death he there suffered was the true and only cause of his triumphs 'T was the Tree of this Cross that bore the Palms and Laurels he hath been crowned with 'T is there that all the causes and originals of all his glory are found It is this Cross that opened his Sepulcher and brought him out from thence and raised him up in Immortality 'T is it also that a little after opened Heaven to him and seated him on the right hand of the Most High 'T is it that loosed the tongues of his Apostles and changed the world in a short time that defeated Paganism that is the greatest part of Satan's Empire that threw down Idols and drew all people to the service of that Divine crucified Person whom it bore It is the same likewise that will pluck us one day out of the hands of death and lift us up into the Sanctuary of Eternity Lastly 'T is it hath founded that glorious Throne whereon JESUS shall sit and both the one and the other his Subjects and his Enemies see him truly triumphing the one with eternal joy the other with a confusion that shall never end Since the Cross of our LORD and Saviour is the cause of so many triumphs who sees not that it is not only with truth but also a great deal of elegance that the Apostle here saith he triumphed on it over his Enemies Let us Dear Brethren adore the mystery of it and look upon it notwithstanding the sad appearances of its infirmity as the only cause of the glory of our Head and of the liberty of his people If the Jew do stumble at and the Greek deride it 't is an effect of their ignorance and infidelity For our part who know its virtue let us say with the Apostle GOD forbid that we should glory save in the Cross of our LORD JESVS CHRIST Gal. 6.14 It hath taken us out of the mortal bonds of the Devils and put us into the liberty of the sons of GOD. It hath spoiled our old Tyrants and broken their Iron yoke and overthrown those infernal principalities and powers Let us not fear them After the blow they have received from the Cross of CHRIST they are but back-broken Serpents that do but hiss and crawl along the dust I grant they yet stir and wind about us and do not cease to threaten us But they can no longer hurt us if we keep fast to the Cross of our Saviour by which the world is crucified unto us and we unto the world They are our Enemies they are no more our Masters We are to wrestle with them we are under their yoke no longer And if GOD do sometimes permit them to strike us in our goods or in our bodies and what we have on earth yet he preserveth our persons and doth not suffer them to take from us any thing that his Son hath purchased in Heaven for us And he so governeth these Combats that they ever turn unto our glory and their confusion as that of Job's yer while did GOD permits them to attaque us that we may overcome them or to say better that the Cross of JESUS may stand up once more victorious in each of us and bruise Satan under our feet Rom. 16.26 as it hath already bruised him under his Let us with good courage follow the victory of our Head and stoutly march on in his steps Let us pursue the vanquished Enemy and not quit him till we in this holy warr do bear away the Laurel and the honour of a Triumph Take heed he rally not his dissipated Forces and do us some affront For henceforth there is nothing but our wretchlesness that can give him the advantage Our Victory is as sure as may be if we have so much courage as not to destroy our selves For what can he do to us if we watch if we pray if we keep upon our guard and under the Ensign of the Cross of our LORD Will he accuse us GOD doth justifie us and his Son doth defend and intercede for us Will he batter us with the curse of the Law The Cross of CHRIST hath annulled that Will he stir up against us the hate and persecutions of the world In these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us and that can so turn and change them in favour of us as they shall all work together for our good Will he take hold of us on the other side by the baits of sin and pleasures and benefits of the present world Our Saviour's Cross hath extinguish'd and mortified the desire of them in our hearts shewing us that all this beauteous figure of the World is but a vanity that passeth away and endeth in eternal misery Will he menace us with death He may but the Cross of JESUS hath disarmed it of all its stings and so altered its whole nature that whereas it was of it self the wages of sin and an effect of our Judge's wrath and the beginning of Hell it is now a token to us of the grace of GOD the end of our Combats and the entry of our Paradice Let us therefore my beloved Brethren live in repose and take fruition with humble thankfulness of the good things which the LORD JESUS hath obtained for us by the merit of his Cross serving and religiously adoring him consecrating all our life to his glory as he gave his for our salvation and assuring our selves amid all the storms of this generation that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor heighth nor depth nor any other creature shall be ever able to separate us from the love of GOD which he hath shewed us in JESVS CHRIST our LORD So be it The Twenty-seventh SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER XVI XVII Ver. xvi 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 Ver. xvij Which things are shadows of those that were to come but the body of them is in CHRIST DEar Brethren Our LORD JESUS CHRIST doth excellently shew us the difference of that Evangelical service which he hath instituted in his Church from the Legal service which had place in Israel under the Old Testament when speaking of it to the Samaritan he saith Woman John 4.21 23 believe me the hour cometh that neither in this mountain nor at Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father But the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth Under the Law the service of GOD was affixed to certain places as the Temple at Jerusalem and the Land of Canaan to certain times as Sabbaths New Moons and those great Feasts of the Passover Pentecost and Tabernacles to certain corporeal things as Beasts and other Kinds which were offered upon a material Altar with divers ceremonies and to certain sorts of Meat it being not permitted at that time to eat of any
notable difference between the heavenly food which we receive in this Sacrament and the earthly meat we daily take for whereas the latter is for the nourishing of our bodies chang'd into their nature the former on the contrary for the enlivening of our souls transform them into its own Thus since we have participated this Morning of this precious Sacrament we cannot better employ the present hour than in meditating these words of the Apostle which contain and represent one of its principal effects Consider them therefore my Brethren attentively And that we may discern whether or no we have truly communicated of the bread of Heaven let us examine whether it hath produced and formed in our hearts that humility and kindness and all those other vertues which the Apostle enjoyns us in this place and reckon we that without this neither the LORD's favour in inviting us unto his Table nor the heavenly food there presented us will benefit us at all and that remaining far from contributing to our salvation it will aggravate our condemnation according to the Apostles saying in another place That whoever cateth of the bread of the LORD and drinketh of his cup unworthily eateth and drinketh his own judgment S. Paul if you remember having in general exhorted the Colossians to mortifie the members of the old Man did particularly nominate and specifie to them some of his principal Vices as covetousness fornication malignity wrath and such others expresly injoyning them to put them away But because it is not enough to forbear evil there must also be a doing good and it sufficeth not that we abstain from vice if we do not exercise the actions of vertue This great Apostle having forbidden the lusts and fins of the old Man commands us first in general to put on the New as you heard a week since and then in the progress of his speech he pointeth at some of the principal parts of this new Man by name It is precisely at the Verses we have read that he begins this discourse Put on then saith he as elected of GOD Saints and Beloved bowels of mercy c. This exhortation he infers from the precedent Verses and proposeth us at the entrance a reason that obligeth us unto this pursuit taken from the honour GOD hath done us to choose us for his Saints and his Beloved Next he commands us compassion benignity humility meekness patience five Vertues that refer as you see to the manner after which we are to carry our selves towards our neighbours and particularly towards those of them that suffer evil or do us any Afterwards he pointeth out two acts of patience and benignity the one is a bearing with and the other the pardoning of one another and to incite us to them he adds the example our LORD and Saviour hath given us of them So we shall have three Points to treat of in this action if the LORD will First the quality of elected of GOD Saints and Beloved which the Apostle gives us at the entrance to sway us to our duty Secondly the five Vertues which he recommends unto us and the exercising of them in the matter of that forbearance and mutual forgiveness which we owe one another And finally in the third place the example of JESUS CHRIST which he sets before our eyes as an accomplisht pattern and a most effectual argument of our sanctification Dear Brethren hear meditate and duly put in practise that Divine Lesson which the LORD JESUS gave you this Morning in the Mysterie of his Table and now repeats by the mouth of his Apostle The Apostle deduceth it from what he had generally asserted in the precedent Verses namely that we have put on the new Man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him who created him Thence he now concludes Put on then bowels of mercy kindness humility meekness patience The consequence is evident For since we do put on the new Man in JESUS CHRIST it is clear that these Vertues being as they are members and parts of this new Man it 's a duty of ours to put them on and that in defect of them this new Nature which makes us Christians would remain imperfect in us Brethren Mark well this reasoning and learn by it how hugely they deceive themselves who pretend without these Vertues unto the name and inheritance of Christians imagining that they are not necessary for all but only meet for such as will be perfecter and more excellent than the commonalty of the faithful It 's a principle laid down in divers places by the Apostle and acknowledged by the whole Church that no man is in CHRIST except he be a new Creature And himself teacheth us here that whoever is a new Creature must put on compassion and those other Vertues he nameth in order sure it follows then that whosoever hath not put them on is not a new Creature nor by consequent a Christian If therefore you will be Christians if you will aspire to salvation which GOD gives to none but those that are so renounce that pernicious error and embrace the pursuit of all these Vertues with vigorous resolution travelling incessantly in it until you have vested your souls with their habitudes sentiments and affections and fill'd your whole life with their actions It 's the thing to which you are also evidently obliged by the dignity of being the Elect the Saints and the beloved of GOD which you are stated in and the Apostle in this place minds you of Put on saith he compassion kindness as elected of GOD Saints and beloved The Hebrew Grammarians have noted that the word as is used in that language two manner of ways sometimes to signifie the analogy and resemblance of one thing to another and this they call the as of likeness For instance when our Saviour saith Be wise as Scrpents and simple as Doves Sometimes to signifie that the subject we speak of hath not the resemblance but the reality of that particular which we attribute to it and this they term the as of verity As when S. Joh. 1.14 John saith of our LORD JESUS CHRIST We beheld his glory to wit a glory as of the only begotten of the Father His meâ—ning is not that JESUS CHRIST was like the only Son of God but that he was so indeed and in truth and that the glâ—â—y which he and his companions beheld in him was just such as the glory of GOD's true Son should be An as of the first kind compares one thing with another An as of the second compares a thing with its self The first is a comparative Particle as the Grammarians speak and the second a rational one The as here used by the Apostle is of the second kind not of the first For he doth not mean that we should addict our selves to those Vertues which he enjoyns us as do certain other persons elected of God but that we do addict our selves unto them because we have
