it is maintained by the terrour of Inquisitions and the pomp of a worldly power and the favour of the Great who find their own interests in it It is only the Gospel of the LORD that from its birth had the courage and the force to fly every way penetrating with incredible swiftness all the Regions of the habitable world in less than five and twenty years And let none alledge unto me here the Seduction of Mahomet which infected the East and the South and a part of the West it self in a very little time For there is nothing alike in the progress of the one and the other of these two doctrines I pass by other differences that may be observed I will only touch at one of the most essential namely that Mahomet and his Successours advanced not their impostures but by force of Arms and dint of Sword not Preaching and establishing their Doctrine save in the Countreys they conquer'd and among the Nations they brought under their Yoke To say true it was their Iron and not their Alcoran that ran through and spoiled the World What was strange or supernatural in their success That a Troop of Robbers whom their own need or others cowardice and confusion emboldened to enterprise could seize them of some Towns by fraud or force That puffed up with the good fortune of their first successes and by a multitude of people joyned with them they pushed further on and issuing out of their Arabia should attempt the outmost quarters of the Roman Empire very ill-garded at that time and in a manner exposed to pillage and that gaining ground by little and little they should fall on further and break in on one side and the other as the division and weakness of their enemies gave them opportunity so as in fine in the space of three or four score years they saw by these progresses the East and the South in their hands Sure there was nothing but humane in all this Alexander the Macedonian had yer-while done as much or more in less than fifteen years and Sesostris and divers others both before and after him It is then no Miracle that the Religion of the Saracens born if I may so say upon the wings of their victorious Ensignes saw much of the World by this means in fifty or sixty years If any marvel be it is that of their armes which did so great exploits in so small time and not that of their Alcoran which never entred but into places whose gates fire and sword opened for it But as to the Gospel of the LORD JESUS it is quite otherwise It had not to sustain it and advance it in the world either the aid of force or the favour of armes or the successes of Warr or the exploits of any Conquerour It had not in its service either the charms of Eloquence or the subtilities of Philosophy in one word it had no humane or terrene succour that you can possibly imagine Those that carryed it were twelve or thirteen Fishermen with a little number of others of the same Cloth without Credit without Armes without courage without Experience the off-scouring and sweepage of the world weakness and imbecillity it self who far from enterprising upon ought of other mens had renounced all that was their own who instead of smiting and slaying where whip'd and ston'd at every turn instead of attaquing did not so much as make resistance to them that ill handled them living in an extreme humility and innocence With this poor equipage the Gospel undertook the world and though it met every where with gates shut up and walls garrison'd with all that was terrible to force it back though the Jews persecuted it the gentiles derided it great and small had it in abomination Magistrates banish'd it and put it under the most cruel punishments though all did rend it with injuries and reproaches yet naked as it was it made it self room and in spight of so many dreadful impediments ran from East to West and from South to North and so constantly despised all earthly means as it reigned every where for sixcore years before it had one Magistrate or Captain on its side disarming and despoiling them when it received any so far was it from making advantage of their arms or authority We may affirm therefore that this progress of the Gospel is a thing altogether singular not at any time else seen or hapning in the world and with which neither Mahumetism nor any other Religion hath any community Consequently that this is a mark of the truth and divinity of this holy doctrine those that are humane neither having nor being able to have that admirable force and vertue which appeareth in it But this event proves the same thing yet again after another manner inasmuch as it was a manifest accomplishment of ancient Oracles yer-while given by the LORD to His former people and registred in His Scriptures which foretell in divers places that the Messiah should spread all abroad the knowledge of the true GOD which was before shut up within the strait limits of Judea Isa 60.3 9.1 that the Nations one day should walk in His light and that people sitting in darkness should see a great light which the LORD JESUS explaining in the dayes of His flesh had said upon it Mat. 24.14 that His Gospel should be Preached in all the world These predictions therefore appearing at that time so punctually and so admirably and in so short a space fulfilled who can doubt any more but that the LORD JESUS is the true CHRIST since never any but He revealed the GOD of Israel and His service to the World and that His Apostles were the servants of this same GOD who having foretold these things so many ages before so mightily executed them by their Ministry in the fulness of time But besides the confirmation of the Colossians faith in general I account that the Apostle would more-over by this Elogy he gives the Gospel to be come into all the world fortifie them in particular against the new doctrines which some seducers were sowing in their Church For since other Churches founded here and their in divers parts of the world had heard nothing of them it was a very evident argument that they were not any part of the Gospel that is of what the Apostles Preached Whence we may draw to give you this advice by the way an invincible proof both of the truth of the doctrine we believe and of the vanity of that which we contest about with our adversaries of Rome For as to that we hold it is evident the Apostles Preached it in all the world both by word of mouth and by writing there being none of the necessary positive and assirmative articles of our faith but doth appear in all the Monuments of Apostolique Preaching to wit both in the Books they wrote and in the Churches they sounded As for our adversaries it is no less evident they can
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
last words of this Text whence it is that the Colossians had conceived so high an hope Of which saith he you have heard heretofore by the word of truth to wit the Gospel This Soveraign bliss which is reserved for us in the Heavens is so highly raised above nature that neither subtility of sense nor vivacity of reason nor even the light of the Law could discover it to us much less give us the hope thereof 2 Tim. 1.10 That same JESVS CHRIST who hath destroyed death hath brought to light life and immortality by the Gospel Before this they were either entirely unperceived or imperfectly known and hoped for It 's therefore precisely from the Gospel that we draw both the faith and the hope of them He calleth the Gospel the word of truth not as some will have it because it is the Word of JESUS CHRIST who is the Truth and the life for this exposition is more subtil than solid but because it is the most excellent of all Verities those that are learned in the School of Nature and of the Law being mean and unprofitable in comparison of those which the Gospel doth discover to us It may well be that the Apostle would also secretly oppose the doctrine of the Gospel to those of the seducers which still recommended shadows and figures as we shall hear in the following Chapter whereas the Gospel presenteth us the substance and the truth of things And it seems to be in this sense that St. John after he had said The Law was given by Moses addeth in form of opposition John 1.17 But grace and truth came by JESVS CHRIST because the Law had only dark lineaments and shadows whereas the LORD JESUS brought us the lively image the body and the truth of celestial things The Apostle remindeth the Colossians that they had already heretofore heard this Word of truth as it were to protest unto them that he would promote no novelty among them having no other design but to confirm them more and more in the holy doctrine they had already received with faith from Epaphras and other Ministers of the LORD See well beloved Brethren that we had to say to you for the exposition of this Text. It remaineth that we briefly touch at for you the principal points we should gather of it as well for the instruction of our Faith as the edification of our Charity and the consolation of our souls As for Faith 't is for it's security that St. Paul telleth us at the entrance He is an Apostle of JESVS CHRIST by the will of GOD advertising us by this quality He assumeth to receive no doctrine into our belief which hath not been annunciated by these great and highest Ministers of the LORD Let us examine the Spirits and admit only the word of the Apostles If any one Evangelize beyond what they have preached let us hold him for an Anathema We have their Scriptures Let us assuredly believe all that we read in them Let the doctrine which appears not there be suspected to us and praised be GOD that according to this rule we have banished from our Religion that which error and superstition had thrust into Christianity You know that the GOD the CHRIST the Heaven the Worship and Sacraments we preach have been given us by the Apostles of the LORD established by the Will of GOD and do appear throughout in their Gospels and in their Epistles Whereas the Mediators whom our Adversaries invocate the High Priest they acknowledge the Traditions they maintain the Purgatory they fear the greatest part of the Sacraments they celebrate the adoration of the Host the veneration of Images and the voluntary Worships which they practise are not found at all either in the Old or the New Testament Let us therefore firmly retain our Religion as instituted by the Will of GOD and constantly reject what is beyond it as come of man and not of the LORD from the Earth and not from Heaven But it is not enough to make profession of it we must plant this doctrine in our hearts by a lively belief in such sort as we may be able to say with truth That we have faith in JESUS CHRIST and charity towards all the Saints We render thanks to GOD with the Apostle for that of His great mercies He hath vouchsafed to communicate this treasure of His Gospel to us and not in vain since there are among us that have truly made their profit of these spiritual riches But the life of the greater part renders them unworthy of the praise which St. Paul here giveth the Colossians For is this to have Faith in JESUS CHRIST to serve Him so loosely as we do and testifie so little zeal for His glory so little respect to His Commandments so little belief of his documents and so little affection for the interests of His Kingdom As for Charity I am ashamed to speak of it so cooled is ours For if we loved all the faithful should we leave the life of some of them and the reputation of others without succour Should we injure them instead of defending them Should we take away their substance instead of communicating to them our own Should we black their honour instead of preserving it Would their prosperity offend us Would their miseries content us Faithful Sirs remember they are the Saints of GOD His Children and the Brethren of His CHRIST Respect those so sacred names and spare persons that have the honour to belong so nearly to your LORD He will judge you by the treatment you shall give them and write on his account the good and the evil which they shall receive from your hands recompensing it or punishing in the very same manner as if you had honoured or violated Him in His own person He will cut you off from His communion if you do not carefully regard and practise theirs and will never avouch you for His Children if you acknowledge them not for your Brethren And here alledge not to me I beseech you that you have faith I know well that this divine light cannot be in souls which are cold and destitute of Charity But suppose that this were possible I tell you and declare that all your pretended faith should you have the highest degree thereof that may be in the world without charity would be but a shadow an Idol and an illusion and as St. James saith a stinking carkass James 2.26 Do all you will Have as much faith and knowledge as you please if you have not charity you are not a Christian you are but a false and deceitful image of one Charity is absolutely necessary to the perfection of a Christian It is the badge of this holy Discipline it is the honour and the glory of it and the Apostle as you see sets it down here among it's essential parts Faith shall cease in Heaven when we shall see instead of believing But charity shall remain for ever Have then a
Apostle addeth namely that the Church is the body of CHRIST this further clearly sheweth that none but CHRIST is the Head of it For if the Pope for example were head of it the universal Church should be the Popes body as it is the LORD's But where is the Christian ear that doth not tingle at so strange so unheard of and so profane language And so we see how vehement and inordinate soever the passion of men hath been for this title of Head of the Church no man hath ever hitherto called the Church His body every one confessing that it is no ones body but JESUS CHRIST's alone They should then grant in like manner that none is its Head but He only Since it cannot have any for Head but Him whose body it is In the next place note I pray in opposition to another error of the same adversaries of ours that CHRIST His being Head of the Church doth not at all infer that the Church toucheth Him corporeally or that the bodies of the faithful are properly and substantially joyned to Him as the members of a natural body are joyned to their head Every one confesseth that this must be understood figuratively and mystically and after the same manner all men take the other expressions for the most part by which our union with the LORD is represented as when He is called the Foundation of the Church the corner stone the vine-stock of the Faithful and their raiment No one concludeth that it is necessary for the verifying of these passages our bodies should really touch His substance Why then will they infer it from other places where to set forth the same mysterie it is said that He is our bread our meat and our drink If He be our Head if He be our Raiment if He govern and clothe us without touching our bodies with His why may not He be our bread and nourish us without real entring into our bodily throat and stomach If the one be mystically and figuratively understood why will you force me to take the other corporally and literally I say the same upon the Apostles express declaring that the Church is the body of CHRIST Our adversaries do conclude no Transubstantion from hence and they confess that for salving the truth of these words there is no need that either the Church should lose its own substance and nature or be really changed into the substance of the body of CHRIST Nevertheless they will by all means have it that the same words when the Gospel saith of the bread which our LORD took that it is the body of CHRIST As if it were not rational and easie to say that the bread as well as the Church is the body of CHRIST figuratively and in a mystical way If they admit this sense in one of these places why do they reject it in the other where the nature of things themselves and the truth of heavenly doctrine doth no less necessarily require it In fine not to make any longer stay here St. Paul cleareth up to us in two words another question which the passion of Rome hath so horribly embroyled in these latter times namely what is the nature and the true definition of the Church The Church is saith he the body of CHRIST These two words overthrow all the Philosophizing of our adversaries about this subject in order either to the straitning or enlarging the Communion of the Church beyond what ought to be I say the straitning For they admit to the possessing of this name those only that acknowledge the Bishop of Rome whereas St. Paul alloweth it to all those that belong to JESUS CHRIST and that have His Spirit no one of these but being of His body and by consequent of His Church in whatever place and under whatever Pastors he live I say also the enlarging it For these Doctors who are so severe on one hand as that they give the name of the Church only to the Roman Communion are so loose and so very indulgent on the other hand as they yield it up to the most desperate and prophane Hypocrites that are provided they addict themselves to their Pope not requiring as they affirm Bellarm. 3. de Eccl 〈…〉 2. as any interiour vertue in them to be members of the true Church but only an exteriour profession of the Roman belief and Communion But St. Paul fulminates down this no less impious then extravagant doctrine by saying that the Church is the body of CHRIST For no one can be of His body without being quickned by His Spirit Rom. 8.9 He that hath not the Spirit of CHRIST saith the same Apostle elsewhere is none of His. Certainly then it is not true that the prophane or hypocritical are parts of the Church There is no communion between CHRIST and Belial The body and the members of the one cannot be the body and members of the other Forasmuch as the Church is the body of CHRIST it must of necessity be concluded that these people of whom our adversaries compose their Church which have not as they say any piety or internal vertue and by consequence are members of Belial may well be since they will have it so true members of the Roman but assuredly not of the Christian Church And if the Pope do own them for his sheep we are very certain that the LORD JESUS will never avouch them for His. But it is time to come to the two other titles which the Apostle here giveth in the next place to our LORD JESUS CHRIST adding that He is the beginning or the principle and this first-born from the dead Even as when he had said before that JESVS CHRIST is the first-born that is the Lord of every creature he presently brought the reason of it taken from thence that all things were created by Him In like manner now having said that He is the Head of the Church he foundeth this truth upon His being the author of the Church He that formed and constituted it and the Prince of this new generation He that will give it the true and utmost perfection of its being For the word which we have rendred the beginning signifies also the principle that is to say the cause and origine of a thing and first-born denoteth likewise both Him who is born before the rest and him who is the Master or the Prince of the rest he saith therefore first that the LORD JESVS is the beginning or the principle Certainly this appertaineth unto Him upon the account of the first creation inasmuch as He is the Author of it the word and wisdom which did produce the Universe and it may be 't is in this sense that He calleth Himself in the Apocalypse Rev. 3.14 1.8 21.6 22.13 the beginning of the creation of GOD and elsewhere in the same Book Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end But speech here being of the Church and the resurrection the word beginning must
receives them gladly The alliance also which there is between them being all of them fruits and productions of the flesh makes them mutually bear with one another And if some jealousy at any time do raise in any of them some aversion for the rest this passion seldom carries them so far as to an open persecution But as soon as Christianity appeared they all turned their hatred and their violence against it as against a Religion that was a stranger and of a quite different original and extraction from theirs Who is able to report the furious excesses of the world against this innocent discipline and the horrid calamities to which it condemned the professors of it banishing them out of all its countries stripping them of all its honours and possessions burning them and massacring them and mercilesly employing its brute creatures and its elements against them Yet these cruelties did not astonish the faithful They bore them generously and would rather lose all that was dear to them even to their very blood and life it self than renounce JESUS CHRIST Of so many false religions as were up in the wind among men heretofore in the time of Paganism name but one that was consecrated in such a manner Of all the sects of Philosophy which Greece yer-while brought forth and the old sages so haughtily boasted of shew me one that gave its disciples the courage to suffer for it or was watered with their blood Indeed I will not deny but that some persons have been and still are found to suffer for false religions But First this happens not save when long use and the superstition of many generations have authorised the belief of them whereas the faithful suffered for Christianity at the first springing forth of it before that the consent of people or the authority of Princes had strengthn'd it or any other of such humane considerations made it plausible Then again those sufferings for error are very rare they be the sufferings of some few persons only one here and another there whom vanity or melancholy may push on so far Whereas Christians suffered by thousands of all ages of each sex of every rank and condition so as their resolution can be attributed to no other motive but their religion Who can doubt but Mahometism and Paganism would have been immediately extinct if they had been exposed to the like trials Whereas Christianity was established by them it flourished in the flames and the ruder shocks that persecution gave it the deeper root it took And this Character is so essential to this Divine discipline that in the time of our fathers when GOD caused it to come forth once again into publick light it escaped not the same treatment that it antiently had nor did it fail to make proof of its truth by the same sufferings confessions and martyrdoms which had accompanied its first birth Hereto I further add that the sufferings of other religions when any be are with constraint and fear or mixed with pride and obstinate ferocity whereas in those of the Gospel there shine forth humilty and modesty charity and sweetness coelestial consolation and joy Such at the erecting of Christianity were the sufferings of the Apostles and of their Disciples For which cause S. Paul mentions his here to the Colossians in pursuance of the design he had to confirm their faith I now rejoyce saith he to them in my sufferings for you c. To keep the faith of the Colossians in its purity and to secure it from the leaven which the seducers would mix with it he represented to them if you remember in the precedent Text two strong arguments of the truth of the Gospel One taken from its extention for that it had been preached through all the world in a very little time whereas the new doctrine wherewith there was endeavour to infect them had been heard but here and there in some by corners The other drawn from the miracles of his own call for that it was the doctrine the ministration whereof our Saviour had authentically and magnificently committed unto him Whereas He had given no person any order to preach those traditions wherewith some would burthen them But because this was a matter of great importance he spends the rest of this chapter in grounding and clearing it shewing by divers means the truth of His Heavenly call And first he confirms it in this verse by the sufferings which he chearfully and willingly bore to answer that call secretly opposing this condition of his to the condition of the false teachers who were exempted from the cross by the profession they made of observing Moses's Law That I saith he am sent of GOD and a true Minister of His these great combats which I sustein and the afflictions which I continually suffer do evidently shew you For insteed of fearing them or being asham'd of them I rejoyce in them and it highly contents me to confirm my preaching with this divine seal of JESUS CHRIST's even the cheerful bearing of His cross because I am not ignorant how necessary this deportment is in His School where no one lives without suffering and how profitable it is for His mystical body that is to say the Church whom He hath united with Himself and of whom He hath made me a Minister This is the summ of what the Apostle delivers to us here in the matter of his afflictions and that we may the better understand it we will consider First the manner how he bore them which he expresseth in these words I now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and next in order the reasons of this his rejoycing taken from the nature of those afflictions which were the rest of the sufferings of CHRIST which I do fill up saith he in my flesh and finally the object or the use of them in that he suffered them for the body of CHRIST which is the Church These are the three points that we will explain the grace of GOD assisting in this action The Apostles joy in the nature of his sufferings and the end or utility of them we will establish and make good the truth of his sentiments and refute the attempts that error makes to force out some advantage from his words the whole with as much perspicuity and brevity as we may Although it be true in general that all those who will live godly in CHRIST JESUS do suffer persecution yet this is particularly verified in the Ministers of the Gospel who not content with the single embracement of this profession do undertake to draw others to it and guide them in it This charge exposeth them more than the rest of the faithful to the hatred and violence of the world S. Pauls's history doth clearly evince it For he had no sooner received this sacred Ministry but he saw the Jews and the Heathen rise against him as by common agreement His whole life from that moment was nothing but a Series of afflictions But the Spirit
bind what He hath loosed If GOD will save us without belief of the Mass or of Purgatory the Church would do well to will the contrary would she not GOD will judge us by His own will and word and not by the fantastical conceits or imaginations of men But I return to the Apostle who sheweth us also in this Text and it 's that which we are to consider in the third place what the object of this his Preaching is when he saith that he admonisheth every man and teacheth every man It 's very probable that the false Teachers who would seduce the Colossians for the colouring of that observation of the Law which they recommended did alledge that the Apostles themselves left the Jews the use of Circumcision and the practice of legal abstinences and that if S. Paul did otherwise it was but towards some only I account it is to this properly that we must referr and oppose his saying here three times that he admonisheth every man that he teacheth every man and that he might render every man perfect in CHRIST He thus repeats this word to them to shew that his Preaching was the same and uniform throughout that he declared to all men but one sole JESUS CHRIST and that he Preached Him indifferently both to Jews and Gentiles Greeks and Barbarians GOD having given for them all but one and the same Gospel as He hath set up but one Sun in the Universe to shine on all mankind I declare saith he the same CHRIST unto all as Saviour and Redeemer of the world There is no man to whom I Preach any other thing Whereby he gives a secret blow to the doctrine of these Seducers which was particular and not Preached either by the holy Apostle or by any of his fellows It may well be also that he aimed to shew here in his way the extent of his charge which enclosed all men on earth within its compass there being no one of them to whom he had not authority to Preach the Gospel and to admonish and teach him According to his saying elsewhere that he is debter Rom. 1.14 both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians both to the wise and to the unwise for the seasonable establishing of the power he will use anon to admonish the Colossians and condemn the Seducers For he shews thereby that there is no person how knowing soever he may be otherwayes but is his Scholler for this Heavenly wisdom and ought in this respect to be subject to his instructions and to learn of Him the mysteries of the same As if he had said that GOD hath raised him to the Doctoral Chair of the universe and made him His publick and universal Herauld who should be hearkened to by all the men of the world Whence it follows that these pretended Masters of the Colossians who would intrude to teach them after their mode did thwart the institution of GOD and that before they did put themselves upon the instructing of others they should first have learned of the Apostle the true mysteries of the wisdom of GOD. I acknowledge there is not any one of the Ministers of GOD who hath now this great extent of Authority that the Apostle here ascribeth and with truth to himself Nevertheless each of them ought to do in his district what the Apostle did in his even admonish and teach every man whoever he be in all wisdom have but one and the same Gospel for all not pleasing doctrine and as is commonly said a Velvet Gospel for the rich and another quite different for the poor but treat them all without respect of persons not conceal ought from the one which hath been discovered to the others each one ought to teach the small as well as the great to admonish the great as well as the small to edifie them all in common without despising the littleness of the one without fearing the greatness of the other But let us now see what the end of this Preaching JESUS CHRIST is We declare Him saith the Apostle admonishing and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may render every man perfect in JESVS CHRIST This was the Apostle's aim this was the design of his labours even to present all those that heard him holy and unreprovable unto JESVS CHRIST to put them into such an estate by his Preaching as that they might appear before the Throne of Grace without confusion He expresseth it elsewhere in other terms namely when he saith to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 11.2 in particular that he had appropriated them or knit them or as it were espoused them to one husband that I might present you saith he as a chaste Virgin unto CHRIST where he useth precisely the same word which he placeth here and which we French have translated in the one of these places rendre render and presenter present in the other You know there are two sorts of perfection one of a believer's minority the other of his full age according as the Apostle distinguisheth our times in the first Epistle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 13.11 The one that which we have here below during the course of our Pilgrimage The other that which we shall not have but in Heaven our true Countrey This latter is a perfection every way compleat such as comprehendeth all the degrees of knowledge holiness and glory which our nature is capable of The former is a perfection begun having all the parts of sanctification and consolation that are necessary in our present frailty but not yet brought up to the top and highest degrees The one is simply and absolutely called Perfection the other is so named but in some respect and in comparison either of the estate which we were and other men not regenerate are still in or of the condition of our age The Apostle means the first Phil. 3.12 15. when he confesseth that he is not already perfect He speaks of the second when he faith Let us all that are perfect be thus minded The one and the other is the end of the Preaching of the Gospel For the design of Paul and of all true Ministers of the LORD is to guide the faithful to eternal salvation that is to the last and highest of these two kinds of perfection by means of the first And so the nearer effect of their Preaching and which immediatly follows it is the believer's perfection on earth The further and more remote effect of it which necessarily and infallibly results from the first is his perfection in Heaven Moreover this first perfection to which Preaching immediately tendeth consisteth of two parts chiefly Knowledge and Sanctification Faith and Charity And though there be many defects both in the one and the other if you compare them with the vision and glory of Heaven yet the one and the other are even at present perfect in some sort to wit in as much as the true believer wanteth not any of the knowledges and habitudes
from them complaints and crys against your carriages that you consolate the pains they take for you by your resentment of the same and above all by your progress in the studious pursuit of piety For this is the only fruit they crave of all their cares and their combats they would account them most advantagiously recompenced if you do but profit by them if they perceive by the goodness of your manners and the sanctity of your life that they have not labored in vain But do not imagin I pray that their sollicitude doth discharge you of all care On the contrary it sheweth you with what earnestness and assiduity you should labor for your own Salvation For if they must heed your affairs with so much diligence what zeal should you put forth about them your selves Their travel may awaken and hearten you but it cannot save you except you travel your selves Their combating will win you no Crown if you take not part in it after their example Every one shall live by his own faith and no person be crowned for the zeal of his Pastor or his brother If your Pastors watch if they stand on their guard if they labour and combat blessed be GOD they shall receive their pay But their labouring will not excuse your loytering nor will their heedfulness justifie you neglects Every man shall bear his own burthen they may give you the example of their piety they will not be able to communicate to you the recompences of it Employ we then our selves both the one and the others Pastors and flocks about our Salvation with fear and trembling Let us all combat with Paul if we will be crowned with him Imitate we his Charity if we desire to partake in his Glory Let us extend our cares and our love as he did not only to the saithful whom we know but even to those whom we never saw For carnal amities I confess it is bodily sight and presence which enkindles and maintains them The eyes of the flesh are the authors and the preservers of them But in those of JESUS CHRIST it is otherwise It 's the Spirit that knits them It is its eye and its sight that causeth them both to begin and to continue For since it is properly JESUS CHRIST and His Gospel that Charity loveth it is evident that it ought to embrace all those which bear the marks of them whether they be absent or present The distance of times and places doth not hinder these sacred commerces The Apostle combateth even for those that had never seen him Let us also then love all true Christians and spread our affections as far as to those whom many Seas and many Mountains sever from us Let us combate for them by prayer and do them how far off soever they be from us all the Offices whereof our Charity shall be capable travelling with holy tenderness for the salvation and edification of one another But having considered St. Paul's combat let us now examine the end and design of it Whence comes it holy Apostle that thou takest so much pains and hast these Colossians and Laodiceans and even those that never saw thee so neer thy heart Why doth this carefulness follow thee to the very prison and come there to aggravate and invenom thy personal sufferings Why labourest thou so for them To the end saith he that their hearts may be comforted they being joyned together in love and in all riches of full certainty of understanding unto the knowledg of the secret of our GOD and Father and of CHRIST Thus doth the Apostle answer our demand I am in pain saith he for their consolation and their faith I combat to preserve this treasure to them and to prevent the enemies snatching out of their hands so precious and so necessary a possession By saying he combats for them that they may keep these Graces He sheweth That they were in danger to lose them if the enemies they had that is the Seducers and false Apostles did accomplish their design and perswade these faithful people to those errors which they were setting forth In effect it is evident that their doctrine of man's Justification by ceremonies and observations whether legal or humane is incompatible with the truth of the Gospel doth disturb the comfort of the faithful break the bond of charity confoundeth and embroileth the mystery of JESUS CHRIST bereaveth Him of His glory and of His plentifulness representing Him as poor and scanty and as needing the succour either of Moses or of Philosophy and the superstition of men to give us Salvation The Apostle nameth three things which he wisheth unto these Believers and which he would keep for them by his cares and combats Consolation of heart Conjunction in charity and the riches of a full certainty of understanding or as he expresseth the same thing in other terms knowledg of the secret of our GOD and Father and of CHRIST The first of these to wit Comfort of heart is the happiness of the faithful upon earth For it is that calm and tranquillity which their souls enjoy amidst the tempests of this life when they sweetly repose themselves upon their Master's word and are assured to partake of His Salvation notwithstanding the menaces and persecutions of the enemy and the defects and imperfections of their own course All heresie and error in Religion doth necessarily disturb this consolation because it shakes the truth and certainty of the doctrine of the Gospel upon which it is founded But the error which the Apostle sets himself to oppose did particularly strike at this part of our Salvation depriving consciences of that peace which faith in JESUS CHRIST doth afford them and casting them into a miserable agitation in that it makes their justification to depend on I know not what observances that are either vain and unprofitable or even impious and pernicious It 's this that animates S. Paul to combat it so vigorously every where because the faithful could not receive it without losing their true consolation that is their only hearts-good And this should make us jealous for the purity of the Gospel to keep it free from all admixture of error Let us not hearken unto those who tell us that if what they have added to the Gospel do displease us yet we cannot deny but they retain JESUS CHRIST and the foundations of our Salvation in Him It is a most evident delusion I confess that JESUS CHRIST giveth Salvation and Consolation but He doth it to those that embrace Him as He presents Himself to us on His Cross and in His Gospel naked and without adulteration and composition If you will have either vice or superstition with Him He will serve you for nothing save to augment your condemnation As food how good and wholsome soever it be will no less then kill you if it be mingled with poyson We must either receive JESUS CHRIST alone or renounce His Salvation There is no possibility to
so dwelleth in the humanity of JESUS CHRIST that the same one who is man is also truly GOD these two natures being so strictly united that they are but one only and the same person by means whereof it may be rightly said that if the Word of the Father be almighty and eternal as indeed it is omnipotency and eternity and infiniteness are in JESUS CHRIST for He is truly the Word of the Father but it cannot be inferred that S. Peter for example or S. Paul had in them an infinite power or wisdom because GOD dwelled in them for that GOD dwelt not personally in them that is so as each of them was GOD but only by the grace of His Spirit Finally I add in the second place that all this dispute is beside the Apostle's scope whose meaning they have misapprehended For his intention here is not to speak of what JESUS CHRIST knoweth What would this conduce to the end he hath proposed to Himself namely the confirming of us in the Gospel and the fortifying of us against those traditions and speculations which false teachers would add to it that we might reject them and content our selves with this JESUS CHRIST whom the Father presenteth to us in His word Who sees not that the Knowledg which our LORD hath of things that He knoweth in Himself is altogether extraneous to this purpose For the thing in question is what we must know to serve GOD aright and be saved in the sequel But JESUS CHRIST revealeth not unto us in the Gospel all that He knoweth either as GOD or as man And so from His knowing all things it followeth not that it is enough for us to embrace His Gospel For will the false Teachers say though He know all for His own part yet He hath not discover'd in the Gospel which His Apostles do preach unto us all that is necessary for us to believe or to practise What then you will say is the true sense of these words Dear Brethren it is not hard to discern if you afford ever so little attention to the thing The Apostle considers the LORD JESUS here not simply and absolutely but so as He is set forth and revealed to us in His Gospel as far as He is the subject of the Apostle's preaching and the object of our faith It 's in this respect he saith that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg are hid in Him thereby signifying that this CHRIST who is present to us in the Gospel is an object so rich and so divine as He containeth all the matter of wisdom in Him that all the verities whereof it is composed are found fully and abundantly in Him so as for the having of true wisdom there is no need of studying any thing but CHRIST alone we need but know Him and shall be ignorant of nothing As if I should say that the treasures of wisdom or natural science are hid in the world my meaning would be not that the world knoweth the things and verities which appertain unto this science but that it doth contain them that it is a theatre whereon they are exposed to our view and an object by the contemplation whereof we may acquire and learn them And as if I should say that Man is the treasury of all the knowledg of living Creatures I should understand thereby not what man knoweth of them but what he exhibiteth of it being as an exact model and patern of all that the nature of living Creatures comprehends so as by careful studying and meditating him all that may be known of them may be drawn forth In this very manner the Apostle saying that in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledg doth shew us what is the knowledg not that CHRIST hath in Himself but which He can give to us not what He knoweth but what He maketh us to know He being as it were an abyss of wonders wherein are found all the riches of that heavenly truth in the knowledg whereof true wisdom consisteth From whence the inference he aims to make upon it doth clearly flow namely that we ought to shut our ear against any other doctrine how plausible and probable soever it be For since JESUS CHRIST is the Magazin and the treasury of all wisdom in whom is found all that we ought to know not only for necessity but even unto plenty who seeth not but that it is an extream folly for men to turn themselves another way or trouble their heads about the study of any other object And so this wisdom and this knowledg of which the Apostle speaks is not that cognisance which the LORD hath of the things He knoweth either as GOD or as Man but it is that knowledg of Divine things which we have need of for our attaining to Salvation and in the having whereof the true perfection of our nature doth consist And when he saith that the treasures of this wisdom are hid in Him his meaning is not that these Divine things are known unto our LORD such a conception would be frigid and impertinent but that they are all displayed and set forth in Him that they dwell in Him that they are found there that they are enclosed and to be seen in Him through the veil of the infirmity of His Cross which in a manner hideth and overspreads them This is in my opinion the true and genuine sense of the Apostle's expression Let us now examine each of the terms of it which are all of them wondrous elegant and rich and afterwards consider the truth of them First he calleth this wisdom and knowledg which is in JESUS CHRIST Treasures to intimate both the Excellency and the Abundance of them the word Treasure importing both the one and the other For as you know we properly call such a collection a treasure as is of things not worthless and of no value as dust or chass but precious and exquisite as gold and silver and precious stones and jewels But besides worth this term signifieth abundance also For you will not say that that man hath a treasure who hath but two or three pieces of gold or silver or a diamond or four or five Emeralds To have a treasure is to have a great and a considerable mass of rare and precious things And hereby the Verities which JESUS CHRIST exhibits and affords us the knowledg of are distinguished from those which are found otherwhere Perhaps a good number of knowledges will be found otherwhere but they are unprofitable and of no value They do not make a treasure This worthy title appertaineth only to things rare and precious But the Verities which JESUS CHRIST teacheth those that study Him are so many pearls of inestimable price they are divine jewels such as neither the barbarous Sea coasts nor the Mines of the new World do yield such as neither the Heavens nor the Earth nor any of the store-houses of Nature can furnish us with But abundance also is
