this flesh wherewith we are cloathed there do escape us but too many let us combat our own weaknesses and have recourse unto the grace of GOD who pardoning us what is past will fortifie us for the future But the Apostle after having enjoyned us in general that our life be worthy of the LORD toucheth next the principal duties whereof we must acquit us to live in this sort and addeth first that we do please Him entirely that is that in all things we seek to please the LORD endeavouring nothing but what may be acceptable to Him that this be the aim of our life Whence appears that the first point of a life celestial and truly worthy of the LORD is to take His will for our supream rule by it squaring all our thoughts words and actions For this is that the Apostle signifieth when He saith we must entirely please Him that is in all things in all the parts of life both in what respects the sentiments of our hearts and in what concerns the words of our mouths or our other external actions This is as the soul of the service of God You serve a man or your selves and not the LORD when it is to content your selves or some other that you act The best action and in its self most holy loseth its worth and value when the design of pleasing GOD is wanting in it Let us then banish from our life first all those things which GOD hath not instituted For how fair an appearance soever they have we cannot assure our selves that they please the LORD if He hath not ordained them Let us not suffer our selves to be beguiled by the paint and false lustre of humane devotion Since the question is of pleasing GOD we must give our selves to the study and practice of that which Himself hath expresly commanded us in His word As to this I am most certain it 's a thing acceptable to Him But for that which superstition or the pretended wisdom of men hath invented I cannot be assured whether it please the LORD or no. Then next in the very performance of the things He hath commanded us let us have regard still to please Him Offer we not our Sacrifices but to His Deity alone If our actions be also acceptable to men in good time be it It is gain we may take with contentment But how ever they take it have we still for our end to please the LORD Provided that our oblations are grateful to Him let the world judge of them as it will We have that we sought and it sufficeth us to have contented the eyes of our Master Let us renounce our own wills and regard His only wishing daily that it might be done of us and all other Creatures as the LORD JESUS hath commanded us The Apostle adds in the second place the productions of Christian life Frustifying saith he in every good work This necessarily follows from the affection he but now recommended to us For if we study to please the LORD entirely since it is only good works that can be acceptable to Him it is evident we shall give our selves to them continually But the Apostle useth in it a remarkable term saying to signifie this production that we fructifie in every good work The Scripture often compareth the faithful to Trees because they are planted by the hand of GOD sprung from His celestial and incorruptible seed that is His word and you know how the Prophet in the first Psalm represents us a good man and one fearing GOD under the image of a Tree planted by a stream of living water yielding its fruit in its season and crowned with a green and grateful feuillage which never fadeth And elsewhere he compares him to a flourishing and fruitful Palm-tree Psa 92.13 14 15. Joh. 15. Rom. 11 in the Courts of the LORD JESUS CHRIST saith in St. John That He is the Vine and we are the Branches and St. Paul compares the Israel of GOD that is the whole Society of His children to a true Olive whereinto each of them is grafted to partake of its sap and fatness Sutably to these Allegories it 's with much grace and reason that the Apostle makes use of the word fructifie to signifie the production of our good works That immortal juice which hath been shed into us from on high by the Word and Spirit obligeth us to this secondity it not having been communicated to us but to produce in us the fruits of righteousness and holiness It 's this the LORD expects from His mystical Vineyard demanding of it this just recompence of the care He takes to husband it And as we love trees which do not unprofitably take up our ground but besides leaves and blossoms bear us a quantity of fruits so is it with the heavenly Vineyard-keeper He seeks for fruit on His mystical trees He condemneth to the fire the fig-tree that bears none He loveth and purgeth that which beareth any Good works are the fruits He requireth of us yea every sort of good works Fructifying saith the Apostle in every good work Nature giveth not to any of the Trees 〈◊〉 it produceth the faculty of bringing forth more than one kind of fruits only because the seed of which they grow is earthly and material But grace which generateth the LORD's mystical plants of a seed spiritual and divine makes them capable of bearing infinite fruits of every sort This the Apostle calls good works commanded of GOD in His word useful to the advancement of His glory and the edification of our Neighbour Let no one flatter himself as if the vain greenness of leaves the outward profession of Christianity would suffice Him to be numbred among the plants of the LORD He acknowledgeth for His the trees only that bear fruit There is more yet It 's not enough to bear one certain kind of fruits there must be fructifying in every good work Your alms will serve you for nothing if they be not accompanied with the fruits of honesty and sanctification In vain shall you have been adorned with meekness and gentleness if you have not also chastity and beneficence In fine the Apostle willeth in the third and last place that we increase in the knowledge of the LORD See faithful Brethren how this Holy man every where joyneth together knowledge and action faith and charity He begs of GOD that the Colossians might be compleated in wisdom and spiritual understanding to the end saith he that they may walk in a fashion worthy of the LORD and fructifie in every good work But for fear they should imagine they had no more need to study after knowledge He comes to it yet again and addeth increasing in the knowledge of God For as our sanctification is never perfect here below so there wanteth alwayes something in our knowledge There must be endeavour equally after the one and the other And as the light of knowledge carrieth and fitteth us to the practice of
Himself without witness and that He hath made manifest in His works what may be known of Him But all this light doth only shew us the greatness of their corruption For they with all the vivacity of their spirits made no proficiency in the School of Providence unto the fearing of GOD and serving Him but became vain in their reasonings and miserably abused the gifts of Heaven so as the whole success of this dispensation was nought else on their part but that they were thereby rendred inexcusable Conclude we then that all men generally not one excepted are of their own nature such as the Apostle here describes the Colossians strangers and enemies to GOD in their understanding in wicked works There is nothing but the word of the LORD alone which is able to bring them out of this estate by the saving grace of His Spirit wherewith GOD accompanies it And this the Apostle representeth here to the Colossians in the second place For having minded them of their former condition he addeth Yet now hath GOD reconciled you by the body of His flesh that is the flesh of JESUS CHRIST by His death The condition they were in before was very miserable For what can be imagined more wretched than men far from and strangers to GOD in whose communion alone all their welfare consisteth men enemies to Him without whose love they can have no true good yet besides misery there was horrour also in their case Misery doth ordinarily stir up pity their 's was worthy of abhorring and hatred For what is there in the world that less deserves the compassion of GOD and men or is more worthy of the execration of Heaven and Earth than a Subject that withdraweth from His Soveraign that hates Him and Warrs against Him that insolently violates all His Laws and abandons himself to all the crimes He hath forbidden especially if the Soveraign be gracious and beneficent as the LORD is the only Author of all the being life and motion that we have Nevertheless Oh inestimable and incomprehensible goodness GOD for all this forbore not to have pity on the Colossians He sought to them when they were alienated from Him He offered them peace when they made War upon Him He took them for His friends and chose them for His Children when they shewed Him the greatest hatred and enmity Their wicked works deserved His curse and He bestowed on them His grace Their rebellion deserved His direful flashes and He sent them His comfortable light This opposition the Apostle indicateth here when he saith And yet you hath God reconciled A like opposition he expresseth elsewhere Rom. 5.8 in the same matter saying GOD altogether commendeth His love to us-ward in that while we were but sinners CHRIST dyed for us For the setting forth of this great grace of GOD towards these faithful people he saith that GOD hath reconciled them Having spoken of their estrangement and of their enmity with GOD He doth with good reason make use of the word Reconcile to signifie the setting of them again in His good liking and favour It happens somtimes in the misunderstandings of men that the averseness and hatred is but on one side one of the parties seeking the favour of the other Here as we have yerst intimated the aversion was mutual For we hated GOD and He because of our sins hated us It was necessary therefore for the restoring of us that both the one and the other of these two passions should be remedied that is that the wrath of GOD against us should be appeased and our hatred and enmity against Him extinguished The word Reconcile doth of its self comprehend both the one and the other But in the Apostle's writings it referreth principally to the first that is the mitigation and appeasing of the wrath of GOD. As indeed this is the principal point of our reconciliation For GOD being our soveraign LORD it would not benefit us at all to change our will towards Him if His did not operate otherwise towards us as the repentance and tears of a subject are vain if his Prince reject them and remain still angry with Him Furthermore the word Reconcile as also the most part of other words of like form and nature is taken two manner of ways For either it signifies simply the action that hath such vertue as is necessary to make reconciliation or it compriseth the effect of it also It 's in the first sense that the Apostle used it afore where he said that GOD hath reconciled all things celestial and terrestrial in Himself or for Himself having made peace by the blood of the cross of CHRIST For he meaneth simply that GOD hath taken away the causes of hatred and enmity and opened the way of reconciliation not that all things are already actually reconciled It 's thus again that we must take 2 Cor. 5.19 what he saith elsewhere that GOD was in CHRIST reconciling the world unto Himself not imputing unto them their trespasses But the Apostle takes the word Reconcile in the second sense when he saith that we have obtained reconciliation by CHRIST and when he beseecheth us to be reconciled to GOD it being evident that in these places he intendeth not the right and power only but the very effect and actual having of reconciliation It 's after this second way that we must take the word reconcile in the Text. For again this Reconciation may be considered two ways first in general as made by JESUS CHRIST on the Cross and secondly in particular as applyed to each of us by Faith In the first consideration it is presented to all men as sufficient for their salvation according to that doctrine of the Apostle Tit. 2.11 1 Joh. 2.2 that the Grace of GOD is saving to all men and that also of St. John that JESVS CHRIST is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world Under the second consideration it appertaineth only to the faithful according to that clause of the covenant which declareth That the only Son was given to the world that whosoever believeth in Him Joh. 3.16 should have eternal life It 's precisely in this sense the Apostle saith here that GOD had reconciled the Colossians he meaneth not simply that GOD had given them through the cross of His Son that they might be reconciled to Him by believing but also that He had effectively reconciled them to Himself and put them in real possession of the benefits that were purchased for us by the merit of CHRIST embracing them as His children pardoning them all their sins and obliviating all His wrath and the aversion their offences had given Him towards them But the Apostle mentions to them yet again here the means by which this reconciliation was effected as being a thing of infinite importance both to the glory of GOD and their edification He hath reconciled you saith he by the body of His
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
have you observ'd examples of them What would S. Paul say if he were in the world to see his discipline so strangely forgotten among men that make profession to hold him for one of their principal Apostles He recommendeth to us not one of these names to which you oblige your selves He speaks of none but that of the LORD JESUS it 's in that name alone he commands us to do all we do whether in word or work because indeed Acts 4.12 there is none other under heaven given unto men whâ—â—eby we must be sav'd as said S. Peter the same Peter whom you pretend to be the head and the foundation of your Popes S. Paul sure gave and conserved this glory to his LORD's name alone with so much zeal and jealousie that understanding how some in the Church of Corinth joyned in some sort the names of servants of His with it calling themselves 1 Cor. 1.12 some of Paul others of Apollos others of Cephas and others of CHRIST as you see among our adversaries at this day some call themselves of Augustine others of Francis and others of JESVS this Holy man cryes out upon it as a Sacriledge and an utter overthrowing of Religion Is CHRIST divided saith he was Paul crucified for you Ibid ver 13. or were you baptized in the name of Paul Prescribing by these words or rather by this flash of lightning that the faithful ought not either call or distinguish themselves or glory or speak or do whatever in Religion in any other name than that of this holy and merciful LORD who was crucified for them and in whose name alone they were baptiz'd Yea he thanketh GOD that he had administred baptism but to few of them lest any once should thence taken occasion to believe or say that he had baptiz'd in his own name Then a little after resuming the discourse so much took he the thing to heart 1 Cor. 3 4 5 9. Are you not carnal saith he to these people while one of you says I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos Who then is Paul and who is Apolloâ— but Ministers by whom you believed even as the LORD gave to every man Ye are GOD's Husbandry Ye are GOD's building Is not this a telling us plainly that we ought neither bear the name of any other than of GOD nor act in matters of piety in any name but that of JESUS CHRIST In which likewise he here commandeth us to do and say all that we shall act in word or work But having considered what the Apostle affords us here against error for the instruction of our faith let us now observe what he teacheth us for the correction of our manners which is his principal intention He teacheth us My Brethren that if we will be truly faithful persons and Christians as we make profession to be we must have JESUS CHRIST continually before our eyes must examine address and sute our actions our speeches and purposes unto the name of CHRIST take it for the North-star in our course and in one word for the rule of our whole life That we never do any thing little or great otherwise than in His name That His name be the only motive inducing us to speak and act and the only mark at which our words and actions tend Think now first how great our confusion ought to be The Apostle willeth that whatever we do in word or work we do it all in the name of the LORD JESVS and the most of us quite contrary do almost nothing in His Name Heaven and earth are witnesses that the name of JESUS hath no part in our works or words They are all consecrated to His enemies they are inspired by their spirit and aim at nothing but their interests Tell me ye covetous is it in the name of JESUS CHRIST that ye toil night and day to heap up dung Is it He that taught you those black arts and inhumane dexterities to spoil the Orphan and the Widow for the enriching of your selves Have you had the confidence to call upon the name of JESUS that He might teach you and guide your hands to work deceit and bless your violences Is it to advance His glory and give His name a good odour that you make your selves famous among the Vassals of Mammon not disdaining any part of his drudgery how distastful soever to GOD and man And you that are ambitious can you indeed perswade your selves that those vanities that take you up are so important unto JESUS CHRIST Or that it is in His Name you lose your time about them You also whom the flesh and its pleasures do drown in their ordures in conscience is it in the name of JESUS CHRIST you are employed Is it for His glory or according to His will I say as much of the revengeful and the drunken and of all those that serve any one of the other vices which JESUS CHRIST hath expresly condemned and forbidden No one of all these do's act in His name Dear Brethren let us renounce these things if we will be Christians Let us never make any enterprize never set upon any action but first consider whether it may be done in the name of the LORD JESUS that is whether it be such as we may with a good conscience implore His help to finish it and judge either proper to advance His glory and conform or at least not contrary to His will and interests Hereby we are obliged to banish out of our lives first all vitious actions of which none can be done in the name of JESUS CHRIST since they are all displeasing to Him And they that in designs of such nature have the impudence to ask assistance of Him as some there be whom superstition hath inspir'd this sottish conceit into that they may do evil for a good end these I say offend JESUS CHRIST excessively rendring Him guilty of their crimes as much as in them is and inviting Him to take part in their vices But this rule of the Apostle doth not only oblige us to eschew evil and abstain from sin It requireth also that what good we do be done for CHRIST's sake and in His name that in our alms and in our devotions and in all the acts of our piety and charity we seek nothing but His glory the fulfilling of His will and the advancement of His Kingdom and not the praise of men or the interest of our own affairs It 's a taking of His name in vain to do otherwise It 's a prophaning the actions of vertue by employing them in the service of flesh and blood them which of their own nature and by GOD's intention are not to be done but for His glory and for His Son's name sake In fine this maxim of the Apostle's embracing generally all the things a Christian doth both in word and work 't is evident that it ought to regulate those also which are in their own nature indifferent
will in wisdom and understanding but in ALL wisdom and understanding that is to say very abundantly and in so great and 〈◊〉 a measure as none of the parts none of the operations of this divine ability be wanting to them after the same manner as when He saith elsewhere have all faith to signifie so high and raised a measure of it as no kind and no degree of faith is wanting Such is well-beloved Brethren the ardent and affectionate Prayer which the Apostle made continually for these Colossians That they might be filled with the knowledge of the will of GOD in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that is in such sort as this knowledge might form in them an exquisite sageness and spiritual prudence It Remaineth that to end we briefly touch at the principal lessons we are to take out of it for the instruction of our faith and the amendment of our manners First you see how far the judgement of the Apostle is from the doctrine and practice of Rome The Apostle willeth that the faithful do know the will of GOD that they be filled with this knowledge Rome teacheth that their faith is better defined by ignorance than by knowledge and that it is sufficient for them to have and I know not what implicite faith as they call it which without knowing ought its self referrs its self to the faith of another The Apostle willeth that the faithful be endowed with all wisdom and spiritual understanding Rome seareth nothing so much as this and desireth that without knowing or understanding ought themselves they leave this whole study to their Curates contenting themselves with saying they believe what the Church believes not knowing mean time what it believeth indeed Darkness is not more contrary to Light than this pretended faith to wisdom and understanding Their practice is conform to their doctrine For they hide the Scripture from their people the sacred and authentick evidence of the Will of GOD the living and teeming source of all wisdom and heavenly understanding and if in their service they repeat any passages of it they repeat them in a strange language that their people may hear it and not understand it Faithful sirs thank GOD for that He hath withdrawn you from this Kingdom of darkness Enjoy with gratitude the light He hath set up in the midst of you Learn in the brightness thereof what is the will of the LORD the head and the foundation of true wisdom Make account that this knowledge is the gate of Heaven the entrance of eternity the seed of the divine nature and the principle of Celestial life Without it how will you love GOD since none loves what he knows not Without it how will you obey GOD since to obey Him is no other thing but to do His will Without it how will you resist the enemy how will you free your selves from his wiles how will you discern his impostures from divine truth Judge what account the Apostle maketh of it since it 's the first thing he asks of GOD for these Colossians whom he so ardently affected If you will attain the salvation to which he directeth them have that which he with so much passion desireth in them Remember you are the people of the Sun of righteousness of the eternal wisdom and word the workmanship of His Comforter who is a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding Deut. 33. Isai 1. and that one of the greatest reproaches GOD ever made to His Israel is the calling them a foolish people and unwise that hath neither knowledge nor understanding And since you see that the Apostle demands of GOD this divine wisdom for the Colossians address your selves also to that Father of lights from whom cometh down hither every good gift Press Him importune Him quit Him not till He have revealed His mysteries to you till He have lightned your eyes and your hearts to make you see the wonders of His wisdom But unto prayer add also study Read and hear His word carefully meditate it both here and at home render it familiar to you commune of it with your neighbours and instruct your Children in it As I grant this labour is unprofitable without the grace of the LORD so I maintain that with it it is most efficacious Paul would Preach to Lydia in vain if GOD did not open her heart But if GOD set to His hand it is not in vain that Paul labours for it And to attract this saving hand of the LORD joyn unto prayer the Offerings of your alms the perfume of a good and holy life Make use of what you know Mannage these first fruits of light which you have received already Employ the Talent that hath been given you and the Master will give you on it others greater How would you He should communicate new graces to people that so vilely abuse the first You know His will and do that of the Devil and the Flesh He â—â—th made you a present of the Gospel and you drag it in the dirt He hath marked you with His seals and you foul them in the ordures of vice You impudently bear His Liveries into the debauches of the world and the Disciples of Heaven are as ardent as the Children of this Generation after the dissoluteness of the time GOD forbid that wisdom and spiritual understanding should lodge in hearts so profane It 's a jewell too precious to shine otherwhere than in Heaven that is in pure and holy souls So far will you be from encreasing your light if you change not manners that GOD will take away this little which remaineth and let you return into Aegypt to live once more in its miserable darkness But GOD keep us from so great an unhappiness my Brethren well-beloved and to prevent it let us in good earnest convert us unto Him renouncing the lusts of the world and the filth of the flesh living in an exemplary purity and honesty that the LORD may take pleasure in the midst of us that He may make the knowledge of His will abound in us in all wisdom and spiritual understanding and after the faith and hopes of this life receive us in the eternity of the other unto the Vision and fruition of His glory So be it and unto Him Father Son and Spirit the true GOD blessed for ever be all honour and praise Amen THE IV. SERMON COL I. Ver. X XI Vers X. That ye may walk worthily as is beseeming the LORD unto the pleasing of Him in all things fructifying in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of GOD. XI Being strengthned with all might according to the power of His glory unto all sufferance and patience of mind with joy PHilosophers both Pagan and Christian do commonly divide the Sciences into two sorts The Speculative which seek only the knowledge of their subject resting in it when they have once acquired it without pretending any further and the Practical which aim at action and consider things
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
and Powers let us conclude that it must be taken as in other places where it is couched after the same manner simply and absolutely that is to say taken for the first and not the second Creation If there be liberty to do otherwise and to give it any where the sense we please without other reason then that of our own fond imagination who seeth not but that by such an overture there will be no longer any thing certain or assured left in Scripture For as these Hereticks by this cavilling gloss would deprive the LORD JESUS of the glory of the first Creation another might bereave the Father of it by the same means interpreting the passages of Scripture which affirm that GOD created the world not of its first Production by which it came out of nothing into being but mearly of a Reparation or a Renovation of the Universe and in consequence hereof pretend with some Philosophers that it was surely long before it was created but not in the condition and the form it afterward obtained But GOD forbid that Christians should ever suffer impiety to have such a licence over the Word of GOD. Let us keep religiously to the truths which the Scriptures teach us and receive their language with a candid and and sincere belief Let Heresie rise in commotion and be as unquiet as it will since the Apostle the mouth of Heaven and the trumpet of GOD proclaimeth That all things were created by the LORD JESVS receive we this sacred Verity believe it and confess it so much the rather for that it is not here alone but in divers other places beside that the Scripture teacheth it us For not to repeat here that which we touch'd afore out of the Epistle to the Ephesians where it is said That the Father created all things by JESVS CHRIST what can be said more expresly or directly then that we read in the beginning of S. John where this Divine Author speaking of the Word which was made flesh and whose glory himself and his Fellow-brethren saw and who was in the beginning with GOD saith aloud That all things were made by Him and without Him was not any thing made that was made and that the world was made by Him What can be uttered or conceived more clear than what we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews where the Apostle not content to have said at the entrance That the Father made the Worlds by his Son doth say of the Son a little after what the Prophet singeth LORD thou hast founded the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the works of thine hands Hebr. 1.10 Certainly this proof is so firm that all the Devils of Hell shall never be able to pluck it from us And nothing can be imagined more bruitish than that evasion which despair hath here inspir'd the Hereticks withal Though say they the Apostle have alledged these words of the Psalm yet his intention was not to apply them to CHRIST but the following words only Thou remainest and art the same and thy years shall not fail For is not this a plain giving the Apostle the lye who directly affirmeth that it is to the Son the holy Spirit saith LORD in the beginning thou hast laid the foundations of the earth Besides if this alledging of the Psalm do infer nothing else but that the Son is permanent and shall not fail it will be impertinent and not at all suffice for the Apostle's design in this place For his aim is to exalt the Son above the Angels but if the passage he brings for this purpose do conclude only that the Son is immortal and immutable who sees not that by this reckoning he attributes nothing to Him but what agreeth to the Angels also whose nature is likewise incorruptible and immutable Since then the Scope of the Apostle is to shew that JESUS CHRIST hath qualities which appertain not to the Angels and since on the other side the passage he alledgeth doth represent nothing of that kind but the creating of the world it must of necessity be acknowledged that it is the holy Apostle's intention to apply to the LORD principally this first part of the place wherein is said That He hath founded the earth and that the heavens are the work of His hands And so you see that the Supreme Wisdom begotten of the Father before all Ages which neither is nor can be any other than the LORD JESUS doth protest in the Book of Proverbs that it was with GOD its Eternal Father Prov. 3. when He created the World to shew us that it was the Governess and Superintendant of that great work And Moses represents it to us in the beginning of Genesis as far as the nature of the time and of the Old Testament would suffer For he reporteth GOD not creating any thing but by his Word He sheweth Him speaking at every part of His Work GOD said Let there be light GOD said Let there be a Firmament GOD said Let the waters be divided and let the day land appear and so in all the rest Whence comes it that so sage a Writer makes this Supreme and unspeakable Nature speak thus for the creating of each of His Works Let the Jew toil himself to the utmost he will never be able to give us a good and pertinent reason of it John 1.1 such as may content our minds But S. John calling the Son of GOD the Word unvails this secret to us shewing us that it is by this His Word the Father did create the world And Moses to signifie it mystically and in such sort as became that time represents GOD not creating ought but by speaking Be it then concluded against the obstinate fury of Hereticks that the LORD JESUS is the Creator of all things And this is so clear that the most part of those very men that deny His Eternal Divinity have not refused to acknowledge it as they in particular who after the name of their old Leader are commonly called Arrians these avouching that it is by Him the Father created the Universe at the beginning yet forbear not to deny that He is Eternal GOD of the same Essence with the Father Wherein as I confess they shew more modesty than the rest not having the forehead to reject what the Scripture doth so clearly exhibite So I must needs say they discover less perceivance and acuteness admitting a truth incompatible with the error which they hold For if the LORD JESUS did create the world as they say in concurrence with the Scripture do confess it must of necessity be granted that He is very JEHOVAH whom in time past Israel did adore which notwithstanding is the thing that they oppose This consequence appears first from what we noted afore That the Scripture never ascribes the action of Creating to any but GOD only Secondly from that in Isaiah the title of Creator is given to the true GOD to distinguish Him from creatures