His last breath with a spirit clear and a soul calm speaking to us of His approaching happiness and of the present grace of His LORD with so much efficacy as it stopped Your tears and in such manner forced the resentments of your grief that how just soever they were You had nevertheless a secret shame to make them appear in the presence and on the occasion of so vertuous a person as if Laments and Plaints should have in some sort offended His piety and dishonored the victory of his faith The same GOD that loosed Him so miraculously from earth to raise him up to heaven granted You to support the affection of His departure with a patience worthy Your vocation After so rude a blow He hath yet sustained You and conducted You to an honourable old age that few persons do attain And now I doubt not but Your principal consolation and the agitations of the present world and the infirmities of this age is the assured hope you have of arriving also one day at the port of that blessed immortality where contrary to the ordinary course of nature You have seen this dear Son enter before You. If in the holy exercises of Piety by which You daily prepare You for it the reading of these Sermons may find place and be of any use for Your consolation I shall therein have extream satisfaction at least I can well assure You it is one of my most ardent desires who pray GOD to preserve you with all your Family in perfect prosperity and remain inviolably From Paris April 1. 1648. SIR Your most humble and most obedient Servant DAILLE Imprimatur Tho. Tomkins Ex. AEd. Lambeth May 15. 1671. SERMONS ON THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THE EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS THE FIRST SERMON On the I II III IV V. VERSES Verse I. Paul an Apostle of JESVS CHRIST by the Will of GOD and the Brother Timothy II. To the Saints and faithful Brethren in CHRIST which are at Colosse Grace be unto you and Peace from GOD our Father and from the LORD JESVS CHRIST III. We give thanks for you unto GOD who is the Father of our LORD JESVS CHRIST praying alway for you IV. Having heard speak of your faith in JESVS CHRIST and of the love you have to all the Saints V. For the hope which is reserved in Heaven for you whereof you have heretofore heard by the Word of Truth to wit the Gospel THE Apostle St. Paul's Assertion is verified in the afflictions of the faithful by constant experience Rom. 8.27 and they ever work together for good to them that love GOD. Beside the excellent fruit which the afflicted themselves receive from them such as they sooner or later acknowledge with the Psalmist That it was good for them to have been afflicted Psal 119.71 they are also serviceable to the edification of others For as Roses the fairest and sweetest of Flowers do grow on a rough and thorny stock so from the afflictions of the faithful rugged and piercing to the flesh spring forth examples of their Vertue and instances of their Piety sweetest and most salubrious productions See what a rich store of benefits the tryals of Job and of David have yielded us It 's to them we owe that admirable Book of the Patience of the former and a good part of the Divine Hymns of the latter Had it not been for their afflictions we should not now enjoy after so many Ages that inestimable treasure of Instructions and Consolations What shall I say of the sufferings of St. Paul which did spead the Gospel all abroad and convert the world unto knowledge of the true GOD. His imprisonment at Rome alone under the Empire of Nero hath done the Church more good than the peace and prosperity of all the rest of the faithful that then were It gave reputation to the Gospel and made it gloriously enter into the stateliest Court in the world It inspired an heroick courage into Preachers of the truth It awakened the curiosity of some and inflamed the charity of others and filled all that great City with the Name and Odor of JESUS CHRIST Nor was it of use unto the Romans only It imparted its celestial fruit unto the remotest Regions and Generations For it was in this very confinement that this holy man wrote several of his Divine Epistles which we read with so much edification to this day as those to Philemon to Timothy to the Ephesians and that directed to the Philippians the Exposition whereof we last finished and the following to the Colossians which we have chosen to explain henceforth unto you if GOD permit Paul's Prison was a common receptacle whence have issued out those living Springs which water and rejoyce the City of GOD and will furnish it even to the end of the world with the streams it needs for its refreshment Having then already drawn from the one of these sweet Springs that Divine Liquor wherewith we have endeavoured according to the Ministry committed to us of GOD to irrorate the heavenly plants of your faith and love we now turn us my Brethren to the other a no less quick and plentiful one than the former Bring ye to it as the Lord requires souls thirsting for His grace and He will give you as He hath promised living water which shall quench your drougth for ever and become in each of you a Well springing up to eternal life The Church of the Colossians to whom this Epistle is addressed having been happily planted by Epaphras a faithful Minister of CHRIST the enemy failed not to sow forthwith his Tares within it by the hands of some Seducers these men would mingle Moses with our Saviour and together with the Gospel of the one retain and observe the Ceremonies of the other To make their error the more pleasing they painted it over with colours of Philosophy subtility of Discourse curiosity of Speculations and other such like Artifices Epaphras seeing the danger whereinto this prophane medly did cast the faith and salvation of his dear Colossians advertiseth St. Paul of it then Prisoner at Rome The Apostle to withdraw them from so pernicious an error taketh Pen in hand and writeth them this Letter wherein he sheweth them that in JESUS CHRIST alone is all the fulness of our salvation in such manner as that we should deeply injure Him to seek ought of it out of Him since in His Gospel we have abundantly wherewith to inform our Faith and form our manners without adding thereto either the shadows of Moses or the vanities of Philosophy At the entrance He saluteth them and congratulates them for the Communion they had with GOD in His Son Next he draweth them a lively pourtrait of the Lord JESUS wherein shine forth the dignity of His person and the inexhaustible abundance of His benefits Upon that he undertaketh the Seducers and refutes the unprofitable additions wherewith they sophisticated the simplicity of the Gospel Afterwards from dispute he
that the Apostle did the honour to write this Epistle S. Paul qualifieth the Christians at Colosse Saints and faithful Brethren He calleth them Saints a name he ordinarily giveth to all true Christians and which belongeth to them indeed forasmuch as GOD separating them from the rest of men by the effectual working of His Word and by the Sacrament of His Baptism cleanseth and purifieth them from the filth of Sin and delivereth them from the servitude of the flesh and consecrates them to His own name and service to be to Him a peculiar people addicted to good works Whence it comes that the whole body of the faithful is called in the Creed The Holy Church Mark this well my Brethren and make account that you cannot be Christians except you be truly Saints Suffer not your selves to be abused by the deceitfulness of those who promise you this glorious Name provided only you make profession to believe in CHRIST and that ye will live in the Communion of their Church how naught and impious soever ye be other wayes the body of the LORD is too lively and precious to have dead and rotten members I confess if you have the industry to hide your Vices under the false appearances of an outward profession you will gain thus much that men will give you the name of Christians and reckon you among the members of the Church as it might well be that among those whom the Apostle honours here with the Name of Saints and faithful there were some hypocrites But GOD who seeth the secrets of our hearts and upon whose judgement our whole condition doth depend will never count you Christians or members of his Son if you be not truly Saints Paul likewise and the Church who by a charitable judgement call you now Disciples of the LORD will change their opinion and rank you with profane men and worldlings when they shall discover your Hypocrifie The Title Faithful which the Apostle gives in the second place to the Colossians is common to all true Christians too and is taken from that Faith they give to the Gospel of the LORD The word Brethren that follows signifieth the holy communion they had with the Apostle and with all other believers of whatsoever quality or condition they were as persons all begotten of the same Father namely GOD all born of the same Mother Jerusalem from on high all partaking of the same Divine Nature all nursed in the same spiritual family bred up in the same hopes destined to the same inheritance consecrated by one and the same Discipline In fine He adds in CHRIST because it is of Him and by Him and in Him that we have all this Sanctity Faith and Fraternal union the titles whereof he hath given to the Colossians After having thus denoted and qualified the persons He writes unto He wisheth them according to His custom Grace and Peace from GOD our Father and from the LORD JESVS CHRIST By Grace He meaneth the favour and good will of GOD with the saving gifts and divine assistance wherewith he gratifieth those He loveth in His Son By Peace He signifieth that of GOD which is nothing else but the calm and tranquility of a soul that looketh to the LORD with assurance having remission of its sins by JESUS CHRIST and is delivered by the effectual operation of His Spirit from the importune tyranny of the lusts of the flesh It may yet well be that beside this first and chiefest peace the Apostle intendeth also that of men a sweet and calm estate exempt from their hatred and persecutions that they might without justling them or being