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
last words of this Text whence it is that the Colossians had conceived so high an hope Of which saith he you have heard heretofore by the word of truth to wit the Gospel This Soveraign bliss which is reserved for us in the Heavens is so highly raised above nature that neither subtility of sense nor vivacity of reason nor even the light of the Law could discover it to us much less give us the hope thereof 2 Tim. 1.10 That same JESVS CHRIST who hath destroyed death hath brought to light life and immortality by the Gospel Before this they were either entirely unperceived or imperfectly known and hoped for It 's therefore precisely from the Gospel that we draw both the faith and the hope of them He calleth the Gospel the word of truth not as some will have it because it is the Word of JESUS CHRIST who is the Truth and the life for this exposition is more subtil than solid but because it is the most excellent of all Verities those that are learned in the School of Nature and of the Law being mean and unprofitable in comparison of those which the Gospel doth discover to us It may well be that the Apostle would also secretly oppose the doctrine of the Gospel to those of the seducers which still recommended shadows and figures as we shall hear in the following Chapter whereas the Gospel presenteth us the substance and the truth of things And it seems to be in this sense that St. John after he had said The Law was given by Moses addeth in form of opposition John 1.17 But grace and truth came by JESVS CHRIST because the Law had only dark lineaments and shadows whereas the LORD JESUS brought us the lively image the body and the truth of celestial things The Apostle remindeth the Colossians that they had already heretofore heard this Word of truth as it were to protest unto them that he would promote no novelty among them having no other design but to confirm them more and more in the holy doctrine they had already received with faith from Epaphras and other Ministers of the LORD See well beloved Brethren that we had to say to you for the exposition of this Text. It remaineth that we briefly touch at for you the principal points we should gather of it as well for the instruction of our Faith as the edification of our Charity and the consolation of our souls As for Faith 't is for it's security that St. Paul telleth us at the entrance He is an Apostle of JESVS CHRIST by the will of GOD advertising us by this quality He assumeth to receive no doctrine into our belief which hath not been annunciated by these great and highest Ministers of the LORD Let us examine the Spirits and admit only the word of the Apostles If any one Evangelize beyond what they have preached let us hold him for an Anathema We have their Scriptures Let us assuredly believe all that we read in them Let the doctrine which appears not there be suspected to us and praised be GOD that according to this rule we have banished from our Religion that which error and superstition had thrust into Christianity You know that the GOD the CHRIST the Heaven the Worship and Sacraments we preach have been given us by the Apostles of the LORD established by the Will of GOD and do appear throughout in their Gospels and in their Epistles Whereas the Mediators whom our Adversaries invocate the High Priest they acknowledge the Traditions they maintain the Purgatory they fear the greatest part of the Sacraments they celebrate the adoration of the Host the veneration of Images and the voluntary Worships which they practise are not found at all either in the Old or the New Testament Let us therefore firmly retain our Religion as instituted by the Will of GOD and constantly reject what is beyond it as come of man and not of the LORD from the Earth and not from Heaven But it is not enough to make profession of it we must plant this doctrine in our hearts by a lively belief in such sort as we may be able to say with truth That we have faith in JESUS CHRIST and charity towards all the Saints We render thanks to GOD with the Apostle for that of His great mercies He hath vouchsafed to communicate this treasure of His Gospel to us and not in vain since there are among us that have truly made their profit of these spiritual riches But the life of the greater part renders them unworthy of the praise which St. Paul here giveth the Colossians For is this to have Faith in JESUS CHRIST to serve Him so loosely as we do and testifie so little zeal for His glory so little respect to His Commandments so little belief of his documents and so little affection for the interests of His Kingdom As for Charity I am ashamed to speak of it so cooled is ours For if we loved all the faithful should we leave the life of some of them and the reputation of others without succour Should we injure them instead of defending them Should we take away their substance instead of communicating to them our own Should we black their honour instead of preserving it Would their prosperity offend us Would their miseries content us Faithful Sirs remember they are the Saints of GOD His Children and the Brethren of His CHRIST Respect those so sacred names and spare persons that have the honour to belong so nearly to your LORD He will judge you by the treatment you shall give them and write on his account the good and the evil which they shall receive from your hands recompensing it or punishing in the very same manner as if you had honoured or violated Him in His own person He will cut you off from His communion if you do not carefully regard and practise theirs and will never avouch you for His Children if you acknowledge them not for your Brethren And here alledge not to me I beseech you that you have faith I know well that this divine light cannot be in souls which are cold and destitute of Charity But suppose that this were possible I tell you and declare that all your pretended faith should you have the highest degree thereof that may be in the world without charity would be but a shadow an Idol and an illusion and as St. James saith a stinking carkass James 2.26 Do all you will Have as much faith and knowledge as you please if you have not charity you are not a Christian you are but a false and deceitful image of one Charity is absolutely necessary to the perfection of a Christian It is the badge of this holy Discipline it is the honour and the glory of it and the Apostle as you see sets it down here among it's essential parts Faith shall cease in Heaven when we shall see instead of believing But charity shall remain for ever Have then a