or avarice or any of those loathsome defilements that do disfigure the whole life of worldlings The LORD JESUS who hath given us this excellent Divine Doctrine who hath founded it by his death and set it up by his resurrection who also hath in these latter times purged it afresh both of the vanities of Philosophy and of the traditions of men and of the elements of the world please to confirm us in it for ever by his good Spirit and to make it so efficacious for the sanctification of our life that after we have finished this earthly pilgrimage we may receive one day at our going forth of this vale of tears from his merciful hand the Crown of immortality which he hath promis'd and prepar'd for all true observers of his Discipline Amen The Twenty-first SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER IX Ver. IX For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily AS the Christian Religion doth consist in Principles and Practises incompably more sublime and salutiferous than any that the world ever learned in the Schools of Nature and the Law so was it delivered and instituted by an Author infinitely more excellent than any of those were who ever erected other Disciplines among men I will not insist upon the Authors of those various Religions which bore sway heretofore in the time of Paganism who though they were in esteem among Nations and raised to an high reputation of wisdom and vertue yet had the taint of an extream ignorance and vanity as their own Institutions sufficiently discover to any one that will take the pains to examine them in the light of Reason It would be injurious to the LORD JESUS the Founder and Prince of Christianity to compare him with such people But even Moses himself the great Teacher of the Hebrews and the Prophets who commented on explained and confirmed his Law are all insinitely beneath the dignity of this new Law-giver They were I grant Ministers of GOD the Mouth and Organs of his Majesty the Interpreters of his Will and Heralds of his Truth being endued as was suitable to so high Offices with an excellent sanctity a rare and extraordinary Wisdom and an heavenly Power which evidenced it self in them by miraculous effects But after all they were men and never pretended to be ranked above that feeble nature which was common unto them and us nor did receive any of those Honours which belong to the Divine whereas the LORD JESUS is so Man as he is likewise GOD blessed for ever and was so far from refusing Divine Honours that he hath expresly required them at our hands and enjoined us to adore him with the Father and to acknowledg him his Eternal Son This same difference the Apostle observes between the LORD JESUS and those other Ministers which GOD made use of in the former Ages God saith he having at sundry times and in divers manners in time past spoken unto the fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son Ebr. 1.1 Moses and the rest were Prophets of GOD JESUS is his Son The others were his Ministers JESUS is his Heir The others were faithful as Servants Ebr. 3.5 6. JESUS as Son is over the whole House In the others there did shine forth some marks of the commerce they had with GOD that Soveraign Majesty imprinting on their faces as upon Moses's in particular some sparklings of his glory But JESUS is His very Light the resplendency of his glory and the character of his Person Dear Brethren it doth highly concern us to know rightly this great dignity of our LORD and Saviour not only for the rendring to his Person the worship we owe him and of which we may not fail without offending the Father as himself hath told us John 5.23 He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father who hath sent him but also for our embracing with so much the more zeal the Religion he hath delivered us without ever admitting the perswasion that either men on earth or even Angels from Heaven can add any thing to the light the goodness and the perfection of the discipline of so great and so perfect an Author For this cause doth S. Paul here hold forth to the Colossians the Divinity of our LORD JESUS CHRIST In the precedent Verses he exhorted them to constant perseverance in the belief of his Gospel confirming themselves in it more and more and taking heed they gave no car to Philosophy and the vain traditions of seducers who endeavoured to corrupt sound doctrine by the mixing of divers inventions which they would add to it as if it were not perfect enough of it self to guide us to salvation The Apostle to bereave Error of this pretext and shew the faithful not only the sufficiency but even abounding of the Gospel represents unto them the soveraign perfection and divinity of its Author For in him saith he dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Since you have JESUS CHRIST saith he there is no need of recourse to others In Him as in a living and inexhaustible spring is all good necessary to your happiness a divine Authority to found your Faith an infinite Wisdom to direct you in all truth an incomprehensible Goodness and Power to give you grace and glory a quickning Spirit to sanctifie and comfort you All other things compared to Him are but poverty and weakness See how the Apostle fortifies the faithful in the doctrine of the LORD and in few words overthrows all that the presumption of flesh and blood may dare to set up beside or against his perfect truth For a right understanding of his words we must consider them exactly For though the number of them be small their weight is great they are rich and magnifick in sense and do contain within their narrow compass one of the noblest and fullest descriptions of JESUS CHRIST that is found in Scripture Let us see then first what all this fulness of the Godhead is whereof the Apostle speaketh And then in the second place how it dwells in JESUS CHRIST to wit bodily The LORD please to conduct us by the light of his own Spirit in so high a Meditation that of his fulness we may receive grace for grace and draw from it what may fill our souls with that life and salvation which overfloweth in him and can be no where found at all but in him As for the subject it self whereof S. Paul speaketh and in which he saith that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth none can doubt but that it is our LORD JESUS CHRIST For having said at the end of the verse immediately foregoing that the traditions of men and rudiments of the world are not after CHRIST he now addeth For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead Whence it is clear that the LORD JESUS CHRIST whom he had even then named is the Person of whom he speaks and to whom he attributes
heretofore took the care to make those draughts is Author of the verities they represented and that the body doth descend from the same Heaven that at first did make the shadows of it to be seen I pass by for this time the Lamb and the Sacrifices and the aspersions and expiations and all the Levitical Priesthood a true delineation of our grand Victime offer'd for the salvation of the world and of that eternal righteousness which His bloud hath procured for us and other like things which cannot but with extreme difficulty be mainteined nor accorded with the ways of the ordinary wisdom of GOD save by acknowledging and receiving as veritable what the Apostle doth here teach us and is evident enough of it self namely that all this was heretofore ordained for the prefiguring of CHRIST I will only speak a few words of the distinction of meats and dayes The Apostle opens the mystery of it elsewhere For as to observance of meats giving us order in the Epistle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 5.8 to keep the feast of our Passoever not with the old leaven of naughtines and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth doth he not clearly shew us that abstinence from leavened bread observ'd by the first people was a Picture of the Innocence and sanctity of the second and that by consequence it 's to the same we must referr the distinction of other legal meats the beasts which were forbidden them representing by the characters of their natural qualities those moral imperfections that is those vices and corrupt affections from which our lives ought to be exempted As for example abstinence from Swines flesh which was an abomination to them did signifie that the people of the Messiah should have no commerce with those uncleannesses and ordures of deportment wherein men of the world notably represented by the genius of this animal do wallow And when the same Apostle telleth us that we should keep our feast in truth and sincerity and in another place Hebr. 4 9. that there remaineth unto us a Sabbath or a rest doth he not shew us again that the old feasts of Israel were shadows of ours even of that feast which the Messiah hath procured and appointed for the faithful and which doth consist in two things the one that they do absteine from the works of sin and of the flesh the common works of men and the other that they do celebrate a rest in GOD with eternal joy Now that the body of these shadows is in JESUS CHRIST is evident For innocency sanctity abstinence from sin joy and immortality do well in Him fully There it is and no other where that the truth the example and pattern the doctrine and all the cause of them are to be found together with an almighty Spirit of light which alone is capable of producing these divine things in every one of us Whereby you see it is so far from being consequent upon these distinctions having been heretofore ordeined of GOD that we ought now to observe them still that on the contrary it is to be concluded we may insist no longer on them For since they were appointed in the quality of shadows until CHRIST should be revealed who sees not but that now when CHRIST hath been fully manifested it would be meer folly in us to adhere unto them still even as if seeing and having in hand the very body of a thing we should busy our selves in following after and embracing the shadow of it Precisely such was the extravagancy of these false Teachers who are here noted by S. Saul and such also is the errour of all those who upon the like pretences intermedle with the imposing of laws upon Christians concerning usage of or abstinence from such things as are in their nature indifferent And it is in this matter for one that our adversaries of Rome are infinitly to blame who notwithstanding the reason of the things themselves and the so clear doctrine of this great Apostle both in this place and in many other have made and constituted a no less number of laws about the distinction of dayes and meats then were among the Jews themselves They have marked more then half of the dayes of the year some with black and others with white I call marked with black those which they have devoted to the sadness of fasts and abstinences as all the Fridayes and Saturdayes of the year the Ember weeks the Rogation-dayes the Advent the Eves and Lent I mean by marked with white those which they consecrate to joy as that great throng of Holy-dayes which they disperse through all the fower seasons JESUS CHRIST the Father of eternity hath made His Disciples free from the laws of time raising them up above the Heavens which do make and measure it But these men put them in subjection to dayes and months and reduce them under the yoke of the Jews and make their piety depend upon the Almanack If they do not exactly observe all the dayes of the year if they fast not one day if they eat not on another if on one they don't do penance if they make not mirth on another though upon the former they should have cause to rejoyce in GOD and upon the latter to afflict themselves for their sins or their sufferings they commit a mortal sin though they did it without contempt or scandal Was there ever a discipline less reasonable or more contrary to the doctrine of S. Paul who would not have Christians condemned for the distinction of a Festival-day of a new Moon or of the Sabbaths who reprehends the Galatians for their observing-dayes and months and times and years Gal. 4.11 Rom. 14 6. and counts it for a weakness in faith to esteem one day above another Neither may it be replyed here that we also do discriminate Sundayes and Easter and Christmas and Pentecoste We observe them for orders sake not for Religion for the Polity of the Church and not upon scruples of devotion For what a confusion would there be if we had no dayes appointed for the assembling of the faithful It 's for our mutual edification and not for the worth and value of the dayes themselves that we observe them and as an Ancient said not that the day on which we do assemble is more holy or more glorious S. Hieâ—ome l. 2. Comment in Ep. ad Gal. To. 9. p 314. then another but because what day soever we assemble it 's a consolation to us to behold our selves all jointly employed in holy exercises For the main to us all dayes are equal as uniform parts of the same time which flow on by the order of one and the same LORD all of them and are all employable to His glory but the necessity and infirmity of this poor life doth constrain us of force to divide and part them out for divers uses If it be thus O adversaries that you discriminate-dayes I shall
Philosophers defined good by this its refâ—â—â— to our affections and by the vertue it hath to move and attract our desires 〈◊〉 Good is that which all desire And hence it comes that Impostors who 〈◊〉 trade of seducing men have alwaies taken a great deal of care to give their 〈◊〉 vain institutions some shew of goodness being not ignorant that witho◠〈◊〉 they should not be able to gain any mans affections and much less to have any train of followers in the world This is to be seen particularly in religion into wâ—â—â—n never was heresie nor superstition introduced but under the favour of this in posture though spirits of different capacities having medled in the matter there haâ—â— been accordingly a great difference between their cosenages For as those that would make a false stone pass for a Diamond or an Emerald or a Ruby do endeavour as farr as cunning is able to counterfeit the truth to give it the colour the shape the lustre the sparkling and other qualities thereof that by such a feigned resemblance they may deceive simple and unexperienced persons So they that have set themselves upon the corrupting of Religion to the end they might make the opinions and services they promoted be received for sound doctrines and disciplines have above all things taken a great deal of pains to guild over their merchandize and to colour it with some fair and specious pretexts fit to dazle the eyes of men and hide the defects of their doctrine and give it the shew of what in substance it is not It is this that the Apostle S. Paul doth observe here in the documents and commandments of those Seducers whom he undertook in this Chapter For having solidly and admirably refuted that superstitious discipline which they had set a foot and which consisted in a religious worshipping of Angels and in a scrupulous abstinence from certain meats and in the observation of certain festival days for a conclusion he discovers in this last verse the false colours wherewith they did in vain dawb it over He acknowledgeth that it had its true some shew of wisdom but denies that this was sufficient to cover its defects or to oblige the faithful to receive it Their Ordinances said he afore are commandments and doctrines of men Which yet he now adds have some shew of wisdom in voluntary devotion and humility of spirit and in that they do not at all spare the body and have no regard to the satisfying of the flesh It is evident that he speaks of those humane doctrines which he had been mentioning in the verse immediately foregoing and he says first that they have a shew of wisdom Next he represents particularly three things which give them this false shew voluntary service humility of spirit and rough treatment of the body which they did not at all spare These are as it were the three colours which being mingled together by the artifice of the Seducers composed that paint which rendred their doctrine plausible and gave it this false shew of wisdom that beguiled the eyes of the simple In compliance with this distinction we shall treat of three points in this action voluntary service humility of spirit and little care for the body and then consider how error and superstition have always made and still to this day make use of them to glose their inventions GOD grant us to beware duly of them and please for this end so to guide and assist us by His Spirit in discoursing of them as we may all bear away some Edification and Consolation The name of wisdom is great and honourable in the opinion of all people in the world For whereas other Sciences have respect but to natural or humane the relation of wisdom is to Divine things And whereas other knowledges are for the most part unprofitable to him who possesseth them that of wisdom is salutiferous it signifying the skill of conducting ones way aright for the attainment of happiness by the light of some choice and excellent verities Whence it follows that this title of wisdom doth not properly belong but to the knowledge of GOD which He hath given us by His Son in the Gospel the only light that is capable of conducting us to supreme felicity Accordingly you know it is the name that S. Paul does ordinarily give it as when he willeth that the word of GOD dwell richly in us in all wisdom and when he saith elsewhere that he speaks wisdom among them that are perfect calling the same a little after the wisdom of GOD in a mysterie the hidden wisdom and so often elsewhere Now though the doctrine of those who corrupt the Gospel as these Seducers did who S. Paul opposeth in this Chapter be nothing less in reality than wisdom yet so it is that its authors gave it the name and would have it pass in the belief of men for a rare and a beneficial knowledge more worthy of heaven than earth and capable in fine of rendring those that follow it perfect and happy The Apostle acknowledgeth that the doctrine of the Seducers of his time had this shew of wisdom but by his very granting them the shew hâ— denies them the truth of it and his meaning is that that doctrine of theirs had nothing but a false and a deceitful colour of wisdom not the substance and reality of the thing Voluntary service is the first particular that gave these doctrines of the Seducers such a shew They have saith the Apostle some shew of wisdom in voluntary service that is by reason or because of the voluntary service they taught and set a foot the observances and institutions which these men enjoyed as abstinence from certain meats the worshipping of Angels and the like being nothing else but voluntary services A service may be called voluntary two manner of waies First when he that performs it unto GOD doth it with affection and a good will without torment and constraint The love he bears this great and soveraign LORD sweetly bringing his soul under His yoke and disposing him to account whatsoever He hath commanded to be good and delectable In this sense that free and sincere obedience which true believers render unto GOD according to the Gospel may be stiled voluntary because it proceeds not from a spirit of bondage as theirs doth who do serve only because they are afraid but from a spirit of Love and of Adoption crying in their hearts Abba Father Wherefore the Prophet termeth the new people who render this frank and filial service unto GOD Psal 110.3 under the Gospel of the Messiah a voluntary or willing people Thy people saith he speaking to Him shall be a voluntary people or a people of frank willingness in the day that thou shalt assemble thine army in holy pomp It is not in this sense that the Apostle understands the voluntary service he speaks of in this place For first though the terms voluntary service which are taken up
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
with all the Elogies they merit Surely the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews naming Timothy whose praise and great advantages in the work of the ministry and in all vertue every one sufficiently knows calls him simply his brother Timothy The other on whose behalf he salutes the Colossians is Demas In the Epistle to Philemon written at the same time with this and in which he maketh mention or most of the persons here named he placeth Demas with Mark and Aristarchus and St. Luke among his fellow-labourers whence it appears that he was a Minister of the word of GOD of the order of those who served for helpers to the Apostles and are stiled Evangelists But after he had for a space ran well after he had appeared with praise among the lights of the Church alas he lost in the end this fair crown of glory St. Paul who vouchsafed to give his name such an honourable rank in two places of his Epistles in a third tells this lamentable story Demas saith he hath forsaken me having lov'd this present world 2 Tim. 4.10 and is departed unto Thessalonica From this doleful example let us all learn Dear Brethren and particularly such of us as GOD hath called to the holy Ministry to stand on our guard and to mortifie in our selves worldly lusts as avarice the love of life and pleasures ambition and such like passions which ruined Demas And if the Dragon cast down some of the stars that shined in the heaven of our Churches if the flesh and the earth the food and the fulness of Egypt and the false grandeurs of Chaldea cause them unworthily to quit the design and the hopes of mystical Canaan let us not be scandalized at it We are not better then the Apostles If all the light of their wisdom and miracles could not keep Demas from becoming bankrupt of the truth we ought not to think it strange if there happen to be among us some whom belly and vanity do precipitate into the like fault notwithstanding the clearness and evidence of our holy doctrine But it is time to pass into the second part of our Text in which the Apostle orders the Colossians three things first to salute those of Laodicea on his behalf secondly to communicate this Epistle of his to them and thirdly to advertise Archippus of his duty Salute saith he the brethren that is the Christians which are at Laodicea and Nymphas and the Church which is in his house This Nymphas dwelt either in the City of Laodicea it self or in the Countrey near it as some in my opinion do without necessity suspect The Apostle names him in particular because doubtless he was one of the most considerable persons of the flock at Laodicea and St. Paul's affirming that he had a Church in his house doth sufficiently testifie the zeal of his piety This Church was not a place in his house where the Assemblies for religious exercises were for the Scripture never useth the word Church in this sense which is now common among Christians but it is his houshold and the persons whereof it consisted who all made profession of Christianity with him and were confirmed and edified therein by his instructions and good examples Whence appears the vanity of the pretension of those at Rome who acknowledge no Church to be but which braves it in the world and carries with it the pomp of multitude and prosperity The Church of JESUS CHRIST is found where ever He is known and served and adored according to His Gospel within the enclosure of the walls of an house in the very caverns of mountains and coverts of the wilderness whither the Holy Spirit expresly foretelleth us that the Spouse of the Lamb shall be sometimes constrained to retire The second order which the Apostle gives the Colossians is considerable When this Epistle saith he hath been read among you cause that it be also read in the Church of the Laodiceans and read ye also the Epistle from Laodicea First his willing that this Epistle of his be publickly read in the assemblies of these two Churches doth shew us that the Scriptures of GOD were given us to the end all the people of CHRIST Clerks and Laicks small and great should hear and read them and not to be put into the hands of one certain sort of persons only as if this treasure did belong to none but them And hence appears the abuse of those who read the Scriptures to their people but in a language they understand not which is as bad yea in my opinion worse then if they read them not at all For not to read them is simply to bereave the people of the profit they might make of them whereas to read them in an unknown tongue is not only to deprive them of their edification but moreover to mock them and no less offend GOD by perverting His word in such a manner from its due tâ—e and end What shall I say of their outrage who accuse these Divine books of ambiguity of obscurity of seeming contradictions and errours Who say that the reading of them is dangerous and more apt to corrupt and embroil the faithful then to instruct or edifie them O holy Apostle why didst thou put so dangerous a book into our hands a book full of thorns and void of fruit Why didst thou order them to read it in their assembly to impart it unto neighbouring Churches and enjoyn them to read it also Why didst thou not fear the infecting the Spirits of thine innocent Disciples and the insnaring of them in some heresie by the darkness of thy riddles or the sowing of some disorder in their hearts by the ambiguity of thine expressions Dear Brethren the Apostle answers that his Gospel is clear that it is not covered but to unstable spirits and such as are engaged in some evil passion that this Epistle is not any seed of errour but a remedy against seduction a vessel full not of poysons but of preservatives and antidotes But I perceive what the matter is The Scriptures seem to these Gentlemen dangerous because saying nothing of their Pope nor of their Mass nor of the worship of their Saints and Images nor of their Purgatory and such other points nay saying many things which are evidently contrary unto them they easily induce those that read them with respect to beleeve that these doctrines have been invented by men and were never taught by JESUS CHRIST and His Apostles This book troubles them because they find not their reckoning in it it is obscure because what they love do's not there appear It is ambiguous because it pronounceth nothing clearly or expresly for the opinions which they are resolved never to forsake Furthermore this imparting of St. Paul's Epistle unto the Laodiceans unto which the Colossians were obliged by his order shews us that there ought to be an holy and charitable commerce between the Churches of JESUS CHRIST in reference to spiritual things
case as none of Creatures do more need the offices of our Charity neither is there any object worthier of the affection and succour of a good and generous soul than innocence hated and oppressed unjustly therefore it is that the Apostle noteth here by name the Charity of the Colossians towards all the Saints He joyneth these two Vertues together Faith and Charity because in effect they are inseparable it being neither possible nor imaginable whatsoever error list to say of it that man should believe and truly embrace GOD as his Saviour in JESUS CHRIST without loving Him and His neighbours for His sake or that he should love Him sincerely without believing in Him He puts Faith before Charity not for that it is more excellent on the contrary he elsewhere openly giveth the advantage unto Charity but because it goes first in the order of things requisite to salvation It is the blessed root whence Charity springs forth 1 Cor. 13. and all other Christian Vertues It is the foundation of the spiritual building the Gate of the Kingdom of Heaven the first fruits of the workmanship of GOD and the beginning of the second Creation As in the old Creation Light was the first thing He created so in the new one Faith is the first thing He produceth which the Apostle divinely expresseth to us elsewhere 2 Cor. 4.6 GOD saith he who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of GOD in the face of JESVS CHRIST After the Faith and Charity of the Colossians the Apostle adds in the third place the Happiness that was kept for them in the Heavens For the hope saith He which is reserved in Heaven for you Some knit these words with what he had now said of the Faith and Charity of the Colossians and understand that these faithful people laboured with alacrity in the exercise of these Vertues for the hope they had of the celestial Crown and reward according to what the Apostle saith elsewhere of Moses that He chose rather to be afflicted with the People of GOD Hebr. than to enjoy for a little time the delights of sin and esteemed the reproach of CHRIST greater riches than the treasures of Aegypt because saith he he had respect to the recompence And he teacheth us in general of all those that come to GOD that they must believe that GOD is and that He is a rewarder of them that seek him Ibid. v. 6. And from hence it followeth not at all either that our works do merit the glory of Heaven or that our affection is mercenary If we should not hope but for what we merit our hopes would be very miserable But knowing that GOD is faithful and constant we hope with assurance for the bliss which He of His meer grace promiseth us and the less we merit it the more love we conceive towards GOD who giveth it to us and the more acknowledgement and service ought we to render Him for the same And for this gratuitous salary which He promiseth us we look not on it as a prey after which we hunt and without which we would have no love for the LORD but as an excellent evidence of His infinite goodness as a testimony of His admirable liberality that love of GOD which shines forth in it is the thing pleaseth and ravisheth us most of all and which enflameth our faith our zeal and our affection to the service of so good and amiable a LORD though then we should bind what the Apostle saith of the Charity of the Colossians with the hope they had of the heavenly glory there would be nothing in this but what were conform to Evangelical Truth Yet it seems to me more simple and fluent to refer it to the third Verse where he saith that He giveth thanks to GOD for the Colossians having understood their faith and charity for the hope He addeth now which is reserved in Heaven for you For to consider the condition of these believers on the earth it seems there was no great cause to congratulate them for their faith and charity the afflictions which they drew on them rendring them in appearance the most miserable of men But though the flesh make this judgement of it the Spirit that seeth above visible things the Crown of glory prepared for the faith and charity of the faithful holdeth them for the happiest of all Creatures congratulates them and rendreth thanks to GOD for the inestimable treasure he hath communicated to them I know saith the Apostle that your piety hath it's tryals and exercises in this world But I forbear not to bless the LORD affectionately for that He hath given it to you I know the bliss that is prepared for you on high in the Sanctuary of GOD. He takes the word Hope here as often elsewhere for the thing we hope for to wit the blessed immortality and glory of the world to come I confess we possess it not yet for hope is the expectation of a good to come Rom. 8.23 That we are saved saith the Apostle is in hope but hope that a man seeth is not hope for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for But this good though absent and to come is as assured to us as if we had it already in our hands The Apostle shews it when he addeth that this Hope is reserved in Heaven for you It is a treasure which GOD hath set apart having fully prepared it already keeping it faithfully for us in His own bosome Whence it is that we make an assured account thereof for He hath deposited it in the hands of JESUS CHRIST in whom is hid our life and immortality so as if we make an assured account of things which a man of probity and honour keepeth in trust for us how much more certain should we be of the life and glory to come seeing GOD hath put it for us in the keeping of so faithful and powerful a depositary The place where this rich treasure is kept deposited for us confirms yet more the hope and excellency of it to us for saith the Apostle it is reserved for us in the heavens Fear not ye Faithful Your bliss is not on earth where the Thief steals or infidelity and violence make spoil where time it self ruineth all things where Crowns the best establisht are subject to a thousand and a thousand accidents Yours is on high in the Heavens in the Sanctuary of eternity lifted up above all the odd variations and inconstancies of humane things where neither our changes nor the causes that produce them have any access But this same place sheweth you besides the excellency and perfection of the bliss you hope for inasmuch as all celestial things are great and magnificent Weakness poverty and imperfection lodge here below Heaven is the habitation of glory and felicity In fine the Apostle toucheth briefly in the
good thing so necessary for you If you have it not hitherto ask it of GOD incessantly with prayers and tears and quit Him not before you have obtained it If you have it thank Him for it more than for all the goods of the Universe and make account that in giving you charity He hath given you the Life the Kingdom and the Crown of Heaven Exercise this precious gift continually let there be none of your neighbours without feeling of it Do good to all Communicate what you have received the light of your knowledge to the ignorant the succour of your good offices to the afflicted the sweetness of your patience to enemies the consolation of your visits to the sick the assistance of your alms to the needy the example of your innocence to all with whom you converse But have a particular care of Saints the members of the LORD JESUS who serve Him here with you and how poor soever they be have yet been redeemed with His blood and predestinated to His glory as well as you Dear Brethren your labour shall not be in vain Your charity shall bring forth it's fruits in their season with a most abundant usury For terrene and perishing good things which you shall have sowed here below you shall one day reap on high those that are celestial and immortal for a little bread and a little money that you shall now give to JESUS CHRIST you shall receive from His liberal hand the delights of Paradice and the treasures of eternity This is the hope which is reserved for you in the Heavens It is not the word of weak and vain men that hath promised it to you You have heard by the Gospel the Word of Truth which cannot lye And as so magnificent an hope should enflame our Charity so should it comfort our patience and render it invincible under the Cross to which the Name of CHRIST doth subject us Consider a little what the men of the world do and suffer for uncertain hopes that whirl in the Air flote on the Sea and depend upon the Wind and Fortune to how many dangers they expose themselves to what travail and disquiet they condemn themselves Voluntarily passing nights and dayes in a most laborious servitude for an imaginary good that neither yet is nor perhaps shall ever be and which how happy soever the success of their designs may be they shall not enjoy at most but during some years only Christian shall it be said that you have less zeal for Heaven than these people have for Earth Their hope is doubtful Yours is assured Theirs dependeth on the will of men and the inconstancy of elements Yours is in Heaven Pursue then generously so high and glorious a design And since your hope is in Heaven have incessantly heart affection and thought there Regard no more either flesh or earth it is not here your bliss is JESUS CHRIST hath seated it on high at the right hand of the Father in the Palace of His holiness Let this excellent hope sweeten all the evil you suffer here below If you be not at ease here if you be despised if you have no part in the wealth or honours of the world think that in like manner neither is it here that JESUS CHRIST hath promised you the rewards of your piety That Heaven which you see so constant and immutable keeps them faithfully for you You shall there receive one day the honour the glory and the dignities you now breath after not to possess them during some miserable moneths as worldlings enjoy their pretended riches but eternally with a perfect and unspeakable contentment in the blessed communion of Saints of Angels and of JESUS CHRIST the Lord of the one and the others To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the only true GOD blessed for ever be honour and glory to ages of ages Amen THE II. SERMON COL I. Ver. VI VII VIII Vers VI. The Gospel which is come unto you as also it is into all the World and bringeth forth fruit as it doth also in you since the day you heard and knew the Grace of GOD in truth VII As also you have learned of Epaphras our dear fellow servant who is a faithful Minister of CHRIST for you VIII Who also hath declared unto us your charity which you have in the Spirit DEar Brethren the Gospel of our LORD JESUS CHRIST is the most excellent and most admirable Doctrine that was ever published in the Universe It is the grand mysterie of GOD the wisdom of Angels and men the glory of Heaven and the happiness of the Earth It is the only seed of immortality the perfection of our nature the light of our understandings and the sanctity of our affections There is no Philosophy or other Discipline but this alone that is able to deliver us from the slavery of Devils and make us Children of the most High It is this solely that truly purifieth us from the filth of sin and clotheth us with a complete righteousnes that plucketh us out of the hands of death and hell and giveth us access to the Throne of GOD there to receive of His bounty life and supreme felicity All other religions invented and followed by flesh and blood are wayes of perdition disciplines of errour and vanity that present themselves to poor men in the thick darkness of their ignorance as those seducing fires that sometimes abuse Travellers during the obscurity of the Night leading them into the deeps of death and eternal malediction The Law it self though come from on high is nevertheless as much beneath the dignity of the Gospel as Sinai is beneath Heaven and Moses beneath JESUS CHRIST The Law affrighteth Consciences the Gospel assureth them The one slayeth the sinner the other raiseth Him up again The one maketh grace be desired the other makes it be enjoyed The one presented the shadows and figures of the truth the other giveth us the lively image and very body thereof Whence you may judge my Brethren how much it concerneth us to know so saving and Divine a Doctrine that we may embrace and obey it since the repose and happiness of our souls stand on it which we shall unprofitably seek any other where It is to enflame us with an ardent desire of this holy and blessed knowledge that the Apostle St. Paul proposeth to us so often in His Epistles the praises of the Gospel scarce ever naming it without adding presently something to its commendation as the custome is of those that love ardently never to speak of that they love without giving it some Elogy that testifies both its excellency and their passion Such is the manner of Our St. Paul towards the Gospel of his Master He hath his soul so full of the love and admiration of this Heavenly doctrine that He can neither pronounce nor write the name of it but He accompanies it with praises as the just and due marks of its dignity We have
he saith that the Gospel is preached to every creature Col. 1.23 that is under Heaven and at the tenth of the Epistle to the Romans where applying to the Ministers of the LORD JESUS what the Psalmist had sung of the Heavens Rom. 10.18 Their sound saith he is gone forth through all the earth and their words unto the ends of the World And elsewhere speaking of himself he saith That from Jerusalem Rom. 15.19 and round about it even to Illyricum he had made the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST to abound and after the time he wrote those words He sowed it besides in the Isle of Malta and at Rome Now if the other twelve Apostles and the seventy Disciples and the Evangelists did labour each according to his measure in proportion with St. Paul as it is not to be doubted but they did no one will have cause to be astonished that all they together should have by that time carryed the Gospel through the whole world We read likewise in the writings of the first Christians Justin Clement Tertullian and others that in their time that is about 130 and 160 years only after the LORD's death all was full of Christian Churches and that there was no Nation either among the Greeks or the Barbarians nay the very Scythians or Tartarians wherein CHRIST JESUS had not servants And though these testimonies cannot be rejected without extream impudence there being no probability that either St. Paul or those other Writers would have spoken of the thing in such sort if it had not been true yet entirely to disarm incredulity I will add that the very same appears by the Books of Pagans of that time that are remaining For Tacitus a Roman Historian a passionate enemy of Christianity Amel. l. 15. though otherwise a grave man and of great esteem among his Countrymen hath left in Writing that in the eleventh year of Nero that is only eight years after the date of this Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians a severe search having been made after it there was found a very great multitude of Christians at Rome This sufficeth to justifie what the Apostle says For since that Preaching was able to penetrate so far on this side athwart Provinces that made as it were the heart of the Roman Empire it might be much more easily spread towards the East in the Estates of the Parthians and in the Indies even whither St. Thomas went as appears by tracks of it that remain of it to this day in those Countries and towards the South in Egypt and Ethiopia where St. Matthew Preached as the ancients do report and towards the North whither passed some of the other Disciples This was well nigh the whole world then known of the Greeks and Romans and thus without doubt the Apostle understands it in this place For as to those great Countreys discovered in the West about one hundred and fifty years ago which they commonly call the West Indies or the New world it is evident the Ancients had no certain knowledge of them and it is very likely that they were not yet peopled in the Apostle's time the furtherst memory which the Nations there have preserved of things yerst done among them being but for four or five hundred years at most Be it concluded therefore that taking the World as is commonly understood for Countries inhabited and known at that time the Gospel was then already come into all the world The Apostle mentions it to the Colossians First to confirm them the more in the saith they had given to the Gospel I confess that its truth depends not upon the success of the Preaching it nor upon the multitude of them that believe it Though all the world should reject it though Heaven and Earth should persecute it the faith of a Christian ought to abide alwayes firm and unshaken being founded as it is upon the word of GOD and not upon the consent of men as on the contrary though the whole universe should maintain errour we should not be for this either obliged to follow errour or excusable for having followed it this order of GOD subsisting for ever that we must not follow a multitude to do evil But thoug it be thus yet it is a great consolation to a faithful soul to see the truth spread abroad And since the Divine Vertue of the LORD is so much the more powerfully declared by how much the more men it converteth unto his Christ it is evident that this extension of the Gospel helpeth and confirmeth our Faith in as much as it furnisheth us with an excellent testimony of the power of GOD and of the efficacy of His word But I add also that the success here touched by the Apostle contains a manifest argument of the Divinity of the Gospel and that in two respects For first if you consider the thing in its self it is so great and marvelous as that it sheweth sufficiently that this Doctrine is not only true but even Divine and Celestial When St. Paul wrote this Letter it was not full thirty years that JESUS CHRIST had suffered death in Judea and yet the Gospel as he saith was already come into all the world How could it have made so much way in so little time penetrated so many obstacles flown into so many places infinitely distant if it had not been both of a Celestial Original and carryed by a divine force Certainly as the extension of the light of the Sun who inlightens the whole Hemisphere in an instant and the rapidness of its motion who visits all the Climats of the universe in four and twenty hours doth evidently shew us that it is a work of GOD and of a nature altogether different from that of Earthly and Elementary things In like manner this so swift and suddain course of the Evangelique Doctrine that fill'd the world in so little time pierced through and dissipated the darkness and made it self be seen so quickly from one end of the Heavens to the other invincibly proves that it is a divine thing and no humane production Look on all the disciplines that ever had sway in the World You shall not find any of them that was establisht in this sort and made such a progress in so small a time The religions of the Pagans lived only in the Countries where they were born and if sometimes they stretched further it was rather the curiosity of strangers that brought them from the place of their birth than their own design or vigour all those so famous sects of the Philosophy of the Greeks did abide each of them in the soil that bare them And the Doctrine which the Popes of Rome have established in their Communion came not to the estate wherein we see it but by a long succession of time one age gaining one point and another adding a second till after many ages it took in fine the consistence and form it hath at this day and wherein