troubled of them lead a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty You should also know that in the stile of Scripture the word Peace signifieth generally all kind of welfare and prosperity to which sense it may without inconvenience be interpreted in this place But he wisheth them these benefits From GOD our Father and from our LORD JESVS CHRIST From GOD because He is the first and highest spring of all good the Father of lights from whom cometh down every good gift From JESVS CHRIST for that He is as the channel by which the benefits of GOD stream down upon us it being clear that without the death and resurrection and in a word without the mediation of JESUS we could have had no part in the least of the Graces of GOD. He calleth GOD our Father because He hath adopted us freely in His Son and it is properly upon this relation that He communicateth His Grace and Peace to us whence it cometh that JESUS CHRIST hath given us order to call Him our Father in the prayer He hath taught us He calleth JESUS CHRIST the LORD because he is our Master who hath all power and authority over us as well by the right of Creation as by that of Redemption Such is the Inscription of this Epistle Let us come now to the second point of our Text wherein the Apostle congratulates the Colossians for the part they had in JESUS CHRIST We give thanks saith he to GOD for you who is the Father of our LORD JESVS CHRIST praying alwayes for you having heard speak of your faith in JESVS CHRIST and of the charity you have towards all the Saints for the hope that is reserved for you in Heaven which you have before heard of by the word of truth to wit the Gospel Here is as the Preface or Exordium of the Epistle which extendeth as far as the thirteenth Verse wherein the Apostle by the true praises he giveth the piety of the Colossians winneth their benevolence and declares to them His affection to prepare them for a right and faithful reception of the instructions he will hereafter propose to them as proceeding from a soul desirous of their salvation He protesteth therefore to them First In general that as often as himself and Timothy prayed GOD for them they did it with most humble thanksgivings for the happy estate wherein in Spirit they saw them Next he toucheth more particularly the grounds of this thanksgiving and proposeth three of them First The faith of the Colossians Secondly their charity and in the third and last place the inheritance reserved in Heaven for them Three particulars which comprize all the felicity of man The part He taketh in the happiness of the Colossians teacheth us one of the most necessary offices of our charity which is to interess our selves in the affairs of our Brethren to mourn with them that mourn to rejoyce with them that joy and be as nearly touched with their good and evil as our own Far from our practice be the envy and malignity of worldlings to whom the prosperity of others giveth trouble and their adversity gladness who feed themselves with their miseries and are sad at their mercies But the Apostle sheweth us moreover by this his example that the joy we have for the good of our neighbours should be elevated unto GOD who
are those mouths of Hell that inspire nothing but hatred and kindle nothing but animosity envy and revenge in the souls of those whom they can breath upon who busie themselves in making dissentions among brethren in dividing and arming one against the other such as nature or grace hath most strictly united But it is time henceforth to conclude this action that which you have heard may I think suffice for your understanding of this Text and so nothing remains for me but to conjure you to make in good earnest your profit of it and to draw from this Meditation the holy uses it containeth whether for the correction of your manners or the consolation of your souls The Gospel of JESUS CHRIST is come unto you the same Gospel which yerwhile changed the Universe which abolished Idolatry and Paganism and made the knowledge and service of the true GOD flourish every where The LORD hath raised you up Epaphras's faithful Ministers of His Word who have published it to your Fathers and to you with exquisite sincerity and truth entirely so as Paul preached it to the Nations without any leaven of superstition or error acquitting themselves in their Stewardship with so upright a conscience with so much zeal and ardour as I assure my self that the great Apostle were he now on earth would do them the honour to own them for his dear fellow-labourers You have seen this sacred doctrine renew the proofs of its divinity by the swiftness of it's course and efficacy of its vertue as which in little time flew through all Christendome and in spight of the oppositions of Hell and Earth rais'd up every where fair and flourishing Churches to the LORD We may say particularly of yours that the Gospel fructified in it from the day it was heard there The blood and the sufferings of so many faithful ones as gloriously sealed its truth therewith their charity their zeal their good and holy works of which memory remaineth still among us are unreproachable witness of it But I know not whether I may justly add what the Apostle saith here of his Colossians that the Gospel bringeth forth fruit still in you For those few fruits which it produceth here are choaked up with so many thorns and bryars so many sins and vices that they scarce deserve to be considered Not that the Gospel is changed in its self It hath still that immortal force which GOD gave it to bud and thrust forth and produce the fruits of righteousness and life It is ever the incorruptible seed of GOD His Word living and abiding for ever full of efficacy and vigour Whence then cometh this sterility Dear Brethren it cometh from the bad disposition of our ground and not from the weakness of the heavenly seed The Gospel fructifieth not among us because it falls in stony places and by the High-ways or among thorns upon souls either full of worldly lusts and carnal cares or exposed to the feet to the going to and fro of Devils or frozen up and hardned with the fear of temporal evils This is Faithful Sirs the true cause of our barrenness Let us then purge our hearts Hos 10 12 Jer. 4.3 and as a Prophet saith break up our fallow grounds Let us pluck up the thorns which the world hath planted there avarice the desire and deceitfulness of riches ambition and the love of our flesh sensuality and vanity When you shall receive the Gospel into souls so prepared it will not fail to shew it's fecundity It will bring forth it's fruit abundantly in some an hundred for one in others sixty in others thirty Without this it is in vain that we boast us of JESUS CHRIST and of His Word His Word is not given us but to fructifie If we abide barren far from serving us it will aggravate our condemnation and draw upon us a judgement so much the more terrible by how much the more plentifully it was communicated to us Remember that dreadful threatning justified by so many sad and lamentable experiments which the Apostle denounced to the Hebrews The earth that bringeth forth thorns and thistles is rejected and nigh unto cursing and it's end is to be burned 'T is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living GOD who is so much the more severe to punish the contempt of His Word by how much the more liberal He was in imparting it to men These same Colossians whose faith and charity the Apostle praiseth here and their neighbours the Laodiceans and those of Hierapolis for not having continued to bear fruits worthy their Vocation saw some years after their Cities ruined and swallowed up in an horrible earthquake And all those fair Churches of Asia so much celebrated in the Acts and the Apocalyps are at this day entirely desolate for not having made their profit of the Gospel GOD hath already begun too to avenge this contempt of His Word in divers places of Christendome which the bryars and thorns of the old superstition do cover once again instead of the Gospel that lately flourished there GOD forbid Dear Brethren that we should fall into the like condemnation To prevent it let us recover the zeal of our Fathers let us do the first works Let the Gospel fructifie again in the midst of us Let it bring forth and make to grow up abundantly charity meekness honesty peace humility patience alms prayer fasting sobriety chastity and the other fruits of the Spirit and above all a spiritual love of St. Paul and the other Apostles who report the Gospel to us to respect them and walk in their doctrine concord and mutual love in one towards another If we make this use of it GOD will take pleasure in the midst of us He will daily visit us He will cherish us as His Paradice His Heritage the Garden of His delights He will pour out upon us here below all kind of graces and blessings in abundance and after having seen us fructifie on Earth He will one day transplant us into Heaven to live and flourish there for ever in the Courts of His own blessed and eternal habitation Amen THE III. SERMON COL I. Ver. IX Vers IX And for this cause we also since the day we heard it cease not to pray for you and to make request that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding THE love of beauty and excellency is so natural to us that we cannot discover so much as the beginnings and buddings of it any where but we take pleasure in them and the secret content we thence receive usually causeth us to wish their growth and their perfection unless envy or some other maligne passion do check the moving of our hearts Thus when we see towardly Children and that promise well there is no soul that hath ever so little of humanity but is delighted and maketh the like apprecation for them as Joseph did sometime for Benjamin when
the heart to offend still a LORD so charitable so admirable How is it that His so divine beneficence doth not transport our spirits doth not win to His service all the thoughts and affections and motions that we have Christians all the acknowledgement He demands of you for so much good done you is but that you live holy Refuse Him not so just and so reasonable a due He hath made you to partake of the inheritance of Saints Be not ye so ingrateful as to mix with the profane Be ye separate from them and have no communion with the impurity and ordure of their vices Despise not as Esau the title you have to so precious an inheritance Let it be dearer to you than all the perishing provisions and delights of the earth none of which is better than that pittiful pottage of Lentils for which the profane man did truck away His birth-right This inheritance is in light Live then as children of light Let your conversation be all radiant with those divine and heavenly vertues which the Gospel of your Saviour recommendeth unto you The darkness is now passed The Sun of righteousness is at his full height Let that infamous power of darkness under which you sometime groaned have no more authority over you Open all your understanding that you may perceive the glory of the LORD and suffer no more abuse by the illusions of errour Labour to encrease your light being still at the Scriptures of GOD the living spring of all spiritual illumination the inexhaustible treasure of saving knowledge But let this light shine also in your manners For it 's to no purpose to renounce the darkness of superstition if you remain in that of vice 1 Joh. 2.11 He that hateth his Brother saith St. John is in darkness and walketh in darkness and knoweth not whither he goeth