be restrained to this matter and we are precisely to understand that He is the beginning of this second work of GOD. JESUS CHRIST the eternal wisdom may say in respect of this second creation what it saith of the first that the Father possessed Him in the begining of His ways and that it is the same wisdom that projected prepared and executed all this great design of the renovation of the world First it is the Son of GOD who intervening at the beginning in the counsel of the Father took upon Him the expiating of Sin without which it was not possible to found this second Frame And though he actually did it not till the fulness of time yet His engaging His word for it being once accepted of the Father it had as much efficacy as if the thing it self had been then already executed and performed which makes the Apostle elsewhere say that JESVS CHRIST is the same both yesterday and to day and for ever He hath the same efficacy always as well before as after His manifestation Without this not a man could have been called into the state of Grace Therefore St. Paul saith in another place that GOD hath chosen us in JESUS CHRIST considering Him as the foundation of our election because out of Him there could not be salvation or happiness for any one of us He is therefore truly the beginning of this work since His merit is the foundation of the counsel GOD hath taken to make and form it as St. Peter also observes when speaking of the redemption wrought by the blood of the Lamb he saith expresly that He was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world But beside the merit of His Cross which was from all time present in the counsel of GOD He is further the beginning or the principle of the Church another way even by the operation and efficacy of His power having called unto GOD all the faithful that ever were It 's He that brought Abraham out of Chaldea It 's He that appeared to the Patriarchs and that led Israel in the desert and that inspired the Prophets Psal 110.1 Whence it comes that David calls Him his LORD He builded and kept up that whole ancient Church as well as the latter by the vertue of His word and Spirit But He is again the beginning of the Church in the quality of a pattern and an exemplary cause the faithful of all ages having all been as it were cast into His mould as the Apostle teacheth at the eighth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans saying that all those whom GOD hath fore-known He hath predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son And it 's to no purpose to object that this cannot be said of that time when He had not yet assumed that humane nature tempted on earth and crowned in Heaven unto which we are conformed For to this I answer first that though that nature were not really yet in being it is enough that its idea and image was in the mind of GOD for the assimilating and conforming His work thereto This sufficeth to shew that He is the beginning and principle of it But I adjoyn in the second place that this work the Church may be considered two wayes either in its beginnings while it is yet but forming or in its perfection as finished when it hath all the touches requisite to set it in the highest degree of excellency which it must abide in I confess the Church under the first consideration had its being before the Son of GOD was made man and raised up to Heaven But if you take it under the second it is evident that in this respect He is truly the beginning of this Divine work For no one was perfect before Him He is if I may so say the first piece fully ended that ever came out of the Fathers hand and His own No one of the rest is absolutely completed Their bodies are yet under the power of Death the last of our enemies CHRIST is the only one that hath altogether broken its bonds and raised up His body from the grave and clothed it with glorious immortality He is the first man of the new world that the universe ever saw and it 's in Him hath been shewed us the true form of that second nature which we hope for in the time to come but which none hath or shall have for the present save JESUS CHRIST alone It seems to be this properly that the Apostle here intendeth when he calleth Him the beginning or principle because he addeth the first-born from the dead which words as you see do evidently correspond with this sense St. John also giveth this quality to the LORD Rev. 1.5 Grace be unto you and peace saith he from JESVS CHRIST who is the faithful witness 1 Cor. 15.20 23. the first-born from the dead And St. Paul illustrates this expression elsewhere saying to the same purpose that JESVS CHRIST being raised from the dead was become the first-fruits of them that sleep And a little after In JESVS CHRIST saith he shall all be made alive But every man in his own order CHRIST the first-fruits afterwards they that are CHRIST's And otherwhere yet Act. 26.23 in the Acts he saith it was necessary that CHRIST should be the first that rose from the dead who might shew light to the people From all these places doth sufficiently appear what the Apostle signifieth when he saith that JESVS CHRIST is the beginning and the first-born from the dead to wit that He is the first of all mankind who was raised from the state of the dead and setled in glorious immortality that He is the first ear of this blessed harvest that was carryed up into the Sanctuary and offered in due season to the eternal Father untill the rest do become ripe This truth is throughly evident For of what other man but the Lord JESUS was it ever heard say that he arose from the dead and ascended into Heaven I know the Scripture telleth us of some dead that were raised before the resurrection of the LORD But this deprives Him not at all of the glory which the Apostle here giveth Him For that I may not alledge that those persons were raised from the grave not by their own force and vertue as JESUS CHRIST but by the touching or prayer of Eliah and Elishah and by GOD's command I say that the resurrection which St. Paul understandeth is the rising again unto glory and immortality It 's a being born again not to the former life which is terrene and fading but to the other which is celestial and incorruptible Who seeth not that in this sence there never was nor yet is any raised again except the LORD JESUS alone For the Son of the Shunamite Lazarus and the others of like quality at their coming forth of the grave did reassume that same natural and perishing life which they had laid down a life subject to
elsewhere That GOD hath reconciled us to Himself by JESVS CHRIST But it seems that this is not precisely that Reconciliation which S. Paul meaneth here First because the things in heaven which he expresly puts among the parties reconciled have no part therein the Angels that dwell in the Heavens pure and holy as they are having never fallen into any alienation from GOD. Secondly because of that Reconciliation the Apostle will speak instantly in the words immediately following in which he saith Having made peace by the blood of His cross so as the former words must of necessity be referred to some other Reconciliation except we will render the language of this Divine Writer culpable of a vain and fruitless repetition The truth is they that understand these words of Reconciliation with GOD do find themselves much intangled in the matter and have recourse to divers means for clearing them of this difficulty Some affirm that though the Angels be holy and blessed yet they were not exempt from needing the death of JESUS CHRIST to merit and obtain their confirmation and perseverance in the estate they had a bold Doctrine and such as it is hard to find any foundation for in the Scripture For by this reckoning JESUS CHRIST should also be the Mediator of Angels a thing that seems to cross the end and the true nature of this Office First because a Mediator should partake of the nature of the parties whom he reconcileth as you see that JESUS CHRIST the Mediator between GOD and men is GOD and man whereas He took not the nature of Angels Secondly because every Mediator interveneth between parties that are at difference whereas the Angels are and ever were at perfect accord with GOD holily obeying His will Lastly because the blood of JESUS CHRIST was shed only to wash away sin and the Scripture every where represents the people of GOD's Covenant His redeemed ones and those whom He hath saved as justified and cleansed from their filth for which there was no place in the nature of Angels they being pure and clean from all sin For as to that of Job That GOD putteth no trust in His servants Job 4.18 and doth set light by his Angels it is evident and acknowledged by all Christians that this is not said to accuse those blessed Spirits or to suggest that if they were tried by the ordinary and legal justice of GOD they would be found guilty and have need of pardon but rather to signifie either that the Authority of GOD over His creatures is so great and so absolute as He oweth nothing to the Angels themselves how exquisite soever their Sanctity be the light of glory wherewith He crowns them being a gift from His own bounty and not the due reward of their merit or else that the infinite purity of this Supreme Majestie is so splendid and so glorious that the light of the most holy Spirits fadeth before Him and is found dusky and defective in comparison of Him as the shining of our lights and of the Stars themselves doth disappear at the brightness of the Sun Others therefore not able to savour and for just cause I think this Doctrine that the Angels were reconciled to GOD by JESUS CHRIST to exclude them from this passage do restrain the Apostle's words to men only understanding by the things that are in Heaven the already hallowed spirits of the faithful which death had taken out of this world and by the things that are on earth the faithful that yet live here beneath in flesh But not to dissemble this Exposition seemeth both forced and frigid Forced because the Scripture by things in heaven ordinarily meaneth the Angels whose element and natural habitation as you know the heavens are whereas souls separated from their bodies are receiv'd in and lodged there by a Supernatural grace and dispensation Frigid because the sense it attributeth to the Apostle no way answers the sublimity and dignity of his words For if his aim were to express nothing but that the faithful are reconciled to GOD what need was there to divide them into two ranks some that are on the earth others that are in the heavens Who doubts but He reconciled these as well as those But without question he purposed to magnifie this work of GOD by JESUS CHRIST and to this end saith that it extendeth not to men alone that are reconciled to the Father by the efficacy of the cross of the LORD but that it hath effect in heaven it self re-uniting and reconciling the things that are there What shall we say then to these difficulties and in what sense shall we take the Apostle's words That GOD hath reconciled all things in Himself both those that are on earth and those that are in heaven Dear Brethren we will leave them in their genuine and ordinary sense and say that these expressions do signifie the recomposing and re-uniting of the creatures both Terrestrial and Celestial not with GOD but among themselves with each other For as in a State the Subjects have a twofold union one with their Prince on whom thy all depend another among themselves being as members of the same Political Body joyned together by the bond of mutual concord amity and correspondence In like manner is it with things Celestial and Terrestrial the two principal parties of this great State of GOD's which we cal the Universe Besides the union they have with GOD as their Soveraign Monarch from whose bounty they receive the being and the life they enjoy they have another alliance and conjunction one with the other as parts of one Corporation having been formed and qualified for mutual commerce It 's in this relation and in this union that the beauty and perfection of the Universe doth consist when Heaven and earth have amicable entercourse and conspire to one and the same end with an holy and a reciprocal affection Sin having broken the first union and separated man from his Creator by the same means dissolved the second loosning us from the creatures For as again in a state when one part of the Subjects riseth against the Sovereign the rest that remain in their duty presently break with the Rebels and instead of the commerce they held before with them do make cruel and implacable war upon them while they continue in their disobedience Such hath the event proved in the world Man had no sooner rebell'd against GOD but heaven and all that remained in His obedience brake with man Whole Nature took up arms against this Rebel and would have even then utterly ruin'd him if the Counsel of GOD who would not destroy us had not hindred it And as from one disorder there never fail to spring up divers others this first rupture of man with GOD and the good Creatures brought forth divers others indeed rending mankind it self into several pieces the one divided from the other by diversity of Religions and the aversions and animosities that attend it
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
render every man perfect in CHRIST JESVS For the first when he saith that he preacheth JESVS CHRIST his meaning is not simply that he speaks of JESUS CHRIST to those whom he instructed There never was an heretick but made some mention of Him and for the colouring of his dreams did mingle with them somewhat of the mystery of JESUS CHRIST even Mahomet himself the desperatest of all impostours that ever debauched men from the Gospel doth nevertheless speak of Him with honour and acknowledge in gross the truth of the call and doctrine of JESUS But the Apostle signiâ—ies that he declareth JESUS CHRIST alone preacheth none but Him that He is the only subject of His preaching and the filling up of his teachings according to the profession he expresly maketh elsewhere that he determined to know nothing among them 1 Cor. 2.2 whom he taught but JESUS CHRIST crucified His Epistles in which he hath left us a lively and a true picture of his preaching do sufficiently justifie his speech For such as have read those divine writings see that they are filled from the beginning to the end with JESUS CHRIST alone This adorable name shines out every where in them and there is no tract or chapter but it is engraven on it There are scarce two periods found together in which it doth not appear If he be to teach he proposeth no other secrets but those of the nature or the offices or the actions or the passions or the promises of JESUS CHRIST If he must combat error he wields no other weapons in it but the Cross of JESUS CHRIST If he aim to clear the obscurities either of nature or of the Law JESUS CHRIST alone is the light he useth to dissipate all kind of shadows and clouds From Him he fetcheth consolation for souls cast down either by the sense of their sins or by the heaviness of affliction In Him he finds all his motives and arguments for our sanctification JESUS CHRIST alone furnisheth him with all that 's necessary to pacifie our consciences to make glad our hearts to raise our hopes to confirm our faith to enflame our charity to inkindle our zeal to stiffen our constancy to encourage our patience to purifie our affections to loosen us from the earth and lift us up to heaven JESUS CHRIST is all his Logick and all his Rhetorick He is the rise of his arguments the magazin of his arms the great motive of his perswasions the soul of all his discourses In the determinations of this holy Doctor you no where meet with either Pope or Mass or devotions to Saints and Angels or Purgatory or auricular confessions or so much as one of those pretended mysteries that fill up the modern Theology He was fully content with JESUS CHRIST He believed it enough to preach Him and that he needed no more either to discharge his own duty or to advance our edification and truly he had reason For what is there I do not only say necessary and useful but any way good or great and excellent which is not in JESUS CHRIST Though other things which are recommended in religion were as true as they are false and as innocent as they are pernicious yet it is evident that in comparison of CHRIST JESUS they are miserably poor and childish In Him alone is found such true solidity as is able to content the soul in Him alone is wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption all the fulness of the Godhead all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge as S. Paul will tell us hereafter In this LORD alone is grace truth and life There is no salvation in any other Acts 4.12 No other name hath been given under Heaven unto men whereby they must be saved And yet alas though this be a truth so clear in it self and so authentically confirmed by the practice of our great Apostle there are people that professing to believe it do for all seek that elsewhere which is to be found in JESUS CHRIST only and having this living and overflowing spring of grace opened to all believers by the loving kindness of the Father yet go digging in the poor Cisterns of the creatures for the water of salvation They acknowledge that the merits of JESUS CHRIST are infinite His righteousness absolutely perfect His grace inexhaustible His power supereminent but they are not content with it however They adjoyn their satisfactions unto His the prayers of Angels and Saints to His intercession and do mingle the sufferings of men with the blood of the Son of GOD. But if the lusts of the world or the false blaze of error or the corrupt inclinations of the flesh do induce them to approve or to bear with so dangerous a mixture let us for our part Dear Brethren whom GOD hath delivered from such prepossessions adore the fulness of JESUS CHRIST Let us content our selves with his richness and never seek any true good any otherwhere than in Him Bless we GOD that from the Pulpits erected among us we hear no name sounded forth but His. Since S. Paul preacheth none but Him it is greatest reason that He alone should take up the mouth of Preachers and the faith of their hearers But the Apostle having declared the subject of His preaching addeth the matter of it We preach CHRIST saith he admonishing and teaching in all wisdom These are the two parts of the office of a good Preacher to wit admonition and instruction The first compriseth all the remonstrances that are made to sinners whether to reprehend their faults or to excite their diligence or to comfort their sorrows or to advertise them of any other part of their duty The second conteineth all the lessons of heavenly doctrine the exposition of each of the articles of the mystery of godliness Admonition reformeth manners teaching informs faith The one moveth the will and the affections the other instructeth the understanding The Apostle protesteth elsewhere Act. 20.21 31. that he carefully joyned these two offices together not contenting himself with teaching and testifying of faith in JESUS CHRIST but moreover incessantly admonishing every one with tears And you see these two wayes meeting thoughout his Epistles in which he not only expoundeth the mysteries of faith but ever and anon descendeth to the applying of those instructions to the carriage of those whom he instructeth reproving them chiding them comforting them encouraging them as they had need And as he practis'd thus himself so he gave order for the like procedure to others whom GOD had called to the holy ministry 2 Tim. 4.2 1 Tim. 3.2 2 Tim. 2.24 Tit. 1.9 2 Tim. 3.16 17. Preach the word saith he to Timothy be instant in season and out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all sweetness of spirit and doctrine And elsewhere he wills in general that every Pastor be not only apt to teach but also able to admonish by sound doctrine and to convince gainsayers Indeed these two offices are
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
it And for as much as in material Edifices it is the Foundation that sustaineth all the Building thence it comes that the Scripture gives that name to our LORD and Saviour as to him upon whom this spiritual Structure doth entirely depend Other foundation saith the Apostle can no man lay 1 Cor. 3.11 than that which is laid even JESVS CHRIST And this the Prophets foretold in saying of him that God would set in Sion a chief Corner-stone Isa 28.16 Psal 118.22 elect and precious And that the stone which the builders rejected should be made head of the corner The Apostle therefore desiring to fortifie his dear Colossians against the danger of falling prosecuting this figure so common in Scripture commands them to be built up in JESUS CHRIST And the same expression he makes use of elsewhere as when he saith that we are built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Eph. 2.20 21. JESVS CHRIST himself being the chief Corner-stone it whom saith he all the building proportioned and fitly set together riseth up unto an holy Temple in the Lord. What is it then to be built up in JESUS CHRIST Dear Brethren we say an House is builded on a Rock when a Rock is the Foundation that bears and sustains it wholly A soul is builded in JESUS CHRIST when it wholly relieth upon Him so as its Faith its Hope its Love and the other parts of its mystical structure are all set upon Him and immediately fastned to Him it believeth the Gospel because 't is the word of CHRIST is assured of the remission of sins because they were expiated by CHRIST it expects the Kingdom of Heaven because he purchas'd it loveth neighbours because they are his workmanship meekly beareth affliction because it is a part of his Cross in sum layeth and setleth upon him alone the designs the thoughts the enjoyments and the expectations wherein consisteth both its present life and that which is to come One so built up in JESUS CHRIST is right that wise man commended by our Saviour's own mouth Mat. 7.24 2â— who buildeth his House on a Rock so as no violence is able to effect its fall For indeed what can overthrow a soul seated on this Rock of Ages which is so firm and unmoveable for ever Where is the tentation or the persecution that can beat it down What is built upon this Foundation is not subject to natural accidents It 's a celestial and an eternal Edisice But the misery of men and the true cause of their weakness and ruin is that they build elsewhere either wholly or for the greatest part The World is the ground whereon they set and raise up the designs of their lives and this ground being nought but weak and floating Sand the first force that assaults them brings them down and their fall saith our Saviour is great Lastly The Apostle expresseth in proper terms what he had represented under these two Metaphors adding and established in faith For it is properly by faith that we are rooted in JESUS CHRIST and 't is by it also that we are founded and built up in him all these phrases signifying only the spiritual union and conjunction which we have with the LORD the sole tye whereof faith is Let us labour therefore continually to confirm our faith if we would resist the enemy Let us meditate the truth of the Gospel study all its mysteries taste the excellency of it Let us carefully hear and read that word wherein GOD hath reveal'd it to us By it faith hath its being as the Apostle tells us Rom. 10.17 Faith comes of hearing and bearing of the word of God Whence you may judg how contrary to the Apostle's injunction the command of the Church of Rome is who will not grant that the faithful should read Scripture How shall they be confirmed in faith if they have no commerce with this sacred word the only parent and nurse of faith How again can they without it acquit themselves in that which the Apostle commands in the second place even that we abound in faith It is not enough that we be established in it that we have of it for necessity he would have us furnish'd even unto plenty possess'd of a great and rich measure of it have this sacred light to go on still encreasing and augmenting as he saith elsewhere from faith to faith Some are of the mind that this word must be reserred not singly to the thing but also to the sentiment that we have of it As if the Apostle's meaning were when he speaks of abounding in faith that we should account our selves to have abundantly in the faith of JESUS CHRIST alone all the saving-knowledg we can desire without needing the addition of ought any other way This exposition is elegant and ingenious and very pertinent to the Apostle's design But because it is followed by few and the former is more simple I will not insist upon it In fine the Apostle adds in the third and last place giving of thanks abounding in faith saith he with thanksgiving His scope is that we do tenderly resent the excellency and plenty of the benefits which are communicated to us by the Gospel and do remember the spring whence they flow to wit the sole Grace of GOD who taking us out of the darkness of error and ignorance wherein we were plunged hath made us enter into the Kingdom of Light by the power of his Word and Spirit that we may continually render him our grateful acknowledgments of it Besides that this duty is most reasonable of it self it is also necessary to ensure the faith of the Gospel unto us For as on the one hand GOD augmenteth his gifts to the thankful so he taketh them away from the unthankful withdrawing his light from their souls and giving them up to themselves as you know he threatneth ingrateful Churches to take his Candlestick from them And the Apostle informs us elsewhere that to them who receiv'd not the love of the truth he sendeth the efficacy of error so as they believe a lye which is the most dreadful punishment wherewith he avengeth himself on the iniquity of men Dear Brethren that we fall not into so dismal a judgment let us possess this treasure of knowledg which GOD hath given us in his Son with all the gratitude we can humbly blessing him for that he hath vouchsafed to impart a thing so precious and of such saving-importance unto us to us I say who were so unworthy of it Let it be all our love and all our glory Let others boast of their might and their skill of their riches and their greatness As for us glory we only in the knowledg of GOD and of his holy Gospel the sole supream happiness of man Let us be jealous of this holy Doctrine keeping it pure and sincere and carefully taking heed of the Leaven of Superstition and Error Let us be content with our LORD JESUS