never shew that the Monarchy or infallibility of their Pope or the Adoration of their Host or the service of their Images or their invocation of Saints or Purgatory or the trafick of their Indulgencies or any other of the points which we debate with them was Preached in all the world at the time of the holy Apostle no track at all of them being found in any of the Books or Memorials that remain of that age or of a long time beyond it only a man may perceive them some ages after growing up one in one place and another in another at divers times and in different Climats an evident sign that they are not parts of the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST which was Preached entire in all the world in St. Pauls life time but inventions and traditions of men that came since After this suddain and admirable spreading of the Gospel the Apostle adds the efficacy it had in the places where it had been preached It is not only come into all the world saith he but which is more it bringeth forth fruit there as it doth also in you It bears the same fruits there which it hath produced among you You discern that these fruits of the Gospel signifie no other thing but that faith charity honesty modesty temperance and the other spiritual vertues which it produceth in the souls of those that hear it and receive it as they ought and in which the Sanctification of men doth consist It is this power and efficacy of the Gospel which the LORD would represent unto us in the Parable of the seed to which He compareth it Matt. 13. and which according to the divers disposition of the places where it fell brought forth more or less fruit in some an bundred fold in other fixty and elsewhere but thirty Never was seen a thing more marvellous The Gospel changed the whole earth in a few years It crowned plants with flowers and fruits that were barren and accursed It filled the desarts the plains and the most desolate heaths with exquisit and delicious trees That which the Laws of Nations that which the most excellent Philosophy had husbanded whole ages in vain no sooner felt the hand of these Evangelique Vine-dressers and labourers but suddainly losing the bitterness of its first juice was sweetned and became loaden with Celestial fruits There was piety sweetness and humanity seen to flourish where never had appeared ought but the horrour of Superstition of Atheism of cruelty and all other kind of Vices This is the change which the LORD had foretold in Isaiah Isa 41.19 in those Allegorical words I will make to grow in the Desart the Cedar the Pine tree the Myrtle and the Olive I will set in the Plains the Firre-tree the Elme and the Box together And elsewhere again comparing the Gospel to a rain that watereth the Earth and makes it bud and bring forth corn and bread So shall my word be saith He it shall not return to me without effect Isa 55.10 11. but it shall do all my pleasure and prosper to the things I shall send it for And this divine fruitfulness of the doctrine of the Gospel which miraculously changed the world is also a most evident argument of it's truth and of it's heavenly original there never having been Religion or Discipline on earth that had so lively and universal an efficacy But the Apostle particularly commendeth here the fruits it had brought forth among the Colossians It fructifieth in you saith he since the day that you heard and knew the grace of GOD in truth He praiseth both their teachableness in that this word had fructified in them from the first day they heard it and their constancy for that it continued still fructifying to that time The earth produceth not fruit as soon as it hath received the seed there must be time to mollifie the grain to make it thrust forth and sprout to raise it up and garnish it with fruits In this spiritual Husbandry it is not so The Gospel if rightly received into your heart will fructifie there from that very moment Receive it then faithful Brethren Defer not till the morrow This day that you hear the voice of the LORD harden not your hearts Psalm 95. It 's one of the most pernicious artifices of the enemy to suggest to men that they put off their conversion to the future Give me saith He this day and thou shalt give God the next Give me the present and Him the future to me the flower and vigour of thy life to Him the remains and thine old age So they find at last when all hath been given to Satan and the world nothing remains for them to give the LORD to whom they have left the future only that is what was not theirs disposing of the present which alone was in their power to the pleasure of their mortal enemy Christians take heed of his wiles and hasten ye out of his snares Imitate these faithful Colossians Receive the Word of GOD so deep into your hearts that it may fructifie there from this very day You cannot be the LORD' 's too soon Put not off the design of being happy to another time consider that time fleeth and life runs out and death comes while you deliberate But if we must begin betimes to bear fruit worthy of the Gospel it is not mean't that we may cease again soon after as forward Trees which make an end first as they did begin The plants of the LORD begin early but never cease to fructifie They bring forth fruit in their through-white old age and are even then in good liking and bide fresh as the Psalmist singeth Psal 92.15 If you have embraced the Gospel with ardour retain it with an invincible constancy For salvation is not prepared save for them that shall persevere that shall keep the verdure of the heavenly sap in them in spight of the scorching heats of Summer and the coolings of Winter so as no season how rude and contrary soever doth ever strip them of their mystical flowers and fruits As to what remains the Apostle calleth the faith of the Gospel The knowledge of the grace of GOD because it is not possible to relish this heavenly doctrine if a man have not received and experimented the mercy which it offereth us in JESUS CHRIST This grace is the heart and substance of the Gospel Whence appears that it is a corrupting it and a changing the nature of it to thrust into it the doctrine of the satisfactions and merits of men things either wholly incompatible with Grace or such as at least extreamly darken and enfeeble it When he faith that they heard and knew the Grace of GOD in truth he meaneth either that they received it truly in sincerity of heart without hypocrisie or that this Grace they knew was delivered them pure and sincere without any mixture either of Pharisaical Superstition or Philosophical Vanity or finally
good works so the exercise of good works cleanseth the eyes of our understandings and encreaseth true wisdom on the contrary the neglect of sanctification diminisheth this divine clearness in us and bringeth back by little and little the darkness of ignorance upon us For as the LORD giveth new graces to him that faithfully manageth His first presents so takes He away His Talent from Him that abuseth it Those that cast away a good conscience make shipwrack also of Faith and they that withhold the truth in unrighteousness are given up to a mind disfurnished of all judgement and GOD sendeth the efficacy of errour to those that receive not his Holy doctrine with love On the contrary He revealeth His secret and augmenteth His light to them that seek His commandments and are bent to do His will Let us hold fast therefore these two precious gifts of the LORD knowledge and good works Faith and Charity and studiously apply us to encrease the one by the other meditating and learning the mysteries of GOD that we may obey His will and obey His will that we may confirm our selves more and more in the knowledge of His mysteries Dear Brethren That which the Apostle hath desired for His Colossians is very much an accomplished knowledge of the Divine will a life worthy of the LORD a spiritual secondity fructifying in every good work and a continual advancement in heavenly wisdom Yet this is not all For how great and excellent soever these things be they suffice not without perseverance to conduct us to salvation and it 's impossible to persevere in them without a supernatural strength and firmness Therefore St. Paul wisheth again in the last place for these faithful people that they may be strengthened in all might according to the power of His glory in all suffering and patience of mind with joy This succour is necessary for us as well because of our own infirmities as for the multitude violence and obstinacy of our enemies For as to our selves though that celestial spirit wherewith GOD baptizeth us at the beginning of our vocation doth invest us with a new vigour yet so it is that there remaineth much weakness in us while we live on earth our inward man being yet but in its infancy a weak age and which easily lets it self sink if it be not sustained And as for our enemies we have a vast multitude of them that watch night and day to destroy us and ranged in diverse bands under the ensignes of the Devil the world and the flesh the principal heads of this black Army conjured to our ruine cease not to trouble us leaving nor wile nor forcible attempt nor malice nor violence nor threatning nor promise un-employed against us If we have repulsed one of them 〈◊〉 return again upon us diverse others which essay us on all sides espy where 〈…〉 weak and oftentimes turn our own weapons against us If we have overthrown avarice voluptuousness sets its self on foot If we defeat it also ambition enters in its place Hatred unites with it Desire of revenge pusheth us on Wrath provoketh us Envy seizeth us Persecution troubleth us Prosperity pusseth us up the success of our own combats tickleth us Oftentimes that which helps us on one hand hurts us on another as in a complicated disease in which the remedies cross one another or that which is good for the liver is dangerous for the Stomach Who seeth not that to preserve our selves in such a mingled Combate and against so many charges so confused and so obstinate for they last as long as our lives we have need of an extraordinary might we who of our selves have so little that we are insufficient even for one good thought But GOD armeth us with the power of His Spirit as with an impenetrable buckler under which we stand in covert amid that thick hail of blows that falls continually about us It 's this Divine power the Apostle wisheth here to the Colossians when he prayeth that they might be strengthened in all might that their souls might be confirmed their hearts hardned as a Diamond to resist all assaults their courages vested with an heroick ardour and firmness which all the rages of Hell or earth may never be able to overcome He prayeth they may be strengthened in all might because as we have to do with divers enemies and are sick of divers infirmities we have need to receive not one or two kinds of strength only but many different ones For even as in nature you see the strength of bodies is different one resisting one thing and yielding to another one having the vertue to repulse the force of one element but not to gard it self from another So in a manner is it in the souls of men Such a man will bravely free himself from the tentation of one Vice that will not be able to defend himself from another Such a man shall resist the violences of the world as will yield to the charms of its caresses Since that to lose a Victory it is enough to be overcome though by but one of their enemies 't is with great reason that the Apostle for preserving to these Colossians the honour of their Crown and Triumph wisheth them all strength that is a perfect strength which may be of proof against all the strokes of the enemy which may boldly undertake good and holy actions how high and difficult soever they be which may valiantly combate vices resolutely despise earthly things vigorously repell tentations and generously suffer afflictions He sheweth us also by the way the source of this heavenly might when after having wished that the Colossians might be strengthned in all might he addeth according to the power of the glory of GOD that is according to His glorious power by a manner of speaking ordinary in the style of the Hebrews Whence is it that these faithful people do receive this admirable strength necessary for their salvation From the glorious power of the LORD saith the Apostle that is from that immense and efficacious puissance of GOD which nothing can resist The Holy Spirit is so named in St. Luke Lâ—k 24.49 where the LORD commandeth His Apostles to tarry at Jerusalem untill they be indued with power from on high that is the Spirit he had promised them And St. Paul elsewhere making for the Ephesians a petition altogether like this which he here presents to GOD for the Colossians clearly termeth that the Spirit of GOD Ephes 3.16 which in this passage he calleth the Vertue or Power of His glory GOD grant you saith he that you may be powerfully strengthned by His Spirit in the inner man He calleth this Vertue of the Spirit of God glorious to express its admirable and unsurmountable force which triumpheth magnificently over all that opposeth its action which with the weakest means accomplisheth the greatest things which changeth when it will Shepheards into Law-givers and Kings Cow-heards into Prophets and Persecutors
naturally Let us learn then in the second place to give the LORD alone the whole glory of all that we are in His Son as in reality it belongs to none but Him He hath not only given us this rich inheritance the purchase of the blood of His Son CHRIST He hath even given us the capacity to enter into it and possess our part of it Besides His making us the present He hath also given us the strength to receive it For it is not with the inheritance of GOD as with the honours of earthly Princes these fall often into the hands of persons most uncapable to possess them That Divine honour of the Heavenly inheritance is given to none but those that are capable of it that is who have the conditions requisite for having part in it to wit faith and repentance But the same GOD who hath prepared the heritage for us gives us also the preparation which is necessary for entring into it according to what the Apostle saith elsewhere 2 Cor. 3 5. Joh. 6 44. It is GOD who is our capacity or sufficiency and what our LORD Himself averreth in St. John No man can come unto me except the Father who hath sent me draw him This again is that which the Apostle intendeth Phil. 2.13 in the Epistle to the Philippians That it is GOD who produceth in us with efficacy the will and the deed according to His good pleasure 2 Cor. 5.5 Eph. 2.10 1 Cor. 3.9 And elsewhere he compriseth this whole work of the grace of GOD in one only word saying It is He that formeth us for the self same thing Therefore he calleth us in one place the workmanship of GOD and His Creation in JESVS CHRIST and in another His husbandry and His building Whence it doth appear that the offer of grace which is made to all by the Gospel if there be nothing else doth not give us part in the heavenly inheritance I grant it is sufficient in its self and would produce its effect in man if the badness of his heart had not blinded him But this deplorable blindness he hath obstructeth the effect which these offers of the divine Grace should produce Wherefore GOD himself maketh us capable of them by that inward operation of His Spirit wherewith He accompanieth the preaching of the Gospel in the hearts of His elect by reason whereof they are called the taught of GOD. Joh. 6.45 It 's this teaching which renders them capable of entring into the communion of His Son according to what He saith in St. John Whoever hath heard and learned of the Father Ibid. cometh unto me Thus He made Lydia capable of having part in his inheritance opening her heart to understand the things Paul spake as the sacred History doth report It 's without doubt in the same manner He also made both St. Paul and these Colessians and all the rest of the faithful capable of the same effect enlightning them within and leading captive their hearts into the yoke of the Gospel In fine we may again observe how contrary to Apostolick doctrine the presumption of those is who vaunt them of meriting salvation If there be any thing in us to which merit is attributed without doubt it is our capacity and sufficiency that we are meet to partake of the Kingdom of GOD. But this very thing is a present from GOD for which we owe Him most humble thanks How then and by what right can we in justice demand pay and wages for it Would it not be altogether as if a patient should enter action against his Physitian and compel him to recompence the being cured by his art Or a poor man demand wages of us for receiving our almes or a prisoner for having been redeemed with our money Let a man turn and transform things as much as he will it is clear that gratification and merit are incompatible and that He who is of right obliged to render thanks cannot without folly pretend to have merited by that very thing for which he renders thanks Our sufficiency and capacity is a gift of GOD or it is not If it be a gift of His why pretend you that it is meritorious If it be not why doth the Apostle thank our LORD for having made us capable to have part in His inheritance The word Inheritance which the Apostle employeth here evidently confirms the same truth as an ancient Doctor of the Church hath well observed Chrysostom it loc Why is it saith he that the Apostle useth the word Inheritance To shew us that no man obtaineth the Kingdom of Heaven by his own works or performances But as an Inheritance depends upon happiness and not upon merit so is it in this matter None can exhibit a form of life and conversation exquisite enough to be worthy of the Kingdom The whole proceedeth from the gift of GOD. To proceed I doubt not but St. Paul took this term from the Old Testament wherein the Land of Canaan destined and given to the Children of Israel for an inheritance according to the promises made to their Fathers was the figure of this blessed spiritual and divine life in possession whereof GOD putteth us by the Gospel of His Son beginning it here below by the consolation and sanctification of His Spirit and reserving to complete it on high one day in the Heavens by the communication of His immortal glory For as each Israelite had his portion in the Land of Canaan the same in substance with the rest but diversly qualified so each believer hath his share in celestial life yet after such a manner as though for the main they all possess the same life nevertheless it is diversly proportioned and relished to each of them Again as none but the Children of Abraham had right and title to that ancient inheritance So there are none but the Children of the promise which are born of the word of GOD and not of flesh or of blood that have part in the new For this cause the Apostle entitles it The inheritance of Saints Away ye unbelieving and profane It is not for you that GOD hath prepared this glorious inheritance Deceive not your selves 1 Cor. 6.10 Neither Fornicators nor Idolaters nor Adulterers nor the Effeminate nor Thieves nor Covetous persons nor Drunkards nor Revilers nor Extertioners shall have part in the Kingdom of GOD. It is designed for Saints alone The portion of the profane and ungodly is elsewhere during this generation in the world and in its wretched delights and when it shall pass away in the lake of fire and brimstone But the Apostle having stiled that salvation which GOD communicateth to us in His Son the Inheritance of Saints addeth further in light As light is in Scripture the symbole of two things knowledge and glory so it may be taken here two wayes either for the knowledge of those divine things which GOD revealeth in His Gospel or for that soveraign joy
and against the seditious within It 's with this Science he buildeth the House of GOD it is with the same also that he cleanseth and keepeth it pure Whatever the enemy be that appears he sets against him nothing at all but his Crucified JESUS For even as in nature no sooner doth the Sun appear in our horizon opening its beautiful and brightsome visage to the world but the shade and cloudiness that filled the air doth immediately vanish away so in the Church when the LORD JESUS ariseth in the hearts of men there shedding abroad the riches of His saving light and shewing His fairness to open view at the same instant errour and abuse do disappear being unable to sustain the force of this divine brightness and as the Psalmist sings on another occasion If He arise His enemies are dispersed and they that are against Him flee before Him He driveth them away as wind doth the smoke This then is the only assured means either to preserve or recover truth and the purity of heavenly doctrine even to propose JESUS CHRIST incessantly to the faithful and diligently shew them all His riches all His Vertue and His Grace This is the Apostle's method Thus he doth on all occasions still reducing his Schollars to JESUS CHRIST So you see in the Epistle to the Hebrews that he might put-by the shadows of the Jewish Law wherewith some of that Nation endeavoured to darken the Gospel he sheweth them at the beginning the majesty and divinity of the LORD JESUS setting Him up above men and Angels on the Throne of a super-eminent glory Thus he doth in this Epistle and indeed he combateth here a like errour For after he had saluted the Colossians and given them some tokens of the affection he bore them as you heard afore he now beginneth to speak to them of JESUS CHRIST discovering His Divine glory and the fulness of His goodness to them that being content with so rich a treasure they might not go beg either the succour of Moses or the assistance of Philosophy for the saving of their souls It is precisely at the Text we have read that he beginneth this excellent discourse For having before thanked GOD for the grace He had shewed the Colossians in translating them into the Kingdom of His well-beloved Son he takes occasion from thence to speak of Him adding In whom we have deliverance by His blood to wit the remission of sins This is the great benefit we have received from GOD by means of JESUS CHRIST Then he describeth in connexion herewith the excellency and divinity of His person Who is saith he the image of the invisible GOD the first-born of every creature But for this time we will content our selves with the first point the meditating whereof as you see My Brethren is very suitable to the action of the Holy Supper to which we are invited wherein the remission of sins which we have in JESUS CHRIST is sealed to us by His Sacrament wherein the blood by which He hath purchased it is represented and communicated to us wherein JESUS the Author of this benefit is pourtrayed before our eyes as broken and dead for us and as feeding us to everlasting life Lift we up then our hearts with religious attention that having rightly comprehended both the greatness of the grace of GOD and the excellency of His CHRIST we may present Him souls lively affected with sense of His goodness and may receive in consequence of it that joy and blessed life which He promiseth to all those that shall approach Him with such a disposition To aid you in so necessary a meditation I will examine if the LORD please what the Apostle teacheth us concerning the benefit which we receive of God in His Son saying that we have in Him deliverance by His blood to wit the remission of Sins In these words he briefly pointeth out who is the Author of deliverance even JESUS CHRIST what is the deliverance it self namely the remission of sins what the means is by which JESUS CHRIST hath obtained it for us even by His blood and lastly who they are that receive it from GOD namely we that is to say the Faithful He had said afore that GOD hath delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into His Kingdom Now he sheweth us by whom He effected that great work adding that we have deliverance in JESUS CHRIST He is the Author of our redemption our only deliverer the Prince of our salvation But whereas the Apostle saith that it is in Him we have deliverance this may be taken two wayes both of them good and commodious First as signifying that it is by Him we have been delivered For it is an Hebrew manner of speech frequent in Scripture to say in instead of by And after this sense the Apostle declareth how it is by JESUS CHRIST His Son that GOD hath accomplished the work of His good pleasure towards us having constituted Him the Mediator of mankind who according to the will of Him that sent him perfectly executed all those things that were necessary to put us in possession of salvation But this word in may also be taken in the sense it hath in our vulgar language as signifying our spiritual communion with the LORD by reason whereof we are said to be in Him and He in us 1 Jo. 2.2 For though He be the Propitiation for the sins of the whole world and the worth of His sacrifice so great as that it abundantly sufficeth to expiate all the crimes of the universe and although the salvation obtained by Him be offered in effect and by His will unto all men yet none actually enjoy it but those that enter into His communion by Faith and are in him by that means as that clause of His covenant expresly importeth Joh. 3.16 GOD hath so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life 1 Jo. 5.12 When it is that St. John protesteth aloud He that hath the Son hath life He that hath not the Son of GOD hath not life which is as much as if He had said He that is in JESUS CHRIST hath life and he that is not in Him hath not life according to what our LORD Himself said to His Apostles Joh. 15.3 Out of me ye can do nothing So you see this sence is good and clear and containeth an excellent doctrine That to enjoy salvation by JESUS CHRIST we must be in Him Nevertheless because the Apostle in this place designeth to shew us what the LORD hath done for our salvation rather than what He requireth of us for our participating thereof I would more readily take the words the first way in whom that is by whom we have deliverance And this indeed is the commonest exposition which the most and best Interpreters both ancient and modern do follow Let us next consider what the benefit of
and death of our LORD because He by dying sealed the truth of what He preached in His life this is evidently to mock the world His miracles also confirmed His doctrine and yet neither Scripture nor any wise man ever said that we have remission of sins by His miracles as St. Paul saith here and elsewhere often that we have it by His blood and by His death Besides if this reason must take place since the Martyrs suffered to seal the same doctrine it may be also said that we have redemption and remission of sins by their blood which is not read at all On the contrary the Apostle vehemently denies that either himself or any other was crucified for us but CHRIST alone These reasons do destroy another shift these people use to wit that we have salvation by the death of JESUS CHRIST because in dying He gave us example of patience and perfect obedience For by this account the Martyrs whose sufferings had in them the like patterns should have saved us as well as CHRIST We add that patience and obedience do constitute part of our sanctification whereas the Apostle saith we have in JESUS CHRIST by His blood the remission of sins and not simply sanctification What they say for a third evasion is no better that CHRIST hath acquired by His death the right of pardoning sins For either their meaning is that the LORD hath rendred sin remittable by the satisfaction He hath made for it or they simply intend that CHRIST obtained by His death the power of pardoning sins which He had not before If they answer the first they grant us the very thing that we demand If the second they do thwart the Gospel which testifies that our LORD often remitted sins unto men while He lived and said expresly that He had authority on earth to forgive them In fine that which despair of so bad a cause suggesteth to them in the last place is of no more validity namely that the remission of our sins is attributed to the death of CHRIST because it preceded His resurrection the glory whereof lighteth up faith and repentance in us the true causes of that remission But they cannot produce any one example of so strange a manner of speaking and to say that the blood of CHRIST washeth away our sins because the effusion thereof preceded His resurrection the cause of that faith by which we obtain the pardon of them this is as much or more absurd than if you should say that it 's by the darkness of the night we are enlightned by day because the light of the Sun which then shineth on us had the darkness of the night preceding it After this account the remission of our sins should be everywhere attributed to the resurrection of CHRIST JESUS to His ascension up to Heaven and to the miracles of His Apostles and not to His Death whereas quite contrary it is ever constantly referred to the death to the blood and to the Cross of the LORD as to its true cause and not ever to His resurrection For as to that which the Apostle somewhere saith viz. that CHRIST rose again for our justification his meaning is not that our sins obliged Him to rise as they had obliged Him to dye Rom. 4.25 according to what he had affirmed that He was delivered for our offences but that He might apply to men the fruit of His death in justifying them by the Vertue of His blood therefore was He raised from the grave and crowned with highest glory this being necessary for the production of those divine effects in the world Say we then that the LORD by pouring out His blood and His life on the Cross did truly satisfie the avenging Justice of the Father undergoing for us and in our room that death which we deserved and without this laid down there can be no rational asserting what the Apostle saith here and in divers other places to wit that we have remission of sins in JESUS CHRIST by His blood But from the same Apostolical assertion it is also very evident that none other but our LORD alone is capable of satisfying for us For since the remission of sins is our Redemption who seeth not but that if any one procure it for us he must be our Redeemer a title which by the unanimous consent of all Christians appertaineth singly to JESUS CHRIST Moreover it 's by the blood of our LORD that this remission hath been purchased so as neither Paul nor Cephas nor any other having been Crucified for us it likewise followeth that no one of them hath either satisfied GOD for us or merited the remission of sins â—eo Mag. Serm. 12. de Passion Though their death be precious in the sight of GOD said an Ancient long since yet there was none of them how innocent soever he might be whose suffering could be the propitiation of the world The just have received crowns not given them and from their constancy and stedfastness in the faith have grown up examples of patience not gifts of righteousness This glory is due to nothing but the blood of CHRIST And as He is the only victime that was offered up for our sins so is it sufficient to expiate them all Never man found favour but through this sacrifice Never did the sword of GOD spare any but for the sake of this blood St. Paul teacheth it us in this Text and it 's the last particular we have to observe upon it For when he saith We have redemption in JESVS CHRIST by His blood he intends not to speak singly of himself and the Colossians but of all the faithful that were on earth and even of those that had lived from the beginning of the world unto that time There neither was nor ever had been salvation in any other but in Him And as sin and death descended from Adam upon all men so the righteousness and life of all the faithful cometh from JESUS CHRIST Rev. 13.8 Heb. 9.15 He is the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world and His death intervened for a ransome of the transgressions that were under the Old Testament as well as of those that are committed under the New His blood is the remission of the sins both of the one and the other people It 's being to be shed in due time gave it the same efficacy for the generations that preceded His Cross as it had afterwards by its actual effusion in those that succeeded it GOD the Father appeased by this sacrifice ever present in His sight as well before as after its oblation did communicate the fruit and merit of it that is to say grace and remission to all those that believed in Him under the one and the other Testament Behold Beloved Brethren that which we had to say to you concerning the Redemption we have in JESUS CHRIST The Text of the Apostle teacheth it us and the table of the LORD representeth it to
the same infirmities and to the same necessity of dying and indeed they dyed after they had lived again awhile Their death was rather deferred than abolished Their bodies did corrupt and in the end return to that dust from which they were preserved for some years But with JESUS CHRIST it is not so He in coming forth from the dead retook not the life He had quitted that is the life of the first Adam that infirm natural and earthly life a life still subject unto death He left it in the Sepulchre where it must remain as in eternal oblivion He put on a new life and nature such as is spiritual and celestial as the Apostle elsewhere termeth it a life wholly full of strength and glory that is not subject either to the use of meat or sleep not subject to dolour or death a life appropriate to the second world and not to the first a nature peculiar to the future age not to the present Accordingly you see that being vested therewith he remained not on the earth This is the old Adam's element the habitation of corruption and death But having only sojourned there fourty days so long as was needful to assure His Apostles of the truth of His resurrection and to shew them in His own person the first-fruits of the mystical Canaan He ascended up above the Heavens to the true element of the new man and the Sanctuary of eternity Conclude we then that He is truly the beginning and the first-born from the dead since He is the first of all the dead that was born and raised again in incorruption But these titles signifie yet another thing namely that it shall be He who shall raise again all the members of the Church in like glory that He is the master and the Lord of the dead for the investing them one day in their order with a nature resembling His own according to what St. Paul elsewhere saith that He will make our vile body Phil. 3. like unto His own glorious body For He would not be the first-born from the dead if He did not communicate the priviledge and the possession of this second birth to all His brethren that is to say all the faithful The Apostle adds to the end that He might have the first place in all things Those that are well versed in the reading of these divine Books do know that the word to the end that is often put in them for so as that or in such a sort as even to signifie the event and consequence of an action rather than the intention or design of the agent I account that it must be so taken in this place For the intention of our LORD in being made Head of the Church and the beginning of the new life was rather to Save us and glorifie His Father then to obtain unto Himself the first place in all things Yet true it is that such was the success of this His undertaking as He actually hath the first place in all things For there are but two sorts of things one of those that pertâ—â—â—â—o the first world and its creation the other of those that are of the second world and of the regeneration CHRIST therefore being already the Master and Creator of the former it is evident that having been also established Head of the Church which is the State that consists of the latter and the beginning and first-born of the resurrection of the dead He doth obtain by this means the first place in all things that is to say both in those of the first creation whereof He is the author and in those of the second whereof He is the Head This is the conclusion which the Apostle deduceth from his whole precedent discourse there he said that the LORD is the image of the invisible GOD the first-born of every creature the Creator of the Elements and the Angels and moreover the Head of the Church the principle and the first-fruits of the new Creation now he addeth so as He hath the first place in all things This being as seems to me from hence clear enough there is no necessity we should make any longer stay upon the exposition of this Text. It remains that to conclude we do briefly touch at the duties to which the doctrine of the Apostle doth oblige us and the comforts which it doth afford us JESUS CHRIST saith he is the head of the body of the Church These few words if we meditate them as we ought will teach us all that we owe both of obedience to the LORD and of charity to our brethren and of care and respect to our selves As for the LORD since He hath vouchsafed to become our Head it is evident we ought to honour Him with utmost devotion and submit all the actions of our life to His conduct See with what promptitude the body obeyeth the head and with how absolute a submission it follows all its movings The body neither stirreth nor resteth but as the head ordereth It depends entirely on its guidance and never crosseth its orders or resisteth its commands The head hath no sooner conceived a thing but the spirits forthwith present themselves at the place it desireth and each of the members employeth all the vigor and strength it hath to execute its will This is an image of that obedience which the LORD our mystical Head demands of us and this is that which the Apostle meaneth elsewhere Eph. 5.24 when he saith that the Church is subject to Him It 's in vain therefore that they boast themselves to be the Church who do contrary to what the LORD ordaineth who are subject to another beside Him and instead of His orders follow the will of a mortal man owning another head adoring another oracle keeping what He hath forbidden Blessed be His Name for that He hath granted us to disclaim their errour and to hang all our religion upon His sacred lips believing only that truth which He hath revealed to us in His Gospel and engraven in our hearts by His Spirit But what will it profit us to follow Him in our faith if we resist in our manners How can he avouch for His Church a body subject to Mammon to pleasure to ambition and other idols of the world a body wholly bended down to the earth whereas this divine Head is lift up above the Heavens Dear Brethren let us not deceive our selves We cannot be the Church of CHRIST except we be His body and we cannot be His body except we depend absolutely on Him except we cast out of our members the spirit of the Flesh and of the world and take in His to follow it's light and obey it's movings Henceforth then let us so compose our life that it do not contradict our profession Let the LORD JESUS be truly our Head let Him be still above us let Him preside in all our designs let Him conduct our steps and govern all our motions and inspire into us
all this for it was founded upon a Rock But on the contrary he compares the second sort to a foolish man that built upon the sand And saith he when the rain fell and the torrents came and the winds blew and smote upon this house it fell and the fall thereof was great Dear Brethren this is an excellent Parable and worthy to be deeply engraven on the hearts of the truly faithful For it shews us first That to have part in the LORD's salvation it is not enough to call Him our Master and make Profession of His Discipline They that have but this will fall sooner or later and be infallibly ruin'd Secondly It further teacheth us That it sufficeth not to have begun except a man do presevere to the end without ever giving back And lastly It declares to us what the cause is both of the perseverance of some and of the revolting and fall of others those that are founded on the rock do stand firm and resist the scandals with which the Devil and the world do combate the truth those that are built only on the sand are easily born down even at the first assaults which the adverse powers make upon them This Doctrine S. Paul yerst represented to the Colossians in the Text we have now read to you In the words foregoing as you heard in its place he did set before their eyes the wonders of the love of GOD which had been gloriously shewed upon them by JESUS CHRIST their Saviour who had called them to His Communion and of strangers and enemies as they were made them friends of His Father reconciling them by the body of His flesh through His death to render them holy without spot and unreproveable before Him But the Apostle knowing there were Seducers and deceitful workers among them who laboured to turn them away from the purity and simplicity of the Gospel that they might be preserv'd from those mens poysons he now advertiseth them that this great salvation whereof he had spoken could not be assured to them without perseverance For qualifying and in some sort correcting His simple and absolute assertion That GOD had reconciled them to Himself he addeth the condition upon which this Divine grace was promis'd them If indeed saith he you continue in the faith being founded and firm c. This Lesson my Brethren is no less necessary for us than it was erewhile for the Colossians since the floods the winds and storms that were then raised against the Edifice of their faith do in like manner at this day beat upon ours divers deceitful workers both without and within endeavouring to overthrow it Take we therefore this sacred Preservative against their malice which the Apostle here giveth us and that we may the better make our profit of it let us meditate in order the three particulars which his Instruction containeth For to confirm the Colossians in perseverance he sheweth them first The necessity and the manner of it in those words If indeed you continue in the faith being founded and firm and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which you have heard Secondly He sets before them an excellent Argument of the truth of that Gospel which they had heard to wit That it was preached in all the world And lastly He further alledgeth a second proof of its verity taken from his own Ministry of which saith he I have been made a Minister These are three points we will handle if it please GOD in this action noting briefly upon each of them what we shall judge most proper for our Edification and Consolation As for the first the Apostle explains himself about it in those terms If indeed ye continue c. Where you see he lays down first As Above That Faith is the means by which we enter into possession and use of the good things of OOD which He promiseth us in His Son The old Covenant had also its good things but the condition which it required of men for their obtaining the same was quite different For it demanded of them an exact and perfect obeying of the Law and upon any failure of an entire accomplishing of the same threatned a curse leaving the sinner no hope of life at all according to that dreadful clause Do these things and thou shalt live and Cursed is every one that doth them not But the Gospel beside that the good things which it sets before us are much greater and more Divine than those of the Law differs moreover from the Law in this especially that it demands of men for their having them nothing but Faith * Only 1 alone according to the sentence of our LORD GOD so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life This the Apostle sheweth us here with much clearness when having said That GOD hath reconciled us to Himself by the body of the flesh of His Son to render us spotless and unreproveable he addeth If indeed ye continue in the faith This Connexion of the two parts of his Discourse doth evidently infer that it is Faith which makes us to have part in the Reconciliation and Peace of GOD and in the holiness which is by the Gospel So likewise you know that in a multitude of other places the Scripture informeth us expresly that it is by Faith we are justified and have peace with GOD and that it is by Faith our hearts are purified Faith is the means of our union with GOD it is the root of our Charity and the Source of our comfort and in a word the only cause of our felicity For as a Medicine how excellent and healthful soever it be does no good save to those that take it So the LORD's Redemption and the vertue of His Sacrifice how great and infinite soever though able to heal all our sins and to give us Eternity yea not us alone but to all the men in the world yet notwithstanding will communicate none of those benefits to us except we receive it by Faith It is Faith that applies it to us and sheds abroad the efficacy of it into all the parts of our nature But because very many deceive themselves in this matter and take that for true Faith which hath but the shadow and name of Faith the Apostle telleth us that to have part in the salvation of JESUS CHRIST our faith must be constant and such as we do abide and persevere in For as in Games and Combates for Prizes none are crowned but they that hold out to the end So in the heavenly Lists or Race GOD glorifieth them only which run with constancy home to the mark Those that turn aside or stop in the midst of the course lose their labour according to that the LORD did declare Whoever shall persevere to the end shall be saved And therefore the Apostle in another place assuring himself of the Crown among other causes on
the other Even such is the case of true Believers and such as are but temporary Persecution and offence do not make the difference which is seen between them when the former do retain the Gospel and the others quit it This event only sheweth that the one were GOD's wheat and the others but chaff according to what S. John saith of Apostates They went out from us because they were not of us 1 John 2.19 that it might be made manifest that all are not of us The same is to be further seen evidently in the Parable of the Sower where the LORD saith expresly Mat. 13.13 19 21. that he that persevereth had heard the word and understood it and receiv'd it in an honest and good heart Whereas He saith of them who do revolt that one heard but understood it not another had no root in himself An evident sign that their disposition was different at first before the perseverance of the one and the fall of the others Whence appears how impertinent the Argument is which our Adversaries draw from the Apostacy of the latter to prove that the faith of the former may fail and on the contrary For if the wind carry away the chaff it doth not therefore follow that it shall also bear away the corn and if the storm beat down an house that 's planted on two or three stakes it is not to be said it may do as much to an House that 's founded on a rock If the blade that shoots forth and grows up suddenly in the sand without any bottom happen to wither at the first extreme heat that smites it this implieth not that the like may betide the corn which is deeply rooted in a good and fertile soil The other point which we have to observe is the assurance of true faith excellently represented here by the Apostle in these words which are full of a singular Emphasis If you continue in the faith being founded and firm contrary to what is taught in the Church of Rome that faith is in a continual agitation so as a Believer can have no assurance that he is for present in the state of Grace and much less yet that he shall persevere in it for the future In Conscience can it be said of these people as the Apostle saith here of the LORD 's true Disciples that they are firm and founded How may it be seeing they incessantly float in doubt and uncertainty and are miserablely in suspence between the hope of heaven and the fear of bell I pass by that other error of theirs which is yet more contrary to the Apostle's Doctrine namely their maintaining that the choicest faith may fail If it be thus how can it be affirm'd that those that have it are founded and firm Let us then hold fast the truth that 's taught us here and in divers other places of Scripture to wit that true faith abideth always and being founded on the Merit and the Death and the Intercession of JESUS CHRIST doth never fail The wind makes but the chaff to fly away it prevails not upon good grain It overthrows only the trees that are feeble and ill grounded It leaveth in their place those that stand upon good and deep grown roots And as an Ancient sometime said Tertul. de Paersc We may not account them prudent or faithful whom Heresie hath been able to change None is a Christian but he that persevereth to the end But I return to the Apostle who for the fuller Explication of this firm and not to be shaken faith which he requireth in us for the obtaining of salvation addeth further And if ye be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel Justly doth he joyn Hope unto Faith these two virtues being so straitly link'd together that they mutually succour each other and one cannot be had or lost without the other For first Hope is the suit of faith expecting with assurance the fruition of the the things that we believe so as when the perswasion that we have of them comes to totter it is not possible but the hope which was founded on it must come to ruine Again in the combats which we sustain for the faith hope is one of our principal supports while it is firm and vigorus in us it repelleth without difficulty all the strokes of the Enemy opposing to the fear of the evils wherewith he threatneth us and to desire of the good he promiseth us the incomparable excellency of the glory and felicity which we look for in the other world He that hopes for heaven cannot be tempted by the paintings and appearances of the earth For this cause the Apostle in another place compares hope to an Anchor which penetrating within the vail fastned and grounded in Heaven holdeth our vessel firm and steady amid the waves and agitations of this tempestuous Sea whereon we sail here below And it 's this in my opinion which the Apostle aims at here that the faithful might be established in the faith he willeth them to have still in their hearts the hope of heavenly bliss and never to suffer this Sacred and Divine Anchor to be taken from them They are in safety while it holds them fast But for the better expressing it he calleth it peculiarly The hope of the Gospel that is the hope which the Gospel hath wrought in us the expectation of those good things which it promiseth And so you see he referreth Hope to the Gospel as to its true and genuine object All the hopes that we conceive from other grounds are vain and failing There are none but those which embrace the promises of JESUS CHRIST that are firm and solid and such as never confound them that wait for them The Gospel promiseth us first the entire expiation of our sins and the peace of GOD in JESUS CHRIST His Son They therefore that seek this benefit in the Ceremonies and Shadows of the Law as the Galatians somtime did and the false Teachers who would have seduced the Colossians or that seek it in their own merits and the merits of Creatures they all I say and all that are like them let themselves be carried away from the hope of the Gospel Then again the Gospel promiseth us eternal life in the heavens by the grace of GOD in His Son Those therefore quit the hope thereof also who seek their felicity either in the earth or in heaven otherways than by the sole mercy of the LORD Whereby it doth appear how very pertinently S. Paul doth recommend this hope of the Gospel unto the Colossians For in the combat wherein they were engaged it was sufficient to preserve them from all the attempts of the Impostors What have I to do saith this Hope with the observation of your Disciplines or the quirks of your Philophy since I abundantly have in my Gospel all the good things which you vainly promise me But because it is ordinary with false Teachers to abuse the name
