for the investing them one day in their order with a nature resembling His own according to what St. Paul elsewhere saith that He will make our vile body Phil. 3. like unto His own glorious body For He would not be the first-born from the dead if He did not communicate the priviledge and the possession of this second birth to all His brethren that is to say all the faithful The Apostle adds to the end that He might have the first place in all things Those that are well versed in the reading of these divine Books do know that the word to the end that is often put in them for so as that or in such a sort as even to signifie the event and consequence of an action rather than the intention or design of the agent I account that it must be so taken in this place For the intention of our LORD in being made Head of the Church and the beginning of the new life was rather to Save us and glorifie His Father then to obtain unto Himself the first place in all things Yet true it is that such was the success of this His undertaking as He actually hath the first place in all things For there are but two sorts of things one of those that pertâ—â—â—â—o the first world and its creation the other of those that are of the second world and of the regeneration CHRIST therefore being already the Master and Creator of the former it is evident that having been also established Head of the Church which is the State that consists of the latter and the beginning and first-born of the resurrection of the dead He doth obtain by this means the first place in all things that is to say both in those of the first creation whereof He is the author and in those of the second whereof He is the Head This is the conclusion which the Apostle deduceth from his whole precedent discourse there he said that the LORD is the image of the invisible GOD the first-born of every creature the Creator of the Elements and the Angels and moreover the Head of the Church the principle and the first-fruits of the new Creation now he addeth so as He hath the first place in all things This being as seems to me from hence clear enough there is no necessity we should make any longer stay upon the exposition of this Text. It remains that to conclude we do briefly touch at the duties to which the doctrine of the Apostle doth oblige us and the comforts which it doth afford us JESUS CHRIST saith he is the head of the body of the Church These few words if we meditate them as we ought will teach us all that we owe both of obedience to the LORD and of charity to our brethren and of care and respect to our selves As for the LORD since He hath vouchsafed to become our Head it is evident we ought to honour Him with utmost devotion and submit all the actions of our life to His conduct See with what promptitude the body obeyeth the head and with how absolute a submission it follows all its movings The body neither stirreth nor resteth but as the head ordereth It depends entirely on its guidance and never crosseth its orders or resisteth its commands The head hath no sooner conceived a thing but the spirits forthwith present themselves at the place it desireth and each of the members employeth all the vigor and strength it hath to execute its will This is an image of that obedience which the LORD our mystical Head demands of us and this is that which the Apostle meaneth elsewhere Eph. 5.24 when he saith that the Church is subject to Him It 's in vain therefore that they boast themselves to be the Church who do contrary to what the LORD ordaineth who are subject to another beside Him and instead of His orders follow the will of a mortal man owning another head adoring another oracle keeping what He hath forbidden Blessed be His Name for that He hath granted us to disclaim their errour and to hang all our religion upon His sacred lips believing only that truth which He hath revealed to us in His Gospel and engraven in our hearts by His Spirit But what will it profit us to follow Him in our faith if we resist in our manners How can he avouch for His Church a body subject to Mammon to pleasure to ambition and other idols of the world a body wholly bended down to the earth whereas this divine Head is lift up above the Heavens Dear Brethren let us not deceive our selves We cannot be the Church of CHRIST except we be His body and we cannot be His body except we depend absolutely on Him except we cast out of our members the spirit of the Flesh and of the world and take in His to follow it's light and obey it's movings Henceforth then let us so compose our life that it do not contradict our profession Let the LORD JESUS be truly our Head let Him be still above us let Him preside in all our designs let Him conduct our steps and govern all our motions and inspire into us
we now behold upon it It s in this sence that the Apostle St. John gives the name of the Fulness of CHRIST to that total abundance of perfections and divine graces which dwelt in Him His wisdom His justice His sanctification and His redemption when he saith that of His fulness we all have received Joh. 1.16 And it is after the same manner that S. Paul hereafter by the fulness of the Godhead meaneth all the qualities or properties of the Divine Nature its Understanding its Wisdom its Omnipotency it 's Goodness and Infinite Justice saying That in JESVS CHRIST dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Col. 2.9 It is therefore in this sense also as seems to me that we must take the word Fulness in this Text referring it to the things whereof the Apostle had even now spoken when he affirmed That JESVS CHRIST is the Image of the invisible GOD the First-born of every creature by whom all things were created and do subsist the Head of the Church the Beginning and the First-born from the dead holding the first place in all things For these qualities as you see are the perfections and excellencies partly of the Divine Nature and partly of the Humane the former namely His being the Image of GOD and the Master and Author of the Creatures pertaining to the Divine the latter to wit His being the Head of the Church and the First-born from the dead to the Humane so as when the Apostle after these things addeth now For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell it is as much as if He had said For it was the Fathers will that there should appear in His CHRIST a rich and a compleat abundance of all Divine and Humane perfections all the beauty dignity and excellency that replenisheth heaven and earth that adorneth the nature of GOD and of men And so the question which Interpreters debate whether this Fulness should be referred to the Divinity or to the Humanity of our LORD is cleared for this Exposition comprizeth them both the eternal Wisdom and Power of the one with all its attributes the Sanctity and Charity of the other with all the graces which have been given it without measure This is the All-fulness that dwelleth in JESUS CHRIST And the word Dwelleth hath here a great deal of Emphasis For in the stile of Scripture it signifies an abode not transient and for a time only but such as is firm constant and durable So that the Apostle saying That all fulness dwelleth in CHRIST doth thereby shew us that this rich abundance of all Divine and Humane perfections shall eternally be in Him not as the Divine Glory and Majestie erewhile was in the Tabernacle of Moses and in the Temple of Solomon where it lodg'd but for a space not as the irradiations of the Deity in the souls of the Prophets which they fill'd but for some hours finally not as the graces and perfections that do for some years only enrich the bodies and spirits of mortal men old age and a thousand other accidents and in the end death it self quickly despoiling them of the same which makes the sacred Writers say that the comliness of flesh and the fashion of this world passeth away and that it is like to flowers and herbs in whom beauty tarrieth but a few days time without delay plucking it from them and defacing all the lineaments of it Our CHRIST is an eternal Temple which the Glory of GOD filleth both continually and for ever It doth not meerly lodge there it dwelleth there as in its true and incorruptible Sanctuary Never shall the same be void of it This Fulness shall abide eternally in Him But the Apostle saith That it was the good pleasure of the Father that this fulness should dwell in Him By the good pleasure of the Father he meaneth according to the ordinary stile of Scripture the determination and order of the Eternal wisdom of GOD. For CHRIST did not violently snatch up this glory nor did He assume it to Him of Himself He receiv'd it by the will of the Father who gave Him and sent Him into the world pouring into Him all the treasures of His graces that we might draw from His fulness all the good we need for our happiness But further it must be remembred that the Apostle considereth the LORD JESUS here as CHRIST and Mediator and not simply as the Son of GOD he considereth Him in regard of His Office and not in respect to His first and original nature for if you look upon Him this second way it is clear that being GOD Eternal with the Father He receiv'd of Him His Divine Essence with all its fulness not by any Decree of His will or of His good pleasure but by a natural communication that is to say by an Eternal Ineffable and Incomprehensible generation The Creation of the world is a work of the good pleasure of GOD the Generation of the Son is a natural act of the Person of the Father The first was done in time the other is before all time The world which is the effect of Creation had a beginning of being the Son who is the fruit of the foresaid Generation is Eternal without beginning as well as without end of days But this Son who is GOD by nature is CHRIST by the will of the Father for the name CHRIST signifies an Office and not strictly an Essence or a Nature Originally this Office was not fastned to the Person of the Son He might have been the Son without being our Mediator and had subsisted so indeed if the sin of man had not intervened or if the Justice of GOD had left us in the misery whereinto sin had precipitated us But this good and gracious LORD having had compassion on us and resolved thereupon to bring us up from those deeps of death in which we lay did ordain a Mediator who might effect this great work and invested Him with all the qualities and perfections that were necessary for this end It 's therefore precisely under this respect that the Apostle considers JESUS CHRIST here when he saith It was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell He thereby meaneth it was the Fathers will that in this Sacred Person of the Mediator who was established and destinated for our salvation all perfection richness grace and excellency should meet together Divinity and Humanity filled with the infinite aboundance of all the qualities and properties that pertain to them concur Such being His good pleasure He chose His Son GOD co-eternal and co-essential with Himself who uniting all the riches of His Deity with the Humane nature He assumed constituteth one only person in the bosom of which dwelleth all this fulness that is necessary for the charge of Mediator Whence it appears how vain the cavil of Hereticks is who conclude from this passage that the Deity of the
elected and imploy'd to compass it or the love of the Son who for our welfare spared not his own blood Sinner approach the Throne of GOD with boldness He is no longer environed with flames and Lightning flashes He is full of grace and clemency Fear not His indignation or His severity Peace is made Your Rebellions are expiated your sins are purged GOD requires nothing of you but Faith and Repentance His Justice is contented and doubt not but the satisfaction it hath received is sufficient He that made it for you is the Well-beloved of the Father the Lord of glory in whom all fulness dwelleth You will find abundantly in Him all the good things that are necessary for your felicity the light of wisdom to dissipate your darkness and illuminate your understandings unto a perfect knowledge of Divine things a righteousness most compleat and of proof every way to justifie and exempt you from the Curse of the Law and to open the entrance of the Tribunal of GOD to you A most efficacious Sanctification to mortifie the lusts of your flesh and fill you with Charity Honesty and Purity And a most plentiful Redemption to deliver you from death and from all the evils that have connexion with it and put you in Eternal possession of Immortality Make your advantage of this Divine Well of Life Give no ear to them that call you any otherwhere You are happy enough if you possess the LORD JESUS He is the only Prince of Salvation the Way the Truth and the Life And as for Creatures whether Earthly or Heavenly fear them not If you are JESUS CHRIST's they shall do you no evil He hath reconcil'd them all to you He hath taken out of them all the will and all the power they had to hurt you They desire your good and secretly favour you owning you for their Friends and Allies Heaven looks down on you in peace and calleth you up into its holy place The Angels bless you and direct all your ways This Earth will hold you no longer than your common LORD shall judge expedient for His own glory and your salvation But if this general peace which you have now with GOD and the World do rejoyce you the means by which it was procured should no less ravish you even that blood of CHRIST shed out upon a Cross the grand Miracle of GOD the price of your Liberty the Salvation and the Glory of the Universe What and how ardent was that love which gave so rich and so admirable a Ransom for you What will He deny you who hath not kept back His own blood from you who to make you happy abhorred not a Cross the most infamous of all punishments who to raise you up to the most eminent Contentments underwent the extremest Dolours the lowest disgrace to bring you unto highest glory the Malidiction of GOD to communicate to you His Benediction O over-happy Christians if you could discern your blisses Where is the anguish of Spirit or the trouble of Conscience or the loss or the suffering or the reproach which the meditation of this love should not consolate Who shall condemn us since the Son of GOD dyed to merit our Absolution Who shall accuse us since His Blood and His Cross defend us Who shall take from us the Benevolence of the Father since He hath obtain'd it for us and conserves it towards us Who shall pluck out of our hands a life He hath given us a Salvation that He hath so dearly bought But dear Brethren these considerations which open to us so rich a Source of Consolation oblige us also to a singular Sanctification For how great will be the hardness of our hearts if these great evidences which GOD hath given us of His love do not affect us if they kindle not in us an ardent affection towards a GOD who hath so loved us a sacred and inviolable respect towards a Redeemer who hath done so much for us He hath reconciled and reunited all things in Him both Terrestrial and Celestial Let us live then henceforth in such sort as may answer this happy alliance Let us no more afflict heaven no more scandalize the earth by the impurity of our deportments Let us labour in conjunction with all the Creatures for the service and to glory of our common LORD Imitate we the purity the zeal and the obsequiousness of those Celestial Spirits into whose Society we are entred by the benefit of this Reconciliation Let us be cloathed as they are with a beautiful and pleasing light Our lot is to be one day like them in Immortality let us be so for the present in Sanctity Our peace is made with GOD. Let us not make war upon Him any more He hath pardoned us all the exorbitancies and rage of our Rebellion never turn we to any of them again He will be our good LORD and gracious Master Be we His faithful Subjects and obedient Servants Let the Blood of CHRIST wipe away both our guilt and our filth Fasten we our old man to His Cross Let the nails that there pierced His flesh pierce also the members of ours Let the Cross that made Him dye make to dye all our lusts and extinguish by little and little in us that earthly carnal and vicious life which we derive from the first Adam to regenerate and raise us up again with the second unto a new an holy and spiritual life worthy of that Blood by which he He hath purchas'd it for us and of that Spirit by whom He hath communicated the beginnings of it to us and of that Sanctuary of Immortality where He will fully finish it one day to His own glory and our eternal blessedness Amen THE XI SERMON COL I. Ver. XXI XXII Vers XXI And you who were somtime estranged from Him and who were His enemies in your understanding in wicked works XXII Yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh by death to render you holy and without spot and unreprovable before Him DEar Brethren It was long since observed by Philosophers and we still find it by experience that general things do move the spirits of men very little The cause is that being naturally glewed up too close every one to his particular interests they mind only that which toucheth the same and are not sollicitous about a common concern till they are made some way smartly sensible that themselves have part in it The ministers of the Church therefore should not content themselves with proposing the maxims of heavenly doctrine in gross and in general only to the souls whose edification is committed to them that they may get hold of them and produce some good effect upon them they must apply to them in particular each of those Divine verities St. Paul whose example should serve for a rule to all the true servants of GOD takes this course in divers places of His Epistles and particularly in the Text we have now read you For
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