both of the desire he had to see them persevere still in so good a course and of the advice he gave them not to suffer themselves to be beguiled by the perswasive words of seducers as likewise of the adding that preservative of meditating incessantly upon the treasures of wisdom which are in JESUS for the saving themselves from this mortal danger It 's now our concernment to make a good improvement of so excellent a lesson We are as much environ'd or more than the Colossians sometimes were with people that endeavour to deceive us with words of perswasion that daily make all kind of attempts upon our faith and do not forget the sophisms of subtilty or the charms of eloquence presenting error to us farded with divers specious colours For the securing of our minds from their illusions let us tell them as the Apostle teacheth us That all the Treasures of wisdom are hid in that JESUS CHRIST whom we have embraced that He sufficeth to make us wise to salvation and that we need to know none but Him to obtain happiness If with fair and artificial words they represent to us the necessity of an expiatory Sacrifice for the recommending that of their own Altars or the utility of Satisfactions to make us receive theirs or the horror of fin which hath no entrance into the Kingdom of GOD to perswade us upon their Purgatory or the need we have of an Intercessor to oblige us to have recourse to the mediation of Angels and of departed Saints or of an Head to set up their Pope Let us answer them That we have all this most fully in JESUS CHRIST that His Cross is our Sacrifice His Sufferings our Satisfactions His Blood our Purgation That while we possess Him we shall need neither an Intercessor to open the Throne of the Grace of GOD to us and render both our persons and our prayers acceptable to Him nor an Head to govern and conserve us Let us account all that would turn us aside from Him or place any part of its Treasure elsewhere than in Him to be a seduction and an illusion And as good Physicians do not only preserve from poysons but also draw profit from them by making them Remedies so let us not content our selves to keep the venom of Seducements from hurting us let us manage them in such sort as that they may serve us Let the ardency they have for Error enflame our zeal for the Truth Let their pains-taking and industry sharpen our diligence and care Let us employ that acuteness and eloquence to the defence of the Gospel which they prophane in the service of an Imposture Let us have no less affection for the Cause of GOD than they have for the matters of flesh and blood And instead of the extravagancy of some who love ignorance and rudeness because Error doth abuse Knowledg and Eloquence let us on the contrary thence take occasion to labour in adorning and embellishing of Truth that even in this respect Falshood may have no advantage above it But if the examples of enemies should be of use to us much more ought the examples of Brethren be so which wholly and solely tend to our edification Let us make our profit of that of the Colossians whose faith and order the Apostle praiseth that we might imitate it Let us put our Church into such an estate as may give joy to the LORD to His Angels and to His Ministers I may not deny but that your saith and order may be in some degree praised without flattery since by the Grace of CHRIST my Brethren you persevere in His fear and assiduously rank your selves under His Ensigns no tentation having been able hitherto to make you desert these holy Assemblies But you are not ignorant that together with this well-doing there are many miscarriages among us that there pass divers things in our Congregations smally comporting with the dignity of the House of GOD and that the hardness of some doth stiffen it self against Discipline the only Bond of Order and if our Faith be constant against Error it is too too yeilding unto Vice Dear Brethren I had rather leave the examination of it to your own Consciences than here publish our sin and shame and will content my self with telling you 1 Cor. 6.10 that the Apostle banisheth out of Heaven the vicious as well as the idolatrous GOD who hath granted us to persevere in the profession of His Truth be pleased powerfully to amend by the virtue of His Gospel the defects which His gentleness hath hitherto born with in us and sanctifie us so efficaciously that after we have glorified Him on Earth by the good order of our conversation and the fruirs of a firm and unmoved Faith we may one day receive in the Heavens from His merciful hand the Reward and Crown of blissful immortality in His Son JESUS CHRIST who in the Unity of the Father and of the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth the only GOD blessed for ever Amen THE NINETEENTH SERMON COL CHAP. II. VER VI VII VI. Therefore as you have received the Lord JESVS CHRIST so walk in Him VII Being rooted and built up in Him and established in the Faith as you have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving FOrasmuch as man naturally loveth novelty and variety it cometh to pass that he disgusteth the best and most wholsom things when he is held any long time to the usage of them What food was there ever in the world better more savoury more nourishing and more miraculous than that Manna wherewith GOD fed the Israelites in the Wilderness pouring it down daily from Heaven upon them by the Ministry of his Angels whence it is called the Bread of Heaven and the Bread of the Mighty that is of the Angels Nevertheless this wretched people were soon discontented at it disdaining that precious gift of GOD Numb 11.6 and sottishly regretting the fruits and fish of Egypt Our soul said they is dried up there 's nothing here our eyes see nought but Manna Dear Brethren this History is a fit emblem of what hath betided men in reference to JESUS CHRIST and His Gospel the true Bread of Heaven sent down from GOD into the Wilderness of this World for the eternal nutriment of Mankind of which that ancient Manna as you know was the figure according to what Himself teacheth us in the sixth of S. John For our nature is no less delicate nor hath an appetite less extravagant in respect of the Doctrines that are necessary to seed our Souls than it hath in respect of the Meat that is ordained for the refection of our Bodies The truth of the LORD JESUS is embraced at the first with hungring and heat every one admiring the wonderfulness of this heavenly food which wholly exceedeth the productions of the earth But because though it be throughout holy and salutiferous yet it is simple and uniform the vanity of man in desiring change and variety
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