of the Gospel and to give it to the Fopperies and Vanities which they preach S. Paul to put the Colossians out of all doubt and ambiguity indicateth expresly to them what this Gospel is of which he speaketh That saith he which you have heard namely of Epaphras who had preached it among them and to whom he gave before an excellent Testimonial for fidelity and sincerity I mean saith he the Gospel which you receiv'd at the beginning from the mouth of true Servants of GOD and not these vain and dangerous Doctrines which evil workers would make to pass with you for the Gospel of CHRIST though they be nothing less then so But to confirm them the more in the faith he sets before them in the second place an excellent encomium of the Gospel which containeth a clear proof of its truth saying That it is the Gospel which was preached to every creature under heaven It is not the Doctrine which these false Apostles sowed here and there in some out quarters whispering and privily advancing the same among light and unstable spirits It is the true Word of the Son of GOD which had been proclaimed through the whole Universe by His command and according to the Oracles of His ancient Prophets That Word which going forth from Jerusalem did spread its self every way in a very little time and being accompanied with the power of its Author made it self be heard and believed in all the Provinces of the habitable earth in spight of the contradictions of Hell and the world His assertion that the Gospel was preached to every creature which is under heaven may be expounded two manner of ways but both of them amounting to the same sense First by a Figure very common in Divine and Humane speech the word Creature may be taken for Man the noblest and most excellent of all the Creatures And the LORD had so used the word before in the same matter when He commanded His Apostles to do what S. Paul doth magnifie in this place Go ye forth said He to them into all the world and preach the Gospel unto every creature Where it is evident that by every creature He understandeth men who alone are capable of hearing and receiving what is preached In this sense when S. Paul saith that the Gospel was preached to every creature it is as much as if he had said to all mankind and among all sorts of men agreeably to what he saith here a little after speaking of himself that he admonisheth every man Col. 1.28 and teacheth every man in all wisdom Secondly these words To every creature may in my opinion be taken also as signifying in all the world and this the rather because it is literally in the Original in all the creature with the Article the and not simply to every creature Now that S. Paul sometimes useth this term the creature to signifie the world this great body and collection of all things which GOD hath created this is manifestly to be seen in the Epistle to the Romans where he saith Rom. 8.19 20 21. That the great and ardent desire of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the children of GOD and again That the creature was made subject to vanity and more a little after That all the creature groaneth and travelleth in pain together until now where it is clear and confessed by the greatest part of Interpreters that the creature signifies the world and our Bibles to make us understand it the better do change the singular number into the plural rendring it les creatures and toutes les creatures the creatures and all the creatures whereas the Original readeth simply the creature and all the creature Taking it thus therefore in this place when the Apostle saith the Gospel was preached in all the creature which is under heaven he meaneth in all the world wherein we dwell wherein GOD hath seated mankind beneath the heavens I will make no stay here now to shew you how it might be truly said in S. Pauls time that the Gospel of our LORD was then preached to all mankind or in all the habitable world or how this event is a clear and solid proof of its truth We have already heretofore handled both the one and the other of these two particulars in expounding if you remember the sixth Verse of this Chapter which affirmed that the Gospel was come unto all the world Upon that Text which signifies no other thing than what the Apostle saith here namely that the Gospel hath been preached in all the creature which is under heaven We shewed first by good and irrefragable testimonies of Ancient Writers both Christian and Pagan that the heavenly Word had been preached within the Apostles days in all Countreys then known either to Greeks or Romans and receiv'd for the most part with fruit so as taking the word World according to the stile of all Languages not simply and absolutely for all the parts of the Terrestrial Globe but only for those which at that time were known to men and which they understood to be inhabited it might be said with truth and without any over-reaching Hyperbole as S. Paul declareth here that the Gospel had been preached in all the creature which is under heaven that is in all the world And in the second place we proved both by the importance of the thing it self and by the respect it hath to the Oracles of the Old Testament which had predicted it many ages before its event that this so swift so sudden and so admirable running of the Gospel through all the world in so few years is a certain and infallible evidence of the verity and divinity of this holy Doctrine obliging consequently both the Colossians heretofore and us at present to hold fast and persevere in the faith which we have given to it without suffering our selves to be ever mov'd away from it either by the cheating arts of false Teachers and their crafty Seducements or by the Threatnings and Persecutions of the world These things having been heretofore largely deduced and opened to you lest the repition of them should be irksome I will pass to the third head of our Text wherein the Apostle sets before the Colossians another Character of true Christian Doctrine to wit that it is the Word the Ministery whereof was committed to him It is saith he the Gospel of which I Paul have been made a Minister He opposeth his heavenly call to the temerity of the false Teachers who ran without having been sent and preached not what Heaven commanded them but what earth inspir'd them with their impulsions and instructions being from flesh and blood and not from the LORD JESUS It was otherwise with Paul all the faithful knew him to have been called from heaven and suddenly changed by the efficacy of Divine power from a Wolf into a Pastor made an Herald and witness of the Gospel immediately by the LORD JESUS instructed in His
miraculous School illuminated and consecrated by His Spirit Who could doubt but that it was from the mouth of this holy man that the Mysteries of GOD should be learned and that what was contrary to His Doctrine ought to be judged false and vain I confess his Mission was extraordinary and miraculous and is not to be made a precedent for others Yet notwithstanding what he here saith of it affordeth us two Instructions which reach all Pastors generally The first is that they should never intrude themselves into this Sacred Office if GOD call them not so as they may say with good conscience as Paul doth in this place that they have been made Ministers of the Gospel It is true JESUS CHRIST now speaketh not to men from heaven as He yerst did to S. Paul to call them unto His work But so much He doth that He maketh us perceive His will first by the moving of His Spirit within us which never faileth to incite us to His work when GOD calleth us thereto and secondly by the voyce and authority of His Church that is to say of His faithful people to the Body and Community of whom He hath given the power to apply the right of this Ministry to such as they discern meet for it as the examples of the primitive Church registred in the Book of the Acts and elswhere do shew us And as for Ordination as it is called which is done by the Imposition of the hands of other Ministers already established I confess it also ought to intervene for the compleating and crowning of the call accordingly you see it is seriously practised among us But I add that it is not yet so absolutely requisite but that in case of extreme and invincible necessity as in places and times when there are no true Ministers of JESUS CHRIST found to give it the call of the Church that is of a body of faithful people may suffice to a valid instituting of a Pastor the person supposed to have the ability and inclination requisite for such a charge The other particular that we have to learn here is That all Pastors of what rank soever they may be are Ministers and not Masters of the Gospel It 's the title which the Apostle here assumeth according to the Declaration he makes elswhere that he hath no dominion over the faith of believers 1 Cor. 1.24 but is an helper of their joy The duty of a Minister is to propose what hath been committed to Him what he hath received of the Master If he go beyond it and will have his own will and his private imaginations bear sway he is no longer a Minister he doth the act of a Master and consequently sets up a tyranny since the Church neither hath nor can have any lawful Master but JESUS CHRIST This dear Brethren is th◠which we had to deliver upon this Exhortation of the Aposile to the Colossians Make account that it is to you also he directs it Amid the scandals which Satan casteth in the way of your faith and the temptations he offereth to turn you out of it have still in your hearts and in your ears this Sacred voyce that says aloud from heaven to you Continue in the faith being founded and firm and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which ye have heard and which hath been preached to every creature under heaven whereof I Paul have been made a Minister Oppose the authority of this Divine command to the Seducements and illusions of the world to the flatteries and babble of Sophisters to the suggestions and lusts of the flesh From what Coast soever counsels contrary to it do come whether from within or from without judge them impious and abominable And blessed be GOD who hitherto so settled you in the belief of His Word that neither the forcible attempts of open Enemies nor the fraud of false friends hath been able to remove you at all But dear Brethren it is not enough to have stood fast hitherto There must be preparing for more combats to come after those that are past For we have to do with Enemies with whom we must look for neither peace nor truce They will be still setting on work one Engine or other and if repulsed on one side will not fail to attaque us immediately on another Be we therefore in like manner still upon our guard Let us have no less zeal and constancy for our our preservation then they have rage and resoluteness for our ruine Fortifie we our faith daily Arm it with Armor of proof Found it on the Eternal Rock and so fasten it that nothing may be able to pluck it out of our hearts To this purpose let us continually read and meditate that heavenly Word whence we have drawn it Let us fill our souls with this Divine wisdom and render it familiar to us Let us instruct our youth in it Let us make it to abound on all hands among us Let it be the matter of our mutual entertainments and the most usual subject of our cogitations For as an ancient yer while said very prudently Chrys Hom. 〈◊〉 de Lazaro The reading of the holy Scriptures is an excellent and an assured Preservative to keep us from falling into sin and ignorance of the Scriptures is an huge Precipice a deep gulf of Perdition In the design of our perseverance let us particularly make use of the two means which S. Paul here furnisheth us withal The one that the Gospel which we have heard hath been preach'd in the whole world the other that it is the same which was committed to our Apostle It 's in the belief of this Gospel that he would have us abide firm It 's to this faith that he promiseth the peace of GOD His Favour and His Eternity GOD saith he hath reconciled you to Himself that He might present you holy without spot and unreproveable if indeed you continue firm in the faith and are not moved away from the hope of the Gospel From whence it follows that if we have this Gospel among us we may certainly assure our selves that by retaining it we shall obtain the peace and the Salvation of GOD. The only question therefore is Whether the Doctrine which we have embraced be truly this Gospel or no If it be I have no further search to make I am content to have found what is sufficient for me that I may appear before my GOD without confusion and receive of Him life everlasting But that the Doctrine whereof we make profession is the same Gospel that Paul preached the same that he and the other Apostles sowed in the world and which the world overcome by the force of its truth did in the end receive and adore This I say is so clear that I do not think the Devil himself as hardned in impudence as he is can deny it For the GOD whom we serve and the CHRIST whom we adore and His Merit in
which we trust and the Worship we give Him in Spirit and in truth and the Heaven we hope for and the Sacraments we celebrate and all the other Articles of our Religion do they not every where appear in the Books of Paul and of the other Apostles Are they not to be seen in all the Monuments of these great men as well in their Writings as also in the Churches which they planted through the earth Let us therefore my Brethren abide firm in this faith since it most assuredly is the Gospel which was heretofore preached in all the world and was commited to S. Paul's ministring And if those of Rome do alledge to us their Devotions and Traditions let us boldly tell them that if those things were any part of the Gospel they would appear in what the Apostles preached to whom JESUS CHRIST gave the Ministry thereof And in the mean time there is not found any one of them in the Sacred Volumes which they have left us to be the rule of our faith Neither the adoration of the Hoast nor the veneration of Images nor the invocation of Saints departed nor the other points for which they have Excommunicated us And herein their Head doth evidently discover how Apostolical he is to banish those from his Communion whom S. Paul here expresly declares to be at peace with GOD holy and unreprovable before Him For to have this happiness he doth not oblige us to believe or practice this pretended Gospel of Rome He requireth us only abide firm in the belief of his the Gospel which he preached to the faithful and left in his Epistles In them our Religion is to be seen full and whole But not one Article of that which Rome would by all means constrain us to receive But there is no need we should make further stay upon this matter the truth of that Doctrine which we embrace being so clear that no man who understands Christianity and owns the Divinity of it can call it into question And on the other hand the absurdity of the Doctrine we reject is so palpable and so rudely beats against the foundations of Reason and Scripture that it s very difficult for a man who hath had any taste of the Gospel ever to yield up his consent to the errors we contest except GOD have blinded him in punishment of his ingratitude The great combate which we have most cause to fear is that of the passions of our flesh It 's these properly that enfeeble faith that darken its light that hide the truth from its view and paint up error These are the true causes of their change who desert us and of the offence of many that are infirm among us Experience shews it us daily And accordingly you see Matth. 13.21 22. our Saviour hath advertis'd us of it having said in one of His Parables that it is either the fear of persecution or the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches that makes the seed of heaven unfruitful in the hearts of men and obstructs their perseverance And S. Paul somwhere imformeth us 2 Tim. 1.19 that they that reject a good conscience make shipwrack also in respect of faith When a man is once sold over to pleasure or avarice or ambition it is no wonder if in the sequel he disgust the truth and fall into error The passage is easie from the one to the other Besides the slaves of sin not finding the contentation of their passions in the profession of Truth which is for the most part under the cross their interest carries them to seek their satisfaction in the world this gives an huge shake to their minds and brings them by degres to relish the worlds side and party as it is natural to us to believe easily the things we desire Here therefore it is dear Brethren that we must put to our might and fight in good earnest if we would continue firm in the faith Give me a man that embracing JESUS CHRIST hath cast off the lusts of the flesh and of the world and I will be secure of his perseverance Take me away the colours wherewith avarice and ambition and vanity do paint-over error in the thoughts of the worldly-minded and I will not fear its seducing of any Cleanse your Conscience and your Faith will be out of danger The Devil without doubt made use of his best weapons against our LORD and you know that having represented to Him the hunger and the necessity he was in he omitted not to spread before His eyes the pomp of the Grandeurs and riches of the world It is a wile he still puts in practise and his Ministers do not forget this piece of his play they fail not to tell such as they would destroy that they will give them wonders Faithful Brethren let us fence our selves seasonably against this tentation Mortifie we in us all the lusts of Flesh and Earth accustom our selves to a not-dreading the Cross and the sufferings of our LORD suffer not the world to dazle our eyes Look we upon it as a deceitful shew unable to content its own adorers To the false goods wherewith it feedeth its bond-servants let us oppose the true ones which the Gospel promiseth Let the sweet and noble hope of these enflame our souls with an ardent desire of heaven and its immortality Let it sweeten all the bitterness that attends our profession and make execrable to us all that tendeth to turn us away from so blessed a design Courage Christian yet a little patience and you have overcome Your faith if you abide firm in it will open in your heart for the present a living spring of such joy as is a thousand times sweeter than all the pleasures of Worldings And it shall be crowned one day with that supereminent and immortal glory which the Gospel that you have believed doth promise to all those which shall constantly persevere in the Vocation of the LORD JESUS To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD blessed for ever be all honor and praise to ages of ages Amen THE XIII SERMON COL I. Ver. XXIV Vers XXIV Whereupon I now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and to fill up the remainder of the afflictions of CHRIST in my flesh for His body which is the Church THE Gospel of the LORD JESUS hath many admirable evidences of its divinity and among them the sufferings of its Confessors and Martyrs are in my opinion not the least illustrious For if you seriously consider them you will find that there never was any doctrine in the world that drew more persecutions upon its followers or that inspired them with so much courage and resolution to undergo the same or was in effect sealed with such a deal of blood and patience Other religions as being sprung from the earth are welcome there and the world that well knoweth its own blood and its own spirit shews them kindness and
dying of CHRIST in His body and His brandings in His flesh Whence appears to note it by the way how absurd the belief of Purgatory is which makes the faithful to suffer not in the flesh but in the Spirit and extendeth their afflictions and pains beyon the days of their flesh in which nevertheless the Apostle teacheth us that their sufferings are compleated Thus you see what the sense of his words is and how much reason he had to rejoyce in his sufferings First because they were the afflictions of JESUS CHRIST the Prince of life and the author of our salvation Secondly Because they were dispensed by the order and the will of GOD. Thirdly because they made up the last part of the Apostles task being the going on and the remainder of the conflicts which he had to sustain And lastly because they contained an illustrious evidence of his gratitude towards the LORD and rendered him conform to His holy image in that as JESUS had suffered for his salvation he also suffered in his order for the glory of his gracious Master But he addeth yet another reason that sweetned likewise the bitterness of his sufferings to him and made him to find joy amid the horror of them It is that he suffered them for the body of the LORD which is His Church He had already said that he suffered for the Colossians as we have explained it Now he extendeth the fruit of his afflictions further saying that they are of use to the whole Church And to shew us how much weight this consideration should have to make his sufferings pleasant to him he gives the Church the highest and the most glorious appellation that can be attributed to any creatures calling it the body of CHRIST For what more illustrious and more precious subject can we suffer for than the body of the Son of GOD the King of ages the Father of eternity We have already treated of it at another time upon the eighteenth verse of this Chapter and shewed how and in what sense the Church is the body of CHRIST neither will we repeat ought of it for the present But his affirming that he fills up these afflictions for the Church is true and appeareth so to be in two respects First inasmuch as the Church was the occasion and indeed the cause of his sufferings For it was the service he did it in preaching the Gospel in instructing and comforting it in founding it and setling it in the faith that had provoked the Jews against him and involved him in the afflictions which did beset him As if a Princes servant zealous for his Masters glory and for the weal of his affairs should therethrough fall into some disaster he might say it was for him and his Estate that he shed his blood and lay a prisoner in his enemies hands Secondly S. Pauls afflictions were for the Church because he suffered them for the edification and consolation of the Church This was the scope of his patience and the design of His constancy It 's to the Church that all the fruit of these fair and illustrious examples of the Apostles vertue did redound He himself explains it to be thus elsewhere If we be afflicted saith he to the faithful it is for your consolation and salvation which is effected in enduring the same afflictions which we also suffer where you see that the fruit which the faithful reaped from these afflictions consisted in this that by the vertue of his example they were confirmed in the Gospel were rejoyced and comforted and fortified for the like combats And in the Epistle to the Philippians treating of the same bond Phil. 1.12 13 14. that he speaks of in this place I would ye should know saith he that the things which have betided me have fallen out rather to the greater furtherance of the Gospel So that my bonds in CHRIST have been noted in all the Palace and in all other places And many of the brethren in the LORD waxing confident by my bonds are much more bold to speak the word without fear Lo how his sufferings were for the Church in that they encouraged the Preachers and enkindled in the hearts of the faithful people the zeal of the house of GOD and in those without an inquisitiveness about the Gospel for which he was a prisoner This great man's preaching had never sparkled as it did it had never afforded the world and the Church so much edification and consolation if it had not been accompanied with sufferings sealed with his blood and confirmed by his wonderful patience amid the continual persecutions that were raised against him The conflicts of other servants of GOD have the same effect Their blood is the seed of the Church It 's from their sufferings that it springeth up It 's by them that it groweth and gathereth strength It 's the patience of these Divine Warriours that converted the world that conquered the nations unto JESUS CHRIST and planted His cross and His Gospel every where even in the most rebellious spirits Surely since the Church received so much profit from the Apostles afflictions it 's with good reason he affirms here that he filleth up the remainder of them for it And in this sence we must understand it when he saith elsewhere 2 Tim. 1.10 that he suffereth all things for the elects sake This may suffice for the proposal of the truth which is perspicuous and simple and obvious But the Error of our adversaries compelleth us to lengthen this discourse Not that they deny the exposition which we have produced For how could they do that without renouncing the doctrine of the Gospel and the confession of Christians in all ages But granting that the Apostles afflictions were for the Church in the sense we have expounded it they add that they were so further in another sense that is to say in that by undergoing them he satisfied for the sins of other believers and by this means did contribute to the greatning and enriching of the Churches treasury of satisfactions out of which the Bishop of Rome to whom the custody of it is committed makes largess from time to time as he judgeth meet for the expiating of the sins of penitents and hence hath risen the use of indulgences which is become so common in our dayes But first what kind of proof is this To shew that the Saints have satisfied Divine justice for the sins of other believers they alledge that S. Paul writeth I fill up the rest of the afflictions of CHRIST for His Church I answer his meaning is for edifying and comforting of the Church They acknowledge what I answer and only add that the Apostles sufferings do serve also for the expiating the sins of the Church and to fill the exchequer of its pretended satisfactions In conscience is this disputing Is it not a pronouncing of dictates after their own phantasie Is not this a presupposing of their opinion and no proving it It
fullfilling the word of GOD which seemeth chiefly to have setled the Authors of this exposition it sounding harsh to them that it should signifie preaching of the Gospel they should consider that the Apostle useth it elsewhere in this very sense Rom. 15.19 when he saith that from Jerusalem and round about even to Illyricum he had fullfilled the Gospel of CHRIST where he useth the same term which he placeth here and clearly calleth that the Gospel of CHRIST which here he termeth the word of GOD. What doth he mean then by these words Truly to fullfil the Gospel is to preach it with such efficacy as that it hath reception in the hearts of men it is to justifie the vertue of it by the effect And therefore our French Bibles have judiciously rendred the word in the place now quoted by making to abound The true and natural perfection of the Gospel is that it 's the power of GOD to salvation to every one that believeth both Greek and Jew I acknowledge it is so alwaies in its self but this its vertue doth not appear nor display it self until it be planted by preaching in the hearts of men and do take root and fructifie there Till then its perfection remains hid and wrapped up in its self 'T is with it as with seed which shews not what it is but when having been received into the bosome of the earth it produceth an herb or a plant or as a sword in the sheath which doth not discover its strength and the goodness of its temper but when it is drawn and set on work Thus doth the Apostle mean when he saith that GOD gave him the dispensation of the Gentiles to fullfil or accomplish his word That is to spread and by his preaching display the vertues and perfections of His Gospel which then clearly appeared when this heavenly word which till that time had operated on the Jews alone in a manner did also in short space convert a great multitude of Gentiles And the Apostle elsewhere useth a like word in almost the same manner when he saith that the power of GOD is compleated in infirmity that is to say not that it acquireth but that therein it sheweth and displayeth its perfection Such is the end of the Apostles Ministry He was called to it to fullfil or compleat the word of GOD to set His Gospel on work to preach it for the converting of men and for the glory of its Author Whereby you see first wherein principally the charge of true Ministers of the LORD doth consist not incommanding or in appearing above their flocks much less in braving it before the world but in publishing heavenly doctrine with an holy order even to the giving of themselves no rest till it be setled in the souls of their hearers till it reign there and shew its divine perfections in the change of their conversations And secondly that the Gospel is the whole subject of their preaching so as they have not liberty to mingle with it either their own inventions or traditions of men how fair and plausible soever they may seem that they do keep themselves faithfully within these bounds remembring the end of their commission that the dispensation of GOD hath been given them to fullfil the word not of men but of GOD. Consider we now that which the Apostle addeth concerning this word of GOD that is the Gospel It is saith he the mystery which had been hid from ages and from generations but hath now been manifested to His Saints All this serves to exalt the glory of the Gospel He saith first that it is a mystery that is a secret and he giveth it the same name often other-where 1 Tim. 4.16 because it is a dectrine not exposed to the sense and reason of men but secret and hid in GOD such a doctrine as eye saw not nor ear heard neither did it ascend into the heart of man Read the books of the worlds sages You will see that by the subtility of their spirits they did discover and as we may say read divers verities in the creatures which the Creator had graven on them But you shall not find those of the Gospel there at all They were hid in the deep abyss of His eternal wisdom and counsel where no created eye can penetrate or discern ought that is in it untill Himself produce it and set it in our sight Whereby it doth appear how much they are mistaken who pretend that Evangelical truth may be found out by the contemplation of nature I grant that the Gospel doth not contradict nature yea I affirm that it perfecteth and crowneth it so as when it is once revealed to us we observe divers things in nature which have admirable correspondence with it and could not be fully cleared without this new light But it is the Son of GOD alone who brought it out of the bosome of the Father and published it By the same consideration you may also judge with what reverence we ought to receive the Gospel since it is a mysterie the secret not of an earthly King but of the Soveraign Monarch of Men and Angels The Apostle saith in the second place that this secret had been hid from all ages and generations that is from the creation of the World untill the revealing of our LORD and Saviour none of the former times none of the generations of men that lived in them having had the happiness to know it There are many truths in the Law that may be termed secrets or mysteries as for instance what it teacheth concerning the creation of the world and the manner of that Creation concerning the judgement of GOD against sin and the calling of Israel had been publick a long time having been discovered by the Ministers of GOD Became publick long ago Eph. 3.5 to the sore-passed generations The Gospel alone hath this glorious advantage to have continued hidden all that while untill the appearance of the Son of God S. Paul affirms it here He repeats it in the Epistle to the Ephesians Rom. 16.25 in almost the same terms He had signified it before in that which he wrote to the Romans saying that this mysterie had been kept secret in old time But he adds in fine that this great secret hath now been manifested that is to say in the fulness of time in the latter days when the Son of GOD appeared By the Saints of GOD he meaneth first the Apostles to whom the LORD JESUS did discover the whole truth of His Gospel by the light of His Spirit in a very peculiar and extraordinary manner and secondly all the rest of the faithful whom he caused to see the same mysteries by their Preaching accompanied with the effectual operation and light of the same Spirit Both the one and the other of them are called Saints because GOD had separated them by His call from the rest of men By which you see that there are none but the
Saints of GOD who do truly know His mysteries the revelation which is necessary for the knowing of them most assuredly purifying and sanctifying the heart of man But I perceive some difficulties arise here in your minds against this doctrine of the Apostle which must be resolved for your satisfaction before we pass further on First You may ask me in general how it is true that this mysterie was hid from the foregoing ages seeing the Gospel is eternal And then how this accordeth with so many Prophecies of the Old Testament in which it seems to be so clearly represented and moreover how with the LORD 's saying of Abraham that he saw His day and lastly with the Scriptures express informing us that the ancient believers were all saved by faith which seems to have no place without the knowledge of the Gospel To this I answer for the first article that it is true the Gospel was foretold and as the Apostle speaks elsewhere was promised and figured under the Old Testament but it was not manifested It was at that time in being but lay hid in the bosome of the Father and only wrap'd up in the Oracles by which He promised it and in the types by which He figured it so as it is nevertheless eternal forasmuch as in these latter times it was not made and created of nothing but only brought out of the obscurities and enveloppings which untill then it had remained covered with And as for the Prophecies it 's true they are clear since the Sun of righteousness arising in the horizon of the Church hath there shed abroad His light by the benefit thereof we easily read what the finger of GOD hath written in them But before this while the darkness of the night did cover all things it was impossible for the best sight to penetrate throughly the true meaning of them As when it is broad day we read distinctly and without difficulty the same writing wherein we see nothing but some strokes and a few letters confusedly during the dimness of the night Would you know what difference there is between these two seasons Turn to that Chapter of Isaiah Isa 53.7 in which we read He was led as a sheep to the slaughter and what follows There is not a child among us but presently understandeth it of CHRIST and His dying for us Act. 8.34 in a profound humbleness and charity Yet the Ethiopian who without doubt was very forward in the Schoole of the former people doth confess that he understandeth nothing of it and cannot tell whether the Prophet does say this of himself or of some other First the accomplishment of the things which is the commentary upon prophecies and the light of figures hath made the ancient oracles and types clear to us which by consequent remained obscure and inexplicable untill that event Secondly the Law did further augment this obscurity being then spread over these mysteries as a thick veil through which how sharp-sighted soever men were it was not possible for them to pierce Whereas now the righteousness of GOD having been revealed to us without the Law as the Apostle saith and this troublesome Veil having been rent and removed by JESUS CHRIST we clearly behold the light of Moses's face which indeed was of old but could not be seen as long as it abode covered with the Veil of the Law And as for Abraham he saw the day of the LORD and rejoyced in it that is to say he knew and believed that CHRIST should come and save the world and exalt the people of GOD unto a super-eminent glory which was sufficient for his joy but this implyeth not that he distinctly knew either what the person of CHRIST would be or in what manner He acquired salvation for us with all the circumstances of these things which neither any men or so much as Angels knew but by the manifestation of JESUS CHRIST in flesh Eph. 3.10 and by the consequents thereof the Apostle expresly testifying that it was then and not before that the manifold wisdom of GOD was made know to the Angels whom according to his ordinary stile he calleth principalities and powers The knowledge which the rest of the faithful had of CHRIST was like that which Abraham had They believed in sum His coming and their redemption and the restauration of all things by His means and they desired Him and waited affectionately for Him saluting His promises afar off But they did not distinctly comprehend the mysterie and in particular as we at this day do Yet this hindred not but that they were justified by the merit of His death and saved by His cross and fed with his Manna and made to drink of His source it being clear that there is no other salvation in the world but the same which He did procure nor do the divers degrees of faith by which the redeemed draw from His fulness vary ought at all in the essence and substance of His grace because GOD requireth no other faith of His people but such as is proportioned to the measure of the revelation He hath given them the same being more or less clear as the times were nearer to or further distant from the glorious light of His Son Thus the truth which the Apostle teacheth us here abideth firm and beyond all contradiction namely that the mysterie of GOD that is to say the Gospel was hid from ages and from all generations and was not manifested but now to the Saints of GOD. To whom saith he 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 This is the third part of this Text and doth express the glory and the sum of this mysterie He sets the will of GOD at the entrance as a strong barr against our curiosity to stay it and restrain it from intruding into a search of the causes of this admirable dispensation of the mysterie of the Gospel It busieth its self principally about two points namely the time and the persons to whom this manifestation hath been made For as to the first it doth demand why GOD should suffer so many ages to flow forth and so many generations pass away without discovering the secret of the Gospel to them having reserved the revelation of it to these latter ages only Let us say with the Apostle that the truth is He would so do and be we contented with His will assuring our selves that it is just and reasonable though we know not the motives of it He hath reserved the seasons of things in His own dispose Besides at what time soever He had done it man would still have demanded why no sooner or no later Now he complains that GOD delayed so long If GOD had discovered His mysterie at the beginning he would complain of His having made so much haste He now objecteth the interest of the first ages that were deprived of
His peace His Spirit His Holiness His consolation His life and His immortality But the Apostle doth not speak here of the riches of the glory of the Gospel in general and towards all He addeth particularly among the Gentiles Sure there is no sort of men whether Jews or Greeks but the Gospel sheweth forth riches of glory in them if they receive it Yet we must acknowledge that never-did its glory break forth with so much splendor as when it was preached to the Gentiles First that exceeding great and inexhaustible abundance of goodness and grace which the Gospel goeth fill'd up with did pour forth it self and if I may so speak overflowed all bounds in saving the Gentiles the most hopeless of all men when it raised them from this grave or rather from that abyss of misery wherein they had lain not four dayes as Lazarus in his Sepulchre but for four thousand years For this cause the holy Apostle comparing the grace of GOD in His Son 〈◊〉 15.8.9 shewed to the Jew with that shewed to the Gentile at His calling of each of them doth name the former Truth for that it was promised and the second simply and altogether Mercy Then again how very admirable was the vertue of the Gospel which effected that in a few dayes that the Law had not been able to do in so many ages The Ministers of the Law did compass Sea and Land and after all found it very hard to make one proselyte and with all their diligence for two thousand years that they toiled had not reduced so much as one Nation to the Service of GOD though they employed even sword and strength to that end when they could But the Gospel quite naked and without other weapons then its Cross brought unto GOD many a people converted from Paganism They were a sort of men that worshipped stocks and stones they lay plunged in a bruitish ignorance and in the most infamous vices there was a mixture in them of the stupidity of beasts and the wickedness of Devils Certainly to make so much as one of these a Christian to bring him out of this infernal pit 〈◊〉 and place him in the Church to make him of a slave of Satan a child of GOD was as an Ancient writing on this passage rightly says no less a miracle than if some one should suddenly change an unclean and deformed dog into a man and from the dunghil whereon he lay cause him to sit upon a royal throne It was truly therefore a great and an ineffable richness and abundance of glory for the Gospel to transform so speedily not a small number but hundreds and thousands of Pagans into so many believers And in this the Apostle secretly strikes at the false Teachers who would mix such a noble and glorious mystery with their feeble traditions as if it had not strength and vertue enough of it self to subsist without the succour of their inventions Finally he intimates in two words the ground of all this richness of glory that the Gospel hath which is saith he CHRIST in you that is to say that CHRIST whom they possessed and who dwelt in them by faith 1 Tim. 1.1 And he addeth that He is the hope of glory after the same manner that elsewhere he calleth CHRIST our hope that is He of whom we hope for highest glory and in whom we do infallibly find all the blessedness that we can either defire or expect It is not without design that he advertiseth them that JESUS CHRIST is all the fullness of the mystery of the Gospel He lays a foundation hereby for what he will more clearly tell them hereafter namely that it is in vain that the seducers would mingle the Ceremonies of Moses and the service of Angels with it All this great mystery begins and ends in JESUS CHRIST since it is no other thing 1 Tim. 4.16 as himself defineth it elsewhere than GOD manifested in the flesh justified in the spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world and received up into Glory that is JESUS CHRIST our LORD born put to death raised again glorified and set forth in the Gospel for us Such is the mystery whereof the holy Apostle hath spoken to us Judge now Beloved Brethren what grace GOD hath shewed us in communicating so rich and so admirable a secret to us Many Kings and Prophets have desired to see and hear it and not at all had the happiness Heaven and earth did sigh four thousand years after the blessing we possess But in the end only the last ages did obtain it The Jews saw the wonders of GOD but obscurely and through veils and shadows The Gentiles saw them not at all being covered with a disinal night living without GOD and without hope This divine mystery appearing at once in the end of times as a great light that shines forth sudainly from Heaven did dissipate the shadows of the one and dispel the darkness of the other changing by its vertue the whole face of the universe in a moment It hath particularly shewed the riches of its glory among us having brought our Fathers out of the horrours of Paganism which did once cover this whole Land Let us embrace therefore with all the affections of our souls this great and inestimable favour of the LORD's Let us keep it pure and uncorupted without immixing in it ought that 's alien to it It is not only sufficient for our happiness It is even rich and abundant in glory They that would stuff it out with Ceremonies and services whether of Moses's teaching or mans inventing as false Teachers heretofore did and our adversaries at this day do they understand not aright the inexhaustible opulency wherewith it overslows They obscure the resplendency of its heavenly glory by their additions they hide it and cover it again with the veil which JESUS CHRIST hath rent in sunder Let us say to such as propose them unto us We are contented with the mystery which GOD hath vouchsafed to manifest unto His Saints It sufficed for their bliss It will well suffice for ours We do not desire any other riches than those which it aboundeth with or any other glory than that which it shines withall It is enough that this JESUS CHRIST who fills it up is in us the hope of true glory There is no need to associate with Him either Moses or Angels or Saints But Faithful Brethren the securing of this mystery from the errors of superstition is not all For the conversing of it pure among us and placing it in that glory which is due to it there must be a putting far away the filth of vices and of carnal and earthly passions GOD hath not lighted up this great Sun among you that ye should continue to live ill and do the same works in such a blessed light as are done in darkness Far be it from Him He hath discovered to you the mysteries hidden
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