for darkness hath blinded his eyes Remember you are no longer in the School of Satan the Prince of darkness You are in the Kingdom of the Son of GOD. Have thoughts and do actions worthy of so glorious a condition Let it purifie your life of all stench and sordidness Let it elevate your hearts above mortal things and set them in Heaven the residence of this Divine royalty But Dear Brethren as this Text doth oblige us to a singular studious pursuit of Sanctification so openeth it to us a living source of consolation and joy For if we knew our blessings and that wonderful grace which the Father hath shewed us what were there more happy than we We have part in the heritage of Saints The kingdom of the beloved Son of GOD hath been given us O great and magnificent portion Let the world boast of and adore its gold its honours and its delights as much as it listeth we have that better part which alone is sufficient to make us eternally happy though we should be deprived of all the rest Christian if the world bereave you of what you have in its fee and jurisdiction consider it cannot take from you the inheritance of Saints If it deny you its Leeks and Onions and Flesh-pots it shall not be able to debarr you from that divine light which shineth on you and which in spight of all its attempts shall conduct you to your bliss-ful Canaan If it take from you its honours if it drive you even out of its earth it shall not be able to wrest the Kingdom of the Son of GOD from you nor sequester that dignity and glory which you possess in it This is not a corruptible Kingdom it 's not like those of the earth that are subject to a thousand and a thousand disgraces miseries and mutations It 's an immortal Kingdom firmer than the Heavens so abundant in glory and in goodness that it changeth all those who have part in it into Kings and Priests Faithful Brethren content we our selves with so advantageous a portion Let us enjoy it for the present by a lively and an establisht hope sweetly bearing the incommodities of this small journey we take to get to it and patiently expect that blessed day on which our Heavenly Father having finished the work of His grace will raise us all up into His glory and put on our heads the crownes of life and immortality which he hath promised us in the eternal Communion of His well-beloved Son To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit the true and only GOD blessed for ever be all honour and praise to Ages of Ages Amen THE VI. SERMON COL I. Ver. XIV Vers XIV In whom we have redemption by His blood to wit the remission of sins DEar Brethren As the true and thorough knowledge of that great Redeemer whose remembrance we are at this day to celebrate is the only foundation of the piety and salvation of men in like manner on the contrary ignorance of His person of His offices and of His benefits is the source of those errors and abuses which have corrupted religion and consequently of that unhappiness into which the unbelieving the profane the superstitious and the heretical do fall We may say to all these people Joh. 4.10 as our LORD sometime did to the woman of Samaria If you knew who He is that speaks to you in our Gospel you would ask of Him the refreshment and consolation of your souls and He would give you living water 1 Cor. 2.8 springing up to everlasting life And as St. Paul said of the ancient Jews that if they had known the wisdom of GOD they would never have crucified the LORD of glory So may we say to all the enemies of Godliness in general that if they knew JESUS the Wisdom and Word of the Father they would not wrong either His truth or those that make profession of it JESUS rightly and throughly known believed and apprehended is enough to expell errour doubt superstition vice and death from our hearts and to establish truth peace joy holiness and salvation in them Accordingly you see that Paul the master of the whole world the Minister of truth the teacher of life and happiness for the executing of this high commission and opening the eyes of His gentiles and bringing them from the power of Satan unto GOD protesteth he determined to know nothing among them but JESUS CHRIST Crucified He findeth in this rich and inexhaustible subject all that was necessary for him to convert Infidels to confirm believers to comfort the afflicted to reduce the strayed and recover such as had erred He finds in it wherewith to confute the Philosophy of the Pagans wherewith to abase the presumption of the Jews wherewith to instruct the ignorant and to convince the intelligent It 's with the sole science of this JESUS that He plucketh men off from idolatry and sets them free from the slavery of vice It 's with the same again that he reformeth the abuses and cureth the wounds which errour hath caused in the Church It is his weapon against enemies without
in like manner hath not only the shadow or the appearance of the authority and power of his Predecessor He hath the whole substance and reality of it Gen. 5.3 Thus it is that Moses saith Adam begat Seth his son in his own likeness and after his image He signifies thereby that Seth had a nature the same in all things with Adam's own Now the question is in which of these two senses must we take the word Image when the Apostle saith here and also elsewhere that JESVS CHRIST is the image of GOD. 2 Cor. 4.4 The very quality of the subject in question sheweth us so clearly that we must apprehend it after the second way and not the former as even those that quarrel it dare not say that JESUS CHRIST is an imperfect image of His Father For where is the Christian ear that could suffer a blasphemy so horrible and so contrary to all the Scripture Sure when the Apostle saith of our LORD that He is the image of GOD he thereby meaneth quite another thing then what he signifies elsewhere when he saith that man is the image of GOD. For intending here to exalt the LORD JESUS and to demonstrate that His dignity is so high as capacitateth Him to save us He would ill suite this design if he attributed nothing to Him but what agreeth to any man whoever he be And yet if you do not understand it that JESUS CHRIST is a perfect image of GOD the Apostle will affirm no other thing of Him here then he asserts elsewhere of man when he saith he is the image of GOD. Beside the Apostle's end the thing it self he speaks of doth evidently shew it us also For our LORD informeth us that He who hath seen Him hath seen the Father and that Joh. 14.9 12.45 who beholdeth Him beholdeth Him that sent him Where is the pourtrait of which it may be said that he who hath seen it hath seen the subject which it representeth It 's clear this is not found but in such an image as is most perfect and containeth fully in it all the being of its original Whence it appears that it is in this sense that JESVS CHRIST is the image of GOD. And to make us conceive it the better the Apostle hath a passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews the scope the terms and sense whereof have very much resemblance with this here there he saith Heb. 1.3 that JESVS CHRIST is the resplendency of the glory of His Father and the Character or engraven Stamp of His person Terms exceeding elegant and expressive and such as clearly decide this case that the LORD is the image of GOD in another manner than man and that the same glory which shineth in the Father is respendent also in the Son and that the same nature which is in the person of the one is likewise in the person of the other Say we therefore according to the Analogie of this Doctrine and the reason of the thing it self That JESUS CHRIST is the image of GOD His Father but a perfect one yea the most perfect that an image may be An image which exhibiteth unto us and representeth not the colour or the shadow but the truth and substance of the Deity The Scripture our only guide in these high mysteries teacheth it clearly And to aid you in the comprehending of it though the GOD-head be most simple in it self exempt from all mixture and composition yet speaking of it according to the weakness of our understanding to which GOD hath not disdained to accommodate Himself in His word we will consider three things of Him the nature the properties or qualities which Divines commonly call His Attributes and His works As for His Nature it is most perfectly represented in JESUS CHRIST forasmuch as He hath really and veritably the same being and same substance with GOD the Father As a child whom we call the image of His Father hath the same nature with Him being truly of mankind as He. The Scripture teacheth us this truth in very many places where it saith Joh. 1.5 Tit. 2.13 Rom. 9.5 1 Cor. 10.9 Joh. 12.41 that JESUS CHRIST is GOD that He is the true GOD. Our great GOD and Saviour GOD blessed above all Jehovah yerst tempted by the Israelites in the desart He whose glory Isaiah saw in the vision described at the sixth Chapter of His Prophecy It layeth down the same thing also as often as it represents Him to us a due object of our adoration saying that all ought to honour Him as they honour the Father Joh. 5.23 Heb. 1.6 and that the very Angels worship Him it being evident that according to Scripture there is nothing but a nature truly divine to whom adoration may be lawfully given But the LORD JESUS no less perfectly represents the Father in His Properties then in His Nature The Father is eternal so is the Son and Isaiah calleth Him upon this account The Father of eternity Before Abraham was He is Joh. 8.58 He was from the beginning with GOD and before the world was created even then He was in the bosome of the Father His love and His delight The Heavens shall perish but He is permanent The Heavens shall wax old as a garment and be folded up as a Vesture and be changed But JESUS is the same Heb 1.11 12. and His years shall not fail The Father is immutable without ever receiving any alteration or change Heb. 13.8 either in His being or in His will The Son is the same both yesterday and to day and for ever The Father is infinite filling Heaven and earth neither is there any thing within or without the world that boundeth the presence of His being Joh. 3.13 The Son is in like manner infinite He is in Heaven whiles He speaketh to Nicodemus on earth He is here below on earth in our hearts and in our assemblies the same instant that He is fitting at the right hand of the Father in the highest room of the Universe and though the Heavens contain that body and humane nature which He did assume yet they do not enclose His Majesty and all-present Divinity The Father hath a soveraign understanding knowing all things present past and to come The Son is Wisdom it self He knoweth all things and if He say somewhere that He knoweth not the day of Judgement this is not to be understood but in respect of His humane nature and not in respect of His divine intelligency Rev. 2.23 He soundeth the reins and knoweth the heart of man a quality which the Scripture noteth to us as the character and specifique mark of the knowledge of GOD asserting that there is none but He only who knoweth the hearts of men The Father knoweth Himself and no man or Angel to speak properly ever saw Him The Son so perfectly knoweth Him that He hath even declared and revealed Him unto men The Father is almighty and