the importance of this duty Beware saith he lest any man make prey of you He could not more to the life or with greater elegancy express the danger of such as stand not on their guard than by this word which signifies properly to carry away the booty that a man hath taken It is not without cause saith he that I give you order to use all your abilities and to defend your selves against Error with utmost vigilancy For no small matter depends upon it It is as much as your souls your selves and the noblest part of your beeing your understandings your affections your heart comes to The Wolves and the Thieves against whom men watch with so much care do aim only at their Sheep or their Purse Those against whom I animate you aim at your Persons An Enemy against whom Cities and States do set guards doth threaten only their Goods or their Lives at most He against whom I require your watching seeketh your souls and the share they have in eternity You are the Workmanship and the Jewel of the LORD of Glory You will be a prey to Satan and his Ministers if you fall into their snares They will not be content with having taken you they will bring you into bondage and the redeemed of JESUS CHRIST whose liberty he hath bought at the price of his Divine Blood will become slaves of men and which is worse of Devils Good GOD how piercing was the eye of that Heavenly Spirit which guided the Pen of this Apostle How clearly did it see the nature and the qualities of all the things whereof he speaketh Observe how Error â—iumpheth over those whom it infecteth See the Trophies it sets up of their spoils the Fâ—tters wherewith it loadeth those whom it seduceth the yoke which it puts upon their neeks and the captivity into which it brings them and you with confess that the eâ—lects of its false and damnable conquests could not pâ—ssibly be more truly and more naturally represented to us than by saying as S. Paul doth here that it makes a prey of Christians or carries them away as booty For Error is ever insolent and whereas Preachers of the Truth do serve those whom they teach and stile themselves their Ministers as this Apostle heretofore did the Teachers of Falshood usurp dominion over those whom they have corrupted and vaunt that they are their Judges their Masters and their Lords S Paul noted it long since of the seducers of the Corinthians who as he saith 2 Cor. 11.20 enslaved them devoured them and exalted themselves over them and smote them on the face that is did put all kind of indignities upon them And the false Teachers among the Galatians Gal. 6.13 he saith did glory in the flesh of their miserable discriples They are blind that do not at this day observe the self-same thing in the carriage of those men that reign over all the multitude whom they have deceived and rear up lofty Trophies of every poor soul that they have made prey of Dear Brethren if you love the liberty which the LORD JESUS hath purchased for you if you abhor the servitude of men if you desire the fruit of the one which is immortality and detest perdition the inevitable sequel of the other in the name of GOD take heed that no man make prey of you The Doctrine of truth is enclosed within the LORD's sheepfold Abide there if you would be in safety Stray you thence but ever so little and you will fall into the hands of Wolves and Robbers Hearken not unto their babble Be not taken with their countenance Let any thing among them that may promise fair be suspected of you since their seeking only is to withdraw you from the simplicity of the Gospel Now the Apostle points at three things here which he adviseth us to take heed of in particular namely The vain deceit of Philosophy The traditions of men and The rudiments of the world Because these were the three sources from which those false Apostles that then attempted the Colossians drew all the heads of their Doctrine and the means which they used to colour it and give it that vain lustre which was needful for the beguiling of the simple and unlearned For Col. 2.23 as we shall see more particularly in the sequel of this Chapter they enjoined the worshipping of Angels a matter they had taken in all likelihood out of the Sinks of the Platonick Philosophers who storied divers things of these higher spirits and of their interposition and mediation between GOD and us for the purifying of us and the rendring us capable of supream happiness as we see even at this day in those remains which we have of their Writings Again Col. 2.23 they introduced divers voluntary devotions which did not spare the flesh and seem'd full of humility but were indeed only traditions of men without any foundation in the word of GOD. Finally it is also evident that they pressed the observation of days and the distinction of meats according to the ordinances of the Mosaical Law which are likewise stiled Elements of the World Now though these three points do particularly respect the false Teachers at Coloss yet they are common well-nigh to all such as ever set themselves to alter and sophisticate the Gospel the most part of their impostures having issued from one of these three springs We will consider them therefore briefly and distinctly by the will of God and after them the character or mark which S. Paul giveth them to wit that these things are not after CHRIST Among these things of which we are to beware he gives the first place to Philosophy It 's name is very honourable Philosophy if you weigh the word signifying the love and pursuit of wisdom But the corruptness of those men that gave their Profession this name among the Grecians did disgrace so worthy a term and made it to be the name of a Tool of Error and Imposture rather than of an Instrument of Science and Truth For the common sort of those that stiled themselves Philosophers amused themselves altogether in vain Speculations in a trade of subtilty and syllogizing and in endless disputes that yeelded men no true profit They thought they had attained the End of their profession when they had got a faculty to speak of all matters with some colour and probability so as to dazle the eyes of the ignorant and win the admiration of the half-witted This vanity rendred them odious first among the Pagans themselves where they went among the people for extravagant persons and were in little better esteem among the greater part of the better sort And for as much as of all Professions scarce any did more fiercely oppose the Gospel of our Saviour thence it came to pass that the first Christians also conceiv'd a very ill opinion of them which encreas'd when it did appear that Hereticks did ordinanarily fetch from these mens Forges the Arms
all this fulness As little could any man be to seek who this JESUS was of whom the Apostle speaks All knew him at least confusedly and in gross and did conceive him a man born of Mary in Judea who having liv'd some years among the Jews had been at length crucified by the sentence of Pontius Pilate and who being risen from the grave to a new life had sent forth his Apostles to preach his Gospel and afterwards afcended up into Heaven And though all did not believe that he was risen again and glorisi'd yet all well knew that this was said of him so that both the one and the other hearing JESUS CHRIST named did presently conceive in their mind the Idea of this Person born and dying in Judea at such times and at such places with some retinue of Disciples during his life and after his death This then is the subject of which S. Paul speaks even JESUS CHRIST considered under this form of a man in which he manifested himself to the world and in which he was conceiv'd and figured in the minds of those that heard him named In this man whose appearance was like that of other men who was born and bred on earth sustained during his life with our common food subject to our infirmities who passed through the differences of our ages suffer'd our griefs felt our inconveniences and experimented the rigour of death yea the cruellest that was in this man I say whose body was nailed to a Cross and deprived of its soul and buried in a Sepulcher in this man under so mean and contemptible a form dwelleth faith the Apostle all the fulness of the Godhead It is ordinary in the Hebrew Language to signifie by the fulness of any thing that which the thing containeth as by the fulness of the earth Men and other living creatures Psal 24. which do fill it and by the fulness of the Sea the Isles which the Sea containeth After this manner of expression the qualities and perfections of any one nature may be call'd its fulness because they are the things that fill it and with them it is as it were furnished and adorned as the movables and ornaments of a room or an house are the fulness of it Therefore as if I should say that in Adam as he was at first created was found all the fulness of Manhood every one would easily perceive that my intention were to say the perfections of human nature the faculties and properties and beauties which it is full of and without which it cannot sustain the dignity of that name were all in Adam â—an immortal soul a vigorous understanding a free-will a body of excellent 〈◊〉 acute senses and in sum all the other faculties that have any place among the perfections of the nature of man So here when we hear the Apostle saying that the fulness of the Godhead is in JESUS CHRIST let us account that by this clause he meaneth those perfections and qualities which fill up the Divine nature in which this great and soveraign Beeing doth consist and which Theologues commonly call the Attributes of GOD. You know what the word Godhead doth signifie even the Nature and Essence of GOD. The fulness of the Godhead then is that rich and incomprehensible abundance of perfections whereof the supream and adorable Nature is full as His Life His Power His Wisdom his Justice His Goodness His Immensity His Eternity His Holiness and all the other Properties which it hath in an ineffable manner and which our understandings according to their mean capacity do conceive in it as the form of the Deity that is necessary for its having that Name a nature that wanteth it being incapable of being called GOD otherwise than falsly and improperly I grant some resemblances or rather some touches and lineaments of these Perfections of the Godhead do appear in the noblest of the Creatures as in the Angels for instance who are immortal and endowed with an admirable sanctity vertue and power But the fulness of them is not in any Creature at all neither can it be found that ever the Scripture spake in this manner of Angels and said that the fulness of the Godhead was in them Besides these blessed Spirits and other Creatures how excellent soever you can imagine them to be do participate of these divine perfections but in a very little measure Whereas the LORD JESUS hath them wholly And to make this evident to us the Apostle thought it not enough to say that the fulness of the Godhead is in Him but hath expresly declared that ALL this fulness dwelleth in Him that we might be assured there is not at all any Perfection or Excellency or Accomplishment in the Divine Nature but is found in Him Thus in these two or three words he hath comprised all that the Scripture teacheth us in divers places of the richness of the Perfections of our LORD and Saviour For instance it tells us That he is full of grace and truth that he is the Wisdom and the Power of the Father that he hath the words of life that he is the Way the Truth and the Life that in him are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledg that he hath that might and strength which sustaineth all things now and which created them at first that he is the Everlasting Father and hath immortality and incorruption hath an infinite understanding whereby he soundeth the reins and discerneth all the thoughts of the hearts of men that he hath a super-eminent Glory to which all Creatures ought to do homage yea the Angels themselves who indeed adore Him the Empire and dominion over all the world the right and authority to judg all men and a multitude of such things as these Verily S. Paul hath comprised it all in one word saying here that all the fulness of the Godhead is in JESUS CHRIST it being evident that if he wanted any of these Names Rights and Attributes He could not have all the fulness of the Godhead which is ascribed here unto Him But let us now see in what manner he possesseth these things the Apostle expresseth it very briefly saying that all this fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily First the term dwelleth is illustrious signifying that all this copious abundance of perfections doth not reside in JESUS CHRIST for some time only appearing a little while and then withdrawing again so making some transient stay in Him a few moments and no more but that it abideth in Him constantly and for ever for so the word dwell in Scripture-use doth import The Word and the glory of GOD appeared in Moses and the Prophets when being moved by the power of his Spirit they uttered and acted Divine things but it dwelt not in them It only rested on them some hours space for the LORD 's recommending those Servants of His and for the setling their authority by these marks of his Providence and of his communicating with
upon them So in Grace if we may take leave to compare the mysteries thereof with natural things JESUS CHRIST the true Sun of righteousness hath not only in himself all the fulness of the Deity dwelling there bodily He also communicateth his fulness to all the souls of men that look on him and do move and live in his communion He filleth them with his abundance and clotheth them with his light changing them into his Image and of dim and dark lumps as they were originally in themselves making them so many Starrs and lightsome bodies Now if you take the Apostle's word here in another manner as importing that we have been made compleat in JESUS CHRIST the sense will still be very pertinent For besides that we being naked of all perfections meet for our nature the saying that we have been made compleat in CHRIST will excellently well express his Grace as signifying that it is he who hath fill'd up our breaches and repaired in us what the other Adam had ruined by giving us all that we wanted Besides this I say this term will also very aptly answer to that title which the Apostle gave a little before to the Ceremonies of Moses's Law where he called them the rudiments of the world that is the beginnings the first and plainest Lessons of Piety Heb. 7.19 Gal. 4. such as consequently were unable to bring to perfection as he saith expresly in another place by reason whereof he stileth the time of the Law the infancy of the Church that is the age of its imperfection Opposing therefore JESUS CHRIST unto the Law in this respect he now saith that we are compleat in Him and that for good reason in as much as He hath the body whereas the Law had but the shadow He hath fulness whereas the Law had but some small parcel of the requisites of our salvation For the same cause he elsewhere calleth the Ceremonies of it weak and poor or beggarly elements Gal. 4 9. As for the Law saith he it did but begin with us and only draw some slight and dark lineament upon us of that true form which GOD did purpose to imprint whereas JESUS CHRIST hath finish'd us In Him it is we have that perfection that entire body that truth and fulness whereof the Law had but the beginning the shadow and figure Hereby now this holy man deals those seducers whom he hath undertaken an handsom blow discovering the foolishness of their design who would still oblige persons to the Ceremonies of the Law that were made compleat in JESUS CHRIST an attempt no less ridiculous than if one should put a man to his ABC again who had received the last tincture of highest erudition in the University pretending that he could not be throughly intelligent and accomplish'd except he still daily studied the rudiments and plainest lessons of Children But that which follows in the Apostle's words namely that JESUS CHRIST is the Head of all principality and power is adjoined to prevent another error of those men's who as we shall hereafter hear did teach the worshipping and serving of Angels pretending it necessary we should address our selves to them as to Spirits capable of interceding with GOD for us and of obtaining by their interposal with that Supreamest Majesty those graces and perfections which we need S. Paul doth shew in these few words the vanity of this false doctrine For since the LORD JESUS is the Head of Angels who sees not but that we have most abundantly in Him whatsoever these people could expect from them and that possessing JESUS CHRIST as we do by faith in His Gospel we have no need to run to Angels who depend upon Him and have nought but what is found much more richly in their Head As if a man that doth possess a Prince's Son would yet needs make use of the favour and interpositions of his servants with him Members have neither motion nor sensation nor life but the same is much more abundantly in their Head Subjects and Servants possess nothing but the Prince can far better and far more easily communicate it to us than any one of them Since JESUS CHRIST is the Head and Prince of Angels it is clear that having Him we want nothing of all that which the Angels can give us From the same ground appeareth further the impiety of the error of these Seducers For since the Angels are subject unto JESUS CHRIST it is evident by the light of Scripture that no one can give them that religious worship which these people attribute to them without becoming guilty of idolatry the greatest and sensiblest outrage that man can do to his Creator For no Christian can be ignorant but that GOD throughout his whole word doth forbid us to serve any creature how high and excellent soever it be religious worship being an homage which belongs to the Divine Nature and cannot be performed without sacriledg to any other As for other things I presume you all know that they are the Angels whom the Apostle means by these principalities and powers of which he speaks as we formerly explained it Col. 1.16 upon the precedent Chapter He saith that JESUS CHRIST is their Head that is their Lord. And this quality belongeth to Him not only as He is the Eternal Son of the Father of the same essence and power with Him who having created them at the beginning and continuing to preserve them by His Goodness and Might is by all kind of right their true Master and natural Lord but also as He is the CHRIST and Mediator For since He in this relation and under this quality hath been constituted the Lord of all things both superior Phil. 2.10 inferior and intermediate having in consequence of His humiliation receiv'd such a Name as is above every name and unto which every knee boweth both of those that are in Heaven and that are on Earth and that are under the Earth it is evident that in this sense He hath dominion and empire over Angels 1 Pet. 3.22 as well as others And thus also S. Peter expresly teacheth us saying that Angels and Authorities and Powers have been made subject to Him For this cause these Spirits are often called the Angels of CHRIST as in S. Matthew Matt. 13.41 24.31 Rev. 1.1 and 22.16 The Son of Man shall send his Angels and in the Apocalypse where S. John saith that JESUS CHRIST sent him by his Angel the things that were revealed to him and in the same Book I JESVS saith the LORD have sent mine Angel Only we must observe that the L. JESUS is not called Head of the Angels in the same manner and sense as He is stiled Head of His Church The former Title signifieth only the Empire and Lordship which he hath over the Angels The second signifieth further the union He hath with His faithful ones who were saved and redeemed by the merit of His Death and are animated
and quickned by the Spirit of His Resurrection For He doth indeed command the Angels as their true and legitimate Master but He hath not assumed them nor wash'd them from their sins these holy and blessed Natures having never committed any Nor hath He by His merit obtain'd for them that life and bliss which they enjoy these all being benefits pertaining unto none but men Accordingly you shall not find that the Angels are called His Body or His Members This quality is peculiar to the faithful consonantly to what the Apostle elsewhere saith to wit Eph. 5.23 that CHRIST is the Saviour of His Body and every one knows that He is not the Saviour of Angels since they having not fallen from their original purity and felicity have had no need of being saved But come we now to the second point of our Text which the Apostle layeth before us in these words In whom also saith he you are circumcised c. He beginneth here to discover in particular and by as retail what he but now spake of in general namely our having been made compleat in JESUS CHRIST specifying one by one the perfections which those false Teachers sought for otherwhere than in JESUS CHRIST and shewing that they are to be sound plentifully in him so as there is no need to have recourse to any besides him or to add any thing to his Gospel for the acquiring of them Among all those things that these Seducers sought to shuffle into Religion there was none they pressed more than Circumcision which as you know was one of the Sacraments of the old Covenant wherein by cutting off the fore-skin was figured and exhibited to the Israelites the purifying of their nature by the abolishing of their sins and excision of their vices as also their entrance into the communion of GOD. In effect this Ceremony was of infinite importance For it was the seal of all the old Covenant the person who receiv'd it being by means of it consecrated and initiated to the Discipline of Moses and solemnly obliged to observe the same as the Apostle remonstrates to the Galatians Gal. 5.3 I protest saith he to every man who is circumcised that he is bound to fulfil the whole Law For this cause he begins with it in this place well knowing of what consequence this error was which annihilated the Cross of CHRIST and overthrew the whole mystery of his Grace Let none object saith he against this compleatness which you have in JESUS CHRIST that having not been circumcised you want the first and the principal 〈◊〉 sanctification This part of your perfection is not wanting any more than 〈…〉 and if you carefully consider what JESUS CHRIST hath given you throuâ—â— his Gospel you will find that though Moses's knife hath not touched you yet 〈◊〉 miss not of having a Circumcision through the goodness of our LORD yea such a one as is not only equally excellent with the other but even much more perfect Whence you see to how little purpose these men endeavour to make you subject to this ancient incision of the Law it being altogether superfluous to such as have pass'd through the hands of JESUS CHRIST The Apostle sets this consideration before the Philippians in a dispute of his against the same seducers We saith he are the Circumcision who worship GOD in the spirit Phil. 3.3 and glory in CHRIST JESVS and have no confidence in the flesh But here he explaineth in what follows this admirable circumcision which we have received in JESUS CHRIST and saith first that it is not made with hands next he adds in what it consisteth to wit in putting off the body of sins and lastly he termeth it the Circumcision of CHRIST He saith then first that this circumcision which we have in our LORD and Saviour is not made with hand whereby he affirmeth that it is not formally and precisely that circumcision which Moses gave the Jews the hand of man effecting that in their flesh This here is made by the operation not of a man but of GOD with the knife not of Moses but of CHRIST that is by that word of his accompanied by his Spirit Heb. 4.12 which is sharper than any two-edged sword In which respect alone it hath a great advantage above the circumcision of the Jews it being evident that the works of GOD are more excellent beyond compare than the works of men And as the Apostle telling us in another place that the building which we look for 2 Cor. 5.1 after the dissolution of this earthly tabernacle is not made with hand doth by that very reason demonstrate the excellency of it even that it is a work not of human art or nature but of the wisdom and power of GOD In like manner he here discovereth the worth and value of our circumcision in JESUS CHRIST by saying that it is not made with hand But the thing it self doth no less demonstrate the same than the quality of that operation by which we receive it For this circumcision made without hand which we have in JESUS CHRIST is as the Apostle here defines it the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh You know what he and the other holy Writers do understand by the flesh to wit this not only infirm and mortal but moreover defiled and corrupted nature which we all bring into the world comprehending not only the body and the senses but also the soul and it tainted and infected with the ordures of sin and in some sort transformed into flesh by the carnal qualities and habitudes wherewith it is invested its understanding being wholly dull and sensual its will earthly and brutish and its affections rebellious against the Law of Heaven and all of them set on the flesh This nature of man thus framed is that which S. Paul both here and frequently elsewhere calleth flesh The sins of this flesh are the habits of those divers vices that cover it and invelop it on all hands not those only that properly relate to the body and the satiating of its irregular appetites such as are they that refer either to gluttony and drunkenness or to luxury but also all others whatsoever which cross the Law of GOD and overthrow that order of righteousness and holiness which he appointed for all the faculties and motions and sentiments of our nature Gal. 5.19 20. as we are taught by the Apostle in many places and particularly in the Epistle to the Galatians where he placeth among the works of the flesh not only adultery and fornication and drunkenness but also idolatry and heresie and enmity and clamours and envyings and wrath and murthers and such like The mass of all these vices is that which he here calleth the body of the sins of the flesh Rom. 6.6 and he useth this manner of speaking again elsewhere as when he saith that the body of sin is destroyed our old man having been crucified with the
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
resurrection of JESUS CHRIST that gives us all this assurance putting in our hand a firm proof of the satisfaction of Divine Justice from the deliverance of our Surety and of our immortality from his having taken possession of the same for himself and us so as our souls being certifi'd of the transcendent goodness of GOD and of their own happiness do ardently embrace his Discipline and the endeavouring of a new life Besides that faith which purifies our 〈◊〉 and by which as we shall hear anon we are risen again in JESUS CHRIST could not take place in us if he were not risen from the dead Rom. 1.4 1 Pet. 1.3 since it 's by that he was declar'd the Son of GOD with power according to the spirit of holiness Therefore S Peter saith it 's by the resurrection of JESUS CHRIST from the dead that GOD hath begotten us again unto a lively hope And S. Paul for this very reason 1 Cor. 15.17 protesteth that if CHRIST were not risen our faith would be vain and we should be still in our sins It must then be concluded that in rising again he raised up us also by the same means forasmuch as by rising he gave being and clearness to the principles and causes of our mystical resurrection Opening his own tomb he by that means opened ours He broke in pieces the doors and barâ—s of our Sepulchers by quitting his own and raising himself from the dust he drew us up out of the earth and brought us forth from the abode of death that glorious life also wherewith he then vested himself hath inspired into us all the spiritual life motions and sentiments that we have O holy and blessed Communion O divine and incorruptible fruits of the Sepulcher of JESUS CHRIST The death of the first man did kill us and the death of the second maketh us alive The one's Sepulcher is our prison the other our liberty In the former do appear horror and malediction the signs of our guilt and of the just wrath of GOD but from the latter peace and life do bud out glory and immortality shoot forth The grave of Adam did extinguish and shut up for ever in a state of exinanition all the beauty strength and life of our nature The Sepulcher of JESUS CHRIST hath destroyed nothing but our sin it hath shut up and kept in only our old man that is the loathsomness and misery of our lives and instead of this abominable body of sin and death whereof it hath divested us hath as it were teemed with and brought forth a celestial and immortal nature which it puts on us together with our Saviour And thus you see what are the fruits of our communion with JESUS CHRIST namely the destruction of our old man and the creation of the new signified by the Apostle in these words we are buried and risen again with him Let us now consider the two fold means here intimated by the Apostle by which GOD doth make us partakers of them The first is Baptism being buried saith he with CHRIST by baptism wherein also you are rais'd again together with him For so do I take these words rendring wherein not in whom and referring this term not to JESUS CHRIST but to Baptism as it it had been said In which Baptism you are also raised again together with the LORD this construction being more natural and more convenient than the other as they that understand the original Language wherein the Apostle wrose with easily perceive if they take the pâ—ns to consider this Text there though it the bottom it make no difference which of these two ways be taken the whole amounting to the same sense whether you say that we are risen again in Baptism or in JESUS CHRIST In truth all the means which GOD makes use of in Religion have no other tendency but to communicate JESUS CHRIST to us as dead buried and risen again for us to the destruction of our old man and the vivification of the new Nor do they ever fail to produce these two effects in any of those that receive them as they ought Therefore the holy Apostles frequently ascribe them to the word of the Gospel which is the first and principal means that GOD makes use of to save us Rom. 1.15 Heb. 4.12 by reason whereof it is called his power to salvation As for the destroying of the old man the Epistle to the Hebrews attributes to the Word the virtue that operateth and effecteth it in us saying that it is quick and powerful 2 Cor. 10.4 5 sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and S. Paul elsewhere calleth it a weapon mighty to the pulling down of strong holds to the overthrowing of imaginations and every heighth that exalteth it self against the knowledg of GOD and for the bringing of every thought into captivity to the obedience of CHRIST And as to the life of the new man 1 Pet. 1.23 25 you know S. Peter teacheth us that the Gospel which is preached us is the seed of this life telling us that it is thereby we are born again That holy Supper of which we have participated this morning hath also the same effects For since it communicateth to us the body of JESUS CHRIST dead and buried and risen again for us we need not doubt but iâ— gives us also the virtue which it hath and is insuparably adherent to it for the putting to death the old Adam and making the new to live in us by its be-dewing our Consciences with his blood and feeding our souls with his flesh But although these two effects be common to all the means which GOD hath instituted and 〈…〉 use of in Religion yet the Apostle speaks here but of Baptism 〈◊〉 Because 〈◊〉 the first seal we receive of our Saviour and the proper Sacrament of our regeâ—eration which containeth the initials and beginning of our spiritual 〈◊〉 in the House of God whence it comes that treating of the same subject elsewhere Rom. 6.3 4. he makes mention of Baptism in like manner Know you not saith he that we all who have been baptiz'd into JESVS CHRIST have been baptiz'd into his death Therefore we are buried with him by Baptism Secoudly He so doth that he might with so much the more clearness confute the erroâ— he here combareth even by opposing to that circumcision which the seducers did press that Baptism which we have receiv'd in JESUS CHRIST whereby hath been fully communicated to us all that these people pretended to draw from the use of circumcision Their folly was therefore so much the more insupportable for that they would not only retain a shadow whereof JESUS CHRIST hath given us the true body but also withstood one of the old Sacraments of Moses its giving place to one of those which JESUS instituted If question be of the substance and very effect of