that is necessary for you Let your whole life be taken up in the continual handling of these Divine Jewels in admiring the beauty and using the brightness of them Let it be all the passion of your souls the matter of your joys and the consolation of your troubles If you have not those false good things which the world so much glorieth in remember that you have the treasures of Heaven the portion of Angels the wisdom and knowledg of happiness Take heed that none bereave you of so rich a possession Shut your ear against the prattle and plausible discoursings of Seducers Conserve this treasure couragiously against their attempts nor be content to have it only communicate it to your neighbours lay forth the wonders of it before their eyes adorning all the parts of your life with it Let the innocency and sanctity and sweetness and humility of the LORD JESUS shine out in it Let these be your Pearls and your Jewels and your Ornaments before men which may constrain them to acknowledg that JESUS CHRIST dwells in the midst of you and to say Of a truth this Nation is a wise and understanding people Above all instruct your Children in this knowledg Leave them this wisdom for an inheritance Such a portion is enough to make them happy whereas without this they cannot possibly be other than fools and wretches though you should leave them all the wealth of the East and West Finally since the Apostle assureth us that all the treasures of wisdom are in JESUS CHRIST let us content our selves with him alone and centemn the vanity of those who under any pretence whatsoever would make pass for wisdom doctrines that are forreign and without the sphere of CHRIST Let us not so much as give them the hearing It 's warrant enough for us to reject them that they make up no part of the treasure of JESUS CHRIST I stand not to enquire whether they be true or false helpful or hurtful It sufficeth me that whatever they be otherways they are not in CHRIST Nothing is to be received in Religion but what comes out of this treasury GOD who hath given it us in his abundant mercy and who calleth us to partake also of it the LORD's day next grant us to conserve it pure and entire to possess it with joy and respect in this world and reap the full fruit of it in that which is to come So be it THE EIGHTEENTH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER IV V. Ver. IV. But this I say that none may deceive you by words of perswasion V. For though I am absent in body yet in spirit I am with you rejoycing and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith which you have in CHRIST AS men do not naturally love and desire but things which have an appearance of good so they believe none but those that have a semblance of truth and they lay down love of the one and belief of the others as soon as they certainly discover that the former are evil and the latter untrue Whence it comes that being prepossessed upon some general and confused knowledg with conceit that the enjoyment or belief of a thing would be profitable and advantageous to them they wish it prove good and true evidently presupposing that otherwise their very nature could not permit them to love it or believe it This is to be seen in children themselves who are the sincerest and most natural map of the motions of our nature For when their Nurses tell them any thing they ask if it be true and if the tale please them they are troubled when they perceive it is but a tale and would have it true that they might believe it So deeply imprinted in the mind of all reasonable Creatures is this sacred and inviolable principle of their nature that nothing is to be believed but what is true This advantage which truth naturally hath over falshood doth enforce its very enemies to counterfeit its mark and wear its livery they being sensible that their errors and falshoods can have no passage among men except they go under the appearance of some truth Even as Coiners that they may put off their Copper and Lead do give it the colour and resemblance of Gold and Silver and counterfeit the image and stamp of a lawful Prince or as they that would travel through an enemy's Countrey do privily accommodate themselves with the enemy's badges so Seducers well knowing that the understanding of man is the proper and lawful Kingdom of truth where nothing passes but under the avouching and marks of the same do fard and disguise the fictions which they would put off and give them as finely as they can the countenance and colour of truth that by the means of this false resemblance they may pass currant among men who would reject them immediately if they saw them in their own natural likeness There hath ever been a great number of these cheats in the world a multitude of persons being every where found who pricked forward by ambition or some other particular interest do strive to bring their fancies and dreams into reputation But as Christian Religion compriseth the best and most important Verities in the world so there never was any profession that Error and Imposture have more laboured to corrupt both by decrying some of its true doctrines on one hand and by intermingling of falshoods on the other And as all the artifice of such unhappy wits tendeth only to confound truth and lies so ought we to employ the utmost of our industry that we may effectually sever them and so discern them as we never take the one for the other This discerning dear Brethren is one of the most important duties of our life It is loss I confess to take Copper for Gold and bad money for good and it is moreover ignorance ever shameful sometimes not a little hurtful to receive an error for truth in Philosophy and in civil life But yet the loss and shame that accrues from all this kind of cheats reacheth no further than the present time whereas the consequents of those impostures which we suffer in Religion do extend even to eternity For this cause the holy Apostle often warneth the faithful Rom. 16.17 1 Thes 5.21 Eph. 4.14 Heb. 5.14 to whom he writeth to beware of them and to try all things with a great deal of care that they may not be inveigled by seducers nor take up their traditions for truths willing every sound and thorough Christian to have his senses exercised and habituated to discern between good and evil You may have observed in the Text we have read that this is the happiness which he wisheth and would procure to the Colossians keeping them from being drawn in by the fair speeches of those seducers that courted them He had afore represented to them at large the abundance and excellency of the benefits of their LORD and Saviour and he protested again in the
verse immediately foregoing as you heard if you remember in our last Exercise upon this subject that in JESVS CHRIST are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg Now he sheweth them the design upon which he so instantly repeateth what he seemed to have sufficiently treated of in the precedent Texts Now this I say saith he that none may deceive you with words of perswasion And to give evidence that he did not put himself to this trouble vainly or rashly he adds in the following verse the knowledg that he had of their estate it being as really before his eyes as if he were upon the place For saith he though I am absent in body yet in spirit I am with you rejoycing and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith which you have in CHRIST Thus we shall have two points to handle for the giving you a full and entire understanding of this Text. First The Apostle's care of these Christians that they might not be seduced And Secondly The cognizance he took of their present state though he was in body far distant from them We will consider them both if GOD permit as briefly as we can pointing at what we judg useful for your edification and consolation both in the one and the other The first of these two points the Apostle expresseth in these words But this I say that none may deceive you by words of perswasion Upon which words we shall have two things to examine The danger the Colossians were in and the usefulness of that which the Apostle says to preserve them from incurring it The danger was great and the evil which it threatned grievous and mortal even the being deceived and seduced by the perswasive words which false Teachers used in this wretched design There never was any servants of CHRIST but such a tentation did beset them Satan no sooner seeing the truth of the Gospel any where appear but he immediately raiseth up Impostors to corrupt it and turn away those that embrace it from the purity and simplicity thereof But especially at the beginning of Christianity when it was first preached and sounded by the holy Apostles then there arose a multitude of seducers who did their utmost to deprave and marr this divine seed of the salvation of men and the Devil made like attempts in our Fathers days when perceiving the Gospel to be revived that he might presently obstruct this holy work he speedily brought into the field a world of spirits some audacious and extravagant others subtil and selfish which endeavoured to scandalize or to seduce the simple those by the prodigies of their fond imaginations these by the plausible appearances of their false accommodations But they which troubled the Church in the Apostle's time did address themselves among others to the Colossians in particular as appears both by what he intimateth briefly here and more clearly yet by what he addeth in the series of this Chapter He doth not name them but his saying that none deceive you is a sufficient evidence that there were some crastsmen of this quality about them who took pains to ensnare them It is therefore thâ—â—â— same he aimeth at and against the force of their seducements doth he arm the Colossians He sheweth here both the end to which they tended even the deceiving of the faithful and the means they used about it namely words of perswasion The term he pitcheth upon to express the first of these doth not signifie simply to deceive but to deceive by false and captious ratiocination For these bad men knowing well that the spirits of men are not brought to embrace nor avoid any thing without some reason it being the natural order and disposition of all our actions and motions that the understanding do still precede the will they begin the effecting of our ruin there and to entangle our minds in their errors they propose us reasons false indeed but appearing otherwise such as have the colour and countenance but not the essential form and substance of a good and solid discourse This the word Paralogism here used by the Apostle doth properly signifie It 's a sophism a false and spurious arguing which by its vain appearance and fallacious blaze leadeth men into error as those fatuous fires which rising sometimes in the dark of night do trail those that follow them into precipices Satan the Father of all Sophisters took this course first having miserably seduced our first Parents by the illusion of a false discourse the vanity whereof experience clearly demonstrated for that he might corrupt their will he attaqued their understandings in the first place and beguiled them that he might destroy them perswading that the forbidden fruit would make them like GOD. Those whom he hath set on work since that time have all followed this method there having never risen Heretick either under the Old or the New Testament but hath painted over his impostures with some deceivable reasons Only this difference may be observ'd among such men that some do the thing maliciously and against their own conscience others through ignorance The former sort are true children of the Devil and the most execrable of all men as combating that truth which they are conscious of and defending error by reasons whose vanity they well understand neverthelss they forbear not to labour in this unhappy desing either for the acquiring of glory to themselves or for creating trouble to Teachers of truth whom they have conceiv'd an hatred of Those of the other sort who do it through ignorance have less guilt and wickedness I confess but are no less dangerous For believing in good earnest the errors which they do advance they strive to perswade others to them with so much the more passion and fervency as imagining that they serve them when they indeed destroy them and that they edifie when in truth they ruin them Rom. 10.2 Such were those Jews of whom S. Paul beareth witness that they had a zeal of God but without knowledg They believ'd themselves the error which they recommended and were in those snares wherewith they sought to entangle others And in this rank we must place the most of those of the Roman Communion who take so much pains to draw us into their mistakes not only those of the people but also many of their Monks and of their Doctors who labour to deceive others because they have been themselves deceiv'd having run into that erroneous perswasion into which they would induce us and confirmed themselves from time to time in it by those sophisms and false reasonings which they offer us and which they have either learnt of their instructors or invented of themselves We must equally take heed of both these sorts of workers For how different soever the motive of their acting be the effect of it is ever the same even seduction and perdition And as poyson forbears not to kill the man that takes it though it have been ignorantly given
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
or avarice or any of those loathsome defilements that do disfigure the whole life of worldlings The LORD JESUS who hath given us this excellent Divine Doctrine who hath founded it by his death and set it up by his resurrection who also hath in these latter times purged it afresh both of the vanities of Philosophy and of the traditions of men and of the elements of the world please to confirm us in it for ever by his good Spirit and to make it so efficacious for the sanctification of our life that after we have finished this earthly pilgrimage we may receive one day at our going forth of this vale of tears from his merciful hand the Crown of immortality which he hath promis'd and prepar'd for all true observers of his Discipline Amen The Twenty-first SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER IX Ver. IX For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily AS the Christian Religion doth consist in Principles and Practises incompably more sublime and salutiferous than any that the world ever learned in the Schools of Nature and the Law so was it delivered and instituted by an Author infinitely more excellent than any of those were who ever erected other Disciplines among men I will not insist upon the Authors of those various Religions which bore sway heretofore in the time of Paganism who though they were in esteem among Nations and raised to an high reputation of wisdom and vertue yet had the taint of an extream ignorance and vanity as their own Institutions sufficiently discover to any one that will take the pains to examine them in the light of Reason It would be injurious to the LORD JESUS the Founder and Prince of Christianity to compare him with such people But even Moses himself the great Teacher of the Hebrews and the Prophets who commented on explained and confirmed his Law are all insinitely beneath the dignity of this new Law-giver They were I grant Ministers of GOD the Mouth and Organs of his Majesty the Interpreters of his Will and Heralds of his Truth being endued as was suitable to so high Offices with an excellent sanctity a rare and extraordinary Wisdom and an heavenly Power which evidenced it self in them by miraculous effects But after all they were men and never pretended to be ranked above that feeble nature which was common unto them and us nor did receive any of those Honours which belong to the Divine whereas the LORD JESUS is so Man as he is likewise GOD blessed for ever and was so far from refusing Divine Honours that he hath expresly required them at our hands and enjoined us to adore him with the Father and to acknowledg him his Eternal Son This same difference the Apostle observes between the LORD JESUS and those other Ministers which GOD made use of in the former Ages God saith he having at sundry times and in divers manners in time past spoken unto the fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son Ebr. 1.1 Moses and the rest were Prophets of GOD JESUS is his Son The others were his Ministers JESUS is his Heir The others were faithful as Servants Ebr. 3.5 6. JESUS as Son is over the whole House In the others there did shine forth some marks of the commerce they had with GOD that Soveraign Majesty imprinting on their faces as upon Moses's in particular some sparklings of his glory But JESUS is His very Light the resplendency of his glory and the character of his Person Dear Brethren it doth highly concern us to know rightly this great dignity of our LORD and Saviour not only for the rendring to his Person the worship we owe him and of which we may not fail without offending the Father as himself hath told us John 5.23 He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father who hath sent him but also for our embracing with so much the more zeal the Religion he hath delivered us without ever admitting the perswasion that either men on earth or even Angels from Heaven can add any thing to the light the goodness and the perfection of the discipline of so great and so perfect an Author For this cause doth S. Paul here hold forth to the Colossians the Divinity of our LORD JESUS CHRIST In the precedent Verses he exhorted them to constant perseverance in the belief of his Gospel confirming themselves in it more and more and taking heed they gave no car to Philosophy and the vain traditions of seducers who endeavoured to corrupt sound doctrine by the mixing of divers inventions which they would add to it as if it were not perfect enough of it self to guide us to salvation The Apostle to bereave Error of this pretext and shew the faithful not only the sufficiency but even abounding of the Gospel represents unto them the soveraign perfection and divinity of its Author For in him saith he dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Since you have JESUS CHRIST saith he there is no need of recourse to others In Him as in a living and inexhaustible spring is all good necessary to your happiness a divine Authority to found your Faith an infinite Wisdom to direct you in all truth an incomprehensible Goodness and Power to give you grace and glory a quickning Spirit to sanctifie and comfort you All other things compared to Him are but poverty and weakness See how the Apostle fortifies the faithful in the doctrine of the LORD and in few words overthrows all that the presumption of flesh and blood may dare to set up beside or against his perfect truth For a right understanding of his words we must consider them exactly For though the number of them be small their weight is great they are rich and magnifick in sense and do contain within their narrow compass one of the noblest and fullest descriptions of JESUS CHRIST that is found in Scripture Let us see then first what all this fulness of the Godhead is whereof the Apostle speaketh And then in the second place how it dwells in JESUS CHRIST to wit bodily The LORD please to conduct us by the light of his own Spirit in so high a Meditation that of his fulness we may receive grace for grace and draw from it what may fill our souls with that life and salvation which overfloweth in him and can be no where found at all but in him As for the subject it self whereof S. Paul speaketh and in which he saith that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth none can doubt but that it is our LORD JESUS CHRIST For having said at the end of the verse immediately foregoing that the traditions of men and rudiments of the world are not after CHRIST he now addeth For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead Whence it is clear that the LORD JESUS CHRIST whom he had even then named is the Person of whom he speaks and to whom he attributes