doth whatsoever He will The Son hath all power in Heaven and in Earth and there is nothing but is facile to Him The Father is super-eminently good hating evil and loving rectitude and justice The Son is the Saint of Saints entirely separate from sinners goodness and justice it self The Father is merciful and inclined to pity The Son is the bottom of His compassions The Father maketh His Sun to shine on and His Rain to bedew even the men that blaspheme Him The Son dyed for His enemies and prayed for those that crucified Him In short the Father hath not any other essential quality but the Son hath it likewise and in the same measure with the Father I come to His Works Certainly the Son Himself informeth us how perfectly He represents the Father in this respect Joh. 5.19 saying in general that what thing soever the Father doth the same doth the Son likewise The Father created the Universe The Son founded the Earth Heb. 1.10 Joh. 1.3 and the Heavens are the work of His hands All things were made by Him and without Him nothing was made of all that was made The Father conserveth the world by His providence the Son sustaineth all things by His mighty word The Father hath set up the Princes and Magistrates who govern mankind Prov. 8.15 and there is no power but of Him It 's by the Son that Kings Reign and Princes decree justice The Father saved and redeemed the Church the Son is our righteousness our wisdom and our redemption The Father loved us and delivered up His Son to death for us the Son gave Himself a ransome for our sins If the Father raised up the Son the Son also raised again His own Temple when the fury of the Jews had beaten it down If the Father quicken the dead the Son quickneth them likewise and the last judgment the punishing of the wicked in Hell the glory of the Faithful in Heaven and all that refers to it is the work both of the one and the other The Father hath elected us so likewise hath the Son Joh. 13.18 I know saith He whom I have chosen It is the same in all the other actions and operations of the divine nature If you read the Scriptures exactly you shall not see any of them attributed to the Father but is likewise attributed to the Son And as for that right and soveraign authority which accreweth unto GOD over all things from these great and high qualities and operations this glory shineth in the person of the Son as it doth in the person of the Father If the Father be Judge of the earth King of ages and Monarch of the world the Son is in like manner the LORD of glory the head of the Armies of Heaven the Prince of men and Angels the Judge of all flesh If the Name of the Father be great and dreadful that of the Son is above every name which is named in this world or in the world to come If all creatures both superiour intermedial and inferiour do owe a soveraign homage to the Father and cast down themselves before Him adoring His Majesty with the profoundest respect they are capable of so it is clear that before JESUS every knee doth bow both of things in Heaven and things on earth and things under the Earth the Father Himself proclaiming when He bringeth Him into the world Let all the Angels of GOD worship Him So you see Dear Brethren that the LORD JESUS is truly the image of His Father since He hath and discovereth perfectly in Himself the Nature the Properties and the Works of the Father An admirable a singular and a truly Divine image which possesseth the whole form of its original without any variation and faithfully and naturally representeth all the features of it in their true and just greatness measure and nature I confess there are among men sons that resemble in some sort their Fathers but there are none in whom such resemblance is comparable with that of the Son of GOD to His Eternal Father If our Sons represent our nature and manners it is always with some difference which a piercing and a clear-sighted eye may easily observe and after all there are none that in their life do express the lives of their fathers totally entire with every one of their actions and operations Whereas the Son of GOD is a most complete image both of the nature and the life of His Father if we may speak in this manner of these mysteries all the works of the one whether small or great being also the works of the other This sacred Verity taught here by the Apostle overthroweth two heresies which though contrary and opposite to one another did sometime equally trouble the Church of GOD. I mean that of the Sabellians and that of the Arians The former confounded the Son with the Father the latter rent them on sunder Those took from the Son His person these His nature For the Sabellians did dogmatize that the Father and the Son were but one and the self-same person who according to the divers wayes and ends of his manifestations did assume sometimes the name of Father sometimes the name of Son So as in their account it is the Father who suffered on the Cross and it 's the Son who sent Him that suffered St. Paul breaketh their errour by saying that JESVS CHRIST is the image of the Father For no one is the image of himself and how great and exact soever the image's resemblance of its original be it 's of necessity that it be another subsistence than its original A child hath the same nature with the Father whose image it is said to be but nevertheless the person of the Father is one and that of the child another Since then the Apostle declareth here and elsewhere that JESVS CHRIST is the image of GOD that is to say of the Father we must either desert His doctrine or acknowledge that JESUS CHRIST is another person than the Father But if you distinguish their persons it doth not follow that you must divide their nature as did the Arians who made it their position that the nature of the Father is another than that of the Son the one increated and infinite the other created and finite These are two shelves which we must equally avoid steering our course straight in the midst shunning on one side the confusion of Sabellius and on the other the division of Arius JESVS CHRIST saith the Apostle is the image of GOD His Father He could not be the image of Him if He were one same person with Him He could not be His Perfect image if He had a nature differing from the nature of the Father How should He represent His eternity if He had been created in time How His immensity if He had a limited essence How His Majesty and glory if He were but a creature Let us then hold fast this truth full and entire
and Powers let us conclude that it must be taken as in other places where it is couched after the same manner simply and absolutely that is to say taken for the first and not the second Creation If there be liberty to do otherwise and to give it any where the sense we please without other reason then that of our own fond imagination who seeth not but that by such an overture there will be no longer any thing certain or assured left in Scripture For as these Hereticks by this cavilling gloss would deprive the LORD JESUS of the glory of the first Creation another might bereave the Father of it by the same means interpreting the passages of Scripture which affirm that GOD created the world not of its first Production by which it came out of nothing into being but mearly of a Reparation or a Renovation of the Universe and in consequence hereof pretend with some Philosophers that it was surely long before it was created but not in the condition and the form it afterward obtained But GOD forbid that Christians should ever suffer impiety to have such a licence over the Word of GOD. Let us keep religiously to the truths which the Scriptures teach us and receive their language with a candid and and sincere belief Let Heresie rise in commotion and be as unquiet as it will since the Apostle the mouth of Heaven and the trumpet of GOD proclaimeth That all things were created by the LORD JESVS receive we this sacred Verity believe it and confess it so much the rather for that it is not here alone but in divers other places beside that the Scripture teacheth it us For not to repeat here that which we touch'd afore out of the Epistle to the Ephesians where it is said That the Father created all things by JESVS CHRIST what can be said more expresly or directly then that we read in the beginning of S. John where this Divine Author speaking of the Word which was made flesh and whose glory himself and his Fellow-brethren saw and who was in the beginning with GOD saith aloud That all things were made by Him and without Him was not any thing made that was made and that the world was made by Him What can be uttered or conceived more clear than what we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews where the Apostle not content to have said at the entrance That the Father made the Worlds by his Son doth say of the Son a little after what the Prophet singeth LORD thou hast founded the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the works of thine hands Hebr. 1.10 Certainly this proof is so firm that all the Devils of Hell shall never be able to pluck it from us And nothing can be imagined more bruitish than that evasion which despair hath here inspir'd the Hereticks withal Though say they the Apostle have alledged these words of the Psalm yet his intention was not to apply them to CHRIST but the following words only Thou remainest and art the same and thy years shall not fail For is not this a plain giving the Apostle the lye who directly affirmeth that it is to the Son the holy Spirit saith LORD in the beginning thou hast laid the foundations of the earth Besides if this alledging of the Psalm do infer nothing else but that the Son is permanent and shall not fail it will be impertinent and not at all suffice for the Apostle's design in this place For his aim is to exalt the Son above the Angels but if the passage he brings for this purpose do conclude only that the Son is immortal and immutable who sees not that by this reckoning he attributes nothing to Him but what agreeth to the Angels also whose nature is likewise incorruptible and immutable Since then the Scope of the Apostle is to shew that JESUS CHRIST hath qualities which appertain not to the Angels and since on the other side the passage he alledgeth doth represent nothing of that kind but the creating of the world it must of necessity be acknowledged that it is the holy Apostle's intention to apply to the LORD principally this first part of the place wherein is said That He hath founded the earth and that the heavens are the work of His hands And so you see that the Supreme Wisdom begotten of the Father before all Ages which neither is nor can be any other than the LORD JESUS doth protest in the Book of Proverbs that it was with GOD its Eternal Father Prov. 3. when He created the World to shew us that it was the Governess and Superintendant of that great work And Moses represents it to us in the beginning of Genesis as far as the nature of the time and of the Old Testament would suffer For he reporteth GOD not creating any thing but by his Word He sheweth Him speaking at every part of His Work GOD said Let there be light GOD said Let there be a Firmament GOD said Let the waters be divided and let the day land appear and so in all the rest Whence comes it that so sage a Writer makes this Supreme and unspeakable Nature speak thus for the creating of each of His Works Let the Jew toil himself to the utmost he will never be able to give us a good and pertinent reason of it John 1.1 such as may content our minds But S. John calling the Son of GOD the Word unvails this secret to us shewing us that it is by this His Word the Father did create the world And Moses to signifie it mystically and in such sort as became that time represents GOD not creating ought but by speaking Be it then concluded against the obstinate fury of Hereticks that the LORD JESUS is the Creator of all things And this is so clear that the most part of those very men that deny His Eternal Divinity have not refused to acknowledge it as they in particular who after the name of their old Leader are commonly called Arrians these avouching that it is by Him the Father created the Universe at the beginning yet forbear not to deny that He is Eternal GOD of the same Essence with the Father Wherein as I confess they shew more modesty than the rest not having the forehead to reject what the Scripture doth so clearly exhibite So I must needs say they discover less perceivance and acuteness admitting a truth incompatible with the error which they hold For if the LORD JESUS did create the world as they say in concurrence with the Scripture do confess it must of necessity be granted that He is very JEHOVAH whom in time past Israel did adore which notwithstanding is the thing that they oppose This consequence appears first from what we noted afore That the Scripture never ascribes the action of Creating to any but GOD only Secondly from that in Isaiah the title of Creator is given to the true GOD to distinguish Him from creatures