necessary for the edifying of the faithful which is the end of the ministry It is not enough to propose the secrets of the Gospel in general unto them general things do not much stir us They must be touched in particular and the word of God which is the instrument of our profession is proper for these two operations as S. Paul expresly noteth when he saith that the Scripture is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteoussness that the man of GOD that is His servant or his minister may be accomplished and perfectly furnished unto every good work Such then as the LORD hath honoured with this sacred ministry should labour both in the one and the other of these two performances and make account that he calleth them not simply to teach but also to admonish For this here is not the pew of a Professor of Mathematiques or Physick who hath no other business but to explain the secrets of those sciences to those that hear them This Chair hath been prepared in the Church for the conducting of men to salvation not meerly to make them understand but to give them everlasting life to illuminate their minds to form their lives unto holiness to pluck them out of the snares of Satan and cause them to walk in the wayes of GOD. Faithful Brethren since you know that such is the nature of our charges you should not think it strange or ill that we execute them in this manner among you There are some that have a tender ear They willingly hear information and doctrine but cannot bear remonstrances Discourse about the mysteries of religion is pleasing to them but about their vices and their duty burthensome And this tenderness is a very bad sign as shewing that their morals are not found As a Physician judgeth that there is something amiss some sinew hurted or some collection of unnatual humors in those parts of the body which he cannot touch without putting the Patient to pain If you would have our ministrations to be entirely grateful to you reform your manners that nothing may remain in your life but what is healthy and vigorous Remonstrances do importune those only that have a diseased Soul But they should consider that if they be troublesome to them they are necessary for them and if the interest of our Office do oblige us to make them the interest of their salvation doth much more oblige them to suffer the same It is a salt somewhat sharp but wholsome a potion bitter but conducing to health But the Apostles addition that he teacheth in all wisdom must not be forgotten There is no need I should advertise you that he speaks of heavenly wisdom of that truth which is necessary to be known for the obtaining of Salvation It is evident therefore when he saith he teacheth in all this wisdom he signifies that he declareth all the mysteries of it to such as he instructeth that he hideth no part of it from them which it concerns them to know for their arriving at the inheritance of JESUS CHRIST It is the very thing that he speaks elsewhere more clearly and in express words namely when he taketh the Bishops or Pastors of the Church at Ephesus to witness that he had kept back nothing from them which was profitable for them but had taught it them Act. 20.20 21 27. and preached it publickly and from house to house tesstifying both to the Jews and to the Greeks repentance towards GOD and faith in JESUS CHRIST our LORD and a little after I have not shunned saith he to declare to you all the counsel of GOD. Whence it appears that the traditions which are pretended to have been not publickly and generally taught to all the faithful but delivered in secret to some only by the Apostles are not at all necessary to mens Salvation He that hath learned what the Apostle taught all men knows enough since he taught in all wisdom except men will say that he wanteth some knowledge who hath learned all wisdom But it hath alwaies been one of the artifices of curiosity to feign that men of GOD did not publish all and that they committed a part of their instructions only to the ears of some that were more perfect than the vulgar to the end that under this pretext it may make its own disquisitions and inventions pass for articles of divine doctrine I know well that this is a meer imagination as weak as it is bold and such as hath no other foundation than the passion of those that advance it But it is not my business to make any further inquiry into the vanity of it For what ever it be since S. Paul hath taught every man in all wisdom my simplicity is henceforth in safety The ignorance of your pretented secrets cannot be prejudicial to me since all the wisdom of the Gospel is comprised in the Apostles publick and common teachings From the same consideration you may perceive also how extravagant the dreaming of those is who would make it be believed that the doctrine of the Church is polished and perfected from age to age the succeding having added to the light of those that went before and that we should not wonder if the ancients either knew not or even spake contrary to some of the Articles of the Modern Divinity forasmuch say they as the Church not having yet at that time declared them the belief of them was not necessary By this account the Faith will have been imperfect in the Apostles time Yet S. Paul saith here that what he Preached to all men was all wisdom and he will add immediately that by it he rendred every man perfect in CHRIST JESUS whatsoever may be said in the matter it is clear that it 's enough to know the things that are sufficient to save us If that which the Apostles Preached did suffice for the salvation of the first believers we have nothing to do with that which men have added since For we seek but our salvation and it 's sottishness to imagine that what was sufficient to save believers in those dayes is not sufficient to do it in ours as if GOD had changed his design and the revelation of His Son and the Apostles Preaching were not the seal and the last perfection of all His dispensations The Articles which have been declared in the latter ages did make up a part of the wisdom Preached by the Apostles or no. If they made up a part of it they were no less necessary for the first ages than for the latter If they made up no part of it they are now as little necessary as ever And it avails nothing to alledge the Church to us For what authority soever may be ascribed to the company which is so called it hath not enough to make that necessary which in reality is not so not enough to shut up what GOD hath opened nor to contract what He hath dilated or to
this custom was in repute among Christians Whether then the thing be considered in its self or the suffrages of the Ancients be taken it is manifest that our Fathers and our selves had all the reasons in the world to re-establish this sacred and just usage in the Church Now Sir this Book which I address unto you is a fruit of it For having undertaken in conformity to this order to expound in our holy assemblies the Divine Epistle of the Apostle S. Paul to the Colossians and being come to the end of it by the grace of our LORD because the whole work could not be commodiously contracted into one volume only I have divided it into three parts of which this here is the second The Piety which hath long flourished in your House Sir and the exquisite knowledge that GOD hath given you of His truth do induce me to believe that this Books which wholy treats of His Divine mysteries and nothing else will not be unpleasing to you It 's this hath given me the liberty to put your name upon it a Name which diverse excellent graces wherewith GOD hath adorned both your Family and your Person do render very dear and very honourable in our Church I am sorry that this Present is no more worthy of it But such as it is I do not despair but it may obtain from the dignity of its subject and from the favour of your goodness that acceptance which it cannot pretend to upon any merit of its own Please you then to receive it as a sincere testimony of the respect I bear your vertue and of the grateful sense I have of the friendship wherewith you honour me withal as an inviolable pledge of the prayers which I present unto GOD for your prosperity and of the fervent affection I have to be as long as I live Paris Apriâ— 1. 1648. SIR Your most humble and most obedient Servant DAILLE The SIXTEENTH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER I II. Verse I. For I would that ye knew how great a combat I have for you and for them which are at Laodicea and for all them which have not seen my presence in the flesh II. To the end that their hearts might be comforted they being joined together in love and in all riches of full certainty of understanding unto the knowledg of our GOD and Father and of CHRIST DEar Brethren As Gardeners and Husbandmen do not content themselves with sowing good grain in the ground that they manure but also take care to pluck up thence the bad herbs which might choak or incommodate the good So in the Spiritual husbandry of JESUS CHRIST it is not enough that the Ministers of his Gospel do cast his Divine Word the good and saving seed of our Regeneration into the Souls of Men They must also be at the pains to weed and cleanse this mystical Soil the tilling whereof is committed to them plucking up out of it error and false doctrine those bad and pernicious weeds which springing up of themselves or being privily sown there by an enemy's hand are apt to marr all this coelestial tillage Hence it is that the Apostle St. Paul having in the first Chapter of this Epistle to the Colossians setled the truth with great efficacy as you have heard cometh now in this second Chapter the beginning whereof we have read to reject and refute the errors which certain false workers ministers of Satan endeavoured to shuffle in that this people as a field or a garden of God's being rid of all naughty and noxious grain the noble seed of the Gospel which the Apostle had cast there might take root and spring up and grow at liberty covering and crowning it all over with the flowers and fruits of incorruption that is sincere piety and true sanctity no strange plant being mingled with it These Seducers as we have often intimated did teach that besides faith in JESUS CHRIST which they made profession of there was also a necessity of observing the Mosaical Law and of worshipping of Angels and of practising certain superstitious Disciplines and Mortifications of their own invention And to put off the whole the better they mingled with it some subtilties and vain speculations of secular Philosophy This is the weed which the Apostle the Church's holy Husbandman now roots up out of his LORD's field fortifying the Colossians against the craft of that sort of men and divinely shewing them how full and sufficient the doctrine of his Gospel was how unprofitable and even plainly dangerous the Seducers additions were You shall hear it afterwards in the progress of the Chapter For as to the two Verses we have read and the three or four following they are as the entrance or gate of this dispute the Apostle in them preparing the hearts of the Colossians to receive his instructions by the evidences he gives them of his ardent affection for their Salvation and presently in the first Verse he declareth to them the pains he was in for them and for their neighbours I would saith he that ye knew how great a combat I have for you c. Then he addeth in the following Verse the end or the cause of this combat of his To the end saith he that their hearts might be comforted c. These two points now we purpose to handle in the present action by the assistance of the grace of CHRIST S. Paul's care and combat for the Colossians and Laodiceans then his design or the end for which he underwent all this trouble for them In reference to the first of these two points ye may remember the Apostle affirmed in the end of the precedent Chapter that to discharge the Ministry which GOD had committed to him he did labour and combat according to his efficacy that wrought powerfully in him Now he descendeth from Generalities to a particular instance and having spoken in gross of the labour he did undergo for the edification of all he tells the Colossians of the pain he was in particularly for them adding For I would that ye knew how great a combat I have for you and for those of Laodicea It is not without cause saith he that I profess to strive and labour for the edification of the faithful For not to alledg other proofs of it to you GOD knoweth and I desire you also should know that I sustain a great combat for you and your neighbours Laodicea which he speaks of was the head-city of Phrygia nigh to Colosse which was situate in the same Province The Vicinity of these two Cities was the cause of a particular commerce between those Churches which GOD had formed in them whence it comes that the Apostle afterward salutes the Laodiceans by name and orders the Colossians to impart this Epistle to them S. John also in his Apocalyps makes mention of the Church of Laodicea and it is one of the Seven Churches of Asia to which the LORD JESUS commanded him to write in his name And
link Him either with the world or with superstition And this verity that our hearts cannot have true and solid comfort but in JESUS CHRIST alone is so evident that error it self when it is pressed home is constrained to acknowledg it After sufficient dispute about the merit of its works and large boast of the worth of its satisfactions and of the value of its Pontifical indulgences Bellarmin of Justif i. 5. c. 7. and of the Intercession of its Saints it confesseth that by reason of the uncertainty of our own righteousness the safest course is to put all our confidence in the sole mercy of GOD. In other cases which concern our divertisement only I think a man may sometimes without blame chuse the longest and most hazardous way In the case of our Salvation it is an excess of folly without doubt not to take the safest Since by your own confession my doctrine or rather the doctrine of the Gospel is the safer suffer me to hold to it and to pity your imprudence who do amuse the world with that which your self confess to have less of safety and more of hazard in it But I return to the Apostle who having said That he combateth for these faithful people that their hearts might be comforted addeth in the second place they being joined together in charity Their Seducers troubled their Union and casting in a new doctrine among them as a matter of contention ruined their fraternal concord as much as in them lay drawing them into diversity of minds from whence ariseth contrariety of affections It is therefore also for the preventing of this disorder and for the preserving of union in charity among them that the Apostle had so great a conflict For as the Sea abideth peaceable and united during a calm but riseth all in waves that violently dash on one another when the wind begins to bluster So false teachers which are as the winds and gusts of hell do no sooner fall upon a Church but they disturb its peace and put all the members of it in commotion parting them asunder mutinying them and making them miserably clash with each other to their common ruin and the joy of their enemy But S. Paul teacheth us here that the mutual conjunction of the faithful in charity is necessary for the consolation of their hearts to the end saith he that their hearts may be comforted they being joined together in love Indeed what joy and what comfort can a good soul have in the trouble of division Considering withal that JESUS CHRIST who is the only source of our joy doth not communicate Himself to any but such as have a true charity who abide conjoin'd in his body by the Lands of one and the same fame and love In fine the third benefit which the Apostle desireth to preserve among the Colossians and their Neighbours is the abounding of a full and an assured knowledg of the mystery of GOD being joined in charity and in all riches of certainty of understanding in the knowledg of our GOD and Father and of CHRIST This order is well worth the noting For these three things which he hath ranked together here are of such a nature that the first depends upon the second and the second upon the third Consolation upon union in charity and union in charity upon knowledg This last is as the first degree upon which charity is rais'd up and charity as the second which sustaineth the third to wit Consolation Of these three Jewels one cannot be had without the other And as the consolation of the LORD cannot be enjoy'd without the sweetnesses of charity so charity cannot be had without the lights of knowledg But the Apostle doth not simply name that knowledg which he desireth in the faithful He describes it in stately manner as he is wont and intimateth as he proceeds the principal qualities it ought to have which he briefly compriseth in these words all the riches of full certainty of understanding that is to express this Hebrew phrase in the idiom of our own language all abundance of understanding with full assurance and satisfaction He would have therefore first that the knowledg of a Christian be understanding that is that he do perceive and see in the clearness of coelestial light those verities which GOD hath revealed to us not that we are bound to comprehend them all and penetrate the nature of them to the bottom for being the most of them Divine and Supernatural this is impossible for us but that we ought to know what is revealed to us of them because otherwise we should be in danger every moment to be deluded and to take the vain traditions of men for things taught of GOD. Whence appears how far that hood-winkt faith wherewith our adversaries do content themselves is from the knowledg of a Believer This faith if interrogated about Evangelical truth refers it self to the Church in it being ignorant all the while of what it believes and consequently having no spark of understanding Black is not more contrary to white nor darkness to light than this fantasm of faith shall I say or of ignorance to the knowledg which the Apostle here requireth in us He would have the faithful to be intelligent and these people understand nothing at all nay do boast of their ignorance imagining that it is not without merit It is therefore the faith not of a Christian away with such a thought nor of the Collier as they call it no nor of a man indued with reason but the faith of a brute which hath no understanding as the Psalmist sings Secondly the Apostle willeth that we have not meerly understanding but riches yea all riches of understanding that is a great and perfect abundance of knowledg that we be rich in this kind of wealth that we be ignorant of none of the mysteries of Divine truth that we know not the elements or the first maxims of it only but all the inferences that are necessary to guide our lives and to guard us from the ambushes of Satan amid which we go Otherwise how shall we discern the voice of the chief Shepherd from the voice of a stranger to flâ—e from the one and follow the other Whereby you see again how contrary to the doctrine of this holy man the preaching and practice of those of Rome is who license their people to be ignorant and do blame such as not contenting themselves with the first and plainest lessons of Christianity do study the bottom of this saving wisdom outragiously decrying this laudable affection as if it were the way to heresie and hell Finally S. Paul would have this intelligentness of a Believer to be besides its abounding with an entire certainty and assurance making use of a word which he often puts to signifie a full and an assured perswasion when we hold things which we believe to be sure and indubitable For though matters of faith be not laid open either to
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
I am with you rejoycing and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith which you have in CHRIST This is the reason why he advertiseth them to take heed of the wiles of seducers and why he so carefully puts into their hands the means to preserve themselves For some might have thought it strange that being so far from them and in all likelihood ignorant of the state wherein they were he should yet give them such an advertisement He preventeth this surmise and answers that though at Rome he were nevertheless he minded what was a doing at Coloss the affection which he borâ— them obliging him to interess himself in all their concernments Wonder not saith he that I bespeak you in this manner and send you from so far off preservatives against seduction For though so many Seas and Hills do sever my body from you yet my spirit is with you taking part in all that doth betide you rejoycing in the prosperous estate of your piety but likewise fearing the attempts of those enemies which I see round about you ready to sow the tares of Schism and Error upon any the least overture they find for it Some referr his saying that he wasi n spirit with the Colossians to an extraordinary and miraculous operation of the Holy Ghost who replenishing his soul with light made him thereby see things that passed at the greatest distance as clearly as if he had been present after the same manner that GOD had afore-time shewed Elisha what his servant Gehazi did with Naaman a passage which accordingly the Prophet expresseth almost in the same manner 2 Kings 5.26 Went not my heart with thee saith he to Gehazi when the man turned again from his Chariot to meet thee I confess surely that GOD could easily have made known to Paul at Rome in the Prisons of Nero where he was all that pass'd in the Church of Coloss with as much yea more clearness than if he had been present there and have revealed also to him the whole state of other Churches further distant from Italy as he made Ezekiel while living in captivity at Babylon to see the most secret actions of the Jews in the City and the Temple of Jerusalem But because it is dangerous to argue from what GOD can do to what he doth and under colour of some sleight probabilities to resolve upon things which his word doth not at all affirm Moreover since we must not multiply Miracles without necessity I account it best and safest without having receourse to this extraordinary kind of presence to interpret these words of the Apostle simply as others do of a presence in respect of care and affection For nothing is more common in all Languages than to say that our mind is in such places and with such persons as we think upon and have affection to Whence comes the vulgar saying that the soul is where it loves because there it ordinarily keeps its desires its love and its cogitations And it is thus also that we must take what the Apostle saith to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 5. â— that though absent in body he was present with them in spirit He means simply that his bonds did not detain his spirit or shut it up in the Prisons of Rome nor hinder him from minding them every hour and having his affections and thoughts continually among them figuring to himself the estate which they were in in as lively a manner as if he had had them before his bodily eyes and drawing from this lively conception the same movings of joy contentment and fear as the sight of them would have wrought within him So as there need be no wonder if having them so deeply engraven on his heart and still present to the eyes of his mind he become pained for them and at such distance prescribe them necessary precautions and preservatives against the pleasant but pernicious poysons of error And observe I beseech you this holy man's prudent and apt procedure For to justifie that care which he took of them he doth not urge the danger they were in their weakness or the bad inclinations which some of them had This discourse would have been offensive as shewing a distrust of their piety but on the contrary he here tells them of the prosperity of their spiritual estate the beauty of their order and the constancy of their faith Rejoycing saith he and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith Do not imagine saith he that I have an ill opinion of your piety because I do so earnestly advise you to stand fast I am very well satisfied concerning it and do find you in so good a posture that I have much consolation at it this matter being so pleasing to me that it fills my heart with joy notwithstanding the sad estate that I am in But from the same root whence springs my joy my ardent desire to see you go on from good to better doth also arise and with it the sollicitude and care I take to exhort it because it would be an extream regret and displeasure to see Error waste or wound so fair and flourishing a Church ever so little See how by praising them he doth oblige them to regard his advertisements and by the very consideration of their having so well begun doth more and more engage them to holy persevering to the end Thus he also treated the Philippians My beloved brethren said he to them and much desired Phil. 4.1 my joy and my crown so stand fast in the LORD my dearly beloved You perceive of your selves without my indication that when he says rejoycing and seeing your order the meaning is rejoycing to see or for that I see your order For in Scripture-language and even in our vulgar speech the particle and is often used in this sense and signifies because that or forasmuch as He praiseth and extolleth two things in these faithful persons wherein the happiness and the perfection of a Church doth consist to wit Order and a firm and constant Faith By the order of these Colossians he meaneth the good disposition of all the parts of their Church the vigilancy of the Pastors the submission and obedience of the Flock their joint-regard of Discipline each keeping themselves within the bounds of their vocation and both together living in concord and good intelligence honestly and without scandal For that order comprehendeth also purity and sanctity of behaviour the Apostle evidently sheweth in another place where 2 Thess 3.6 to signifie those that lead a scandalous life he saith that they walk disorderly He praiseth also the firmness of their faith in JESUS CHRIST signifying thereby both that full perswasion they had of the truth and divinity of his Gospel and their constancy to hold it fast notwithstanding the assaults and tentations of the Enemy It 's this Faith dear Brethren and this Order of the Colossians that was the matter of the Apostle's joy and the occasion
both of the desire he had to see them persevere still in so good a course and of the advice he gave them not to suffer themselves to be beguiled by the perswasive words of seducers as likewise of the adding that preservative of meditating incessantly upon the treasures of wisdom which are in JESUS for the saving themselves from this mortal danger It 's now our concernment to make a good improvement of so excellent a lesson We are as much environ'd or more than the Colossians sometimes were with people that endeavour to deceive us with words of perswasion that daily make all kind of attempts upon our faith and do not forget the sophisms of subtilty or the charms of eloquence presenting error to us farded with divers specious colours For the securing of our minds from their illusions let us tell them as the Apostle teacheth us That all the Treasures of wisdom are hid in that JESUS CHRIST whom we have embraced that He sufficeth to make us wise to salvation and that we need to know none but Him to obtain happiness If with fair and artificial words they represent to us the necessity of an expiatory Sacrifice for the recommending that of their own Altars or the utility of Satisfactions to make us receive theirs or the horror of fin which hath no entrance into the Kingdom of GOD to perswade us upon their Purgatory or the need we have of an Intercessor to oblige us to have recourse to the mediation of Angels and of departed Saints or of an Head to set up their Pope Let us answer them That we have all this most fully in JESUS CHRIST that His Cross is our Sacrifice His Sufferings our Satisfactions His Blood our Purgation That while we possess Him we shall need neither an Intercessor to open the Throne of the Grace of GOD to us and render both our persons and our prayers acceptable to Him nor an Head to govern and conserve us Let us account all that would turn us aside from Him or place any part of its Treasure elsewhere than in Him to be a seduction and an illusion And as good Physicians do not only preserve from poysons but also draw profit from them by making them Remedies so let us not content our selves to keep the venom of Seducements from hurting us let us manage them in such sort as that they may serve us Let the ardency they have for Error enflame our zeal for the Truth Let their pains-taking and industry sharpen our diligence and care Let us employ that acuteness and eloquence to the defence of the Gospel which they prophane in the service of an Imposture Let us have no less affection for the Cause of GOD than they have for the matters of flesh and blood And instead of the extravagancy of some who love ignorance and rudeness because Error doth abuse Knowledg and Eloquence let us on the contrary thence take occasion to labour in adorning and embellishing of Truth that even in this respect Falshood may have no advantage above it But if the examples of enemies should be of use to us much more ought the examples of Brethren be so which wholly and solely tend to our edification Let us make our profit of that of the Colossians whose faith and order the Apostle praiseth that we might imitate it Let us put our Church into such an estate as may give joy to the LORD to His Angels and to His Ministers I may not deny but that your saith and order may be in some degree praised without flattery since by the Grace of CHRIST my Brethren you persevere in His fear and assiduously rank your selves under His Ensigns no tentation having been able hitherto to make you desert these holy Assemblies But you are not ignorant that together with this well-doing there are many miscarriages among us that there pass divers things in our Congregations smally comporting with the dignity of the House of GOD and that the hardness of some doth stiffen it self against Discipline the only Bond of Order and if our Faith be constant against Error it is too too yeilding unto Vice Dear Brethren I had rather leave the examination of it to your own Consciences than here publish our sin and shame and will content my self with telling you 1 Cor. 6.10 that the Apostle banisheth out of Heaven the vicious as well as the idolatrous GOD who hath granted us to persevere in the profession of His Truth be pleased powerfully to amend by the virtue of His Gospel the defects which His gentleness hath hitherto born with in us and sanctifie us so efficaciously that after we have glorified Him on Earth by the good order of our conversation and the fruirs of a firm and unmoved Faith we may one day receive in the Heavens from His merciful hand the Reward and Crown of blissful immortality in His Son JESUS CHRIST who in the Unity of the Father and of the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth the only GOD blessed for ever Amen THE NINETEENTH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER VI VII VI. Therefore as you have received the Lord JESVS CHRIST so walk in Him VII Being rooted and built up in Him and established in the Faith as you have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving FOrasmuch as man naturally loveth novelty and variety it cometh to pass that he disgusteth the best and most wholsom things when he is held any long time to the usage of them What food was there ever in the world better more savoury more nourishing and more miraculous than that Manna wherewith GOD fed the Israelites in the Wilderness pouring it down daily from Heaven upon them by the Ministry of his Angels whence it is called the Bread of Heaven and the Bread of the Mighty that is of the Angels Nevertheless this wretched people were soon discontented at it disdaining that precious gift of GOD Numb 11.6 and sottishly regretting the fruits and fish of Egypt Our soul said they is dried up there 's nothing here our eyes see nought but Manna Dear Brethren this History is a fit emblem of what hath betided men in reference to JESUS CHRIST and His Gospel the true Bread of Heaven sent down from GOD into the Wilderness of this World for the eternal nutriment of Mankind of which that ancient Manna as you know was the figure according to what Himself teacheth us in the sixth of S. John For our nature is no less delicate nor hath an appetite less extravagant in respect of the Doctrines that are necessary to seed our Souls than it hath in respect of the Meat that is ordained for the refection of our Bodies The truth of the LORD JESUS is embraced at the first with hungring and heat every one admiring the wonderfulness of this heavenly food which wholly exceedeth the productions of the earth But because though it be throughout holy and salutiferous yet it is simple and uniform the vanity of man in desiring change and variety
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
CHRIST the Prince of Life and with that fulness of grace we have received and the holy Apostles preached Mix nothing forreign with it To add to it is to accuse it of imperfection and insufficiency Instead of losing time in the inventions of Error and in the laborious but childish exercises of Superstition Let us employ all hours in good and holy works walking in JESUS CHRIST rooting and building up our selves more and more in him establishing our selves and abounding in faith and testifying and proving the truth of it by a pure piousness towards GOD and an ardent love towards our Neighbour by the fervency of our Prayers the liberality of our Alms the humility of our Deportments the modesty of our Persons the honesty justness and integrity of all our Words and Actions to the glory of the LORD JESUS whom we serve and own for our Master to the edification of men and our own salvation Amen THE TWENTIETH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER VIII Ver. VIII Beware lest any man make prey of you through Philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men after the rudiments of the world and not after CHRIST OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST comparing the society of his faithful ones in the tenth Chapter of S. John to a Flock of Sheep doth advertise us that there are Thieves who coast about this mystical Fold and do come only to steal to kill and to destroy as also that there are Wolves which take away and scatter the Sheep You are not ignorant dear Brethren that under the names of these spiritual Thieves and Wolves he doth represent unto us evil Spirits and the false Teachers whom they set on work who both together earnestly promote the same design though by divers means namely the debauching and alienating of the faithful from the Communion of JESUS CHRIST their only Pastor getting them and appropriating them to themselves as the Thief who takes what is another's and makes it his own Whence ensues their death and destruction For as the Wolf kills the Sheep he hath seized so these Ministers of Satan do bereave of life those whom they pull away from the Flock of Christ out of whose communion there is nothing but death and perdition But these wretched workers do employ as I said many different means to compass their cruel and bloody design Some they take away by downright force making them leave the bosome of the Church by the violence of persecutions or drawing them into the world by the pleasures of the flesh and do bring them even to a renouncing of the very Name of JESUS CHRIST the Prince of Life Against others they make use of fraud training them forth and distancing them by little and little from JESUS CHRIST under fair and plausible pretences so as in the end they have nothing of his left them but a name and a vain unprofitable profession remaining indeed under the power and in the possession of his Enemy It 's against these mystical Thieves and Robbers that the Apostle doth awaken the Colossians in the Text we have read exhorting them to take heed of ' em Before he prayed them to establish to build up to root themselves more and more in the Communion of the LORD JESUS acknowledging with humble gratitude the excellency of his gift mâ—de them 〈…〉 ensure this Treasure to them he adviseth them to watch against th◠〈…〉 ambushes of their Enemies who sought to surprise them and pluck by 〈…〉 tifice of their subtilities and fair discourses JESUS CHRIST out of their hearts and render themselves Masters of them and of their life Beware saith he lest any man make prey of you c. For it is the duty of a good Pastor such a one as the Apostle was not only to seed the mystical Sheep which the chief Shepherd hath committed to his care by giving them the pure and wholsom doctrine of the Gospel the only pasture of souls but also to preserve them with all his power from the paws of Wolves and the hands of Robbers advertising them of the danger and dextrously delivering them out of it by the saving-tone of his voice But as your Pastors are obliged to this care so you see dear Brethren that it is your duty to watch for your own safety to open your eyes and senses that ye may discern a stranger from a domestick a thief from the shepherd the hand of a robber from that of a friend Beware saith the Apostle to you He would not have the faithful be silly sheep that let themselves be led away by the first commer and indifferently embrace all that is offer'd them His will is that we have our senses exercised and habituated in discerning between truth and falshood able to prove all things that we may hold fast what is good and not suffer our selves to be surprised either by the dignity of a Robe or the blaze of Wit or some appearances of Deportment seeing that Angels of Satan do sometimes clothe themselves with light The prudence of the Beraeans is praised by the Holy Ghost Acts 17.11 who examined S. Paul's preaching comparing what he had spoken to them with the Scriptures that they might assuredly know the state of the matter The salvation of our souls is too precious for us to trust any other than GOD in it Whence appears how dangerous that security of implicit faith as they call it is which without any scruple receives all that its Teachers deliver and is so far from examining it that it vouchsafes not so much as to understand it believing it true without knowing it provided only that the mouth which publisheth it hath been opened by the Pope's hand If the question were only of a title those of whom the Apostle adviseth the Colossians here to take heed were Teachers and he contesteth not with them about their dignity in any part of this Epistle He deals with them only about their Doctrine Accordingly the case is concerning Doctrine whether we ought to believe it or no and whatever may be the hand that delivereth it to us if it be false it will not fail to destroy us as poyson doth not forbear to kill though he that prescribed it hath taken his degrees with all the formalities requisite S. Paul too elsewhere with one word overthrows all the prepossessions that might be for any Preachers upon any ever so eminent quality of their persons when he proclaims twice together If we our selves Gal. 1.8 or an Angel from heaven do preach another Gospel to you beside what we have preached let him be an Anathema Be you all that you will you cannot be more than S. Paul or an Angel of Heaven Since their Doctrine ought to be examined by the Gospel for its having reception or being accursed as it should be found conform or contrary thereto it will be no wrong done you if yours be put to the same trial But consider I pray with what emphasis the Apostle recommendeth to us
they used to offend the Faith of the Church and to defend their own Inventions Tertullian This induced one of the most ancient Christian Writers to call them the Patriarchs of Hereticks and to say that all Heresies are maintained by their rules and animated with their spirit and do lodg in their thickets and bushments as in their strong hold He calls them Animals of glory and all Christian Antiquity treats them very coursly as we understand by what is left us of the Books or that time wherein the commerce of Philosophy is accounted so dangerous that it hath been charged upon some as a great crime to have but look'd into Aristotle's Books and learned his Logick On the other side we meet with Fathers also who have high esteem of Philosophy and it cannot be denied but that even they that blame it do make use of it and many times with good success and much to purpose It 's not my design to break up this question or to produce here all that may be said either for Philosophy or against it The holy Apostle doth not oblige me to it as who blameth here not the substance thereof but the ill use of it which false Teachers made employing it either to the inventing or the defending of their errors this he evidently sheweth by that having ordered us to take heed that none make prey of us by Philosophy he adds immediately and by vain deceit by these words limiting what he had generally uttered and giving us to understand that he rejected not the use of Philosophy but when it was made to serve Error and Imposture We must therefore here as in all other subjects carefully distinguish the abuse from the thing it self and the substance from what is accessary to it and the truth from that error which is superadded thereto by the wickedness or weakness of men For there is not a thing in the world so good and so laudable in its own nature but our Vices do foul it in handling the same Intemperance hath defamed Wine Meats and Spices Luxury Gold Silver Precious Stones Silk and Perfumes all of them Creatures of GOD very good and very excellent Cruelty Murther and Parricide have defiled Iron a most necessary instrument of our life and Fire which we cannot be without hath often served the rage and the injustice of Tyrants What is there more admirable than Beauty among the ornaments of the body and then Eloquence among the ornaments of the mind Yet they frequently become through the corruption of men means of debauchery and seduction Not so much as the Scriptures themselves the most salutiferous effect of the goodness of GOD but are sometimes profaned by error and vice ignorance and levity wresting them to mens own ruin and wretchedly turning that to destruction which was not given but for our salvation It is not meant that upon this pretence we should cast off a due using of any of the works of God who being infinitely wise hath made nothing but is useful By this account it would not be lawful to make use of any thing since there is nothing which viciousness and ignorance doth not abuse I say the same of Philosophy If its Authors among the Pagans if Hereticks among Christians have made it serve the interest of error it follows not that it must be totally rejected nor should we do as the man that rooted up his Vines because having taken too much of the fruit of them he was overcharged with it or as he who would have his Rose-bushes burned because he had been sometimes prick'd in gathering their Flowers All that may be thence concluded is that this plant must be discreetly handled the fruit enjoyed but with moderation the flowers gathered but with heed taken of the thorns This is all the Apostle forbids us in it even deceit and not instruction that in it which is vain and not what is found to be solid Error and Sophistry not Science and Ratiocination Philosophy it self doth wash its hands of its Disciples faults It disavows their Errors and renounceth all that they have brought forth without its direction by ill arguing how great soever otherways their reputation be It is so far from defending them that it self affords us weapons wherewith to combat them and offers us its lights to discover the weakness of their false discourses For it hath observed and taught the rules of legitimate Reasoning with such admirable skill that there is no falshood to be met with but it gives us a conviction of So as if error be in the discourses of men of this profession as without doubt there is no small measure it is certain that in this unhappy production they have swerved from their own rule it being impossible that a falshood should ever be duly and rightly concluded from truth Whence it follows that no error or doctrine contrary to truth is to speak properly Philosophy it is an abuse of it It may well be an imagination and an extravagance of the Phil sopher not a part or a true fruit of Philosophy And when the Apostle saith here that Hereticks make a prey of men by Philosophy that is as he addeth by a vain deception he takes the word Philosophy as the vulgar doth for the accustomed and ordinary discourses of Philosophers and not for true Philosophy and that which is properly so called As long as the Philosopher carefully keeps within the bounds of his faculty and transgresseth them not he instructeth and doth not deceive The bounds of Philosophy which it hath set it self are the things that may be known by the light of natural reason While it keeps this road it travels securely and I confess what it teacheth in this kind may do good service to the Gospel so far would it be from clashing with it For who sees not that its discoveries of the nature of Plants of living Creatures of Metals and Meteors of the transmutation of Elements the motions of the Heavens of Times and Seasons of the concatenation of inferior Causes with the superior and the Conclusion it raiseth from this Contemplation That there is above the Universe an Invisible Eternal most Wise and Almighty GOD upon whom it all depends who seeth not I say that this is laudable and excellent and nothing in effect but a report of the handy-work of GOD and a demonstrating of his Divinity If the Philosopher had staid him there and deduced nothing thence but this clear consequence That the same Supream Beeing whose sootsteps and whose glory he had perceiv'd in his works ought to be supreamly adored served sought and loved never had the Apostle ordered us to be afraid of Philosophy for he himself makes use of such discourse Acts 14. 17. when he speaks to the Gentiles as you may see in his Oration to the Lycaonians and the Athenians in the Acts and he doth elsewhere evidently confirm it when he saith That GOD hath made manifest unto men what may be