LORD And it must be confess'd that this figure is marvellously elegant and proper for this matter For even as the body comprehendeth in its self several members which have each of them their particular function and exercise in like manner this mass of corruption which we bear about in our nature is composed of many different Vices which have each of them their peculiar motion and operation Ambition tendeth one way Avarice and Intemperance another Envy defileth us in one manner Cruelty in another and each of these pests hath its own sentiment and ends Their motions are sometimes even contrary and do thwart one another as unclean spirits that are not at an agreement However at the bottom all these evils come from one and the same source and live in one and the same mass as all the members do make up but one and the same body Hence it is that the Apostle sometimes considering sins under this notion calleth them our members or the members of our flesh Col. 3.5 as when he commands us to mortifie our members which are upon the earth to wit fornication uncleanness inordinate affection and other like Vices Moreover as this body in which we live doth cover us all about so that mass of Vices wherewith our nature is infected doth encompass and on wrap us on all sides there being no part or faculty in us but is as it were invested and besieged with it Such is the corruption that we derive from the first Adam and by reason thereof the Apostle sometimes also calleth it the old man He saith therefore that the circumcision which we have in JESUS CHRIST is the putting off of this body of the sins of the flesh when the faithful person by the virtue of the Word and Spirit of the LORD JESUS doth cut off all the vices of the flesh which are the members thereof and strips himself of this old habit of sin and death wherewith the first Adam clothed us This is that which in the same sense he elsewhere calleth a putting off the old man as to former conversation Eph. 4.22 Col. 3.8 Gal. 5.24 which is corrupted by deceitful lusts And in this present Epistle a putting off of anger malignity and evil speaking and other such sins and again in another place a crucifying of the flesh with its affections and lusts All this amounts to the same sense and signifieth the mortifying of the flesh and the cutting off of its Vices that there may be an abstaining from all the sins which they are wont to produce in the lives of men of the world The Apostle adds in the end that this is the circumcision of CHRIST First because our LORD and Saviour hath expresly instituted it in his Gospel commanding us to be born again to deny our selves to change our deportments to put on a simplicity and humility like that of little children and to break all the ties we have with the flesh and the world if we will follow him and have part in his Kingdom This is the first and most important instruction in his Discipline Secondly It is the circumcision of CHRIST because it 's he alone who is the Author of it and doth effect it in us neither is there ought but his Gospel alone that can unclothe man of this body of the sins of the flesh For it is not possible but that a soul on whom the Doctrine of JESUS CHRIST hath been imprinted by the power of the Holy Ghost should renounce the world and the flesh Philosophy was so far from curing this malady that it did not so much as know it exâ—ctly The Law discovered it indeed and made man to feel the tyrannous strength of this rebellious body of the flesh wherewith he is naturally clothed and surrounded But it was unable to subdue and mortifie it as the Apostle teacheth us at large in the seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans There is none but JESUS CHRIST who by the efficacy of his heavenly truths and the divine examples of his holiness thrust down into our hearts by the hand of his Spirit can circumcise us in this manner unfolding and dis-investing us by little and little of these wretched bonds and weakning and extinguishing the life of the flesh in us Compare now this Circumcision of our Saviour's with that of Moses and you will without difficulty perceive that it infinitely surpasseth it in dignity and excellency That of Moses wounded the body this of CHRIST enliveneth the soul The one par'd away a little skin the other mortifies the whole body of the flesh The one was in its self but a typical ceremony the other is a mystical verity The one mark'd the flesh the other maketh better and ennobleth the heart Without the one a man could have no part in the communion of the carnal Jews and by the other we enter into the alliance of the spiritual Jews whole praise is of GOD and not of men Whereby you may judg how extravagant the conceit of those seducers was whom the Apostle doth in this place oppose who notwithstanding that excellent and divine circumcision which Christians have receiv'd in their Saviour's School would yet bring them under that of Moses which was poor and weak and so many ways defective as if Christians could not upon a far better ground than the Jews glory that they truly are GOD's circumcised Now for a right comprehending of the force of the Apostle's reasoning it must be remembred that circumcision as well as the other ceremonies of the Mosaick Law was a figure which represented the abscission of the vices and lusts of the flesh as the Prophets themselves do clearly enough shew when they promise the ancient people that GOD will circumcise their heart and the heart of their seed Deut. 30.6 Jer. 4.4 that they may love him and live and command them to circumcise themselves unto the LORD and to take away the fore-skin of their hearts an evident sign that this external action did refer to the internal mortification and sanctification of the soul Since then the figure is unprofitable when the truth is attained and models do serve only till the things themselves be formed and perfected the use of them when this is done being no longer necessary you plainâ—y see that from the Apostle's saying here that in JESUS CHRIST we have this putting off or cutting off of the sins of the flesh that is the truth whereof circumcision was the figure and model it evidently follows that it is no longer necessary for us and that a wilful retaining of it still is an accusing of JESUS CHRIST of having not fulfilled in his Discipline the thing represented by this ancient type Iâ—'s true that even in the time of the Old Testament the faithful had some part of the sanctification signifi'd by their circumcision but what they had was weak and in small measure because the true causes on which it dependeth being all comprised in the Mysteries of
the New Testament were then but fore-told and promised not fully and clearly revealed as now by their accomplishment they have been by means whereof it was meet that during all that time they should be exercis'd in the observing of these typical rites and held in and kept under the Pedagogie of Moses until the fulness of time according to the Apostle's Doctrine in the Epistle to the Galatians Now that JESUS CHRIST hath openly exhibited the very body of truth and fully brought to light all the causes and motives of true sanctification these exercises of the Church's infancy are no longer seasonable and they that still stick to them are no less ridiculous than he that would still keep up the centries of a vault or the models of a building even after the Fabrick is finish'd and brought to its perfection or retain under a School-master's Ferule and in the restraints of childhood a man grown up and come to ripeness of years This is that we had to say for the exposition of this Text. It remaineth for a conclusion that we extract those instructions and consolations which if we meditate on it attentively it will afford us First Since the Apostle assureth us that we are compleat in CHRIST you see how vain those mens pretensions are who set forth certain rules of perfection as they call them beyond the Gospel Let us content our selves with our LORD's fulness and seek our perfection in him alone And instead of amusing our selves about the inventions of men embrace and practise CHRIST's Discipline advancing daily towards the utmost degree of perfectness For we may not flatter our selves with an imagination that a man may nevertheless appertain to him though he lead an wholly vicious and corrupt life S. Paul here protesteth plainly to us that all such as are in him are made compleat Whence it necessarily follows that such as are not compleat are without his communion and by consequence should not promise themselves any share in his salvation it being prepared for those only that are in him If this Doctrine do trouble us let us impute it to our vices and our loosness and taking once this truth to heart with all our might endeavour after that perfection which is in JESUS CHRIST accounting that without it we cannot possess either his grace in this world or his glory in the world to come I well know that to speak absolutely no one is perfect and that if we compare our condition on earth with that in heaven all our perfections are but weaknesses Yet it is true that JESUS CHRIST doth even in this life in some sense compleat his faithful ones and this perfection which he giveth them is not a vain name or an imagination It 's a thing and a most real truth it is a piety and charity sincere and free and without hypocrisie which though it sometimes fail doth notwithstanding produce true fruits and works quite different from those of Worldlings and Hypocrites according to what our LORD said even that if your righteousness do not exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven Object not that you are yet on earth and that perfection is not to be found but in heaven and that to live as an Angel one should be without a body It is not the perfection of Heaven that we demand of you The LORD will not reject you for having not had in this life the transcendent brightness of the next But though a child be not obliged to conduct his life with as much prudence and reason as a man of years it doth not follow that he hath licence to live without rule and in the debanches and disorders of slaves Every Age hath its bounds and its measures and its perfection Our childhood here below must not be without discipline under the pretence that it is not come to full growth Christians I complain not that there are defects in your knowledg and practice which have no place in Heaven but that there are in you vices which ought to have no place on earth I blame you not for that there is a great difference between you and Angels but that there is none between you and worldly men I require not what is above the strength of your age but what is worthy of your profession and doth not at all exceed your light I beseech you only to labour as much for JESUS CHRIST as the children of this generation do for the interests of their lusts This doth not exceed the capacity of our nature since you see what the servants of sin do and it s necessarily your duty except you imagine that we owe less to JESUS CHRIST than Worldlings do to their foolish and vain passions The first piece of that compleatness which we have in him is this Divine Circumcision which is not made with hand but by the efficacy of his Spirit Without it we can have neither place in the communion of his people nor right to his Inheritance It 's a Circumcision of which we may truly say that every soul that shall not have receiv'd it shall be cut off from his people The Apostle shews us wherein it consists to wit in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh JESUS CHRIST hath put the sword in our hand that 's necessary to cut away this wretched flesh namely his sacred word wherein he discovers the horridness of sin and infernal venom of vices and the vanity and iniquity of all the lusts of the flesh He hath shew'd us the perdition which they that serve it fall into and hath put it to death on his Cross and buried it in his Sepulcher He hath spread before our eyes the wonders of GOD's love and the eternity of the Kingdom appointed for faithful servants He hath given us rules and examples of this part of our sanctification in his Gospel and in his life and offereth us the lights and consolations of his Spirit to lead us in this work Grasp we then this Divine Knife of his Gospel Thrust it hardily in to our hearts and cut out thence all the impurity of the vices that are there Let us rid our selves of them and cast them behind us Exterminate all the productions of the flesh as execrable things Leave not one of them in our selves Having subdued Avarice combat Ambition Pluck out Luxury and all its passions from our inward parts Root up Hatred and Wrath and Cruelty and spare the life of none of these Monsters Let us not rest until we have cleansed our hearts of all this cursed brood For it is not enough to have cut off some of them One sole Enemy abiding in our bosome is able to destroy us The body of the sins of the flesh must be put off saith the Apostle and not one or two of its sins only I confess the labour is hard but it is necessary and that at all times for it is the
two things namely first the corruption of a nature destitute of all just and rational apprehensions and motions and secondly the guilt of sin and an obligâ—tion to eternal punishment In like manner that life to which GOD calleth us by his grace doth consist in two particulars first a restauration of His Image in us by the infusion of principles and faculties of true life and secondly the remission of our sins The Apostle here doth briefly speak of them both of the first in saying that GOD hath quickned us together with CHRIST of the second in adding that he hath freely pardoned us all our sins For the first GOD hath quickned us in that delivering us from the death we were under he hath put into us by the grace of his Spirit the principles of an heavenly life and formed in our breasts new hearts hearts illuminated with a new light to wit the good knowledg of his Truth and of the mysteries of his will Then in the second place by the virtue of this Divine flame he enkindleth in our souls the love of his most excellent Majesty charity towards our neighbour uâ—â—ection for just and honest things zeal for his glory abhorrence and hatred of sin and in a word sanctification and all the virtues which it comprehendeth that are the sproutings and productions of this second celestial and happy life which in his great mercy he conferreth on us From this new nature as from a blessed root do issue good and holy actions prayer worshipping of GOD frequent meditation and reading of his word extasies of love to him travels for his glory sufferings for his Name sake relieving instructing assisting of our Neighbour and such others that are as it were the flowers and fruits in the production whereof that life which GOD hath given us in his Son doth properly consist It 's the same thing that the Apostle elsewhere compriseth in few words saying Eph. 2.10 and 4.24 that we are the workmanship of GOD being created in JESVS CHRIST unto good works which GOD hath prepared that we should walk in them And again in another place that our new man that is the second nature which he formeth in us when he quickneth us by his grace is created after GOD in true righteousness and holiness The holy Spirit being rich and magnificent in its expressions doth explain this admirable and blessed operation of the grace of GOD in us by divers terms taken from different resemblances but all amounting to the same sense For to set it forth it saith not only as here that GOD hath quickned us but also Eph. 2.10 1 Pet. 1.3 Ezek. 36.26 Jer. 31.33 Rom. 11 23. Col. 1.13 1 Cor 3.6 Acts 16.4 Phil. 2.13 that He hath created us and in another place that He hath begotten us again the same is meant when it saith that GOD taketh out of us our hearts of stone and gives us hearts of flesh in which he writes his laws that He reneweth us and formeth us into new creatures or new men that He graffeth us by his power into the true olive that He translateth us out of the kingdom of darkness into his marvellous light that it 's He who giveth encrease the Ministers of the Word being nothing that He openeth our hearts and worketh in us effectually both to will and to do of his good pleasure and other like phrases which are found here and there in the Scriptures But the Apostle addeth here that GOD hath thus quickned us together with CHRIST shewing us by these words the cause and the manner of our vivisication namely that it was effected in JESUS CHRIST and with Him and by Him For as that death which we heretofore bore in our selves doth come from Adam the stock and original of our carnal beeing who by destroying himself destroyed us also with him and corrupting his own nature corrupted ours likewise so as it is in him and from him that we inherit this misery in like manner on the contrary that life which we have now receiv'd from GOD doth come from JESUS CHRIST the stock and root of the new nature who raising up himself unto life raised us up also according to what the Apostle saith elsewhere viz. that as all dye in Adam so likewise in JESVS CHRIST are all made alive But this assertion of his here that GOD hath quickned us together with CHRIST 1 Cor. 15.22 doth particularly refer to his resurrection as if GOD in restoring him to that glorious life which he receiv'd at his issuing out of the Sepulcher had at the same time given us also part therein And he speaks in this manner for two reasons principally The first is because it was then that JESUS CHRIST brought to light that blessed life whereof we have been made partakers and from him as from its source hath it been derived unto us so as that same time was the day of our new birth as well as his For if he had not been made alive no more should we have ever been Not but that the Father all had the might and power that was necessary to give us life again But his Justice could not have suffer'd him to give life to any of the sons of men if their Surety and Mediator had abode under death The second reason is That he being our Head and we his Members he our Pattern and we Copies drawn if I may so say from his Original when GOD raised him he re-enliven'd us also by the same means since by this action he obliged himself to vivifie us likewise it being evident that without this we should not have that conformity with our Head to which he predestinated us Not to mention for the present the efficacy this Resurrection hath to form in us faith and hope and love of glorious immortality which are the principles of that new life that GOD doth put into us by his Spirit as we intimated in the exposition of the precedent Verse There remains now the other part of this blessed life which GOD giveth us in his Son namely the remission of our sins S. Paul sets it before us here when he saith that GOD hath freely pardoned us all our sins For the Spirit of Sanctification which is as the soul of that new life he createth in our hearts doth indeed turn away our affections from vice and obstruct our committing of unjust ungodly and impure actions wherein we wallowed afore Yet this respecteth only the present and the future and if there were no more the guilt of sins committed in time past during our spiritual deadness would nevertheless remain in its strength it being clear that though the act of sin be past the faultiness wherewith it commaculates him who committeth it goes not off so soon It subsists still both in the conscience of the sinner if he have any and in the registers of the Justice of the Supream Judg of the World binding over the sinner unto punishment Whence it follows