circumcision we have that truth and fulness in JESUS CHRIST whereof it had but some part shadow'd out by its figure If the matter be the Sacrament it self the LORD hath given us one highly excelling to wit Baptism So as which way soever it be taken there is no reason at all that any man should desire still to retain circumcision But to proceed it is not here only that the Apostle attributes so great an effect unto Baptism He speaks thus of it constantly as for example when he saith that CHRIST sanctifieth the Church Eph. 5.26 Gal. 3.7 cleansing it with the washing of water by the word and elsewhere that we all who were baptized have put on CHRIST and in another place again 1 Cor. 12.13 that we have all been baptized into one spirit to be one body For the Sacraments of CHRIST are not vain and hollow pictures wherein the benefits of his death and resurrection are nakedly pourtray'd as in a piece of Art that feeds us barely with an unprofitable view of what it represents They are effectual means which He accompanieth with his virtue and filleth with his grace effectively accomplishing those things in us by his heavenly power which are set before us in the Sacrament when we receive it as we ought He inwardly nourisheth by the virtue of his flesh and blood the soul of him that duly takes his Bread and his Cup. He washeth and regenerateth that man within who is rightly consecrated by Baptism And if the infirmity of age do hinder that the effect does not at the instant appear in Infants baptized yet his virtue doth not fail to accompany his institution and conserve its self in them and bring forth its fruits upon them in their season when their nature is capable of the operations of understanding and will Heretofore in the primitive Church this double effect of Baptism was more clearly represented in the external action of the Sacrament than it is at this day For the greater part of those that were baptized being persons of age who came over to Christianity from Judaism or Paganism they were uncloth'd and then plunged into the water whence they immediately came forth and so were baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost whereby they testifi'd that they did put off the body of sin the habit of the first Adam and buried it in the saving-waters of JESUS CHRIST as in its mystical grave and came forth thence risen up to a new life for a symbol whereof they took up a white habit and wore it an whole week Now though the water wherewith we baptize doth not carry so express a figure of this mystical Sepul cher and Resurrection as that of the Ancients did since this ceremony cannot be practis'd towards Infants without very great inconvenience and even danger of their lives in so tender an age and especially in such cold Countreys as ours nevertheless the virtue of holy Baptism is still the same that JESUS whom in it we did put on communicating to us by the virtue of his Spirit the mystical image of his Burial and Resurrection that is as we have shewed the annihilation of the old man and creation of the new If we meet with any baptized persons as there are but too many such in whom the old man is so far from being buried that he lives and reigns with absolute power and the new man hath neither life nor action at all it may not be imputed unto JESUS CHRIST who always accompanieth his Sacraments with his saving virtue but unto the persons own unbelief who doth wretchedly repell the operationof the grace of CHRIST and deprive it of all the effect which it would have assurâ—dly produced in them if their unworthiness had not frustrated its efficacy towards them For I acknowledg that neither Baptism nor the Word do work in any but such as receive them with faith And in this as in all other things the admirable wisdom of our LORD doth appear For the subject being Man a reasonable Creature he dealeth with him in a way proper and suitable to his nature The means he useth for his salvation do not operate in him as drugs and simples by a Physical action and such as takes its effect whatever otherwise be the mind of the man that takes them But the operation of the Word and Sacraments doth depend upon the preparation of their hearts to whom they are administred They work when they are receiv'd with faith they produce nothing when they are receiv'd with unbelief And thus it is meet that the understanding which is the Guide and Ruler of all our moral actions be first perswaded of the truth of GOD and then our wills and affections take impression and be changed by the efficacy of his power This very thing the Apostle here doth shew us with much clearness by adding besides Baptism that we are buried and raised again with CHRIST by faith an evident token that the Sacrament doth mortifie sin in us and raise us up unto sanctity according to the faith it meets with in us It left the heart of Simon Magus in the bonds of iniquity and in the gall of bitterness because it found in it no faith at all but a naughtiness hardned in unbelief and full of Hypocrisie But as for Lydia and all those that have a true faith it doth assuredly mortifie sin in them and makes the new man live in them unto righteousness and holiness For it is not possible but that the person who is firmly perswaded of the truth of the Gospel should renounce sin the venom and horror whereof this Divine Doctrine doth so clearly discover and on the contrary embrace that holiness whose beauty and blessedness it doth so magnificently set before us man naturally flying from what he believes mortal and pernicioâ—s to him and adâ—ering with like necessity to what he judgeth healthful and advantageous But the Apostle who does every where exalt the grace of GOD and cast down the 〈◊〉 of man lest any one should imagine that this â—â—â—th upon which 〈…〉 doth depend were a production of our own will doth by the way advertise us that it is a gift of our LORD's when he nameth it the faith of the efficacy or of the operation of GOD that is to say which the efficacy of his hand produceth in us Whereby their error is refuted who hold that GOD for the producing of faith in us doth meerly set before us either outwardly by his Word or inwardly by his Spirit the object of truth leaving it to the liberty of our will to believe it or reject it By this account faith should not be the faith of the efficacy of GOD since that according to this supposition he should exert none at all upon us But the Apostle stileth it the faith of the efficacy or operation of GOD. We must conclude therefore that for the giving of us faith he operateth in
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
pleasuâ—â— by an humility of spirit and the service of Angels intruding into things which be hath not seen being rashly puffed up with the sense of his flesh Dear Brethren Here is a notable sentence pronounced which overthrows in express words all the worship that the superstition of men whether ancient or modern doth attribute unto creatures it being clear that there is not any one of them whom we may lawfully serve in Religion since the Apostle forbiddeth us to serve the Angels themselves who are without difficulty of all creatures the most excellent You know the interest we have in this cause those of Rome anathmatizing us in it under colour that content to adore and serve GOD our Creator and Redeemer only we refuse to render unto Angels and Saints departed that Religious Worship and those Divine honours which they decree and deferr daily to them to the great prejudice of the glory of GOD and the irreparable offence of men Let us therefore exactly consider this Oracle of the holy Apostles and that we may leave nothing in it behind us we must see first what the Doctrine of those Seducers is which he condemneth He expresseth it in these words Let 〈◊〉 man master it over you by an humility of spirit and the service of Angels and then we are to examine in the second place the marks he gives these false Teachers which are contained in the following words intruding into things he hath not seen being rashly puffed up with the sense of his flesh and not holding the head But we will satisfie our selves for this time with the former of these parts remitting the second to another opportunity by reason of the cavils and inventions our adversaries make use of to corrupt this passage which we must refute as briefly as we can The word that S. Paul useth at the entrance and which we have translated Master it is difficult and seldom found in the Authors of the Greek Tongue S. Hierom one of the learnedst of the ancients sayes Ep. ad Alg. 9 10. it was peculiar to the Country of Cilicia whereof S. Paul was as being born at Tarsus the Capital City of that Proviâ—ice However it be the derivation of the word is clear and doth sufficiently discover what is well-nigh its signification For such as understand the Greek do know that this term comes from another which signifies the reward that was given to those who won the victory in those games or combats for prize at which certain Judges and Moderators did at that time preside who had the superintendance of the whole action regulating and bounding the race assigning the ground and receiving the Champions into it judging of their courses and combats proclaiming that man victorious to whom they yielded the advantage and solemnly putting a Crown upon his head Whence it comes that themselves were called by a name that signiâ—ies Givers of the reward and the term which signifies what they did on such occasions is generally used to express governing regulating ruling and having the superintendance of a matter It is expresly from this term that that which the Apostle useth here is formed saving that it seems to signifie governing and ordering not simply but to the prejudice and damage of the concerned Therefore some have thought that S. Paul comparing here the Faithful unto Racers or Combatants as he very often doth elsewhere does exhort them not to let the prize or reward of the Victory to be taken from them by the artifice of Seducers who made it their business to turn them out of the true and lawful lists of their race which are no other than believing and obeying the doctrine of the Gospel and make them enter into another carriere to wit that of their own inventions and services in the same sense that he elsewhere said to the Galatians who were abused by a like imposture Gal. 5.7 Ye did run well who did turn you aside that you should not obey the truth If this exposition were adapted as well as to the Apostles phrase as it is to his sense it would be excellent shewing us that I may say it by the way how this serving of Angels here forbidden us is an error of no small importance since it maketh those who turn aside unto or employ themselves in it to lose the prize of their Heavenly calling The Latin Interpreter Canonized by those of Rome having respect to the effect of such false doctrine which is a driving of the faithful out of the right way doth Translate it simply Let no man seduce you There is no need to report the thoughts of all others But I do affirm that there can be hardly found an expression more proper more commodious and according better with either the term or the scope of the Apostle then that of the French Bible Let no man master it over you which doth naturally express the magisterial authority that these Seducers assumed to themselves enjoyning and commanding their fancies to the faithful as if they had been installed Superintendants of their Religion and their lives and willing them to understand that without practising what they prescribed it was not possible to obtain the prize of their high calling Wherein the Apostle giveth them a blow and renders them ridiculous as men who having in truth no lawful authority would yet make it be believed that they had and did speak and command with as much confidence as if it belonged to them to distribute the Crown of Heaven at the last day or that they had it already in their hands to impart it to whom it should seem them good But that which S. Paul addeth doth discover their folly much more let no man saith he master it over you at his pleasure or at his will which may be referred either to their office or to their Doctrine or as I think to them both To their Office meaning that they are voluntary Superintendents and that their own will alone not the voice of GOD or men did elevate them to this pretended Mastership well night as the Roman Orator calls a certain man a Voluntary Senator who did thrust himself into the rank of the Senators but had no right to be there having been elected only by himself But this respects also their Dectrine and signifies that the serving of Angels which they commanded was founded meerly on their own good-pleasure and not upon any precept of GOD that their will alone was the reason and ground of it not the will of the LORD that it was nothing but an imagination of their own head and a fruit either of their melancholy or their malice Whence we may observe by the way That those that teach in the Church ought to set forth nothing but what is founded on the word of GOD. Isa 8.20 To the Law and to the Testimony but if they speak not according to this word of a truth there shall be no morning for them This rule is enough to
cashier all the doctrines of Rome which we contest with her For if you examin their serving of Saints and Angels their Sacrifice of the Mass their Papal Monarchy and other like opinions you shall find that they have no foundation but their will and when they are pressed they go so far themselves and boldly assert that they are judges of all things judges of the faith of men and of the Scriptures of GOD and that a Declaration of their Popes ought to suffice for the reason of any thing into which also their whole religion and belief is finally resolved So as if ever there were a generation of whom it might be said that they mastered it over the faithful at their pleasure without doubt it is they who do call themselves their Judges their Lords and their Monarchs who make their will pass with them for the supream law of the Church who put off to them an end less multitude of traditions and services upon the sole credit of their good-pleasure and undertake to distribute to them the rewards of their piety after their death meerly according to their phantasy exalting some to be Saints others to be Beatisied ordaining for some the service of Hyperdulia for others of simâ—â—â— Dulia as they call it commissioning some to be over one Country or City or over one sort of Diseases or Affairs and others over another As Kings disâ—ibute according to their good pleasure the Honours Charges and Dignities of their State while they cannot produce for one particular of all this any command or foundation from the Word of GOD But come we to our Apostle who declareth in that which followeth what the Discipline was that these voluntary Masters of the Faithful did pretend to impose upon them Let no man saith he master it over you by an humility of spirit and the service of Angels In these words he shews us what it is to which they would oblige Christians namely the service of Angels and what the pretext was upon which they promoted this new service to wit an humility of Spirit As for the former of these the word used in the original doth signifie not in general all kind of service but particularly that of Religion whence it is that the Latin Interpreter doth render it the religion of Angels This religious service comprehendeth in it those pieces of worship and those ceremonies which are peformed to the Deity and the actions by which homage is done it in that quality as adoration invocation thanksgiving trust and such others These mens meaning therefore was that besides that supream service which Christians do render unto GOD the Father Son and Holy Spirit they should serve Angels also as their Mediators and Intercessors with GOD and that under this quality they should address prayers and thansgivings and other duties of religion to them This was their error The pretext they took up to authorize this service was an humility of spirit alledging that we are too poor a thing to present our selves directly unto GOD and address us by our selves to so sublime a Majesty as also that JESUS CHRIST being the Son of GOD and GOD with Him blessed for ever it would be presumption in us to pretend the presenting our selves immediately to Him whereupon they concluded that we must have recourse to Angels who are middle natures between GOD and us to the end that they receiving our prayers may present them to our common Soveraign and intervening with Him on our behalf obtain access for us to His otherwise inaccessible Throne Such was the false and fair-seeming discourse wherewith these people painted over their Tradition Whereupon you may observe first in general that the alledging of some specious and seeming reasons is not sufficient for the authorizing a worship or an observance in religion All that is proposed to us in this kind must be founded on the word of GOD who alone hath the wisdom and the authority that is necessary for the setting up of things religious For if we once licence the mind of man to rely upon its own imaginations there is no error nor extravagancy but it will put some colour upon Sure the discourse of these Seducers doth not want shew and men have found so much of that in it as both Heathens and the Hereticks which have troubled Christianity and in sine those of Rome have all of them made use of it to colour their Superstitions Yet you see the Apostle without sticking at all this vain lustre without vouchsafing so much as to examine it does reject and absolutely condemn that service for which it was taken up only because such service was not ordained of GOD but founded solely only on the will of men Let this example make us wise to abhor and refuse without delay whatsoever men would introduce into religion without the order and the word of GOD. Let us not stay at all upon those gaudy reasons wherewith they endeavour to paint over their inventions Let us not so much as hearken to them It is sufficient warrant for our rejecting of their services that they are not ordained in the word of GOD. From hence alone it follows that they assuredly are vain and unprofitable neither is there any pretext how specious soever it be that can or ought to authorise in religion a thing that GOD hath not appointed Again you see here in particular that that Humility of Spirit wherewith our adversaries do at this day colour over the services they perform to Angels and Saints is but an old paint which ancient hereticks did use to bad purposes and the Apostle long ago expresly rejects so as it is not only a vanity but a very impudence for them to serve themselves of a thing so decried Let them cease alledging unto us that we are too poor to present our selves directly unto GOD Let them forbear to lay before us the Courts of earthly Kings where men make use of the mediation of Officers before they speak to the Princes themselves to inferr thereupon that we must betake us to the the intercession of Saints and Angels in like manner that they may lead us unto GOD and present Him our persons and requests S. Paul hath blasted all this artifice and they should be ashamed to use a pretext which the first hereticks took up for the covering of their errors and this great Apostle hath manifestly taken from them In very deed all this pretended humility of spirit wherewith the one and the others mask themselves is but a cover of real presumption which disdaining to be subject to the commands of GOD would serve Him after its own fantasie and not as He hath appointed Isai 7.11 12. It 's the humility of Ahaz who haughtily refused the grace that the goodness of the LORD offered Him upon pretence that He would not tempt Him GOD in His great mercy giveth us His Son JESUS to be our Mediator He humbleth Himself and is made man that He might
universal and eternal and that no Age nor Climat can dispense with men for them or exempt the Violaters of them from that righteous curse they threaten let us faithfully obey this holy and sacred order which the Apostle hath given Hearken we not to the vain glosses and frivolous distinctions by which humane subtilty endeavours to elude it and colour over its own abuses Observe we sincerely what this great Minister of JESUS CHRIST enjoyneth us He forbiddeth us to Worship Angels in point of Religion There is no reason that either the eloquence or the subtilty either the splendor or the power of men much less their pleasure and usurped domineering should have more efficacy upon us than this Heavenly Authothority And praised be GOD for that He hath given us the courage to obey His Apostle in this particular and to put away the Worshipping of Angels and men from among us notwithstanding the strong contradiction of flesh and blood Let us abide firm in this resolution Let us adore none but GOD since there is none adorable but He. It 's just that He alone should be served among us since it is He alone who hath created and redeemed us But Beloved remember I beseech you that rightly to render Him His due glory it is not sufficient to have renounced the errour of those ancient Phrygians whom the Apostle here opposeth and of our Adversaries of Rome to wit the adoration of Angels and men departed There must also be banishing of all strange service all Idolizing of any thing whatever For if GOD cannot suffer those who serve Angels and deceased Saints that is the most excellent natures that be and such as have the image of the Deity most clearly resplendent in them how much less will He endure those that adore Gold and Silver the excrements of the earth or their own belly the shamefullest and most infamous of all idols or the flesh which is but a vain and perishing figure or the grandeurs of the world which are but exhalations And we that have renounced the first fort of these false services how can we be excusable if we retain and exercise the second Now would to GOD we were as free from the one as we are from the other But it must be confessed to our shame these latter kind of Idols have still a great many Devoto's and Servitors among us That avarice which S. Paul calls an Idolatry is but too much exercised among us the flesh and vanity are here publickly served Wretched men where is your judgement You do not serve the Angels of Heaven and you serve the mettals of the earth You do not adore Spirits made perfect and you do adore profane flesh Neither the light of the Sun nor the brightness of the Moon hath been able to seduce your hearts and you have suffered your selves to be seduced by the glittering of Gold and Silver the false Sol and Luna of the Chymists You have put your hope in Gold and said unto fine Gold Thou art my confidence You that have disdained to put your confidence in Saints The belly with shame and horrour do I utter it the belly is your GOD yours who have made this glorious promise to have none but the Eternal only for your GOD How can you hope that the LORD should suffer you to give Him such Monsters for companions He who is so jealous of His glory that He cannot suffer the Angels themselves to be associated with Him Dear Brethren I pray let us deceive our selves no longer Let us once for all put clean away all these false services and exterminating every Idol from among us adore and serve none but GOD alone Let Him have the entire possession of our whole hearts let Him reign and exercise an absolue dominion in them governing all the sentiments and motions of them at His will that after having constantly adored Him in Spirit and in truth we may one day receive from His holy faithful hand the Crown of Glory and Eternity which He hath purchased for us by the merit of His only Son our LORD JESUS CHRIST To whom with Him and the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD blessed for ever be honour and praise unto Ages of Ages Amen THE XXIX SERMON COL II. Vers XVIII XIX Vers XVIII Let no man Master it over you at his pleasure by humility of Spirit and the service of Angels intruding into things he hath not seen beeing rashly puffed up with the sense of his flesh XIX And not holding the head from which the whole body being furnished and fitly knit together by joints and bands encreaseth with the encrease of GOD. DEAR Brethren The same pride that destroyed the first man at the begining is the cause of the ruine of such of his posterity as do perish For if you heed it well you will see that that 's the thing which maketh them despise or mis-embrace the CHRIST of GOD in whom alone stands our salvation It was pride that kept the Jews from embracing this singular gift of Heaven because saith S. John they lov'd the praise of men even as our LORD reproached them saying How can you believe seeing you seek honour one of another And S. Paul expresly informs us that the proud phancy they had to establish their own righteousness was the cause they submitted not to the righteousness of GOD. It was likewise pride that blinded the minds of the Gentiles so as they saw not the wonderful things of the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST The haughty opinion they had of their own vain wisdome induced them to disdain the wisdom of GOD and to account the Cross of His Son foolishness though it be an inexhaustible treasury of sapience Again in fine it is pride that hath seminated among Christians themselves all the heresies that have grown up into any request since the Churches nativity to this hour Ignorance animated with presumption hath brought them all forth and bred them up For if the unhappy workers that divulged them had kept to the doctrine of GOD and not lash'd out beyond what He hath revealed in His word if the vain fierceness of their Spirit had not emboldned them to enterprise things above the reach of men they would never have thought upon corrupting Religion with their falsly-subtil inventions It would have remained pure throughout and sincere to this day and such as the Ministers of our LORD and Saviour deliver'd it at first to their Disciples by word and writing But their pride mis-leading them did induce them to attempt things above their capacity and adore and spread abroad their presumptuous imaginations as true secrets of GOD. The Apostle informs us in this Text that this was the origine in particular of those errors and false services which certain Seducers went about to introduce at that time among Christians We heard in the last exercise upon this subject what their errour was namely that under colour of a false humility of Spirit they taught
the service or Religious worship of Angels We are now to consider by the assistance of GOD that which the shortness of time hindered us from explicating then to wit the marks of these false Teachers and the pernicious consequence of their errour For though the Apostles intimation of the thing it self be sufficient His authority in the Church being such as it is not lawful for any man whoever he be to teach or believe any thing in Christian Religion contrary to the sentiment of this great servant of GOD Yet not content with injoyning the Colossians that they should not let themselves be master'd over by these pretended Doctors who would cause them to serve Angels for the adding of more weight to his exhortation he discovers to them those Seducers their true motives and the cause of their errour and remonstrates also the dismal issue in which it did engage them For as you have heard he noteth first their audaciousness and ignorance when he saith that they intrude into things they have not seen Next he shews the source of them to wit their foolish presumption when he adds that they are rashly puffed up with the sense of their flesh And lastly he represents us the pernicious consequence of their doctrine the fruit and success wherein all their striving did terminate which was that in effect by their glorious services they debauched and disunited men from JESUS CHRIST the true and only Head of believers and so depriv'd them of that life that light and salvation which this Divine Head influxeth into the members of His mystical body For this is in substance the sense of the latter part of the Text in which the Apostle saith that these people did not hold the head from which the whole body being furnished and fitly knit together by joints and bands encreaseth with the encrease of GOD. In these three heads the whole meaning of this Text seems to me to consist Wherefore if it please GOD we will examin them distinctly one after another and in the Apostles order treat first of these Seducers boldness secondly of their presumption and lastly of the consequence of their doctrine which tendeth to the disuniting of men from JESUS CHRIST the Head of the whole body of the Church As for the first point this temerity to intrude into things one hath not seen is ordinary enough with all sorts of men ever since the venom of pride impoisoned their hearts and in special with all hereticks But it is remarkable particularly in those that teach the service of Angels it being manifest that those blessed Spirits whose worship they erect are of a nature much superior to us the order and operations whereof are open to no sense of ours But when the Apostle saith they have not seen the things into which they intrude his meaning is not simply that the eyes either of their body or of their natural reason never received the Species of these objects nor apprehended or conceived the consequences and conduct of their being but moreover that they neither had nor could have by the word or revelation of GOD any certainty of the things they affirmed For though the greater part of the matters of Religion be above our senses yet when GOD hath discover'd them to us and as it were rendered them visible in His word it becomes easie for us to know them by this means and the Scripture too doth call the knowledge that we have of them this way a sight of them Ezek. 13.3 Thus Ezekiel means when he reprocheth the false Prophets with following their own hearts when they had seen nothing that is they predicted and assured things for true which the foolish imagination of their own Spirit suggested to them though in truth GOD had shewed them no such matter in the light of His revelation It is just so that those Seducers did whom the Apostle taxeth in this place They dogmatized and affirmed it as a clear case that Angels were to be serv'd and invocated and to perswade men of it they delivered many things concerning their nature and their intervention between GOD and us Yet the truth is that of all this they neither had nor could have any certainty as being things which they had never seen either in the School of nature or the revelation of GOD. All our knowledge and assurance necessarily comes from one of these three sources namely either from sense and such is the knowlege we have of the things we see hear smell touch and taste or from reason and so doth humane science which is acquired or formed by discourse and natural reasoning or lastly from the revelation of GOD who discovereth to us by the light of His word divers objects and divers verities which neither our sense nor our reason could perceive in nature Now though reason doth cause men by the consideration of things that are or are done in the world to discern some principles and verities of Religion yet the whole of this is so small a matter and withal so confused and imperfect by reason of the corruption of our understandings that the Word of GOD ought to be held for the sole assured foundation of Religion according to that which the Apostle signifies to us elsewhere Rom. 10.17.1 even that faith cometh by hearing and hearing from the word of GOD. When therefore he saith here that the Seducers do intrude into things they have not seen he doth it 's true respect in general all those Sources of our knowledge and absolutely deny that these men had by them any of the things they dogmatized but he does particularly referr to the third that is the revelation of GOD. And his meaning is that the LORD had not shewed them nor made them see by His Word any of the things they preached and would set up in the Religion of Christians And though indeed they neither had nor could have any certain knowledge of them nevertheless they discours'd of them blindfold and did divulge their phantasies the visions of their brain and dreams of their own Spirit for indubitable necessary and wholesome truths A carriage which the Apostle doth excellently well set forth by that word of his which we have translated intruding a word that properly signifies entring into setting foot on and marching forth in some quarter as in ground we have title to Whereby he noteth out the vanity of these false Teachers who did not meerly busie themselves in a research of things above their capacity which is in it self a vain and ridiculous labour but also dared to speak of them and make peremptory decisions about them so going above ground and walking as may be said in the vacuum of their own imaginations mounting their thoughts unto a Region far above them like that poor Phrenetick of whom the Poets speak who having presumed to enter upon a strange Element and fly there soon found his rashness punished with his ruine The Prophet makes use of a like phrase