them Whereas the whole fulness of the Godhead was and is and ever shall be in CHRIST JESUS Therefore the Apostle speaketh expresly in the present tense and saith dwelleth in Him not that it had dwelt in him that no one might imagine it did at any time retreat But how great and admirable soever the signification of the word dwelleth is the Scripture yet doth frequently make use of it to express the continual sollicitudes that the Divine Providence hath of the faithful as when it is said in so many places that GOD dwelleth in the midst of his people and when the LORD himself saith in reference to his Ark whereon he sometime manifested himself to his ancient people I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel Exod. 29.45 and will be their GOD. And when again speaking of Sion he saith It is my rest for ever there will I dwell because I have taken pleasure therein The Apostle therefore to distinguish and sever the dwelling of the Godhead in JESUS CHRIST from the now-mentioned and all other kind of its dwelling otherwhere addeth that the fulness thereof dwelleth in Him bodily He opposeth BODY to a shadow or an image as when he saith afterwards of the Ceremonies of the Law that they were shadows of things to come but the Body is in CHRIST The BODY that is the Truth and thing it self The shadow is but a slight and imperfect representation of it I think therefore that it is in this sense the Apostle saith here that the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily in CHRIST that is to say really and truly in substance and not in shadow in truth and not in figure The Godhead dwelt in time past in the Ark of the Covenant but in shadow only For it was not this Supream Majesty its self that was present there but a Symbol only and some token of its glory whereas it is the Body it self if I may so speak of the Divinity and not its shadow only that resides in JESUS CHRIST all the perfections thereof being in Him really and in their whole truth And hereby is excellently expressed to us that admirable and inessable union of the Divinity with the flesh of our Saviour which the Church ordinarily calls Personal so close an union that this Flesh and the Word which assumed it do make but one and the same Person the Human nature of JESUS CHRIST subsisting only in the Person of the Son For if it were otherwise it could not be said that the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily in CHRIST He would not have the Body of it any more than the Creatures have to whom it communicates its self He would have but some lineaments and shadow of it not the very thing For example GOD dwelt heretofore in his Ark inasmuch as he manifested his presence in it But because the things whiâ—h he set and made to be seen there were not very Nature or the self-same Perfections wherewith it is filled but some simple effects of his Power whereby the Images of some of his Perfections were in some sort delineated it is evident that it cannot be truly said that the fulness of his Godhead dwelt there bodily Thus also maâ—â—sted he himself to Moses in the Burning-bush and afterwards to the Apostles in Cloven-tongues as of fire and before that the Holy Ghost appeared in the form of a Dove But besides that these manifestations being but transient it cannot upon them be affirmed that GOD dwelt in the Bush or in the places where those other Symbols appeared besides this I say it is evident that the flame at the bush was not at all the Divine Nature or any one of its Perfections and that neither the Dove nor the fiery Tongues were any more the proper essence of the Holy Ghost or any one of his real and divine perfections all these things being but forms created of GOD and consequently Productions and Works of his wherein he represented to his Servants as in a Pourtrait or a rough-draught some slight resemblance of what he is indeed Whence it follows that though it might be said which yet may not of the places where these things appeared That the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in them nevertheless it would be false to say that it dwelt in them bodily it being clear that the things by reason whereof it should be said to have dwelt there were not the Body and the truth of his Nature but its shadow and symbol only I say the same of Prophets and of Saints and of Angels themselves to whom GOD most intimately communicates himself For the things by reason whereof the Scripture saith that he dwelleth in them are that holiness that joy and that knowledg which he works and preserves in them in a great measure Now every one seeth that neither the knowledg nor the piety nor the charity nor the joy nor the constant and uninterrupted felicity of the Saints are the very nature of GOD or the Body its self if I may so speak of his immense and incomprehensible Perfections in which the fulness of his Godhead doth consist these things are only effects and works of GOD engravings and impressions of his hand marks of his operation so as how high soever their excellency be and how exact soever the Image of GOD in these Saints is yet it cannot be said that the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in them bodily since it is clear by the things now spoken that it dwelleth in them by shadows only by the illustrious and glorious traces which his operation hath left in them and not in substance It remains then we conclude since the Apostle here expresly asserteth that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily in CHRIST that the Divinity is in him after a quite other manner than either in the Symbols by which it is represented or the Creatures on which it sheds forth its grace and glory that it so dwells in JESUS CHRIST as he hath in him not some dâ—â—â—eations and models by which it is figured forth not those qualities and dispositions alone which it worketh by the presence of its grace in the most holy of its Creatures but its very self that he hath the body and verity of it that is as the Church expresseth this mystery in one word That the Godhead is personally united with his Flesh it being not otherwise possible that the fulness of the Godhead should dwell in him bodily Now that such is this divine union of the Eternal Word with the Flesh of JESUS CHRIST doth appear First from that neither the Apostle nor any other of the Sacred Writers ever said of Saints or Angels what we here read of our Lord namely That all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily an evident sign that this is a glory which appertains to none but him alone Secondly From that the qualities the actions and the attributes of the Divinity are communicated to the Man
that was born of the blessed Virgin and reciprocally the sufferings the qualities and the actions of the Flesh that was born of Mary are attributed to the Eternal Son of GOD as when the Scripture saith That GOD hath redeemed the Church with his own blood that the Lord of Glory was crucified that JESUS CHRIST is before Abraham was that he founded the Earth at the beginning and the Heavens are the work of his hands and other like expressions Dear Brethren such is the sense of these divine words of the Apostle Admire ye the force and the richness of the Scripture which hath in so few words blasted and beaten down all the inventions and dogmatizings of Error against the Truth both of the two Natures of our LORD and Saviour and of the union of them in His Person First These words do overthrow the impiety of those who bereave JESUS CHRIST of his Divinity and reduce Him to the degree and condition either of a meer Man or of a Person raised indeed above man yet made notwithstanding and created at the beginning as well as other Celestial and Terrestrial Creatures How can such blasphemy subsist before this Sacred Oracle which proclaimeth not simply the Divinity but that the Godhead and not this simply neither but that the fulness of the Godhead yea to omit nothing that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily If He be but a Man and no more no part of this fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him neither its Power nor its Wisdom neither its Goodness nor its Justice neither its Glory nor its Eternity For none of these Divine qualities do dwell in one who is but a man We must avouch that he hath in him verily those Perfections that fill up the Godhead that is the Divine Nature or deny that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him But if you grant me as deny it you cannot without giving the Apostle the lye that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him you must of necessity confess also that he is GOD no one if he be not GOD being capable of receiving holding and having in himself the fulness of GOD. For this fulness being infinite there is none but GOD that can contain it since there is not any but he alone who is infinite Now it dwelleth all in our LORD JESUS CHRIST It must therefore of necessity be confessed That He is GOD of a Nature infinite Whereby the frigid and frivolous evasions of those impious men are refuted who taking away from JESUS CHRIST the reality and true glory of Divinity do leave him the name of it and make a titular GOD of him a GOD as they speak created and raised up a while since who hath but the title of GOD not the nature the office not the essence Who can sufficiently detest the audaciousness of these Wretches that by this impiety of theirs do overthrow all the ground-work of the Scripture which hath insinuated nothing more clearly or more expresly than the one-ness of the true GOD Who is too so jealous of his glory as that he forbiddeth us upon pain of death to give his Name or his Worship or his Attributes unto any Creature of what quality soever If JESUS CHRIST be not the true Eternal GOD Creator of the Heavens and the Earth how will you miserable men avoid this condemnation you that give him the name and the adoration of the true GOD But S. Paul lays all their subtilty in the dust by saying formally here that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily The fulness of the Godhead is not an empty name or a titular dignity It is that which fills it it is that gloriousness it is that light it is that nature that truth and that perfection wherewith the Godhead is full It 's this therefore that dwells in JESUS CHRIST the substance of a true and real Divinity not an hollow and a vain shadow it 's the thing and not the title of Deity But as the Apostle doth by these words convince the impiousness of such as bereave our LORD and Saviour of the glory of his Divinity so doth he likewise confound the extravagancy of others who deprive him of his human nature foolishly affirming that he had but a false appearance in that kind For here are two subjects clearly represented to us one that dwelleth to wit the fulness of the Godhead another in which this fulness dwelleth to wit JESUS CHRIST the one is the Temple the other is the GOD that resideth in the same the one our Saviours Human nature the other the Eternal Son of the Father Two real and veritable subjects by the wonderful uniting whereof this sacred and adorable Sanctuary of GOD is made up and composed To take away the truth either of his Godhead with the former or of his Flesh with the latter is to destroy the Fabrick Again these words of the Apostle do in like manner overthrow the error of those who have corrupted the union of these two natures in JESUS CHRIST on one hand by dividing them as did the Nestorians on the other by confounding them as did the Eutycheans For if we sever JESUS CHRIST into two Persons the fulness of the Godhead will not dwell bodily in his Flesh This Man will have but gifts of the Divinity which are as it were some draughts and lineaments of it He will not have the Truth and the very Body of it Neither may it be reply'd That the Temple in which GOD resideth is a substance different from his Person For the Body is the residence of the Soul yet Soul and Body have but one and the same subsistence and do constitute but one and the same Person So as the dwelling of the Son in his Human nature as in his Temple doth not hinder but that this Human nature of his doth subsist with him in one and the same Person Yet though we may not divide these two Natures of our LORD it doth not follow that we must mix and confound them as they do who define the union of them by the Human nature its being made equal with the Divine and will have it to be become infinite and immense and endowed really in its self with all the properties of the Divine nature The Apostle saith indeed that the fulness of the Godhead dwells in CHRIST but he saith not that his Flesh was really chang'd into the Godhead The body by being personally united to the soul doth not thereby become soul It conserveth its own nature and hath only this advantage by that strict conjunction which knits it with the soul that they subsist together and make up but one and the same person Just so the Flesh of our LORD by the Word 's dwelling in it becomes one self-same Person with it being truly the body and the soul and in one word the nature of the Son of GOD yet it still keeps its original beeing and essential properties
LORD And it must be confess'd that this figure is marvellously elegant and proper for this matter For even as the body comprehendeth in its self several members which have each of them their particular function and exercise in like manner this mass of corruption which we bear about in our nature is composed of many different Vices which have each of them their peculiar motion and operation Ambition tendeth one way Avarice and Intemperance another Envy defileth us in one manner Cruelty in another and each of these pests hath its own sentiment and ends Their motions are sometimes even contrary and do thwart one another as unclean spirits that are not at an agreement However at the bottom all these evils come from one and the same source and live in one and the same mass as all the members do make up but one and the same body Hence it is that the Apostle sometimes considering sins under this notion calleth them our members or the members of our flesh Col. 3.5 as when he commands us to mortifie our members which are upon the earth to wit fornication uncleanness inordinate affection and other like Vices Moreover as this body in which we live doth cover us all about so that mass of Vices wherewith our nature is infected doth encompass and on wrap us on all sides there being no part or faculty in us but is as it were invested and besieged with it Such is the corruption that we derive from the first Adam and by reason thereof the Apostle sometimes also calleth it the old man He saith therefore that the circumcision which we have in JESUS CHRIST is the putting off of this body of the sins of the flesh when the faithful person by the virtue of the Word and Spirit of the LORD JESUS doth cut off all the vices of the flesh which are the members thereof and strips himself of this old habit of sin and death wherewith the first Adam clothed us This is that which in the same sense he elsewhere calleth a putting off the old man as to former conversation Eph. 4.22 Col. 3.8 Gal. 5.24 which is corrupted by deceitful lusts And in this present Epistle a putting off of anger malignity and evil speaking and other such sins and again in another place a crucifying of the flesh with its affections and lusts All this amounts to the same sense and signifieth the mortifying of the flesh and the cutting off of its Vices that there may be an abstaining from all the sins which they are wont to produce in the lives of men of the world The Apostle adds in the end that this is the circumcision of CHRIST First because our LORD and Saviour hath expresly instituted it in his Gospel commanding us to be born again to deny our selves to change our deportments to put on a simplicity and humility like that of little children and to break all the ties we have with the flesh and the world if we will follow him and have part in his Kingdom This is the first and most important instruction in his Discipline Secondly It is the circumcision of CHRIST because it 's he alone who is the Author of it and doth effect it in us neither is there ought but his Gospel alone that can unclothe man of this body of the sins of the flesh For it is not possible but that a soul on whom the Doctrine of JESUS CHRIST hath been imprinted by the power of the Holy Ghost should renounce the world and the flesh Philosophy was so far from curing this malady that it did not so much as know it exâ—ctly The Law discovered it indeed and made man to feel the tyrannous strength of this rebellious body of the flesh wherewith he is naturally clothed and surrounded But it was unable to subdue and mortifie it as the Apostle teacheth us at large in the seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans There is none but JESUS CHRIST who by the efficacy of his heavenly truths and the divine examples of his holiness thrust down into our hearts by the hand of his Spirit can circumcise us in this manner unfolding and dis-investing us by little and little of these wretched bonds and weakning and extinguishing the life of the flesh in us Compare now this Circumcision of our Saviour's with that of Moses and you will without difficulty perceive that it infinitely surpasseth it in dignity and excellency That of Moses wounded the body this of CHRIST enliveneth the soul The one par'd away a little skin the other mortifies the whole body of the flesh The one was in its self but a typical ceremony the other is a mystical verity The one mark'd the flesh the other maketh better and ennobleth the heart Without the one a man could have no part in the communion of the carnal Jews and by the other we enter into the alliance of the spiritual Jews whole praise is of GOD and not of men Whereby you may judg how extravagant the conceit of those seducers was whom the Apostle doth in this place oppose who notwithstanding that excellent and divine circumcision which Christians have receiv'd in their Saviour's School would yet bring them under that of Moses which was poor and weak and so many ways defective as if Christians could not upon a far better ground than the Jews glory that they truly are GOD's circumcised Now for a right comprehending of the force of the Apostle's reasoning it must be remembred that circumcision as well as the other ceremonies of the Mosaick Law was a figure which represented the abscission of the vices and lusts of the flesh as the Prophets themselves do clearly enough shew when they promise the ancient people that GOD will circumcise their heart and the heart of their seed Deut. 30.6 Jer. 4.4 that they may love him and live and command them to circumcise themselves unto the LORD and to take away the fore-skin of their hearts an evident sign that this external action did refer to the internal mortification and sanctification of the soul Since then the figure is unprofitable when the truth is attained and models do serve only till the things themselves be formed and perfected the use of them when this is done being no longer necessary you plainâ—y see that from the Apostle's saying here that in JESUS CHRIST we have this putting off or cutting off of the sins of the flesh that is the truth whereof circumcision was the figure and model it evidently follows that it is no longer necessary for us and that a wilful retaining of it still is an accusing of JESUS CHRIST of having not fulfilled in his Discipline the thing represented by this ancient type Iâ—'s true that even in the time of the Old Testament the faithful had some part of the sanctification signifi'd by their circumcision but what they had was weak and in small measure because the true causes on which it dependeth being all comprised in the Mysteries of
the New Testament were then but fore-told and promised not fully and clearly revealed as now by their accomplishment they have been by means whereof it was meet that during all that time they should be exercis'd in the observing of these typical rites and held in and kept under the Pedagogie of Moses until the fulness of time according to the Apostle's Doctrine in the Epistle to the Galatians Now that JESUS CHRIST hath openly exhibited the very body of truth and fully brought to light all the causes and motives of true sanctification these exercises of the Church's infancy are no longer seasonable and they that still stick to them are no less ridiculous than he that would still keep up the centries of a vault or the models of a building even after the Fabrick is finish'd and brought to its perfection or retain under a School-master's Ferule and in the restraints of childhood a man grown up and come to ripeness of years This is that we had to say for the exposition of this Text. It remaineth for a conclusion that we extract those instructions and consolations which if we meditate on it attentively it will afford us First Since the Apostle assureth us that we are compleat in CHRIST you see how vain those mens pretensions are who set forth certain rules of perfection as they call them beyond the Gospel Let us content our selves with our LORD's fulness and seek our perfection in him alone And instead of amusing our selves about the inventions of men embrace and practise CHRIST's Discipline advancing daily towards the utmost degree of perfectness For we may not flatter our selves with an imagination that a man may nevertheless appertain to him though he lead an wholly vicious and corrupt life S. Paul here protesteth plainly to us that all such as are in him are made compleat Whence it necessarily follows that such as are not compleat are without his communion and by consequence should not promise themselves any share in his salvation it being prepared for those only that are in him If this Doctrine do trouble us let us impute it to our vices and our loosness and taking once this truth to heart with all our might endeavour after that perfection which is in JESUS CHRIST accounting that without it we cannot possess either his grace in this world or his glory in the world to come I well know that to speak absolutely no one is perfect and that if we compare our condition on earth with that in heaven all our perfections are but weaknesses Yet it is true that JESUS CHRIST doth even in this life in some sense compleat his faithful ones and this perfection which he giveth them is not a vain name or an imagination It 's a thing and a most real truth it is a piety and charity sincere and free and without hypocrisie which though it sometimes fail doth notwithstanding produce true fruits and works quite different from those of Worldlings and Hypocrites according to what our LORD said even that if your righteousness do not exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven Object not that you are yet on earth and that perfection is not to be found but in heaven and that to live as an Angel one should be without a body It is not the perfection of Heaven that we demand of you The LORD will not reject you for having not had in this life the transcendent brightness of the next But though a child be not obliged to conduct his life with as much prudence and reason as a man of years it doth not follow that he hath licence to live without rule and in the debanches and disorders of slaves Every Age hath its bounds and its measures and its perfection Our childhood here below must not be without discipline under the pretence that it is not come to full growth Christians I complain not that there are defects in your knowledg and practice which have no place in Heaven but that there are in you vices which ought to have no place on earth I blame you not for that there is a great difference between you and Angels but that there is none between you and worldly men I require not what is above the strength of your age but what is worthy of your profession and doth not at all exceed your light I beseech you only to labour as much for JESUS CHRIST as the children of this generation do for the interests of their lusts This doth not exceed the capacity of our nature since you see what the servants of sin do and it s necessarily your duty except you imagine that we owe less to JESUS CHRIST than Worldlings do to their foolish and vain passions The first piece of that compleatness which we have in him is this Divine Circumcision which is not made with hand but by the efficacy of his Spirit Without it we can have neither place in the communion of his people nor right to his Inheritance It 's a Circumcision of which we may truly say that every soul that shall not have receiv'd it shall be cut off from his people The Apostle shews us wherein it consists to wit in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh JESUS CHRIST hath put the sword in our hand that 's necessary to cut away this wretched flesh namely his sacred word wherein he discovers the horridness of sin and infernal venom of vices and the vanity and iniquity of all the lusts of the flesh He hath shew'd us the perdition which they that serve it fall into and hath put it to death on his Cross and buried it in his Sepulcher He hath spread before our eyes the wonders of GOD's love and the eternity of the Kingdom appointed for faithful servants He hath given us rules and examples of this part of our sanctification in his Gospel and in his life and offereth us the lights and consolations of his Spirit to lead us in this work Grasp we then this Divine Knife of his Gospel Thrust it hardily in to our hearts and cut out thence all the impurity of the vices that are there Let us rid our selves of them and cast them behind us Exterminate all the productions of the flesh as execrable things Leave not one of them in our selves Having subdued Avarice combat Ambition Pluck out Luxury and all its passions from our inward parts Root up Hatred and Wrath and Cruelty and spare the life of none of these Monsters Let us not rest until we have cleansed our hearts of all this cursed brood For it is not enough to have cut off some of them One sole Enemy abiding in our bosome is able to destroy us The body of the sins of the flesh must be put off saith the Apostle and not one or two of its sins only I confess the labour is hard but it is necessary and that at all times for it is the
task of our whole life in especial manner at present now that the death of our LORD and Saviour and his resurrection and his holy Supper do call us to extraordinary efforts of piety and sanctity And if the labour be great the felicity and the glory that follows it is infinite Let us employ our selves in it well-beloved Brethren with ardency and generosity put off the body of all our sins that having truly crucified our old man with the LORD JESUS we may also rise again with Him to be enliven'd by his Celestial food and have part for ever after the short trials of this life in His blessed immortality Amen The Twenty-third SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER XII XII Being buried with Him through baptism in which also you are raised again together through the faith of the efficacy of GOD who hath raised Him from the dead DEar Brethren It is very true that the solemnity of this great day which hath been consecrated by all Christians to the resurrection of the LORD JESUS and sanctifi'd by the Mysteries of his Table at which we have communicated doth require more than ordinary devotion and meditations of us Yet I have not needed to seek a subject for the present exercise any other where than in the series of the ordinary Texts which I do in this place expound to you the words I have read which immediately succeed those you heard last LORD's Day excellently suiting each of those duties to which this day is particularly dedicated For they treat of our LORD's resurrection and of the fruits that redound to us thereby as also of Baptism wherein they are communicated to us and which was wont for this reason to be solemnly administred heretofore in the ancient Church on the night before Easter and of that faith by which we become possess'd of this Divine Resurgent Lastly They speak of the interest we have in his burial that sequel of his precious death the blessed commemoration whereof we have celebrated this morning Subjects these which are as is plain to all eminently meet for the devotion of this day This then shall be by the will of GOD the matter of this action Faithful Souls afford it a vigorous and a deep attention elevating your thoughts to JESUS CHRIST the Prince of our salvation and Author of our immortality whiles we shall endeavour to represent to you what his Apostle here teacheth us about our communion in his burial and resurrection You may remember that to confound the impiety of certain Seducers who would oblige Christians to Mosaical Circumcision this holy man alledg'd in the precedent Text that we have in JESUS CHRIST that substance and truth whereof the Judaical Circumcision was but the shadow and model having in him put off the body of the sins of the flesh so as having receiv'd through the grace of JESUS this mystical and divine circumcision the other carnal and typical one is altogether useless to us and cannot be desired or practis'd by Christians without wronging their Saviour He still prosecutes that same intention and to shew how rich that sanctifying-grace is which we have in JESUS CHRIST he adds that besides our being circumcised by the virtue of his word and divested of the body of the sins of the flesh we have moreover been buried with him through Baptism and further that we are therein risen again with him through the faith of the efficiency of GOD who raised him from the dead For a right understanding of these words we are to consider First The communion we have both in the burial and resurrection of our LORD JESUS CHRIST And secondly The twofold means by which this communion is given us to wit Baptism and the Faith of the efficiency of GOD who hath raised our LORD from the dead The Apostle expresseth the first point in these words Being buried with him in which also you are risen again together As for our burial with the LORD you know that having suffer'd on the Cross that dolorous and accursed death which we had merited his sacred body loosned from that mournful tree and wrap'd up in a sheet was by Joseph of Arimathea laid in a new Sepulcher where it remained three days without motion without respiration and without life in this sad state the last of our infirmities until the beginning of the third day when he gloriously rose again The transcendent wisdom of the Father which ordered all the parts of this great work proceeded thus here very fitly to justifie the truth of his Son's death by his stay in the grave For if he had resum'd his life immediately after he laid it down and descended from the Cross alive again I confess such a Miracle might have astonish'd and transported the minds of the Spectators and demonstrated that this Divine crucified Person was more than man But on the other hand it would have rendred his death suspicious and without doubt made men imagine that it had been but a feigned and false appearance and no real separation of his soul from his body which opinion would evidently have shaken and overthrown our salvation it being entirely founded on the death of the LORD JESUS Whereas therefore it so highly concerns us to believe the same GOD hath in such sort assured and certifi'd the truth that we have not any shew of reason to call it in question For this cause it was his will that the LORD JESUS having commended his spirit into his hands should be laid in the Sepulcher and continue there three days there remaining after this no more cause to doubt but that he was truly dead since he was so long a time in the state of the dead Moreover our consolation required that he should enter into our Sepulchers to take away for us the horror of them and to assure us by His example that they have not force enough to detain our bodies for ever or to hinder them from rising one day again It 's for these reasons and other such that JESUS CHRIST would go down into this death's last entrenchment The Apostle saith then that true believers have been buried with him How so you will say seeing that they being living persons were never laid in the grave and surely not in our LORD's that was situate on Mount Calvary nigh to Jerusalem places very far distant from our abode Dear Brethren there is no man so gross but doth plainly see that these words are not to be taken according to the letter but figuratively and that they signifie not a natural but a mystical Sepulcher And in such a sense it may be said two manner of ways That we have been buried in CHRIST or with CHRIST First in regard of our justification that is the remission of our sins And secondly in regard of our sanctification and the mortifying of the old man For as concerning the first it is evident that JESUS CHRIST was not buried as neither was he crucified and put to death but for us only
to come But at the bottom and in themselves they contained no such thing in effect On the contrary they were so many obligations upon a sinner openly testifying that he stood obnoxious to the Justice of GOD. For the aspersions and purifications that were made by washing or pouring water upon men did evidently shew that such as receiv'd them were defiled and unclean And Circumcision was a publick confession of the impurity of our nature which did declare that it needed to be cut or retrenched And they that offer'd Beasts to be slain for sacrifices did by that very act acknowledg they had deserved death Those that observ'd the Fasts and other mortifications of the Law did protest they were unworthy to use the Creatures of GOD. And thus it was in the rest of their Ceremonies All their devotions of this nature were either images of the punishment they deserved or an avouchment of their guiltiness and so many proofs and convictions of their sin For to imagine that these carnal Ceremonies did truly expiate their offences was not possible for them to do both by reason of the absurdity and extravagancy of the thing it self and also for that GOD had a thousand times advertised them of the contrary by the mouth of his Prophets So you see in my opinion clearly how all the Law of Moses was no other than an obligation against us an instrument of our condemnation an evidence of our sin and a justification of our punishment Wherefore the Apostle elsewhere calleth it in the same sense and for the same reason the ministration of death 2 Cor. 3.7 9. and of condemnation because in effect it did properly serve only to form and prosecute and finish the sinners arraignment as affording full demonstration both of his guilt and of the penalty due to him giving in evidence concerning his crimes and making known the Justice of GOD in judging and punishing him And hereto must be refer'd what he elsewhere notifies namely Rom. 3 7. Gd. 3 1â— Rom. 7. â— that by the law was given the knowledg of sin and that it was added because of transgression and again that without the law he had not known sin As for what the Apostle addeth here in the second place That this obligation of which he speaks doth lye in Ordinances we have touched at it already and referred it to that large multitude of Commandments wherein it consisteth For I do not see that any thing doth oblige us to restrain this clause to the Ordinâ—â—â—â—s of the Ceremonial Law as some do It comprehendeth generally all that the Law Ordains of what kind or rank soever it be And it seems to me that the Apostle's scope and aim doth so require For he urgeth GOD's having â—bolish'd that obligation which consisted in Ordinances to prove that he hath freely pâ—â—doned our offences which he had been saying Why and how 〈◊〉 Because saith heâ— or inasmuch as he hath cancell'd by the cross of his Son the obligation that was against us Verily it seemeth that this reason will be beside the purpose if the obligation that was made void were not that of the whole Law as the offences which have been forgiven us in consequence of the abolishing of this obligation are generally all sins committed against any part of the Law whichsoever and not only transgrâ—ssions of the Ceremonial Ordinances And whereas the Apostle in the following Verses doth argue from this Doctrine against the Ceremonies only who knoweth not that it is ordinary to reason from the whole unto one of the parts As when elsewhere in the Epistle to the Galatians having laid it down in general that the Law of Mâ—ses cannot at all justifie us he thence inferreth against the seducers that by câ—nsequence neither circumcision nor the other ceremonies can have this virtue just as in this place having setled this principle that the Mosaick Law was abolish'd by the Cross of our Saviour he afterwards doth with reason thence conclude that we are no longer obliged to its ancient Ceremoniâ—s But the Apostle saith in the third place that this obligation whereof he speaks was contrary to us This as you see doth also suit well with the Law Of it self I confess it is good and holy and prontable and salutiferous unto man as that that would lead him unto â—e But it is become contrary to us through cause of sin whereof we are all guilty For it serves to convict us of it as an Obligation which being produc'd in judgment stops the mouth of an unfaithful Debtor It is as it were our Adversary that impleadeth us and lays open our crimes and brings upon us that condemnation to which we have submitted in accepting and signing it And as for its Ceremonies besides that they witnessed the sin of those who practis'd them as we have said they were also contrary to us in another kind even as putting a new yoak upon us which through their vast multitude and diversity was heavy and unsupportable Yâ—t it must be observed that this seems not to be properâ—y the thing which the Apostle intends here the word he makes use of in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying that this obligation was not simply contrary to us but contrary in some sort I think then that by this word he prevents an Objection that might be made him For though the Law might some one say be an obligation against us yet is it nevertheless useful since it sheweth us our sin and misery and by that means forceth us to have recourse to the mercy of GOD that we may seek our salvation in his Grace alone which was in effect the true end for which GOD gave it to the Israelites The Apostle granting this as a truth doth affirm That this obligation was notwithstanding in some fort contrary to us For first It telling us only of obeying or being punished and thundering out on all hands that dreadful voice Cursed is every one that continuâ—th not in all things written in the law to do them did darken the clearness of the grace of GOD and perplex poor sinners filling them with affrightments and hindâ—ing them from full discerning of the clemency and mercy of the LORD Thenâ—â—g in it aggravated their pains by its ceremonies the true scope of which it was at that time very difficult to comprehend aright And lastly It shut the gate of the House of GOD against the Gentiles of whose number the Colossians were it being as an enterclose that separated them from his people and consequently cloigned them from his grace and pâ—rdon which he giveth not to any but such as are in his Covenant If therefore it were not absolutely contrary to us yet it cannot however be denied but that it was so in some sort In fine the Apostle saith that this obligation which was against us hath been effaced and entirely abolished and fastned to the Cross which also agreeth very pâ—â—per'y to the Law of Moses of which
other But now the LORD JESUS hath abrogated this adhering to places to times and to the elements of this world as a low and childish exercise and appointed for his people a service altogether spiritual and divine proportioned to that admirable light of knowledg which he hath shed into the hearts of the faithful a service that wholly consisteth in love to GOD charity and beneficence towards our Neighbour and in honesty and purity in respect of our selves This is the true service of the Deity worthy of man that presents it and of GOD that receives it since man is a reasonable Creature and GOD a Spirit infinitely good and holy according to what our Saviour addeth that the Father seeketh such to worship him and that being a Spirit they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth But though this kind of service be so just and so rational in its self and though the LORD JESUS have so clearly instituted it by his Divine Authority yet on the other part the inclination of our nature is so violent towards gross and earthly things that even among those who make profession of acknowledging JESUS CHRIST for the Son of GOD a multitude is found that cannot let go these bodily exercises in which a part of Divine Service did heretofore consist The Apostle testifies in divers places that there were such in his time 1 Tim. 4.3 and he advertiseth us in others that there would also be such in after-ages and the event hath precisely answered his prediction an evident sign it was the Spirit of Truth that is the Spirit of GOD which illuminated his understanding and caused him to see in those days things hidden in a time to come so far beyond the reach of the natural sight of men It 's against these people that he laboureth in this Chapter for to defend from their abusing them not only the Colossians to whom he writes but also the faithful of all Ages He laid firm and unmovable foundations of the truth in his foregoing discourse and the same as his manner is with great strength and glorious evidence shewing us that we have all those advantages plentifully in JESUS CHRIST upon pretence of which error would introduce its inventions and carnal observations that in him we have all fulness necessary to compleat us that his Resurrection and his Spirit do divest us of all the vices of the flesh and that his Cross doth give us full remission of our sins since it hath both made void the obligation concerning all the punishments we owed to Divine Justice and triumphed of all those powers that were capable of accusing or tormenting us Whence it clearly followeth that it 's a vanity for any to go about to oblige us unto legal and material observations seeing that we most perfectly have in the death and resurrection of our LORD all that sanctification and justification for the advancing of which it is pretended that these things do serve This is Dear Brethren the direct conclusion that the Apostle doth now deduce from that excellent and divine Doctrine which he established afore Therefore saith he let no man condemn you in meat or in drink or in the distinction of a festival day or of a new moon or of sabbaths Which things are shadows of those that were to come but the body of them is in CHRIST He first forbids them to suffer themselves to be put in subjection to these legal things and next he brings them a reason for it taken from their nature for that these things were but shadows of which JESUS CHRIST hath exhibited to us and given the true body These shall be by the will of GOD the two points we will handle in this Exercise observing in the one and the other of them what we shall judg conducible to your edification Those Seducers whom the Apostle opposeth in this place had drawn the devotions which they would add to the Gospel partly from the Mosaical Law partly from Heathen Philosophy and partly out of their own imagination whence it comes that in one of the precedent Verses he advised the Colossians to beware that no one made a prey of them by philosophy and vain deceit Col. 2.8 after the tradition of men and the rudiments of the world They had borrowed from Moses circumcision and the distinction of meats and days They had beg'd from the Schools of Philosophy the worshipping of Angels and the vain discourses wherewith they colour'd over this abuse and they had invented of themselves certain austerities and pretended mortifications of which they made great account in Religion See I beseech you what an heap of strange things the Spirit of Superstition did even at that time thrust into Christianity that you be not amazed if men in so many ages as have rouled down since those days pursuing the same design unheeded according to the passion of their flesh have by little and little quite fill'd up Religion with the like services and observations and as it were foul'd and dirted that pure and clear Fountain of our Saviour's Discipline with the dregs and sediment of their inventions For if flesh had the impudence to promote such abuses during the lives and under the eyes of the Apostles how much more would it have the boldness to enterprise and facility to execute it during the night of so many ages which were not only destitute of the light of those great Tapers but also overspread with the darkness of grossest ignorance But let us see how S. Paul condemneth the Traditions of those of his age to the end we may preserve our selves from those of our own by the example and authority of his Doctrine He spake before of circumcision to which they would have had Christians still submit themselves He now takes to task their other abuses and first the distinction they made of days and of meats and next in the verses following their Doctrine touching Angels and the worship they gave them and last of all their Disciplines and Mortifications from the 20th Verse to the end of the chapter We will see by the grace of GOD the two other parts of His dispute each of them in its place As for the former the Apostle taxeth here two sorts of destinctions or observations which these men made in religion the one of meats the other of days And as to the latter he noteth particularly and by name some of the days which they observed to wit Festivals new Moons and Sabbaths But about the other he expresseth himself in general only saying simply Let no man condemn you in meat or in drink without declaring particularly the kind of meat or drink which they prohibited or permitted so as the Apostle not telling it us and we having no light in it neither any other way it is not easy for us to know precisely what the meats were the distinction whereof these people did set up For first the Law of Moses whence they