and Powers These are the Enemies whom the LORD JESUS hath overcome and utterly defeated on the Cross as himself reported the evening before his passion saying that the Prince of this world was then judged that is was about to be condemned And S. Paul elsewhere saith Heb. 2 1â— that JESVS hath by his death destroyed him that had the power of death to wit the Devil Let us now see how our Saviour hath spoiled these Principalities and Powers and publickly made a shew of them triumphing over them on the Cross First It is evident that all this language of the Apostle's is figurative and taken from what great Captains that had been victorious over their Enemies were heretofore wont to do For after they had spoiled them not only Arms Habits Jewels and Baggage but also of their Estates and all their Glory they led them away prisoners and made a shew of them to their Countrey-men on the day of their triumph This name the Romans gave to the pomps of that entry which their Captains and Generals of a Victorious Army made into their City For when any of them had won a Battel taken Towns conquer'd Countreys or done any great and notable exploit of warr one of the principal and most prized Honours that were decreed him for a reward of his valour was a Triumphâ— which was acted with incredible pomp and ceremony The Conqueror was mounted on a stately Chariot magnificently cloth'd and crowned His whole Army marched before and after him in Military order every Troop under its Ensigns and Colours The heads and principal of the Enemies followed his Chariot bound and in chains There was carried along all the Gold and Silver and other Treasures he had won from the Enemy The Towns he had taken the Rivers he had pass'd the Provinces he had subdued the Battels he had given were represented in Picture and exposed to the view of the people who with great festivity and rejoycing accompanied in throng or beheld him from the windows of their houses and filled the air with their acclamations and applauses He entred Rome in this â—quipage and passing through the fairest Streets of the City ascended the Capitol the chief of their Temples where he betook himself to offer sacrifice after he had thus displayed the fruits of his Victories before the eyes of all thâ— world and received all kind of benedictions and praises from his fellow Citizens This is properly that which was called a Triumph The Apostle therefore fetching his terms from this custom which was well known at that time and familiar to every one doth apply them to our LORD and Saviour because of that resemblance we find between the pomp of his mystical victory and this Triumph of Sâ—cular Rulers and Captains He tells us that he hath spoiled these hostile Principalities and Powers He saith that he hath publickly made a shew of them In fine he affirms that he hath triumphed on the Cross expressions all of them manifestly taken as you see from that glorious pomp of the Roman Triumphs which we have now described and which for substance do signifie no other thing but that JESUS dying on the Cross hath fully vanquish'd and defeated the Devil with all his power in the view of Heaven and Earth In prosecution hereof we are to refute the false expositions which some do give of this passage Themas Loranus Cajetan and after that render you an account of the true Some of the famousest Interpreters of the Church of Rome do understand it of the deliverance of the Fathers whom our Saviour as those men say took out of that Limbus in which their spirits were and led them to Heaven with them He spoiled principalities and powers that is the Devils from whom he took away what they kept in Hell forasmuch say they as he caused Adam Noah Abraham Isaac and Jacob with the rest of the faithful who deceased under the Old Testament to come forth from their Limbus which is one of the partitions of the infernâ—l Region Then they say he led them carrying them up to Heaven and giving them entrance into Jerusalem on high whence they had been until then excluded And he made them triumph in himself for so the same Authors do read the Apostle's words that is He made them to participate of his triumph in that they had the honour to accompany and enter into Heaven with him But scarce can a thing be uttered more false more forced and more impertinent than this whole interpretation First That which it supposeth of the abode of the spirits of the old believers in a subterraneous and infernal Limbus is uncertain and fabulous being sounded only upon the tradition of men and not on any authority of the word of GOD. As for that which they commonly alledg to prove it namely Gen. 37.35 Jacob's saying that he would go down into Hell unto his Son Joseph they that are versed in Scripture do well know the word Inferi or Hell in that place in particular and almost every other where in the Book of GOD doth signifie the Grave Whence it comes that the same Patriarch saith elsewhere unto his sons that if any evil befel Benjamin they would make his white hairs descend with sorrow ad inferos to Hell as divers read it where it is clear that by the same word he means the Grave into which the dead go down with their hairs and not Limbus into which only souls descended who have no hair sure And as to what they produce of the pretended soul of Samuel call'd up from Hell by the Sorceress her charms where is the Christian that doth not burn to see such power granted the Ministers of Devils over the Spirits of Prophets God forbid we should credit so gross an absurdity That which the Enchantress saw came from Hell I confess but that which she saw was not in truth the soul of Samuel which was at rest with GOD in Ahraham's bosome It was nothing but a vain shadow and a phantasm of that Prophet called by his name because of its resembling him as the greatest part of the ancient Fathers did affirm and as some of the most famous Authors Leo Allatius in Euctath Antiâ—ch Psal 68.19 even of the Roman Communion do at this day hold They again do abuse what the Psalmist singeth of the Messiah Thou art gone up on high thou hast taken or led a multitude of captives as it s rendred These captives they will have to be the spirits of the Fathers But it is manifest to all that have the least knowledg in the holy Tongue that the phrase there used by the Prophet doth signifie to take or to make prisoners not to free them and to lead not into liberty but into captivity So as if this passage be meant of the Fathers we must say not that the LORD brought them out prison as is suppos'd but that he put them in a thing that would be infinitely
Philosophers defined good by this its refâ—â—â— to our affections and by the vertue it hath to move and attract our desires 〈◊〉 Good is that which all desire And hence it comes that Impostors who 〈◊〉 trade of seducing men have alwaies taken a great deal of care to give their 〈◊〉 vain institutions some shew of goodness being not ignorant that witho◠〈◊〉 they should not be able to gain any mans affections and much less to have any train of followers in the world This is to be seen particularly in religion into wâ—â—â—n never was heresie nor superstition introduced but under the favour of this in posture though spirits of different capacities having medled in the matter there haâ—â— been accordingly a great difference between their cosenages For as those that would make a false stone pass for a Diamond or an Emerald or a Ruby do endeavour as farr as cunning is able to counterfeit the truth to give it the colour the shape the lustre the sparkling and other qualities thereof that by such a feigned resemblance they may deceive simple and unexperienced persons So they that have set themselves upon the corrupting of Religion to the end they might make the opinions and services they promoted be received for sound doctrines and disciplines have above all things taken a great deal of pains to guild over their merchandize and to colour it with some fair and specious pretexts fit to dazle the eyes of men and hide the defects of their doctrine and give it the shew of what in substance it is not It is this that the Apostle S. Paul doth observe here in the documents and commandments of those Seducers whom he undertook in this Chapter For having solidly and admirably refuted that superstitious discipline which they had set a foot and which consisted in a religious worshipping of Angels and in a scrupulous abstinence from certain meats and in the observation of certain festival days for a conclusion he discovers in this last verse the false colours wherewith they did in vain dawb it over He acknowledgeth that it had its true some shew of wisdom but denies that this was sufficient to cover its defects or to oblige the faithful to receive it Their Ordinances said he afore are commandments and doctrines of men Which yet he now adds have some shew of wisdom in voluntary devotion and humility of spirit and in that they do not at all spare the body and have no regard to the satisfying of the flesh It is evident that he speaks of those humane doctrines which he had been mentioning in the verse immediately foregoing and he says first that they have a shew of wisdom Next he represents particularly three things which give them this false shew voluntary service humility of spirit and rough treatment of the body which they did not at all spare These are as it were the three colours which being mingled together by the artifice of the Seducers composed that paint which rendred their doctrine plausible and gave it this false shew of wisdom that beguiled the eyes of the simple In compliance with this distinction we shall treat of three points in this action voluntary service humility of spirit and little care for the body and then consider how error and superstition have always made and still to this day make use of them to glose their inventions GOD grant us to beware duly of them and please for this end so to guide and assist us by His Spirit in discoursing of them as we may all bear away some Edification and Consolation The name of wisdom is great and honourable in the opinion of all people in the world For whereas other Sciences have respect but to natural or humane the relation of wisdom is to Divine things And whereas other knowledges are for the most part unprofitable to him who possesseth them that of wisdom is salutiferous it signifying the skill of conducting ones way aright for the attainment of happiness by the light of some choice and excellent verities Whence it follows that this title of wisdom doth not properly belong but to the knowledge of GOD which He hath given us by His Son in the Gospel the only light that is capable of conducting us to supreme felicity Accordingly you know it is the name that S. Paul does ordinarily give it as when he willeth that the word of GOD dwell richly in us in all wisdom and when he saith elsewhere that he speaks wisdom among them that are perfect calling the same a little after the wisdom of GOD in a mysterie the hidden wisdom and so often elsewhere Now though the doctrine of those who corrupt the Gospel as these Seducers did who S. Paul opposeth in this Chapter be nothing less in reality than wisdom yet so it is that its authors gave it the name and would have it pass in the belief of men for a rare and a beneficial knowledge more worthy of heaven than earth and capable in fine of rendring those that follow it perfect and happy The Apostle acknowledgeth that the doctrine of the Seducers of his time had this shew of wisdom but by his very granting them the shew hâ— denies them the truth of it and his meaning is that that doctrine of theirs had nothing but a false and a deceitful colour of wisdom not the substance and reality of the thing Voluntary service is the first particular that gave these doctrines of the Seducers such a shew They have saith the Apostle some shew of wisdom in voluntary service that is by reason or because of the voluntary service they taught and set a foot the observances and institutions which these men enjoyed as abstinence from certain meats the worshipping of Angels and the like being nothing else but voluntary services A service may be called voluntary two manner of waies First when he that performs it unto GOD doth it with affection and a good will without torment and constraint The love he bears this great and soveraign LORD sweetly bringing his soul under His yoke and disposing him to account whatsoever He hath commanded to be good and delectable In this sense that free and sincere obedience which true believers render unto GOD according to the Gospel may be stiled voluntary because it proceeds not from a spirit of bondage as theirs doth who do serve only because they are afraid but from a spirit of Love and of Adoption crying in their hearts Abba Father Wherefore the Prophet termeth the new people who render this frank and filial service unto GOD Psal 110.3 under the Gospel of the Messiah a voluntary or willing people Thy people saith he speaking to Him shall be a voluntary people or a people of frank willingness in the day that thou shalt assemble thine army in holy pomp It is not in this sense that the Apostle understands the voluntary service he speaks of in this place For first though the terms voluntary service which are taken up
resurrection with our Saviour He had touched it already in the twelfth verse of the precedent Chapter and 't is from thence he resumes it and reminds us of it here saying If then ye be risen again with CHRIST that is to say since you are risen again with the LORD as I have said and shewed a-fore For the particle if is used here as often else-where by way of illation and concluding not in way of doubting and imports as much as if the Apostle had said since that or seeing that For the rest you plainly see that the Resurrection he speaks of is not that of our bodies which shall not be till the last day but another mystical and spiritual one already accomplished in us by the virtue of our LORD'S resurrection and the efficacy of His Spirit Eph. 2.5.6 He spake of it a-fore at the place we noted and in the Epistle to the Ephesians where he saith that GOD hath quickened us together with CHRIST and raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Him He explains us the mysterie of it else-where in these words Rom. 6. We are saith he buried with Him by Baptisme into His death that as CHRIST is raised from the dead by the glory of the Father so we in like manner should walk in newness of life Every resurrection presupposeth a death preceding For to rise again is nothing else but for one to be restored to life who before was dead Now the estate that men are in under the dominion of sin the Scripture calleth Death because therein they have no sense nor motion in respect of piety and sanctity no more than the dead that rest in the grave have any for the actions of this life Eph. 2.1 Ye were dead in your sins and offences saith the Apostle to the Ephesians speaking of the time of their ignorance Whence is that which our Saviour saith in the Gospel Let the dead bury their dead and which St. Paul sayes 1 Tim. 5.6 the widow that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth When therefore by the efficacy of the vocation of the Spirit and Gospel of the LORD a man comes to pass out of this miserable condition into the estate of grace receiving the light of Faith into his understanding and Charity and Sanctification into his heart the Scripture to express this wonderful change saith that he is risen again This is precisely the resurrection that St. Paul intendeth in this place He saith that we are risen again with CHRIST First because this blessed change that 's brought to pass in us by His grace is like that change which betided Him when from the grave where He had lain for the space of three daies He was raised unto life by virtue from on high For as He then received the faculties of moving and sensation of which He was deprived in the Sepulchre so we in our regeneration do receive a spirit and a principle of life which we had not before Again as the LORD was restored unto life by the glory of the Father as the Apostle speaks that is by virtue of the exceeding great and glorious power of GOD in like manner are we renew'd and put into the state of grace by the efficacy of the might of GOD and not by the arm of man or the operation of flesh and blood In fine as the LORD upon His rising again did recover not simply that life which He laid down in His dying but another much more excellent and glorious a spiritual a coelestial and an immortal life in like manner we resume in our regeneration not the life of the first Adam before sin from which we were fallen and which how excellent so-ever was nevertheless animal and mortal that is capable of being lost as appeared by the issue but another much more exquisite and perfect a life eternal immutable and like that the blessed Angels live Thus you see the Resurrection of the LORD CHRIST is the idea and pattern of ours But I add in the second place that we are said to be risen again with CHRIST because it is in Him and from Him that we have this grace it being evident that Faith which is the first faculty of the new life doth ingraff and incorporate us into JESUS CHRIST and as the vine-branch doth not live but in its stock so man cannot live that divine life but in his Saviour In fine we are risen again with CHRIST because His resurrection is the cause of ours in such sort as if He had not risen from the dead we should have remained lying in the darkness of our spiritual death CHRIST coming forth out of His grave hath opened and enlightened ours and hath administred out of His own store all things necessary to deliver us out of the miserable estate wherein we were and to put us in possession of the life of Heaven His resurrection hath founded our Faith shewing us clearly that He is the Son of GOD and that His Gospel is true His resurrection hath assured our souls giving us full proof that His death did fully satisfie and content the judge of the World It hath strengthened our hopes making us to see by example of our Head that death the dreadfullest of our enemies cannot impede our happiness Hereupon it hath kindled love of GOD and desire of so great glory in our hearts and finally produced in them the principles the habitudes and dispositions of the new life which are necessary for our attaining unto blissful immortality Since therefore JESUS CHRIST in rising again did thereby raise up our life which had been ingulfed in hell and the curse and brought to light the causes of Faith Hope and Charity the principal faculties of that new life we now have it 's evident that we are risen again in Him and with Him From whence that which the Apostle infers upon it doth no less clearly follow to wit that we ought to mind henceforth the things which are on high and seek them with all our affection For the life unto which we are raised up with our LORD is heavenly and not earthly divine and not natural eternal and not corruptible Since therefore every creature employeth all the sense and affection it hath about things suitable to its life who sees not that the faithful are obliged by the honour they have to be risen again with the LORD neither to breath after nor embrace other things but those that are on high in which their new life doth properly consist And such is the example He hath given us For being risen he abode but a very little time here below only so long as the work of our salvation did require and forthwith ascended into Heaven to draw up our thoughts and affections thither untill our bodies also follow one day being raised up thither as His was unto highest glory And this is the second consideration that the Apostle here lays before us to perswade