maintaineth its flatulency But it is time to come to the third point which containeth the worst and most pernicious effect of this serving of Angels here condemned by the Apostle namely that they that promote it or stick in and practise is do not hold the head from which the whâ—le body being furnished and fitly knit together by joynts and bands encreaseth with encrease of GOD. You know this head he speaks of is our LORD JESUS CHRIST Eternal and true GOD made man who dyed and râ—se again for the salvation of the world and that the body of this head is the Church the whole multitude of the faithful This compâ—rison is so frequent in Scripture and the reasons upon which it is founded are so clear and so known that there is no need I should stand upon deducing them We have to observe only the operation of this divine head upon the body and the benefits it communicates thereto both which the Apostle toucheth at He saith first that this Head furnisheth the body of His Church Then in the second place that â—â—â—tly knits the same together by joynts and bands And lastly that by this means He makes it to encrease with an encrease of GOD. All this is taken from the resemblance of natural bodies whence this comparison is drawn For you see that in nature the head does first distribute to all the parts of the body such strength as is necessary for the exercising of their motions and sensations it being as it were the common Source whence the animal spirits as they are called the principles of motion and sensation are by the nerves as by so many Channels shed forth into all the parts of the whole frame as well higher as lower the farthest off as well as the nearest and when this influence and communication of the head happens to cease you see the members which are deprived of it to be presently paralytick and insensible Then further the head does the body this office that it binds and keeps decently fastned to each other by means of the same nerves all the parts whereof it is made up both the harder ones as the Bones and Cartilages and likewise the softer as the Muscles and other substances Finally the Head by means of this continual influence doth give its body the ability to grow and extend its self and rise up by little and little to the measure of its due magnitude The Apostle therefore makes use of this natural image for the representing unto us of those spiritual benefits which we receive from the communion of the LORD JESUS our mystical Head and sayes First that He furnisheth His body that is gives it abundantly spiritual sense and motion and in a word all graces necessary for the exercise of an Heavenly life diffusing them into all His mystical members that is into all the faithful by means of his not animal as that of nature is but Divine and Eternal Spirit This Spirit which He distributes to all and every of His members doth replenish our eyes and senses with that light and vigour which is requisite for the seeing feeling and tasting of Divine things It sheds abroad peace and joy into our hearts and curing our benummed limbs and opening our hands which vice had locked up doth give us the operations and motions of the life of GOD and in fine formeth in us all the conceptions and vertues of the new man But he saith in the second place continuing this excellent Metaphor that this Divine Head doth fitly knit together His body by joints and bands expressing by these words that spiritual Union which bindeth and joyneth the faithful all of them to their Head and each of them to the other For as every member of the body hath its particular temperature and qualities very different from the rest one being hard another soft one cold another hot one dry another moist and yet being linked by those secret and unperceptible bands which descending from the head do fasten them all together do make up but one only and the same body so is it with the Church The faithful of whom it is composed are upon the account both of nature and of grace infinitely different one from another In nature for some are of one Nation of one Age of one Sex of one condition and others of another one rich another poor one learned another ignorant one noble another of low extraction In grace likewise for who can utter all the differences of their gifts in this respect But JESUS CHRIST their mystical Head notwithstanding this diversity reduceth them all into one and the same body as S. Paul saith elsewhere We being many are one body in CHRIST He sets us together and uniteth us aptly one with another by these mystical joynts and bands of which the Apostle here speaks that is the gifts and graces of His Spirit and first of all Charity the univeral bond of all the faithful which ties them inseparably together by the sentiments of a sincere and ardent love and by all the motions offices services and assistances which depend upon it It 's this Spirit of Charity that mixeth all their souls into one that renders them sensible of each others weal and wo that inspires into them the same Prayers and wishes and so governs their actions that though different they yet all aim at the same mark the glory of their Head and the common edification of His members Among these joynts and ligaments of the LORD's body I also place the divers graces wherewith He doth invest them giving to this man one Talent and to that man another different to one zeal to another knowledge to one utterance to another judgement To the same too must be referred the divers offices which He hath instituted in His Church Pastors Teachers Elders and Deacons this various distribution approximating them to one another the need they have of their Brethren and the succour they may afford them admirably knitting and keeping up the commerce of their common Charity Eph. 4.12 as S. Paul expresly noteth in the Epistle to the Ephesians where speaking of the divers Ministries which the LORD JESUS formed and erected among His people he saith that He made them for the coaptation or setting together of the Saints for the edification of His body In fine he addeth here a third benefit of CHRIST's which is as the sequel and fruit of the two former that His body thus furnished and compacted by its Head doth encrease with an increase of GOD that is with a Divine and spiritual increase arising from the efficacy of GOD and tending to His glory in as much as the Church thus united to its Head and filled with the influences of His grace is established is strengthened and compleated by little and little in faith in hope in charity in light and in sanctity untill it attain unto the measure of its perfect stature in CHRIST Such is the Communion of the Church with its Head
JESUS CHRIST here described by the Apostle And hence it appears how grievous the errour of those is who serve Angels there being not any thing in these words but does evince it First then the Apostle says they hold not the head 'T is true they do not make profession of letting it go For they affirm themselves Christians and do own JESUS CHRIST for the Prince and Author of their Religion But at the bottom and in effect they break the union which they should have with Him in quality of Head since they address themselves to Angels as their Mediators and Intercessors with GOD. For it 's a giving them the office of Head which pertains to one alone it being clear that this mediation which is the Source of our life is the office of our Head Again their impudence doth plainly appear in that JESUS CHRIST our Head doth furnish His body with all necessary graces For to what end should we go seek in Angels or Saints what we have abundantly in JESUS CHRIST Is there any grace any light any blessing which we may not have from Him Nay saith the Apostle it is he that furnisheth the whole body He is the fulness of grace an inexhaustible abyss of good Sure then it 's extream vanity to address our selves to any other and to seek the waters of life and of salvation in petty by-streams rather than in that so full so fresh and so abundant an only Source which the Father hath given us in this Divine Head Though the serving of Angels and Saints were permitted which yet it is not however 't is evident it would be unprofitable since we most assuredly have in JESUS CHRIST alone all the succour and assistance we can possibly pretend to from those creatures But that which the Apostle adds in the second place to wit that this Divine Head doth compact and knit together His whole body doth further potently oppose this error which divides the Church and brings a very manifest odd variety into its Services for that it multiplyeth the objects of its devotion causing some to serve one Angel or one Saint and others another some have a devotion for one and call themselves after him and others adhere to another as you plainly see by the example of those of Rome who are divided into divers bands and fraternities according to the Angels the Male and Female Saints to whom they engage their devotion not to say how each of them hath a particular service for his Angel guardian differing from the service of all others by reason of its object forasmuch as according to them every one hath his particular Angel different from those of others Whereas the true body of CHRIST is all knit together in a perfect union having but one only head JESUS CHRIST and one only religious service one and the same faith and one and the same Worship Lastly the Apostle yet again strikes at the Authors of this errour when he saith that the body of the Church being united guided and governed by its Head JESUS CHRIST increaseth with an increase of GOD. For these people are wont to vaunt of perfecting and increasing the Religion of Christians by the addition of such services as they invent But S. Paul informs us that this is not the increase that the Church receives which must be an increase of GOD an augmentation and advancement in things which He hath commanded an instituted whereas these people do grow only in the traditions of men and inventions of the flesh which add nothing to the true and legitimate magnitude of the body it becomes by them more blown up not fuller more deformed not greater They are like warts and wolfes and empostumes which disfigure and incommodate the body but are far from enriching or perfecting it Dear Brethren let us lay by all these strange doctrines Let us hold fast to this Holy and blessed Head JESUS the Son of GOD who hath vouchsafed to take us for His body Let us enjoy with awfullest respect the great honour He hath therein done us Be not we so ingrateful or so unadvised as to give that glory to any other which belongs to Him alone Let vain men submit to other heads let them profane this Divine quality of Head of the Church attributing it either to Angels or which is yet worse to a mortal man For our parts O LORD JESUS we neither have nor ever will have other head than Thee As it is Thou alone that hast redeemed us formed and associated us in the Communion of thy body So never will we address our Devotions our Religion our Services and invocations to any but to Thee It 's on Thee alone that we will live and of thy springs alone that we will draw Likewise with Thee are the words of Eternal life To what Saint besides should we go Without Thee we can do nothing and in Thee alone we can do all things Beloved Brethren this is the Vow which I now present to the LORD JESUS in the behalf of us all and I assure my self there is not one of you but heartily sayes Amen thereto It remaineth that we do faithfully acquit our selves of this great vow rendring up our selves to be guided and governed by the LORD JESUS CHRIST since He is our Head having no motion nor sentiment but what descends from Him and receiving into our Nerves and Arteries His Coelestial and divine Spirit sincerely renouncing the spirit of the Flesh and of the Earth which animates the world Remember that you are the body of CHRIST and live in such a pureness as may be worthy of so great a name Above all let us have those Sacred bonds between us which do fitly knit all the members of our LORD together that is to say the sentiments of a vigorus Charity communicating readily and chearfully to one another the graces which our common Head hath furnished us with for our mutual edification the rich their alms to those that are poor the knowing their instructions to the ignorant the strong their succour to the weak those that are in prosperity their Consolations to the afflicted encreasing all of us continually with an increase of GOD in Faith and Sanctification and advancing daily some paces towards the mark and prize of our supernal Calling This is the Discipline of the LORD JESUS This is that He hath commanded us His Apostles Preached and left in their Writings to us not the serving of Angels and other such inventions of superstition of which those holy men say not one Word except it be to refute and condemn them Rest we in their Doctrine and we shall have part in their bliss through the grace of JESUS CHRIST their Head and ours To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the only true GOD blessed for ever be honour praise and glory to Ages of Ages Amen THE XXX SERMON COL II. Vers XX. XXI XXII Verse XX. If then ye be dead with CHRIST as to the rudiments
of our Brethren Be not asrighted Christians at the Apostle's telling you in the entrance that ye are dead This death which he attributeth unto you is gain and not loss a donative from GOD's grace and not an effect of His wrath or an execution of His justice I grant that every death is the privation of some life that was possessed But since there are miserable and execrable lives it must be confess'd that every death is not a calamity For to be rid of a thing that harms us is not a calamity but a comfort It 's an advantage and not a damage to be deprived of a poyson and devested of an habit of malediction The death of which the Apostle speaks is not the destroying of that happy life which the Creator gave us at the beginning to be led within Paradise in a continual execise of the original justice and rectitude of our nature and in the sweet and innocent fruition of the goods of the first world It 's the first Adam and not the second that outed us of this life and as we did receive it in his person so we have lost it by his crime being heirs of his misery as well as of his sin The life which is extinguished in us by the death here intended of the Apostle is that corrupted and sin-infected life which we have received from our first parents by carnal generation a life contrary to the will of GOD and meriting His wrath and obnoxious to His curse the operation of an empoysoned nature and the acting of a blind understanding a perverse will and an irregular affection the continual flux of an abominable pest which in the course of nature could not otherwise determine than in an eternal death It 's that which Scripture calleth the life of the old man that is of this altogether depraved and corrupted nature which we derive from Adam and which through error in its false wisdom placing its felicity in the enjoyment of earthly things adhereth to them with inordinate desire and doth not act or labour but to acquire the same pursuing them with such a violent ardour that there is not any thing so holy so just and so honest but it violates the same to attain its end This is the life that the LORD JESUS destroyeth in all His true members and in regard of which His holy Apostle saith and meaneth here that we are dead The death whereof he speaks is nothing else but the privation of this pernicious and accursed life the abolition of its principles and the destroying of the habitudes on which it doth depend We are dead because entring into the communion of JESUS CHRIST we have put off this first life which was natural carnal and terrene and consisted in a perverse and vitious re-search and fruition of the perishing things of this old world that goeth to perdition And this is it he teacheth us again in so many other places as when he saith 2 Cor. 5.14 15 16. Rom 6. that Old things are pass'd away that CHRIST having died for all all are also dead that they may not live henceforth unto themselves and again We are dead with CHRIST buried with Him by baptisme into His death made one and the same plant with Him by the likeness of His death that Our old man was crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed and else-where that they that are CHRIST's Gal. 5.24 have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts and it 's the same thing that he called afore the circumcision of CHRIST Col. 2.11 and the putting off the body of the flesh the same again that he represents other-where in His own person when he saith that he is crucified with CHRIST Gal. 2.19 20. 6.14 and that it is no more himself that liveth but CHRIST who liveth in him and that the world is crucified unto him and he unto the World And it 's the same too that St. Peter understands 1 Pet. 4.1 2. when he saith that we have suffered with CHRIST in the flesh that we should live the rest of our time in the flesh no more after the lusts of men Behold me that penitent woman whose history you have in the Gospel Before she had seen the LORD she was an harlot that liv'd in nothing but filth and had neither action nor thought but for the lusts of the flesh But after she had heard the word of JESUS and felt the efficacy of His Spirit she soon lost all that former life of hers She hath now no longer that wanton and wicked heart those unchaste looks those impure desires Psal 45.6 Acts 9.1 In vain seek you in her that debauched person that liv'd in infamy before That person is no more there but is dead The sharpned arrows of the King of glory have penetrated her heart and slain her Behold me our Paul before his conversion He was a furious wild boar inflam'd unto threatnings and slaughter breathing out nothing but blood and butcheries a murtherer animated by pride and cruelty Spake JESUS to him on the way to Damascus His word like a two-edged sword pierced this fierce and unruly persecutor He struck him dead or to say better destroyed and consumed him all in a moment Seek not Saul in him any longer that so fierce and cruel man He 's no more there He is dead and so throughly dead that you shall not find in him any print of what he was before Again take me a view of those Pagans of Colosse of Ephesus of Athens and of other places who were converted by his ministery Before they were idolaters breaking out into all kind of vices their life was nothing but a continual practise of superstition and impiety of avarice and ambition of envy cruelty and injustice Now when they have passed through the victorious hand of the LORD JESUS you see no more any such thing in them He hath extinguish'd in them all the life of this kind that they had Those idolaters and ungodly wretches those epicures and robbers which lived in their persons heretofore are all dead They are new men of another quality in whom none of that they were before remaineth any longer In sine there is not one of the truly faithful and living members of JESUS CHRIST but hath undergone this death the flesh hath been slain in him and the old man pierced nailed and crucified upon the cross of the Son of GOD. I acknowledge that so long as they are on earth they still resent the efforts and attempts of this old man and that combat of the flesh lusting against the spirit Gal. 5.17 which the Apostle else-where speaks of Yet I affirm that this hinders not but that true believers may be said even for the present to be dead in regard of the flesh and the flesh dead in them First because sentence of it is given in the judgement of GOD who hath in His eternal counsel determined
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
here that CHRIST is our life doth not simply signifie that He is the cause and author of our life but that it fully and wholly dependeth upon Him that without Him and separate from Him we have not a drop nor spark of life and that it is in Him alone we have all the being all the moving and all the feeling that respects the life of Heaven In very deed it is He that hath merited it for us by His death It is He that hath brought it to light by His Gospel It 's He hath shewed us a most accomplish'd pattern of it in His person at His issuing out of His sepulchre It 's He that hath given us the first-fruits of it by His word and Spirit and conserveth and increaseth them in us by His benediction It is He that keeps the fulness of it for us in His treasury on high as being the true Father of eternity And lastly it is He that taking this glorious life out of His heavenly cabinet one day will put it on us with His own hand Besides we do possess neither the beginnings nor the perfection of it but in Him and by the benefit of our communion with Him in that we are members and branches of His which cannot live but united with their head and incorporated in their vine The Apostle therefore saith that when this soveraign and only author of our life shall appear then we also shall appear in glory He hath appeared once already but in the flesh as the Apostle sayes GOD was manifested in the flesh He shall appear again a second time but in glory It 's this second appearing he doth mean when the LORD JESUS descending from the Heavens with the host of His Angels and seating Himself on a judicial Throne shall openly shew to all the creatures of the World His Glory and Godhead which the Heavens that contain his flesh on high and the weaknesses that cover His mystical body here below do now hide from the earth as we lately said Then saith the Apostle shall you also appear with Him in Glory At the coming of this sweet and happy season you as plants in the spring shall receive your life which from that sacred stock wherein it is now conserved shall be diffused into you and into all the other branches of this vine of GOD and crown you at an instant with its eternal verdure The glory whereof he speaks doth signifie the light the perfections the wonders and the pomp of blissful life perfect knowledge of GOD love and sanctity and joy the immortality of our bodies their beauty their brightness their strength and impassibility and in fine all the pieces of that infinite good the grandeur and excellency whereof we shall never distinctly comprehend untill the time that we possess it We shall then appear in this glory first because beside the first-fruits of it which we have JESUS CHRIST shall give us the fulness of it which we have not this undoubtedly the greatest and most illustrious part of His glory which now remaineth hidden in Him being then to be shed abroad upon us Secondly because the World which now despiseth and treads us under foot shall then see us in this glorious estate And as CHRIST our head shall be seen with astonishment by those that sometime pierced Him so they that now outrage His members shall then see them in their glory and be constrained to change their opinion and to acknowledge those for children of GOD and Saints of His whom in the present World they do deride and make by-words of Wisd â— 3 as saith the Book of Wisdome Thus you see Beloved Brethren what kind of life it is which JESUS CHRIST doth promise and communicate unto His faithful ones to wit the fruit of our faith and of that divine food which we have taken this morning the life of Angels the crown of Saints a super-eminent and eternal felicity in conjunction with a super-eminent and immortal glory It 's the rich treasury the living and inexhaustible spring of our consolation and sanctification Judge I beseech you what manner of persons they should be that have so high and so divine an hope and if it be not reasonable we should withdraw our thoughts and our affections from the earth to elevate them unto Heaven since it is there our life is and thence that we expect our chief happiness Christian are you not asham'd to long for earth you that have title for Heaven to labour for the meat that perisheth you that are destinated to a life which perisheth not to run after shadows you that in JESUS CHRIST have the substance of true and solid happiness How much more generous and constant are the children of this generation in their vanity Those of them that are of noble extraction and especially they that are brought up in hope of a Crown would not for any thing have a mechanick trade or foul themselves in sordid actions and even nations there are among whom they totally refrain from commerce with other men and account themselves defiled and profaned by having but touched a plebeian And you that are the issue of Heaven a child of the most High a brother of His Angels and an Heir of His kingdom you that are bred up with divine manna in the hope of an heavenly life and an immortal crown how have you the heart to grope in the mud and heap up dung to intermix with the miserablest bond-men of the earth and the profanest workers of iniquity A King's son heretofore refused to contend in the publick games because he saw no Kings do it Christian remember the dignity of your name separate your self from the exercises and divertisements of the people of the world Leave them the earth out of which they come and unto which they shall return Enter not into so ignoble and fordid a race in which you see none run but children of the earth the race of Mammon and the brood of vipers and serpents Purifie your hearts and your bodies let it never betide you to defile them with base and terrene either thoughts or actions Say not what shall we eat what shall we drink wherewithal shall we be clothed These are the thoughts and cares of bond-men These are the discourses of Pagans This is all they seek You that are Christians and whose life is hid in JESUS CHRIST seek His kingdom and His righteousness Let this be your ambition and all the passion of your souls Let this divine life and the glory wherewith it will one day crown you in the fight of Heaven and earth be night and day the object of your thoughts Take it away even at the present with an holy impatiency Begin betimes to live as you shall live eternally Let the contemplating of GOD let the love of His beauties let the meditating of His mysteries let the considering of and a conversing with His CHRIST be your employment and your refreshment in the present World
us from holynesse and from sin as we shall be addicted to the one or the other He represents to us on one hand the happinesse to which the Saints are advanced who obey His will and on the other hand the dreadful torments into which vice doth assuredly precipitate all the wicked And though His Spirit doth in part cure this ignorance and this sordid disposition in as many as He doth regenerate yet while we are on earth there do abide some reliques of them in us Whence it comes that He forbears not to use this method even with the faithful themselves You have a notable instance of it in this lesson of the Apostle upon which we now are For having exhorted us to mortifie our members which are upon the earth that is to renounce the defilements of luxury and avarice for the inclining of us to so just a duty he represents unto us in this Text the judgements of GOD upon the obstinate slaves of these vices They are things saith he for which the wrath of GOD cometh upon the children of rebellion For he compriseth in these few words the fearful and inevitable but just judgement of Heaven upon all those who despising its goodnesse do abandon themselves to the one or the other of these vices And then in the following verse he sets afresh before our eyes for the same purpose the miserablenesse of our fore-pass'd life which even as the life of children of rebellion was e're-while sunk in the turpitude of these same sins and withal the infinite kindness GOD hath done us in drawing us out thence in which things saith he ye also walked sometimes when ye lived in them This he doth to the end that being seized with a just horrour at our former state and ravish'd in the sense of our present happiness we might heartily renounce the service of our former masters and live henceforth in that purity honesty and charity which this new LORD calleth us unto who hath vouchsafed to take us to Himself and to shed into us a new life and nature as distant from our former one as Heaven is from the earth Now as these are the two reasons that St. Paul urgeth for the withdrawing of us from those two principal vices of the prophane so shall they be by the will of GOD the two parts of this action In the first we will consider the judgements of GOD upon obstinate adulterers and covetous persons and in the second the misery of our former state when we lived in the same vices and could expect nothing in the sequel but the same effects of the wrath of GOD upon us The LORD JESUS please so to accompany our words with the vertue of His blessing that such as the loathsomness the injustice and horror its self of these vices hath not been yet able to withdraw from them may now at least be pluck'd from them by the fear and terror of those dreadful judgements of Heaven which are unavoidably prepared for all the children of rebellion The first part is expressed in these words that the wrath of GOD cometh for these things upon the children of rebellion I will not stand to tell you that to speak properly wrath hath no place in the Divine nature For who is there of you but knoweth that GOD is a Spirit most pure most simple and most blessed enjoying an infinite calm and tranquility whose knowledge can never be surprised nor felicity disturbed as we learn both from Scripture and from reason it self Now wrath and such other passions do consist in the agitation and emotion of the blood and of the spirits that stir it they being caused in us by our imagination diversly as the objects which it doth conceive are troublesome or contentful present or to come the one producing in us sorrow others joy some fear and others hope those of one sort wrath those of another contentment or complacency None of this as you see can arrive but where there is some mixture of humors and spirits which being not in GOD at all whose essence is most simple it is also impossible that any of these passions should take place in Him and least of all wrath which is one of the most troubled and most boyling of them But the Scripture which useth the dialect of children with us as with children doth often attribute these passions unto GOD figuratively to represent thus grosly the mysteries of Him under the images of those things that are familiar with us because they belong properly to our nature It 's thus we must understand that which it calls the wrath of GOD. For it signifieth by this term not the perturbation of a commoved Spirit which cannot be in GOD because of the soveraign perfection of His nature but a just and reasonable will to punish the person that deserves it This it termeth wrath by reason of some resemblance that appears to be between these two things For a man who is in wrath doth eagerly desire to avenge himself upon the person that troubles him and he doth it if it be in his power causing him displeasure and afflicting him So doth GOD treat those who violate his laws He makes them suffer evil and punisheth or chastiseth them according to their deserts But He doth it without any perturbation with a calm and composed will whereas a man in wrath doth it with emotion And because we are seldome wont to do otherwise there being few that avenge themselves without some trouble and boyling of choler it seems to us that it is so with the LORD too Wherefore we say He is angry when He avengeth His laws and punisheth the crimes of His creatures though at the bottom and in very deed there be nothing in His action but the purpose and effect of an avengement and not the disturbance of any passion Thence it comes that the Scripture also speaketh in like manner frequently attributing wrath in this sense unto GOD. And if you narrowly heed it you will find that it gives this name either to the will that GOD hath to punish men the arrest and order He passeth for it or to the effects themselves that follow thereupon that is the punishments He makes culpable persons suffer by His order And it 's in this second sense the Apostle intends it here when He saith that the wrath of GOD cometh upon the children of rebellion The wrath that is the avenges of GOD His judgements the evils and executions wherewith He punisheth their rebellion according to the decrees of His avenging justice He speaks in the same manner else-where when he saith that the wrath of GOD is openly reâ—ealed from Heaven Rom. 1.18 upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men for that they with hold the truth in unrighteousness His saying that the wrath of GOD cometh some referr unto the judgements which He doth not seldome execute upon the voluptuous and covetous in this World as if he had said that for these vices GOD