confess I have done wrong to accuse you of crossing the doctrine of S. Paul But who knows not that it is a devotion for dayes and not the profit of men that makes you observe them You believe you do GOD service in this very thing that you feast one day and fast another You give it to the dignity of the day and not to the necessity of order or to your edification neither do you esteem dayes alike Those which you observe you set up very high above others not only by reason of the Church's command but because they have the honour to represent and signify some mysterious thing Accordingly you hold that besides the use which Festivals may be of for your instruction and your having time for works of piety your very solemnizing of them is a Religious act such as makes up a part of Divine service and is as you say meritorious in the sight of GOD which is exactly the opinion and the practice of those whom the Apostle in this place doth oppose For they condemned Christians not for absence from the assembly of the Church on the day appointed for it or for having profaned such howers in the world as were destin'd unto the service of GOD or for having scandaliz'd their neighbour by this kind of fault but only and precisely as you do for not having celebrated a Festival-day What shall I say of the other point to wit the use of and abstinence from meats The Apostle saith Let no man judge you in eating In conscience dare you affirm that you judge none of the faithful in this behalf What mean then those so rigorous laws of yours against them that eat any flesh those laws of yours that deprive Christians of this liberty for more then one third of the year and condemn that man who during all this time shall tast one bit of Bief or Mutton to as heavy penalties as if he had committed a deadly sin You are come so far as you look not upon those who violate these fine laws as sinners You abhorr them as proâ—ne persons and Atheists and count them not for Christians Is not this a grave and holy discipline and well worthy of S. Paul and JESUS CHRIST to make the service of GOD consist in meat whereof neither abstinence Matth. 15. 1 Cor 8 8. Rom. 14.17 nor use as reason sheweth every one and as our Saviour and His Apostle do teach doth pollute or sanctify doth bring loss or gain it being a thing purely indifferent in it's self good or evil only as it hurts or helps the interests of temperance and charity But we shall have shortly a fitter occasion to speak unto you of this subject more at large For the present Beloved Brethren make your profit I beseech you of S. Pauls instruction Use the liberty which the LORD JESUS hath obtained for you as His Apostle doth declare It is not reasonable that men should take from you what GOD hath given you and bought with the precious bloud of His Son Only see Gal. 5.13 that you take not this liberty for an occasion to live after the flesh Lay by shadows since you are no longer children But embrace the body which is in JESUS CHRIST His Kingdom is neither meat nor drink and no one will He condemn for having eaten any of the things which he hath created for the faithful to use with thanksgiving If He otherwhile prohibited some of them it was to deliâ—â—ate and figure out by this fleshly abstinence that which is mystical and spiritual whereunto He hath shaped you by His cross Your abstinence Christian is to renounce the meat that perisheth to loath the passions and productions of vice whereon the world doth feed It nourisheth it's self with the works of sin Avarice and ambitions and injustice and luxury and the ordures of wantoness and the infamous sweets of revenge are the aliments it runs after and cannot live without This is O ye faithful that flesh the usage whereof is forbidden you This is the Lent which JESUS CHRIST and His Apostles have in truth enjoyned a Lent to be observed not fourty dayes only but all the year long even that we abhorr what is evil that we eschew vice as poison that our lives be pure and innocent and clean from all the filthines of the flesh This is in truth that abstinence that makes a Christian and without which no man can have place among the members of CHRIST Gal. 5.24 6.14 For they that are His have crucify'd the flesh with the affections and lusts therefore The world is crucify'd to them It 's provisions it's pleasures it's allurements are had in execration of them Whoever he be that fasteth this Lent exactly he shall have part in the resurrection of CHRIST JESUS Not a man shall attain thereto otherwayes Prosecute it in good earnest Christian Souls and powerfully mortify in your selves all the lusts of this accursed flesh which perisheth it's self and will make all those perish too that desire it's delights and cannot wean themselves from it's deadly dainties See what JESUS CHRIST hath done and suffer'd for the destroying of it See the excellency of that other divine food on which He would have you live Your true food is to fulfil the will of His Father This is the food of the Prince of glory and of all His Angels food that is holy and immortal which will leave in your Souls a divine relish and contentment much better then all the feasts on earth and after the consolations wherewith it will solidly strengthen your consciences in this life eternally repast you in the Heavens with the delights of blissful immortality Brethren this is the body whereof the abstinence of the Jews was the shadow and delineation only As for their festivals they were also figures verily not of those in Rome which to say true are meer shadows and weak repesentations themselves no less then these of the Jews only they are instituted by men whereas the Jewish were ordeined of GOD they were I say figures of the resting and spiritual contentment of the faithful Origen against Cels s. l. 8. p. 404. Our festival as one of the ancients heretofore answered a Pagan that reproached Christians for their having none our festival is to do our duty to worship GOD and offer Him the unbloudy sacrifices of our holy supplications to rest from our own works and entirely sequester our selves to the work of GOD to exterminate from among us that really servile and mechanick labour of vitious actions and spend our lives in the truly noble and divine exercise of Sanctification Our Passeover is to eat the flesh of the Lambe to make use of His bloud to pass out of Egypt unto Canaan out of the world unto GOD and from Earth to Heaven leaving the things that are behind and advancing daily towards the mark and prize of our calling Our Pentecost is to converse with CHRIST in heavenly places
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
be more accessible unto us Joh. 14.1 6. Eph. 3.12 He proclaimeth in a thousand places that He is the way the truth and the life and that no man cometh to the Father but by Him that it is He by whom we have boldness Mat. 11.28 and access with confidence by faith in Him He calleth us unto Himself Come unto me saith He and I will give you rest And His Ministers do not only permit us to go to Him Heb. 4.16 they command and press us to do so Let us go say they with boldness to the throne of Grace that we may obtain grace and mercy to help in time of need Insteed of obeying these holy and divine calls of GOD and His Ministers you say No I will not do it I am not so presumptuous as to go either to GOD or to His Son I must beg the intercession of Angels and Saints to present me before that supream light In conscience is not this an exalting of your self above GOD Is it not a presuming that you know better than He what belongs to your duty and His service Is it not an hiding under the fine words of a feigned humility plain rebellion and disobedience to His Holy Majesty which is in effect the highest pride a creature can be guilty of since it is at the bottom a pretending that you are wiser than He and that the way He prescribes you is neither so good nor so reasonable as that which you have chosen But let us forbear any further arguing For where the Apostle speaks there is no need that we should discourse His authority relyes not on the succour of our reasons Here you see it is express against our adversaries corrupt usage He formerly condemns the thing they do For they approve and daily practise this service of Angels which S. Paul forbids us and ground it upon that same humility of spirit the pretexture whereof He hath voided and destroyed becoming doubly culpable both for rebuilding if I may so say this Jericho of superstistition which he hath domolished and for employing in it the very stones which he hath blasted from Heaven What can error say against so clear a determination By what charms can it turn away this flash of lightning from falling on its head Dear Brethren it is too much in love with its own inventions to give glory to GOD and will rather renounce His word than quit its superstitious imaginations In the present matter seeing its self pressed it hath recourse to subtilty and though it both maintain and practise the worshipping of Angels and cannot deny but 〈◊〉 the Apostle condemns those who teach and practise it yet it pretends with an 〈◊〉 â—ible boldness that it is not it the Apostle doth condemn It hath turned its 〈…〉 ways to effect this illusion all which to say the truth have more hardi 〈…〉 in them And to begin at this one the famousest of its last Advocates 〈…〉 â—ink ill satisfied in his conscience with the subtilty of his fellows hath bethought himself of a new gloss unheard of till now in all the Schools of Christianity both antient and modern born of his own conceit alone a very fruitful breeder of such productions and begotten by meer despair of his bad cause Du Perron in His Repl. to K. James p. 909. This man then affirms that S. Paul doth mean by the service or religion of Angels not as all the Fathers and all the Modern have believed the worshiping of Angels but as he all alone will have it the Law of Moses First the novelty of this gloss and the very consideration that for the space of neer sixteen hundred years not so much as one single man hath been found that was aware of it doth sufficiently shew that it is the heat of disputation and not the truth of the thing which suggested it to the author of it and the maxims of his Church he doth evidently renounce too which willeth that Scripture be not interpreted but by the Fathers whereas he laying by their exposition brings in one here that is not only undiscernable in any one of them but also directly contrary to the most Chrysoâ—â— Thâ—odoret Oâ—â—umâ—â— Tâ—â—â—philact and most renowned of their number who do understand these words of the Apostle of the worship done to Angels by those Seducers whom S. Paul doth in this place oppose But I say moreover that it is for good reason that no man ever thought upon it since in very deed it is not maintainable nor can be at all accorded either with the Apostles words or with his scope and design Not with his words for they must be interpreted according to the stile of the Authors of that tongue wherein he writes Now there are but two or three places in Scripture where the word used by the Apostle doth occur so construed as it is in this place One is in S. James Jam. 1.26 If any man among you saith he seems to be religious and bridles not his tongue but deceiveth his own soul that mans religion or service is in vain Another is in the book of the Acts where S. Paul saith that from the beginning he lived a Pharisâ—e Act. 26.5 after the accuratest sect saith he of our religion The word is found again so construed in the book of Wisdom held for Canonical by our adversaries and which though it be not such indeed yet is writ in Greek with the same language and the same stile that the Books of the New Testament are This author then makes use of the word in the same manner Wisd 4.27 The abominable service saith he or religion of idols is the beginning the cause and the end of all evil In all these places the religion or the service of any one doth signifie either the service he does to some other as in the two former passages or the service that is done to him by others as in the latter of them Here therefore except you think the Apostle swerved from the stile wherein he wrote the service or religion of Angels must of necessity signifie one of those two things either the service which the Angels do perform to GOD or the service which men perform to them The first of these two senses cannot take place by the confession of our adversaries themselves and of every sober person They must then necessarily admit the second and confess with us and with all the Ancients that by the service of Angels S. Paul intends not the Jewish religion or the Law of Moses but the religious service which these Seducers rendred to Angels under pretext of humility Moreover in what Prophet in what Apostle in what rational Author either Antient or even Modern have these men ever found this novel and extravagant manner of speaking the service of Angels that is to say the Jewish religion Verily it is called the Law of GOD because GOD instituted it the Law of Moses because
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
saith he ye be dead with CHRIST as to the rudiments of the world why are ye burthened with ordinances as if ye lived in the world Afterwards he reports and expresly specifies some of those ordinances which men would impose upon the faithful namely Eat not Touch not Taste not The force and the coherence of his argumentation is evident 'T is an injustice saith he and a tyranny still to burthen those with worldly ordinances who are dead to the world You are dead to its rudiments by the benefit of CHRIST who hath by His death abolished all this kind of carnal disciplines and services and nailed up and torn upon His Cross the obligation to them By His grace you live no longer in the world in the School of Figures and terrene Ceremonies You live henceforth in Heaven in the light and liberty of the Spirit For S. Paul doth sometimes apply the word world to the state of GOD's people within their land of Canaan heretofore in the school of their Moses and the performance of a terrene and carnal service And therefore it is that he elsewhere terms the Levitical Sanctuary Heb. 9.1 a worldly Sanctuary The faithful then being without this Mosaique world it is clear that no man justly can impose upon them in matter of religion any laws or ordinances of this nature and that such as attempt it do outrage Him that freed them and oppress the liberty of His people and that every one may justly reject their yoke and oppose their tyranny Neither may it be alledged that the ordinances promoted are none of Moses's but others quite different For what ones soever they be a yoke they are and every yoke of what matter and form soever deprives us of our liberty Besides very probable it is that the Apostle does as we have expounded it by the rudiments of the world intend not particularly the Mosaical service alone but generally all such service as is bodily and of the same nature that that of Moses was And in fine though you should take it simply for the Mosaique laws yet would S. Pauls argument be good and conclusive from the greater to the less as who should say If you be set free from the yoke of Moses which was framed and put upon the necks of the antient people by the express appointment of GOD how much more from one of men If CHRIST hath delivered you from such ordinances as it cannot be denyed but GOD was author of how intolerable is the headiness of those men who burthen you with their laws Indeed who can believe that GOD should have freed us from commands of His own to put us under those of others and that His Son should have delivered us from a yoke of GOD's to load us with one of mortal mens and that He should have exempted us from the rod of Moses to yeeld us up unto the scourges of these new Rehoboams As to these ordinances which the Apostle here produceth doubtless they were the Seducers and not his own as the Author of the Comment on S. Paul that goes under the name of S. Ambrose some one of the Ancients against all semblance of truth and reason did imagine S. Paul's saying afore Let no man condemn you in meat or in drink doth sufficiently shew that they were the magisterial ordinances of these pretended Legislators who did very severely command their people not only to forbear the eating but even the tasting and touching of such meats as they prohibited The first of those three words that the Apostle useth does in the Greek language properly signifie to touch and the Latin Interpreter as also many others have taken it in that sense here translating Touch not tast not handle not And our adversaries of Rome do understand it of the prohibitions in the Mosaique Law of touching or handling a dead body for instance or such other things as the Jews might not touch without being counted unclean In like manner they referr what is said of tasting to the prohibition of eating Swines-flesh and the Hare and other meats the use whereof was not permitted in the Law as if the false Teachers at whom the Apostle aimes would have introduced among Christians no other ordinances then those of the Mosaique Law But this whole exposition is incommodious and crosseth the Apostle's meaning If he had had that thought it would have sufficed to say once Touch not without superadding a third word of the same signification to wit touching or handling Not to urge that this cannot accord with that which follows where he saith that these things were set up after the commandments and doctrines of men it being evident that the prohibitions in the Mosaique Law were made by the authority not of men but of GOD so as if the Seducers had press'd no other thing it had been harsh that I may not say false to accuse them of making ordinances after the doctrines of men and they would without doubt have answer'd that they were founded upon the commandment of GOD. In fine the Apostle's saying that the things an abstinence from which the Seducers ordered were all such as did perish in the using doth subvert this exposition and evidently shew that the things forbidden by those false Teachers were only meat and drink and not dead bodies or other substances the touching whereof was prohibited by the Law For since the things he speaks of are consumed are destroyed and do all perish by the using and on the other hand it is most evident that the things which the Jews were forbid to touch are not at all of that nature that is such as perish in the using it must of necessity be concluded that it is not of them S. Paul speaks but of those only that serve for the food of man which are all consum'd by the use that is made of them in eating or drinking the same And in the end we must come back to the interpretation that our Bibles do exhibit which have very rightly rendred this passage in these words Eat not taste not touch not For though the first of these three words does frequently and commonly signifie to touch yet such as understand the Greek doe know that it is sometimes taken for to eat As our Expositors have produced instances of from good and irrefragable Authors Now in these three words thus ranked as they are the Apostle represents unto us by the way both the order of the scrupulous devotions of superstition and the progress of the tyrannie of these Legislators At first they forbid the eating of certain meats that is the using them at your ordinary meals If they win this ground they proceed further and will debarr you even from tasting them At last they possess you with scruple to touch them as if the mere contact of such things were apt to pollute you There is no end in the scruples of superstition nor any measure in it's devotions and observances It heaps them up daily
a perpetual disorder which displaceth every thing and overturns all yet all hath its certain causes It 's therefore with a great deal of reason and elegance that the Apostle compares this strange convention of so many evils which are so divers and do all work with some sequel and dependance unto a body and each of those vices of which it is composed as covetousness fornication and the like unto the members of a body He calleth them our members because that old man which is made up of them is wholly ours and does invest all the principles of our life from their root and invelope them and mingle so deeply with them that it all in a sort is nothing but corruption and malady this venome infecting all the actions and all the motions of our nature its understanding its affections and passions together with the thoughts words and actions which flow from them so that as our animal and natural life consisteth in the exercising of our members and in their actions in like manner our moral life is all of it nothing but a continual exercising of these vices and of the sins they produce as is to be clearly seen if you consider the lives of profane and unregenerate persons For they are nought else but a continual exercise of vices of ambition of vanity of covetousness of luxury and sensuality as they are addicted more or less to the one or the other of these sins the perpetual running of a foul and muddy stream which a corrupted spring doth daily thrust forth that you cannot observe so much as one of its swellings or rollings exempt from its filthiness And this may suffice for comprehending the reason why the Apostle calls these parts of the old man our members For as to that consideration which some do propose in this matter namely that the members of our bodies having been created of GOD they are not ours but in regard of use and not in regard of their original whereas the members of the old man are ours all manner of waies having been made and formed in us by our own fault and naughtiness and not by the hand of GOD who created man upright and pure man distorting and depraving himself this conceit I say seems to me more subtil than solid For though the matter of it be very true yet it is so wide from the Apostles design in this place that there is little likelyhood he thought upon it when he called the vices here of our corrupt nature our members Without doubt he so doth only because it is in the exercising and acting of these vices that the carnal life of men doth consist For the rest if you remember what we said upon the precedent Text of the death of the old man in us you will not think it strange that the Apostle after having said that we are dead does not yet forbear to exhort us to mortifie the members of this same life which we have put off in JESUS CHRIST For our being dead in this respect doth not import that the life of the flesh is entirely and absolutely extinct in us this will not be effected untill we shall quit it at our leaving of the earth and put on coelestial and spiritual bodies at the day of the resurrection but the Scripture doth thus speak first because JESUS CHRIST hath by His death His resurrection and His ascension into Heaven destroyed and abolished all the causes that gave nutriment and sustenance to the life of the old man and secondly because the old man 〈◊〉 receiv'd his deaths wound in each of us by the faith that ingrafted and incorporated us into JESUS CHRIST so as if we persevere it is not possible that he should recover But this death of His as we said doth not arrive all at once It 's executed by little and little and the exercise of a believer during his stay here below is to busie himself incessantly about it daily to weaken and wound that flesh of his which is already nailed to the cross of his LORD to entinguish by little and little all the life it hath remaining that is to mortifie his members as the Apostle here speaks In this sense you see these two conceptions are so far from having ought that 's contrary or incompatible in them that quite otherwise the one doth evidently and necessarily follow from the other For since we are dead in JESUS CHRIST since the arrest of the death of our old man is past since JESUS CHRIST hath done on His part all that was necessary to execute it since this flesh condemn'd is already fastened to His cross it is evident that it ought to live no longer and that by consequent each of us should incessantly bestirr our selves to put it to death by mortifying its members beating down and weakening their vigour driving deep into them our Saviour's nails and thorns untill they be effectually reduced unto that state of death unto which they were condemned having no more either motion or sentiment or force or life at all in us Lo My Brethren the thing the Apostle means by these words mortifie your members To say it in a word he would have us weaken and extinguish the vices of our old man and put them in such a state of death as hath no more strength nor vigour nor stirring But as this holy man's whole language is full of profound wisdome I am of opinion he thus speaks to give a further blow to those seducers whose error he had been refuting in the fore-going chapter These men to recommend their disciplines gave out that they did not at all spare the body that they had no regard to the satiating of the flesh that they oppos'd its pleasures and humbled and mortified it And you know that this is at this very day the language of those votaries who place Christianity in such exercises They speak of nothing but their mortifications St. Paul therefore doth here correct the vain conceits of this error and sheweth us what true mortification is and that that is worthy of the study and exercise of the faithful It is saith he the members of the old man we are to mortifie and not those of the body It is vices It 's fornication and covetousness and pride that we must quell and kill with blows and not our body And as one of the Prophets sometime said to the superstitious of his age who fasted and afflicted themselves and rent their clothes Rend your hearts and not your garments Joel 2.13 in like manner the Apostle here opposeth the internal mortification of sins as only necessary and truly worthy of a Christian unto the external mortification of the body unto which error did and still doth tye up its self For in truth to what purpose is it to beat a man's breast and rend his back while sin mean time reigneth in his heart To what purpose is it to afflict the members of this body while the members of the
their reason do them little more service than if they had none at all Whereas now speech brings it forth and renders it useful to us communicating unto many and almost infinitely multiplying what was at first but in one soul alone For as a seal imprinteth the form that 's cut on it upon all the drops of wax to which you apply it so Speech gliding through the ear into the hearts of all that hear it engraveth on them that image which it carries with it of the mind and will of the speaker It guideth and keeps up the negotiations the treaties the alliances the arts the sciences and the disciplines of men and is the soul of their commerce and of their conversation and in a word of all their humanity 'T is by it that superiors make themselves to be obeyed and inferiors obtain the assistances they need since 't is it that makes both the wills of the one and the necessities of the other to be understood 'T is it that unites the souls of equals and discovers to the one and the other what each hath of reason and wisdom in himself or of sympathie and aversion for others It transfuseth the souls of the one into the others pouring into them their sentiments their reasonings their inventions and their affections But as the abuse of the excellentest things is much more dangerous than that of things mean and common so it is plain that the efficacy of speech is not less pernicious when applied to evil than useful and beneficial when employ'd to good It is as powerful to destroy as to edifie to infect as to cure and is equally capable of communicating unto men health and sickness life and death as the springs and intentions be from which it is dispensed Speech being of so great importance in the life of men it 's with great reson that the Apostle hath taken care in the rule he here gives us for our deportment to cleanse it of the vices which sin hath sowl'd it with You may remember that in the precedent text he purged it of the poisons of detraction and of pollutions contrary to honesty commanding us to put away evil-speaking and dishonest talk out of our mouth Now to the end it may be throughly pure and legitimate and truly worthy of a Christian mouth he taketh out of it lying also the most shameful of its defilements and that which is most directly contrary to its natural constitution Lie not saith he one to another And because in the precedent action shortness of time permitted us not to say all that we desired upon the two former vices of speech we will resume that discourse now with your permission and treat if the Lord please of all those three sins of the tongue which the holy Apostle hath here forbidden us first evil-speaking then in the second place filthiness contrary to honesty and thirdly lying May it please GOD to guide us in this discourse and so purifie our lips with the Divine fire of that heavenly coal wherewith He sometime touched those of a Prophet of His that henceforth our mouths may be so many living sources of benediction and edification from whence shall issue none but good and innocent pure and honest sincere and veritable speeches unto His glory and our neighbours benefit and our own salvation Amen The Apostle in the original of this text makes use of the word blasphemy to signifie that which we have rendred evil-speaking For though that term in our vulgar tongue doth import words spoken to the offence of GOD when things unworthy of His greatness and His holiness and truth are attributed unto Him or those that belong unto Him are denied of Him or when that which is proper to His Divinity is communicated to creatures yet so it is that in Greek that is in the language the Apostle speaks the word blasphemy doth generally signifie any offensive injurious speech whomsoever it concerns whether GOD or Angels or men The truth is this word if we respect its origination or etymologie doth simply denote an hurting of the reputation an offending of some one's honour as the Greek Grammarians have observed Whence it comes that St. Paul useth it not here only but also else-where to signifie such revilings and detractions as are directed properly unto men and not unto GOD as when he saith in the first Epistle to the Corinthians We are blamed and do intreat it is in the original 1 Cor. 4.13 we are blasphemed And when he enjoyns Titus to admonish the faithful that they speak evil of no man It is word for word in the Greek that they blaspheme no man Tit. 3.2 That evil speaking which he doth in this place so severely banish from all Christians mouths is a vice so common that no one can be ignorant of it The world is full of it and the Church it self beholds but too many examples of it in those that make profession of her communion But that no man may deceive himself it will not be impertinent to represent the principal kinds of it For as the pestilence is not all of a sort but great diversity is found in the poisons it comprehends and in the manner after which they seize on humane bodies so is it with evil-speaking It 's a poison that hath under it many different species a mischief that puts forth divers branches from one and the same root of bitterness If you regard the form of it one smites uncovered another deals its blows in secret the former revileth openly and rends the honour of a neighbour in his presence the latter manageth its self subtilly and blackens his reputation in private with so much the more effect for that it is in a place where no person appears to ward off its blows If you consider the causes and occasions of the thing some are push'd on to it by choler others by hatred some by a close envy the most by a secret malignity of nature In fine if you respect their design some do it to avenge themselves of offences which they believe they have receiv'd others to satisfie their naughty humour and a third sort meerly to pass away the time It may well be that the Apostle here did particularly aim at open evil-speaking which being pressed by the violence of anger breaks out into revilings since it is of this passion expresly that He spake in the precedent words Yet we may not imagin that he permitteth us any one of the kinds of this evil For what difference soever there be in other respects this is common to them all that they offend our neighbour and deprive him either in whole or in part of the preciousest of his goods that is his reputation If it be then a mortal sin to rob a man of his money or his movables or his lands how much more grievous is his crime who attempts to bereave him of his honour which is more to be esteemed than life it self To
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
the duty which the Apostle requireth of us here As indeed we must acknowledge that through the weakness of our apprehensions and understanding and amid that infinity of false appearances which things or men continually present us with it would be very difficult not to say impossible to preserve our selves from all error and never be deceiv'd in common life The Apostle demands of us a very easie and just thing even that we never speak any thing but what we believe to be true and that in the commerce we have with men our language be sincere and faithful without fraud and without fallacy naturally representing without what we conceive within and that it never betide us to say one thing and think the contrary The Scripture teacheth us in a multitude of places that GOD hateth lying more than any other Vice Prov. 12.22 and the Wise man saith expresly That false lips are an abomination to him the Psalmist also among other marks he gives the Inhabitants of the Hill of GOD Psal 15.2 puts this for the very first That they walk uprightly and work righteousness and speak the truth as it is in their heart and elsewhere he speaketh peremptorily Psal 5.7 That GOD will destroy them that speak leasing In sum S. Rev. 21.8 John proclaimeth in his Revelation That the portion of all lyers shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone Whence you see that question here is not of a matter of decency but of a necessary duty which we may not fail of without incurring perdition The justice of it is so evident that the Sages of the Pagans themselves have acknowledg'd it leaving us in their Books a thousand notable intimations of that roundness and simplicity and truth which a man of honour and probity should inviolably observe in his whole life For speech having been given us by nature or to say better by the God of nature to the end we might signifie and declare unto our neighbours what we have in our hearts it 's clear that an abusing it to signifie what we do not think is a violation of the Law and institution of Nature And all true and generous courages have this sentiment so imprinted on their souls that they cannot endure double persons whence it comes that the Prince of Heathen Poets makes his Heroe say He hates no less than the gates of Hell the man that says one thing and hides in his heart another Lying is a slavish Vice that proceeds either from baseness of spirit or from badness of conscience or from vanity Accordingly you see that it 's extreamly odious among all noble and civilized Nations and particularly in ours of the French where you know there is no outrage that 's accounted more grievous and more sensible than to charge a man with lying He that hath suffer'd it without justifying himself is held to be a man lost in honour not among Gentlemen only but even among people of meaner birth this generous and veritable sentiment having been left us from hand to hand by our Ancestors that lying is an infamous thing and the mark of a soul either wicked or witless and that he who is not asham'd of it will make conscience of nothing as on the contrary truth is the foundation of all vertue and honesty But the Scripture sheweth us in two clauses what we should think of it when on one hand it nameth the Devil the Father of lyes and on the other calls the LORD the GOD of truth and his eternal Son the truth it self A consideration that renders the temerity of those so much the more unsufferable who stiling themselves the companions of JESUS have not shamed to favour lying by that Doctrine of Equivocations and mental reservations as they call them Eph. 4.20 which they have published and practised in these last times But ye have not so learned CHRIST if so be ye have heard and been taught by him as the truth is in JESVS He hates all lying and obliquity in what manner soever they be disguised and would not have his truth dishonoured by begging from its enemies hand the help it needeth that is he would no ways have fraud and fallacy employ'd on his behalf his providence is potent enough to defend it without such infamous succour It 's a maxim of his Apostles that we must not do evil that good may come thereof Lying is an evil contrary to the Law of God and the Ordinances of nature There cannot therefore be any reason that gives us a dispensation to commit it Thus you see beloved Brethren that which we had to say unto you concerning these three Vices which the Apostle does here banish from the mouths of Christians Evil-speaking Impurity and Lying Let us obey his holy Doctrine and remembring that according to S. James He that offendeth not in word the same is a perfect man let us diligently purge ours from all these ordures and so govern our tongue that it may not speak but of wisdom nor pronounce but of judgment and that all our discourses may be full of goodness and of honesty and of truth so as our LORD and Saviour who is charity purity and soveraign truth may own us for his and after the combats and tryals of this life give us part one day in the peace and triumphs of the next receiving us into the society of those pure and holy Spirits who live on high in the Heavens with him to bless him for ever as unto him with the Father and the holy Spirit the only true GOD belongeth all honour and glory Amen THE THIRTY EIGHTH SERMON ON COLOSSIANS CHAP. III. VER IX X XI Verse IX Having put off the old man with his deeds X. And having put on the new man which is renew'd in knowledge after the image of Him who created him XI Where there is neither Greek nor Jew neither circumcision nor uncircumcision neither Barbarian nor Scythian nor bond nor free but CHRIST is all and in all DEAR Brethren I know and freely confess that being called this day through the goodness of GOD to celebrate the memory of the death and passion of our LORD JESUS CHRIST this sacred chair is obliged for the fitting you to so important an action to entertain you with things that relate to this great and divine mysterie But as I acknowledge that this is properly the service in which I should employ this hour so I conceive that these words of the Apostle S. Paul which you have heard and which occur in the chain of our ordinary Text are very sutable to that principal subject of our exhortation For this putting off of the old man and this putting on of the new of which they tell us are both the one and the other the true effect of this death of our LORD the remembrance whereof we solemnize If JESUS had not dyed we should never have put off the old man nor put on the new since that
without His death we could not have had the pardon of our sins nor the grace of the Holy Spirit nor the hope of immortality all which are things absolutely necessary to the devesting us of the old man and to the revesting us with the new Whereas now JESUS CHRIST dying on the Cross hath there pierced through and fastned up our old man and by the vertue of His sufferings created and formed in us another new man as different from the old as Heaven from the Earth and Life from Death Therefore the Apostle doth elsewhere conclude from the death of JESUS CHRIST the death of the old man in us and the life of the new 2. Cor. 5.15.17 If one died for all saith he then are all dead and He died for them that they might live henceforth in Him and no more unto themselves If any man be in CHRIST he is a new creature And in another place he saith expresly Rom. 6.6 11. that our old man was crucified with CHRIST that the body of sin might be destroyed and that we being dead with Him might live to GOD in Him Thus the death of CHRIST is at once the destruction of the old man and the production of the new the one was abolish'd by it and the other created This flesh of the mystical Lamb which GOD to day presents us hath slain our flesh and enlivened our spirit and from that Divine blood of His wherein the old man is drown'd is issu'd forth the new created in righteousness and holiness like as heretofore the Israelite was seen to come alive and glorious out of that very gulf of the Red-sea wherein the Egyptian lay sunk and overwhelm'd But oh new wonder as our LORD's flesh and blood is the principle that gives being to our new man so is it his nutriment And as in nature things are sustained by the same means that they were set up so in grace the new man is conserved and increased and strengthened by the same blood of JESUS CHRIST out of which he was formed And that heavenly meat and divine drink which you shall anon receive from the hand of GOD are not given you but for the feeding and perfecting of your new man I go yet further and durst say that this new man whom the Apostle would at this time vest you with is none other rightly considered than the same JESUS CHRIST whom we have put on at Baptism and whom we receive in the Supper propagated if I may so speak and pourtrayed in us by His own vertue who transformeth us into the likeness of His death and resurrection by reason that entring into and dwelling in us He formeth in us a man like Himself that as He did dyeth unto the flesh and with him leaveth in his sepulchre all his old life as an infirm and useless offal and being enlivened with Him and adorned with His light and endowed with an heavenly nature leads thenceforth a spiritual and glorious life Thus you see that the body of CHRIST was crucified and His blood shed and that the one and the other are given us in the Supper to devest us of the old man and vest us with the new This is the end and fruit of all that mysterie unto the participation whereof you are this day called Make account then that the best preparation you can bring unto it is a serious meditating of what the Apostle doth here inform us He exhorted the Colossians afore to mortifie the vices of their flesh and all the infamous passions of that Pagan life they had sometime led in the darkness of their ignorance as fornication covetousness anger evil speaking impurity of language and lying Now to cut up these and other like vices by the root and to comprise all the parts of sanctification in few words he commandeth us to put off the old man with his deeds c. There are others that take these words for a reason of his precedent exhortation drawn from that estate which JESUS CHRIST had put them into by Baptism as if his meaning were that they are obliged to renounce the vices he had been forbidding them since in their Baptism they did put off the old man on which these vices depend and of which they make up a part and put on the new which is contrary to them and incompatible with them Whether you understand it thus or take the text simply for a prosecution of the precedent command shewing us that for the due execution of it we must perform what is here added all amounteth to well-nigh the same sense And for the right comprehending of it we will treat if GOD permit of the three points which offer themselves in the Apostle's words first of the old man which we must put off secondly of the new which we must put on and the form it consisteth in to wit a renewing in knowledge after the image of Him who created it and in fine of that indifferency of nations and ceremonies and conditions which the Apostle affirmeth in this matter requiring nothing in reference to it but CHRIST who is the all of it and in all May it please GOD so to inlighten our understandings for the right discerning of this saving truth and touch our hearts to love and practise it effectually sanctifying us by the vertue of His word and precious Sacrament that we may all go out hence new men conformed in purity and charity and every vertue to that LORD JESUS in whose name and communion we by His grace do glory The Scripture sets before us the person of Adam and of JESUS CHRIST as two different stocks of mankind or as it were two opposite heads or principles of this nature which we call humane They have this in common that both the one and the other hath a great number of children which are issued from them and do depend upon them and that each of them doth communicate to his own his being his form his life and his condition imprinting his image on them which every of them beareth according to the quality of his extraction They differ or to say better are opposite in that the one is earthy the other heavenly the one hath a carnal vicious infirm nature full of ignorance and error and subject to death and the curse The other hath a spiritual holy nature full of light and wisdom acceptable unto GOD immortal and inheriting eternity The one propagateth in his children sin and death The other communicates to his righteousness sanctity and life The one transmits his nature by a carnal generation the other imparteth his to his descendents by a spiritual generation and such an one as hath nothing in common with flesh and blood The nature of the one is deprav'd by the empoisoned breath of the old Serpent which creepeth on the ground and liveth on the dust thereof That of the other hath been formed and conserved by the Eternal and coelestial Spirit It 's for these reasons that
put off the old man and put on the new it is evident that in this renovation of our nature we do not lose the very substance of it nor acquire another new one but only quit that unworthy and wretched form which sin gave it and assume another which resembles that of JESUS CHRIST I acknowledge that that old form which we put off had seized on and blasted and disfigured all the parts of our nature both internal and external as also that the new one which we receive in JESUS CHRIST doth extend its self likewise to them all in which respect the one and the other differeth from a garment which covers but the outside and reaches not further in yet they both are notwithstanding another thing than the Subject it self which is uncloth'd or cloath'd with them as an habit is another kind of thing than the body it covereth The one is at it were the rust as it were the poyson the malady the loathsomness and deformity of our nature The other is the beauty the health the perfection the ornament and honour of it and as it were the jewel that gives it all it hath of worth and value Neither let the terms of Old and new Man trouble you For they are often made use or in all languages to signifie the qualities and not the very essentials of our nature as when we say of a person who was once vicious and debauched but is now become honest and vertuous that he is another man a new Man though to speak properly he have the same substance the same soul and the same body he had before and hath quitted nothing of his former nature but the bad habitudes it was vested with not the substance of his Being Thus it is in regard of the Old and new Man The substance of the subject remains the same under the one and the other There is nothing changed but its formâ— and quality And it 's thus also that we are to understand what after the Prophets S. Peter hath said namely 2 Pet. 3.13 That at the last manifestation of the Son of GOD there shall be new Heavens and a new Earth For these creatures which now subsist shall not be annihilated On the contrary S Paul saith Rom. 8.20 That they shall have part in the deliverance of the sons of GOD but because they shall be purged from all vanity and put into an estate much more excellent than that wherein they now sigh and languish therefore they are called new Heavens and a new Earth As for what remains The Apostle injoyns us expresly both here and elsewhere to put off the old Man and to put on the New because in truth these are two different things even as to depart from evil and to do good It is very true that in the estate men are no one puts off the old Man but puts on the New and so on the contrary and again as true it is that the same Spirit of JESUS CHRIST which effecteth the one doth also effect the other even as the Sun by one and the same action dispelleth the darkness of our Air and diffuseth into it light yet this hinâ—ers not but that considering the matter simply and absolutely in its self the putting off of the old Man is one thing and the putting on of the New another For the corruption of the old Man is not a meer absence and privation of the sanctity of the New neither is vertue a meer privation of vice as darkness is nothing at all but a simple privation of light Otherwise it were to be said that the new man is every-where where the Old is not and so on the contrary as where there is no light darknes doth of necessity take place and so on the contrary But though these two actions of putting off the old Man and putting on the New be different in themselves yet are they inseparably joyned with one another and in the state we now are it is not possible that any person should devest himself of sin and of the misery of his old Man without vesting himself with the New because there is no other way of salvation but the Communion of CHRIST into which no one ever enters without putting on the new Man It 's in this that all our salvation consisteth But because those false Teachers which troubled the Church at that time did pretend to the prejudice of this Doctrine that Circumcision and divers other external things were necessary in Religion as if they were sufficient to save us without the new Man or at least the new Man were not sufficient to save us without them the Apostle doth reject this error of theirs here which he refuted afore and to this purpose in speaking of the new Man addeth Where there is neither Greek nor Jew neither circumcision nor uncircumcision neither Barbarian nor Scythian nor bond nor free but CHRIST is all and in all His meaning is not that among those whom JESUS CHRIST converteth to new men by vertue of his Gospel there are none that be by extraction Jews or Greeks Barbarians or Scythians and for condition bond or free circumcised or uncircumcised nor likewise that these differences are in themselves none or ought not to be considered at all either in nature or in the state and politick order On the contrary he himself will hereafter establish the difference of bond-men and free and command us to observe it in civil life But what he saith must be restrained and appropriated precisely to his intention and design without extending it any further He speaks of the new man and saith that no one of these differences doth take place in him He meaneth therefore simply that in this respect that is in what concerns the nature of the new man all these different qualities and conditions are no way considerable that as to it they have no force nor vertue that neither the nobleness of the Jew nor the advantage of circumcision nor the liberty of the free doth serve at all to bring us neer the new man and communicate him to us that the knowledge of the Greek and the rudeness of the Barbarian and the uncircumsion of the Gentile and the meanness of the slave doth not remove us further off from him That a man both may not participate of him with the first of these qualities and may with the last It 's the same thing that he saith else-where Gal. 6.15 even that in JESVS CHRIST neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature and again That in CHRIST 3.28 there is neither Jew nor Greek nor bond nor free nor male nor female because they are all one in JESVS CHRIST He excludes hereby first the pretended advantage of the Jew above the Greek For the Jews so foolishly presum'd upon their birth that they imagin'd it sufficient to render them acceptable unto GOD and they haughtily disdained the Greeks as accursed and abominable by