as being incommunicable to any other besides Him Isa 42.5 45.12 48.13 51.13 It is I saith He who have made the earth and who have stretched out the Heavens Finally the thing speaks of it self For the Power requisite for the creating the world that is to make it of nothing is so great and so infinite that the Philosophers with all the light of their Reason could not comprehend it but were so far from attributing it to any Creature that they deny'd it unto GOD Himself Whence it follows that if there be any part of Divine Glory proper and essential unto GOD it is this same without all doubt Seeing then it is found in the LORD JESUS we must necessarily confess that He is in truth the Great GOD most High Eternal and Blessed for ever above all things As for the distinction they advance to cover their error alledging that the Son was but the Instrument and Minister of the Father in the work of Creation not the first and principal cause it is vain and frivilous For this creative vertue being infinite it cannot be but in an Infinite subject and in a Soveraign and principal Agent It cannot be communicated to an Instrument seeing that every Instrument being finite is consequently uncapable of receiving and containing an Infinite vertue so as since it is in the person of the Son it unavoidably follows that He is not the instrumental as they say but the first and the principal cause in the work of Creation Rev. 1. And S. John clearly shews it in the Revelation where he saith That He is Alpha and Omega the first and the last a thing that cannot be said of an instrumental cause which hath necessarily above it another Agent of a diverse nature The Apostle also clearly refuteth this gloss when he appropiates that to JESUS CHRIST which the Prophet uttered evidently of the first the principal and supreme cause of the Creation LORD thou hast founded the earth at the beginning and the Heavens are the works of thy hands An Application which would be evidently false and impertinent if JESUS CHRIST were only the instrmental cause of the Creation The observation upon which they pretend to ground this distinction is no whit more solid to wit that the Scripture saith indeed the world was created by the Son but not that the Son did create the world For first S. Paul saith in express terms that the Son founded the earth and though he had not said it who sees not but that the one and the other do amount to the same thing and that His saving All things were created by the Son is all one as if he had said That the Son created all things But if this form of Speech would infer that the Son is not the first and principal Efficient of the Creation the same must be concluded also of the Father since S. Paul speaking of Him saith in like manner That All things are of Him and by Him and for Him But that which he saith here of JESUS CHRIST in the second place That all things were created for Him doth further demonstrate the same truth very clearly For these words do signifie that the Son is the last and supreme end of the Creation of things a matter which pertaineth only to the principal cause and not to the instrument it useth for the effecting of its work Sure it is clear that it 's the true GOD who is the ultimate end for which all things were created that the glory of His Divine Vertues might be manifested so as He might be known and served as He is worthy This falls not under contest Since therefore it is for the Son that all things were created it must be acknowledged that He is the true Eternal GOD it being not possible that a Creature should be the end for which all things were created From thence the Apostle concludes in the third place That JESVS CHRIST is before all things For since He created them all it must of necessity be that He should subsist before they were And he noteth it expresly that none might suspect Him of novelty as if he He had not been but since Moses under colour of His having not been manifested till the fulness of time John 8. He is not only before Moses and Abraham as Himself saith in S. John but before all things from the beginning before there was any thing created before the mountains were settled Prov. 8. and before the hills As saith Wisdom that is the Son himself in the Book of the Proverbs But the Apostle after having thus given to the LORD JESUS the glory of creating all things passeth on further and attributeth to Him the preservation of them All things saith he subsist by him It 's this which he expresseth otherwhere in other terms when he saith Hebr. 1.3 That he sustaineth all things by His powerful word that is to say He preserves them by His Providence as He created them by His vertue their being their life and their motion so depending on Him that when He hideth His face they are troubled and fail utterly and return unto their dust or their nothing as the Prophet singeth Whence yet again appears Psal 104.29 that He is the true GOD the Eternal one blessed for ever with the Father forasmuch as this preservation of the Universe is one of the highest and most incommunicable glories of the Deity Let us now consider what are those things whose Creation and Conservation the Apostle doth attribute to the Son of GOD All things saith he were created by Him those that are in heaven and those that are in earth visible and invisible whether they be Thrones or Dominions or Principalities or Powers He leaves not any Creature of higher or of middle or of lower rank without the reach of his assertion and for the enclosing of them all within it he makes use first of a division taken from their elements I mean the places where their natural abode is saying Things in heaven and things in earth The Scripture speaketh often of them in the same manner As when we are forbidden in the Decalogue to make Religious use of any Image or the likeness of any thing whatever Thou shalt not make thee saith the LORD any image of things that are in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth By Heaven he meaneth not only that vast Region where we see the Sun and the other Stars to be lifted up But also Paradise the Habitation of Angels and of the souls of Saints above and this void space where the Fowls do fly and where the Showers and the Thunders and the other Meteors are formed below By Earth he meaneth this whole Globe wherein we live with the waters that run in stream or do float here There being then no creature but is in one of these two places it is evident he doth comprize them all by saying
be restrained to this matter and we are precisely to understand that He is the beginning of this second work of GOD. JESUS CHRIST the eternal wisdom may say in respect of this second creation what it saith of the first that the Father possessed Him in the begining of His ways and that it is the same wisdom that projected prepared and executed all this great design of the renovation of the world First it is the Son of GOD who intervening at the beginning in the counsel of the Father took upon Him the expiating of Sin without which it was not possible to found this second Frame And though he actually did it not till the fulness of time yet His engaging His word for it being once accepted of the Father it had as much efficacy as if the thing it self had been then already executed and performed which makes the Apostle elsewhere say that JESVS CHRIST is the same both yesterday and to day and for ever He hath the same efficacy always as well before as after His manifestation Without this not a man could have been called into the state of Grace Therefore St. Paul saith in another place that GOD hath chosen us in JESUS CHRIST considering Him as the foundation of our election because out of Him there could not be salvation or happiness for any one of us He is therefore truly the beginning of this work since His merit is the foundation of the counsel GOD hath taken to make and form it as St. Peter also observes when speaking of the redemption wrought by the blood of the Lamb he saith expresly that He was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world But beside the merit of His Cross which was from all time present in the counsel of GOD He is further the beginning or the principle of the Church another way even by the operation and efficacy of His power having called unto GOD all the faithful that ever were It 's He that brought Abraham out of Chaldea It 's He that appeared to the Patriarchs and that led Israel in the desert and that inspired the Prophets Psal 110.1 Whence it comes that David calls Him his LORD He builded and kept up that whole ancient Church as well as the latter by the vertue of His word and Spirit But He is again the beginning of the Church in the quality of a pattern and an exemplary cause the faithful of all ages having all been as it were cast into His mould as the Apostle teacheth at the eighth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans saying that all those whom GOD hath fore-known He hath predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son And it 's to no purpose to object that this cannot be said of that time when He had not yet assumed that humane nature tempted on earth and crowned in Heaven unto which we are conformed For to this I answer first that though that nature were not really yet in being it is enough that its idea and image was in the mind of GOD for the assimilating and conforming His work thereto This sufficeth to shew that He is the beginning and principle of it But I adjoyn in the second place that this work the Church may be considered two wayes either in its beginnings while it is yet but forming or in its perfection as finished when it hath all the touches requisite to set it in the highest degree of excellency which it must abide in I confess the Church under the first consideration had its being before the Son of GOD was made man and raised up to Heaven But if you take it under the second it is evident that in this respect He is truly the beginning of this Divine work For no one was perfect before Him He is if I may so say the first piece fully ended that ever came out of the Fathers hand and His own No one of the rest is absolutely completed Their bodies are yet under the power of Death the last of our enemies CHRIST is the only one that hath altogether broken its