hath been wont to discharge his avenging strokes upon men Others understand it of the punishment He will inflict for them at the last day and indeed the Scripture doth frequently so speak of that great judgement and the things which shall be done in it saying that it cometh elegantly signifying by that word the certainty and infallible coming to pass of a thing which 't is true as yet is not but will not fail to be as if it were a person that travelled and were already on the way to go to the place where he would arrive But I conceive the Apostle doth enclose within this word the execution of both those kinds of judgments signifying by it those great and dreadful torments into which God will plunge the wicked on the day of His anger which will be the last effect of His wrath against fin and also all the chastenings wherewith He scourgeth them in this life which are as it were the first-fruits of His wrath and so many samples and fore-runners of His final vengeance St. Paul compriseth all this in his saying that the wrath of GOD cometh But this form of speech even that the wrath of GOD cometh upon men is graceful and eximious importing that the evils which arrive on earth do not happen at adventure nor spring out of the earth it self and their inferiour causes simply but do issue from another source to wit from Heaven which pours them down here below as a storm or deluge for the inevitable enveloping and overwhelming of those for whom they are appointed They set forth from Heaven they travel towards us and fall whom in the end upon the heads of evil-doers by the order of the most High who marks out the whole course they are to take and dispenseth them with the same judgment that He doth thunders and tempests and rains which come upon us from on high by the guidance of His providence And as you see it is for the most part in the works of nature that these meteors do not come on a sudden but after some signs that precede and presage their approach in like manner is it ordinarily with the judgments of GOD. The thunder of His wrath as well as that of nature doth roar before it falls GOD threatens the guilty before He strikes them down and well-nigh alwaies sendeth men some advertisements that are as the van-coureurs and harbingers of His wrath to prepare us that we may either divert it by preventing it through our repentance or take it to abide with us Matt. â—4 Thus you see in St. Matthew our LORD and Saviour predicteth that the last judgment should be preceded by many great and terrible signs for the daunting of the ferocity of sinners and the reducing them if it might be unto repentance and in the same place He describeth the prognosticks of that dreadful vengeance which GOD was soon after to pour forth upon Jerusalem and the whole nation of the Jews and which failed not to arrive in a little time punctually as He had fore-told He observes the same order still in His chastising of families and nations scarce ever involving them in any calamity but He signified to them the coming of it before He executeth it which may be noted among others in those horrible scourges which have made havock in Christendome for these eight and twenty or thirty years But the Apostle addeth who they are upon whom the wrath of GOD doth come upon the children saith he of rebellion It 's an Hebrew manner of speech familiar in the Scriptures of the one and the other Testament to call that man the child of a thing who is addicted to it and hath in him the impression and tincture of it as they call Antichrist the Son of perdition that is to say a lost man one devoted and abandoned to perdition who destroys himself in destroying others And the Grecians whose language is extremely polisht and perfectly well formed have not however disdained this form of expression saying often the children of the Grecians for to signifie Greeks themselves and the children of Physicians for Physicians In like manner here these children of rebellion of whom the Apostle speaks are the rebellious such as disobey the will of GOD and His advertisements fiercely despise His counsel such who as St. Peter saith do stumble at the word who whatever care GOD takes to declare His holy will unto them and to call them to repentance will not hearken but obstinately settle and harden themselves in their sins Whereby they render themselves guilty of two hainous faults unbelief and disobedience For they reject â—â—e testimony of GOD and hold it for a fable sometimes even openly mocking at it which is an horrible outrage against the truth of GOD. Then next they disobey His voice confirming themselves in doing what He forbids them and in neglecting what He doth command them Such were those profane ones before the Flood who stubbornly despising the preaching of Noah the herald of righteousness continued impudently in the track of their corrupt waies taking no heed to the advertisements of GOD and His servant And St. Peter by reason of this insolent contempt terms them unbelieving or disobedient They did eat saith our Saviour they drank they married and gave in marriage 1 Pet. 3.20 and perceived not the flood untill it came and bore them all away Afterward Gen. 19.14 the people of Sodom and Gomorra did as much who took the holy and humble remonstrance which GOD's servant Lot made them of thinking on themselves and the notice He gave them of the destruction of their Cities for a rallerie or a phrâ—nsie They remained obstinate in this profane security untill a deluge of fire and brimstone pouring in a moment out of Heaven upon them and upon their abominable Countrey forced those dreams of their incredulity out of their heads and taught them that there is nothing more true than the word of GOD nor more false than an imagination of the security of sinners In fine it is the crime of all those upon whom the wrath of GOD doth fall They are children of rebellion to whom may be applied though to some more to others less what a Prophet sometime said unto the Jews Zech. 7.11 They would not understand but have pulled away the shoulder and made their ears heavy that they might not hear and have hardned their hearts as an adamant that they might not hearken to the law and the words which the LORD of Hosts sent by His Spirit I acknowledge that this is properly the crime first of those who reject the Gospel of the Son of GOD the true word brought in by the Holy Spirit and secondly of them that living under the Mosaique covenant rebelled against the word of GOD preached to them by Moses and the Prophets But I affirm that even they are not exempt of it who have sinned or do sin in the darknesse of Paganism For though these
be sufficient to divert us from the vices of the world unto which we suffer our selves to be so easily carried For if they rendred us guilty of death when we practised them in the darkness of ignorance of what hells and maledictions shall we not be worthy if we commit them now Now that we live in the light of the Gospel in the communion of Saints and Angels Who sees not that if we live ill all these great advantages will turn to our misery and that the glory we have to know GOD and His CHRIST will serve to no end but the aggravating the guilt and augmenting the punishment of our sins Let us then Christians beware of abusing the gifts of GOD. Let us lead a life worthy of the condition to which He hath called us and of the age to which He hath advanced us and following the counsel of His Apostle now that we are under grace in the kingdom of holynesse let us put off all these base lusts which belong only to that estate of errour and ignorance which we are come out of The word which we have translated put off signifyeth simply lay by or cast behind you as when a man throws down a fardle he was loaden with and so our Bibles have rendred it in the thirteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans Rom. 13.16 where the Apostle hath us'd it Let us cast off the works of darkness And it seems it would not have been amiss to take it so in the place before us because it immediately follows and dishonest speech out of your mouth in regard whereof the word put off is harsh as you may well perceive But this concerns the words only The sense remains the same still even that we rid our selves of all the passions of vice and cleanse our souls our senses and our mouths of them and as the Apostle speaks else-where using again the same word cast off all this heavy and killing load of the sins of the world We may not forget the word also ye also put off all these things Some referr it to other believers who endeavour after true sanctification as if the Apostle's meaning were that the Colossians should do the like But nothing appearing in the Text on which such a conceit may be founded I account it better to referr it either to the present state of the Colossians which required that as they had otherwhiles walked in vice so they should now renounce it or which seems to me more fluent to the passions whereof he had spoken Besides fornication and covetousnesse put off also all these things saith he to wit wrath and detraction of which he comes to speak For indeed friend if you would be truly a Christian it is not enough that you rid your self of one vice You must also break with all the rest as for restoring you to health it 's not sufficient to cure you of one maladie you must be heal'd of all it being clear that while any one remains upon you you may 't is true be less sick than you were when you had many others with it but for all that you will not be in health Accordingly for the being a true Christian a disciple of the Spirit and one of GOD's houshold there 's need of being delivered from all vices and not from some only If you had mortified in you the passions of luxury and avarice I acknowledge it is much But yet it is not all Qâ—it also those of wrath and detraction since they alone are sufficient to destroy you though you have none other This is the instruction the Apostle doth here give us where having ordered us to mortifie the former of those vices he addeth Cast off also all these things wrath anger malice detruction dishonest speech out of your mouth The two first of these five words referr to one and the same passion which we do but too well know and indifferently call in our tongue either wrath or anger But in the language the Apostle useth there is this difference that the first of these words which we have rendred wrath doth properly import a firm and fixed desire of revenge The other which we have translated anger or indignation is the first trouble which ariseth in us when we enter into choler that fire which on a sudden kindleth in our spirits and heating and agitating our blood makes it boil about our hearts One is the beginning and the other the form and consistency of the passion One is the first gust of the storm the other the continuation of it The one enkindles the other burns our hearts The one puts fire to them the other keeps it in I confess this first boyling up of indignation is a less evil than formed wrath but notwithstanding it 's an evil Wherefore the Apostle would have us clear our selves of them both That malice which he adds in the third place is also in my opinion a certain kind of anger I know well the word is of a great extent and signifies in general that venome and evil of sin which is diffused through any one of our passions which soever it be But here as frequently else-where I suppose it 's taken for the malignity of anger when a mischievous and vindicative stomach broods on its passion inwardly and feeds its fire under the ashes hatching some ill turn for the person it aims at and waiting for opportunity to break out Such a man works under ground as miners do and appears not till the ruine he prepareth for his enemy be fully ready His passion is like a stinted fire that doth not burn up untill its season Of all kinds of anger there is none more black and malignant in its self nor more noxious or pernicious in its effects Wherefore the Apostle calls it malice naughtinesse or malignity particularly and it seems to be the same thing he else-where calls bitternesse when treating of the same subject he saith Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil-speaking Ephes 4.3 be put away from among you with all malice But the Apostle's indication of our duty is not obscure and it would be loss of time to spend any more about explanation of it The summ of all is that we practise it and labour in the thing each of us in good earnest For the evil that this holy man would take away from among us is so common with us as scarce a person is to be found exempted from it I confess it 's a great and almost incredible calamity that man who was created for humanity and whom nature seems not to have form'd but for sweetnesse and courtesie and gentleness should be so corrupted as that there is no animal in the world more fierce more furious and more malignant the poison of serpents the paws of lions and the tusks of wild boars being not more to be feared than most mens choler I confess also it is yet a much greater shame that Christians
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
have chanced to commit any considering that you are not exempted neither and have need of the charity you exercise towards them Busie your selves in curing your own evils rather than in discovering other mens and be more solicitous to correct your own defaults than curious to learn or publish theirs Seek your contentment in your own good deeds and not in the evils of others But as it is not sufficient a man doth not steal he must not conceal anothers theft neither So it is not sufficient my Brethren that we forbear evil speaking our selves we must not so much as entertain the evil speakings of others keep we our ears as well as our mouths pure and free from this poyson defend we the absent when they are ill spoken of in our presence favour their honour and if we cannot otherwise do it at least declare we by our looks and countenance how troublesom detractive discourses are unto us This is often sufficient to silence them For the Vice is so weak and so shameful in its self that to beat it down we need but put it back And this is the Wise man's meaning when he saith That as the Northwind driveth away rain Pro. 25.23 so doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue But having spoken of Detraction it is time to come to the other Vice of which the Apostle here would purge our mouths Put away saith he dishonest talk out of your mouths This is so shameful a filthiness that it hath no place in the manners of the people of the World who have ever so little honesty and gravity And I cannot enough wonder at the extravagancy of the antient Stoick Philosophers who maintaining vertue and honesty as to other things did nevertheless permit their wise man to utter the most unseemly matters shamelesly and without any cover at all It is certain that this licentiousness of the tongue cannot come but from the uncleanness of the heart a soul chast and truly holy having all images of filthiness in abhorrence And as this impurity of speech ariseth from corruption so it evidently tends thereto infecting the minds and affections of them that hear it And to this that Greek Proverb which the Apostle elsewhere mentions must be particularly referred That evil words corrupt good manners 1 Cor. 1â— For such discourses bring into our spirit filthy and abominable images which being receiv'd do make impression and growing familiar with us do by little and little take away the shame and horror we ought to have at dishonest things I say as much of the unclean and perverse artifice of those who hide the impurity of their thoughts under covered speeches and of a double meaning For it 's these sayings that sink deepest into the imagination and do so much the more harm in that they are closer and more witty And here I cannot forbear complaining of their abuse also who have administred auricular confession as they call it among Christians since it hath been in use For these men under pretext of informing themselves of the state of the souls of those whom they confess do often make strange questions to them and such as ill accord with modesty Wherein they commit two faults the one is that contrary to the Apostles express prohibition both here and elsewhere they licence themselves to say and hear dishonest things changing the tongue of Ministers of JESUS CHRIST which should be nothing but sanctity and honesty into a vessel of dung and their ear into a publick sink of all the filth of a Parish The other is that by such demands they open peoples hearts to Vice and most dangerously put them in mind of evils which they perhaps would never have thought on They are come so far in this matter that not content with corners and the secret of their confessionals they have also published great Books upon this Subject which the most shameless would be hardly able to read without blushing Such among others is that one of a Spanish Jesuit P. Aurelius in which he hath heap'd together so many ordures yea some until now unheard of in the world that other Doctors of the Roman Communion have been forced to make publick declaration of the indignation and horror that this infamous Volume hath caused in them though other-ways both the writing and the Author be infinitely esteemed by those of his own order As for us my Brethren who are not in truth the companions as these Gentlemen qualifie themselves but the servants and Disciples of the LORD JESUS let us form our mouths by the example of his most holy One and by the rules of his Apostle Let there be nothing in our language but what is honest and grave and seasoned with the salt of grace worthy of the ear not only of chastest Virgins but of Angels themselves For likewise it 's for this use that the LORD hath given us a tongue not to pollute the ears of our neighbours not to teach them evils they knew not or oblige them to discover to us what they know but indeed to edifie them to glorifie the name of GOD to shew forth his wonders and speak that language in this world which we shall eternally speak in that holy and glorious Jerusalem on high into which no impurity nor filthiness shall enter There remains the third Vice of which the Apostle would purge our speech that is Lying a Vice that hath greatest extent of all the rest and such as men slip into with most facility Lye not saith he one to another Truth is properly a correspondence and conformity of our conceptions with their object when the image we form of it in our minds is such as the thing it self to which it hath relation as when we believe that a thing is or is not which accordingly is or is not indeed But truth of speech to which Lying is opposed is measured by our conception and not by the thing which is the object of it that is our speaking is true when it accords not with the thing it self immediately but with the conception we have of it Whence it happens not seldom that a man speaks a thing which is false yet doth not lye and on the contrary sometimes lyeth though what he speaks be in it self true as when Jacob said that his son Joseph was dead he lyed not because his tongue in what it uttered accorded with his heart though the thing spoken were not true and on the contrary if he had said against the belief of his soul that Joseph had been alive he had lyed since he had spoken contrary to his own thought though what he had said in that case would have been in it self true Man being a reasonable creature is bound to endeavour that he may have no opinion or sentiment in any thing but what is veritable and conform to the being of the thing heedfully keeping himself from being surprized and from falling into any error yet this is not properly
utmost and highest point of its perfection in the Heavens when there shall be seen a compleat and Angelical sanctity to shine forth in it with glory and blessed immortality In fine the Apostle doth also briefly touch at both the manner after which and the pattern by which this renovation is wrought in us For the manner of it he saith That this new man is renewed in knowledge thereby shewing that JESUS CHRIST for the communicating of this new Nature which is in Him as in its source unto us doth give us and day by day augment the knowledge of his truth in us for as ignorance and error is the first and principal deformity of the old Man and the cause of all the rest so on the contrary Wisdom and Knowledge is the first and principal lineament of the new Man whereby are formed in us all the other vertues in which it doth consist as Love of GOD and Charity towards men and all the other holy habitudes which depend upon them it being manifest that we love none but the things we know and proportionably to the knowledge we have of them Wherefore the LORD begins the admirable work of his grace hereat And we have an excellent image of this method of his in the first Creation of the World where Moses expresly observes that the first thing GOD created by his Word was Light which is the symbol of Knowledge as darkness is of Ignorance This the Apostle plainly pointeth at elsewhere GOD saith he who commanded the light to shine out of darkness 2 Cor. 4 6. hath shined into our hearts This light of Knowledge once lighted up in our souls by the Spirit of the LORD doth presently expel Vices out of them and shewing us the holy and glorious face of GOD in JESUS CHRIST transforms us into his likeness as saith the same Apostle 1 Cor. 3.18 We all beholding as in a glass the glory of the LORD with open face are transformed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the LORD It 's this he meaneth in the Text when he saith of the new Man that it is renewed after the image of him who created it that is of JESUS CHRIST our LORD For he properly is the Pattern by which that new Nature we are made partakers of is formed He is both the Author and Exemplar of it and 't is for this that it is called by his Name to wit the new Man Therefore the Apostle elsewhere to express the end and effect of his Ministry toward the Galatians Gal. 4.19 saith That he travelleth in birth until CHRIST be formed in them He had no other design but to revest them with the new Man Certainly then the new Man is nothing else but JESUS CHRIST formed in us that is nothing else but the form of this holy and blessed LORD engraven and imprinted on us by the seal of his Word and Spirit which is precisely the thing he here calls his Image If you know JESUS CHRIST you cannot be ignorant what this his form and image is JESUS CHRIST is the Saint of Saints a man full of all purity righteousness charity patience constancy and truth and in sum of all the lights of holiness Sure then his form and image can be no other than a genuine representation of these Divine qualities a soul in which appears a goodness an humility an honesty I say not equal for it is not possible to arrive unto so high a perfection but at least semblable and proportionate to his And this is that which S. Paul elsewhere compriseth expresly in two words saying That the new man is created after GOD in righteousness and true holiness Thus you see Brethren what that Old and what this new Man is which the Apostle speaks of in this place The one is the image of the first Adam and the other of the second He commandeth us to put off the old Man with his Deeds and to put on the New a manner of speaking no less elegant than familiar in Scripture which is wont to say of all the things that are found in this or that subject that it is clothed with them As when the Prophets say that GOD is clothed with strength with Glory and with Magnificence that he is cloathed with Justice that he will cloath his Priests with salvation and their enemies with shame that he will cloath the Heavens with darkness and so in a multitude of other places where it is evident that the term Cloathing is taken figuratively to express simply the putting of any thing in such or such a Subject whether it be internally or externally Whence it follows that to put off on the contrary is simply to quit a thing which one had and rid himself of it Thus to put off the old Man is nothing else but to rid our selves of his Vices and of his corruptness to pluck up for instance out of our hearts his covetousness and his ambition and the habitudes of his other sins But the Apostle expresly addeth that we put him off with his deeds that is to say that we not only pluck up out of our hearts the habits of Vices which are as it were the roots and stocks of it but that also we cut off from our lives all the actions whether interior as desires and lustings or exterior as other sins which proceed from the same and are as so many fruits of this accursed plant For to speak properly the old man is one thing and the act of sin that issues from it another The one is the corruptness it self of our nature the other is the effect it produceth The one is as the Plant and the other as its Fruit. For example cruelty or covetousness is one of the very members of the old Man murder or stealing ing are acts of it The Apostle would have us put off the one and the other that neither Vice nor its acts might have any place in us In like manner to put on the new Man is on the other hand to deck and adorn our understanding our will our affections and all the parts of our life with those excellent vertues in which the new man consisteth as we have said afore to endeavour it studiously and take no rest till we have them formed in us and our whole nature be covered and enriched with them But though these two words to put off and to put on be in this passage figuratively taken yet do they shew us notwithstanding against the gross and sensless error of some that as well the old Man as the New do both of them signifie the form and disposition not the substance and very essence of our nature For when a thing is utterly destroyed we do not say it puts off what it had but that it is perisheth And when the substance of a thing is produced altogether of new we say not that it 's cloathed but created so as the Apostle here commanding us to