their habits and adorn our manners with their acts For it 's this is signified by the word put on here figuratively used according to the usual stile of Scripture as we gave you notice in expounding the precedent Text where the Apostle exhorted us to put off the old Man and put on the New The foremost of these Vertues which he recommends unto us are those five which he does expresly nominate in the present Text mercy kindness humility meekness and patience Mercy is a goodness and tenderness of spirit which causeth us to resent the miseries of others and have compassion on them and take part in them as if we suffered them our selves And the Apostle to shew us how quick and deep this sentiment should be in us would have us to put on not mercy simply but bowels of mercy which is a form of speaking taken from the Hebrew language in which the word Bowels is often used to signifie the resentments of piety and the tendernesses of compassion and this not without reason it being clear that compassion doth affect and hugely move the heart the principal of our internal parts It is not enough that we lodge pity in our faces and in our looks externally shewing the movings and appearences of it The miseries of our neighbours must descend into our hearts and reach the depth of our bowels they must affect them with a real grief that may move them and stir up all that is in our power to the affording of them succour For the discipline of JESUS CHRIST doth not at all approve of the rigidness of the Stoick Philosophy which pluck'd up mercy as well as other passions out of the bowels of its Wise man as if to resent trouble or grief were a thing unworthy of a vertuous person Let him remedy the miseries of others said they but let him not feel them Let him succour the men but let him not be touched with their passion First that which they presuppose is false namely that to suffer one's self to be touched with sentiment of grief is a defiling or polluting of vertue There 's nothing unworthy of true vertue but vice now grief is not a vice it is a simple sentiment of nature and for the being wise it is not needful a man should renounce the sentiments of nature it is sufficient to govern them and keep them within their bounds and use them with reason Again this insensibility which they suppose is a chimera and a fiction of their own which cannot take place in the soul of man which GOD hath formed unto sweetness and tenderness more than any other creature as is evident by tears of which none none but man is capable Lastly whereas they would have the wise man succour the miserable without resenting their misery this is both difficult and dangerous For it is a taking away one of the sharpest incitements that spurs us on to assist them it being clear that nothing moves us more powerfully thereto than compassion We must not as those people said remedy other mens miseries without feeling them which is both difficult in our nature and unprofitable though it were easie but quite contrary we must feel them that we may remedy them So likewise there is nothing more cold and less helpful than these insensible persons For eradicating compassion out of our hearts they put in them obdurateness and inhumanity which are infinitely more contrary to true Vertue than grief and emotion Renounce we then Beloved Brethren this rough and inhumane philosophy Let it be no shame to us to be tender and sensible of our neighbours miseries Let us hold compassion not for an infirmity but for a vertue unto which GOD calleth us both by His commands and by the examples as of His Saints so of His Son Himself JESUS CHRIST our LORD Luke 6.36 1 Pet. 3.8 Be ye merciful saith He and one of His Apostles exhorteth us to be full of mutual compassion pityful courteous And our St. Paul goes so sar Rom. 12.15 as he would have us weep with them that weep and the truth is our tears and our resentments though we can do nothing else afford yet some ease to the afflicted The Saints of whom we are told in Scripture have all of them this character of sweetness and humanity They were tender and full of compassion towards all afflicted persons and to alledge no other examples you know how the miseries of men did touch and pierce the heart of our LORD and Saviour who wept when He saw Lazarus's grave and of whom it is said that He is apt to have pity on the ignorant Heb. 5.2 Heb. 4.15 and them that are out of the way and again that He hath compassion of our infimities But beside the law of GOD nature it self demandeth these resentments of us For men being our neighbours that is of one and the same nature we are who sees not but that it is reasonable we should be touched with their miseries And this the rather for that it may betide us to fall into the like our selves and one day need that compassion and succour they now crave of us After the movings of compassion the Apostle commandeth of us the succour and offices of benignity which is a goodness of nature that takes pleasure in and makes it its study to serve and oblige every one and incommodate or disoblige no body that readily stretcheth out its helping hand to the afflicted and freely communicateth its goods to the necessitous A thing which GOD commands us every where in His word willing us there to be communicative to break our bread to the hungry and impart of our substance to those that need The charge of stewards or dispencers which he hath given us obligeth us thereto For He hath put into our hands all the wealth we do possess to the end we should prudently and charitably dispence it to our neighbours And as He promiseth great benedictions and recompences as well in this life as also in the next to those that acquit themselves faithfully of this duty and are kind and beneficent so doth He menace all those that shall fail to do it with grievous and eternal punishments and treats them at every turn as persons not only cruel and inhumane but also unequitable and unjust Unto mercy and kindness the Apostle willeth that we add humility the bafis and foundation of all Christian Vertues the ornament of a believing soul the mother of patience the nurse of charity There is no disposition of soul more pleasing to GOD or more profitable unto men I confess the exercising of it is difficult unto man naturally proud and wilful But the light of the Gospel of CHRIST and the power of His grace do render that easie to us which is hard of it self The pride of man sure springeth not but from his ignorance If he knew himself as he ought he would be humble and instead of glorying in be ashamed of himself Why
would have place in him but from the time he had put on the habit of Charity and could not hinder but that he might have transgressed divers waies before Since then the law justifyeth none but those that never violated it at any time what-ever it is manifest that though a Christian should never violate the law after he hath Charity yet could he not be justified by his works nor would he be exempted from needing the grace of GOD for the remission of the sins he committed before he had Charity But where grace is Rom. 11.6 there justification by works cannot have place according to St. Paul's saying in the Epistle to the Romans If it be by grace it is no more by works Otherwise grace is no more grace but if it be by works it is no more by grace Otherwise work is no more work But I add in the second place that what they do suppose to wit that he that hath Charity does perfectly fulfill the law and so as never to fail so much as in one point that this I say moreover is evidently false and contrary unto experience and unto Scripture Unto experience for who but daily sees and perceives how often how many waies those very men among the faithful do offend who have greatest degrees of Charity 1 Joh. 1. Unto Scripture for it plainly telleth us in divers places that if we say they are the words of an Apostle we have no sin we lye and the truth is not in us True it is that Charity doth not cause us to offend nay such offending is on the contrary a deviation and a departure from Charity However I affirm it is no impossibility but that a man that hath true Charity may sometime falter in it as you see it often comes to pass in all habits he that 's endowed with them doth some actions not very consonant unto them A good Archer for instance doth not alwaies hit the white and a good Advocate doth not alwaies plead exactly well It befalls the best Writers and the exquisitest Painters and the most accomplished Politicians to commit errors now and then in the matters of their profession And it was said long since of the excellentest and most admired piece of heathen Poetry that there are passages in it at which the author slept from whence others have deriv'd the priviledge that in a prolix work they may sometimes forget themselves The same event attends the habitudes of moral vertues for neither do these so absolutely fill up the souls of men but that actions contrary to them do sometimes escape those who have obtained them to an hiâ—â— degree as experience shews and Philosophers have expresly noted Therefore neither are faults incompatible with the habit of Charity as we possesse it here beneath Only it with-holdeth such as are truly endowed with it from committing them often and when they are overtaken it eftsoons toucheth them with regret at it and moves them to repent of what they have committed Since then that to be justified by works a man must present such one 's unto GOD as have no way any need of pardon it is still evident that Charity how accomplished soever we may have it here below yet is not capable of justisying us before GOD. If our adversaries will be obstinate and maintain that Charity is exempted from all sin I will grant it them of that Charity which reigneth on high in the Heavens being kindled Aug. Ep. 29. ad Hieron and kept up by the vision of the glorious face of GOD but I will say with St. Augustine that no man hath such a Charity upon earth ours here is but begun and impersectly formed Yet the Law requireth of us a Charity full and entire and perfect in every particular Surely then that which we for present have is not able to satisfie the Law nor by consequence justifie us But others conceive that by this perfection which Charity is the bond of the integrity and unity of the Church is to be understood for that the perfection of bodies doth properly consist in the collection and colligation of the parts whereof they are compos'd those that want any one of them being not in a condition to be called perfect These authors therefore make account that Charity is here stil'd the bond of perfection because 't is it that joyneth and bindeth all the faithful together by means of the mutual love they bear to one another For my part Dear Brethren I think we must joyn together these two expositions and reduce them to one for this end taking the Apostle's words the bond of perfection as simply importing that Charity is a perfect bond by an Hebraism very frequent through the whole Scripture as when 't is said a man of sin or a man of peace to signifie a sinful man Rom. â— 26 or one that 's peaceable or pacifick affections of infamy for infamous affections and so in a multitude of other places Here then in like manner the Apostle says a bond of perfection instead of a perfect bond an exquisite bond capable of binding up in perfection both all Christian Vertues in every faithful soul and all the faithful in the Church with one another For as concerning Vertues Charity binds them together both by that common principle whence it causeth them to spring to wit love of our neighbour and by that common end unto which it directeth them namely his benefit and edification It gathers up and puts all of them together in its bosome not leaving one out of its enclosure because they are all necessary for it mercy to comfort those whom it loves benignity to succour them humility to win them gentlenesse to please them patience to conserve them and in fine all the rest to acquit it self of those duties it would do them And as for the faithful who knows not that Charity is the perfect bond of their union The considerations of blood of state of interest and of pleasure do sometimes bind other men together but it is with a great deal of imperfection these unsure bonds being daily broken and so badly compacting the persons they inclose that they are soon separated and do sometimes even fall foul with and rend one another But Charity is in very deed a perfect bond that uniteth those whom it ties together so close and with such firmnesse as neither the accidents of fortâ—ne as they call them nor the mutations of the earth nor death it self which ruines all other unions and conjunctions in the World can loosen them or separate them from one another It was this sacred bond that heretofore made all the beleevers at Jerusalem to be of one heart and of one soul It 's a bond Acts 4.32 that all the force of men and elements can neither break nor untye a bond stronger than death and the grave as the mystical Spouse sings in that excellent Song It doth not only joyn the souls of the
spirit and knit together by one and the same Faith Hope and Charity No one hath part in the Kingdom of Heaven who lives not in the communion of this body Sure then it 's one of our greatest concernments to maintain peace among our selves and to put it as the Apostle gives us order in the highest place of our hearts that it may govern with supremacy all our thoughts all our motions and sentiments For there are no natural bodies but their members do conspire and live with one another in a perpetual and inviolable peace The societies of States and Families which are bodies but of another kind namely political and oeconomical are governed in the same manner their primary and most sacred law is that all the orders and persons of which they are compos'd have peace with one another Now if this hath place both in nature and in the societies of mankind how much more ought it to be observ'd in the Church which is a divine a coelestial and supernatural body Our own interest doth naturally require it For as war doth weaken and ruine the States into which it thrusts its self and whose members it divideth so on the contrary Peace establisheth fortifieth and conserves them according to that saying of our Saviour Matt. 12 2◠Every kingdom divided against its self shall be brought to nought and every City or house divided against it's self shall not stand The Apostle addeth in the close and be ye thankful which some referr to the same scope that the rest of the Text hath as if he intended that those thanks we owe to GOD for the free favour He hath shewed us in receiving us unto peace with Him do also evidently oblige us to maintain peace with our brethren And I acknowledge the argumentation is good and pertinent Yet it is better to take this clause for an exhortation he maketh us in general to be thankful towards GOD and towards men For as ingratitude is one of the blackest and most detestable vices expresly enrolled by the Apostle among the marks of those wretched times whose extreme corruption he foretells in the second Epistle to Timothy so is it sure that gratitude 2 Tim. 3.2 or thankfulness is a vertue most necessary of any and in my opinion he went not very wide from the truth who called it the mother of all other vertues Cicers It enkindleth piety in our hearts raiseth up the love of GOD and of His CHRIST and carrieth us to serve and obey Him and by consequence to exercise all honesty and vertue It is certain that upon this account no man sins without ingratitude Add hereto that thankfulnesse is the source of all the services and duties we persorm to our Princes to our Countrey to our Parents to our Superiors and all that have obliged us offices as you know that have an huge extent in 〈…〉 it's with a great deal of reason that the Apostle 〈…〉 give us charge also touching Thackfulnesse Dear Brethren These are the three Vertues which he tells us of in this Text. Let us not neglect any one of them But embrace them all three and deck our lives internally and externally with them In the first place above all let us put on Charity as the soul of Christianity the perfect bond of your union the mark of GOD's children the abridgement of all our duties and the mother of all Vertues Having it you have all and without it you have nothing Without it all the profession you make of the Gospel your prayers your religion and your services are but an empty noise a sounding brass 1 Cor. 13.1 as the Apostle speaks and a tinkling cymbal Because the Israelites wanted this GOD had all their devotions and all their sacrifices in abomination How much more will He reject yours if you have the impudence to present Him any without Charity Now that His Son JESUS hath so magnifically discovered to you the necessity and excellency of it For what can you alledge any longer for excusing your selves from this duty Nature it self verily sufficiently obliged you afore to love your neighbours since that they are your brethren even after the flesh issued from the same Adam and the same Noah animated by the same Spirit clothed with the same body born and bred upon the same earth and if you devest your selves of all the difference that vanity and opinion hath created you will see that in truth there is none at all between you and them You are subject to the same accidents they are and the death that at last brings them down will no more spare you than it does them Having so strict a conjunction with them you ought to look upon them as your other selves and love them as your neer relations and not account any thing that betides them forein or indifferent The Heathen who knew no more had the understanding to draw this conclusion from it But the Cross of our LORD and Saviour hath discovered to us other reasons of Charity that are much more excellent and much more pressing For He so loved men that He died to save them Christian how can you hate or despise persons whom your Master hath so much loved and esteem'd upon whom you see His blood whereby they have been wash'd and purified together with your selves His Spirit with which they have been sealed as well as you The first-fruits and earnests of that heavenly inheritance unto which they and you are called to live eternally together in the same It 's by that they are to be considered and not by what they are upon this earth which with the whole heap of all its pomps and riches and nobility and honours and other pieces of vanity is but a figure that passeth away and perisheth If your neighbour hath nothing on the earth if he be despised and accounted the filth and off-scouring of the world as the Apostle speaks remember that he hath his share in Heaven that he is an heir of this eternal Kingdom the child of GOD and brother of JESUS CHRIST Let this dignity of his which is so high and so precious in the sight of GOD and His Angels induce you to love him to tender him and apply your self to him let it mitigate your resentments if he hath offended you let it stretch for your hands to a ready communicating of the succour of your alms of your consolations and of your good offices if any necessity of his does call for them For such is the nature of true Charity it loves not in word and with the tongue but indeed and in truth Let ours then abound in alms and in beneficence unto the poor in consolations of and in good offices to the afflicted Let it be firm and constant Let not our brethrens ill successes no nor their offences if it befall them to do us any be ever able to break this sacred bond of perfectnesse which spiritually joyneth us and them together in our
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
Apostle would have husbands love their wives even First that they live ordinarily with them as far as the necessity of their affairs permits not finding sweeter divertisement nor more pleasing company any other where Then next that they carefully make them partakers of the graces GOD hath given them and principally in all that concerns the salvation of their souls which is the greatest good of all faithfully directing them about it both by good and holy speech and also by pure and vertuous deportment It 's in this they ought to exercise that advantage which nature and the Apostle gives them shewing themselves to be truly the heads and guides of their wives in the matters of GOD's service and of holiness of life for this end making provision of all necessary knowledge that if they at any time consult them in their doubts 1 Cor. 14.35 as S. Paul commands they may be able to instruct them least in defect of it it might be said of them as a Prophet sometime said of Idols Hab. 2.18 that they are teachers of nothing but vanity But unto these cares for the soul the husband ought to add those also which respect the present life labouring in his vocation and imparting to his wife a share of all the substance he possesseth or acquireth proportionably to her need of it either for her own necessary food and raiment or for the maintaining her children and family as befits her condition It 's this the Apostle means when he commandeth husbands to love their wives But he forbids them in the following words to be bitter against them that is to be â—roward to them requiring that all their conversation with them be full of sweetness and amity The Pagans themselves have observ'd the justness of this duty as what we read of one piece of their devotions beareth witness For when they sacrificed unto that idol of theirs whom they call'd Nuptial Juno because they gave her the superintendency of Marriage they were wont to take the gall out of the victim and cast it behind the altar signifying thereby as say the interpreters of their Ceremonies that there ought to be no gall nor bitterness in marriage The Apostles meaning then is that the husband do first purge his heart of all this sowrness and bitterness that he never suffer hatred nor malevolence nor anger nor provocation nor fretting nor disgust to enter there against a person whom he ought to love as himself Next he would have the husband clense all his words and actions from the same poison For if he who is angry with his neighbour without cause and gives him the least reviling word doth deserve torment as our Saviour declareth of what hells is not he worthy who outrageth his own flesh Her whom he ought to cherish and tenderly affect as CHRIST doth His Church But if the Apostle command a Christian to use no offensive or opprobrious speech against his wife he doth as little permit him to shew bitterness of spirit by an angry sad and obstinate silence which is no less provocative nor less sharp to say truth than the most outragious reproaches In conclusion by this clause the Apostle does further and with greater force of reason banish out of conjugal converse the cruelty and rigour and tyrannie of those boysterous barbarous husbands who treat their wives as bond-servants denying them that share which the laws of GOD and man do give them in the government and administration of the houshold And the utmost degree of this inhumanity is when unto revilings and contempt they add blows and excesses of hand an outrage which the authors of the Roman Civil Law thought so unworthy of the conjugal alliance that they permit the wife so exceeded against to break with her husband approving and authorizing her divorce if she can prove he struck her Thus Dear Brethren you have heard what we had to deliver for the exposition of this Text. It teacheth us all in general first that all sorts of people may and ought to read St. Paul's Epistles and by consequent all the holy Scriptures For why should this holy man address his speech here to wives and their husbands to children and their fathers to servants and their masters if he meant not that all these persons should have the reading of this letter Christians fear not to read what the Apostle hath vouchsafed to write you It 's in vain that some forbid you the reading which it is his mind you should practise None can know better than he how those Epistles must be used which he wrote Then again he shews us further here how unjust the indiscretion of those is who have so ill treated the worthiness of marriage that by their manner of speaking of it you would say they held it incompatible with Christian purity St. Paul doth every where maintain the honour of this holy order and never prohibit or disparage it at all Also as the precepts which he gives to Masters to Pastors and others do clearly authorize the right and the dignity of those conditions so is marriage established by the lesson he writes here and often else-where unto married persons But the Devil knowing well that this holy institution of GOD is infinitely profitable unto men both to preserve them from tentations to incontinence one of the broadest waies to Hell and also to sweeten the harshness of their natures by the tenderness of conjugal and paternal affections and for divers other ends of great importance unto civil life and unto piety it self the enemie I say not ignorant hereof hath subtilly made hatred or contempt of marriage to insinuate its self into the spirits of a sort of men under divers plausible pretexts so as in conclusion Christians who would think it have asserted it a piece of sanctification to abstain from it and in the sequel prohibited to the Ministers of Religion For our parts Beloved Brâ—thren we constrain none to marry If any have received this grace of GOD that they can contain and live pure out of this estate let them forbear it if it seem them good Only we say two things first that the making use of it is free to all there being no dignity nor profession in the Church excluded from Divine permission of it Secondly that to such as have not the gift of continency marriage is not only permitted but even necessary and of whatever rank they be their marrying is so far from offending GOD that they offend Him much if they marry not Hereto for a conclusion we adjoyn a serious exhortation to all who are in this estate that they sedulously put in practise the lesson which St. Paul hath now given them Even that wives be subject to their husbands as is meet in the LORD that Husbands love their wives and not be bitter against them Many complain of finding thorns in this condition instead of the roses they hoped for Men charge it upon the pride the levity the vanity the
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
afford the Colossians since Tychicus left him in prison at Rome that is in the mouth of the Lyon as himself speaks in another place Dear Brethren it is true the Apostle did abide still in that sad estate for that time and it 's true this was it the Colossians were in pain for But yet these two messengers had many things to say unto them that were proper to mitigate their trouble and to ease their pain first that the Apostle was still alive safe and sound as Daniel otherwhile in the den of Lyons nay that he was not without hope of being set at liberty Then again and which is the principal that is faith and piety were so far from being weaken'd by this rude tentation that they were become more firm and lively then ever shining in this tryal as fine gold in the furnace that instead of being afflicted at it himself he comforted others the spirit of GOD continually maintaining Christian joy and peace in his heart and this tribulation and conserving the same fresh and full as otherwhile the bush of Moses in the midst of the fire And lastly that if his body was bound yet the Gospel was not so the Apostle with an high and invincible courage frankly preaching in his irons and changing by a Divine miraculousness his prison into a School of JESUS CHRIST opening too by the efficacy of his example the mouths of many brethren to preach the word boldly without fear his whole affliction serving by the providence of GOD to a much greater advancement of the Gospel Phil. 1.12 as himself saith elsewhere This relation as you see was very proper to consolate the hearts of the Colossians not to speak of the knowledge and capacity of Tychicus in the things of the Kingdom of Heaven which furnished him abundantly wherewith to do these faithful people this good office in representing to them the doctrine and the promises of our LORD and Saviour the necessity and utility of the cross 2 Cor. 4.17 the life and the crowns to which it leadeth us and that eternal weight of an excellent glory which this light and transient affliction worketh for us and the like intimations of which the whole Gospel is full For you may not imagine that this Tychicus and this Onesimus whom he sent them were simple messengers that had no other ability then to make faithful report of what they had seen and heard of St Paul's affairs They were two excellent persons endowed with great gifts of GOD and well instructed in the knowledge of him yea as it is certain of the one and very probable of the other called to the holy ministry And it further heighthens the Apostles charitable affection towards the Colossians that he would deprive himself for their consolation of the presence and assistance of two such persons at a time when they were so sweet and so necessary to him But his prudence appears no less in this choice then his affection and goodness First more generally in that he employ'd about this affair persons proper for the end for which he sent them And secondly in particular that one of the two whom he chose to wit Onesimus beside other qualities he had was a Colossian and therefore a person that should have the more credit with them as their own countryman It is true that Epaphras of whom he will afterward speak had the same quality But it seems that a particular consideration withheld the Apostle from employing him in this commission Even that he had already exercis'd the holy Ministry among the Colossians and preached that very Evangelical doctrine to them which was now troubled by false teachers as we understand by the first Chapter of this Epistle He then being interessed and as it were a party in the quarrel the Apostle do's very prudently in employing other persons namely Tychicus and Onesimus that so their faith and doctrine appearing conform to Epaphras's the Colossians might the more easily perceive that his was not particularly his own but in truth the LORD CHRIST's and his Apostles and that as the Scripture faith in the mouth of these two or three witnesses the word might be established But the Apostle to give them credit with the Colossians and render their Ministry fruitful to them advertiseth them of the good and recommendable qualities each of them As for Tychicus he calleth him his beloved Brother and a faithful Minister and Fellow-servant in the LORD titles as you see very honourable He qualifies him after the same manner in the Epistle to the Ephesians to whom he employ'd him in the very same sort as he doth here to the Colossians Whence it appears that this holy man was one of those extraordinary Ministers which the Scripture of the New Testament do's particularly stile Evangelists These were as aids to the Apostles assisted them followed them and were diversly employed by them according to the necessities of the Church sometime in one place sometime in another without being fixed to any particular flock as ordinary Pastors are and making no longer stay any where then the Apostles orders did require Such a one for instance was Titus whom St. Paul left in Crete to finis the erection of the Church Tit. 1.5 and afterward sent into Dalmatia to preach the Gospel there 2 Tim. 4.10 Such a one again was Timothy and Crescens and many others And truly the charge the Apostles had being of such a vast extent as to embrace the whole universe it is evident that it did of necessity require they should be assisted by such Helpers and inferiour Ministers who might be employed in such places as they themselves could not go to or tarry in Our adversaries to give you this intimation by the way do commit an errour in this matter when they apply to Bishops what they read in the New Testament of this sort of Ministers For it 's true indeed that the Evangelists were superior unto the common and ordinary Pastors of each Church and held the next place to the Apostles whose Lieutenants in a manner they were But it 's false that any such Ministers were or were to be in the Church after the Apostles decease Their Ministry was extraordinary and subsisted no longer then the Apostleship did for which properly it was instituted And hence it plainly appears that the Bishops of the Roman communion can by no means pass for Ministers of this order since they have each of them their Title or Diocess to which they are fastned and have no power to exercise their Ministry elsewhere whereas the Evangelists had no flock that was properly and particularly assigned them but were as general intendants who by the Apostles order and according to the necessities of Churches did transport themselves sometime to one and sometime to another unto countries and people very far asunder as you see by the example of Titus who having been employ'd in ordering the Churches of Crete when that was done came
subject and do entitle themselves Monarchs of not forbearing to put even greatest Princes and Emperors under the yoke of their domination and to exact of them as a mark of lowest servitude the kissing of their feet But this holy and admirable humility of the Apostle appears further still in his speaking as he does of Onesimus whom he sent with Tychicus unto the Colossians He is saith he our faithful Brother c. For who think you was this Onesimus to whom he does so much honour as to call him his faithful and beloved brother Dear Brethren it was a poor fugitive bond-servant that is a person of the meanest and most despicable condition of any at that time as St. Paul himself gives us to understand in the Epistle which he wrote in favour of this at-length-happy fugitive unto Philemon the Colossian his Master where he plainly intimates that this poor man stealing from his Master's house had fled into Italy and got to the City of Rome for safety But oh the admirable providence of GOD who knoweth how to carry on the salvation of His elect by waies that we cannot comprehend the Apostle hapning to be prisoner there and Onesimus led by his curiosity or some other such occasion having heard him was so affected at his preaching as that of a Pagan he became a Christian of a servant of Philemon a free-man of JESUS CHRIST and instead of that temporal impunity for the crime committed against his Master which he fought at Rome he there found the eternal remission of his sins and the salvation of his soul This is that which St. Paul elsewhere means when he saith that he begat him in his bonds Phil. 10. Now the Apostle having shewed him the fault he had committed in deserting his Master he resolves to return home to him and voluntarily render up himself unto his yoke again And that Philemon might pardon his offence he makes him the bearer of a letter which he writes him on this subject a letter so full of all the expressest testimonies of a tender and ardent affection which may be given as does sufficiently prove he did in truth account him as he here terms him his beloved Brother But some of the ancient Writers of the Church do further intimate that Onesimus profited so well in the knowledge of GOD and in piety as notwithstanding the meanness of his condition after the flesh he was advanced to the sacred ministery of the Gospel and executed it in the Church of Ephesus And truly the employment the Apostle gives him here in reference to this whole Church and the company of Tychicus whom he associates him with and the honourable title he gives him stiling him not only his beloved brother which every Christian is capable of but moreover faithful seems to shew that he had some office upon the account whereof for his conscionable acquitting himself in it this testimonial of faithfulness is given him And herein I conceive the Apostle doth also make a secret opposition between the good conscience with which he demeaned himself in this employment and the unfaithfulness he had afore-time shewed to his Master during the time of his ignorance if he hath been otherwhile unfaithful saith he he is now faithful after well-nigh the same manner as the Apostle elsewhere alluding to the word Onesimus which was his name and in Greek signifies profitable says of him to Philemon his Master He was in time past to thee unprofitable Philem. 11. but now profitable to thee and to me This is that Dear Brethren which the first part of the Text doth contain Come we now to the second In it the Apostle presents to the Colossians the salutations of three faithful persons all the three joyntly Ministers of the Gospel and by nation Jews who were then at Rome to serve and assist and refresh him in his imprisonment Aristarchus saith he saluteth you and so the rest in order Whence we may observe first in general what was the zeal and what the charity of those primitive Christians that the hatred and rage of the World was not able to keep them from rendring their devoirs and services to the Confessors and Martyrs of JESUS CHRIST even in Prisons nor from hastning to them out of places ever so far off to succour and comfort them it being evident that of the eight persons mentioned here and in the following Text some came from Greece others from Asia and some again from Syria and Palestine that is many hundred leagues to visit and serve St. Paul And by these Salutations which for their part they send the Colossians you see how these holy and charitable souls were affectionate to flocks as well as Pastors and those that were absent as well as them that were present In fine the Apostles vouchsafing to be as their Secretary on such an occasion shews us that he approves these offices of civility that is salutations of such as are present and by Letter of such as are absent In truth a Christian whose Charity and unfeigned cordial love of men is the principal vertue and as it were the soul and one of the prime principles of his life ought to acquit himself sedulously in all due offices of humanity and if there be in the deportments of other men any thing humane and praise-worthy he should practice it and sanctifie it to his LORDS use As for these three persons in particular the Apostle gives each of them his Elogium The first is Aristarchus a native of Thessalonica in Macedonia Act. 19.20 27.19 20 27. a person noted in the History of the Acts where you see him all along inseparably fastened to S. Paul a companion in his travels and in his tryals running the danger of his life with him in the sedition at Ephesus at his departure thence following him into Greece into Macedonia into Asia and Judea and at last embarking with him when he was carried Prisoner to Rome For this cause the holy Apostle in acknowledgment of so admirable a zeal makes him a sharer with him in his Crown terming him a Captive or Prisoner with him inasmuch as though those unjust Judges had not condemned him yet he took as great a part in the Captivity of St. Paul as if sentence had been given against his own person The second is Mark whom he signalizeth by the honour he had to be Barnabas his cousin german one of the most excellent Disciples of our LORD and that laboured in his work with greatest zeal and fervour as you see in the History of the Acts and some of the Ancients have even attributed to him the divine Epistle to the Hebrews The glory of this holy man being very great in all the Church of GOD the Apostle conceiv'd it a sufficient recommendation of Mark to say he was his Sisters Son He addeth only concerning whom you have received order I am much of their mind who understand these words of some letter that
us powerfully forming our hearts and opening them by the might of his Spirit that they may receive his truth yea that he doth imprint and engrave it on them himself by a most efficacious action The term Energy for such is the Original and 't is that which we have render'd efficacy deserves great consideration properly signifying in the stile of the Book of GOD a powerful operation which surely accomplisheth its design and infallibly produceth its intention such as is the action by which GOD created the World an evident sign that the operation by which he produceth faith in us is so strong as that it bears down all contradiction so as none of those upon whom he vouchsafes to put it forth can resist it or hinder their understanding from believing The Apostle addeth that GOD hath raised JESUS CHRIST from the dead either to determine the object of our faith which is principally JESUS raised from the dead by the glory of the Father or which I think to be more pertinent to compare our mystical Resurrection with JESUS CHRIST's For seeing it is GOD who by his efficacious action giveth us that faith by which we rise again in CHRIST and seeing it is He again who hath raised our LORD from the dead it is evident that both the one and the other of these two works hath the self-same principle to wit the Almighty Power of GOD. Christians judg with what Power He worketh in his faithful ones since that he exerteth the same virtue to give them faith by which he raised his own Son from the dead as the Apostle informeth us yet more clearly in another place Eph. 1.10 20. where he prayeth that we may know what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the working of his mighty power which he shewed in CHRIST when he raised him from the dead Neither let his saying that the Father raised him disquiet you as if this did cross the Scripture's asserting elsewhere that the LORD JESUS himself rais'd up the Temple of his Body when the Jews had overthrown it Joh. 2.19 It is true that he raised up himself but since his Power is the Power of the Father as being one only and the same GOD with him 't is evident it may be truly said that the Father raised him up the working of one of these two Persons being the working of the other as our Saviour declareth in S. John Joh. 5.19 that whatsoever the Father doth the Son doth in like manner also Whence it comes that the Scripture attributes the Creation of the world indifferently to the one and to the other Dear Brethren This is that which the holy Apostle the great Minister of GOD doth tell us in this Text. Oh how happy should we be if we had these Divine Instructions written in the bottom of our hearts and engraven in Capital Letters upon all the parts of our lives If our actions did justifie as our words profess That we are buried and risen again with JESUS CHRIST by Baptism and by the faith of the operation of GOD who raised him from the dead But alas it must be confessed to our shame there appears in the lives of most of us no print of the burial and least of all of the resurrection of JESUS The flesh lives and exerciseth as horrible tyranny in them as it doth in the lives of the men of the world It hath all its sentiments and all its motions at liberty The new man that breathes nothing but Heaven and loves nothing but Holiness hath no place in them it is so far from reigning there that it 's banish'd thence and acts no more than a dead body fast shut up in the grave Yet if nothing depended on the matter save our shame impudency would bear it out But the worst is our salvation and our eternal damnation doth depend upon it for JESUS CHRIST saves none but his Members such as are made conform to him and have been buried and raised again with him Awake we therefore from this mortal Lethargy which hath benummed our senses to this day Labour we day and night in prayer with sighs and tears and not cease until we feel the old man dye and the new live in our hearts As for the former both Nature and Experience do sufficiently shew us the extravagancy of its desires and the vanity of all its motions For I beseech you what profit does the flesh receivâ— from all the trouble that either its self takes or that it gives to others What benefit hath it from the turmoiling of its avarice or the burning of its ambition or the shamefulness of its pleasures or the sweetness of its revenges It torments its self it toils its self it embraceth wind and smoak and then perisheth oftentimes shortning its own duration by the violence of its agitations It hath but a little body which daily weakens to lodg and seâ—d and clothe for some years yet it travels and disquiets its self as much as if it had a million to maintain for the space of many ages Was there ever a greater folly Certainly should a man of composed mind behold our busie employments in the earth with the motives and designs of so many motions and troubles as we consume our selves in I make little question but he would take well-nigh all men for frantick or foolish and cry out not simply with the Wise man Vanity of vanities all is vanity but yet louder and in a tone more tragical O madness O phrensie All the World is but a company of sensâ—ess men But the seeing of the vanity of the flesh is not sufficient for the conceiving of a due horror at it Christian enter into the Sepulcher of your Saviour and you shall perceive there that besides vanity the life of the old man is all full of venom and wretchedness This sacred Body which you see lying in that Tomb in so pitiful an estate was pierced with nails potion'd with gall crowned with thorns cover'd with the reproach of men and the curse of GOD separated from its Soul and brought down to the dust to divert from you the punishments justly prepared for the disorders of your flesh Think what Hells it deserved since it was necessary that the LORD of Glory should suffer such strange usage to redeem it from them Having once discerned by such sensible evidences the vanity and malignity of the old man and the perdition into which he leads his Vassals how can you have the heart to let him live within you Beloved Brethren crucifie him and out him of the world He is unworthy to live Pierce him through with the thorns and nails of your JESUS Give him his gall to drink Put him to death with him and bury him in his Sepulcher to come forth no more Let his Avarice and Ambitions and all his Concupiscences remain eternally extinct in the dust of that salvifique grave that there appear no more
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