bonds and raised up His body from the grave and clothed it with glorious immortality He is the first man of the new world that the universe ever saw and it 's in Him hath been shewed us the true form of that second nature which we hope for in the time to come but which none hath or shall have for the present save JESUS CHRIST alone It seems to be this properly that the Apostle here intendeth when he calleth Him the beginning or principle because he addeth the first-born from the dead which words as you see do evidently correspond with this sense St. John also giveth this quality to the LORD Rev. 1.5 Grace be unto you and peace saith he from JESVS CHRIST who is the faithful witness 1 Cor. 15.20 23. the first-born from the dead And St. Paul illustrates this expression elsewhere saying to the same purpose that JESVS CHRIST being raised from the dead was become the first-fruits of them that sleep And a little after In JESVS CHRIST saith he shall all be made alive But every man in his own order CHRIST the first-fruits afterwards they that are CHRIST's And otherwhere yet Act. 26.23 in the Acts he saith it was necessary that CHRIST should be the first that rose from the dead who might shew light to the people From all these places doth sufficiently appear what the Apostle signifieth when he saith that JESVS CHRIST is the beginning and the first-born from the dead to wit that He is the first of all mankind who was raised from the state of the dead and setled in glorious immortality that He is the first ear of this blessed harvest that was carryed up into the Sanctuary and offered in due season to the eternal Father untill the rest do become ripe This truth is throughly evident For of what other man but the Lord JESUS was it ever heard say that he arose from the dead and ascended into Heaven I know the Scripture telleth us of some dead that were raised before the resurrection of the LORD But this deprives Him not at all of the glory which the Apostle here giveth Him For that I may not alledge that those persons were raised from the grave not by their own force and vertue as JESUS CHRIST but by the touching or prayer of Eliah and Elishah and by GOD's command I say that the resurrection which St. Paul understandeth is the rising again unto glory and immortality It 's a being born again not to the former life which is terrene and fading but to the other which is celestial and incorruptible Who seeth not that in this sence there never was nor yet is any raised again except the LORD JESUS alone For the Son of the Shunamite Lazarus and the others of like quality at their coming forth of the grave did reassume that same natural and perishing life which they had laid down a life subject to
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
him by a person that know it not to be poyson who perchance took of it himself thinking it a remedy so error from whatever hand it come hath still a bad effect and the opinion they have of it who present it to us doth not change the venom of it nor impede its corrupting of our souls and extinguishing Divine life in us if we do receive it But the Apostle in this place pointeth out the means also which false Teachers use for the setting up of their errors That none saith he may deceive you by words of perswasions These he calls elsewhere in the same case sweet and flattering words Rom. 16.18 saying in his Epistle to the Romans that Schismaticks and such as make divisions contrary to the doctrine we have learned do seduce the hearts of the simple by sweet and flattering words 1 Cor. 2.4 And this he nameth again elsewhere the enticing words of man's wisdom Under these terms he comprehendeth all the advantages and attractives of discourse all that it hath in it which is apt to touch and win hearts as either probable reasons wherewith it is furnisht or beauty of terms and expressions or artificial disposition and graceful pronunciation There is none but knows how potent these charms of eloquence are They sometimes dazzel the best eyes and do deceive the firmest minds It 's a kind of Magick and Enchantment which makes things appear quite otherwise than they are and gives them colours and qualities that are not their own which maketh Honey pass for Wormwood and Wormwood for Honey black for white and white for black There is no cause so good but this kind of illusion overthrows nor so bad but it establisheth There is no affection which it doth not allay nor bâ—lâ—â—f which it doth not shake nor resolution which it doth not break It hath often 〈◊〉 the innocent to be condemned and the nocent absolved with applause 'T is by its sleights that truth how invincible soever it be hath sometimes seemed to be vanquished 'T is to its dexterity and its stratagems that error and falshood do we the greatest part of their lying-triumphs For feeling themselves in reality weak they have recourse ordinarily to this kind of Sorcery that they may carry by its illusions what they could never win by true and legitimate strength 'T is it that maintaineth Sophisters and Wranglers and Mountebanks and Seducers With the sophistry and prattle which it lendeth them they have the hardiness to shew themselves and to oppose the clearest truths and recommend the grossest errors But among all the busie people that use it there are none that employ it more perniciously than Hereticks and corrupters of Religion This false Rhetorick is the principal instrument they seduce withall Accordingly it is evident that they have always taken it up and scarce ever attempted upon Truth but with this sort of weapons And it must be confessed that they help themselves by them with wonderful dexterity Never was cause in matter of Religion more sordid or shameful or seeble than that of the Pagans yet they that pleaded it against the ancient Christians knew so well how to fard it with the colours of their false reasons and the gloss of their brave words that they made it pass for plausible among the multitude and rendered Christianity ridiculous to them how holy and lightsome soever its truth was Those Hereticks which arose from among Christians had no less ability and artificialness to recommend their impostures borrowing for this purpose from the Philosophers and Orators of the world the subtilties of their Logick and all the colours of their Rhetorick There are still left us some pieces of the one and the other in the Books of Antiquity as the Discourses of one Celsus in Origen of one Caecilius in Minutius of Porphyrius and Symmachus for Paganism divers writings of Tertullian for Montanism of Fanstus for the Manichees and of Julian for the Pelagians in S. Augustine It 's wonderful with what dexterity and with what grace and eloquence they do manage such bad and infamous subjects nor can I read them without lamenting the unhappiness of so many excellent and highlyapprovable things to be miserably profaned in the service of error as one cannot chuse but groan to see Marble and Gold and Azure and precious Stones employed in adorning the Temple of an Idol And I note it expresly to you my Brethren that you may not think it strange if those of Rome at this day do speciously defend a very bad Cause nor be much moved at the ostentation they make of it who are not ashamed to boast of the eloquence and subtilty of their Teachers as if this were one of the marks of truth I freely consent to the praises they give them and do acknowledg that words of perswasion as the Apostle here calls them do abound on their side but I dare affirm notwithstanding and am assured that every intelligent and unpassionate person will accord with me herein That how subtil and eloquent soever their Masters be and how much pains soever they have taken for the better plastring over and colouring and burnishing of their Doctrine in conclusion their works are not more neat nor more polite nor more specious and fair-seeming than the works of those Pagans and Hereticks whom I but now named yea to speak without passion I believe they are far inferior to them Let them forbear therefore to urge unto us for a mark of truth an advantage which is common to them with Pagans and Hereticks an advantage which the most infamous Causes do employ which the worst do ordinarily seek after more earnestly than the best so much more cunning being used in their defence by how much less strength they have in themselves Not that I would decry eloquence and acuteness or render them suspect with you as if they never were in other service than of error I willingly acknowledg they are excellent graces of GOD and that he gives them to men properly for the defence of Truth and sure they have not always had the hard hap to contend for Falshood They have often done good service to the Gospel and employed their might for its glory both heretofore against the Pagans and the old Hereticks and in our times against those of Rome as appears by the writings both of the Fathers and of our own Doctors a good number of them being found who even in this respect come no whit behind their adversaries besides their having the principal advantage that is the truth on their side This Paul himself who here condemneth words of perswasion when they recommend error doth not reject them when they are labouring for truth And though he was not much versed in the art of prophane eloquence whence it comes that he saith of himself that for speech he was as one of the Vulgar yet his discourses want no strength nor grace that rich heavenly knowledg which abounded in his heart giving
all this fulness As little could any man be to seek who this JESUS was of whom the Apostle speaks All knew him at least confusedly and in gross and did conceive him a man born of Mary in Judea who having liv'd some years among the Jews had been at length crucified by the sentence of Pontius Pilate and who being risen from the grave to a new life had sent forth his Apostles to preach his Gospel and afterwards afcended up into Heaven And though all did not believe that he was risen again and glorisi'd yet all well knew that this was said of him so that both the one and the other hearing JESUS CHRIST named did presently conceive in their mind the Idea of this Person born and dying in Judea at such times and at such places with some retinue of Disciples during his life and after his death This then is the subject of which S. Paul speaks even JESUS CHRIST considered under this form of a man in which he manifested himself to the world and in which he was conceiv'd and figured in the minds of those that heard him named In this man whose appearance was like that of other men who was born and bred on earth sustained during his life with our common food subject to our infirmities who passed through the differences of our ages suffer'd our griefs felt our inconveniences and experimented the rigour of death yea the cruellest that was in this man I say whose body was nailed to a Cross and deprived of its soul and buried in a Sepulcher in this man under so mean and contemptible a form dwelleth faith the Apostle all the fulness of the Godhead It is ordinary in the Hebrew Language to signifie by the fulness of any thing that which the thing containeth as by the fulness of the earth Men and other living creatures Psal 24. which do fill it and by the fulness of the Sea the Isles which the Sea containeth After this manner of expression the qualities and perfections of any one nature may be call'd its fulness because they are the things that fill it and with them it is as it were furnished and adorned as the movables