the honour to be elected of GOD our selves This as doth not compare us with others but with our selves and impoâ—ts as much as if S. Paul had said seeing that or since that you be elected of GOD containing in it this reasoning Such as have the honour to be elected of GOD his Saints and his Beloved ought to be cloathed with humility benignity and meekness Since then you have in JESUS CHRIST the honour to be the Elect the Saints and the Beloved of GOD judge if you 〈◊〉 not obliged to put on all these Vertues We use the word as to the same sense often in our common speech As for example when we say of a good man that he liv'd and dy'd religiously as a Christian that is so as was meet for that quality of Christian which he had and when we advise a young man of good rank to be â—onest in all his conversation as born of a good house and issu'd from a noble and a vertuous Father Of these three qualities which the Apostle here gives the faithful the first is that they are elected of GOD. The election of God is the choice He makes according to his good pleasure of certain persons to call them unto the knowledge of himself and unto the glory of his salvation And this term Election signifies sometimes the resolution he hath taken in his eternal counsel to choose and call them which the Scripture elsewhere calls Eph. 1.11 The determinate purpose of GOD sometimes the execution of this eternal determination when GOD doth in time touch the men of his good pleasure by the efficacy of his Word and Spirit converting them to the faith of his Gospel and separating them by this means from the rest of men who continue in the miserable estate of their nature through their impenitence and unbelief The Apostle in my opinion does comprehend both the one and the other of these two senses when he saith here That we are elected of GOD that is such as he hath chosen and effectively separated from the world according to his determinate purpose calling us unto himself to serve him according to the discipline of his Gospel Now that this quality doth oblige us to put on all the vertues which he recommends unto us in the words following is evident For this very thing is the aim and end of his Election as the Apostle elsewhere informs us when he saith That GOD hath elected us in CHRIST Eph. 1.4 that we might be holy and blameless before him in love And it 's that that Moses yerwhile represented to ancient Israel the type of the new Deut. 26.18 The Lord saith he hath set thee on high this day that is hath raised thee above other Nations by his election that thou might'st be to him a peculiar people and keep his commandments Whence appears how false their calumny is who accuse the doctrine of Election of favouring vice and impenitency If it were so what could have less of reason in it than the Apostles discourse who alledgeth our election to incite us unto the studious pursuance of holiness But it is quite otherwise than these men pretend As GOD's election is the source of sanctification and good works so the asserting and teaching of it is an establishing and a founding of them And they that make their boast of their being elected of GOD but mean time lead a licentious and profane life do mock GOD and men and shall infallibly perish in this false and vain error if they amend not For since GOD's election is never executed without converting a man and sanctifying him and it is not possible on the other hand that any one should know himself elected otherwise than by feeling the real execution of his election it is evidently rashness and a palpable error to imagine that one is elected except he be truly converted unto GOD and indu'd with piety and charity Another quality which the Apostle here gives us is that we are Saints For he is not of the opinion of Rome who calls none Saints but those whom she hath canonized Saint Paul acknowledgeth none for believers who are not Saints Accordingly you know that in the Creed the Church which is the body of all true Christians and not of the canonized only is called holy and the communion of Saints Indeed since there is not a Christian but hath been baptized into JESUS CHRIST and receiv'd the holy Ghost according to the Apostles saying elsewhere Rom. 8. That if any man have not the Spirit of CHRIST he is none of his How can he be a Christian who is not a Saint Seeing both Baptism and the Spirit of CHRIST do sanctifie all those to whom they are truly communicated Now that this quality of Saints or holy Ones doth also oblige us to all the vertues that the Apostle gives us in charge in the following Verses is as clear as the Sun at noon-day For what else is sanctity it self but a piety and an exquisite charity compleat in all its parts and adorned with every vertue Besides by sanctification we are dedicated and consecrated unto GOD so as henceforth we ought not to dispose of our selves but for his service and according to his will which is no other but that we live in all purity honesty and vertue And this is that the LORD signifieth when he so often chargeth his people to be holy You shall he holy unto me saith he for I am holy Lev. 11.44 20.26 and have separated you from other people to be mine The third quality the Apostle gives us here is That we are the Beloved of GOD that is to say those of all men whom he most loveth and dearly respecteth in his Son JESUS CHRIST Since then the love wherewith God honoureth us does oblige us to love him and that we cannot fail of this reciprocal love without herrible ingratitude it is evident that our being the beloved of GOD doth necessarily require of us that we put on all these vertues which the Apostle is about to give us in charge First because it is a necessary and infallible effect of the love we bear to GOD to do what he commands us and he commands us nothing else Joh. 14.15 but the exercising of every vertue If you love me saith he keep my commandments Secondly because true love transformeth him that loveth into the image of the thing loved so as GOD being charity justice and holiness it self it is not possible if we love him truly but that we put on all these divine Vertues Thus you see Believers that the honour we have to be elected of GOD Saints and Beloved doth most strictly oblige us to do what the Apostle commands us that is to embrace all the vertues he is about to represent unto us which he expresseth in one word bidding us put them on that is that we seat them in our hearts and shew them in our lives that we deck our souls with
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
wherein he represents to us some of the principal uses we ought to make of it Ye teaching saith he and admonishing one another in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs singing from your heart unto the LORD All the terms he useth in the first part are worthy of not a little consideration First his calling the Word of GOD which was deliver'd by the Prophets and Apostles and is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament the Word of CHRIST The Word of CHRIST both because He is the subject and the end of it as also for that He is the Author of it who inspir'd it by His Spirit into His servants in the same manner as the Apostle elsewhere termeth all the afflictions of the new and of the ancient Church Hebr. 11. even to those which Moses and the Israelites suffered in Egypt the afflictions and reproach of CHRIST because CHRIST is both the cause for which the faithful are afflicted and also the Director of their afflictions who sends 'em them and governs them by His Providence Whence it clearly follows that He is GOD since all Scripture is by inspiration of GOD and that He did subsist in the time of the Patriarchs and of all the ancient Church against the impiety of those Hereticks who deny the Divinity of our LORD and pretend that He had no subsistence in Nature until He was born of the Blessed Virgin Further in the next place we are to weigh in what manner the Apostle recommends unto us the study of this Word He saith not Let it be among you let it be read let it be known of you but using a term of much more force and efficacy than all that amounts unto he willeth that this Word of CHRIST do dwell in us Dwelling you know is properly affirmed of men and doth import their making their abode in this or that place their living and being ordinarily and almost alwayes there R. Moses Ben. Maim in More Nevo Chim l. 1. c. 25. Hence it comes as the the Learnedst of the Jewish Doctors hath well observ'd that the Scripture useth this word figuratively to signifie the constant and setled abiding of one thing in another though the thing which is said to dwell in the other be not animate and that other which it is said to dwell in be not properly a place or a space that containeth it As when Job execrating the day of his birth wisheth among other things that clouds may dwell upon it meaning that that day be continually covered with clouds that it never be without that sable and sad veil and as he explains himself that darkness and the shadow of death do for ever pollute it Though to speak properly it cannot be said that clouds which are inanimate things do dwell any where and much less dwell in a day or upon a day which is not a place or comprehensive space but a part of time And it is also in this figurative way that we must take all those passages of Scripture in which GOD His dwelling somewhere is spoken of as when He protesteth in Exodus and elsewhere often Exod. 29.45 Lev. 26.12 1 Cor. 6.16 that He will dwell in the midst of the Children of Israel a particular which the Apostle applyeth also to the Church of the New Testament the meaning is that His Majesty and His Providence should alwayes be with the faithful and never forsake them though to speak properly the LORD who is an infinite Essence and filleth Heaven and Earth without being enclos'd by them dwelleth no where It 's in this figurative sense that the Apostle here doth use the word dwell and verily with much grace and emphasis when He saith Let the Word of CHRIST dwell in you His intention is that it be constantly and setledly in you that it be an inmate with your hearts and lips that it never leave them And as our Souls dwell in our Bodies to quicken them and to govern all their motions in like manner that this Divine Word be the soul of your hearts abiding day and night there to conduct and regulate all your actions that it be as well known and as familiar to you as the persons that dwell at your house and pass their whole time with you But the Apostle not content with so vivid an expression addeth yet another term to signifie more fully how studiously we ought to fill all the faculties of our Souls with this Word of the LORD Let it dwell in you saith he richly that is abundantly and as the French Bibles have it plentiously in such sort as there may be neither any part of its mysteries which is not found in you its promises its commands its assertions its prophecies its instructions being all entertained and not one of them excluded nor any part of your selves but this Divine gâ—est is admitted to lodge and abide in your understandings memories wills affections deportments that it appear in your whole life and shine forth there in such a manner as every one may perceive it It 's also hereunto that the last words which he addeth in all Wisdom do refer wherein he shews us the end and the immediate effect of this dwelling of the Word of GOD in us namely the rendring us wise unto salvation and the giving us all the wisdom that 's necessary to glorifie GOD and obtain eternal happiness He would have it dwell so abundantly in us that we might derive from it all the knowledge it gives both of the things we should believe and of things we should do to be sav'd For it 's this he usually meaneth by that Wisdom which he recommendeth unto us And because this knowledge hath many parts of which some are useless without the rest thence it comes that he saith not simply let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in Wisdom but in all Wisdom to shew us that it is not enough to study some part of this Heavenly knowledge This it may be might have been sufficient for men under the Old Testament who were but in a minority a Christian being come to mature and full age ought to know all the will of GOD all His counsel and all that admirable Wisdome which He hath revealed to us by His Son and unfolded in His Scriptures Thus you see Dear Brethren what the meaning is of this precept of the Apostle In it now we have a great many things to observe And first his procedure in that having begun discourse of our Sanctification and not inclining to enlarge upon it further for the present he remits the faithful for learning the rest not to the voice of the Church but to the Word of CHRIST an evident sign that it 's not the Church as those of Rome pretend but Divine Scripture which is supream directress of the faithful It is true that Pastors are serviceable unto their instruction but it is as Ministers only and not as Masters nor do they Minister of
see he was not of the opinion of the latter Popes of Rome who do accuse as you heard afore the reading of the Word of GOD of doing more harm than good It the reading of them must be interdicted upon the pretence that some unstable spirits wrest them unto their destruction it should be in the first place prohibited to Bishop Priests and Monks it being clear if my memory does not deceive me that such as have forged heresies by an ill understanding of the Scriptures were all of one of those three orders and not of the common people But it 's a very wild expedient and a remedy altogether extravagant to condemn the use of things because of the abuse of them by some certain persons By this account best and most innocent things and things most necessary for the life of men should be taken from them the light of the Sun the savouriness of meats the excellency of wines and fruits iron silver gold and other metals the accomplishments of learning and the marvels of eloquence For which of these gifts of GOD doth not the intemperance or the malice of men abuse And as the Prince of Pagan Philosophers hath rightly observed there is nothing they so perniciously abuse as that which is of its self best Aristot Rhet. and most profitable To conclude since the same GOD who knows the nature and the efficacy of His own Scriptures better than any commands us all to read them it 's an insufferable temerity for a man to intrude with his advice and change what the LORD hath appointed as if he were wiser than the Most High But the Apostle clearly refuteth this calumny of Rome against Scripture in the other part of this Text 2 Tim. 3.16 where he sets before us the fruits and uses we ought to draw from it Ye teaching saith he and admonishing one another by Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs with grace singing from your heart unto the LORD Else-where he advertiseth us that the Scripture is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness Here in like manner he setteth down for the first fruit we are to gather from this rich knowledge of the word of GOD that mutual teaching we owe one another for the second advertisement or admonition for a third consolation by the singing of Psalms and spiritual Hymns As to the First I grant the charge of teaching in the Church does principally pertain to Pastors appointed to this end yet there is not the privatest believer but doth also participate some way of this function when he hath the gift and the opportunity to edifie men in the knowledge of true religion Particularly Fathers and Mothers owe this office to their children husbands to their wives masters to their housholds the elder to the younger and in fine each one to his reighbour when he hath the conveniency Whence appears again how far distant the Apostles sentiment is from Rome's Paul would have the Faithful entertain with and instruct one another in the things of the word of GOD. Rome will not let any but the Clergie have power to speak of them The second use we ought to make of the Word of GOD is our admonishing one another Teaching doth properly respect faith admonition hath reference to manners The Scripture furnisheth us where-with to discharge both the one and the other of these two duties informing us plainly and plentifully as well of things that are to be beleeved as also of those that are to be done And it 's incumbent on the beleever to acquit himself in the matter according to the knowledge he hath instructing the ignorant and reproving the faulty all with a spirit of sweetness and discretion as the Apostle doth else-where prescribe For every man ought to look upon his neighbour as his brother reduce him if he stray raise him up if he fall clear things to him if he doubt and have in fine as much care of his welfare as of his own Far from us be the ferity of those proud spirits who would not be sollicitous in the least for their brethren's concerns and who if GOD should demand an account of them at their hands would be ready to say as Cain sometime answered Am I my Brother's keeper or Pedagogue Now as we are to be charitable and prudent for the performing of this service to our brethren so ought we again in our turn receive it from them with patience and meekness Remembring how the Psalmist says Let the righteous smite me Psal 141.5 it shall be a kindness and let him reprove me it shall be an excellent balm unto me The third and last use the Apostle would have us make of the word of CHRIST is in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs to sing from our hearts with grace unto the LORD The so doing doth respect partly the glory of GOD which we ought to celebrate by our singing and partly our own consolation and spiritual rejoycing For the LORD is so good that He hath provided even for the recreating of His children and knowing that Song is one of His most natural means extremely proper both to dilate the contentment of our hearts and render it full-blown as also to alleviate and mitigate their sorrows He hath not only permitted us but even commanded to sing unto Him spiritual songs And for the forming us unto so holy and so profitable an exercise He hath given us in His word a great number of these Divine Canticles as the Psalms of David and the Hymns of divers other faithful and religious persons dispersed here and there in the books of the Old and New Testament The Apostle nameth three sorts of them Psalms Hymns or Praisâ— and Odes or Songs Now though there be no need to take much pains in an exact distinguishing of these three sorts of Sonnets nevertheless I think their opinion very probable who put this difference between them that a Psalm is in general any spiritual ditty whatever the subject of it be that an Hymn particularly signifies Sonnets composed to the praise of GOD and that an Ode or Song is a kind of Hymn of more art and various composition than others You have divers examples of them all in the book of Psalms First all the composures there are called Psalms in general But it 's very evident they are not all of a sort There are some in which is celebrated the goodness the wisdom and the power of the LORD either towards David or towards the Church or in reference to all creatures These are properly Hymns and such is the eighteenth Psalm the hundred and fourth the hundred forty fifth and many others There are others in which are mystically and elegantly represenced with an excellent artificialness either the wonders of CHRIST as the forty fifth the seventy second the hundred and tenth and the like or the histories of the ancient people as the seventy eighth the hundred and fifth and hundred and
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
constancy of His Divine grace which our indignities can neither overcome nor put off and though often refused or ill receiv'd yet ceaseth not to follow us but He comes again towards us every morning and dispatcheth daily some new Herald to sollicit us to repentance this Sun that shines about us this air with which he refresheth us so many various fruits of the earth with which He feedeth us the Word of His Gospel by which He instructeth us His Sacraments at which He feasteth us the voice of His Spirit either to comfort us or awaken us in our evils the strokes of His paternal discipline which he so aptly administreth tempering them in such sort that it is easie to see He scourgeth us for our amendment to win us not to destroy us And if we love our Neighbours as we ought what ample matter of thanksgiving doth GOD's dealing with them afford us His forbearance to some waiting for and inviting them to repentance the grace He exerciseth towards others either in bringing them to or conserving them in His Son the admirable gifts so richly and so wisely diversified which He imparteth to one and the prosperous success wherewith He favours the employment of others there being not a person in the Church how unfurnish'd and inconsiderable soever in our seeming but this good Master hath given one or other of His talents to Though we had the tongues and voices of all the Angels of Heaven yet could we not worthily acknowledge or repay with thanks enough a goodness so inestimable and so every way infinite But observe that it is to our GOD and Father the Apostle ordereth us to make our thanksgivings and reasonable it is that the glory of it should be given Him since He is the first and head spring of all Not but that we may rightly address our retributions as well as our petitions unto the Son also and the Holy Spirit according to the examples the Apostles themselves have left us of it in divers places of Scripture But both in the creation and also in the restauration of the world the Father is still represented unto us as the first principle of the action the Son and the Holy Spirit acting next as persons who subsist in such order that the Father is the first the Son the second and the Holy Ghost the third though setting aside this order and the distinction of their persons their nature be in all things and every way the same in respect both of essence and of properties or attributes and of all essential operations In fine the Apostle prescribes yet further that it be by JESUS Christ we render thanks to GOD the Father First for that He is as it were the first and the chiefest channel by which all this goodness of GOD is poured forth upon us For it 's He alone that hath acquired all the graces which mankind possess by reason whereof He is called the Sun of righteousness the light and the Saviour of the world the Prince and the author of life in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily And Secondly because our thanks themselves cannot be grateful to the Father nor come into His presence before the throne of His grace except they be addressed and presented by JESUS CHRIST who alone is able to perfume both our persons and our poor performances with that odour which is necessary for all that would appear without confusion before this Supreme Majesty This is that Beloved Brethren which we had to deliver to you for the expounding of these words of S. Paul There remaineth now the chiefest point of all even that you engrave them deeply on your hearts and take them for the rule of your whole lives applying them to each one of your actions and making those wholsome uses of them which this great Apostle gave them for I will point at some of them at present beseeching GOD to bless them unto your edification and remit the rest to your own pious meditation Observe then first for the confirmation of your faith that excellent proof the Apostle gives us here of the Divinity of the LORD JESUS For as the Epistle to the Hebrews concludeth it from the Father's naming Him His Son Hebr. 1.5 6. and treating Him quite otherwise than he doth the Angels the highest of all creatures so may we reason in like manner from this passage of S. Paul and say as that Epistle saith of the Angels of which of the Prophets or the Martyrs or the Apostles oâ— of all the Angels of Heaven was it ever said unto the Faithful Do all things in his Name Sure the faithful both in the Old Testament and in the New neither believe nor hope nor rejoyce nor speak nor act but in the Name of GOD and there is not one to be found in the Divine records whose piety and the exercises that depend upon it are address'd to a meer creature Here as you see the Apostle requires that not only some part of our faith but that our whole life and all our sanctification be referred to the Name of the LORD JESUS It must be therefore necessarily concluded that He is not a meer creature but very GOD of an infinite goodness power and wisdom eternally blessed with the Father It is not possible that an inferiour nature should be the support and the foundation and the last and highest end of all the works and words of all the faithful Either all the Scriptures of GOD are to be effaced and new ones made after the fantasie of Heretiques or it must be confess'd that this JESUS is GOD to whom they give a Name capable of being both the beginning and the end of all parts of the lives of all the faithful that are or ever shall be in the world conformably to their own asserting elsewhere that He is the Father of eternity the Prince of peace our great GOD and Saviour Judge again My Brethren if it be not an outrage unto Him and an investing of creatures with some part of this glory of His to require as those of the Communion of Rome do that part of the piety of the good works and of the very faith of Christians be in the Name of Saints of one and the other Sex who how sublime and excellent a dignity soever you give them cannot after all be set above the rank of creatures We daily hear them repeat their Orisons say their Beads ask and give Alms one of the choicest Sacrifices of Christian Religion make their pilgrimages for devotion build their temples consecrate their images and their holy places and their preciousest possessions and in fine their own persons to the name of the Blessed Virgin of S. Peter of S. Denis and a multitude of other creatures ancient and modern Adversaries where find you the institution of these Devotions In what Prophet or in what Apostle have you read a command for them In what Gospel or in what Acts and in what Divine Histories
dignity of them the union of Husband and Wife is the most excellent and that upon which the others do depend or if you regard their rise Man was an Husband before a Father or a Master GOD gave Adam a Wife before He gave him Children or Servants Now though in this prime union the Husband possesseth the first place yet the Apostle beginneth at the Wife and doth the like in the two following orders instructing Children before Fathers and Servants before Masters either for that the subjection to which Wives and Children and Servants are obliged is more difficult and displeasing to our nature than the love and government of Husbands and Fathers and Masters is or for that the subjection of the one is the foundation upon which the others good government doth depend We will handle at the present no more but the lesson which he gives to Wives and Husbands contained in the Text that you have heard reserving that which concerns Children and Fathers Servants and Masters to another time The Wife's lesson is for words short but for sense of great weight and large extent Wives saith the Apostle to them be subject to your own Husbands as is meet in the LORD In which words first he commands Married women that subjection which they owe to their own Husbands and next shews them the manner of that subjection as is meet in the LORD As for subjection it 's an order that GOD hath established generally in all things which constitute any kind of body whether it be in nature or in either Angelical or humane society that some should depend on others Thus you see in plants the other parts depend upon the root and in animals upon the heart and they all upon the soul that makes them live Among men there 's no estate without a superiour that governs and inferiours that are governed In the composition of the world it self as it is one total you know that earthly things depend upon the heavens it 's they that govern all the rest neither is there any union or any body or natural compacted frame in the whole universe all whose parts are entirely equal GOD whose wisdome is infinite hath so ordered it for the benefit of things themselves those that are feeble and imperfect finding their perfection in the conduct of such as are more perfect and the more perfect reaping commodity and dignity from the subjection of those that are less This induced the Apostle to say in another place that GOD is not a GOD of confusion or of disorder but of peace Whence followeth that to resist subjection when persons are called to it is a thwarting of His will and a perturbing of His order a mark also not of fortitude and courage but of folly and malignity to oppose it conform to that which experience taught the Heathen themselves to observe even that good men are easie to be governed and that those that most unwillingly endure a superior are alwaies such as have least worth It having therefore pleased GOD according to this general disposition of His wisdom that in marriage man should be the head it 's with good reason that the Apostle exhortâ—th married women to be subject That word compriseth all the duty of the condition to which GOD calleth them and therefore the Holy Spirit useth it almost alwaies in this matter as in the Epistle to the Ephesians Eph. 5.22 Tit. 2.5 where these self-same terms occur and in the Epistle to Titus That saith he they be discreet chaste keepers at home good subject to their own husbands 1 Pet. 3.1 and in the first Epistle of St. Peter Ye wives saith he be in subjection to your own husbands I know well the expression doth displease our nature which in the corruption that sin hath brought upon it hateth all even the most lawful subjection And perhaps it is upon this accont that the Apostles have so often recommended it to Christian women that they might instruct them to combat this sentiment of our depraved nature and submit themselves unto GOD's order But certainly setting aside the word and the disorders which our sin doth sow in every condition there is no harshness in this conjugal subjection there 's nothing in it but is sweet and beneficial and advantageous both to the wife her self and also the whole family For it 's an error to think that all subjection is hard and vexatious That which the body oweth to the soul and the members to the head that which the air and earth do render to the heavens hath nothing of constraint nothing shameful in it on the contrary 't is in it that the glory of the body and the members and the elements does consist Among the Angels themselves whose being is full of perfection and of glory there wanteth not some kind of subjection the inferior Angels having dependance upon their chiefs And in the terrestrial Paradise if sin had not banished us thence amid the delights and perfections of an happy state the wise would not have been exempt from being subject to her husband an evident sign that this subjection is not incompatible either with her felicity or with her glory and that all the bitterness now found in it comes not from the thing it self but from sin which hath altered it as it hath all the other parts of our life and nature For in reality what does this subjection signifie but a just and rational a sweet and amiable dependance of the wife upon the husband like that of the body upon its head or upon its soul Of this subjection the first part which is as the root and stock of all the rest is a sentiâ—ent and disposition of heart when the wife acknowledgeth in her soul that the husband GOD hath given her is her head and as the wise man saith her guide who in the due order of their life ought to have the first place and that she is inferior to him since she is his wife whatever advantage she hath other-waies above him be it in wealth or in nobility yea even in prudence and abilites of spirit If she hath once setled this holy and respectful perswasion in her heart she will no more find ought of harshness or difficulty in all that subjection which she oweth her husband This sentiment alone is sufficient to form her unto it and bow without any violence all the actions of her life that way And it 's this in my opinion Eph. 5.33 that the Apostle meaneth when he saith else where that the wise should reverence her husband 1 Pet. 3.6 Such was the sentiment of Sarah whom St. Peter proposeth unto Christian women for a pattern of their demeanor She called Abraham her Lord as that Apostle doth expresâ—y note declaring by such respectful language in what esteem she had her husband and that she held him for her superior for the guide and governour of her life After this reverence the wives subjection comprehendeth also