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
any other of the Ministers of JESUS CHRIST doth any where injoyn us to wear hair-cloth or to disfigure our countenances with a multitude of fasts and watchings or to go barefoot or to put on a cowl or renounce the usage of any of the meats which GOD hath created for our service much less to cover our selves with dung and filth or to gore our selves all over with disciplines Isa 1.12 God will one day say to those that amuse themselves in such mortifications Who hath required this at your hands and why have ye suffered so much in vain Gal. 3.4 The only mortification he demands of us is that of the old man that we beat down our vices and not that we rend our bodies that we deface our passions and not our countenances that we renounce our lusts and not His gifts That we give the discipline to our manners and not our shoulders As for our selves My Brethren I acknowledge that we have renounced the mortification of the superstitious the misery is we do not practise that which is our Saviours though without it no man can have part in Him or His kingdom as the Apostle intimates plainly enough here where he doth not own any person for a member of CHRIST risen who is not dead and else-where he affirms in expresse terms that they that are CHRIST's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts We amuse not our selves in bodily exercise No but neither do we more heed that of the spirit We spare our hearts no less than our bodies and do not treat the vices of the one any whit more roughly than the skin of the other Men see sufficiently by the actions of our lives that the members of this old man whom the cross of CHRIST hath condemned unto death remaining very far from being dead are scarce wounded in us that they are not so much as scratch'd that they live in us in their full strength and vigour and no more feel our Saviour's nails and thorns than if He had not died or we not believed in Him at all Our adversaries are nor to seek how to charge it home upon us and it is the only one of their arguments that puts us to confusion We easily answer all their other reproaches There 's none but this wherein our consciences enforce us to separate the cause of JESUS CHRIST and of His Gospel from our own For if His truth were to be judged of by the quality of our deportments who could defend it seeing the horrible disorder that generally appeareth in our lives Let us consider only the two articles here touched by the Apostle unchastity and avarice In conscience is the one and the other of these two passions dead among us Have they not as great a vogue as among the men of the World Is the modesty of youth the honesty of marriage is chastity and temperance better practised here than other-where Doth the fordidnesse and eagernesse of avarice less appear Verily I am extremely asham'd to say it all is alike except that those without do confess and discipline themselves and macerate their flesh with some kind of fasts and say their chappelet whereby at least they shew some sense of their faultinesse though they apply ineffectual and ridiculous remedies of it Whereas we after committing the same faults and dabling in the same filth come to present our selves impudently here without fearing GOD or having shame of men And if the voice of the LORD that resoundeth in this place do draw some sigh from us at our going hence we return every one to our vices as pleasant and as obstinate as ever GOD is so good that He hath hitherto attended our repenting But let us beware lest our obduratenesse do change His patience into fury and constrain Him in the end to punish such a refractory contempt of His word and His favours and avenge the affront we do His Gospel by living so ill in so fair and so divine a light Let us all descend into our selves Let us examine our carriage and our consciences Let each one interrogate himself Come my soul after so many moneths and years that JESUS CHRIST hath so carefully instructed thee what pains hast thou taken to conform thy self to Him and to imprint the image of His death and of His life upon thy behaviour Hast thou nailed thine old man to His cross Hast thou mortified his members Hast thou deprived them of that wretched vigour which they display with so much efficacy in the children of disobedience Do they leave thee at rest Or when they begin to trouble thee hast thou the courage to resist them Doth not avarice stretch out thine hand upon the goods of others or doth it not with-hold the same from imparting of thine own unto the poor Hast thou not felt its vain sollicitudes and fruitless melancholies it's insatiable cupidity and unbridled eagerness and that impudence it hath to despise and violate honesty laws and decency for the satisfying its inordinate desires But if avarice hath not importun'd thee tell me my soul hath not the lust of the eyes and the vanity of the flesh at one time or other insnared thee Hath not this traiterous Dalila lulled thee asleep Hast thou guarded the glory of that Nazareat to which GOD hath consecrated thee from her ambushments Brethren let us thus catechize our souls daily and about our other duties as well as these Let us not pardon them any thing Judge we them righteously and with inexorable severity Chastise them for all their faults and bringing them down at the feet of GOD make them weep and grone in His presence Let us reproach them with their ingratitudes and set before their eyes the benefits of GOD and the offences with which they have recompensed Him Denounce we also His judgements on them and the horror of His dreadful vengeance and not give them over untill they have taken a full and firm resolution to return no more to their ingratitudes Above all Dear Brethren let us make them hate and detest those two pests which the Apostle hath to day so solemnly condemned to dye to wit luxury and covetousnesse Let us execute his just sentence upon these two passions and cause them to suffer that death which they so many waies deserve For as to the first it impudently profaneth a body which belongs to JESUS CHRIST was redeemed by His blood washed with His heavenly water fed with His flesh and consecrated by His spirit Rends it from the communion of that divine body of which it is become a member to change it into one of the members of Satan Bereaves it of its glory and despoils it of the greatest honour it had and drawing it out of Heaven whither GOD had called it drags it into Hell I know well that men of the world flatter themselves and extenuate this sin And I am not ignorant that there are people among our selves who suffer themselves to be
amongst us not the ordures of luxury nor the vilinies of avarice which are the infamy of His people the reproach of our profession the scandal of such as are without the shame of those that are within the ruine and eternal misery of those that obstinately continue in these vices Rather let honesty chastity purity of body and spirit charity and liberality and all other Christian vertues be seen to flourish and fructifie in the midst of us to the glory of GOD the edification of all within and without and our own salvation Amen THE THIRTY SIXTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER VIII Verse VIII But now ye also put off all these things wrath anger maliciousness detraction dishonest speech out of your mouth DEAR Brethren The Philosophers have well observed and with consonancy to truth as each of us may perceive in himself by our own experience that besides understanding and will there are in the souls of men two other inferior powers one of which desires those pleasing things that sense presents it and the other fleeth from and avoideth those that look troublesome In the barbarous language of the schools the former is called the concupiscible and the latter the irascible They both were given us by the Creator for the benefit of our nature to serve us as two goads which might prick and move us the one to seek and acquire what is profitable for it the other to repell what is contrary to it And in the primitive and legitimate constitution of our being each of these two powers exactly obeying reason they had nothing in their motions but what was good and just Afterwards sin supervening by our fall did put them into an huge disorder reason which had lost its dominion leaving them both without conduct and most commonly favouring their errors instead of correcting them For now desire embraceth any gustful thing that is presented and anger is stirred up against any thing that seems displeasing indifferently without heeding or following the judgement of right reason whence do proceed the greatest part of the sins and miseries of the life of man Accordingly you see that the principal task of those that would reform our manners is to labour above all things in the rectifying of these two powers of our souls and for the reducing of them sweetly under the yoke of reason that neither of them may ever move its self but as it commandeth or permitteth Our Apostle therefore having undertaken here to give the Colossians and all other believers which shall read this Epistle the form of that sanctity to which the discipline of our LORD JESUS CHRIST doth oblige us took care at the entrance to correct the actions and motions of the one and the other of these two powers He began with concupiscence enjoyning us to mortifie all that 's vitious in it and religiously abstain from its principal excesses which are the ordures of carnal pleasures and of avarice To this end he hath minded us of those inevitatable punishments which this kind of disorders doth ever draw down from Heaven upon the children of rebellion that if the justness of the thing it self cannot perswade us at least the fear of punishment may retain us in our duty Having thus purged our concupiscence he cometh next unto wrath and in the verse that we have read does faithfully advise us to mortifie likewise the passions thereof and all the evils they produce that our lives may be not only pure and honest but also innocent calm and peaceful and truly worthy of that JESUS CHRIST of whom we make profession the supreme pattern of sweetness and benignity But now saith he ye also put off all these things wrath anger maliciousness detraction and dishonest speech out of your mouth You plainly see that these things which he commandeth us to put off are five in all Wrath anger maliciousness detraction and dishonest speech The four first are either kinds or effects of one and the same passion even that which we call wrath The last referrs to somewhat else nevertheless he ranks it here with the other for a reason you shall hear anon This is the subject we will treat of in this action by the will of GOD. Only before our coming to it considering that there is nothing superfluous or useless in this holy Apostle's language we must discover in short the meaning and reason of those words with which he begins his exhortation But now ye also put off all these things They depend upon the precedent verse to which they most evidently referr St. Paul did there put the Colossians in mind of their ancient estate under the darknesse of Paganism before the Gospel had shone on them At that time said he to them you wallowed in the ordures of avarice and luxury as well as other children of the generation Ye walked and lived in these things When therefore he comes to add here But now put ye off all these things it is clear that he opposeth to the time of their fore-past ignorance the time of their present knowledge their faith to their error their Christianity to their Paganism the day to the night and the light to darkness and by this means he represents to them one reason to induce them to their duty drawn from their present estate For every thing as the Wise man sheweth hath its time and every season its business The actions of the day are of one sort and those of the night another and a thing that becomes childhood is not sufferable in riper years While you were in the darkness of Paganism that gross ignorance you lived in rendred your vices less strange and more excusable saith the Apostle Now that you live in the light of JESUS CHRIST with what excuse can you cover your faults any longer The laws and customs of this Divine Kingdom into which He hath called you are quite different from those of Paganism which you have renounced Be content to have escaped out of them and let it suffice you to have wretchedly lost so many years in the vices of ignorance and to have so long fulfilled the will of the Gentiles Now that GOD hath graciously brought you to quit their errors quit also their vices and henceforth regulate your manners by the light which shines about you Have no more commerce with their works since JESUS CHRIST hath brought you out of their darkness The Apostle in another place explains this reason more at length which he doth here but touch in a word The night is pass'd Rom. 13.12 1 Thes 5.6 2 Cor. 5.17 saith he and the day is come on Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour that is the garments of light You are all children of light and of the day We are not of the night nor of darkness Old things are passed away behold all things are become new Beloved Brethren Would to GOD we had this consideration alwaies before our eyes It would
teeth and doth a thousand other actions so resembling the actions of Demoniacks as it is easie to see that the passion which torments him is a very demon If you had seen your selves in this estate I do not doubt but you would have had horror at your selves and hated the cause which so vilely disfigured you But what need any other glass to see the image of your anger in than that which your neighbours passion doth daily present you with That trouble and that outragiousness and that frantick demeanour which you cannot without shaking behold in them is a faithful pourtraict of your choler When it seizeth you you are no whit more wise nor less frightful or unsufferable than they But as in nature when the wind and the thunder have roar'd a while there follows hail and sire breaking forth from the clouds and making dreadful havock here below so for the most part doth the tempest of anger pass After the noise and thunder of a thousand reproaches and indiscreet insolent ridiculous speeches in the end it usually comes to blows which are dealt this way and that way without judgment or discretion And when there happens to be resistance when one angry man encounters another poffess'd with the same rage as not seldom 't is how sad and shameful is the combat of two such furies whom the demon that guides them makes to do and suffer the vilest and enormousest things he can inspire Who can utter the other evils which this execrable passion causeth in mankind It troubleth the peace of families and states stirring up seditions and wars in them 'T is it that hath invented duels and to authorize its rage makes it pass for a point of honour so blinding men that they will have their honour to consist in the offending of GOD and the damning of themselves by shedding anothers blood and hazarding their own which undoubtedly is not only the falsest but the foolishest and senselessest error that ever was It 's anger that plotteth and executeth the most part of the treasons the murthers and assassinates which are committed in the world 'T is it that raiseth clamors Quarels and processes are its workmanship It breaks the most sacred bonds of civil and domestick society and teacheth men shamelesly to tread under foot all laws both divine and humane It instructs them to despise their own welfare and repose for having only the contentment of troubling other mens There is no vice that carrieth men so far nor that is apt to render them more unnatural Judge what and how cruel its poison is since David who otherwise was a person so gentle and benigne by but tasting a little of it became chang'd in that manner that he presently made his men to march with a resolution to pillage and massacre an whole poor innocent family for only one man's fault And you know the inhumanitie which this same passion cast Simeon and Levi upon causing them to put an whole City to fire and sword for one young man's indiscretion Gen. 49.5 7. and folly Whence it comes that Jacob their father even on his death-bed calleth them instruments of violence and curseth the