and ornaments of a room or an house are the fulness of it Therefore as if I should say that in Adam as he was at first created was found all the fulness of Manhood every one would easily perceive that my intention were to say the perfections of human nature the faculties and properties and beauties which it is full of and without which it cannot sustain the dignity of that name were all in Adam â—an immortal soul a vigorous understanding a free-will a body of excellent 〈◊〉 acute senses and in sum all the other faculties that have any place among the perfections of the nature of man So here when we hear the Apostle saying that the fulness of the Godhead is in JESUS CHRIST let us account that by this clause he meaneth those perfections and qualities which fill up the Divine nature in which this great and soveraign Beeing doth consist and which Theologues commonly call the Attributes of GOD. You know what the word Godhead doth signifie even the Nature and Essence of GOD. The fulness of the Godhead then is that rich and incomprehensible abundance of perfections whereof the supream and adorable Nature is full as His Life His Power His Wisdom his Justice His Goodness His Immensity His Eternity His Holiness and all the other Properties which it hath in an ineffable manner and which our understandings according to their mean capacity do conceive in it as the form of the Deity that is necessary for its having that Name a nature that wanteth it being incapable of being called GOD otherwise than falsly and improperly I grant some resemblances or rather some touches and lineaments of these Perfections of the Godhead do appear in the noblest of the Creatures as in the Angels for instance who are immortal and endowed with an admirable sanctity vertue and power But the fulness of them is not in any Creature at all neither can it be found that ever the Scripture spake in this manner of Angels and said that the fulness of the Godhead was in them Besides these blessed Spirits and other Creatures how excellent soever you can imagine them to be do participate of these divine perfections but in a very little measure Whereas the LORD JESUS hath them wholly And to make this evident to us the Apostle thought it not enough to say that the fulness of the Godhead is in Him but hath expresly declared that ALL this fulness dwelleth in Him that we might be assured there is not at all any Perfection or Excellency or Accomplishment in the Divine Nature but is found in Him Thus in these two or three words he hath comprised all that the Scripture teacheth us in divers places of the richness of the Perfections of our LORD and Saviour For instance it tells us That he is full of grace and truth that he is the Wisdom and the Power of the Father that he hath the words of life that he is the Way the Truth and the Life that in him are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledg that he hath that might and strength which sustaineth all things now and which created them at first that he is the Everlasting Father and hath immortality and incorruption hath an infinite understanding whereby he soundeth the reins and discerneth all the thoughts of the hearts of men that he hath a super-eminent Glory to which all Creatures ought to do homage yea the Angels themselves who indeed adore Him the Empire and dominion over all the world the right and authority to judg all men and a multitude of such things as these Verily S. Paul hath comprised it all in one word saying here that all the fulness of the Godhead is in JESUS CHRIST it being evident that if he wanted any of these Names Rights and Attributes He could not have all the fulness of the Godhead which is ascribed here unto Him But let us now see in what manner he possesseth these things the Apostle expresseth it very briefly saying that all this fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in him bodily First the term dwelleth is illustrious signifying that all this copious abundance of perfections doth not reside in JESUS CHRIST for some time only appearing a little while and then withdrawing again so making some transient stay in Him a few moments and no more but that it abideth in Him constantly and for ever for so the word dwell in Scripture-use doth import The Word and the glory of GOD appeared in Moses and the Prophets when being moved by the power of his Spirit they uttered and acted Divine things but it dwelt not in them It only rested on them some hours space for the LORD 's recommending those Servants of His and for the setling their authority by these marks of his Providence and of his communicating with
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
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
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
to think and medirate on Him and to receive from His hand the Divine fire of His Spirit that we may speak of His wonderful works Our feast of Tabernacles is to live as strangers in the world without cleaving to it still aspiring unto Jerusalem which is above the Mother and the City of the faithful Our new Moons are the praise we continually sound forth unto GOD not with Silver-trumpets but with heart and understanding In fine Our Sabbath is to do not our own will but the will of GOD repressing and restraining the motions and sentiments of our nature that place may be left for CHRIST to work in us so as it may not be we that live but CHRIST who liveth in us This is Christians that true body which was represented heretofore by the Jewish shadows These are your festivals your solemnities and your devotions Keep them holy and celebrate them religiously It is the great Prince of your salvation who hath instituted and consecrated them He recommends them to you every where in His Gospel and hath indissolvably obliged you to them by that death of His the remembrance of which we are to celebrate next LORD's day If you acquit your selves worthily herein be assured that after such stay for a time as you make here below He will raise you up to Heaven there to celebrate with Him and His Angels that last mystical feast of the great day which rising at the point of our Resurrection shall not go down for ever but shine eternally and render us happy in the fruition of that life and immortal glory which was prepared for us before the foundation of the world So be it THE XXVIII SERMON COL II. Ver. XVIII Vers XVIII Let no man master it over you at his pleasure by an humility of spirit and the service of Angels intruding into things which he hath not seen being rashly puffed up with the sence of his flesh DEar Brethren It 's a thing infinitely strange and which shews the extream corruption of our nature more sensibly than any other that men should have so vehement and invincible a passion for the serving of creatures GOD the Soveraign LORD both of them and of the Universe did manifest Himself clearly to them causing the illustrious and glorious marks of His goodness and wisdom and infinite power to shine forth every where above and beneath upon them and about them yea bringing the same home even to their hearts and giving them a feeling of Him by the innumerable benefits which He poureth out continually upon all the parts of their lives In short He shewed Himself and drew near and presented Himself in so lively a manner to their understandings Senses and perceptions that they could not if I may presume to say it be ignorant of Him though they would Besides all this He vouchsafed to reveal Himself to them at the beginning in a particular way speaking familiarly to Adam and Noah and others of the primitive Patriarchs who were the sources of the first and second world Nevertheless you know that notwithstanding all these lights the rage of that passion men had for Idolatry was so violent that it made them forget all these holy and admirable discoveries of the Deity and induced them instead of their great and abundantly good and omnipotent Creator blessed for â—ver to serve the creature and their phrensie rose to such an height that besides the Luminaries of Heaven and the invisible Powers that do govern them as also besides Kings and Sages and persons whom worth or authority had raised above others they were not ashamed to adore yet other things of the lowest in nature as Beasts and Plants and Elements and to compleat their extravagancy they added to all the rest Images and Figures things absolute insensible and unprofitable Changing as the Apostles does reproach them the glory of the uncorruptible GOD Rom. 1.22 into the resemblance of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed Beasts and creeping things This Bruitish error having overwhelmed all mankind the LORD was so gracious that He drew Abraham out of it as a brand out of an universal Conflagration and afterwards manifesting Himself more clearly unto his posterity by the ministry of Moses and giving them His Law He raised up amid this people a publick testimony of His truth against the general misdemeanour of the world fulminating a thousand and a thousand maledictions against all such as served Creatures But the love of Idolatry was so strong as it broke this barr of Heaven and violated this Divine declaration which prov'd to be so far from reducing the Nations to their duty as it could not keep the very Israelites in theirs but they as we learn by their History often gave up themselves to the serving of Creatures At last after so many significations of His mind GOD sent His only begotten the Sun of Righteousness and truth into the world who opened to us the manner and the reasons and causes of the worshipping of GOD and did fully discover that which both the Gentiles were ignorant of by reason of their stupidity and the Jews did but imperfectly know in their minority Now who would think that so shameful and gross an errour as the serving of creatures is should have the shamelesness to shew its self in so noble and so glorious a light Yet you know this wretched passion found the means to content its self bringing in under divers vain but plausible pretences the worshipping of Angels and men by little and little among Christians But however it is not so strange a thing that a corruption should get such ground in the latter ages when it was favoured by an universal ignorance and by a decay of truth and by the depravedness of men such a thing doth frequently come to pass in their disciplines and constitutions commonly as they go on they grow worse That which surpasseth all admiration is that in the time and under the eyes of the holy Apostles of our LORD and Saviour there should be men found of so impudent a spirit as to promote so vile an errour in the profession of Christianity We should scarce be able to believe it if S. Paul did not give us that testimony of it which we even now read to you And GOD permitted it as well to exercise and prove the Church which then was as to confirm ours this occasion having here drawn from the Apostle's pen a clear and magnifick condemnation of this abuse He hath rejected already in the precedent context those observances which the false Teachers he opposeth had taken from the Mosaical Law now he refuâ—es those which they had borrowed from the Philosophers of the World For as we shall shew anon that serving of Angels which these men would have introduced among Christians was a fruit and an invention of Heathen Philosophy S. Paul strikes down this vain impiety in few words Let no man saith he master it ever you at his
the 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