your children and servants in the same devotion That there may not be a person within your doors but understands and exerciseth himself in this divine liturgie of all Christians Then take heed to acquit your selves in this duty as you ought that is to perform it with fervency attention vigilancy and perseverance to wash your hands in innocence to purifie your souls and bodies for the presenting them unto this supreme and most holy Divinity without offending His sight Ye know what the Prophets say of those whose hands are full of blood even that they are an abomination to the LORD that He is weary to bear them that He abhorreth their devotions and disdaineth their vain oblations that He hides His face from them when they dare stretch out their polluted hands unto Him and will not hear their prayers though they should multiply them to the utmost Wash you saith he make you clean Isa 1.11 seq take away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well seek judgement relieve the oppressed do right to the orphan debate the ease of the widow This Christians is the incense wherewith the LORD would have you persume your offerings of prayer that they may be pleasing to Him Hearken to His voice if you desire He should hear yours Obey the word of His Gospel if you would have Him receive the words of your supplications We complain that we have long prayed in vain But let us not disparage His veracity rather confess we have not prayed as we ought that is with such faith such repentance and amendment of life as necessarily should have accompanied these sacrifices Henceforth then for it is yet time turn ye unto Him with all your heart and lift up pure hands without wrath and doubting and vigorously persevere in this holy exercise with assurance that He will hear you But Dear Brethren among other things which you shall crave of GOD pray Him also for us that He would open us the door of the word to the end we may declare the mysterie of CHRIST and manifest it to you as we ought For if Paul a chosen vessel made and formed immediately by the hand of Heaven consecrated by CHRIST's own voice and fill'd with the treasures of His Spirit in all abundance did notwithstanding require the assistance of the Colossians prayers in the administration of this charge how much more is the succour of yours necessary for us for us I say who in comparison of him are but children We conjure you therefore both by the glory of our common Master and by the interest you have in His work that you never fail to remember us in your sacrifices of prayer but alwaies beseech this supreme LORD to perfect His strength in our weakness to give us a mouth fit to declare His mysteries and to purifie our lips as He sometime did His Prophets and untye our tongue as He did Moses's and fill our souls with that Divine fire which heretofore did in a moment form His Apostles clearing up our minds unto a distinct knowledge of His Gospel wisdom inflaming our hearts with the zeal of His house and cleansing them from the filth of all humane passions Now if the LORD inclined by the ardency and constancy of your prayers do vouchsafe to conferr upon us some small portion of His grace look ye on it as a thing that pertains to you a thing given to your prayer and for your edification Use it and make advantage of it Let it not be said that this great mysterie of CHRIST was declared unto you in vain and that it being manifested to you as it ought ye received it not as you should GOD keep you from such an unhappiness For how weak soever our preaching be it is notwithstanding sufficient My Brethren to render every one inexcusable who shall not have received it with faith neither your ears nor consciences being able to deny but that we declare unto you all the counsel of GOD in His Son JESUS CHRIST Let us all in common beseech Him to deal so graciously with the one and the others of us that all may rightly discharge their duty we speak unto you ye hearken unto us as is meet and that being knit together by a firm and indissoluble Charity we may prosperously advance His work in all sanctity innocence patience and constancy to the glory of His Name the edification of those among whom we live and our own salvation Amen THE FORTY SEVENTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. IV. VER V VI. Verse V. Walk wisely towards those that are without redeeming the time VI. Let your speech be alwaies with grace throughly tempered with salt that ye may koow how ye ought to answer every one DEAR Brethren while the Church of CHRIST is here on earth it 's condition is to sojourn for the most part amid people of another profession For though the merit of our LORD and Saviour be sufficient to bring all mankind unto the communion of GOD and though his salvation be tender'd by His own will and order to all those that have His Gospel preached to them yet so horrible is the obduration and blindness of our nature that the most of men abide out of the covenant of GOD wickedly and foolishly rejecting the great honour He offers them Divers whole Nations there are that irritated with the same fury have utterly shut the door against JESUS CHRIST refusing to suffer any of His servants within their coasts And even of those in which He hath some reception it is commonly but a little part that doth acknowledge Him the greatest and most considerable in the world persecuting Him or deriding His mysteries Not so much as private families but the Gospel sometimes makes this partition in The same roof often covereth persons of different religions 'T is a division which JESUS CHRIST hath raised in the world not that He positively willed and design'd it or that such is the nature of His doctrine neither of those doth properly tend but to unite all things and recombine Earth with Heaven in an eternal peace but it grows from the naughty and the cruel disposition of men who despise His counsel and disdain their own salvation Once by this means it com's to pass that the Kingdom of CHRIST remains as it were inlock'd with forcin States and His faithful ones mingled among persons of a contrary religion with whom this commune habitation doth of necessity oblige them to have much commerce This is the reason why the Apostle having regulated afore most of the duties of our life do's here in a few words point out in what manner we should converse with these aliens as to faith among whom we are dispersed And this advertisement was at that time the more necessary for that Christians in those beginnings which were as the nativity of the Church saw themselves environed on all sides with Jews and Pagans the two religions which then took
together with that good intention he bringeth with him unto such encounters diligently discern the persons he is engaged with not only in respect of the different conditions they are of in the world or in respect of their diverse capacity but also principally in regard of their humour and their disposition in reference to religion For they that are without have not all of them an equal aversion for ours There are some that have a sweet and an humane and tractable spirit and that hate not our persons though they approve not our sentiments There are others that are furious and look not upon us but as monsters whom they could with all their hearts as one may say devour For it 's the property of errour and of superstition to inspire their zealots oftentimes with these cruel and inhumane passions You shall again meet with spirits who though perhaps they rise not to this excess of rage yet are retchless and obstinate and having smothered or as St. Paul speaks fear'd up with an hot iron all sentiments of true conscience reason and honour are wilfully become a prey to errour and have stop'd up their ears and all the entrances into their understandings against the words and lights of truth with a determinate resolution not to admit any thing that crosseth their opinions and rather to renounce the quality of reasonable creatures then the maxims of their false religion That there must be very different demeanour towards these diverse sorts of persons there is no one but sees And our saviour plainly tells us as much when notwithstanding the order He gives His Apostles to publish His truth on the house tops He yet adviseth them expresly elsewhere Mat. 7.6 not to cast their pearl before swine and the reason He annexeth is considerable lest saith He they tread them under their feet and turn again and rend you plainly signifying by these words as experience sufficiently confirms that the spirits of those He speaks of are irritated and inflamed by that very endeavour which is used to cure them and that they are so far from amending as they become more fierce and more cruel upon it But now this discrimination of persons is not made for the having in sequel the liberty to hate the one and love the other For a Christian's religion permitteth him not to hate any man it indispensibly obligeth him to love all whatever be their nature or their religion or their disposition towards us yea it requireth him even to bless those that curse him Mat. 5.44 and do good to them that persecute him and make prayers and votes for them that crucifie him He considers not these differences of men but for the regulation of his deportment for the diversifying not of the passions of his heart but of the actions of his life towards them For though his carriage be different in one manner to some and in another manner to others yet his heart is the same towards all and to say true it 's the love he hath for them rather than any other reason that makes him to deal diversly with them To come then unto the choice of such means as are necessary and may be sutable for the end that we propose unto our selves in this kind of carriage Christian wisdome excludes from the number first all evil actions all actions that are contrary to piety or justice We owe this respect not only to GOD and our own consciences but also to men and especially to such as are without that we at no time do any ill before them For unjust or impious actions beside the venome they have in themselves have also this bad property that they are directly contrary to the end we ought to have in our deportment towards persons without which is as we have said the winning them to CHRIST Instead of attracting and bringing them on such actions drive them off and disgust them at the thing inducing them to judge ill of our religion by the ill fruits it produceth in us and to suspect that our belief is like our works and our Gospel as false as our lives are foul It was one thing that Nathan noted in King David's sin Thou hast made enemies saith he 2 Sam. 12.14 to blaspheme the Name of GOD And St. Paul in the evil lives of the Jews Thou saith he that makest thy boast of the law Rom. 23.24 by transgressing the law dishonourest thou GOD For the Name of GOD is blasphemed because of you among the Gentiles The Heathen heretofore took like offence at the debauches of bad Christians and did not forbear to reproach them with it The men vant said they that they are delivered from the tyrannie of Satan and dead unto the world yet their affections and lusts do no less overcome and master them than ours do us whom they call slaves of Satan For what serves this Baptisme wherewith as they pretend they have been wash'd and that Spirit which as they say doth govern them and that Gospel which they make so great a noise withal since their whole life is full of filth and flesh and disorder Accordingly you see how the Apostle among other reasons which he alledgeth to divert the faithful from things contrary to justice and honesty doth not forget to urge this for one that the Name of GOD saith he and his doctrine be not blasphemed 1 Tim. 6.1 and in another place that the word of GOD be not blamed and a little after that ye may make the doctrine of GOD our Saviour honourable in all things So the first thing we owe to those that are without is a pure and constant innocence in all our treating with them The beginning and the first point of prudent converse in this behalf is that we neither say nor do any thing in all the communication we have with them which they may justly accuse of wanting devotion towards GOD or of covetousness or cruelty or any other unseemly or unjust passion towards themselves But after abstinence from evil we owe them also the performing and practising of that which is good first by rendring to them readily and uprightly all that is their due by the laws of GOD and of Nations to Princes fidelity and obedience to Magistrates respect to Kindred and Countrey-men amity each in their degree Rom. 13.7 and as St. Paul saith else-where tribute custome fear honour to whomsoever either of 'em doth belong not defrauding any one of his right nor lying indebted unto any Let Soveraigns see us zealous for their service private men round and sincere and trusty in all the affairs we have with them religious observers of our contracts and our words honest debtors milde and humane creditors courteous and helpful neighbours Let them not find us faulty in reference to any of the offices of an honest and a civil life For GOD forbid that we should ever admit into our hearts so impious and barbarous and inhumane a conceit as
said in those two places concerning him doth oblige us to believe it was the same man but rather inferrs the contrary For it seems that Epaphroditus was Pastor of the Church of Philippi in Macedonia whereas Epaphras of whom question is here was Pastor of Coloss in Phrygia two Cities and Provinces very different and distanced from one another by much Land and Sea the second situate in Asia and the former in Europe The Apostle contenteth not himself with telling the Colossians that Epaphras saluteth them Unto this testimony of his affection for them he addeth divers others that he may gain him their hearts and streiten the tye of amity and good correspondence more and more between this Pastor and his Flock He saith first that he alway striveth in prayer for them that saith he ye might abide perfect and compleat in all the will of GOD. Prayer is the best office that we can perform to those we love But Pastors particularly owe it to their Flocks not only in their Assemblies where they serve for the mouth of the company to present their requests their vows and their thanksgivings unto GOD but also in private and even then when they are absent upon some occasion of importance for the good of the Church as doubtless that was which at that time held Epaphras at Rome by St Paul's order Though he was far from their abode he had them incessantly in mind and eloignment hindring him from rendring them his other devoirs he assisted them with his prayers The Apostle signifieth both the assiduity of them when he saith he prayed alway and the fervency and earnestness of them when he saith he strove or fought for them This word is admirable and excellently represents the efficacy of his prayer Think not Christian that he that prays for you contributes nothing to your welfare and that his prayers are but words and voices cast into the air It 's the best part of your battles you have no succour more active then the repose of a man of GOD who prays for you with faith and perseverance It 's he that as Moses heretofore standing on the mountain and rapt up in spirit into the heavenly sanctury defeated Amalek your spiritual enemies and by the uplifting of his hands draws down the blessing of Heaven upon your arms He oftentimes even takes those rods out of the hand of GOD which He is about to display upon you and couragiously wrestling with Him after Jacob's example quits Him not until he hath obtained his demand Such is the combat that Epaphras sought in the behalf of his Colossians being night and day in prayer for them But what is it that he demanded of GOD for them The Apostle shewsit us expresly when he saith he strove for them in prayer that they might abide perfect and compleat in all the will of GOD. He desired not for them the riches and honours and contentments of the world he usual passion of men sleight and perishing goods unprofitable and oft-times even pernicious to those who possess them He prayed GOD to give them the best blessings perseverance in His love and in His fear and in the obeying of His will For it is this that the Apostle's words do signifie He demanded first that they might be perfect and compleat in all the will of GOD and secondly that they might abide firm in this perfection By the will of GOD he meaneth those things which GOD willeth which He hath a liking to and doth command us in the Gospel of His Son in the same manner as he elsewhere saith our hope for the things we hope to obtain and the promise of GOD for the things He hath promised us 1 Thes 4.3 He thus explains himself when he saith expresly in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians that the will of God is our sanctification which as you see is no other but that the thing which GOD willeth is that we be holy It 's that will of GOD which elsewhere he calleth good and acceptable and perfect which comprehendeth in it all the particulars of our duty that is in few words faith and piety towards GOD and charity towards our neighbour For this is that which GOD willeth that which He ordaineth and commandeth all men in the Gospel of His CHRIST even that we believe in Him embracing with a pure and thorough faith the verities He hath vouchsafed to 1. veal unto us and chiefly the promise of our salvation by the Cross of our LORD JESUS and that in sequel we serve Him religiously renouncing all impiety and love our neighbours living with them in all justice temperance and benignity This Brethren is that will of GOD which the Apostle doth intend and observe he saith not simply in the will but in all the will of GOD. For there are people that would be content to do some part of what GOD willeth provided they might be dispens'd with for the rest as for example to believe the truth which GOD hath revealed but not do the good works He hath commanded or to exercise some of them but utterly fail in others as they who live fair with men but remain in impiety and in the profession of errour or those on the contrary who make profession of errour or those on the contrary who make open profession of the pure service of GOD but spare not either the goods or honour of their neighbours or who absteining from one vice do licence themselves unto others are chast but covetous or liberal and beneficial to the poor but debauched and incontinent This partition is unjust injurious unto GOD impossible in truth and incompatible with the nature of the things themselves And it 's to advertise us hereof that the Apostle saith here expresly in all the will of GOD to the end no man might imagine it sufficient to embrace a part only of what GOD willeth Epaphras desired therefore that his Colossians might be perfect and compleat in all this will of GOD that is as we have now explained it in all the things that GOD willeth that He requireth of us that He commandeth men to do that they might be perfect in saith perfect in piety perfect in charity and in all vertue and sanctity The two words he expresseth himself by to wit perfect and compleat do signifie well nigh one and the same thing and the Scripture useth them indifferently to set sorth a being entire in one whom none of the parts of piety and sanctification are wanting Now this perfection or integrity in all the will of GOD doth comprehend two things the one is that we know it that we understand exactly all that GOD willeth all that He requireth of us as He hath reveal'd it in His word The other is that we pursue and effectively practise this will of His which we do know The first of these two points the Apostle recommends to us elsewhere Eph. 5.17 Be ye not unwise saith he but understanding what
to think and medirate on Him and to receive from His hand the Divine fire of His Spirit that we may speak of His wonderful works Our feast of Tabernacles is to live as strangers in the world without cleaving to it still aspiring unto Jerusalem which is above the Mother and the City of the faithful Our new Moons are the praise we continually sound forth unto GOD not with Silver-trumpets but with heart and understanding In fine Our Sabbath is to do not our own will but the will of GOD repressing and restraining the motions and sentiments of our nature that place may be left for CHRIST to work in us so as it may not be we that live but CHRIST who liveth in us This is Christians that true body which was represented heretofore by the Jewish shadows These are your festivals your solemnities and your devotions Keep them holy and celebrate them religiously It is the great Prince of your salvation who hath instituted and consecrated them He recommends them to you every where in His Gospel and hath indissolvably obliged you to them by that death of His the remembrance of which we are to celebrate next LORD's day If you acquit your selves worthily herein be assured that after such stay for a time as you make here below He will raise you up to Heaven there to celebrate with Him and His Angels that last mystical feast of the great day which rising at the point of our Resurrection shall not go down for ever but shine eternally and render us happy in the fruition of that life and immortal glory which was prepared for us before the foundation of the world So be it THE XXVIII SERMON COL II. Ver. XVIII Vers XVIII Let no man master it over you at his pleasure by an humility of spirit and the service of Angels intruding into things which he hath not seen being rashly puffed up with the sence of his flesh DEar Brethren It 's a thing infinitely strange and which shews the extream corruption of our nature more sensibly than any other that men should have so vehement and invincible a passion for the serving of creatures GOD the Soveraign LORD both of them and of the Universe did manifest Himself clearly to them causing the illustrious and glorious marks of His goodness and wisdom and infinite power to shine forth every where above and beneath upon them and about them yea bringing the same home even to their hearts and giving them a feeling of Him by the innumerable benefits which He poureth out continually upon all the parts of their lives In short He shewed Himself and drew near and presented Himself in so lively a manner to their understandings Senses and perceptions that they could not if I may presume to say it be ignorant of Him though they would Besides all this He vouchsafed to reveal Himself to them at the beginning in a particular way speaking familiarly to Adam and Noah and others of the primitive Patriarchs who were the sources of the first and second world Nevertheless you know that notwithstanding all these lights the rage of that passion men had for Idolatry was so violent that it made them forget all these holy and admirable discoveries of the Deity and induced them instead of their great and abundantly good and omnipotent Creator blessed for â—ver to serve the creature and their phrensie rose to such an height that besides the Luminaries of Heaven and the invisible Powers that do govern them as also besides Kings and Sages and persons whom worth or authority had raised above others they were not ashamed to adore yet other things of the lowest in nature as Beasts and Plants and Elements and to compleat their extravagancy they added to all the rest Images and Figures things absolute insensible and unprofitable Changing as the Apostles does reproach them the glory of the uncorruptible GOD Rom. 1.22 into the resemblance of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed Beasts and creeping things This Bruitish error having overwhelmed all mankind the LORD was so gracious that He drew Abraham out of it as a brand out of an universal Conflagration and afterwards manifesting Himself more clearly unto his posterity by the ministry of Moses and giving them His Law He raised up amid this people a publick testimony of His truth against the general misdemeanour of the world fulminating a thousand and a thousand maledictions against all such as served Creatures But the love of Idolatry was so strong as it broke this barr of Heaven and violated this Divine declaration which prov'd to be so far from reducing the Nations to their duty as it could not keep the very Israelites in theirs but they as we learn by their History often gave up themselves to the serving of Creatures At last after so many significations of His mind GOD sent His only begotten the Sun of Righteousness and truth into the world who opened to us the manner and the reasons and causes of the worshipping of GOD and did fully discover that which both the Gentiles were ignorant of by reason of their stupidity and the Jews did but imperfectly know in their minority Now who would think that so shameful and gross an errour as the serving of creatures is should have the shamelesness to shew its self in so noble and so glorious a light Yet you know this wretched passion found the means to content its self bringing in under divers vain but plausible pretences the worshipping of Angels and men by little and little among Christians But however it is not so strange a thing that a corruption should get such ground in the latter ages when it was favoured by an universal ignorance and by a decay of truth and by the depravedness of men such a thing doth frequently come to pass in their disciplines and constitutions commonly as they go on they grow worse That which surpasseth all admiration is that in the time and under the eyes of the holy Apostles of our LORD and Saviour there should be men found of so impudent a spirit as to promote so vile an errour in the profession of Christianity We should scarce be able to believe it if S. Paul did not give us that testimony of it which we even now read to you And GOD permitted it as well to exercise and prove the Church which then was as to confirm ours this occasion having here drawn from the Apostle's pen a clear and magnifick condemnation of this abuse He hath rejected already in the precedent context those observances which the false Teachers he opposeth had taken from the Mosaical Law now he refuâ—es those which they had borrowed from the Philosophers of the World For as we shall shew anon that serving of Angels which these men would have introduced among Christians was a fruit and an invention of Heathen Philosophy S. Paul strikes down this vain impiety in few words Let no man saith he master it ever you at his
the name and title they have in Christian Morality Works that are the same as to the external action do sometimes prove nevertheless very different and even contrary one good another bad because the Spirit that produceth them is not the same As for instance the alms of an ambitious man and of a true believer have no external difference the ones act in that regard is the same the others is yet if you consider the inward springs of them both you will find that the one is a piece of vanity and the other a fruit of charity Whence it comes that notwithstanding all the resemblance they have in open view they are yet at the bottom works of a quite different nature the one evil and condemned of GOD the other good and acceptable to the LORD The one with all its outside paint and colour is an act of vice the other of vertue The same is to be said of those two kinds of Preaching which the Apostle mentions in the Epistle to the Philippians the one of those that Preached CHRIST through envy Phil. 1.15 16. and of contention the other of such as preached Him of good will and of love The language of them both was the same but the diversity of their designs render'd their actions so different that the one 's to say the truth was a sacriledge and an abomination the other 's on the contrary one of the best and most excellent works of Christian piety and charity Thus you see the rule which S. Paul gives us to order all the external actions of our lives our words and works even that we do all in the Name of the LORD JESVS The rule is short and easie but of vast and almost infinite use As a little square serve 's an Artificer to design and mark out a multitude of lines and to discover and correct all those that are amiss so by this little rule which the Apostle puts in our hands there is no humane action but we may certainly perceive whether it be right or wrong good or evil and conform to the will of GOD or otherwise neither is there any part of our lives but this rule if we take care to adjust them by it is capable of guiding and forming unto perfection Now as the name of GOD in Scripture signifies sometimes that Ebrew word of four Letters which the LORD takes for His name and memorial distinguishing Himself by that appellation from all those GODs to whom the error of Nations wrongfully gave that quality and the honours due to it so likewise the name of JESUS is sometimes taken for this very word JESUS which as you know is the name that was given Him by the express command of GOD. And so those of the communion of Rome seem to understand it Phil. 2.10 in that passage of S. Paul where it is said that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth uncovering as oft as they hear the word JESUS pronounced as if the Apostles meaning were that all creatures coelestial terrestrial and infernal should do reverence when those two Syllables JESUS are uttered Wherein verily they are much mistaken the import of that passage beeing quite otherwise It 's not thus neither that S Paul takes the name of JESUS in our Text as if he simply intended that in our actions and discourses we should not fail to intermix alwayes the word JESUS having it incessantly in our mouths and never doing nor saying any thing without pronouncing it first Far be it from us to imagine that such a thought should fix upon the Apostles mind It is not the word nor the letters or syllables of this name that he recommends unto us I grant we cannot have it too much in our mouths provided it flow into them from the heart and that it be a religious and respectful consideration which makes us mention it and not a vain and childish superstition as if there were some secret vertue annexed unto words We are to note then in the second place that as the Name of GOD is very often taken in Scripture for the power the authority the will respect and consideration of GOD in like manner is the Name of JESUS Thus Moses foretelling the coming of the Messiah Deut. 18.19 And it shall come to pass saith he that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which He shall speak in my Name I will require it of him Which He shall speak in my Name that is by my order and authority and in acquitting himself of the charge which I have committed to Him And it 's thus we frequently read that the Prophets spake in the name of GOD that is by His express command they being sent and dispatched from Him 2 Kings 2.24 And it 's said of Eliah that he cursed the children that reviled him in the name of the LORD that is by His authority And this form of speech was so common among the Jews that the Priests and Elders demanded of the Apostles in the fourth Chapter of the Acts Acts 4.7 in whose name they had done that miracle meaning upon whose authority and by whose order they had undertaken it The same exposition is to be given of that which the Psalmist singeth We will boast in the name of the LORD our GOD Psal 20.8.25 that is in His help and power and speaking of the faithful unto GOD They shall rejoyce saith he in thy name that is in the confidence they have in thy power and goodness of like import is that which he addeth that the Horn of His anointed shall be exalted in His name that is by His might and by the vertue and order of His providence So David entring into combat with the Philistin 1 Sam. 17 4â— Thou comest against me saith he with a sword and with a spear and with a shield but I come against thee in the name of the LORD of hosts whom thou hast defied In the name of the LORD that is for His glory which thou hast reproached and in assurance of His protection and succour in the same sense that King Asa mean't it on a like occasion Help us saith he O LORD our GOD. For we rely on Thee 2 Chr. 14.11 and are come forth in Thy name against this multitude that is in Thy quarrel and with confidence in Thee It 's therefore in the same manner we are to take this phrase in the name of CHRIST which often occurs in the Books of the New Testament as in S. Matthew Prophecying and casting out Devils in the name of the LORD that is Mat. 7.22 24.5 Acts 5.28 by His authority and in His might and when men are said to come in His name that is to avouch themselves His and to affirm themselves sent by His order to speak and teach in the name of JESVS CHRIST and likewise to be assembled in His name