impudence of their wrath and the excesse of their fury But as anger doth easily thrust on men and precipitate them into all sorts of sins so is it on the other hand infinitely contrary to piety and sanctity It drives the Holy Ghost out of our souls that is to say the Author of all honesty and vertue For He dwells not in noise and outragiousness And as the Scripture saith in the historie of Elijah's vision He is not in those great impetuous winds 1 King 19.11 that cleave the mountains and rend the rocks and shake the earth That is in wrathful sâ—â—ls This Spirit loveth peace and sweetness Accordingly He appeared to John Baptist under the form of a dove By consequence there is nothing that drives Him sooner from within us than the tumult of this blustering and tempestuous passion And indeed instead of glorifying GOD which is the first point of piety wrath carrieth men to despite and blaspheme Him It troubleth and overturneth all His service it being not possible that a soul should pray unto Him and invocate Him Jam. 1.20 as it ought while it is in this agitation And St. James advertiseth us expresly that wrath fulfilleth not the righteousness of GOD. It 's an enemie to charity which desireth the good and the safety of its neighbour whereas wrath wisheth and procureth his hurt and ruine It extinguisheth modesty it is incompatible with patience and humility it expelleth consolation and joy For what contentment or joy can there be amid the tempests of this wretched passion which disquiets all things and keeps our spirits in a continual agitation It makes us troublesome and importune to every one and instead of that sweetness and gentleness which should adorn our manners it planteth them with anxiousness and ill humour roughness and rashness and sourness as with so many briers or nettles which make all the world to shun our converse according to the wise man's counsel Make no friendship with an angry man saith he and with a furious man thou shalt not go And whereas we ought to be assable and accessible and to attract strangers to us by our sweetness and courtesie and facility for their edifying anger on the quite contrary driveth away our very friends from us For where is he that by his good will and without being by some necessity obliged would live or converse with a person subject to this passion Accordingly you see that whereas in other families every one rejoyceth at the master's arrival in the house of an angry man on the contrary nothing is so much dreaded as his presence because he alwaies brings disturbance and storm with him where ever he goes But if choler be troublesome to others it does no less incommodate him whom it possesseth keeping his spirit in an unquiet and importune ardor hindring all the sweet and contentful thoughts of his mind and breeding others that are black and cruel and tragical It disturbeth his repose takes away his divertisements eats out his heart like a viper And it is not possible but that with all this it should ruine or at least endamage the health of the body also which consisting in a certain equality and temperature of humours and in the regular action and well ordered moving of the blood and spirits what can be imagined more contrary to it than this passion which confoundeth and over-turneth all this inward oeconomie of our bodies turning and tossing our spirits stirring and driving our blood hither and thither with extreme violence and rapidity Beloved Brethren These are the characters and principal effects of this passion If reason wherewith Heaven hath adorned your nature be dear to you if the presence of the Spirit of GOD and His holy image be of such consideration with you as it ought if you have any
affection for the order and welfare and contentment of your neighbours if you take pleasure in their societie if you love the exercise of pietie and other vertues if you desire to conserve your souls in repose and your bodies in health obey the Apostle's command pull up and put away choler out of your hearts Suffer not so dangerous a guest to lodge within you the parent of quarels and debates the enemie of peace the cause of hostilities and murthers the pest of families and estates the storm of the soul the poison of the understanding the blinding of reason the abhorrence of GOD and men the ruine and hell of those whom it possesseth Never tell me that you cannot resist the tyrannie of your cholerick temper or that you did not begin first to be angry but it was an injury from your neighbour that kindled your wrath and you should pass for a man of no spirit if you suffered an affront without emotion and resentment These are but pretext and vain excuses which cannot hide the shame of your fault For as for nature it sorceth no man to wrath On the contrary it loveth sweetness and tranquility and it would be a strange thing that we could not be men without having the eagerness and the transports of animals If the Creator had given you choler He hath also given you flegm to temper it and reason to govern it and the word and Spirit of His Son to mortifie it And as for offences received from your neighbour the producing of them is no justification of your passion it 's a telling us the story and occasion of it Why then do you imagine that the LORD never forbids you to be angry but then only when no body gives you cause If your neighbour doth well to be angry with you why are you troubled at it And if he does ill why do you imitate him His having begun is so far from justifying you that I doubt this very thing will aggravate your crime For he that casts himself into an evil into which he saw another fall seems less excusable than he His example wherein you might have seen the hideousness of this passion should have kept you from it And as to the judgement of men if they be wise they will never impute it to you for faint-heartedness that you have overcome your own animositie since it 's in this properly that the highest point of magnanimitie consisteth it being clear that the weakest persons of all as children and such as resemble them are also ordinarily the most turbulent and cholerick and that true generositie is less subject to be moved and perturbed But if the opinion of the vicious or ignorant doth afright you sure you have not yet profited much in the School of CHRIST where the first lesson is to despise the fantasies and maxims of the world that we may rest in the laws and will of GOD. Lay me then aside all these nullities of excuse and sedulouslie form your selves unto that sweetness and benignitie which GOD requires Shun all occasions of anger and repell them when they occurr And for the winning of this ground upon your self and the being alwaies master of your own spirits descend into your selves and consider well the meannesse of your nature and its little worth that this body which makes so much noise is for substance nothing but dust and ashes that this breath which animates it is a spirit 't is true but full of ignorance and vanity and which is worse covered with crimes worthy of hell if GOD should judge you in rigour Discharge your selves of that vain opinion of your nobilitie of your riches of your power of your abilities which puffs you up so much For to say true all this is but a dream and a non-entity Such a consideration would be excellent to keep down the stirring and the boiling of your choler which ariseth most times from nothing but our presumption For esteeming our selves too highly it seems to us that no man can offend us but it is high treason and that a daring to attaque us is some kind of impietie But on the other hand let us also judge of our neighbours with more equitie and reason and think that in the sight of GOD they are as much or it may be more than we they are the workmanship of His hand the pourtraicts of His image the redeemed of His CHRIST and the denisons of His Paradise as well as we If we look'd upon our selves and them in this manner we should not be so easily or so vehemently troubled at the offences they do us Then again we should lift up our eyes higher and meditate the Providence of GOD and take all the outrages that are done us as chastisements or trials which beside us by His order It was this consideration that restrained David's anger on that just occasion for it which Shimci's insolency gave him It is the LORD said he who said unto him 2 Sam. 16.10 curse David A brave speech an holy declaration If we conform unto it all the occasions of perturbation which men give us will be so many exercises for us of patience and humility If they revile us we shall bless them If they outrage us we shall bear with them If they contemn us and abase us we shall put our selves yet lower and when they call us worthless people we shall add yea we are but dung and silth If they reproach us with poverty or ignorance we shall say in surplusage that we are but worms conceived and born in sin This would be a profiting by their outrages and a making other mens furie the subject of our vertue and matter of our praise It would be also of use for the forming of us unto meckness and patience to have still before our eyes the patience and meckness of a Moses of a David of a Jeremy of a St. Stephen and above all of our LORD and Saviour Who when He was reviled reviled not again Pet. 2.23 and when He suffered threatned not leaving us this glorious pattern that we might follow His steps We should too propose unto our selves the example of GOD Himself Who is infinite goodness and love Who beareth His creatures blaspheamings and instead of crushing them causeth His Sun to shine on them and watereth their lands with His rain inviting them so graciously to repentance Which would you rather be the disciples of this supreamest LORD and of His Son and of His Saints or of those miserable vassals of sin whom the evil spirit doth possess And this again should sweeten our resentments toward those that offend us even the remembring that it is Satan who inspires into them all the evil they say of us or do to us They are but his instruments Mean time we fasten upon them as if they were authors of the outrage doing in this particular as dogs who bite the stone that struck them and touch not the person that threw it The
faithful it mingleth and consociates them changeth them into one body and one spirit gives them the same will and the same affections Now surther it is to form and conserve this holy union among us that the Apostle does recommend to us the peace of GOD in the second part of this Text. Let the peace of GOD saith he hold the first place in your hearts to the which you are called in one body For this peace of GOD is not that which we have with GOD by faith in JESUS CHRIST His Son when as being appeased by the satisfaction of His Crosse He looks upon us in Him with a propitions and favourable eye as a Father and not as a Judge not imputing our sins to us which may be termed Peace of conscience But it is the peace we ought to have with one another all of us living amiably together as children of one and the same Father and heirs of one and the same grace and glory It 's the daughter of Charity and a fruit of that holy and Christian love which binds us perfectly together The Apostle calls it the peace of GOD first because He loves it above all things and upon this account is often stil'd in the Scriptures the GOD of peace hating nothing in the world more than trouble and discord and contentions and wars Secondly because He commands it us every where in His word And lastly because He is the Author of it who gives it and inspires it by His Spirit into all those that are truly His children And the Apostle hath expresly given it this title in this place for the more effectual recommending of it to us and that He might induce us to receive it with the greater respect as a thing of GOD's holy sacred and divine which we cannot violate without offending grievously that Soveraign Majesty to whom it doth belong 〈◊〉 many waies He willeth that this Peace of GOD do hold the chief place in our hearts The term he makes use of in the original is admirably expressive and elegant for it properly signifies to have the super-intendance of a thing to be the judge and arbiter of it to govern and regulate it and give it law That is the Apostle means that this Divine peace be the Queen of our hearts the mistresse and governesse of all your motions that that keeps them in due respect and with-holds them from ever attempting ought that tendeth to violate or disturb it And if the resenting of an offence for instance or an opinion of our own worth or any other such consideration do begin to kindle wrath or hatred or animosity against our brethren or excite some other passion of like nature in our hearts that this Peace do forthwith advance and stay the commotion and agitation of our minds calming the storm and speedily repelling all these sentiments of the flesh as so many incendiaries or evil spirits without giving them entrance or audience That it do enjoyn us and inspire into us humility and patience when we have been offended regret and the making of satisfaction when we have offended any other and cause us to seek carefully after all that it shall judge necessary to maintain amity and good intelligence among us as kind words and obliging deeds banishing both from our mouths and from our manners all that 's apt to cause or keep up our dividing from our neighbours The advertising of us that this is the peace of GOD were enough to perswade us to give it such place in our hearts But that the Apostle might overcome all possible obstinacy he here further represents unto us two considerations besides which oblige us to give it this super-intendency over our souls The one is that we are thereunto called and the other that we are one body For the first you know that our LORD and Master JESUS CHRIST doth every where call us to this Peace of GOD and that He hath given us precepts for it in His Gospel and examples of it in His life For what was there ever in the world more meek and peaceable than this Divine Lamb He contended not Mat. 12.19 nor cryed and His voice was not heard in the streets as the Prophets fore-told of Him He was gentle and lowly in heart He never repulsed any and received sinners with open arms how bad and abominable soever they had been He invited His greatest enemies unto His salvation and offered His grace to the most obstinate and bore their contradictions without answering again and their reproaches with silence and their rage without exasperation and did weep bitterly for that Jerusalem that rebellious City would not know the things of her peace Such is the pattern He gave us commanding us likewise expresly to be sweet Mark 9.50 and simple as doves without gall and without bitternesse and to be in peace among our selves And His Apostles repeat this lesson to us in divers places Rom. 12.8 as St. Paul here and other-where again If it be possible as much as in you lyeth have peace with all men And it 's for this that JESVS CHRIST came into the world even to pacifie Heaven and Earth Jews and Gentiles Isa 2.4 11.6 7 8. to extinguish enmities and wars and change swords into plow-shares and spears into pruning-books to take away the poison of asps and the cruelty of wolves and the fierceness of lions and transform bears and the savagest beasts into lambs Isa 66.12 and make them all live and dwell peaceably and amicably together finally to make peace overflow as a river as the ancient oracles had magnifically foretold Isa 9.5 by reason whereof He is also expresly stiled the Prince of Peace And you know it was the legacy He bequeathed us when He was preparing to dye for us Joh. 14.2 Peace I leave with you said He my peace I give unto you not to speak of the blessing and the dignity He promiseth those that shall love the same Blessed saith He are the Peace-makers Matt. 5.9 for they shall be called children of GOD. After all this who can doubt but He calleth all His unto peace as the Apostle here affirms Since He forms them to it by His voice by His lise by His promises and by the whole design of His Mediatorial Office But besides the command and order He hath given the very estate and condition He hath by His vocation put us in doth manifestly oblige us thereunto and this the Apostle represents unto us in the second place when having told us that we are called unto peace he adds in one body or to express the full and whole force of the Greek words in one only body It 's a doctrine universally received and most expresly asserted in divers places of Scripture that the whole Church doth make up but one only mystical body of which JESUS CHRIST is the head and the faithful are the members being animated under Him with one and the same
sixth To these properly doth the name of Odes or Songs belong It 's with these sacred layes of which the word of CHRIST affordeth us both the matter and the form that the Apostle would have us solace our selves St. James gives us order for it Jam. 5 13. Is any among you merry saith he and in repose of spirit let him sing Psalms The Apostle calleth all these sonnets spiritual both because of their author who is the holy Spirit and also for their matter which concerneth only divine and heavenly things the glory of GOD and our salvation not the vanities and passions and follies of men as carnal Poems do He adds with grace signifying by that expression the sweet and saving effect of these spiritual songs which do profit and refresh both together He would have us in the third place to sing from the heart that is not barely with the mouth as hypocrites but with the attention and affection of the heart In conclusion he intends that we sing unto the LORD that is unto the praise and glory of CHRIST who is ordinarily signified by that term the LORD when it is couched single as here it is This is the rule he gives us for this holy and spiritual melody a rule which Rome hath as little spared as the other which we have seen him prescribe about our being studious of the word of GOD in general For first She hath banished from the Church the faithful peoples singing and that so far as those that be of her communion do down-right declare that to sing the Psalms of David as we do is an huge scandalizing of Christians Strange Christianity which is scandalized at a singing that the Apostle commands a singing that celebrateth the glory of GOD a singing of what was endited by His Spirit composed by His Prophets and tendeth not but to the edification and consolation of faithful souls Certainly beside the authority of the Book of GOD it appeareth also by the writings of men that heretofore in the ancient Church the Christian people bore a part in the singing of Psalms and did it both in publick and in private Again for what our adversaries make their Clergie sing of what conscience can they say that they sing it with the heart since they that hear it and the greater part of them that sing it understand it not all their Anthems being in Latin a tongue long since dead and unknown to the people Consider too whether the pomp and the niceness and the curiosity of their singing and such a many of instruments as they mingle with it and all the other artifices of their musick be not more proper for the pleasing of the ear than the edifying of the spirit But dear Brethren let us lay â—side the defaults of others and mind our selves First bless we our good GOD for that He hath set up the word of His CHRIST again among us in its light and in its genuine use and acknowledging this grace of His from the bottom of our hearts improve His favour Let this word be the only governess of our hearts and lives Hear we its voice in publick consult it in private Let us have these divine Books in which the Holy Spirit hath consign'd its instructions Read them without scruple and without fear of finding ought that 's dangerous or venomous in them They are the Paradise of JESUS CHRIST in which the tree of life grows and whence flow the streams of sanctity of joy and of immortality but a Paradise where the old Serpent never entred where his breath and poison are unknown Fathers and Mothers instruct your children in this wholsome study Young ones addict your selves to it betimes Fill your memories out of this treasury of wisdom Men and women old and young rich and poor learned and unlearned receive ye all this Divine guest whom the Apostle hath now lodg'd at your house Let it dwell there as he hath ordered richly and abundantly in all wisdome If you receive and treat it with the respect it merits it will cure your souls of all their maladies it will inform your understandings of all heavenly truth and purge them of all the errors of earth and superstition It will fill your hearts with love to GOD and charity towards your neighbour and by the efficacy of its truth extinguish all those petty passions that tye you to the World It will comfort you in your troubles it will fortifie you in your weaknesses it will sustain you in your combats it will arm you against all sorts of enemies and guide you in all your waies It will sweeten your adversities and govern your prosperity and to comprise all in few words it will conduct you to the haven of eternal salvation notwithstanding all the storms of this wretched life Employ likewise this word of the LORD to those uses which the Apostle recommends unto you even to those mutual teachings and admonishings which you owe one another giving and receiving them as there is occasion with a sincere and truly Christian charity In fine possess the liberty he gives you of singing from the heart with grace unto the LORD Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs This sole Book of Psalms if ye learn it aright is able to make you for ever happy Oh GOD what a source of blessing and joy do they deprive themselves of who reject it or neglect it It 's a publick magazine of heavenly wisdom in which every one may find what is meet for him the ignorant whereby to be instructed the knowing whereon to be exercised the afflicted wherewith to comfort and the contented to recreate himself There are repentant tears for the guilty and songs of thanksgiving for the faithful preservatives against vice attractives and excitements to piety and lessons for all kind of Vertues And the wonder is that these so high so useful and so necessary things are all presented us there in the delicious sonnets of a graceful and a pleasing poetry as in so many vases of pearl and diamonds and emeralds to induce us to receive them the more easily Oh sage invention of our Great Master wherein we have together pleasure and profit refreshing and instruction of soul at once singing and learning what 's most necessary for us May Himself please to bless this Divine artifice by which He invites and allures us to Himself and so touch our hearts by the efficacy of His Spirit that as He draws us to Him with these holy cords of His sweetness and love we also on our side may freely and chearfully run after Him to the end that having faithfully followed Him in this World He may in the next lodge us with Himself in the Sanctuary of His Glory where bearing our part with the Angels we shall bless and glorifie Him eternally Amen THE FORTY SECOND SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER XVII Verse XVII And whatsoever ye do whether in word or in work do it all in the name of
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
their duty The command of obedience is expressed in these words Servants obey in all things them that are your Masters according to the flesh The very names which he makes use of do shew the justice of the duty which he gives them in charge For since they are servants and those whom they serve are their masters it 's evident that they are obliged by the reason and nature of the things themselves to render them exact and faithful obedience But his saying of Masters that they are their masters according to the flesh doth mitigate the rigour and the meanness of servitude limiting the power of masters and superiors and extending it no further than unto temporal and corporeal things not unto the soul and conscience Man may be master of our flesh GOD alone is LORD over our Spirits Whatever be the subjection of our bodies we have still our souls free and dependant on none but GOD their Creator who alone hath the power as well as the right to do them good or evil as our LORD and Saviour remonstrates unto us Fear not them saith He that kill the body Matt. 10.28 and cannot kill the soul but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell It is with this distinction that we are to take the obedience which the Apostle recommends unto servants in all things his meaning is in all things that lye within the Master's power and do purely and singly refer unto the flesh not reflecting on or touching the interests of the spirit For if our master according to the flesh command us things contrary to the will of our Master according to the spirit that is of GOD in this case it is evident that we ought to obey GOD rather than man and that if we owe much and in some sense even all things unto men yet we owe them nothing to the prejudice of GOD and that there is nothing but we should suffer rather than fail of that first and eternal servitude we owe to our Creator and Redeemer This holy doctrine of the Apostle's sheweth us first that the LORD JESUS CHRIST doth not at all disturb the order of humane societies He leaves to every one in them the just rights they are possessed of unto persons or things He subjecteth us unto Himself and unto GOD His Father but without doing wrong unto Caesar or any of the lawful powers that govern either Estates or Families He intends that all His should render to them what they owe them He destroys but the treacheries and tyrannie of sin and Satan Herod dread not His coming He will neither pull your Scepter out of your hand nor diminish in any thing the rights of your Crown His design is to give you Heaven not to out you of the earth to enfranchise you from the slavery of vices and not to deprive you of the service of your subjects Whence appears how unjust and scandalous the pretention of those is who under the ombrage of Gospel-liberty would abolish all dominion and soveraignty among Christians accounting it incompatible with the state of grace and their 's no less who subject even in respect of temporals all that are Christians not the greatest Monarchs excepted to one mortal man making their Crowns to depend upon his will and giving him authority to depose them and to loose their subjects from the yoke of their obedience dogmatizing too by the same means that a Christian Prince who falleth into heresie loseth the right he had over his people Can there a thing be said more pernicious or more contrary to the Apostle who would not that Paganism it self a matter worse than heresie should make Masters and Superiors lose any of the lawful rights they have over their Christian slaves Secondly the Apostle's limiting the authority and power of masters over their slaves in things of the flesh naming them their masters according to the flesh doth shew us that there is none but GOD alone who is our Master according to the spirit whence it follows that such as under any pretext whatever do peremptorily invade the Lordly ruling of our souls do grievously erre and usurp a thing which belongs to none but GOD an attentat which those of Rome are evidently guilty of in that they put the consciences of all Christians in subjection to their Pope and Council whereas the holy Apostles do expresly declare that they have no dominion over our faith 1 Cor. 1.19 1 Pet. 5.2 and advertise all the Ministers of CHRIST to feed the flock committed to them not as being Lords over GOD's heritage but so as they may be a pattern to them But I return unto St. Paul who having in general injoyned servants that obedience which they owe their masters according to the flesh in all things doth adjoyn the manner after which he would have 'em to obey them not serving to the eye saith he as bent to please men but in simplicity of heart fearing GOD. He first purgeth the carriage of Christian servants of a vice very ordinary with persons of that quality namely serving only to the eye because they have no other design but to content men They do not think themselves obliged by reasons of conscience but only by those of their own interest to do their masters any duty or service And so they serve them no further than they judge necessary for the exempting themselves from that chastisement which they should incurr if they failed to obey or for their procuring some recompence by winning their favour They respect nothing but this in all the obedience they render them Whence it comes that when they see their master present they play the good husbands as we say and labour at their work with most officious diligence and care But if he turn his back they return unto their nature caring for nothing less than for his service like that evil servant in the parable who seeing that his master delaid to come betook himself to his debauches and fell an outraging his Lord's houshold and wasting his goods All these peoples servitude is but a Comedy And as Players put on their disguise and act their parts when there is an assembly of spectators so these do not their duty but when their master looketh on And if they thought they could deceive his eyes and knowledge or avoid his correcting them or save their salary they would surely never take the pain to do ought of what he hath commanded them It 's this fallacious and truly servile disposition of heart which the Apostle here forbids to Christian servants when he says they should not serve to the eye as aiming only to please men But instead of this he would have them serve in singleness of heart fearing GOD that is sincerely without fraud or feigning and having more respect to GOD than men To that eye-service he had mentioned he opposeth singleness of heart and to the pleasing of men the fearing of GOD. The
at which you shall be examined will have no more complacency for you then for them That LORD whom you see over you is their Creatour and Redeemer as well as yours He hath put them under you but to govern them not to tyrannize over them to have care of them as his creatures and children not to tread them under foot as worms Remember He will treat you as ye shall have treated them You are his servants as they are yours or to say better they are your brethren and ye are not worthy to be so much as His Vassals You and they are one and the same flesh that came out of the earth and unto earth shall return but neither they nor you have any thing in common with GOD. He is in the Heavens and you crawl in the dirt He is the King of Glory and ye are but dust and ashes Yet such is His goodness that notwithstanding this infinite inequality He hath not disdained your nothingness He hath pardoned you your sins He hath washed you in the bloud of his Son He hath forgiven you all your debts He hath communicated to you His divine nature Respect His graces and have no less gentleness and goodness for your own flesh and bloud then this Soveraign LORD hath had for you who were His enemies With what face will you beg mercy of Him if ye be inexorable to your people How can you hope for the grace of your Master if you have none for your Servants I beseech you both have these holy thoughts night and day fore your eyes to the end you may faithfully discharge those mutual duties which the Apostle enjoyns you the one subjection and obedience the others justice and equity both of you living in such an holy correspondence as that the loyalty the respect the humility the submission and the diligence of servants may go in conjunction with the gentleness the gravity the liberality and benevolence of Masters If ye so do you will be happy the families where you live together in this manner will become the wonder of the earth and the honour of the Church The blessing of Heaven will fall continually on them and besides the contentment and repose which this kind of life will give you abundantly for the present it will also bring you hereafter into the possession of the heavenly inheritance But Dear Brethren it is not enough that those Masters and Servants to whom St. Paul particularly speaks do make their profit of his instructions We all have in them what to learn of whatever quality and condition we be For since he would have servants render so exact and so frank an obedience to their Masters according to the flesh judge ye what kind of obedience we owe to that Highest LORD whom we all have in Heaven The Master according to the flesh gave not his servant the being he hath and if he redeemed him he redeemed but his flesh and that at the price of a sum of money only Ours did make us and it 's by His liberality alone that we hold all the being life and motion that we have Nor hath He only created us He hath also redeemed the whole of us our soul and body flesh and spirit not with silver and gold which are corruptible things but with His own precious bloud having voluntarily sacrific'd His life to preserve us from death and give us an happy immortality Never Master had so much right to command His servants as He hath in reference to us Let us obey Him then in all things without reservation and consecrate this whole life of ours to His service the whole whereof we have once and again received from His grace Neither is it with this LORD as with Masters according to the flesh These oftentimes command things unjust or unhonest things contrary to our salvation which we cannot do without destroying our selves He commands us nothing but what is just what is honest and reasonable what is worthy both of Himself and of us Wherefore the most abject bond-servant owes his Master but a limited obedience whereas we owe ours such as is absolute and infinite His yoke is easie and His burthen light He demands no other thing of us but that we love Him and our brethren for His sake that we live honestly and holily that is be happy O ingrateful and execrable creatures that we are if we deny a Master to whom we owe so much so just and so reasonable so beneficial and so blessed an obedience Again judge ye Faithful if the bond-servant ought to obey his Master in singleness of heart with courage and affection as the Apostle says with what ardour promtitude and devotion should we serve ours who is not only allmighty and all-wise but also goodness love clemency and beneficence it self Then as for the bond-man though he ought to serve his Master at all times and in every place yet his Master sees him not always whereas we are ever under the eye of ours He hath a full view of us sees us within and without nor can we hide our selves in any place where He is not present We cannot speak a word nor form the least thought in the secret of our hearts but He 's a witness of it knows the whole assoon as our selves Now sure there is no slave so sottish and shameless but the Master's eye will keep in order and compel unto obedience It such a one be idle or exorbitant he is not so but in the other's absence Since then we have ours alway present what remaineth but that we be never idle that we employ all our time in His service bearing respect to His Divine eye that looketh on us and is over us both day and night Again even when the serving of a man is in question the Apostle would have the slave not serve to please the man meerly so great an integrity and probity doth he require in all our performances Judge then how much more holy and how much more pure from all interest that obedience should be which we render to the LORD JESUS GOD blessed for ever Undoubtedly they that serve Him to please men to gain their esteem and acquire a reputation for sanctity among them or to draw thence any other profit they I say beside their being ridiculous and vain do commit also an huge and an inexcusable sacriledge profaning the Name of GOD and the sacred acts of religion Matt. 6.2 and most unrighteously abusing them for worldly ends Such are those hypocrites that fast and pray and hear the word of GOD and celebrate His Sacraments and give alms to be seen and had in honour that in short serve not GOD but to please men They saith CHRIST have their wages They are paid they have nothing more to look for at GOD's hands For such vain and deceitful service they shall have no other reward but that vain and deceitful breath which they have coveted and sottishly preferred to the glory of
reason to take the pains himself to form our speech on such occasions namely when we are to entertain those without about our sentiments in matter of religion For certainly this is the tenderest part of all our converse with men and that which would be managed with greatest exactness It is a very slippery passage and the events frequently are of great importance and have long and considerable consequences for good and for evil according to mens different carriage in it And if there be any case in which the tongue hath any reason to vant of great matters Jam. 3.6 as St. James saith without doubt it is in this an answer here as it is qualified being capable of amending or empairing the condition of an whole Christian people a sage and moderate discourse having sometimes averted or stayd the persecution of the Church and appeased the rage of its enemies whereas on the other hand a speech though for substance true yet being indiscreet and ill-placed hath often inflamed the hatred of the mighty and troubled the Church's peace and caused a thousand disorders and devastations The Apostle then would have us on this occasion that is when we speak with those without more than on any other govern our lips with so much judgement that there may not a word break out but what is seasoned as it ought to be Let your speech saith he be alwaies with grace seasoned with salt He presupposeth in the first place and precedently to other things that it have its principal vertue to wit truth which is the soul of it according to that general rule he elsewhere gives us Eph. 4.25 to speak truth every one with our neighbour But in conjunction herewith his intention is that our speech have these two further qualities first that it be with grace and secondly that it be seasoned with salt The grace he requires in it is not that which is given to a discourse by the ornaments of Rhetorick which respecteth only the pleasing of the ear and consisteth in a choice of elegant words and in a sweet and grateful composition The grace a Christian ought to seek for and have in his speech is so to utter truth as it offend not the hearer that it express our minds without exulcerating his that it have neither gall nor venome nor virulency that it be simple humble and modest without reviling without scoffing and other such stings as may inflame those whom we speak to The other particular he addeth namely that it be well salted that is prepared and as it were seasoned with an exquisite prudence does referr to the same thing for substance For as salt doth desiccate meats and eat out the moisture and putrid humour of them leaving a sharpness in them pleasing to the taste so this Christian prudence which he would have all our speech imbued with works out of it all that it might have in it superfluous and noxious and tempers it in such sort that the sorce and vigour which it leaves it pleaseth the spirit and enters gratefully into it The masters of common Rhetorick would too that there be salt in their Scholars speeches But it is not that which must season a Christian's deliveries By this salt which they make such account of they mean certain pleasantnesses that border upon raillery and jesting Expressions that are quick but offend not and touch the Spirit but do not gall it We for our part do pass by this artifice and draw the salt wherewith our speeches are to be impregnated from a quite other vein even an holy Christian prudence which avoids all that may displease or scandalize our neighbour and chooseth what is proper to edifie him so seasoning discourse that nothing unsavoury or insignificant be uttered which might disgust him at our persons or our religion This salt cleanseth our talk first of all discourses that are either noxious and dangerous as those that lead to viciousness or vain and fruitless and secondly of all that may offend those we talk with and alienate them from our religion For this end that knowledge is necessary which the Apostle speaks of in the following clause that you may know saith he how ye ought to answer every one It 's clear that this grace of speech seasoned with salt doth not teach us how we ought to answer every one but on the contrary this science or knowledge when we have it seasoneth our speech with its necessary grace So that whereas the Apostle saith that ye may know it it must be understood of the event and success as if he had said let your speech be with grace and seasoned with salt so as it may appear you know how to answer every one Or the word know which he useth in the original must be taken for as knowing and as judging and discerning how we ought to answer every man First his calling our discourses an answering does intimate that we should not cast our selves upon such kind of conferences inconsiderately nor enter on them but with judgement and advisednesse being called to it either by some one's demand or by the voice of such a necessary occasion as obligeth us to speak Then again he shews us that we ought to diversifie our speech according to the difference of persons and in this it is that that discerning of persons which we touched at afore must do us service There are those to be met with whom it would be best not to speak to at all The dispositions of some may suffer a firm and free discourse The temper of others requireth a more soft and tender treatment As you see that meats for several bodies must be diversly prepared according to their different constitution so we should diversly season our speech according to the diversity of spirits Such Dear Brethren is the holy and wholsome lesson that the Apostle gives us in this place Practice we it diligently and regulate by it our speech and deportment in all the commerce we have with those without Hide we not our sentiments in religion from them but explain our selves to them in such a manner as may be proper both for their edification and our own satety First let us never speak of them but in season and when occasion offers its self for it do it with that gravity and decency that 's due unto so high and so important a subject Next let us take out of our speech all the stings that might incense those that hear us Let not it have in it any thing reproachful or offensive any thing that scenteth of hatred or contempt Let it be sweet and full of affection and respect Let it bear the image of a well-disposed and a truly charitable soul and breath nothing but the good and the edification of our neighbour And as for truths themselves let it discover and with full liberty expose such as are grateful to our adversaries as thanks be to GOD there are many in particular I make bold to
him when the LORD calleth us thereto It 's this way Christians that we shall get to that heavenly Kingdom in which St. Paul is lodg'd after his combats and there receive with him from the merciful hand of our Father the glorious crown of immortality which He on His great day will give to us and to all those that shall have lov'd the appearing of His Son unto Whom with Him and the Holy Spirit the only true GOD blessed for ever be honour praise and glory to ages of ages Amen THE FORTY NINTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. IV. VER XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII Verse XII Epaphras who is one of you a servant of CHRIST saluteth you striving alwaies for you in prayer that ye might abide perfect and compleat in all the will of GOD. XIII For I bear him record that he hath a great zeal for you and for them who are of Laodicea and for them of Hierapolis XIV Luke the beloved Physician saluteth you and Demas also XV. Salute the brethren who are at Laodicea and Nymphas and the Church which is in his house XVI And when this Epistle hath been read among you cause that it be also read in the Church of the Laodiceans and that you read also the Epistle from Laodicea XVII And say to Archippus take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the LORD that thou fulfill it XVIII The salutation by the own hand of me Paul Remember my bonds Grace be with you Amen DEAR Brethren The LORD JESUS being upon the point to quit the earth and making as it were a declaration of His last will chargeth His Disciples above all things to love one another with a sincere and ardent affection like that He bore us This mutual love He appoints to be the badge of our profession Joh. 13.35 By this saith he shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye love one another Accordingly you know that His Spirit failed not to imprint this Divine mark upon those first Christians whom He formed in the City of Jerusalem by the Apostles preaching Acts 4.32 animated with the vertue of His heavenly fire The whole multitude of them saith the holy story was of one heart and of one soul neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own but they had all things common This union and admirable correspondence continued a long time among the faithful and was observed by the Pagans with wonder witness he who about two hundred years after the birth of our LORD reproacheth Christians that they know one another by certain secret signs and love almost before they are acquainted and all of them call one another indifferently brethren and sisters Now as error and passion do abuse the best things this poor ignorant takes their holy and divine concord for some execrable conspiracy and referrs the mysterie of their amity unto infamous commerces whereas all their union grew from Heaven and was founded upon piety and breathed nothing but honesty and sanctity nor did tend but to the glory of GOD and the supreme happiness of men Beside the Apostles writings which expos'd in publick view did plainly discover to the unpassionate how pure and honest and holy the laws of their charity were the manners and the lives and actions of those primitive Christians did also evidently justifie the same There are left us GOD be thanked divers excellent informations in the books of the first antiquity by which the marvels of the charity and mutual love of those holy men do plainly appear And not to speak of others you have fair and illustrious marks of it in this conclusion of St. Paul's Epistle unto the Colossians who sheweth us that his prison neither hindred divers faithful men from joyning themselves unto him in this affliction nor him nor them again from minding absent Christians and charitably embracing the Churches of Colosse and Laodicea and Hierapolis You here see the love of Pastors to their flocks the dear affection of flocks to their Pastors and the divine communication of Churches one with another Psal 133.1 If therefore it be a goood and pleasant thing as the Psalmist singeth to see brethren maintaining a due entercourse with each other grudge not this hour My Beloved which we yet oblige you to spend in the consideration of this Text having not been able to finish it entirely in our last action Let this admirable amity of the first Christians rejoyce you and give you an ardent desire to imitate it Have ye for one another sentiments and movings of heart like to theirs You have already heard how St. Paul having advertised the faithful at Colosse that he sent Tychicus and Onesimus unto them to inform them of his estate doth give them the recommendations of Aristarchus and Mark and Jesus He now addeth those of Epaphras and Luke and Demas and then his own to the Church of Laodicea and to a faithful man named Nymphas with an order to impart this his Epistle to them and to advertise Archippus of his duty Whereupon he endeth with his ordinary salutation conjuring them to remember his bonds and recommending them to the grace of GOD. For the deducing of these four points by the assistance of GOD in the same order as they are couched in the Text we must first consider who these three persons were whose salutations the Apostle presents to the Colossians The first of the three is Epaphras of whom he spake afore in very honourable terms at the beginning of this Epistle where he stileth him Colos 1.7 8. his dear fellow servant and a faithful Minister of CHRIST and gives him the glory of having instructed the Colossians in the knowledge of the Gospel and of having taken the care to let him know the charity they had for him Here he qualifies him in like manner a fervant of CHRIST that is a Minister of his and an Officer of His house in the work of the Gospel Moreover he informs us that this holy man was a Colossian that is was born in their City or at least made his ordinary abode there Epaphras saith he who is one of you a servant of CHRIST saluteth you Some learned men * Grotius Phil. 2.28 are of opinion that it 's this same Pastor whom the Apostle calls Epaphroditus and of whom he says so much good in the Epistle to the Philippians But I do not see that this conjecture is either founded or followed by any of the ancients I confess that the name Epaphras is a contraction of Epaphroditus and such a diminution is ordinary in the Greek and in the Latin tongue in the proper names of men But if it were one and the same person there is no reason why the Apostle should name him diversly in these two Epistles in the one contractedly and with diminution in the other the name at length and entire Considering withal that no part of what is
spirit and knit together by one and the same Faith Hope and Charity No one hath part in the Kingdom of Heaven who lives not in the communion of this body Sure then it 's one of our greatest concernments to maintain peace among our selves and to put it as the Apostle gives us order in the highest place of our hearts that it may govern with supremacy all our thoughts all our motions and sentiments For there are no natural bodies but their members do conspire and live with one another in a perpetual and inviolable peace The societies of States and Families which are bodies but of another kind namely political and oeconomical are governed in the same manner their primary and most sacred law is that all the orders and persons of which they are compos'd have peace with one another Now if this hath place both in nature and in the societies of mankind how much more ought it to be observ'd in the Church which is a divine a coelestial and supernatural body Our own interest doth naturally require it For as war doth weaken and ruine the States into which it thrusts its self and whose members it divideth so on the contrary Peace establisheth fortifieth and conserves them according to that saying of our Saviour Matt. 12 2◠Every kingdom divided against its self shall be brought to nought and every City or house divided against it's self shall not stand The Apostle addeth in the close and be ye thankful which some referr to the same scope that the rest of the Text hath as if he intended that those thanks we owe to GOD for the free favour He hath shewed us in receiving us unto peace with Him do also evidently oblige us to maintain peace with our brethren And I acknowledge the argumentation is good and pertinent Yet it is better to take this clause for an exhortation he maketh us in general to be thankful towards GOD and towards men For as ingratitude is one of the blackest and most detestable vices expresly enrolled by the Apostle among the marks of those wretched times whose extreme corruption he foretells in the second Epistle to Timothy so is it sure that gratitude 2 Tim. 3.2 or thankfulness is a vertue most necessary of any and in my opinion he went not very wide from the truth who called it the mother of all other vertues Cicers It enkindleth piety in our hearts raiseth up the love of GOD and of His CHRIST and carrieth us to serve and obey Him and by consequence to exercise all honesty and vertue It is certain that upon this account no man sins without ingratitude Add hereto that thankfulnesse is the source of all the services and duties we persorm to our Princes to our Countrey to our Parents to our Superiors and all that have obliged us offices as you know that have an huge extent in 〈…〉 it's with a great deal of reason that the Apostle 〈…〉 give us charge also touching Thackfulnesse Dear Brethren These are the three Vertues which he tells us of in this Text. Let us not neglect any one of them But embrace them all three and deck our lives internally and externally with them In the first place above all let us put on Charity as the soul of Christianity the perfect bond of your union the mark of GOD's children the abridgement of all our duties and the mother of all Vertues Having it you have all and without it you have nothing Without it all the profession you make of the Gospel your prayers your religion and your services are but an empty noise a sounding brass 1 Cor. 13.1 as the Apostle speaks and a tinkling cymbal Because the Israelites wanted this GOD had all their devotions and all their sacrifices in abomination How much more will He reject yours if you have the impudence to present Him any without Charity Now that His Son JESUS hath so magnifically discovered to you the necessity and excellency of it For what can you alledge any longer for excusing your selves from this duty Nature it self verily sufficiently obliged you afore to love your neighbours since that they are your brethren even after the flesh issued from the same Adam and the same Noah animated by the same Spirit clothed with the same body born and bred upon the same earth and if you devest your selves of all the difference that vanity and opinion hath created you will see that in truth there is none at all between you and them You are subject to the same accidents they are and the death that at last brings them down will no more spare you than it does them Having so strict a conjunction with them you ought to look upon them as your other selves and love them as your neer relations and not account any thing that betides them forein or indifferent The Heathen who knew no more had the understanding to draw this conclusion from it But the Cross of our LORD and Saviour hath discovered to us other reasons of Charity that are much more excellent and much more pressing For He so loved men that He died to save them Christian how can you hate or despise persons whom your Master hath so much loved and esteem'd upon whom you see His blood whereby they have been wash'd and purified together with your selves His Spirit with which they have been sealed as well as you The first-fruits and earnests of that heavenly inheritance unto which they and you are called to live eternally together in the same It 's by that they are to be considered and not by what they are upon this earth which with the whole heap of all its pomps and riches and nobility and honours and other pieces of vanity is but a figure that passeth away and perisheth If your neighbour hath nothing on the earth if he be despised and accounted the filth and off-scouring of the world as the Apostle speaks remember that he hath his share in Heaven that he is an heir of this eternal Kingdom the child of GOD and brother of JESUS CHRIST Let this dignity of his which is so high and so precious in the sight of GOD and His Angels induce you to love him to tender him and apply your self to him let it mitigate your resentments if he hath offended you let it stretch for your hands to a ready communicating of the succour of your alms of your consolations and of your good offices if any necessity of his does call for them For such is the nature of true Charity it loves not in word and with the tongue but indeed and in truth Let ours then abound in alms and in beneficence unto the poor in consolations of and in good offices to the afflicted Let it be firm and constant Let not our brethrens ill successes no nor their offences if it befall them to do us any be ever able to break this sacred bond of perfectnesse which spiritually joyneth us and them together in our